Journal ArticleDOI
Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East
TLDR
The right to religious freedom is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of secular-liberal democracies, one that guarantees the peaceful coexistence of religiously diverse populations as discussed by the authors, and it is the cornerstone of a tolerant and civilized polity.Abstract:
The right to religious freedom is widely regarded as a crowning achievement of secular-liberal democracies, one that guarantees the peaceful coexistence of religiously diverse populations. Enshrined in national constitutions and international laws and treaties, the right to religious liberty promises to ensure two stable goods: (1) the ability to choose one's religion freely without coercion by the state, church, or other institutions; and (2) the creation of a polity in which one's economic, civil, legal, or political status is unaffected by one's religious beliefs. While all members of a polity are supposed to be protected by this right, modern wisdom has it that religious minorities are its greatest beneficiaries and their ability to practice their traditions without fear of discrimination is a critical marker of a tolerant and civilized polity. The right to religious freedom marks an important distinction between liberal secularism and the kind practiced in authoritarian states (such as China, Syria, or the former Soviet Union): while the latter abide by the separation of religion and state (a central principle of political secularism), they also regularly abrogate religious freedoms of their minority and majority populations. Despite claims to religious neutrality, liberal secular states frequently regulate religious affairs but they do so in accord with a strong concern for protecting the individual's right to practice his or her religion freely, without coercion or state intervention.read more
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MonographDOI
Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism
TL;DR: Menchik et al. as discussed by the authors argue that Indonesia's Islamic organizations sustain the country's thriving civil society, democracy, and reputation for tolerance amid diversity, yet scholars poorly understand how these organizations envision the accommodation of religious difference.
Posted Content
Productive Intolerance: Godly Nationalism in Indonesia
TL;DR: The authors suggest that Indonesia contains a common but overlooked example of "godly nationalism," an imagined community bound by a shared theism and mobilized through the state in cooperation with religious organizations.
The Reformation Suits: Litigation as Constitution-Making in a German Imperial Court, 1521-1555
TL;DR: Ludin et al. as mentioned in this paper provide a socio-legal history of Reformation-related litigation that appeared in the Imperial Chamber Court prior to the 1555 Augsburg Religion-Peace, and show that legal praxis, of performative speech acts, and of experimentation in high-stakes contexts are just as important, if not more important, than politics and doctrine for understanding the legal significance of the Reformation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Productive Intolerance: Godly Nationalism in Indonesia
TL;DR: The authors suggest that Indonesia contains a common but overlooked example of "godly nationalism", an imagined community bound by a shared theism and mobilized through the state in cooperation with religious organizations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Sectarian conflict and family law in contemporary Egypt
TL;DR: This paper examined the relationship between family law, gender, and sectarian conflict through an examination of both the history of the emergence of Egyptian family law and the simultaneous relegation of religion and sexuality to the private sphere in the modern period.
References
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Book
The Origins of Totalitarianism
TL;DR: Essai philosophique en trois parties, the premiere sur lantisemitisme, the deuxieme sur l'imperialisme a la fin du XIXe s, the troisieme sur le totalitarisme stalinien et nazi as discussed by the authors.
Book
Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy
TL;DR: This book discusses constitutional structures and new States in the Nineteenth Century, as well as theories of Institutions and International Politics, and concludes that not all states are created equal.
Book
The Well-protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876-1909
TL;DR: The Well-Protected Domains as discussed by the authors provides a unique view of the workings of the late Ottoman Empire, showing how the Ottoman state grappled with the challenges of the modernity then changing the world.
Book
The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922
TL;DR: The Ottoman Empire was one of the most important non-western states to survive from medieval to modern times, and played a vital role in European and global history as mentioned in this paper, and it continues to affect the peoples of the Middle East, the Balkans and central and western Europe to the present day.