God's Rule : Government and Islam Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought is a book written by scholar and historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 of early Islam Patricia Crone

Patricia Crone

Patricia Crone, Ph.D., is a scholar, author, Orientalist, and historian of early Islamic history working at the Institute for Advanced Study. She established herself as a major challenger to the established narrative of the early history of Islam.- Career :Patricia Crone completed her...

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God's Rule : Government and Islam provides a detailed analysis on the origins and development of Islamic religio-political practices and thought from the 7th to the 13th century. The author chronicles the development of the Islamic concept of Jihad

Jihad

Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...

, the justifications devised for ideological imperialisms, the debates about the subjugation of non-Muslims, and rulings toward forced conversions as well as views on the persecution of dissidents and non-conforming Muslims and the sanctioning of killings in dealing with such situations.

Contents

Part One: The Beginnings

• 1. The Origins of Government
• 2. The First Civil War and Sect Formation
• 3. The Umayyads

Part Two: The Waning of the Tribal Tradition, c.700-900

• 4. General
• 5. The Kharijites
  Kharijites
  Kharijites is a general term embracing various Muslims who, while initially supporting the authority of the final Rashidun Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law and cousin of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, then later rejected his leadership...
  
  
• 6. The Mu'tazili
  Mu'tazili
  ' is an Islamic school of speculative theology that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad, both in present-day Iraq, during the 8th–10th centuries. The adherents of the Mu'tazili school are best known for their having asserted that, because of the perfect unity and eternal nature of God,...
  
  tes
• 7. The Shi'ites of the Umayyad Period
• 8. The 'Abbasids and Shi'ism
• 9. The Zaydis
• 10. The Imamis
• 11. The Hadith Party

Part Three Coping with a Fragmented World

• 12. General
• 13. The Persian
  Persian literature
  Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
  
   Tradition and Advice Literature
• 14. The Greek
  Ancient Greece
  Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
  
   Tradition and 'Political Science'
• 15. The Ismailis
• 16. The Sunnis

Part Four: Government and Society

• 17. The Nature of Government
• 18. The Functions of Government
• 19. Visions of Freedom
• 20. The Social Order
• 21. Muslims and Non-Muslims

(a) Infidels

Infidels

Infidels is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 22nd studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1983.Produced by Mark Knopfler and Dylan himself, Infidels is seen as his return to secular music, following a conversion to Christianity and three evangelical, gospel records...

(b) Muslims as Infidels

• 22. Epilogue: Religion, Government and Society Revisited