The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a postcolonial novel that, in this essay, is argued to challenge and question the colonial stereotypes which came into greater focus after 9/11 in America. The challenge is carried out via the narrator’s identity struggle by displaying the different stereotypes he is subjected to. The quiet listener to the narrator’s monologue, together with the reader’s part in creating and making sense of the novel also contributes towards challenging these stereotypes. The East and West are set against each other, displaying how both have harsh and generalizing views of the other.

The body exposes violence by mirroring it, stripping it of its metaphysics, ideology, and teleology. Using the colonizer/colonized, master/slave and lord/bondsman dialectics to frame our discussion, we tell the story of the annihilated body, and what is left or not left in the wake of destruction. To do so, we posit that the annihilated body is the productive effect of structural violence and structural power acting in concert. They are able to occupy the same space, in contradiction to Marx and Hegel’s theory of the power of negation, and be thoroughly damaging because of the moralizing which often accompanies the violations. The annihilated body we focus on here is restricted to Frantz Fanon’s black body, as discussed in Black Skin White Masks, The Wretched of the Earth and A Dying Colonialism and Hamid Dabashi’s brown body, as discussed in Brown Skin White Masks, Corpus Anarchum and Islamic Liberation Theology. We use these two authors and their particular entry points into examining issues of dispossession, post-humanism and redemption. To do so, we rely on a Nietzschean framework with which to interpret their discussion, while allowing Michel Foucault’s interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s prose to influence our analytical lens. / Graduate

Originally published as the author's Thesis--Freiburg Universität, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Originally published as the author's Thesis--Freiburg Universität, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Originally published as the author's thesis--Freiburg Universität, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also issued online.

Mitunter wird dem Islam im öffentlichen Diskurs eine prinzipielle Inkompatibilität mit modernen Werten und einer säkularen Gesellschaftsordnung unterstellt. Dabei gibt es islamische Positionen, die eine Verbindung von Moderne und Säkularität mit dem Islam fordern. Eine wird von dem ägyptischen Literatur- und Islamwissenschaftler Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid vorgebracht, bekannt geworden für seine Ausarbeitung einer historisch-kritischen Koranhermeneutik. Mit einer Quellenanalyse wird in dieser Arbeit untersucht, wie Abu Zaid die Rolle des Islam in der Moderne bestimmt. Besonderer Fokus liegt dabei auf seinen Konzepten von Moderne, Säkularität und Religion. Den Hintergrund für die Analyse bieten Theorien zu vielfältigen Modernen und Säkularitäten. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass Abu Zaid die Probleme islamischer Länder in der Moderne in der Verbindung von Religion mit Politik und Recht verortet. Um den Islam auf einer individuellen und spirituellen Ebene zu bewahren, fordert er eine säkulare Gesellschaftsordnung. Gestützt werden seine Forderungen durch Bezüge zur islamischen Ideengeschichte. Rationalität, Säkularität und moderne Werte werden so innerislamisch begründet. Vor dem Hintergrund islamischer Reform im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert deuten die Ergebnisse auf einen prinzipiellen Wandel hin. Reformern im 19. Jahrhundert ging es vorrangig darum, in islamischen Ländern an den technischen und wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt der Moderne anzuknüpfen. Im 20. Jahrhundert geht es vermehrt um die philosophischen und ethischen Fundamente der Moderne. Dadurch wird auch die Rolle des Islam Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts neu verhandelt. Dies gibt über den islamischen Kontext hinaus Aufschluss über die Rolle und den Wandel von Religion in der Moderne.:1 Einleitung 2 Theoretischer Hintergrund 3 Islam und Moderne im historischen Kontext 4 Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid 5 Religion und Moderne bei Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid 6 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 7 Fazit und Ausblick 8 Literaturverzeichnis

