Postmodernism and Islam

by Akbar Ahmed

Can West and East ever understand each other? In this extraordinary book one of the world's leading Muslim scholars explores an area which has which has been almost entirely neglected by scholars in the field - the area of postmodernism and Islam. This landmark work is startling, constantly perceptive and certain to be debated for years to come.

Genres: Islam, Religion, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Anthropology

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Akbar Salahuddin Ahmed, is a Pakistani-American academic, author, poet, playwright, filmmaker and former diplomat. He currently holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and is Professor of International Relations at the American University in Washington, D.C.Immediately prior, he taught at Princeton University as served as a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He also taught at Harvard University and was a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Anthropology. Ahmed was the First Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. In 2004 Ahmed was named District of Columbia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. A former Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland, Ahmed was a member of the Civil Service of Pakistan and served as Political Agent in South Waziristan Agency and Commissioner in Baluchistan. He also served as the Iqbal Fellow (Chair of Pakistan Studies) at the University of Cambridge. An anthropologist and scholar of Islam. He completed his MA at Cambridge University and received his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He has been called "the world's leading authority on contemporary Islam" by the BBC.

Reviews

[Zulhilmi Zakaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Penulisan secara antropologis memang agak sukar difahami bagi mereka yang bukan berlatarbelakangkan pendidikan pengajian sosial. Kajian antropologi itu perihal pengajian manusia atau sains kemanusiaan. Jadi segala apa yang menjadi pekerjaan, cara berfikir, apa yang dilihat dan dibaca oleh masyarakat perlu diambil kira.

Dr. Akhbar S. Ahmed merupakan seorang antropologis keluaran School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) di Amerika Syarikat.

Buku ini buku yang menarik untuk dibaca bagi mereka yang sedang mendalami sekitar wacana kesesuaian Islam dalam dunia moden. Malah, modenisasi tidak terbehenti setakat itu, wacananya sekarang sudah diambil oleh pascamodenisasi. Banyak ilmuwan pascamodenisasi seperti Derrida dengan Dekontrustionisme, Foucalt, Lyotard, dan ramai lagi.

Dari sudut garis masa, pascamodenisasi bermula pada pertengahan abad ke-20, jika kita amati kondisi tengah abad terakhir ini, ia melambangkan sifat berputus asa pemikir-pemikir dengan arus kemodenan. Melihatkan kesan Perang Dunia ke-2 yang mengorbankan jutaan nyawa, agama sudah hilang kemampuan dalam mendidik masyarakat, dan lain-lain lagi.

Buku ini juga terdiri daripada beberapa bab, Dr. Akhbar memulakannya dulu dengan memberi definisi serta keterangan akan elemen pascamoden. Bab seterusnya diteruskan lagi dengan topik Greek Gods and Semitic Prophets yang mengisarkan elemen fundamental tamadun Barat yang berasakan budaya Greek, dan tamadun Islam atau tradisi keagamaan yang lain yang mempercayai tentang kewahyuan dan kenabian.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although now somewhat dated, Ahmed’s work offers an excellent and balanced introduction to the tensions between Islam and postmodernity. While emphasizing the current impact of globalization and the media, this study also traces the historical contrast between Greek and Semitic thought and its significance in regards to contemporary Muslim reactions to postmodernism. B+

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It takes jeans and Madonna to understand Islam today. At least that is Akbar Ahmed's argument as he tries to sketch out the contours of the postmodern world, and within it situates the West and Islam as different reactions to a world of mirrors, paradoxes, cynicism, and disintegration. Using anthropological sensitivities, Ahmed argues that to understand Muslims one must first grasp the age of postmodernism we all live in, and from it one traces the opportunities, anxieties, and antipathies the postmodern world has offered and inflicted on Muslims.

The strength of this book lies in its eloquent writing, boundless consultation of (pop-cultural) evidence, and an uncanny perceptiveness that is able to link the political to the cultural, scripture to history, consumerist media to religious lifeworlds. Ahmed strives to make sense of the postmodern even if it defies sense. Leaving no prisoners, he satirises the satirical and deconstructs the deconstructing. He does so by juggling the complex realities (of Muslims and non-Muslims alike) that left Islam and the West, oddly, in a position of binary opposition, nurtured as much by historical experiences as it is by irreconcilable misunderstandings. His critique is sweeping, his tone unforgiving, yet he never surrenders to fatalism but rather fashions this book as a bridge instead of an indictment in hopes of better intercultural understanding and tolerance.

As kaleidoscopic as this intellectual tapestry is, the book does not lose sight of the puzzle in mind, never succumbing to distractions that are so typical of the postmodern world. The author intends to write about postmodernism and Islam and did just that, with great care to point out what postmodernism can offer Islam and vice versa, instead of painting a picture of bleak anachronism between the iconoclastic and sacred. Dated the book may be, in this world hypercharged by screens, memes, and viral news, one can only but appreciate a macro-account like this. For it is through a creative, wandering eye and impeccable intertextual command that one can address the paradox of postmodernism: a world defined by connectivity while shredded by the disconnecting possibilities of spaces, terms, symbols and images shared.

[Leonardo]

La embestida anti-moderna que define a los fundamentalismos puede ser entendida mejor, entonces, no como un proyecto premoderno, sino posmoderno. La posmodernidad del fundamentalismo debe ser reconocida primariamente en su rechazo de la modernidad en tanto arma de la hegemonía Euro–Americana–y en este sentido el fundamentalismo Islámico es paradigmático. En el contexto de las tradiciones Islámicas el fundamentalismo es posmoderno en la medida que rechaza la tradición del modernismo Islámico para la cual la modernidad estaba siempre codificada como asimilación o sumisión a la hegemonía Euro–Americana. “Si por moderno se entendió la búsqueda de educación, tecnología e industrialización Occidentales en el primer momento del período poscolonial”, escribe Akbar Ahmed, “posmoderno significará una reversión hacia los valores Musulmanes tradicionales y el rechazo del modernismo”.

Imperio Pág.115