Freedom, Modernity, and Islam

Freedom, Modernity, and Islam PDF Author: Richard K. Khuri
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815626985
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Freedom, Modernity, and Islam provides a discussion of the philosophical origins of the notions of freedom in both a Western and Islamic context. Richard K. Khuri maintains that our standard theories of modernization do not fully explain the global resurgence of fundamental religion. Only with a new analysis of freedom, using Western and non-Western sources, can we have a spontaneous synthesis that will inspire genuine freedom for all individuals and societies in the Arab-Muslim world. In the West, in post-Enlightenment times, the definition of freedom has shrunk; it is now irreducibly enmeshed with narrow notions of rationality and a "morality" of self-interest. He challenges this conception and explicates other dimensions of freedom: quality, transcendence, and the conditions under which community might enhance freedom. Khuri then applies that analysis to his examination of the status of freedom in the Arab Muslim world, past and the present. He determines which ideas have led to the considerable lack of freedom that marks many Middle Eastern societies today.

Freedom, Modernity, and Islam

Freedom, Modernity, and Islam PDF Author: Richard K. Khuri
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815626985
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 440

Get Book

Book Description
Freedom, Modernity, and Islam provides a discussion of the philosophical origins of the notions of freedom in both a Western and Islamic context. Richard K. Khuri maintains that our standard theories of modernization do not fully explain the global resurgence of fundamental religion. Only with a new analysis of freedom, using Western and non-Western sources, can we have a spontaneous synthesis that will inspire genuine freedom for all individuals and societies in the Arab-Muslim world. In the West, in post-Enlightenment times, the definition of freedom has shrunk; it is now irreducibly enmeshed with narrow notions of rationality and a "morality" of self-interest. He challenges this conception and explicates other dimensions of freedom: quality, transcendence, and the conditions under which community might enhance freedom. Khuri then applies that analysis to his examination of the status of freedom in the Arab Muslim world, past and the present. He determines which ideas have led to the considerable lack of freedom that marks many Middle Eastern societies today.

Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty

Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty PDF Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393081974
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
“A delightfully original take on…the prospects for liberal democracy in the broader Islamic Middle East.”—Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal As the Arab Spring threatens to give way to authoritarianism in Egypt and reports from Afghanistan detail widespread violence against U.S. troops and women, news from the Muslim world raises the question: Is Islam incompatible with freedom? In Islam without Extremes, Turkish columnist Mustafa Akyol answers this question by revealing the little-understood roots of political Islam, which originally included both rationalist, flexible strains and more dogmatic, rigid ones. Though the rigid traditionalists won out, Akyol points to a flourishing of liberalism in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and the unique “Islamo-liberal synthesis” in present-day Turkey. As he powerfully asserts, only by accepting a secular state can Islamic societies thrive. Islam without Extremes offers a desperately needed intellectual basis for the reconcilability of Islam and liberty.

Religious Freedom in Islam

Religious Freedom in Islam PDF Author: Daniel Philpott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190908203
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Since at least the attacks of September 11, 2001, one of the most pressing political questions of the age has been whether Islam is hostile to religious freedom. Daniel Philpott examines conditions on the ground in forty-seven Muslim-majority countries today and offers an honest, clear-eyed answer to this urgent question. It is not, however, a simple answer. From a satellite view, the Muslim world looks unfree. But, Philpott shows, the truth is much more complex. Some one-fourth of Muslim-majority countries are in fact religiously free. Of the other countries, about forty percent are governed not by Islamists but by a hostile secularism imported from the West, while the other sixty percent are Islamist. The picture that emerges is both honest and hopeful. Yes, most Muslim-majority countries are lacking in religious freedom. But, Philpott argues, the Islamic tradition carries within it "seeds of freedom," and he offers guidance for how to cultivate those seeds in order to expand religious freedom in the Muslim world and the world at large. It is an urgent project. Religious freedom promotes goods like democracy and the advancement of women that are lacking in the Muslim-majority world and reduces ills like civil war, terrorism, and violence. Further, religious freedom is simply a matter of justice--not an exclusively Western value, but rather a universal right rooted in human nature. Its realization is critical to the aspirations of religious minorities and dissenters in Muslim countries, to Muslims living in non-Muslim countries or under secular dictatorships, and to relations between the West and the Muslim world. In this thoughtful book, Philpott seeks to establish a constructive middle ground in a fiery and long-lasting debate over Islam.

Tradition and Modernity

Tradition and Modernity PDF Author: David Marshall
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1589019822
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Tradition and Modernity focuses on how Christians and Muslims connect their traditions to modernity, looking especially at understandings of history, changing patterns of authority, and approaches to freedom. The volume includes a selection of relevant texts from 19th- and 20th-century thinkers, from John Henry Newman to Tariq Ramadan, accompanied by illuminating commentaries.

Freedom

Freedom PDF Author: Lucinda Mosher
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1647121280
Category : RELIGION
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The essays, historical and scriptural texts, and reflections in Freedom: Christian and Muslim Perspectives consider how these two faith communities have historically addressed freedom, providing needed context for deeper understanding of interfaith relations from ancient to modern times.