This thesis examines in depth the thought and ideas of the Egyptian intellectual Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd as a representative of modernist Isalmic thought. In unpacking and analysingAbu Zayd’s ideas, this thesis focuses on five major issues: shari‘a, Islam and politics, the Arab-Islamic heritage, history, and the issue of women’s rights. This thesis argues that Abu Zayd’s thought suffers from some of the same weaknesses he attacked in traditional and Islamist thought. By focusing on Abu Zayd I not only contribute to understanding a major intellectual in contemporary Islamic thought but also shed light on his wider intellectual family.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves: [56]-[58])

Orientador: Carlos Arthur Ribeiro do Nascimento / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T01:47:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Verza_TadeuMazzola_D.pdf: 16646602 bytes, checksum: de4b43a0ee813196f1bd05a8d62d1712 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004 / Resumo: Esta tese é uma análise da primeira discussão do Tahãfut al-tahãfut de Averróis (1126-1198), que trata da pré-eternidade do mundo. O Tahãfut consiste num comentário refutatório ao Tahãfut al-falãsifa de al-Ghazali (1058-1111), obra que, na primeira discussão, visa refutar a posição dos filósofos em favor da pré-etemidade do mundo. Esta tese, portanto, não apenas analisa a defesa de Averróis da pré-etemidade do mundo, mas também sua posição frente aos argumentos de Ghazali, que defendem a criação do mundo a partir do nada e refutam sua pré-etemidade. Pretende-se, também, mostrar que o modo pelo qual Averróis visa defender os argumentos dos filósofos é o fio condutor da primeira discussão / Abstract: This thesis is an examination of the first discussion of Averroes' Tahãfut altahãfut about the pre-eternity of the world. The Tahãfut is a commentary that refutes AI-Ghazali's Tahãfut al-falãsifa, which intends in the first discussion to refute the philosophers' defense of the pre-etemity of the world. Therefore, this thesis analyses not only Averroes' defence of the pre-etemity of the world, but also his position on Ghazali's arguments defending the creation of the world out of nothing and refuting its pre-eternity. It is also intended to show that the way Averroes defends the argument of the philosophers is the conductive thread of the first discussion / Doutorado / Filosofia / Doutor em Filosofia

This dissertation analyzes the shape and scope of the virtuous life as it is made possible by and oriented toward God in the thought of two of the most consequential philosophical and theological thinkers in Christianity and Islam, Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) and Abu Hamid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), respectively. My analysis reveals that they share a commitment to the importance and reality of divine agency in shaping human moral action but sharply diverge in their vision of what constitutes a good human life. I argue that attending to these convergences and divergences in their ethics presents contemporary scholars and practitioners with a wide set of resources to theorize or navigate questions and challenges related to loving God, living well, and making moral decisions. This dissertation is a work of comparative theological ethics and engages in historical and rational reconstruction alike. I analyze Aquinas’s and al-Ghazālī’s central arguments on their own terms before extending them into contemporary conversations about divine agency, human happiness, and love. I clarify ongoing disputes about virtue in Aquinas scholarship by arguing for the compatibility of the acquired and infused moral virtues through a more robust appreciation of his account of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the beatitudes. I also contribute to burgeoning analyses of al-Ghazālī’s neglected account of virtue by arguing that his varied use of terms like good character traits (khulq), states of the soul (aḥwāl), and stations (maqāmāt) are united by his commitments to habituation and to his conception of happiness as grounded in the love of God alone. I argue that al-Ghazālī’s insights regarding eternal happiness can inform ongoing debates about the compatibility of acquired and infused moral virtues in Aquinas scholarship and can help Christian theologians and practitioners better appreciate the necessity of the presence of both kinds of virtue in the Christian moral life. I utilize Aquinas’s well-developed account of the infused theological virtue of charity (caritas) to illumine al-Ghazālī’s station of love (maḥabba) as a virtuous activity that can structure a moral way of life oriented toward the end of knowing and loving God. Aside from its contributions to our understanding of these figures and these dimensions of moral thought and life, this dissertation also demonstrates the value of comparison more generally as a tool to clarify debated and neglected concepts in moral philosophy and theology, to enrich ethical deliberation, and to deepen love of God and neighbor. / 2026-05-16T00:00:00Z