Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism

by Muhammad Qasim Zaman

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. The debates, marked by extensive engagement with Islam's foundational texts and legal tradition, afford vital insights into the ongoing contestations on religious authority and on evolving conceptions of Islam in the Muslim public sphere. This wide-ranging study by a leading scholar of Islamic intellectual history provides the depth and the comparative perspective necessary for an understanding of the ferment that characterizes contemporary Islam.

Genres: Islam, Nonfiction

374 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2012

Reviews

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age" is necessarily limited in scope. Clearly, any attempt to exhaustively catalog the full spectrum of unsettled issues in Islamic religious/social/political thought, along with the complete range of opinion on each issue, is impossible. Nevertheless, I was a little disappointed with the foci that Zaman chose in this volume. I felt that readers learned a great deal about the views of Rashid Rida, Yusuf Qaradawi, and Ubaidullah Sindhi (along with how Sindhi felt about Wali Allah), but that Zaman's work outside these scholars was unfortunately a little scanty. I would rather have seen a discussion of fewer areas of tension in Islamic thought along with reviews of a greater expanse of scholars' opinions.

All that said, Zaman chose an excellent array of critical 21st century issues for discussion, including education, the role of women in society, socioeconomic justice, and violence and terrorism. Moreover, Zaman's writing is surprisingly interesting given the potentially dull subject matter, and while that doesn't make "Modern Islamic Thought" a page-turner, it does keep things moving reasonably well.

Finally, note that "Modern Islamic Thought" would only be even marginally interesting to readers with fairly extensive background in Islamic issues and scholarly treatment of those issues throughout the 19th and 20th century. Cursory familiarity with mainstream medieval scholars would also be beneficial. For readers lacking such prerequisites, this book would be very, very boring.