Modernity without Society: Observations on the term mujtamaʿ in the Islamic Journal al-Manār (Cairo, 1898–1940)
It is characteristic of modernity that people conceive of their social affairs as ordered in and by society. While the evolution of the idea of society is well-researched in Europe, it remains an open question how this idea evolved within the Islamic context. This article analyzes the contemporary A...
| Published in: | Die Welt des Islams |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2016
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| In: |
Die Welt des Islams
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| Further subjects: | B
Islam
modernity
al-Manār
Rashīd Riḍā
history of concepts
society
mujtamaʿ
secular
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | It is characteristic of modernity that people conceive of their social affairs as ordered in and by society. While the evolution of the idea of society is well-researched in Europe, it remains an open question how this idea evolved within the Islamic context. This article analyzes the contemporary Arabic term for society, mujtamaʿ, as it was used in the mouthpiece of Islamic modernism, the journal al-Manār (Cairo, 1898–1940). I show that “society” was already the dominant meaning of mujtamaʿ in the first issue of al-Manār. However, few of the authors tackle mujtamaʿ as a central concept of their texts; and the journal’s editor, Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, predominantly used mujtamaʿ to mean something other than society. These findings, combined with Riḍā’s interest in social questions, suggest that the idea of society was expressed from within the Islamic tradition in terms other than mujtamaʿ, most conspicuously umma.
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| ISSN: | 1570-0607 |
| Contains: | In: Die Welt des Islams
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700607-00562p04 |