Forging Ideal Muslim Subjects: Discursive Practices, Subject Formation, & Muslim Ethics

Faraz Masood Sheikh

ISBN 10: 1793620148 / ISBN 13: 9781793620149

Published by Lexington Books, 2022

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Forging Ideal Muslim Subjects: Discursive Practices, Subject Formation, & Muslim Ethics
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1793620148
• ISBN 13: 9781793620149
• Binding: Paperback / softback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 308 grams

About this title

Synopsis

What forms can a religiously informed, ethical Muslim life take? This book presents two important accounts of ideal Muslim subjectivity, one by 9th century moral pedagogue, al-Harith al-Muhasibi (d. 857) and the other by 20th century Kurdish Quran scholar, Said Nursi (d. 1960). It reconstructs Muhasibi’s and Nursi’s accounts of ideal Muslim consciousness and analyzes the discursive practices implicated in its formation and expression. The book discusses the range of psychic states and ethical relations that Muhasibi and Nursi consider critical for living an authentically Muslim life. It highlights the importance of discursive practices in Muslim religious and moral self-production. The author draws on Foucault's insights about ethics and practices of self-care to examine familiar Muslim discourses in ways that enrich contemporary conversations about identity, individuality, community, authority, moral agency and virtue in the fields of religious studies, Islamic studies and Muslim ethics. The book deepens our understanding of the fluidity and fragility of both the more familiar, obligation-centered ethics in Islamic thought and the less familiar, belief-centered modes of religio-moral being.

About the Author

Faraz Masood Sheikh is assistant professor of religious ethics in the Department of Religious Studies at William & Mary.