Islamic Traditions and Comparative Modernities

Abstract

From 25-26 September 2009, Thomas Jefferson’s academic village in Charlottesville, the University of Virginia (UVA), hosted the Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference of theAssociation of Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS). Cosponsored by the university’s Department of Religious Studies and the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, presenters and participants discussed “Islamic Traditions and Comparative Modernities.” In his opening remarks, Conference Chair Abdulaziz Sachedina (Frances Myers Ball Professor of Religious Studies, UVA) underlined the deliberate choice of traditions and modernities in the title to acknowledge the multiplicity of these experiences in current academic disciplines.AMSS presidentAli Mazrui (Binghamton University), the second opening speaker, focused on modernity, modernization, democratization, globalization, secularization, and other related concepts, all of which were invented and defined by the West and are part of the dilemma of Islam’s confrontation with it. Expanding upon globalization’s various forms, he opined that its dominant category was comprehensive globalization, which represents all of the forces that have brought societies together in a globalized village. He concluded by stating that he was proud to launch this conference with the agenda of this changing dynamic of the present century ...