Lectures
Mosque and State: Religio-Political Conceptions of Islamic Society
Synopsis
Unlike Christianity, which has never consistently lived under a particular political order, Islamic civilization has grown, lived in, and found its identity almost exclusively in empire from nearly its founding moment. Further, unlike Christianity, which, for much of its history organized itself around a hierarchical structure containing its own political history and internal political dynamic, Islam is a decentralized religion, organized around the mosque, with various groups of religious scholars jousting for influence. Islam, therefore, found its security in a long train of relatively successful empires. In contrast, living within fluid and unstable political structures, Christianity developed its own ecclesiastical polities and legal systems structured around urban “metropolitans” or “bishops” with synodical and conciliar governments. Islam, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, now finds itself in a diffuse and chaotic political environment. In this circumstance neither Islamic theology nor its history, have provided the resources to rely upon its own internal structure. Thus, both the radicals and the newly politicized fundamentalists offer the Muslim a new political vision in which Islam once more can have a sense of identity. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Muslims, who are moderate, struggle for a way to defend their faith but without the tools that their theology and history have failed to bequeath to them. In this lecture Dr. David F. Forte explores the Islamic tradition for the religious, political, and legal concepts necessary for Muslims to live in community with each other and at peace with the western world.
