Explores the formation of Islamic institutions and statehood beyond eurocentric models of sovereignty
Islam and Statehood: Instituting the Ecumene offers a groundbreaking reinterpretation of how socioreligious and political institutions took shape across the Islamic ecumene. Leaving behind eurocentric categories of sociopolitical theory in favor of an Italian brand of Southern thought, Armando Salvatore advances an alternative framework for understanding state formation in the Islamic ecumenenot as a belated imitation of European models, but as an original instituting process grounded in relational and adaptive modes of authority. Tracing a trajectory from Prophetic narration and Sufi habitus to early modern configurations of saintly power and reflexive governance, this second volume of the Sociology of Islam trilogy provides a conceptual map that connects embodied traditions of civility to self-renewing patterns of political legitimacy culminating in the institution of the Caliphate.
Written with conceptual precision and historical depth, this volume reveals how the Islamic ecumene cultivated forms of circular sovereignty that evolved dynamically across time and geography. Islam and Statehood engages critically with eurocentric paradigms of Western political theology and sociology while illuminating the distinctive rationalities that shaped institutional innovation in the ecumene. Situating statehood as part of a wider civilizational experiment in balancing divine mediation, habitus formation, and pragmatic governance, the book:
Develops an original approach to statehood within the Islamic ecumene Introduces the concept of instituting as a dynamic and adaptive process distinct from European models of sovereignty Builds on and complements The Sociology of Islam in developing a broader theory of formation of the Islamic ecumene by reinterpreting Ibn Khalduns theory through the lens of Southern thought
Islam and Statehood: Instituting the Ecumene is ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, Middle East Studies, and Comparative Politics. It is particularly well-suited for courses exploring state formation, political theology, and non-Western sociological theory.
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Knowledge and Power in the Sociology of Islam 1
Knowledge/Charisma vs. Power/Wealth: The Challenge of Religious Movements
18
Civility as the Engine of the KnowledgePower Equation: Islam and Islamdom
23
PART I Patterns of Civility
1 The Limits of Civil Society and the Path to Civility 43
The Origins of Modern Civil Society 43
Civil Society as a Site of Production of Modern Power 50
Folding Civil Society into a Transversal Notion of Civility 57
2 Brotherhood as a Matrix of Civility: The Islamic Ecumene and Beyond 73
Between Networking, Charisma, and Social Autonomy: The Contours of
Spiritual Brotherhoods 73
Beyond Sufism: The Unfolding of the Brotherhood 85
Rewriting Charisma into Brotherhood 92
PART II Islamic Civility in Historical and Comparative Perspective
3 Flexible Institutionalization and the Expansive Civility of the Islamic
Ecumene 105
The Steady Expansion of Islamic Patterns of Translocal Civility 105
Authority, Autonomy, and Power Networks: A Grid of Flexible Institutions
114
The Permutable Combinations of Normativity and Civility 118
4 Social Autonomy and Civic Connectedness: The Islamic Ecumene in
Comparative Perspective 131
New Patterns of Civic Connectedness Centered on the Commoners 131
Liminality, Charisma, and Social Organization 140
Municipal Autonomy vs. Translocal Connectedness 147
PARTIII Modern Islamic Articulations of Civility
5 Knowledge and Power: The Civilizing Process before Colonialism 165
From the Mongol Impact to the Early Modern KnowledgePower Configurations
165
Taming theWarriors into Games of Civility? Violence,Warfare, and Peace 176
The LongWave of PowerDecentralization 189
6 Colonial Blueprints of Order and Civility 201
The Metamorphosis of Civility under Colonialism 201
Court Dynamics and Emerging Elites: The Complexification of the Civilizing
Process 218
Class, Gender, and Generation: The Ultimate Testing Grounds of the
Educational-Civilizing Project 226
7 Global Civility and Its Islamic Articulations 239
The Dystopian Globalization of Civility 239
Diversifying Civility as the Outcome of Civilizing Processes 251
From Islamic Exceptionalism to a Plural Islamic Perspective 260
Conclusion 271
Overcoming Eurocentric Views: Religion and Civility within Islam/Islamdom
271
The Institutional Mold of Islamic Civility: Contractualism vs. Corporatism?
278
From the Postcolonial Condition toward New Fragile Patterns of Translocal
Civility 287
Index 295
Armando Salvatore is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies and the Barbara and Patrick Keenan Chair in Interfaith Studies at McGill University. A comparative historical sociologist of knowledge and institutions, he is the author of The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility and Chief Editor of The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam.
