Mimetic Theory and Islam

Mimetic Theory and Islam PDF

Author: Michael Kirwan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 3030056953

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume explores the 'Mimetic Theory' of the cultural theorist René Girard and its applicability to Islamic thought and tradition. Authors critically examine Girard's assertion about the connection between group formation, religion, and 'scapegoating' violence. These insights, Girard maintained, have their source in biblical revelation. Are there parallels in other faith traditions, especially Islam? To this end, Muslim scholars and scholars of Mimetic Theory have examined the hypothesis of an 'Abrahamic Revolution.' This is the claim that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each share in a spiritual and ethical historical 'breakthrough:' a move away from scapegoating violence, and towards a sense of justice for the innocent victim.

Mimetic Theory and World Religions

Mimetic Theory and World Religions PDF

Author: Wolfgang Palaver

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2017-11-01

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 1628953136

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Those who anticipated the demise of religion and the advent of a peaceful, secularized global village have seen the last two decades confound their predictions. René Girard’s mimetic theory is a key to understanding the new challenges posed by our world of resurgent violence and pluralistic cultures and traditions. Girard sought to explain how the Judeo-Christian narrative exposes a founding murder at the origin of human civilization and demystifies the bloody sacrifices of archaic religions. Meanwhile, his book Sacrifice, a reading of conflict and sacrificial resolution in the Vedic Brahmanas, suggests that mimetic theory’s insights also resonate with several non-Western religious and spiritual traditions. This volume collects engagements with Girard by scholars of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism and situates them within contemporary theology, philosophy, and religious studies.

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence PDF

Author: Adnane Mokrani

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2022-07-01

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1628954671

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This groundbreaking book offers the first systematic study of the Qur’ān and Islamic history in the light of René Girard’s mimetic theory. Girard did not deal deeply with Islam, offering only scattered hints in some interviews after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Addressing this gap in Girardian studies, Adnane Mokrani aims to develop an Islamic theology that goes beyond just war theory to adopt a radical nonviolent approach. He analyzes the Qur’ānic text and classical and modern exegetical literature, focusing on the Qur’ānic narratives, then extends his research to the history of Islam, removing the sacred character attributed to some events and human choices in order to disarm theology and dismantle the ideologies of power. This same critique is also applied to the unprecedented levels of violence in modern and contemporary history. A radical and politically committed theology of peace is needed to recover the spiritual dimension of religion that frees people from the temptations of the individual and collective ego. It is a mystical and narrative theology in dialogue with other world theologies on the future of humanity—an urgent appeal needed now more than ever.

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence PDF

Author: ʻAdnān Muqrānī

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781628964615

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"This book offers a study of the Qur'ān and Islamic history in the light of René Girard's mimetic theory, going beyond just war theory to adopt a nonviolent approach"--

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence PDF

Author: ʻAdnān Muqrānī

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781609176990

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"This book offers a study of the Qur'ān and Islamic history in the light of René Girard's mimetic theory, going beyond just war theory to adopt a nonviolent approach"--

What is “Islamic” Art?

What is “Islamic” Art? PDF

Author: Wendy M. K. Shaw

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1108474659

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

An alternate approach to Islamic art emphasizing literary over historical contexts and reception over production in visual arts and music.

René Girard's Mimetic Theory

René Girard's Mimetic Theory PDF

Author: Wolfgang Palaver

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 1609173651

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A systematic introduction into the mimetic theory of the French-American literary theorist and philosophical anthropologist René Girard, this essential text explains its three main pillars (mimetic desire, the scapegoat mechanism, and the Biblical “difference”) with the help of examples from literature and philosophy. This book also offers an overview of René Girard’s life and work, showing how much mimetic theory results from existential and spiritual insights into one’s own mimetic entanglements. Furthermore it examines the broader implications of Girard’s theories, from the mimetic aspect of sovereignty and wars to the relationship between the scapegoat mechanism and the question of capital punishment. Mimetic theory is placed within the context of current cultural and political debates like the relationship between religion and modernity, terrorism, the death penalty, and gender issues. Drawing textual examples from European literature (Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kleist, Stendhal, Storm, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Proust) and philosophy (Plato, Camus, Sartre, Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, Vattimo), Palaver uses mimetic theory to explore the themes they present. A highly accessible book, this text is complemented by bibliographical references to Girard’s widespread work and secondary literature on mimetic theory and its applications, comprising a valuable bibliographical archive that provides the reader with an overview of the development and discussion of mimetic theory until the present day.

Violence in the Name of God

Violence in the Name of God PDF

Author: Joel Hodge

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 135010499X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book traces the trajectory of militant jihadism to show how violence is more intentionally embraced as the centre of worship, social order and ideology. Undertaking an in-depth analysis of militant jihadist groups and utilising the work of René Girard, Joel Hodge argues that the extreme violence of militant jihadists is a response to modernity in two ways that have not been sufficiently explored by the existing literature. Firstly, it is a manifestation of the unrestrained and escalating state of desire and rivalry in modernity, which militant jihadists seek to counter with extreme violence. Secondly, it is a response to the unveiling and discrediting of sacred violence, which militant jihadists seek to reverse by more purposefully valorising sacred violence in what they believe to be jihad. Relevant to anyone interested in Islam, philosophy of religion, theology, and terrorism, Violence in the Name of God imagines new ways of thinking about militancy in the name of Islam in the twenty-first century.

Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 1

Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 1 PDF

Author: Scott Cowdell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2012-08-16

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 144114689X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Violence, Desire and the Sacred presents the most up-to-date inter-disciplinary work being developed with the ground-breaking insights of René Girard's mimetic theory. The collection showcases the work of outstanding scholars in mimetic theory and how they are applying and developing Girard's insights in a variety of fields. Girard's mimetic insight has provided a fruitful way for different disciplines, such as literature, anthropology, theology, religion studies, cultural studies, and philosophy, to engage on common anthropological ground, with a shared understanding of the human person. The aim of this edited collection is to present this interdisciplinary work and to illustrate how Girard's insights provide fertile ground for bringing together disparate disciplines in a shared purpose. As academic work on Girard's insights is growing, this collection would meet the need to show the critical, interdisciplinary applications of these insights.

Battling to the End

Battling to the End PDF

Author: René Girard

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2009-12-15

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1609171330

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In Battling to the End René Girard engages Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), the Prussian military theoretician who wrote On War. Clausewitz, who has been critiqued by military strategists, political scientists, and philosophers, famously postulated that "War is the continuation of politics by other means." He also seemed to believe that governments could constrain war. Clausewitz, a firsthand witness to the Napoleonic Wars, understood the nature of modern warfare. Far from controlling violence, politics follows in war's wake: the means of war have become its ends. René Girard shows us a Clausewitz who is a fascinated witness of history's acceleration. Haunted by the French-German conflict, Clausewitz clarifies more than anyone else the development that would ravage Europe. Battling to the End pushes aside the taboo that prevents us from seeing that the apocalypse has begun. Human violence is escaping our control; today it threatens the entire planet.