Reframing the Political Community (raʿiyya) in Premodern Islamic Thought

ACGIS Lecture with Visiting Scholar Lilian Abou Tabickh

Wednesday, November 18, 2026 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST
Horizon Hall, 3225

Abstract:

Resistance to oppression in the Arab world continues to surprise many in the scholarly community. Failure to predict such events has prompted debates about the questions, assumptions, and methodological approaches adopted in studying the region. Scholarship has focused on regime stability and the persistence of undemocratic rulers, while continuing to position the Arab world outside, or behind, processes of democratic transition, treating the region as though it remained within a “premodern” political condition. Within this framework, people appear primarily as “subjects” of political authority rather than as political actors capable of collective action and resistance. This talk will examine conceptions of the “political community” (raʿiyya) in the premodern Islamic intellectual tradition to explore how it was situated within political relations and to offer a contextual understanding of raʿiyya that reframes our understanding of political action.

 

Bio:

Lilian Abou-Tabickh, Ph.D. is a Visiting Scholar at the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Her research focuses on Islamic political thought and intellectual history, particularly political authority, governance, and the political community in premodern Arabic thought.