Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought(Columbia Studies in International and Global History)

The political thought of Muslim societies is all too often defined in religious terms, in which the writings of clerics are seen as representative and ideas about governance are treated as an extension of commentary on sacred texts. Disenchanting the Caliphate offers a groundbreaking new account of political discourse in Islamic history by examining Abbasid imperial practice, illuminating the emergence and influence of a vibrant secular tradition. Closely reading key eighth-century texts, Hayrettin Yücesoy argues that the ulema's discourse of religious governance and the political thought of lay intellectuals diverged during this foundational period, with enduring consequences. He traces how notions of good governance and reflections on prudent statecraft arose among cosmopolitan literati who envisioned governing as an art. Competent in nonreligious branches of knowledge and trained in administrative professions, these belletrists articulated and defended secular political practices, reimagining the caliphal realm as politically constituted rather than natural. They sought to improve administrative efficiency and bolster state control for an empire made up of diverse cultures. Their ideas about moral cultivation, temporal reasoning, and governmental rationality endured for centuries as a counterpoint to religious rulership. Drawing on this history, Yücesoy critiques the concept of "Islamic political thought," calling for decolonizing debates about "secular" and "religious" politics. Theoretically rich and historically grounded, Disenchanting the Caliphate is an insightful and provocative reconsideration of key strands of political discourse in the intellectual history of Muslim societies.

About the Author :
Hayrettin Yücesoy is an associate professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His books include Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The Abbasid Caliphate in the Early Ninth Century (2009).

Review :
Offer[s] new approaches for young scholars to use when studying Muslim thought beyond the approaches of Orientalists on the one hand and modern Islamists on the other.-- "Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations" Yucesoy has produced a valuable work which scholars of political thought in the Muslim world and on secularism will benefit greatly from.-- "Middle East Monitor" Disenchanting the Caliphate is a sorely-needed intervention...urge[ing] us to be more sensitive to political languages and their relationship with political practices. At a broader level, it pushes us to rethink concepts such as "religious" and "secular" in the study of Islam.--Han Hsien Liew, Arizona State University "Maydan" A pioneering work that contributes immensely to the great normalization of Islamic studies. No study on political thought in the Middle East (not "Islamic political thought") will be complete without thorough engagement with Disenchanting the Caliphate.--Evrim Binbaş, University of Bonn "Maydan" A revision of revisionist scholarship, Yücesoy's book is theoretically engaged and philologically endowed. It unravels the contentions between what he calls the "secular ethos of adab-siyasa" and "scholastic" political knowledge during the eighth century. This work is a contribution to understanding the early background within which the former was to be absorbed by the latter.--Wael Hallaq, Columbia University Gibbon's flourish about 'Mahomet, sword in one hand, Koran in the other' long served as metonym for the diachronic Caliphate. Yücesoy provocatively but convincingly disputes whether 'Islamic political thought' was inflexibly Islamic. Αlongside religious scholars he highlights Umayyad and Abbasid bureaucrat-literati, who propounded ethical and managerial principles of governance.--Garth Fowden, author of Before and After Muḥammad: The First Millennium Refocused In Disenchanting the Caliphate, Yücesoy pierces the wall of biased binaries erected by Western colonial scholarship. Behind the wall, we are treated to the creative, open-ended process--unfolding during the High Caliphate--that bundled relational practices of power-knowledge into a secular discipline of political civility.--Armando Salvatore, author of The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility Disenchanting the Caliphate breaks ground for radically new conversations in world history, political theory, empire studies, and Middle Eastern and Global South Studies. At once erudite, astutely conceived, and sparkling with insight, this book is a must read for anyone seeking to de-eurocentrize public and scholarly assumptions about the world's interconnected past and present.--Laura Doyle, author of Inter-imperiality: Vying Empires, Gendered Labor, and the Literary Arts of Alliance