The twelfth-century philosopher Averroes is often identified by modern Arab thinkers as an early advocate of the Enlightenment. Saud M. S. Al-Tamamy demonstrates that an historical as well as comparative approach to Averroes' thought refutes this widely held assumption. The philosophical doctrine of Averroes is compared with that of the key figure of the Enlightenment in Western thought, Immanuel Kant. By comparing Averroes and Kant, Al-Tamamy evaluates the ideologies of each thinker's work and in particular focuses on their respective political implications on two social groups: the Elite, in Averroes' case, and the Public, in the case of Kant. The book's methodology is at once historical, analytical and communicative, and is especially relevant when so many thinkers - both Western and Middle Eastern - are anxious to find common denominators between the formations of Islamic and Western cultures. It responds to a need for comparative analysis in the field of Averroes studies, and takes on the challenge to uncover the philosopher's influence on the Enlightenment.

Chapter -- 1: Averroes' Relationship to the Debate on Enlightenment in Modern Arab Thought and an Evaluation of Methodological Approaches in the History of Political Thought -- Chapter 2: Averroes' Account of the Relationship between Revelation and Reason and its Political Implications -- Chapter 3: The Definition of Enlightenment, and Kant's Account of the Relationship between Revelation and Reason and its Political Implications -- Chapter 4: General Comparison: Outlining the Philosophical Projects of Averroes and Kant -- Chapter 5: A Comparison between the Philosophical Projects of Averroes and Kant Concerning the Question of the Relationship between Revelation and Reason, and its Political Implications -- Chapter 6: Conclusion.

The Enlightenment that Failed explores the growing rift between those Enlightenment trends and initiatives that appealed exclusively to elites and those aspiring to enlighten all of society by raising mankind's awareness, freedoms, and educational level generally. Jonathan I. Israel explains why the democratic and radical secularizing tendency of the Western Enlightenment, after gaining some notable successes during the revolutionary era (1775-1820) in numerous countries, especially in Europe, North America, and Spanish America, ultimately failed. He argues that a populist, Robespierriste tendency, sharply at odds with democratic values and freedom of expression, gained an ideological advantage in France, and that the negative reaction this generally provoked caused a more general anti-Enlightenment reaction, a surging anti-intellectualism combined with forms of religious revival that largely undermined the longings of the deprived, underprivileged, and disadvantaged, and ended by helping, albeit often unwittingly, conservative anti-Enlightenment ideologies to dominate the scene. The Enlightenment that Failed relates both the American and the French revolutions to the Enlightenment in a markedly different fashion from how this is usually done, showing how both great revolutions were fundamentally split between bitterly opposed and utterly incompatible ideological tendencies. Radical Enlightenment, which had been an effective ideological challenge to the prevailing monarchical-aristocratic status quo, was weakened, then almost entirely derailed and displaced from the Western consciousness, in the 1830s and 1840s by the rise of Marxism and other forms of socialism.

In this book, Robert K. Beshara applies decolonial film theory to an analysis of Youssef Chahine's (1997) Al-Masir (Destiny). Transmodern Cinema and Decolonial Film Theory is the first book on decolonial film theory, which unpacks key concepts in decoloniality and decolonial aesthetics. Decolonial film theory is then applied to Youssef Chahine's (1997) historical drama al-Ma?ir in an effort to juxtapose the Egyptian filmmaker (Chahine) and his decolonial cinema to the Andalusian polymath (Ibn Rushd) and his Islamic philosophy.

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, represented on the world stage by 57 states, as well as a host of international organizations and associations. This book critically examines the engagement of these states in systems of global governance and with a variety of policy regimes, including climate change, energy, migration, humanitarian aid, international financial institutions, research and education. Chapters explore the dynamics of this engagement, the contributions to global order, the interests pursued and some of the contradictions and tensions within the Islamic world, and between that world and the ‘West’. An in-depth perspective is provided about the traditional and new forms of multilateralism and the policy spaces formed which provide new opportunities for the Muslim and non-Muslim world alike.

