In a revealing passage in his apologetic treatise al-Risala al-Hamidiyya, the Tripolitan `alim Husayn al-Jisr (d. 1909) explores the rationales of slave-concubinage and why it is that a male slave cannot marry his female owner. The licitness of a master’s sexual access to slave-concubines (with no limit to their number) ensures their lineages are not cut off (la'alla yata`atal nasluhunn), given that their preoccupation with domestic labour does not spare them the time for married life. The competing authority claims entailed by simultaneous ownership and husbandhood, in the latter case, result in a ‘political’ contradiction that does not conduce to amity between the slave and his female owner, ‘in contradiction to the objectives of this equitable Shari`a.’ While the underlying ideas here reflect themes typical to classical and post-classical works of Fiqh, the framing and tone of the discussion of slave-concubinage have clearly changed by this period, even among scholars of impeccable traditionalist credentials (such as Yusuf al-Dijjwi, d. 1946). This is true of writing in a range of genres (tafsir, hadith-commentary, periodical literature, etc) that this paper will explore, building on the contributions of Amal Ghazal, William Clarence-Smith and others. Taking late post-classical works such as Ibn `Abidin’s (d. 1836) Radd al-Muhtar and al-Bajuri’s (d. 1860) Hashiya as its point of departure, this paper will examine the transformation of discourse on slavery and slave-concubinage more particularly until the mid-twentieth century, the period when the key reformulations occur and the arguments of the reformist camp came to be widely disseminated. Among other authors, this paper will draw on the oeuvres of al-Tahtawi (d. 1873), `Abduh (d. 1905), Ibn Badis (d. 1940) al-Maraghi (d. 1948), al-Ibrahimi (d. 1965) and the long-lived Ibn `Ashur (1879-1973). It will call attention to the reframing of the discussion on slavery and slave-concubinage in the modern period and how precisely modern works engage with and depart from the pre-modern heritage.

Political discourse in the Arab Muslim context has developed rapidly in recent years, particularly in light of the events leading up to the ‘Arab Spring’ and its aftermath. Among its salient features is a heightened concern surrounding the concepts of tyranny (tughyan) and despotism (istibdad), as reflected in the project of contemporary thinker Hakem al-Mutairi and in renewed popular interest in the works of 19th c. thinker Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi. The purpose of this study is to trace the recent development of the concept of tyranny (tughyan) in the Muslim (and particularly the Arab Muslim) context, and to investigate the way in which such conceptual change might be related to transformations in linguistic norms. Methodologically, this study takes cue from the work of Danielle Allen and other political theorists working in the spirit of Quentin Skinner and Thomas Kuhn. Allen demonstrates how Aristotle, in arguing with contemporaries over the status of rhetoric and sophistry, employed a term of scarce prior philosophical use—prohairesis—after which it came to be used by all subsequent 4th c. Athenian orators. Allen argues that this constituted a conceptual revolution in the social and political realms, of the kind and magnitude that Kuhn had restricted to the realm of scientific development. In tracing the recent conceptual development of terms connoting tyranny, I first consider them as they appear in classical Arabic dictionaries and in how they are employed in the Qur’an. I then turn to their use in modern Islamist political discourse during and 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Specifically, I examine engagement with the concept of tyranny by 20th c. thinkers Syed Abul A’la Maududi (d. 1979), Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), Abdullah Azzam (d. 1989), Ali Shariati (d. 1977), and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989), before finally turning to the works of 19th and 21st c. thinkers Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (d. 1902) and Hakem al-Mutairi (b. 1964). This study’s most central finding is that whereas al-Kawakibi in the 19th c. and al-Mutairi in the 21st c. discuss, respectively, the concepts of despotism and tyranny almost exclusively by means of abstract verbal nouns—istibdad and tughyan—the 20th c. figures fixate on the theologically charged special individual noun—taghut. My contention is that this transformation in linguistic norms, between emphasis on the individual and the abstract, carries within it the potential for revolutionary conceptual change.