New Thinking in Islam

New Thinking in Islam PDF Author: Katajun Amirpur
Publisher: Gingko Library
ISBN: 190994274X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In Rethinking Islam, Katajun Amirpur argues that the West’s impression of Islam as a backward-looking faith, resistant to post-Enlightenment thinking, is misleading and—due to its effects on political discourse—damaging. Introducing readers to key thinkers and activists—such as Abu Zaid, a free-thinking Egyptian Qur’an scholar; Abdolkarim Soroush, an academic and former member of Khomeini’s Cultural Revolution Committee; and Amina Wadud, an American feminist who was the first woman to lead the faithful in Friday Prayer—Amirpur reveals a powerful yet lesser-known tradition of inquiry and dissent within Islam, one that is committed to democracy and human rights. By examining these and many other similar figures’ ideas, she reveals the many ways they reject fundamentalist assertions and instead call for a diversity of opinion, greater freedom, and equality of the sexes.

Freedom and Orthodoxy

Freedom and Orthodoxy PDF Author: Anouar Majid
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804749817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This book argues that the “clash of civilizations” that is supposed to be a feature of the post-Cold War environment is not necessarily caused by the dogma of world religions or cultural incompatibilities but by the inflexible and hegemonic universalisms that have characterized world history since 1492—a cultural outlook that Majid terms post-Andalusianism. The all-encompassing worldviews of Euro-American ideologies have resulted in the retreat of Islam and other non-European traditions into dangerous orthodoxies and a growing climate of suspicion, fear, and terror. Freedom and Orthodoxy offers an alternative to perennial discord, suggesting that the world needs a philosophy of the “provincial,” one that reattaches individuals and societies to their heritages and memories but connects them to the rest of the world in solid, non-alienating, meaningful ways. For this to happen, Majid contends, globalization must be reimagined as a network of human solidarities and rigorous conversations across the world’s multiple cultures, not as a mechanical process of economic expansionism.

Islam and Modernity

Islam and Modernity PDF Author: N. Hanif
Publisher: Sarup & Sons
ISBN: 9788176250023
Category : Islam
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
The Present Title Is A Descriptive Analysis Of The Nature, Motivation And Changes In Islam In Modern Indian Perspectives. It Has Been Studied From Three Point Of Views Metaphysical Institutional And Historical. Metaphysical Studies Deals With The Concept Of Truth And Its Ultimate Destiny, However Institutional Study Involves In Mode Of Belief And Worship. Both Studies Are Challenged By Modern Islamic Historians. All Islamic Modernists Have Raised Question Mark On The Traditional Islamic Thought And Theology. The Creation Of New Values And Preservation Of Old Tradition Has Created Some Problem Among Islamic Modernists. In Context Of Indian Muslims, Such A Fresh Outlook By Indian Islamic Scholars, Is Absolutely Essential For Giving Enlightment And Guidance Of Lay Muslims, Who Stand Totally Confused By The Antagonistic Ideas.

Reason, Freedom, & Democracy in Islam

Reason, Freedom, & Democracy in Islam PDF Author: ʻAbd al-Karīm Surūsh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195158202
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Soroush and his contemporaries in other Moslem countries are shaping what may become Islam's equivalent of the Christian Reformation: a period of questioning traditional practices and beliefs and, ultimately, of upheaval.".

Why, as a Muslim, I Defend Liberty

Why, as a Muslim, I Defend Liberty PDF Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 1952223180
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Islam, the second largest religion in the world, has several authoritarian interpretations today that defy human freedom—by executing “apostates” or “blasphemers,” imposing religious practices, or discriminating against women or minorities. In Why, as a Muslim, I Support Liberty, Mustafa Akyol offers a bold critique of this trouble, by frankly acknowledging its roots in the religious tradition. But Akyol also shows that Islam has “seeds of freedom” as well—in the Qur'an, the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and the complex history of the Islamic civilization. It is past time, he argues, to grow those seeds into maturity, and reinterpret Islamic law and politics under the Qur'anic maxim, “No compulsion in religion.” Akyol shows that the major reinterpretation Islam needs now is similar to the transformation that began in Western Christianity back in the 17th century, with the groundbreaking ideas of classical liberal thinkers such as John Locke. The author goes back and forth between classical liberalism and the Islamic tradition, to excavate little-noticed parallels, first highlighted by the “Islamic liberals” of the late Ottoman Empire, unknown to many Muslims and non-Muslims today. In short chapters, Akyol digs into big questions. Why do Muslims need to “reform” the Sharia? But is there something to “revive” in the Sharia as well? Should Muslims really glorify “conquest,” or rather believe in social contract? Is capitalism really alien to Islam, which has a rich heritage of free markets and civil society? Finally, he addresses a suspicion common among Muslims today: What if liberty is a mere cover used by Western powers to advance their imperialist schemes? With personal stories, historical anecdotes, theological insights, and a very accessible prose, this is the little big book on the intersection of Islam and liberty.