God's Rule : Government and Islam

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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 is a book written by scholar and historiographer of early Islam Patricia Crone.

God's Rule : Government and Islam provides a detailed analysis on the origins and development of Islamic religio-political practices and thought from the 7th to the 13th century. The author chronicles the development of the Islamic concept of Jihad, the justifications devised for ideological imperialisms, the debates about the subjugation of non-Muslims, and rulings toward forced conversions as well as views on the persecution of dissidents and non-conforming Muslims and the sanctioning of killings in in dealing with such situations. ^[1]

Male captives might be killed or enslaved, whatever their religious affiliation. (People of the Book were not protected by Islamic law until they had accepted dhimma.) Captives might also be given the choice between Islam and death, or they might pronounce the confession of faith of their own accord to avoid execution: jurists ruled that their change of status was to be accepted even though they had only converted out of fear. Women and children captured in the course of the campaigns were usually enslaved, again regardless of their faith…Nor should the importance of captives be underestimated. Muslim warriors routinely took large numbers of them. Leaving aside those who converted to avoid execution, some were ransomed and the rest enslaved, usually for domestic use. Dispersed in Muslim households, slaves almost always converted, encouraged or pressurized by their masters, driven by a need to bond with others, or slowly, becoming accustomed to seeing things through Muslim eyes even if they tried to resist. Though neither the dhimmi nor the slave had been faced with a choice between Islam and death, it would be absurd to deny that force played a major role in their conversion.^[2]

[edit] Contents

Part One: The Beginnings

1. The Origins of Government
2. The First Civil War and Sect Formation
3. The Umayyads

Part Two: The Waning of the Tribal Tradition, c.700-900

4. General
5. The Kharijites
6. The Mu'tazilites
7. The Shi'ites of the Umayyad Period
8. The 'Abbasids and Shi'ism
9. The Zaydis
10. The Imamis
11. The Hadith Party

Part Three Coping with a Fragmented World

12. General
13. The Persian Tradition and Advice Literature
14. The Greek Tradition and 'Political Science'
15. The Ismailis
16. The Sunnis

Part Four: Government and Society

17. The Nature of Government
18. The Functions of Government
19. Visions of Freedom
20. The Social Order
21. Muslims and Non-Muslims

(a) Infidels (b) Muslims as Infidels

22. Epilogue: Religion, Government and Society Revisited

[edit] References

^ Ira M. Lapidus University of California, Berkeley Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37.1 (2006) 168-169
^ Patricia Crone. God’s Rule. Government and Islam, pp. 371-722.