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Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age

Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age

Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age

Religious Authority and Internal Criticism
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Princeton University, New Jersey
October 2012
Available
Paperback
9781107422254

    Among traditionally educated scholars in the Islamic world there is much disagreement on the crises that afflict modern Muslim societies and how best to deal with them, and the debates have grown more urgent since 9/11. Through an analysis of the work of Muhammad Rashid Rida and Yusuf al-Qaradawi in the Arab Middle East and a number of scholars belonging to the Deobandi orientation in colonial and contemporary South Asia, this book examines some of the most important issues facing the Muslim world since the late nineteenth century. These include the challenges to the binding claims of a long-established scholarly consensus, evolving conceptions of the common good, and discourses on religious education, the legal rights of women, social and economic justice and violence and terrorism. This wide-ranging study by a leading scholar provides the depth and the comparative perspective necessary for an understanding of the ferment that characterizes contemporary Islam.

    • A leading intellectual examines the crisis currently afflicting modern Muslim society through the work of its religious scholars and thinkers, past and present
    • Debates include some of the most pressing issues facing the Muslim world today: religious education, women, justice and jihad
    • Pioneering work which follows in the footsteps of scholars, Hourani and Enayat, for students of Islamic law, history and religion

    Reviews & endorsements

    "Few books will shape the subfield of Islamic studies in the manner that Muhammad Qasim Zaman's refreshing interpretation of traditional religious thought in the modern period promises to do … Inspired by Zaman's example, future scholarship dedicated to Islamic law and society will render the field a great service by also taking the hermeneutical battles to some of the narratives generated by macro-political and economic conditions that impact Muslim practices and ideas."
    Ebrahim Moosa, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

    See more reviews

    Product details

    October 2012
    Paperback
    9781107422254
    374 pages
    227 × 151 × 20 mm
    0.48kg
    1 map
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Introduction
    • 2. Rethinking consensus
    • 3. The language of Ijtihad
    • 4. Contestations on the common good
    • 5. Bridging traditions: madrasas and their internal critics
    • 6. Women, law, and society
    • 7. Socioeconomic justice
    • 8. Denouncing violence: the ambiguities of a discourse
    • 9. Epilogue: the paradoxes of internal criticism.
      Author
    • Muhammad Qasim Zaman , Princeton University, New Jersey

      Muhammad Qasim Zaman is Robert H. Niehaus '77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion at Princeton University, New Jersey. He is the author of Religion and Politics under the Early Abbasids and The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, among other works.