What do you think?
Rate this book
War on Sacred Grounds
Sacred sites offer believers the possibility of communing with the divine and achieving deeper insight into their faith. Yet their spiritual and cultural importance can lead to competition as religious groups seek to exclude rivals from practicing potentially sacrilegious rituals in the hallowed space and wish to assert their own claims. Holy places thus create the potential for military, theological, or political clashes, not only between competing religious groups but also between religious groups and secular actors.
In War on Sacred Grounds, Ron E. Hassner investigates the causes and properties of conflicts over sites that are both venerated and contested; he also proposes potential means for managing these disputes. Hassner illustrates a complex and poorly understood political dilemma with accounts of the failures to reach settlement at Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif, leading to the clashes of 2000, and the competing claims of Hindus and Muslims at Ayodhya, which resulted in the destruction of the mosque there in 1992. He also addresses more successful compromises in Jerusalem in 1967 and Mecca in 1979. Sacred sites, he contends, are particularly prone to conflict because they provide valuable resources for both religious and political actors yet cannot be divided.
The management of conflicts over sacred sites requires cooperation, Hassner suggests, between political leaders interested in promoting conflict resolution and religious leaders who can shape the meaning and value that sacred places hold for believers. Because a reconfiguration of sacred space requires a confluence of political will, religious authority, and a window of opportunity, it is relatively rare. Drawing on the study of religion and the study of politics in equal measure, Hassner's account offers insight into the often-violent dynamics that come into play at the places where religion and politics collide.
In War on Sacred Grounds, Ron E. Hassner investigates the causes and properties of conflicts over sites that are both venerated and contested; he also proposes potential means for managing these disputes. Hassner illustrates a complex and poorly understood political dilemma with accounts of the failures to reach settlement at Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif, leading to the clashes of 2000, and the competing claims of Hindus and Muslims at Ayodhya, which resulted in the destruction of the mosque there in 1992. He also addresses more successful compromises in Jerusalem in 1967 and Mecca in 1979. Sacred sites, he contends, are particularly prone to conflict because they provide valuable resources for both religious and political actors yet cannot be divided.
The management of conflicts over sacred sites requires cooperation, Hassner suggests, between political leaders interested in promoting conflict resolution and religious leaders who can shape the meaning and value that sacred places hold for believers. Because a reconfiguration of sacred space requires a confluence of political will, religious authority, and a window of opportunity, it is relatively rare. Drawing on the study of religion and the study of politics in equal measure, Hassner's account offers insight into the often-violent dynamics that come into play at the places where religion and politics collide.
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 17, 2016
An interesting book, which considers the problems surrounding 'sacred places', but I have found the absoluteness of the core argument slightly unconvincing. Hassner, rightfully, claims that the concept of indivisibility rests on three premises: P1) the place has clear boundaries; P2) the thing loses its value if it is divided; P3) it has irreplaceable value.
It is the third assumption, which, I believe, is problematic.
My counter-argument rests on two premises:
P1) There are many things, which have intrinsic value. ('Intrinsic value' means that the thing is valuable in itself, not merely as a means to achieve something else.) Justice, freedom, security, equality, autonomy and many other values could be on the list. Perhaps, for some religious people, sacred spaces would be on this list too.
P2) None of the things mentioned above can have an absolute value in a relation to other values on the list – it cannot trump everything else under all circumstances.
If both of these are correct, we have to reach a conclusion:
C) The value of a sacred space must be possible to exchange for other values.
And thus, we reach the possible solution to Hassner's dilemma – we must decrease the perceived value of a religious space and increase the perceived value of security/liberty/equality to make the trade-off more appealing. We need to understand what believers value in their lives, and we have to incorporate religious leaders into the whole process as they are the ones who can affect the thinking of their followers. The indivisibility is not insoluble.
It is the third assumption, which, I believe, is problematic.
My counter-argument rests on two premises:
P1) There are many things, which have intrinsic value. ('Intrinsic value' means that the thing is valuable in itself, not merely as a means to achieve something else.) Justice, freedom, security, equality, autonomy and many other values could be on the list. Perhaps, for some religious people, sacred spaces would be on this list too.
P2) None of the things mentioned above can have an absolute value in a relation to other values on the list – it cannot trump everything else under all circumstances.
If both of these are correct, we have to reach a conclusion:
C) The value of a sacred space must be possible to exchange for other values.
And thus, we reach the possible solution to Hassner's dilemma – we must decrease the perceived value of a religious space and increase the perceived value of security/liberty/equality to make the trade-off more appealing. We need to understand what believers value in their lives, and we have to incorporate religious leaders into the whole process as they are the ones who can affect the thinking of their followers. The indivisibility is not insoluble.
April 24, 2024
(3.25) read this for class. he had good arguments. subject wasn't too fun, i miss enjoying books. good research though.
January 8, 2024
It seems to me as though Hassner is too good at thinking first and foremost about religious conflict as political conflict.
Thus he advises resolutions, or provides the analysis of religious conflicts in this book, in such a way as to suggest the framing of future solutions, which looks favorably on religious and political leaders alike who will secularize and make rather more figurative their religious places and postures, preferring abstractions over concrete religion, wherever competing claims regarding the concrete lead to war.
If I summarize what Hassner seems to be saying in this title, the politicians are mostly to blame for wars over sacred places, especially the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet religious figures - rabbis, for instance - who find clever ways to interpret their devotional source material so as to make neutral the contested places, are as close as anyone can be said to be to doing the Lord's work.
What's so uncomfortable and disconcerting about this default posture is that it seems to cynically dispense with religion as merely another means to the end of managing humanity for the modern, secular, humanist, expert class.