This book offers a new interpretation of the rich narratives of Arab secularism, contending that secularism as a set of ideas and a social movement is destined to loom large on the political and legal horizon of most Arab states. Youssef M. Choueiri provides a study of three moments in the development of secularism in the Arab World, the Machiavellian, the Alfierian and the Gramscian. It is within such a scope that secularism in its interaction with state-building projects, women’s emancipation and religion is treated as an intellectual current and a discursive entity embedded in the political process of its diverse societies. Through the chapters, Choueiri demonstrates how secularism occupies a pivotal presence in the religious and political life of the Arab world, exploring such interrelated configurations as indigenous contributions, diverse reforms and the impact of Western states. He concludes that secularism has become a moral prerequisite and a required vehicle in creating the necessary conditions for the success of democracy in the Middle East. Narratives of Arab Secularism tackles the complexity and contemporary ramifications of the subject in a way that no previous single study has been able to. It will be relevant to both students and academics dealing with topics related to the Middle East including religion, politics, anthropology and history. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book emphasizes the inherently democratic nature of education; from those who practice in higher education institutions and are involved in decision-making, to those questioning the methods of reform processes in those institutions. As they are faced with increasing pressures to restructure and change their organizations in line with global institutional demands the foundations upon which their leadership and governance are based are called into question. This book takes a critical approach to understanding higher education leadership and governance. The overarching questions asked in this book are: how has higher education come to be assembled in contemporary governance practices within the context of global demands for reform and how are issues of justice being taken up as part of and in resistance to this assemblage?

This study of Lebanese historical thought and its role in national identity formation in the eighteenth century focuses on a sample of historians, mainly Christians, who lived and wrote during the Shihabi Emirate from 1697 till the Egyptian invasion in 1831. These historians, who represent different trends in historical writing, were able to develop the idea of Lebanon as a unique entity and as a haven and to underline its specificity and distinctiveness. With a focus on primary sources, this book endeavors to penetrate into the main concerns and ways of thinking at this time when a Lebanese identity started to bloom. In doing so, it discovers a neglected century as a fruitful and rich period in the history of Lebanon and a prelude to nineteenth-century awakening. This book will be of interest to scholars of the history and historiography of Lebanon and the Middle East, with relevance for specialized courses in the fields of history and historiography at universities.

Thirty-four scholars from 18 countries on five continents met in Cairo to debate for the first time the ideals of the Enlightenment and secularism while celebrating the 800th anniversary of the death of one of Islam''s greatest philosophers. Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), known in the West as Averroes, may be viewed as a medieval precursor of the European Enlightenment and as a rallying point for dialogue between East and West. Averroes''s attempt to harmonize philosophy and religion, reason and faith, led to a rethinking of the tenets of Christianity. His work spurred on some of the great rational syntheses of Christian thought, such as Thomas Aquinas''s Summa Theologica.This book offers a rare opportunity to learn about the contemporary Arab world and its efforts to dialogue with the West.

Political sociology has struggled with predicting the next turn of transformation in the MENA countries after the 2011 Uprisings. Arab activists did not articulate explicitly any modalities of their desired system, although their slogans ushered to a fully-democratic society. These unguided Uprisings showcase an open-ended freedom-to question after Arabs underwent their freedom-from struggle from authoritarianism. The new conflicts in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Libya have fragmented shar’iya (legitimacy) into distinct conceptualizations: “revolutionary legitimacy,” “electoral legitimacy,” “legitimacy of the street,” and “consensual legitimacy.” This volume examines whether the Uprisings would introduce a replica of the European Enlightenment or rather stimulate an Arab/Islamic awakening with its own cultural specificity and political philosophy. By placing Immanuel Kant in Tahrir Square, this book adopts a comparative analysis of two enlightenment projects: one Arab, still under construction, with possible progression toward modernity or regression toward neo-authoritarianism, and one European, shaped by the past two centuries. Mohammed D. Cherkaoui and the contributing authors use a hybrid theoretical framework drawing on three tanwiri (enlightenment) philosophers from different eras: Ibn Rushd, known in the west as Averroes (the twelfth century), Immanuel Kant (the eighteenth century), and Mohamed Abed Al-Jabri (the twentieth century). The authors propose a few projections about the outcome of the competition between an Islamocracy vision and what Cherkaoui terms as a Demoslamic vision, since it implies the Islamist movements’ flexibility to reconcile their religious absolutism with the prerequisites of liberal democracy. This book also traces the patterns of change which point to a possible Arab Axial Age. It ends with the trials of modernity and tradition in Tunisia and an imaginary speech Kant would deliver at the Tunisian Parliament after those vibrant debates of the new constitution in 2014.