Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World"Flawless . . . [Makdisi] reminds us of the critical declarations of secularism which existed in the history of the Middle East."—Robert Fisk, The Independent Today’s headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi’s Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the “ecumenical frame.” He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world. Despite massive challenges and setbacks, and despite the persistence of colonialism and authoritarianism, this framework for coexistence has endured for nearly a century. It is a reminder that religious diversity does not automatically lead to sectarianism. Instead, as Makdisi demonstrates, people of different faiths, but not necessarily of different political outlooks, have consistently tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abduh Aleppo American Anatolia anticolonial antisectarian Antun Arab nationalism Arab nationalist Arab world Armenian Assyrian Baghdad Balkans Beirut binationalism British Bustani Butrus al-Bustani Cairo California Press Cambridge University Press century Christian Arabs citizens civil coexistence colonial Zionism communities constituted Coptic culture Damascus dhimmis diversity Druze ecumenical frame Egypt equality ethnic European French Mandate Genocide Greek Hajj Hajj Amin Hashemite History Hourani Husri I. B. Tauris ideological imperial Iraq Iraqi Islamic Istanbul Jerusalem Jewish Journal of Middle Late Ottoman Empire Lebanese London major Maronite Mashriq massacre Michel Chiha Middle East minority missionaries Mount Lebanon Muhammad multireligious Muslim and Christian Muslim and non-Muslim Muslim Arabs Nafir nahda Orthodox Ottoman Empire Ottoman sovereignty Oxford University Press Palestine Palestinian political post-Ottoman Princeton University Press Reform religion religious difference Rida Rihani sectarian secular Shi'i social society Stanford University Press sultan Sunni Syria Tanzimat Tarikh tion Turkish unity violence Western York Zaydan Zionist