Research-in-progress
Caliphs, Ulama, and Rebels: The Cult of Authority in Islam
Monograph-in-progress, currently under review with Oxford University Press
Abstract
Why do the States kill their citizens? Or, what propels state violence and the suppression of political dissents? By emphasising the Islamicate world I argue that the durability of state violence, which is mainly the result of the state/authority’s fear of the transformative power of the population, can be explained via (new)interpretations of the 14th-century historian ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn K̲h̲aldūn’s thought. Ibn K̲h̲aldūn claimed that states were fundamentally established and consolidated upon violent and repressive foundations, or what I call the K̲h̲aldūnian trilogy of ʿasabiyya, al-shāwkāh, and al-ghālābāh wa al-qāhr (i.e., the dominant groups, force majeure, repression and domination). Moreover, Ibn K̲h̲aldūn claimed that the main tool that constituted and consolidated the authority of the ʿasabiyya has been the excessive use of violence and coercion. This violence took two main intertwined forms: (1) physical, which was conducted by the police and the army; (2) discursive, via the systematic process of securitization and politicization of Sharia rules and law.
Keywords: Authority, Legitimacy, State Violence, Nation-Building, Ibn K̲h̲aldūn, Empires, Islam.