Preaching Pious Rulership in Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Jawzi's Political Thought

(Hardback)

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This book studies the relationship between political thought, preaching and emotions through the writings of Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1201), a celebrated hortatory preacher in late-Abbasid Baghdad. Through an intertextual analysis of Ibn al-Jawzi's works in various genres, this book details how his ideal form of rulership reflected the emotional norms and pietistic moral virtues promoted in Muslim hortatory sermons. It also examines the emotional strategies deployed in his efforts to reform the rulers of his time. In highlighting the importance of piety in Ibn al-Jawzi's political discourses, the book points to a new reading of the history of Islamic political thought that, rather than foregrounding order and military prowess, considers competing political languages among medieval Muslim intellectuals. In doing so, it calls for the need to rethink notions of 'politics' and the 'political' when studying Islam.

Author Bio

Han Hsien Liew is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. In addition to the history of Islamic political thought, his research interests include Qur'anic exegesis, Islamic theology, Islam in Southeast Asia and the history of emotions. His work has been published in Al-Qanara: Revista de Estudios Arabes, Journal of Islamic Studies, Journal of the American Oriental Society and Arabica. He was recently awarded a Herodotus Fund Membership from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.