Muslims and Modernity Current Debates

by Bennett, Clinton

• ISBN13: 9780826454829
• ISBN10: 0826454828
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-15
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Can democracy flourish in Muslim society? What does the Qur'an say about women, minorities, human rights? Are Islam and the West on a collision course? After 9/11, much has been written about the inevitability of a clash between Islam and the West, as their worldviews compete for global supremacy. Recent developments have done little to challenge this thesis, or the West's negative image of Islam. The author compares and contrasts contributions from "traditional" and "progressive" Muslims. Voicing at least two Muslim opinions in each area of debate, this book challenges the idea that all Muslims think identically. While Muslims and Modernity is designed primarily for use an undergraduate textbook, reference to accessible Internet material, to literature and to popular as well as scholarly sources will broaden its appeal to a general readership. This book's discussion draws on post-colonial theory, feminist analyses, anthropology, cultural and religious studies, politics and philosophy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Pedagogical Preface	xii
In the public eye	xii
Aims and approach	xiii
A left-right analysis	xvi
Introduction: Voices and Viewpoints	1	(1)
Methodology: virtual insidership	1	(2)
Polarized viewpoints	3	(6)
Media and anti-Islamism	9	(2)
Does Islam threaten the West?	11	(6)
Modernity, Postmodernity and the World of Islam	17	(23)
The crises of modernity	17	(7)
What is modernism?	24	(3)
Postmodernity and Islam	27	(3)
Postmodernism and Marxist analysis	30	(1)
Muslim responses: Akbar Ahmed (1992) and Ziauddin Sardar (1998)	31	(9)
Muslims and Democracy	40	(23)
Democracy - whose version?	40	(2)
Double standards	42	(2)
Four models	44	(2)
Summary of the historical legacy	46	(3)
Mawdudi's model: theo-democracy (centre right)	49	(4)
Rule by an elite: the case of Saudi Arabia	53	(3)
The centre-left's model: Taha's Second Message of Islam	56	(1)
Secular Islam: the far left	57	(4)
Literary case study: Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love	61	(2)
Muslims on Human Rights	63	(22)
An imposition from outside?	63	(2)
Mawdudi and the Muslim right: human rights and Islam	65	(2)
The hizb-ut-tahrir and human rights	67	(1)
The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights (1981)	68	(1)
Bassam Tibi on human rights	69	(4)
An-Na'im on Islam and human rights	73	(3)
Freedom of expression and the limits of dissent: Hisbah	76	(5)
Literary case study: Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album	81	(4)
Muslim Voices on the Qur'an	85	(22)
Common ground	85	(1)
How Muslims view the Qur'an	86	(11)
A multiplicity of voices	97	(4)
Progressive contributions	101	(3)
A contextual approach	104	(3)
Islamic Epistemology	107	(22)
The Islamization of knowledge: supporters and critics	107	(1)
Al-Faruqi: Islam the religion of reason, science and progress	108	(3)
Nasr: the goal of education is to actualize all the possibilities of the human soul	111	(3)
Nasr and Mawdudi: convergence and divergence	114	(1)
Bucaillism: the Qur'an as a scientific text	115	(1)
Sardar: a critique of al-Faruqi and Nasr	116	(4)
Reviving the Mu'tazalite heritage	120	(9)
Muslim Voices on Gender in Islam	129	(27)
Introducing the debate	129	(2)
Mawdudi: equal but different	131	(4)
Feminist Muslim responses	135	(7)
Male contributions	142	(2)
Islamic feminism: human rights and humanist critiques	144	(6)
Literary case study: two Egyptian novels and Alf Laylah Wa Laylah	150	(6)
Non-Muslims in the Muslim World: Voices and Views	156	(21)
Four positions on Islam and non-Muslims	156	(3)
Mawdudi: theory and reality of the classical dhimmi model	159	(5)
The centre left and non-Muslims in an Islamic state	164	(4)
The radical left	168	(5)
Literary case study: Nasrin's Lajja	173	(4)
Muslims as Minorities: Voices and Views	177	(21)
Three strategies	177	(1)
Muslims in non-Muslim territory: what do the founding discourses say?	177	(3)
India: a case study of the three strategies	180	(4)
The confrontational response in Diaspora Islam	184	(1)
The separatist response	185	(3)
The integrationist mode	188	(7)
Literary case study: Monica Ali's Brick Lane	195	(3)
War and Peace in Islam: The Traditional View	198	(21)
Muslim understanding of war and peace	198	(1)
Sayyid Qutb on jihad	198	(7)
Mawdudi's and Qutb's impact on contemporary Muslim life	205	(4)
The case of Palestine	209	(10)
Progressive and Moderate Muslims on War and Peace	219	(21)
Rethinking jihad	219	(1)
Shaltut's treatise on `The Koran and Fighting'	220	(3)
Al-Qaradawi and jihad	223	(3)
Muslims on 9/11	226	(1)
The issue of suicide	227	(1)
Progressive Musims on pacifist Islam	228	(8)
Some non-Muslims respond to 9/11 and Islamic terrorism	236	(4)
Algeria: A Study in Islamic Resurgence, and Bangladesh: Culture v. Islam	240	(17)
Algeria's colonial legacy	240	(1)
Al-Jaza'ir 'Arabiyya wa al-Islam dinuha (Algeria is Arab and Islam is its religion)	241	(1)
Literary case study: Camus's L'Etranger	242	(2)
Post-independence	244	(3)
The demand for autonomy	247	(2)
Democracy as a movable feast	249	(2)
Bangladesh: a case study	251	(6)
Bibliography	257	(20)
Index	277