Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities

by Aziz Al-Azmeh

This study outlines the main features of the theory and practice of political power in Muslim polities in the Middle Ages against the background of Near Eastern traditions of kingship, particularly Hellenistic, Persian, and Byzantine. The early Arab-Muslim polity is treated as an integral part of late Antiquity and the book explores the way in which older traditions were transposed into Islamic form and given specifically Islamic textual sanction.

Genres: Islam, Religion, History

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 1997

About the author

Aziz Al-Azmeh was born in Damascus. He received the PhD in Oriental Studies from University of Oxford. He is currently University Professor at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His other works include Keywords, Islam in Europe, Ibn Khladun, and The Times of History.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Al-Azmeh's work on kingship suffers from being excessively succinct at times, as well as unnecessarily occulting its objectives. Beautiful in points, though certainly not universally applicable, this is nonetheless a thorough if not exhaustive examination of the periodization of sacral Islamic kingship.