Sacrifice, Liberalism and the Qurʾān’s Revisionist Reading of the Akeda : An Islamic Contribution to the Political Theology of Democracy

Liberalism and Political Theology

More than thirty years have passed since the publication of Francis Fukuyama’s article, The End of History, in which he argued that the end of the Cold War meant that humanity would universally adopt liberalism as its organizing political ideal (Fukuyama 1989). Over the last twenty years, however, a series of cataclysmic shocks have shaken the roots of the liberal order, causing many to question its continued viability. The cataclysmic events of 9/11, the US invasion of Iraq and the massive destruction it unleashed in its wake, Brexit, and the rise of nationalist (or even fascist) parties in Europe in response to the mass migration of Muslim refugees and other peoples from the global south, the possible dissolution of the European Union, the 2016 election of Trump and the 6 January 2021 insurrection led by his supporters in an attempt to keep him in power despite his election loss to Joe Biden, have called into question whether liberalism itself can endure in the face of what appears to be widespread disenchantment with its ideals. Fukuyama himself even seems to have lost faith: instead of reason leading to the universal adoption of liberalism, identity politics has reasserted itself, or so it seems, as the central political question of our time (Menand 2018).

Other Information

Published in: Behind the Story: Ethical Readings of Qurʾānic Narratives
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
See chapter on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004683167_006