Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit - (Wiley-Blackwell Manifestos) by Bruce B Lawrence (Paperback)

About the Book

"To look at Islamicate civilization is to face the choice of where and when to look but it also requires one to invoke fuzzy or barzakh logic at the outset. There is no great divide between East and West or between Islam and its political-religious rivals, whether in the premodern or the modern world. Many are the historians who have labored to point out that civilizational study is predicated on 'grey' not black and white vision of the past, and multiple, local understandings of civilizational actors, events, institutions, and legacies. In short, cosmopolitan studies, like civilizational studies with which it is allied and on which it must be modeled, requires decentering the West and reappropriating the 'rest' for a deeper, truer sense of what is genuinely world history"--

Book Synopsis

Discover the essence of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit and what it has contributed to societies across the ages

In Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit, author and expert, Bruce B. Lawrence, delivers a spiritual elan filtered through cultural practices and artefacts. Neither juridical nor creedal, the book expresses a desire for the just and the beautiful. The author sets out an original and fascinating theory, that Islamicate cosmopolitanism marks a new turn in global history. An unceasing, self-critical pursuit of truth, hitched to both beauty and justice, its history is marked by male elites who were scientific exemplars in the pre-modern period.

In the modern period, these exemplars include women as well as men, artists as well as scientists. The Islamicate Cosmopolitans have had special impact across the Afro-Eurasian ecumene at the heart of civilized exchange between multiple groups with competing yet convergent interests. The Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit is a boundary busting challenge to those who think of the world merely in terms of an "Arab" Middle East.

Readers will also benefit from:

• A thorough introduction to the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit across time and space
• An exploration of premodern Afro-Eurasia and Persianate Culture in the Indian Ocean
• A practical discussion of the future of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit

Perfect for all students of Islamicate civilization, both traditional and progressive, Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit will also earn a place in the libraries of general readers of world history and those grounded in the larger history of Islamicate Asia will find a perspective that centers their own contribution to the Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit.

From the Back Cover

"An excellent work on Islamic history, its greatest strengths are: the level of theoretical discussion, the call to a reflection on terminology, the emphasis on post-15th century Islamic history and on geographical regions outside the Arab world."
--Roberto Totolli, Universita degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale

"Learned, inventive and highly perceptive... With an astounding energy, the six chapters, plus an overview and a conclusion, stretch boundaries of Muslim subjectivities and possibilities across time and space."
--Babak Rahimi, UC San Diego

In Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit, author Bruce B. Lawrence presents an original theory contending that the Islamicate Cosmopolitan marks a new turn in global history, exemplified by women as well as men, artists as well as scientists. The author challenges traditional categories--the 'Arab' Middle East and the Islamic profiles of both majority and minority Muslim nations--in his exploration of the impact of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan throughout the Afro-Eurasian world across time and space.

To be Islamic in the 21^st century may mean more than being a believer in Allah and a follower of Muhammad. Lawrence argues for the need to suspend the religious labeling of everyone a Muslim, or mislabeling all Muslims as Islamists, to find that other sphere of origin and influence. Throughout the text, readers gain a nuanced appreciation of not only the origins of the Islamicate Cosmopolitan, but also of its pursuit of truth and its aspiration to both beauty and justice.

Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit projects a spiritual elan filtered through cultural practices, artefacts, and the civilized exchange between multiple groups with both competing yet convergent interests and ambitions. This unique monograph is essential reading for all students of Islamicate civilization, both traditional and progressive, as well as for readers with interest in disciplinary debates among historians in the field.

About the Author

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE is Marcus Family Humanities Distinguished Professor of Religion Emeritus at Duke University and Adjunct Professor of the Alliance of Civilizations Institute, Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul. His research focuses on contemporary Islam as religious ideology, south Asian Sufism, and Islamicate cosmopolitanism.