Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence

Sacred kingship has been a dominant political form throughout history, and this book explores the relationship between religion and politics from a long-term and global comparative perspective. It distinguishes between immanentism and transcendentalism, which shape kings into divinized or righteous rulers, and discusses the struggle between these tendencies in secular modernity. The book includes chapters on religion and kingship in various historical contexts, such as ancient Egypt, classical Greece, medieval Islam, Mughal India, modern European drama, and ISIS.

Format: Hardback
Length: 408 pages
Publication date: 10 May 2022
Publisher: Columbia University Press

For much of world history, sacred kingship has been the dominant political structure in small-scale societies and vast empires. This collaborative and interdisciplinary book reexamines the relationship between religion and politics by examining this institution from a long-term and global comparative perspective.

Editors A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern provide a theoretical framework for understanding sacred kingship, which leading scholars reflect on and respond to in a series of essays. They distinguish between two distinct but complementary religious tendencies: immanentism and transcendentalism, which shape kings into divinized or righteous rulers, respectively. While immanence demands priestly and cosmic rites from kings to sustain the flourishing of life, transcendence shifts the focus to salvation and subordinates rulers to higher ethical objectives.

Secular modernity does not eliminate the struggle between immanence and transcendence—flourishing and righteousness—but rather displaces it from kings onto nations and individuals.

After an essay by Marshall Sahlins that spans from the Pacific to the Arctic, the book includes chapters on religion and kingship in settings as diverse as ancient Egypt, classical Greece, medieval Islam, Mughal India, modern European drama, and ISIS.

Sacred Kingship in World History offers fresh insights into how religion has shaped rulership, with implications reaching across global history, religious studies, political theory, and anthropology.

Dimension: 235 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231204163