Tag: kenan malik’s books

HERE TO STAY, HERE TO FIGHT

March 28, 2012 by Kenan Malik

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a documentary this week by Zaiba Malik on the history of the Asian Youth Movements. For many of us who grew up in 1970s and 1980s, the AYMs were a central feature of our lives. Radical and secular, the movements challenged both the vicious racism that defined Britain in that era and many traditional values too, helping to establish an alternative leadership in Asian communities that confronted the conservatives on issues such as the role of […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: asian youth movement, black identity, britain, british asians, identity politics, kenan malik's books, racism, secularism

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 13]: NIETZSCHE, NIHILISM AND THE DEATH OF GOD

February 12, 2012 by Kenan Malik

In the series of extracts from my almost-finished book on the history of moral thought, I have reached Chapter 14, which is devoted to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. This extract is from the discussion of Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche trained as a philologist, not as a philosopher, and his writing is quite unlike traditional philosophical work, whether the dry, rigorous plodding of an Aristotle or a Kant, or the flights of sometimes barely-intelligible fancy that mark the work […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: christianity, death of god, ethics, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, judaism, kenan malik's books, nietzsche, reason, religion

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 10]: SPINOZA’S ETHICS

November 6, 2011 by Kenan Malik

In the series of extracts I’m running from my still-being-written book on the history of moral thought, I have reached Chapter 11, which explores the ethical claims of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza. The rise of the market economy and the growth of religious scepticism had, by the seventeenth century, corroded the ability of both God and community to warrant moral behaviour. Who or what could now authorize moral rules? This was the question now facing moral philosophers. One answer was […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: descartes, history of moral thought, hobbes, human agency, human nature, kenan malik's books, morality, spinoza

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 9]: MARTIN LUTHER’S ACCIDENTAL REVOLUTION

October 14, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Continuing the series of extracts from the book that I am writing on the history of moral thought, we have reached Chapter 10, which looks at the Renaissance and the Reformation and at the impact of both on moral philosophy. This excerpt is about Martin Luther’s theology and about the ambiguities of the Reformation, an intensely conservative religious reaction against the spirit of reason that Aquinas had introduced into Christianity that was nevertheless also the source of a radically libertarian revolution, the harbinger […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History of moral thought • Tags: anabaptists, christianity, diggers, euthyphro dilemma, kenan malik's books, levellers, martin luther, morality, protestantism, reformation, religion, renaissance, secularism, theology, william ockham

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 8]: DANTE, POET OF THE SECULAR

September 18, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Continuing the series of extracts from the book that I am writing on the history of moral thought, I have reached Chapter 9, a chapter that explores medieval Christian thought, and in particular the work of Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the greatest of Christian theologians. Western Christendom had recently rediscovered Aristotle, largely through translations from the Muslim world. Aquinas found in Aristotle both a reason for, and a means to, transform the traditional relationship between reason and faith in Christian theology. For Augustine and […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: aquinas, aristotle, augustine, christianity, dante, divine comedy, ethics, god, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, kenan malik's books, morality, muslim rationalism, original sin, poetry, religion, secularism, sin, virtues

JASON BURKE ON ISLAMIC MILITANCY

August 23, 2011 by Kenan Malik

British journalist Jason Burke, one of the more perceptive writers on the issues of Islam, Islamism and the war on terror, has chosen five books on Islamic militancy for The Browser. And among the five is From Fatwa to Jihad. A snippet from his interview:

Categories: War on terror • Tags: british asians, british politics, From Fatwa to Jihad, identity politics, islamism, jason burke, jihadism, kenan malik's books, muslims, rushdie affair, terrorism, war on terror

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 7]: ISLAM AND RATIONALISM

August 6, 2011 by Kenan Malik

In the series of extracts I’m running from my still-being-written book on the history of moral thought, I have reached Chapter 8, which explores the struggle between the Rationalists and the Traditionalists in early Islam, and the significance of that struggle not just to Islam but to Christianity and to the development of modern secularism too. The expansion of the Islamic empire from India to Iberia created new political tensions and theological dilemmas. It also created new kinds of administrative […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: al-farabi, al-ghazzali, al-kindi, al-ma'mun, al-mansur, aristotle, christianity, enlightenment, ethics, euthyphro dilemma, falsafah, god, history of moral thought, ibn rushd, ibn sina, judeo-christian tradition, kenan malik's books, mu'tazilite, muslim rationalism, neo-platonism, parmenides, plato, qur'an, religion, theology, via negativa

