God, Science, and Self: Muhammad Iqbal's Reconstruction of Religious Thought (Volume 1)

by Nauman Faizi

Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) was one of the most influential modernist Islamic thinkers of the early twentieth century. His work as a poet, politician, philosopher, and public intellectual was widely recognized in his lifetime and plays a major role in contemporary conversations about Islam, modernity, and tradition.God, Science, and Self examines the patterns of reasoning at work in Iqbal's philosophic magnum opus, arguably the most significant text of modernist Islamic philosophy, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Since its initial publication in 1934, The Reconstruction has left scholars in a its themes appear eclectic, and its arguments contradictory and philosophically perplexing. In this groundbreaking study, Nauman Faizi argues that the keys to demystifying the contradictions of The Reconstruction are two competing epistemologies at play within the work. Iqbal takes knowledge to be descriptive, essential, foundational, and binary, but he also takes knowledge to be performative, contextual, probabilistic, and vague. Faizi demonstrates how these approaches to knowledge shape Iqbal's claims about personhood, God, scripture, philosophy, and science.God, Science, and Self offers an original approach to interpreting Islamic thought as it crafts relationships between scriptural texts, philosophic thought, and scientific claims for modern Muslim subjects.

Genres: Islam

176 pages, Paperback

Published August 15, 2021

Reviews

[Omar Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I know the author, so there is always that, but I think Nauman has done a superb job of analyzing and explaining Allama Iqbal's philosophical views. I am hoping to write a real review when i get the time, but for now I will say that it is a MUST READ for anyone interested in Iqbal. The man played a huge r0le in mobilizing and motivating islamists in the Indian subcontinent and his verses are frequently the only poems an average madressa student can recite from memory, but he as a contradictory and complex figure. His Jihadi ideals were only part of his deal. This book covers the other half.