Suchergebnisse

The upheavals that have been shaking the Arab-Muslim world are revolutions in discourse as well as in the streets. Arabs are using not only traditional and religious vocabularies, but also a new set of expressions that are modern and represent popular aspirations. We now seem to be at a moment when large strata in Arab societies (and in developing countries more broadly) have reached a state of real disenchantment with utopias, and seem to be ready for other forms of political participation. The conviction that there are alternatives to the kinds of regimes that have for so long imposed themselves on Arab societies—that life under this or that brand of dictatorship and unaccountable rule emphatically does not have to be the Arabs' fate—seems to have taken hold of the collective imagination.

A review of The West and Islam: Religion and Political Thought in World History by Antony Black.

Abstract: Morocco offers one of the most promising contexts for democratic transition not merely in the Arab-Muslim world but in the entire developing world today. Yet at the same time it is a place where generalized disenchantment seems as if it may be threatening to overwhelm organized politics, to take on shapes that go well beyond politically framed opposition, and to reach out beyond ideologies and institutions to shake the very foundations of the social and political order.

Abstract: Does the term liberal Islam make sense? What precisely does it mean? Does the Muslim world need a reformation? What would Islamic reform look like? Where does Islamic liberalism fit among the various currents of religious thought—including fundamentalist strains such as Wahhabism or Salafism—that are contending in the Islamic world today? Who are liberalism's leading figures? Does the work of Ibn Rushd (Averroës)—a medieval Islamic philosopher from Spain who deeply influenced Christian Europe—represent a permanent "liberal option" that may have been rejected during a certain period of the history of the Muslim umma (community) but which nonetheless remains alive and available today?

Résumé Des discussions intenses se produisent aujourd'hui à propos de l'islam, la laïcité et la démocratie. Les arguments invoqués par les différents intervenants renvoient à des représentations, souvent implicites, des rapports qui peuvent exister entre ces trois termes. Ils renvoient également à des conceptions déterminées des processus historiques à l'œuvre dans les sociétés musulmanes contemporaines. Peut-on tenter de voir plus clair dans le sens attribué à chacun des trois termes et, par conséquent, revisiter les conceptions répandues de nos jours ?

There are today intense debates about Islam, secularism and democracy. The arguments raised by the various protagonists refer to implicit representations of the possible relationships between these three terms. They also refer to predetermined conceptions of the historical processes at work in contemporary Muslim societies. We might try to clarify the meaning given to each of these three terms and, consequently, take a new look at the concepts that are widely circulated in the contemporary debate. Adapted from the source document.