A Challenge to Islam for Reformation

A Challenge to Islam for Reformation PDF

Author: Günter Lüling

Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 654

ISBN-13: 9788120819528

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As a Protestant theologian and diciple of renowned critics of Christianity, Albert Schweitzer and Martin Werner, the Author wanted since long to contribute to the breakthrough of their resolute nontrinitarian position which has throughout the twentieth century by all and every Western Christian university theology been silenced by pretending tacitly and tenaciously the non-existence of their strong argument.

Heretic

Heretic PDF

Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2015-03-24

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 006233395X

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Continuing her journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a post at Harvard, the brilliant, charismatic and controversial New York Times and Globe and Mail #1 bestselling author of Infidel and Nomad makes a powerful plea for a Muslim Reformation as the only way to end the horrors of terrorism, sectarian warfare and the repression of women and minorities. Today, she argues, the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims can be divided into a minority of extremists, a majority of observant but peaceable Muslims and a few dissidents who risk their lives by questioning their own religion. But there is only one Islam and, as Hirsi Ali shows, there is no denying that some of its key teachings—not least the duty to wage holy war—are incompatible with the values of a free society. For centuries it has seemed as if Islam is immune to change. But Hirsi Ali has come to believe that a Muslim Reformation—a revision of Islamic doctrine aimed at reconciling the religion with modernity—is now at hand, and may even have begun. The Arab Spring may now seem like a political failure. But its challenge to traditional authority revealed a new readiness—not least by Muslim women—to think freely and to speak out. Courageously challenging the jihadists, she identifies five key amendments to Islamic doctrine that Muslims have to make to bring their religion out of the seventh century and into the twenty-first. And she calls on the Western world to end its appeasement of the Islamists. “Islam is not a religion of peace,” she writes. It is the Muslim reformers who need our backing, not the opponents of free speech. Interweaving her own experiences, historical analogies and powerful examples from contemporary Muslim societies and cultures, Heretic is not a call to arms, but a passionate plea for peaceful change and a new era of global toleration. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, with jihadists killing thousands from Nigeria to Syria to Pakistan, this book offers an answer to what is fast becoming the world’s number one problem.

Toward an Islamic Reformation

Toward an Islamic Reformation PDF

Author: Abdullahi Ahmed An Na'im

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2019-01-31

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0815650450

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Toward an Islamic Reformation is an ambitious attempt to modernize Islamic law, calling for reform of the historical formulations of Islamic law, commonly known as Shari'a that is perceived by many Muslims to be part of the Islamic faith. As a Muslim, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is sensitive to and appreciative of the delicate relationship between Islam as a religion and Islamic law. Nevertheless, he considers that the questions raised here must be resolved if the public law of Islam is to be implemented today. An-Na'im draws upon the teachings and writings of Sudanese reformer Mahmoud Mohamed Taha to provide what some have called the intellectual foundations for a total reinterpretation of the nature and meaning of Islamic public law.

The Challenge of Modernizing Islam

The Challenge of Modernizing Islam PDF

Author: Christine Douglass-Williams

Publisher: Encounter Books

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 164177021X

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The entire foreign policy and much of the domestic policy of the United States and other Western governments is based on the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and peaceful, including those who are emigrating in large numbers to Europe and North America. But as Islamist groups and many mosques radicalize peaceful Muslims and appeal to the teachings of the Koran, Hadith, and Sunnah, it is imperative for moderates and reformists to articulate a vision of Islam and an exegesis of Islamic texts that can withstand the challenge of Islamists and the ulema who have declared the sanctity and immutability of the text. Instead, they must reestablish a firm foundation of Islam that is modernized, genuinely peaceful, tolerant, pluralistic, and compatible with secular governance, the freedom of speech, human rights, and equality. The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is the first major effort to provide that foundation. Veteran journalist Christine Douglass-Williams interviews foremost moderate and reformist Muslims in the Western world. She asks them tough questions about how they deal with problematic Koran passages, how they intend to get their message across to the Muslim world, and more. Their answers are revelatory, even in the ways in which they disagree with one another. Douglass-Williams has captured the Islamic Reformist movement in its full intellectual ferment, laying bare the tensions and triumphs of the Reformers. In the book's second half, she adds a crucial series of searingly honest and illuminating reflections on the challenges the reformers face, the chances they have of succeeding, and the implications of their struggle for the future of the Western world and of all free people. Illuminating, engaging, and thought-provoking, The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is an essential text for understanding the future of the United States and the West, and the implications of Muslim moderates' struggle for the free world.

The Trouble with Islam

The Trouble with Islam PDF

Author: Irshad Manji

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1429906936

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"I have to be honest with you. Islam is on very thin ice with me....Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?" In blunt, provocative, and deeply personal terms, Irshad Manji unearths the troubling cornerstones of mainstream Islam today: tribal insularity, deep-seated anti-Semitism, and an uncritical acceptance of the Koran as the final, and therefore superior, manifesto of God. In this open letter to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, Manji asks arresting questions. "Who is the real colonizer of Muslims - America or Arabia? Why are we all being held hostage by what's happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis? Why are we squandering the talents of women, fully half of God's creation? What's our excuse for reading the Koran literally when it's so contradictory and ambiguous? Is that a heart attack you're having? Make it fast. Because if more of us don't speak out against the imperialists within Islam, these guys will walk away with the show." Manji offers a practical vision of how the United States and its allies can help Muslims undertake a reformation that empowers women, promotes respect for religious minorities, and fosters a competition of ideas. Her vision revives Islam's lost tradition of independent thinking. This book will inspire struggling Muslims worldwide to revisit the foundations of their faith. It will also compel non-Muslims to start posing the important questions without fear of being deemed "racists." In more ways than one, The Trouble with Islam is a clarion call for a fatwa-free future.