Where Hassner bemoans political leaders who have been disrespectful to competing religions, and thus stirred up what he sees as unnecessary turmoil, and he presents in a negative light the same sort of political leaders who fail to understand well even their own professed religion, yet leverage it in an attempt to score political points, the subtle but consistent tone of Hassner's treatment of religion seems to do an arguably worse thing to all religion, in presenting a rather cold, cynical, sterile, disenchanted sameness to all competing truth and justice claims.
Over taking any of the world's leading religions too seriously, except to check the box on all of them as a show of respect to their adherents, what the reader is clearly expected to prefer is the kind of thinking common to The Internationalists' project. See also Oona Hathaway and Scott J Shapiro's work by the same title for more on the backstory for that.
But that is to say, unless I'm badly mistaken, 'War on Sacred Grounds' is not only predicated on the assumptions inherent to that century-long effort chronicled by Hathaway and Shapiro, it is also an attempt to practically apply it in the 21st century. This is geopolitical science, and the managerial class must know how to do their duty to establish world peace.
The only problem is that, though moderates all around may be impressed, each man or woman who really believes his religion to be true in a mutually exclusive way to other religions will be put off, and take it as an insult that the likes of Hassner believe this, that all the religions of the world are to be flattened by the new paradigm of modern scientistic positivism, even with the utmost paternalistic condescension. And if the true believers in their own religions object, the missionaries of modern scientistic positivism like Hassner will just call them extremists, and excuse themselves thereby for breaking off meaningful discourse with them in preference for merely informing them after the fact what decisions have been come to as concerns their heritage.
In theory, this is only the least bad option because much credit is given to the powers of propaganda, and the lure of economic incentives to be gained from rewarding religious moderates. But that is just where the likes of Hassner will say they are being realistic, not cynical.
In practice, the effect in the long-run will be much the same as when European princes bought off the Barbary Pirates and Vikings. At a certain point, unless the raiders are killed or converted, they only come back stronger and more determined after they've spent the cash you gave them last time. "Moderates," real or imagined, can easily reveal themselves to the world as "extremists" as soon as they cease being pacified by bribes.
But then that is to say also that, at the end of the day, there really are only two options to resolve the sort of religious conflicts Hassner is analyzing in this work. Reward those who do what is good, and punish those who do what is evil. Yet to do this, one must have a fixed and persuasive conviction about good and evil which comes from somewhere or someone more authoritative than one's self.
For more miscellaneous thoughts regarding 'War on Sacred Grounds' by Ron E. Hassner, check out this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show podcast.
https://thegarrettashleymulletshow.co...
Thus he advises resolutions, or provides the analysis of religious conflicts in this book, in such a way as to suggest the framing of future solutions, which looks favorably on religious and political leaders alike who will secularize and make rather more figurative their religious places and postures, preferring abstractions over concrete religion, wherever competing claims regarding the concrete lead to war.
If I summarize what Hassner seems to be saying in this title, the politicians are mostly to blame for wars over sacred places, especially the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet religious figures - rabbis, for instance - who find clever ways to interpret their devotional source material so as to make neutral the contested places, are as close as anyone can be said to be to doing the Lord's work.
What's so uncomfortable and disconcerting about this default posture is that it seems to cynically dispense with religion as merely another means to the end of managing humanity for the modern, secular, humanist, expert class.
Where Hassner bemoans political leaders who have been disrespectful to competing religions, and thus stirred up what he sees as unnecessary turmoil, and he presents in a negative light the same sort of political leaders who fail to understand well even their own professed religion, yet leverage it in an attempt to score political points, the subtle but consistent tone of Hassner's treatment of religion seems to do an arguably worse thing to all religion, in presenting a rather cold, cynical, sterile, disenchanted sameness to all competing truth and justice claims.
Over taking any of the world's leading religions too seriously, except to check the box on all of them as a show of respect to their adherents, what the reader is clearly expected to prefer is the kind of thinking common to The Internationalists' project. See also Oona Hathaway and Scott J Shapiro's work by the same title for more on the backstory for that.
But that is to say, unless I'm badly mistaken, 'War on Sacred Grounds' is not only predicated on the assumptions inherent to that century-long effort chronicled by Hathaway and Shapiro, it is also an attempt to practically apply it in the 21st century. This is geopolitical science, and the managerial class must know how to do their duty to establish world peace.
The only problem is that, though moderates all around may be impressed, each man or woman who really believes his religion to be true in a mutually exclusive way to other religions will be put off, and take it as an insult that the likes of Hassner believe this, that all the religions of the world are to be flattened by the new paradigm of modern scientistic positivism, even with the utmost paternalistic condescension. And if the true believers in their own religions object, the missionaries of modern scientistic positivism like Hassner will just call them extremists, and excuse themselves thereby for breaking off meaningful discourse with them in preference for merely informing them after the fact what decisions have been come to as concerns their heritage.
In theory, this is only the least bad option because much credit is given to the powers of propaganda, and the lure of economic incentives to be gained from rewarding religious moderates. But that is just where the likes of Hassner will say they are being realistic, not cynical.
In practice, the effect in the long-run will be much the same as when European princes bought off the Barbary Pirates and Vikings. At a certain point, unless the raiders are killed or converted, they only come back stronger and more determined after they've spent the cash you gave them last time. "Moderates," real or imagined, can easily reveal themselves to the world as "extremists" as soon as they cease being pacified by bribes.
But then that is to say also that, at the end of the day, there really are only two options to resolve the sort of religious conflicts Hassner is analyzing in this work. Reward those who do what is good, and punish those who do what is evil. Yet to do this, one must have a fixed and persuasive conviction about good and evil which comes from somewhere or someone more authoritative than one's self.
For more miscellaneous thoughts regarding 'War on Sacred Grounds' by Ron E. Hassner, check out this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show podcast.
https://thegarrettashleymulletshow.co...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews