Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

In the introduction, the editors explain that the main motivation for producing this volume is that, in the course of the last century or so, the Muslim world has experienced unprecedented change to its societies and cultures that, in turn, has had a tremendous impact upon its intellectual life. The Muslim world’s encounter with modernity has been a source of tension that has turned “Islamic discourse in the twentieth century into a crisis” (p. 3). In devising a framework for what they call the “dialectical relationship” between twentieth-century Islamic thought and modernity, Suha Taji-Farouki and Basheer Nafi have resolved to construct their account around three themes: the emergence of new spokespersons, the diversity of twentieth-century Muslim discourse, and the connections and disruptions between Islamic thought and the rest of “the global intellectual arena” (p. 5). With regards to the first theme, the key observation is that a new type of intellectual, one who is not part of the ulama’ class, has taken center stage. The lack of consensus and almost “complete fragmentation” of present-day Islamic thought is attributed to the external challenges that the Muslim world has faced for the last 200 years. In fact, contemporary Islamic thought mirrors the very nature of modernity: the loss of certainty, challenged values, relativism, and an Islamdom – formerly assumed to be invincible – that has been shaken to its inner core. An interesting observation made in this respect is “the blurring of the contours between expressions of Islamic intellectualism and the academic study of Islam” (p. 11). As a result of their encounter with western scholarship, Muslim intellectuals felt increasingly compelled to respond to what they saw as Orientalist distortions. However, as area study experts, social scientists, and specialists from the humanities – among them increasing numbers of Muslim scholars – began to study Islam, it became possible to discern a “meeting of the minds.” ...