Islamic Modernities In World Society

This book combines sociological theorising with studies on the Middle East and Islam. The diversity of modernities that can be observed in our world is linked to the claim of living in a global modernity, in a world society. The book underpins this claim with numerous excursions into Islamic history. It criticises the view that modernisation can be equated with westernisation and considers different projects of specifically Islamic modernities as integral parts of world society. From this perspective, the study contributes to the "provincialisation" of European history in contemporary social scientific thought. Contrary to the theories of postcolonialism associated with the call for the provincialisation of Europe, however, this book adheres to essential traditions of classical sociology. It thus aims to make a contribution to the social theoretical discussion on modernity, which is empirically underpinned with the help of data from the history of the Middle East and Islam. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Offers a new understanding of the relation between Islam and modernity, informed by social theory

This book gives an account of the ways in which Islamic traditions have contributed to the construction of modern Muslim selfhoods. They underpin Eisenstadt’s argument that religious traditions can play a pivotal role in the historically different interpretations of modernity.

This book combines contemporary discussions on modernity with the history of the Muslim world. From a heuristic perspective, it is sketching out a framework for a global sociology of modernity. This framework attempts to accommodate a core assumption of classical modernization theory – the global nature of modernity – with the pluralistic perspective of the rise of a multiplicity of historically concrete forms of modernities. It tries to reconcile a universalistic concept of modernity with the fact of modernity’s multiple historical realizations. At the same time, this discussion of contemporary social theory puts forward a critique of the still so conveniently applied equation of modernization with Westernization. In empirical terms, the book substantiates this critique in drawing its exemplary illustrations from the historical experience of Muslim peoples. Bringing Muslim history and discussions in social theory together, this book represents a synthesis of research efforts in sociology and Islamic studies.

The conflict between fundamentalist Islam and the West, highlighted by the fatwah on Salmon Rushdie, appears impossible to resolve. This book examines how much of this antipathy between the two cultures is based on shared romantic notions of unchanging cultural identity. Al-Azmeh shows that, in fact, Islamic fundamentalism represents a break with important aspects of the Muslim tradition and should be seen as a general characteristic of populist nationalism. Utilizing his knowledge of history and the intellectual life of Islamic societies, Al-Azmeh calls for a deeper understanding of the way Islam is used in politics, society and history.

How may we characterize contemporary society in a world so complex? Can looking at the diverse paths followed by various cultures in the modern world generate useful new social scientific typologies, or must a different set of questions be posed in this era of globalization? What, in short, is the nature of modernity? These are some of the questions addressed by the contributors to Multiple Modernities.Following the theme in an earlier work edited by Shmuel Eisenstadt, Public Spheres and Collective Identities, this book challenges conventional notions of how the world has changed politically, socially, and economically. The authors consider the meaning of modernity in contexts as different as communist Russia, modern India, the Muslim world, Latin America, China and East Asia, and the United States. Miscegenation, transnational migration, technological developments, and changing communications have shifted the ground on which theories of society were once built; political system, diaspora groups, religion, and ""classical"" theories of modernity have to be reconsidered in a new context.Authors and chapters include: S.N. Eisenstadt, ""Multiple Modernities""; Bjrn Wittrock, ""Modernity: One, None, or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition""; Johann P. Arnason, ""Communism and Modernity""; Nilfer Gle, ""Snapshots of Islamic Modernities""; Dale F. Eickelman, ""Island and the Languages of Modernity""; Sudipta Kaviraj, ""Modernity and Politics in India""; Stanley J. Tambiah, ""Transnational Movements, Diaspora, and Multiple Modernities""; Tu Weiming, ""Implications of the Jrise of 'Confucian' East Asia""; Jrgen Heideking, ""The Pattern of American Modernity from the Revolution to the Civil War""; and Renato Ortiz, ""From Incomplete Modernity to World Modernity.""Written in clear and non-technical language for both a scholarly and general audience, this volume confronts the problem of just what constitutes the common core of modernit

"As Professor Fazlur Rahman shows in the latest of a series of important contributions to Islamic intellectual history, the characteristic problems of the Muslim modernists—the adaptation to the needs of the contemporary situation of a holy book which draws its specific examples from the conditions of the seventh century and earlier—are by no means new. . . . In Professor Rahman's view the intellectual and therefore the social development of Islam has been impeded and distorted by two interrelated errors. The first was committed by those who, in reading the Koran, failed to recognize the differences between general principles and specific responses to 'concrete and particular historical situations.' . . . This very rigidity gave rise to the second major error, that of the secularists. By teaching and interpreting the Koran in such a way as to admit of no change or development, the dogmatists had created a situation in which Muslim societies, faced with the imperative need to educate their people for life in the modern world, were forced to make a painful and self-defeating choice—either to abandon Koranic Islam, or to turn their backs on the modern world."—Bernard Lewis, New York Review of Books "In this work, Professor Fazlur Rahman presents a positively ambitious blueprint for the transformation of the intellectual tradition of Islam: theology, ethics, philosophy and jurisprudence. Over the voices advocating a return to Islam or the reestablishment of the Sharia, the guide for action, he astutely and soberly asks: What and which Islam? More importantly, how does one get to 'normative' Islam? The author counsels, and passionately demonstrates, that for Islam to be actually what Muslims claim it to be—comprehensive in scope and efficacious for every age and place—Muslim scholars and educationists must reevaluate their methodology and hermeneutics. In spelling out the necessary and sound methodology, he is at once courageous, serious and profound."—Wadi Z. Haddad, American-Arab Affairs