Synopses & Reviews
Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the global discourse on civil society--in its varied interpretations and manifestations--had caught the attention of citizens and communities right across the Muslim world from Iran, Tajikistan and Indonesia to the Maghreb. Issues of human rights, pluralism and gender equity were at the forefront of the wider quest for participatory politics. A new urgency now attends those issues: patterns of political violence and some of the responses to them threaten to undermine the ethical legacy of Muslim civilizations and its role in the emergence of civic culture and the rule of law. This landmark survey covers social and intellectual trends in diverse Muslim contexts.
Synopsis
Even before the events of September 11th 2001, the global discourse on civil society--in its varied interpretations and manifestations--has caught the attention of citizens and communities across the Muslim world from Iran, Tajikistan and Indonesia, to the Mahgreb. Issues of human rights, pluralism and gender equity were already at the forefront of the wider quest for participatory politics. This survey of social and intellectual trends in diverse Muslim contexts includes contributions by Shirin Akiner, Mohammed Arkoun, Aziz Esmial, Tair Faradov, Abdou Filali-Ansary, Ersin Kalaycioglu, Iftikhar Malik, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Oliver Roy.
About the Author
Amyn B. Sajoo is a Visiting Scholar at McGill University and a regular commentator on public affairs in the news media on both sides of the Atlantic.
Table of Contents
Foreword--Azim Nanji * Editor's Note * About the Contributors * Introduction: Civic Quests and Bequests--Amyn B. Sajoo * Locating Civil Society in Islamic Contexts--Mohammed Arkoun * Self, Society, Civility and Islam--Aziz Esmail * Debating Women: Gender and the Public Sphere in Post-Revolutionary Iran--Ziba Mir-Hosseini * Soviet Legacies and Western Aid Imperatives in the New Central Asia--Olivier Roy * Prospects for Civil Society in Tajikistan--Shirin Akiner * Religiosity and Civic Culture in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan: A Sociological Perspective--Tair Faradov * Ethics in the Civitas--Amyn B. Sajoo * State and Civil Society in Turkey: Democracy, Development and Protest--Ersin Kalaycioglue * Between Identity Politics and Authoritarianism in Pakistan--Iftikhar H. Malik * State, Society and Creed: Reflections on the Maghreb--Abdou Filali-Ansary * Bibliography * Index