Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 182 pages
• Published by: University Of Chicago Press May 15, 1984
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0226702847
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0226702841
• Book Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Weighs: 8 ounces

Product Description
"As Professor Fazlur Rahman shows in the latest of a series of important contributions to Islamic intellectual history, the characteristic problems of the Muslim modernists—the adaptation to the requirements of the contemporary situation of a holy book which draws its specific examples from the conditions of the seventh century and earlier—are by no means new. . . . In Professor Rahman's view the intellectual and therefore the social development of Islam has been impeded and distorted by two interrelated errors. The first was committed by those who, in reading the Koran, failed to recognize the differences between general principles and specific responses to 'concrete and particular historical situations.' . . . This very rigidity gave rise to the second major error, that of the secularists. By teaching and interpreting the Koran in such a way as to admit of no change or development, the dogmatists had created a situation in which Muslim societies, faced with the imperative need to educate their people for life in the modern world, were forced to make a painful and self-defeating choice—either to abandon Koranic Islam, or to turn their backs on the modern world."—Bernard Lewis, New York Review of Books

"In this work, Professor Fazlur Rahman presents a positively ambitious blueprint for the transformation of the intellectual tradition of Islam: theology, ethics, philosophy and jurisprudence. Over the voices advocating a return to Islam or the reestablishment of the Sharia, the guide for action, he astutely and soberly asks: What and which Islam? More importantly, how does one get to 'normative' Islam? The author counsels, and passionately demonstrates, that for Islam to be actually what Muslims claim it to be—comprehensive in scope and efficacious for every age and place—Muslim scholars and educationists must reevaluate their methodology and hermeneutics. In spelling out the necessary and sound methodology, he is at once courageous, serious and profound."—Wadi Z. Haddad, American-Arab Affairs

Reader Reviews
This small work is essential reading for understanding Islam. The previous review suffices, but I just wanted to add a note about the work's content. During my first reading, I thought that the work was overly bogged down with a discussion of education and its development throughout Pakistan, Turkey, etc. However, upon a second reading, I found this to be the most profound and impactful section of the work, as this is the locus of the true reform of Islam and its true modernization will occur. Thus, this work is partly a late scholar's dream for the future of his religion. Though at the same time, it is deeply grounded in history and its realities.