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A Culture of Ambiguity

An Alternative History of Islam
Suhrkamp | Insel
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Columbia UP), Russia (Directmedia), Arabic World Rights (Al Kamel), France (Éditions Fenêtres), Slovenia (Založba Krtina), Turkey (Iletisim)


A Culture of Ambiguity / Die Kultur der Ambiguität
An Alternative History of Islam
For over a thousand years, Islamic societies in the Arab world nurtured a ›culture of ambiguity‹: disparate truth claims were permitted to coexist in the interest of peaceful cohabitation. Thus, in the fourteenth century, for instance, the existence of different versions of the Qur’an and the multitude of potential interpretations was seen as enriching. For many Muslims today it is a source of great vexation.


Over the course of the past 150 years, these societies have become...
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For over a thousand years, Islamic societies in the Arab world nurtured a ›culture of ambiguity‹: disparate truth claims were permitted to coexist in the interest of peaceful cohabitation. Thus, in the fourteenth century, for instance, the existence of different versions of the Qur’an and the multitude of potential interpretations was seen as enriching. For many Muslims today it is a source of great vexation.


Over the course of the past 150 years, these societies have become increasingly intolerant of all forms of ambiguity. Thomas Bauer locates the source of this end to plurality in the growing influence of Western Enlightenment thinking, which strives toward monosemy. Nineteenth century colonialism exerted a pressure to define oneself according to clear, unambiguous values and norms. In its own way, this is what contemporary Islamism is doing – by harking back to ostensibly ›traditional Islamic values‹.

Thomas Bauer interprets this drastic shift as a delayed reaction on the part of Islamic societies to the demands of Western hegemony.

»Both the non-specialist and the seasoned scholar will come away from this book rethinking at least part of what they thought they know about Islamic culture in its past and present incarnations.« TLS

»Thomas Bauer takes his audience on a delightfully opinionated and provocative journey through premodern Islamic cultural and intellectual history. His apt use of the theoretical lens of ambiguity will make readers look at both premodern and modern Islamic cultures – and beyond them at all cultural expressions – with new eyes.« Ahmed El Shamsy, author of Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition

»Thomas Bauer's A Culture of Ambiguity belongs to the rare class of books that can change our thinking about a whole era of history – here premodern Islam. It is highly innovative and offers new ways of understanding Arabic literature, from the Qur'an via Islamic law to the Arabian Nights.« Frank Griffel, author of The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam

»In this wonderful book, Thomas Bauer offers a truly fresh history of how Islam was lived and interpreted before the nineteenth century. With a focus on ›ambiguity,‹ he tells a fascinating story well beyond hackneyed clichés of ›medieval‹ bigots and zealots. Elegantly written, often witty, and always erudite, this is an outstandingly enjoyable must-read for anyone interested in Islam.« Konrad Hirschler, coeditor of The Damascus Fragments: Towards a History of the Qubbat al-khazna Corpus of Manuscripts and Documents

»Bauer’s alternative history, postmodern in vision and method, debunks the modernist narrative and repudiates all its teleological claims. It shows that the modernist solution to the human problem has its own flaws as the modernist utopia has its own deficits.« Muslim World Book Review
 

»It is impossible to praise Thomas Bauer highly enough; … [his book] tells the real history of Islam that has regrettably been forgotten and suppressed.« Dirk Pilz, Berliner Zeitung

»This turns out to be one of the best books about Islam in ages and is set to become a classic of cultural studies on par with Edward Said’s Orientalism.« Stefan Weidner, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»Both the non-specialist and the seasoned scholar will come away from this book rethinking at least part of what they thought they know about Islamic culture in its past and present incarnations.« TLS

»Thomas Bauer takes his audience on a delightfully opinionated and provocative journey through premodern Islamic cultural and intellectual history. His apt use of the theoretical lens of ambiguity will make readers look at both premodern and modern Islamic...
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2011, 463 pages
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Thomas Bauer, born in 1961, has been professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic Studies at the University of Münster since 2000. In 2007 he became a board member of the CoE »Religion and Politics« at the University of Münster. From 2002 to 2006 he was the director of the Center for Religious Studies at the University of Münster. From 2006 to 2007 he was a Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study. His research focuses on the history of culture and mentality in the Arabo-Islamic world and on classic Arabic literature.

Thomas Bauer, born in 1961, has been professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic Studies at the University of Münster since 2000. In 2007 he...


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18.12.2012
»This turns out to be one of the best books about Islam in ages and is set to become a classic of cultural studies on par with Edward Said’s Orientalism.« Stefan Weidner,...