Keywords

Arab Religious and Political Discourse

Abstract

The Clash of Civilization thesis by Samuel Huntington and the claims of other scholars such as Bernard Lewis reinforced the impression in the West that the Arab world is a homogeneous and rigid entity ready to clash with other civilizations. In fact, some in the West argue that world civilizations have religious characteristics, for that reason the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will be primarily cultural and religious. However, other scholars argue that there is no single Islamic culture but rather multiple types of political Islam and different perception of it. Therefore, the monolithic aspect of Islam is no longer a credible argument. Furthermore, they assert that there are many examples of harmonious relations between countries that came from different civilization than those of the same civilization. The Purpose of my thesis is to investigate whether there is actually a diversity and plurality of thoughts within the contemporary Arab discourse. Research was conducted through a qualitative that was made possible during a careful exploration of the biography and the scholarly work of many scholars with diverse cultural tone and beliefs; mainly through Arabic primary sources that were translated by the author. The principal finding was that all tendencies were and are present within the political culture of the Islamic and Arab world, from the extreme left to the extreme right. Yet, the political scene looks chaotic, tense and leaving many important questions unanswered.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2009

Advisor

Sadri, Houman A.

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Political Science

Degree Program

Political Science

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0002949

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002949

Language

English

Release Date

November 2010

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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