Reformation of Islamic Thought

Reformation of Islamic Thought PDF

Author: Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 905356828X

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After September 11, Islam became nearly synonymous with fundamentalism in the eyes of Western media and literature. However widely held this view may be, it is at odds with Islam’s rich political history. Renowned Egyptian scholar Nasr Abû Zayd here considers the full breadth of contemporary Muslim writings to examine the diverse political, religious, and cultural views that inform discourse in the Islamic world. Reformation of Islamic Thought explores the writings of intellectuals from Egypt to Iran to Indonesia, probing their efforts to expand Islam beyond traditional and legalistic interpretations. Zayd reveals that many Muslim thinkers advocate culturally enlightened Islam with an emphasis on individual faith. He then investigates the extent of these Muslim reformers’ success in generating an authentic renewal of Islamic ideology, asking if such thinkers have escaped the traditionalist trap of presenting a negative image to the West. A fascinating and highly relevant study for our times, Reformation of Islamic Thought is an essential analysis of Islam’s present and future.

Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes

Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes PDF

Author: Mehmet Karabela

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-03-30

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1000369811

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Early modern Protestant scholars closely engaged with Islamic thought in more ways than is usually recognized. Among Protestants, Lutheran scholars distinguished themselves as the most invested in the study of Islam and Muslim culture. Mehmet Karabela brings the neglected voices of post-Reformation theologians, primarily German Lutherans, into focus and reveals their rigorous engagement with Islamic thought. Inspired by a global history approach to religious thought, Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes offers new sources to broaden the conventional interpretation of the Reformation beyond a solely European Christian phenomenon. Based on previously unstudied dissertations, disputations, and academic works written in Latin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Karabela analyzes three themes: Islam as theology and religion; Islamic philosophy and liberal arts; and Muslim sects (Sunni and Shi‘a). This book provides analyses and translations of the Latin texts as well as brief biographies of the authors. These texts offer insight into the Protestant perception of Islamic thought for scholars of religious studies and Islamic studies as well as for general readers. Examining the influence of Islamic thought on the construction of the Protestant identity after the Reformation helps us to understand the role of Islam in the evolution of Christianity.

Islamic Thought

Islamic Thought PDF

Author: Taha Jabir Al-Alwani

Publisher: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1565644271

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For the first time, Muslims are faced with a worldwide positivism which is working to use knowledge, the sciences and their discoveries and achievements in a manner which severs the relationship between the Creator, the created universe and man, thereby disregarding the world of the unseen and driving a wedge between science and values. Lacking even the most modest store of vital Islamic doctrine on the intellectual level, university students and researchers in the Islamic world are confronted with doctrines and philosophies which are presented to them together with a flimsy, miserable defense of Islam. There is not a single academic institution in the Islamic world in which Islamic thought is taught and in which the Islamic vision is given a deep-rooted foundation with the same force and persuasiveness with which Western ideas and the Western vision are taught to students in the West, in a coherent, comprehensive manner accompanied by seriousness and commitment on the part of all. The books argues that this approach is diametrically opposed to the Islamic perspective and that we must disengage human scientific achievement from positivistic philosophical premises and reemploy these sciences within a systematic epistemological framework based on divine revelation, conferring honor upon all forms of knowledge, as having been bestowed upon man by their Creator.

Tajdid, Islah and Civilisational Renewal in Islam

Tajdid, Islah and Civilisational Renewal in Islam PDF

Author: Mohammad Hashim Kamali

Publisher: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

Published: 2018-09-15

Total Pages: 55

ISBN-13: 1642052353

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The history of Islamic thought is marked by a continuous tradition of internal revitalisation and reform embedded in the principles of islah, and tajdid. The ultimate purpose has been to bring existing realities and social change in line with the transcendant and universal standard of the Qur’an and Sunnah through a process of restoration and reform. The tradition of islah-tajdid has thus consistently challenged the Muslim status quo and prompted fresh interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah, understood and implemented through the methodologies of interpretation and ijtihad, as well as the rejection of unwarranted accretions to the original messages of Islam. The basic theme of the paper is that civilisational renewal is an integral part of Islamic thought. The paper looks into the meaning, definition and origins of tajdid and islah and their relationship with ijtihad, and how these have been manifested in the writings and contributions of the thought leaders of Islam throughout its history. It also develops tajdid-related formulas and guidelines that should lead the efforts of contemporary Muslims in forging the objectives of inter-civilisational harmony and their cooperationfor the common good.

