Patricia Crone's God's Rule is a fundamental reconstruction and analysis of Islamic political thought focusing on its intellectual development during the six centuries from the rise of Islam to the Mongol invasions. Based on a wide variety of primary sources―including some not previously considered from the point of view of political thought―this is the first book to examine the medieval Muslim answers to questions crucial to any Western understanding of Middle Eastern politics today, such as why states are necessary, what functions they are meant to fulfill, and whether or why they must be based on religious law. The character of Muslim political thought differs fundamentally from its counterpart in the West. The Christian West started with the conviction that truth (both cognitive and moral) and political power belonged to separate spheres. Ultimately, both power and truth originated with God, but they had distinct historical trajectories and regulated different aspects of life. The Muslims started with the opposite conviction: truth and power appeared at the same time in history and regulated the same aspects of life. In medieval Europe, the disagreement over the relationship between religious authority and political power took the form of a protracted controversy regarding the roles of church and state. In the medieval Middle East, religious authority and political power were embedded in a single, divinely sanctioned Islamic community―a congregation and state made one. The disagreement, therefore, took the form of a protracted controversy over the nature and function of the leadership of Islam itself. Crone makes Islamic political thought accessible by relating it to the contexts in which it was formulated, analyzing it in terms familiar to today's reader, and, where possible, comparing it with medieval European and modern political thought. By examining the ideological point of departure for medieval Islamic political thought, Crone provides an invaluable foundation for a better understanding of contemporary Middle Eastern politics and current world events.

God's Rule - Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought

History

Crone, Patricia

Middle East

Columbia University Press

This book examines the cultural origins of Islamic law. Some authorities stress the importance of the contribution of Roman law; others that of Arabian law. Most are agreed that Jewish law contributed, but not explained further. Dr Crone tests the Roman hypothesis with reference to one institution, the patronate, which does indeed appear to owe something to Roman law. He concludes that Roman law contributed only in so far as it was part and parcel of the rather different legal practice of the Near Eastern provinces, and that provincial law would repay further consideration by legal historians.

Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)

Legal Theory & Systems

Cambridge University Press

This is a controversial study of the origins of Islamic civilisation, first published in 1977. By examining non-Muslim sources, the authors point out the intimate link between the Jewish religion and the earliest forms of Islam. As a serious, scholarly attempt to open up a new, exploratory path of Islamic history, the book has already engendered much debate. This paperback edition will make the authors' conclusions widely accessible to teachers and students of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies.

Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World

Cook, Michael

Religion & Spirituality

Slave soldiers are a distinctively Muslim phenomenon. Though virtually unknown in the non-Muslim world, they have been a constant and pervasive feature of the Muslim Middle East from the ninth century AD into modern times. Why did Muslim rulers choose to place military and political power in the hands of imported slaves? It is this question which Dr Crone seeks to answer. Concentrating on the period from the rise of the Umayyads to the dissolution of the 'Abbasid empire (roughly AD 650-850), she documents the consequences of the fusion between religion and politics in Islam, which she sees as an essential forging characteristic of the Muslim social structure and state. Primarily addressed to specialists and advanced students of Arabic and Islamic history, the book will also appeal to comparative historians and social anthropologists.

Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity

This study examines how religious authority was distributed in early Islam. It argues the case that, as in Shi'ism, it was concentrated in the head of state, rather than dispersed among learned laymen as in Sunnism. Originally the caliph was both head of state and ultimate source of religious law; the Sunni pattern represents the outcome of a conflict between the caliph and early scholars who, as spokesmen of the community, assumed religious leadership for themselves. Many Islamicists have assumed the Shi'ite concept of the imamate to be a deviant development. In contrast, this book argues that it is an archaism preserving the concept of religious authority with which all Muslims began.

God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, Series Number 37)

Hinds, Martin

This book examines the cultural origins of Islamic law. Some authorities stress the importance of the contribution of Roman law; others that of Arabian law. Most are agreed that Jewish law contributed, but not explained further. Dr Crone tests the Roman hypothesis with reference to one institution, the patronate, which does indeed appear to owe something to Roman law. He concludes that Roman law contributed only in so far as it was part and parcel of the rather different legal practice of the Near Eastern provinces, and that provincial law would repay further consideration by legal historians.

Foreign & International Law

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Crone, Patricia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Crone, Patricia

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Crone, Patricia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

God's Rule - Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought

God's Rule - Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought

Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)

Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World

Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity

Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World

God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, Series Number 37)

Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)

Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity

Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)