Misquoting Muhammad

Misquoting Muhammad PDF

Author: Jonathan A.C. Brown

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-08-07

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1780744218

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AN INDEPENDENT BEST BOOKS ON RELIGION 2014 PICK Few things provoke controversy in the modern world like the religion brought by Prophet Muhammad. Modern media are replete with alarm over jihad, underage marriage and the threat of amputation or stoning under Shariah law. Sometimes rumor, sometimes based on fact and often misunderstood, the tenets of Islamic law and dogma were not set in the religion’s founding moments. They were developed, like in other world religions, over centuries by the clerical class of Muslim scholars. Misquoting Muhammad takes the reader back in time through Islamic civilization and traces how and why such controversies developed, offering an inside view into how key and controversial aspects of Islam took shape. From the protests of the Arab Spring to Istanbul at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and from the ochre red walls of Delhi’s great mosques to the trade routes of the Indian Ocean world, Misquoting Muhammad lays out how Muslim intellectuals have sought to balance reason and revelation, weigh science and religion, and negotiate the eternal truths of scripture amid shifting values.

Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights

Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights PDF

Author: Abdulaziz Sachedina

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-11-05

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0199741697

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In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the International Declaration of Human Rights, a document designed to hold both individuals and nations accountable for their treatment of fellow human beings, regardless of religious or cultural affiliations. Since then, the compatibility of Islam and human rights has emerged as a particularly thorny issue of international concern, and has been addressed by Muslim rulers, conservatives, and extremists, as well as Western analysts and policymakers; all have commonly agreed that Islamic theology and human rights cannot coexist. Abdulaziz Sachedina rejects this informal consensus, arguing instead for the essential compatibility of Islam and human rights. He offers a balanced and incisive critique of Western experts who have ignored or underplayed the importance of religion to the development of human rights, contending that any theory of universal rights necessarily emerges out of particular cultural contexts. At the same time, he re-examines the juridical and theological traditions that form the basis of conservative Muslim objections to human rights, arguing that Islam, like any culture, is open to development and change. Finally, and most importantly, Sachedina articulates a fresh position that argues for a correspondence between Islam and secular notions of human rights.

Islam and the Challenge of Civilization

Islam and the Challenge of Civilization PDF

Author: Abdelwahab Meddeb

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2013-06-03

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0823251233

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"This is the perfect handbook for deepening our understanding of both the incredible richness through time and the paradoxical present obtuseness of Islamic culture. Meddeb achieves this feat--how clear knowledge can disarm belligerent interpretations of a paradoxical faith--through his elegant and polyphonic use of Qu'ranic exegesis, advanced literary poetics, and a strong sense of democratic citizen politics, all of which are informed by a profound cosmopolitanism able to simultaneously draw on Ibn Arabi's eclectic sufism and Voltaire's secular intellect, among many other sources. A necessary exploration, a must read."--Pierre Joris, author of The University of California Book of North African Literature "It is more urgent than ever to allow a voice such as Meddeb's to be heard, the voice of an Arab intellectual familiar with both Muslim civilization and Western culture. In this--and thanks to his immense knowledge and open-mindedness--he is a precious translator capable of seeing both sides at the same time."--Marcel Henaff ". . . an important contribution to knowledge because it gives eloquent voice to a modern Muslim thinker who rejects the narrow legalism of the Wahhabi tradition of Saudi Arabia or the Puritanism of the Egyptian Muslim Brethren."--Patrick J. Ryan S.J., Fordham University.

Books-in-Brief: Toward Our Reformation

Books-in-Brief: Toward Our Reformation PDF

Author: Mohammad Omar Farooq

Publisher: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 1565646746

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It is the author’s contention that at the heart of the Muslim predicament lies ignorance and/or lack of commitment to core Islamic values, thus what is advocated throughout this work is a return to what is termed a “value-oriented” approach. We further learn that with the passage of time what we today consider to be the Shariah is in effect an original hub enveloped in a labyrinthine shroud of scholastic views and deductions hindering Muslim development, and to rely on fraudulent hadith and fallacious implementation of hudud law is not only to betray the spirit of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s message, but a disastrous exercise. Consequences being blatant abuse of the Muslim populace under cover of implementing a bogus Shariah. This abuse and misapplication is explored throughout the work.

Answering Jihad

Answering Jihad PDF

Author: Nabeel Qureshi

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2016-03-08

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 031053139X

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From New York Times bestselling author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus Nabeel Qureshi—a former Muslim—comes his deeply personal, challenging, and respectful answer book to the many questions surrounding jihad, the rise of ISIS, and Islamic terrorism. San Bernardino was the most lethal terror attack on American soil since 9/11, and it came on the heels of a coordinated assault on Paris. There is no question that innocents were slaughtered in the name of Allah and in the way of jihad (meaning warfare against the enemies of Islam, in this case). But do the terrorists' actions actually reflect the broader religion of Islam? The answer to this question is more pressing than ever, as many Muslim refugees are still migrating to the West, seeking shelter from the violent ideologies of ISIS, Al-Qaida, and other radical Islamic groups. Setting aside speculations and competing voices, Qureshi explores the answers to difficult questions like: What is Islam, and is it a religion of peace or violence? Is there a clear definition and doctrine of jihad? How are we to understand jihad and radical expressions of Islam in relation to our Muslim neighbors and friends? Why is there such a surge of Islamist terrorism in the world today, and how should we respond? How does jihad compare with Old Testament calls to warfare? In Answering Jihad, bestselling author Nabeel Qureshi answers these urgent questions from the perspective of a former Muslim who is deeply concerned for both his Muslim family and his American homeland.