Matching Items (2)
Description
Undertaking an intellectual history and employing a diachronic approach, this study seeks to unravel both the continuity and change in the ulama’s discourse on the usurpation of power from the 2nd - 9th Islamic Era or between the 8th-15th Common Era, the early twentieth century, and the period of the Arab Spring. I define usurpation in this study as an unlawful encroachment against a ruler which consists of one of the three following actions: military coup (al-taghallub), domination (al-ḥijr), and seizure of local territory (al-ʿistīlāʾ ʿalā al-ʾimāra). In doing so, I pay particular attention to discursive strategy and shift: the ways in which the ulama construct their discourses within the paradigms of the existing Islamic legal and theological schools and the way the Western political philosophies, particularly constitutionalism and legitimacy, may have shaped their ideas. I also discuss the extent to which they called for reformulation of Islamic political tradition. I argue that the ulama responded to recurrent phenomena of usurpation in history by mobilizing historical arguments from Islamic intellectual legacy (turāth). Despite their divergent substantive opinions and approaches to the issue of usurpation, they share a commitment to Islamic tradition. This reliance on tradition contrasts with the tendency of the Western Post-Enlightenment thinkers who perceive the past as darkness and immaturity. My dissertation also demonstrates how modernity informs contemporary ulama to generate various approaches to the agreed-upon pre-modern legal norms of usurpation of power.
ContributorsMuzakkir, Muhamad Rofiq (Author) / Haines, Chad (Thesis advisor) / Talebi, Shala (Committee member) / Mahgoub, Miral (Committee member) / El Hamel, Chouki (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
When the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency recently declassified documents relating to the 1953 Coup in Iran, it was discovered that American involvement was much deeper than previously known. In fact, the CIA had orchestrated the coup against democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh. This action was sold to the United States public as being essential to democracy, which seems contradictory to its actual purpose. U.S. political leaders justified the coup by linking it to what Charles Mills calls “racial liberalism,” a longstanding ideological tradition in America that elevates the white citizen to a place of power and protection while making the racial noncitizens “others” in the political system. Political leaders in the United States relied on bribing the American media to portray the Shah as the white citizen and Mossadegh as a racial other, the white citizen was restored to power and the racial other was overthrown.
ContributorsAnderson, Kira C (Author) / Forrest, M. David (Thesis advisor) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016