Islamism and Post-Islamism

Seyed Javad Miri is the director of international relations at the Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies in Iran. He has written over 40 books. He is the author of East and West: Allama Jafari on Bertrand Russell (University Press of America, 2013) and Reflections on the Social Thought of Allama M.T. Jafari: Rediscovering the Sociological Relevance of the Primordial School of Social Theory (University Press of America, 2010).

• ForewordPreface Chapter One: Redrawing the Map of Political Thought in an Islamist EraChapter Two: Governmentality in the Balance of Gnosticism IntroductionOn Management and LeadershipOn Leadership and Constructive GnosisFundamental Obligation of GovernmentLeadership and Society Governing and AlienationManagement’s Fundamental Obligation The intelligible life and equal rightsChapter Three: Religion, Politics and Other SagasIntroductionPolitics: A Conceptual MakeoverReligion: Emancipative or Oppressive Factor? Political Gnosticism or Mystical PoliticsPower and its functions Manifestations of AuthorityReligion and its Janus-FaceChapter Four: Social Life Redesigned IntroductionTypes of PoliticsPolitical IslamEurocentrism and Politics in a critical balanceAbsence of Politics in the Empire of Islam Designing of Social Life Intelligible FreedomChapter Five: Revisiting the Principle of Divine AuthorityIntroductionPolitics and the Sunnite InterpretationSovereignty in IslamRevisiting the Principle of Divine Authority EpilogueBibliography Index

Muslims beginning especially with the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran under the guidance of Ayatollah Khomeini have demanded a certain religious visibility, as Seyed Javad Miri has demonstrated, in their societies. However, even if Islamism is the future, it must be infused, as Miri points out, with the spirit of deliberative democracy, which philosophically separates the sources of legitimism from the particular actions of any given political actor.