Revival and Reform in Islam

Revival and Reform in Islam PDF

Author: Bernard Haykel

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-05-27

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9780521528900

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Revival and Reform in Islam is at once an intellectual biography of Muhammad al-Shawkani, and a history of a transitional period in Yemeni history. This was a time when a society dominated by traditional Zaydi Shiism shifted to one characterised instead by Sunni reformism. The author traces the origins and outcomes of this transition, presenting the first systematic account of the ways in which the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reorientation of the Zaydi madhhab, and consequent 'sunnification' of Yemeni society, were intricately linked to tensions within the political realm. In advocating juridical systematization of religious belief and practice, Shawkani espoused a socio-religious order which in its dominant features echoed key aspects of Western modernity. Yet he did so in a context bereft of Western ideational influence. This study then presents a textured account of eighteenth-century Islamic reformist thought and challenges the meaning of modernity in an Islamic context.

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.

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.

Shaykh Murtada Mutahhari

Shaykh Murtada Mutahhari PDF

Author: Khanjar Hamiyyah

Publisher:

Published: 2021-05-28

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781907905117

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Presented here is a general and concise review of the main intellectual, philosophical, and religious elements in the reformation project of Martyr Murtada Mutahhari and the foundations upon which he based his call for the revival of Islamic religious thought. Shaykh Martyr Murtada Mutahhari was a unique personality distinguished from many of his contemporaries for two main reasons. Firstly, the originality and contemporary relevance of his approach. When one surveys the issues covered by Mutahhari, it is as if one is reviewing today's contemporary problems rather than those of the past. He wrote on topics such as divine justice, social justice, Islamic social movements and the Hijab (Islamic veil), amongst others, all of which continue to be pertinent issues that engage the minds of both the young and old. Secondly, the most notable features of Mutahhari are his openness to contemporary issues and his willingness to plunge into the depths of the severe challenges confronting religious thought during his time. What distinguishes Mutahhari from other advocates in this area, however, is that he was simultaneously a reformer and a traditionalist. His defensive role neither drove him towards a closed and introverted outlook nor did his goal of reform lead him to lapse into forsaking core principles. The reader will be left inspired by this unique contribution on the life and thought of perhaps the most extraordinary mind of the 20th century.

Islamic Thought

Islamic Thought PDF

Author: Abdullah Saeed

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-11-22

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1134225644

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Islamic Thought is a fresh and contemporary introduction to the philosophies and doctrines of Islam. Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, traces the development of religious knowledge in Islam, from the pre-modern to the modern period. The book focuses on Muslim thought, as well as the development, production and transmission of religious knowledge, and the trends, schools and movements that have contributed to the production of this knowledge. Key topics in Islamic culture are explored, including the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition, the two foundation texts, the Qur’an and Hadith, legal thought, theological thought, mystical thought, Islamic Art, philosophical thought, political thought, and renewal, reform and rethinking today. Through this rich and varied discussion, Saeed presents a fascinating depiction of how Islam was lived in the past and how its adherents practise it in the present. Islamic Thought is essential reading for students beginning the study of Islam but will also interest anyone seeking to learn more about one of the world’s great religions.

Books-in-Brief: Toward Our Reformation (Italian Language)

Books-in-Brief: Toward Our Reformation (Italian Language) PDF

Author: Mohammad Omar Farooq

Publisher: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 1642053392

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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.