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 5]: GOD AND EVIL

June 19, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Chapter Five of the book that I am writing on the history of moral thought explores the idea of evil within monotheistic religion. It opens with the Book of Job, in my eyes the most eloquent book in the Bible, and the one that gets to the heart of the problem of evil for a faith that believes in a omnipotent, omniscient, totally benevolent God: how could such a God allow the righteous and the innocent to suffer? Chapter 5 […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History of moral thought • Tags: augustine, bible, blake, book of job, dostoevsky, ethics, evil, god, hiroshima, history of moral thought, irenaeus, kenan malik's books, religion, richard swinburne, theodicy, theology, torture

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 4]: AUGUSTINE, HUMAN NATURE & ORIGINAL SIN

May 8, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Continuing the series of monthly extracts from the book that I am writing on the history of moral thought, here is the fourth excerpt (naturally from Chapter 4). The first three chapters in the book deal with Greek and Hellenistic thought. Chapter 4 begins the discussion of the monotheistic religions, moving from the origins of Judaism to early Christianity (the exploration of Islam comes later). This extract is taken from the section on Augustine, the most important of early Christian […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: augustine, ethics, free will, god, history of moral thought, kenan malik's books, neo-platonism, original sin, pelagius, plato, plotinus, religion, sin

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 3]: ON STOICISM, FREE WILL & FATE

April 5, 2011 by Kenan Malik

My book on the history of moral thought, due to be published next year by Atlantic, is beginning to take shape (I should hopefully have finished writing it by late summer / early autumn). Every month I am posting small sections from the book. This excerpt is from the conclusion of Chapter 3, which begins in Aristotle’s moral thought and ends in Stoicism. THE PHILOSOPHER ZENO WAS ONCE FLOGGING A SLAVE WHO HAD STOLEN SOME goods. ‘But I was fated to […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: aristotle, cosmopolitanism, ethics, eudaimonia, fate, free will, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, kenan malik's books, socrates, stoicism, universalism, virtue ethics

BOOK IN PROGRESS (PART TWO): ON PLATO AND THRASYMACHUS

March 6, 2011 by Kenan Malik

I am currently writing a book on the history of moral thought, which will be published next year by Atlantic. I will from time to time post in Pandaemonium small sections from the book and open it up for discussion. Last month, I published the opening section of Chapter 1. This month’s excerpt is from Chapter 2 which explores the moral thought of Socrates and Plato. Much of the chapter discusses Plato’s masterpiece The Republic, a key work in which the […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: greek philosophy, kenan malik's books, plato, self-interest, thrasymachus

‘NEEDS TO BE ON EVERY EDUCATED PERSON’S READING LIST’

March 4, 2011 by Kenan Malik

So says Charles Larson in Counterpunch about From Fatwa to Jihad: In his astonishing work From Fatwa to Jihad, Kenan Malik… contextualizes the growth of the jihadists in Europe, placing much of the blame on multiculturalism. But first he covers the response to the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in more detail and with more understanding than earlier critics… Rarely has a writer had his work so instantly validated… From Fatwa to Jihad needs to be on every […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Kenan Malik • Tags: From Fatwa to Jihad, kenan malik's books

WORDS AND DEEDS. AND THE SPACE BETWEEN

February 25, 2011 by Kenan Malik

I have had a lot of responses to the extracts from my interview on hate speech and the law, many of which argue that speech that does not directly incite violence but creates a climate in which such violence becomes more probable should be banned. As one respondent put it in a comment thread: If I say that all Moslems, Catholics, homosexuals, vegans, and so on, are terrorists and a danger to the nation, I’m not inciting DIRECTLY to violence, […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: danish cartoons, free speech, From Fatwa to Jihad, hate speech, incitement laws, kenan malik's books, law, rushdie affair

EGYPT’S SECULAR DICTATORS & THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

January 28, 2011 by Kenan Malik

The Egyptian government is clearly attempting to portray the current revolt as the work of the Muslim Brotherhood, in an attempt to retain Western support. ‘It’s me or the Islamists’, Mubarak is in effect telling Western leaders. It’s worth reflecting, therefore, on how successive Egyptian regimes, like so many in the Arab world, have relied on Islamists to restrain popular revolt:

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International • Tags: egypt, From Fatwa to Jihad, gilles kepel, islamism, kenan malik's books, muslim brotherhood, nasser, protests, secularism

A BOOK IN PROGRESS

January 25, 2011 by Kenan Malik

When not idling my time away on Twitter or Pandaemonium, I am writing a book: a history of moral thought, to be published by Atlantic next year. (I am pretty sure of the title, but until it is fixed, it will just remain ‘the book’). The aim of the book is to explore the development of moral thought within its social and historical context and to address the question: Why is it that we live in an age in which we […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: ethics, fate, free will, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, homer, kenan malik's books