The increasing use of the conception of Islamic feminism has created a debate on whether Islam and feminism were compatible. What often remains on the margins of that debate and in many ways does not allow for an appreciation of the dynamics of modernist Islamic reformism is the dissimilarities between distinct trends of feminism within Muslim contexts. Although Muslim feminists seek to reform and rethink the issue of gender egalitarianism through a re-reading of Islamic sources and central texts of the tradition, it is crucial to note the difference between what I term the reconstructionist and revivalist tendencies in contemporary reformism. To illustrate these differences, the paper analyzes the works of two influential Moroccan Muslim reformist authors who attempt to engage the Islamic heritage from a modernist standpoint and articulate a gender egalitarian perspective. Fatima Mernissi, a pioneer in the field of feminism in the Arab world and Asma Lamrabet, a proponent of liberation theology in Islam, are two Moroccan thinkers who are frequently mentioned as examples of Islamic feminism proponents. Yet, there are critical differences between the two authors in the way the concept of gender is articulated and the frame of egalitarianism constructed as well as in the kind of vision of society each author puts forward. The paper takes a close look at some of the two authors’ most important works and contextualizes them. It shows that Mernissi embraces a secular frame of reference that desacralizes the encounter of the interpreter with Islamic textual sources and the formative era of Islam and envisions a secular order that protects the rights of Muslim women and freedom of religion. The paper also argues that in contrast to that, Lamrabet is a proponent of a comprehensive Islamic order that puts the Qur’an and Hadith at the center of social and political life. She seeks to show that those sacred sources call for gender egalitarianism and that patriarchal interpretations of Islam are deviations from the "true" divine message and teachings of the Prophet.

Contrary to popular belief, the Arabian Peninsula (AP) is a diverse space that has projected bursts of tolerance across its history. AP plurality and tolerance assume various forms. Ethnicity, race, religion, migrants, and gender are critical components of the AP diversity mosaic that have also been candidate sites for the manifestation of tolerance. Drawing on Michel-Rolph Trouillot and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I argue that this AP diversity and sense of tolerance have been silenced, erased, and even systematically marginalized at times due to factors that include hegemonic Western presence and influence, the advent of the nation-state, and financial abundance. While twentieth-century transformations are marketed as both progress and godsend by some ruling elites, they have significant drawbacks, such as a newly manufactured homogeneity that affects the AP national’s capacity to readily absorb difference unlike in previous eras. This has led to a shift in, not the disappearance of, tolerance and diversity. The extent upon which the understanding and projection of tolerance and diversity has transformed in the past decades is a significant feature marking the thought and practice of various segments of AP society, including intellectuals and religious reformers. The paper first discusses the contentious role and limitation of semantics when delineating tolerance in Arabic. It then examines the meaning of diversity and tolerance in AP intellectual parlance drawing on the works of modern and contemporary Ibadhi, Imami, Sunni, and Zaydi thinkers across the AP. I group and advance concepts that are marketed as local renditions of tolerance, including tasamuh [forbearance], ta‘addud [diversity], ta‘ayush [coexistence], and ikhtilaf [difference], or what I dub 3TI. Next, the paper assesses whether such AP conceptualization is related to tolerance as understood in non-AP contexts or if it presents an alternative disposition altogether. Through this exercise, the paper tests both the success and failure of AP religious reform and its attempts to challenge mainstream ideas. Local conceptualizations of tolerance and diversity have evolved, becoming a convenient site of contestation and policymaking within nation-states and transnationally. 3TI is a local product whose transfiguration affects the representations of self and other, the status of religious reform, and the development of Islamic thought. The paper sheds light on tolerance and its limitations in its AP garb and highlights an otherwise silenced discourse that hopes to promote diversity, diminish local suspicion of the other, and upset local-foreign binaries that thrive on cultural distance and discrepancy in the AP.