Final Report Summary - TICMP (Tolerance in Contemporary Muslim Practice: Political Theory Beyond the West)
The project "Tolerance in Contemporary Muslim Polities: Political Theory Beyond the West" brought together a detailed empirical focus on the lives of a precarious population group- migrants and refugees from the tribal areas of Pakistan into the major urban centres of Lahore and Islamabad- with an ambitious interest in Islamic political thought to open the field of political theory to new methodological, regional and substantive questions.
Bringing together insights generated from the oral histories collected as part of this project with investigations into the political thought of two influential Islamic thinkers, Abul Ala Maududi and Javed Ghamidi, this research has led to a fundamental questioning of notions of tolerance. By highlighting an alternative conception of tolerance as social practice rather than political rights and drawing upon a long lineage within the Islamic tradition, this research has engaged seriously with the relationship between tolerance and justice that the Islamic tradition of thought and practice insists upon. The project was also successful in building a broad and active network of scholars working in the emerging field of comparative political theory under the auspicies of the London Comparative Political Theory group that the PI organized alongwith colleagues from LSE and SOAS.
Bringing together insights generated from the oral histories collected as part of this project with investigations into the political thought of two influential Islamic thinkers, Abul Ala Maududi and Javed Ghamidi, this research has led to a fundamental questioning of notions of tolerance. By highlighting an alternative conception of tolerance as social practice rather than political rights and drawing upon a long lineage within the Islamic tradition, this research has engaged seriously with the relationship between tolerance and justice that the Islamic tradition of thought and practice insists upon. The project was also successful in building a broad and active network of scholars working in the emerging field of comparative political theory under the auspicies of the London Comparative Political Theory group that the PI organized alongwith colleagues from LSE and SOAS.