Wednesday CSI seminar

István T. Kristó-Nagy
Stagnation or Stability: Applying an Evolutionary Approach to the History of Islamic Civilisation

Abstract:
This talk starts with the claim that patterns of evolution are not less relevant for the humanities and social sciences than they are for biology, thus, scholars of the humanities and social sciences can use evolutionary theories and contribute to their evolution.
The second part outlines a theory of evolution applicable to the humanities and social studies including our vision on the evolution of Islamic civilisation. In my opinion, the dominant present approaches to the history of Islamic civilisation are shaped by a modern world view developed in the West that equates evolution with progress and emphasises the value of innovation, originality and change. This is in opposition to the common premodern ideal to maintain the divine order conceptualising change usually as corruption. For the sake of overcoming both premodern and modern biases, we must realise that they are themselves products of historical evolution, and that evolution and change are neither intrinsically good nor evil.
Micro-Bio
István T. Kristó-Nagy is a Senior Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies of the University of Exeter. He has published on Islamic social and intellectual history, political and religious thought, advice literature and art. His approach is comparative and interdisciplinary enquiring biological, psychological and social patterns lying behind political and religious ideas expressed in literary and artworks.
His publications include:
La pensée d’Ibn al-Muqaffaʽ. Un « agent double » dans le monde persan et arabe, Éditions de Paris, 2013.
Volumes I and II, co-edited with Robert Gleave, of the series “Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought”, Edinburgh University Press:
Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qurʾān to the Mongols, 2015.
Violence in Islamic Thought from the Mongols to European Imperialism, 2017.
He is working on various studies on Ibn al-Muqaffaʽ’s oeuvre and a monograph co-authored with Dr Zohar Hadromi-Allouche exploring views on the Devil in Islamicate and comparative contexts. Working title: ‘Satan is with the individual’: The liminal and ambiguous Devil.
https://arabislamicstudies.exeter.ac.uk/staff/kristo-nagy/