Abstract
The understanding of religion in the present study is based on a combination of two ways of looking at religion: religion as a source of meaning and as incorporated into reality. I view religion as belief but it also has a function in society.1 The central hypothesis underlying this study is that religion consists of socio-cultural symbols that convey a conception of reality and construe a plan for it. These symbols are related to reality but they are not a reflection of it. In this sense religion is understood here as a ‘cultural system’2 along the lines of the cultural anthropology of Clifford Geertz. In this book I shall, however, go beyond the confines of the Geertzian approach.
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Notes
Niklas Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, Frankfurt/M., 1977.
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, 1973, pp. 87ff. On the debate over the evolution of the Geertzian approach, see the contributions in
Sherry B. Ortner (ed.), The Fate of Culture: Geertz and Beyond, Berkeley, 1999.
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion, Oxford, 1965.
See Johan Bouman, Gott und Mensch im Koran. Eine Strukturform religiöser Anthropologie anhand des Beispiels Allah und Muhammad, Darmstadt, 1977.
Wilfred C. Smith. The Meaning and End of Religion, New York, 1978, pp. 80ff.
See Adam Kuper, Culture: the Anthropologist’s Account, Cambridge, MA, 1999 in particular the chapter on Geertz, pp. 75ff.
T.W. Adorno, Stichworte. Kritische Modelle 2, 3rd printing, Frankfurt/M., 1970, p. 189.
This line of thought also concerns Ernst Bloch in his book Thomas Münzer als Theologe der Revolution, Frankfurt/M., 1972, pp. 51ff., in which he uses it strictly to repudiate the equally reductionist and ‘economistic’ view, and specifically the inference of ‘convictional complexes … of a religious nature’ (p. 55).
For a critique see B. Tibi, The Crisis of Modern Islam: a Preindustrial Culture in the Scientific-Technological Age, trans. Judith von Sivers, with a foreword by Peter von Sivers, Salt Lake City, 1988, pp. 11–31.
For an earlier but not phased-out effort see the published habilitation thesis of Franz Steinbacher, Kultur. Begriff, Theorie, Funktion, Stuttgart, 1976. See also note 7 above.
See chapter 8 in Dale F. Eickelman, The Middle East: an Anthropological Approach, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1981, pp. 175ff., in which this concept is elaborated.
The great extent to which the political thinking of modern Muslims is pervaded by religio-cultural symbols is documented in anthologies by John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito (eds), Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, Oxford, 1982 (see also my review in The Middle East Journal, 4 [1982], pp. 614–16); and by
Kemal Karpat (ed.), The Political and Social Thought in the Contemporary Middle East, 2nd substantially revised and expanded edition, New York, 1982. For a more recent account of contemporary Muslim thought, see
Joyce M. Davis, Between Jihad and Salam: Profiles in Islam, New York, 1997.
Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia, 2nd printing, Chicago, 1971.
Dale F. Eickelman, Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center, Austin and London, 1976. This formidable anthropological survey is not matched by the later work of Eickelman in which he quite obviously fails to grasp the culture—politics links. As an example, see
Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics, Princeton, NJ, 1996.
Gerhard Endress, Einführung in die islamische Geschichte, Munich, 1982, p. 106. See also
Ernest Gellner, Muslim Society, Cambridge, 1981.
Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, vol. 1, Berlin, 1991.
See N.J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law, 3rd printing, Edinburgh, 1978, pp. 139ff.
See Barry Rubin, Islamic Fundamentalism in Egyptian Politics, New York, 1990; and on rationality, see
Roxanne L. Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalists and the Limits of Modern Rationalism, Princeton, NJ, 1999.
See Maxime Rodinson, Islam et capitalisme, Paris, 1966 (see my lengthy introduction to the German edition Islam und Kapitalismus, Frankfurt/M., 1986). See also
Maxime Rodinson, La fascination de l’Islam, Paris, 1980; and on the Orientalism debate,
B. Tibi, Einladung in die islamische Geschichte, Darmstadt, 2001, chapter 4.
Edward Said, Orientalism, Cambridge, 1978; and
E. Said, Covering Islam, New York, 1981. See also
Valerie Kennedy, Edward Said: a Critical Introduction, Cambridge, 2000, chapter 1.
On the Orientalism debate, its major themes and exponents, see B. Tibi, ‘Orient und Okzident, Feindschaft oder interkulturelle Kommunikation? Anmerkungen zur Orientalismus-Debatte’, in Neue Politische Literatur, vol. 29, 3 (1984), pp. 267–86. As much as there is a need to go beyond Geertz, there is also a need to go far beyond Edward Said, and I do this in my most recent book on Islamic history referenced in note 35 above.
Arvind Sharma (ed.), Our Religions, San Francisco, 1993. On Islam chapter 7.
Martin Marty and Scott Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms Observed, Chicago, 1991.
Mukti Ali, ‘Islam and Indonesian Culture’, in Mourad Wahba (ed.), Proceedings of the First Islamic Philosophy Conference (Nov. 19–22, 1979), Cairo, 1982, pp. 15–34; and also my report, ‘Islamische Weltkonferenz über islamische Philosophie’, in Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit, vol. 21, 2 (1980), pp. 11-f.
See the chapter on Arabiyya in B. Tibi, Islam and the Cultural Accommodation of Social Change, Boulder, CO, 1990, pp. 76–101.
See Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq, Princeton, NJ, 1994; and
Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shi’a of Lebanon, Ithaca, 1986. In Lebanon the Hezbollah is the political party of the Shi’a. See
Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with Vengeance, New York, 1997.
The most comprehensive, reliable, and brilliant cultural history of Islam so far is contained in the lifework of Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 3 vols, Chicago, 1974.
The life and work of Muhammed are examined in the two seminal works by W.M. Watt, Muhammad at Mekka, Oxford, 1953; and Muhammad at Medina, 6th printing, Oxford, 1977. See also
W.M. Watt, Muhammad — Prophet and Statesman, 4th printing, Oxford, 1978. See also the biography by Rodinson referenced in note 46.
See B. Tibi, Der wahre Imam. Der Islam von Mohammed bis zur Gegenwart, Munich, 1996 (new edition, 1998).
See on this S.H.M. Jafri, The Origins and Early Development of Shi’a Islam, London and Beirut, 1979. See also
Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam, New Haven, 1985, pp. 11ff. and 23ff.
See M. Fischer, Iran: from Religious Dispute to Revolution, Cambridge, MA, 1980; and
Said A. Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: the Islamic Revolution in Iran, New York, 1988.
On the Abbasid history, see J.J. Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam, 2nd printing, London, 1978, pp. 95ff. Also worth reading
R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History, Princeton, NJ, 1991, pp. 104ff.
On the Ottoman period of Islamic history, see B. Tibi, Kreuzzug und Djihad. Der Islam und die christliche Welt, Munich, 1999, chapter 4.
See Sandra Mackey, The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, New York, 1996, Parts 3 and 4. On contemporary history see also
Nikki Keddie, Roots of Revolution: an Interpretive History of Modern Islam, New Haven, 1981.
On this and the following, see B. Tibi, Arab Nationalism: between Islam and the Nation-State, 3rd edition, London and New York, 1997, pp. 88 ff.
R. Hartmann, ‘Die Wahhabiten’, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. 78 (1924), part 2, pp. 176–213, here p. 177. For a recent view, see
Aziz al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities, London, 1993, chapter: Wahhabite Polity, pp. 104–21.
On this, see B. Tibi, ‘Management und Kultur im Entwicklungsprozeβ. Bericht über eine entwicklungspolitische Konferenz in Kairo’, in Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit, vol. 25, 3 (1984), pp. 29–30.
On Abduh, see Othman Amin, Ra’id al-fikr al-misri: Muhammed Abduh (A Pioneer of Egyptian Thought: Muhammed Abduh), Cairo, 1955, pp. 141ff.; and also
Charles C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in Egypt, 2nd printing, New York, 1968 (first published in 1933).
On the Islamic fundamentalist dream of semi-modernity, see B. Tibi, ‘The Worldview of Sunni Arab Fundamentalists: Attitudes toward Modern Science and Technology’, in Martin Marty and Scott Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms and Society, Chicago, 1993, pp. 73–102; and also
B. Tibi, ‘Islamic Dream of Semi-Modernity’, in India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 22 (Spring 1995), pp. 79–87.
This happened to me in Cairo when I expounded views along these lines in a paper on ‘Islam and Secularisation’ presented at the First Islamic Conference on Philosophy. After heavy debate and corresponding delay, this lecture — see Wahba, Proceedings (as in note 42 above), pp. 65–80 — was published in Cairo. An Arabic version was published in Beirut in Oadaya Arabiyya, vol. 7, 2 (1980), pp. 12–23. For a more recent piece, see B. Tibi, ‘Secularization and De-Secularization in Islam’, in Religion, Staat, Gesellschaft, vol. 1, 1 (2000), pp. 95–117.
An example of this is Ali al-Shabi, al-Shi’a fi Iran (The Shi’a in Iran), Tunis, 1980, p. 5 and (in more detail) pp. 169ff.
John Waterbury, The Commander of the Faithful: the Moroccan Political Elite, New York, 1970, p. 5.
R.A. Nicholson, Islamic Mysticism, 4th printing, Cambridge, 1980, p. 3.
Ibid., p. 79. See also James Fadiman and Robert Frager (eds), Essential Sufism, San Francisco, 1997.
Husain Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, Märtyrer der Gottesliebe, Annemarie Schimmel (ed.), Cologne, 1968, p. 37.
See B. Tibi, ‘Islam and Secularization, Religion and the Functional Differentiation of the Social System’, in Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, vol. 66 (1980), pp. 207–22; see also note 65 above.
J. Spencer Trimmingham, The Influence of Islam upon Africa, London and Beirut, 1980, p. 5. See also the reference in note 40 above.
See J. Spencer Trimmingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, Oxford, 1971.
J.N.D. Anderson, Islamic Law in Africa, 2nd printing, London, 1978.
M. Piamenta, Islam in Everyday Arabic Speech, Leiden, 1979, p. 1; see also note 45 above.
See Howard R. Turner, Science in Medieval Islam, Austin, TX, 1995. On its impact, see
Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, Cambridge, 1995.
See Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, Arab-Islamic Philosophy: a Contemporary Critique, Austin, TX, 1999, pp. 120ff.
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Tibi, B. (2005). Religion, Culture and Social Reality: Islam as a Cultural System, and its Diversity. In: Islam between Culture and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204157_2
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