Islam's Predicament with Modernity : Religious Reform and Cultural Change

ISBN-13: 9780415484718 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 407 str.

Bassam Tibi

Opis

This book presents an in-depth cultural and political analysis of the issue of political Islam as a potential source of tensions and conflict, and how this might be peacefully resolved. Looking at modernity from an Islamic point of view, the author analyses issues such as law, knowledge and human rights.

Islam is one of the great religions with universal claims. Unlike Christianity, which underwent a process of reformation and secularisation, Islam has yet to fully accommodate modernity. It is argued this is because the latter is based on a separation of religion and politics, which in turn presents a challenge and a predicament for Muslims’ worldview.

Bassam Tibi presents a cultural and political analysis of this predicament and how it might be peacefully resolved. He shows how a combination of globalization and political issues can produce conflict and tension both at the local as well as the international level. Using an interdisciplinary approach the author also analyses issues such as law, knowledge and human rights as well as the current situation in selected states. The book rejects the approaches of both Orientalists and apologists and instead calls for a genuine Islamic pluralism that accepts the equality of others.

Spis treści

Introduction: Cultural Tensions, Modernity, Globalization, and Conflict  1. The Predicament: The Exposure to Cultural Modernity, and the Need for an Accommodation. Religious Reform and Cultural Change in Islamic Civilization  2. Issue Areas of the Predicament I: Modernity and Knowledge. Torn Between Reason and Islamization  3. Issue Areas of the Predicament II: Cultural Modernity and Law. The Contemporary Reinvention of Shari’a for the Shari’atization of Islam  4. Issue Areas of the Predicament III: Islam, the Principle of Subjectivity and Individual Human Rights  5. Islam’s Predicament as a Source of Conflict. Cultural-Religious Tensions and Identity Politics  6. Cultural Change and Religious Reform I: The Challenge of Secularization in the Shadow of De-Secularization  7. Cultural Change and Religious Reform II: Pluralism of Religions vs. Islamic Supremacism  8. Authenticity and Cultural Legacy. The Revival of the Heritage of Islamic Rationalism: Falsafa/Rational Philosophy vs. Fiqh-Orthodoxy  9. Case Studies I. The Failed Cultural Transformation in Egypt: A Model for the World of Islam?  10. Case Studies II. The Gulf Beyond the Age of Oil: The Envisioned Cultural Project for the Future  11. Conclusions and Future Prospects. Cultural Modernity and the Islamic Dream of Semi-Modernity.  Conclusions

O autorze

Bassam Tibi is Professor of International Relations at the University of Goettingen and A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University