Wahh B Islam Facing The Challenges Of Modernity

This book examines Dār al-Iftā, the official Saudi religious establishment for issuing fatwas, between 1971 and 1999. Specifically, it explores the challenges that this scholarly body encountered when applying Wahhābī interpretations of the Shari'a to late twentieth-century modernity.

Based on a comparative analysis of several hundred religio-juristic treatises and fatwas (religious decisions), Shari'a and Muslim Minorities: The Wasati and Salafi Approaches to Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat al-Muslima offers the most systematic and comprehensive study to date of fiqh al aqalliyyat al-Muslima - the field in Islamic jurisprudence that treats issues that are unique to Muslims living in majority non-Muslim societies. The book argues that two main contesting approaches to fiqh al-aqalliyyat al-Muslima, the wasati and the salafi, have developed, in part dialectically. While both envision a future Islamizing of the West as a main justification for Muslim residence in the West, the wasati approach is pragmatic, facilitating, and integration-minded, whereas the salafi calls for strict application of religious norms and for introversion. The volume examines diverse and highly-debated juristic issues, including the permissibility of naturalizing in non-Muslim states, participating in their electoral systems and serving in their militaries and police forces; the permissibility of taking mortgages and student loans; the permissibility of congratulating Christians on Christmas or receiving Christmas bonuses; and the permissibility of working in professions that involve breaching of religio-legal prohibitions (e.g. serving pork). Discussions highlight the diversity within contemporary Islamic jurisprudence and introduce new nuances to highly-charged concepts such as proselytizing, integration, and multiculturalism.

Islam's Predicament with Modernity 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 the issue of modernity from an Islamic point of view, the author examines the role of culture and religion in Muslim society under conditions of globalisation, and analyses issues such as law, knowledge and human rights. He engages a number of significant studies on political Islam and draws on detailed case studies, rejecting the approaches of both Orientalists and apologists and calling instead for a genuine Islamic pluralism that accepts the equality of others. Situating modernity as a Western product at the crux of his argument, he argues that a separation of religion and politics is required, which presents a challenge to the Islamic worldview. This critical analysis of value conflicts, tensions and change in the Islamic world will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of international relations, social theory, political science, religion, Islamic studies and Middle Eastern studies.

This book places context at the core of the Islamic mechanism of iftā’ to better understand the process of issuing fatwās in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, thus highlighting the connection between context and contemporaneity, on one hand, and the adaptable perception of Islamic law, on the other. The practice of iftā’ is one of the most important mechanisms of Islamic law that keeps Islamic thought about ethical and legal issues in harmony with the demands, exigencies and developments of time. This book builds upon the existing body of work related to the practice of iftā’, but takes the discussion beyond the current debates with the intent of unveiling the interaction between Islamic legal methodologies and different environmental contexts. The book specifically addresses the three institutions (Saudi Arabia’s Dār al-Iftā’, Turkey’s Diyanet and America’s FCNA) and their Islamic legal opinions (fatwās) in a comparative framework. This demonstrates the existence of complex and diverse ideas around similar issues within contemporary Islamic legal opinions that is further complicated by the influence of international, social, political, cultural and ideological contexts. The book thus unveils a more complicated range of interactive constituents in the process of the practice of iftā’ and its outputs, fatwās. The work will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies, religion and politics.

Can democracy flourish in Muslim society? What does the Qur'an say about women, minorities, human rights? Are Islam and the West on a collision course? After 9/11, much has been written about the inevitability of a clash between Islam and the West, as their worldviews compete for global supremacy. Recent developments have done little to challenge this thesis, or the West's negative image of Islam. The author compares and contrasts contributions from "traditional" and "progressive" Muslims. Voicing at least two Muslim opinions in each area of debate, this book challenges the idea that all Muslims think identically. While Muslims and Modernity is designed primarily for use an undergraduate textbook, reference to accessible Internet material, to literature and to popular as well as scholarly sources will broaden its appeal to a general readership. This book's discussion draws on post-colonial theory, feminist analyses, anthropology, cultural and religious studies, politics and philosophy.

This book - continuation of the volume 1 - is about the failure of the OIC, the need of Muslim countries in the Southeast Asia to form a new association vis--vis ASEAN, jihad, the attributes of disbelievers vis-a-vis believers, the ungrateful people, the wrath of Allah, the victory of the Muslims in the end and finally on current scenario facing the Muslims, including the emergence of the ISIS extremist that soils the good image of Islam.