On the connection between Islamic sacred texts and Muslims' political conduct: The Israeli dominant elites' conception

Issam Aburaya*, Hisham Abu-Raiya

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

This essay provides an empirically grounded and theoretically informed examination of Israeli elites' discourse on Islam, in general, and its conceptualization of the relationship between Islamic sacred texts and the political conduct of Muslims, in particular. It argues that the Israeli elites' discourse, for the most part, is not only unhistorical and lacking in a sociological basis, but, most importantly, emphasizes Islamic religious texts while reducing their Muslim readers into uniquely choiceless beings. This conceptualization, we contend, leads to unnecessary and unjustifiable theoretical inconsistencies concerning the broader topic of the relationship between human agency and religious texts. We conclude by suggesting that the above mentioned Israeli discourse teaches us less about what Islam and Muslims 'really are' than it does about the Israeli self-idealized image as members of a secular western society and the desires and anxieties this image expresses and represses.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)101-115
Number of pages15
JournalMiddle East Journal of Culture and Communication
Volume5
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012

Keywords

  • Islam
  • Israeli elites
  • Muslims
  • political conduct
  • representation

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