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This presentation addresses the emergence of non-religious and non-ulema-centric notions of good governance, opening vistas for new conversations in political thought and empire studies. Taking a critical stance toward the over-emphasis on Islam as framework of intellectual history, this monograph decenters the colonial-Eurocentric and Islamist narratives to offer a provocative reconsideration of key strands of political discourse in Abbasid intellectual history.
In his book, Dr. Yücesoy argues that political discourse in the caliphal world diverged in the mid-eighth century into two contending visions: the imamate or the religious governance of the ulema and siyāsa or the “secular” politics of lay bureaucrat literati. As competing discourses, siyāsa and imamate performed dissimilar work in the formation of a political subject and authorized two distinct conceptions of political power.
Hayrettin Yücesoy has a B.A from Istanbul University and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Trained as a historian, he works on the premodern history of the Middle East, focusing on the Abbasid Empire (750-1258 C.E.). His publications engage in debates about empire, political messianism, visions of social order, secularity, inter-imperial connections, and the politics of cross-cultural encounters. Over the course of his career, he has published 3 monographs and numerous articles. His most recent monograph, Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought, was published by Columbia University Press in 2023. He is also in the process of completing a monograph tentatively titled On Good Governance: Two Discourses of Politics in Early Islam, where he provides a critical Arabic edition and annotated English translation of two pioneering political tracts composed for the Abbasid caliphs in the mid-eighth century C.E. with supporting material that includes intellectual biographies of their authors and an interpretive essay on the caliphate.