The entire foreign policy and much of the domestic policy of the United States and other Western governments are based on the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and peaceful, including those who are emigrating in large numbers to Europe and North America. But as Islamist groups and many mosques radicalize peaceful Muslims and appeal to the teachings of the Koran, Hadith, and Sunnah, it is imperative for moderates and reformists to articulate a vision of Islam and an exegesis of Islamic texts that can withstand the challenge of Islamists and the ulema who have declared the sanctity and immutability of the text. Instead, they must re-establish a firm foundation of Islam that is modernized, genuinely peaceful, tolerant, pluralistic, and compatible with secular governance, the freedom of speech, human rights, and equality. The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is the first major effort to provide that foundation. Veteran journalist Christine Douglass-Williams interviews foremost moderate and reformist Muslims in the Western world. She asks them tough questions about how they deal with problematic Koran passages, how they intend to get their message across to the Muslim world, and more. Their answers are revelatory, even in the ways in which they disagree with one another. Douglass-Williams has captured the Islamic Reformist movement in its full intellectual ferment, laying bare the tensions and triumphs of the Reformers. In the book's second half, she adds a crucial series of searingly honest and illuminating reflections on the challenges the reformers face, the chances they have of succeeding, and the implications of their struggle for the future of the Western world and of all free people. Illuminating, engaging, and thought-provoking, The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is an essential text for understanding the future of the United States and the West, and the implications of Muslim moderates' struggle for the free world.

Tariq Ramadan attempts to demonstrate, using sources which draw upon Islamic thought and civilization, that Muslims can respond to contemporary challenges of modernity without betraying their identity. The book argues that Muslims, nurished by their own points of reference, can approach the modern epoch by adopting a specific social, political, and economic model that is linked to ethical values, a sense of finalities and spirituality. Rather than a modernism that tends to impose Westernization, it is a modernity that admits to the pluralism of civilizations, religions, and cultures. Table of Contents: Foreword Introduction History of a Concept The Lessons of History Part 1: At the shores of Transcendence: between God and Man Part 2: The Horizons of Islam: Between Man and the Community Part 3: Values and Finalities: The Cultural Dimension of the Civilizational Face to Face Conclusion Appendix Index Tariq Ramadan is a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and a visiting professor in Identity and Citizenship at Erasmus University. He was named by TIME Magazine as one of the one hundred innovators of the twenty-first century

The entire foreign policy and much of the domestic policy of the United States and other Western governments is based on the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and peaceful, including those who are emigrating in large numbers to Europe and North America. But as Islamist groups and many mosques radicalize peaceful Muslims and appeal to the teachings of the Koran, Hadith, and Sunnah, it is imperative for moderates and reformists to articulate a vision of Islam and an exegesis of Islamic texts that can withstand the challenge of Islamists and the ulema who have declared the sanctity and immutability of the text. Instead, they must reestablish a firm foundation of Islam that is modernized, genuinely peaceful, tolerant, pluralistic, and compatible with secular governance, the freedom of speech, human rights, and equality. The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is the first major effort to provide that foundation. Veteran journalist Christine Douglass-Williams interviews foremost moderate and reformist Muslims in the Western world. She asks them tough questions about how they deal with problematic Koran passages, how they intend to get their message across to the Muslim world, and more. Their answers are revelatory, even in the ways in which they disagree with one another. Douglass-Williams has captured the Islamic Reformist movement in its full intellectual ferment, laying bare the tensions and triumphs of the Reformers. In the book's second half, she adds a crucial series of searingly honest and illuminating reflections on the challenges the reformers face, the chances they have of succeeding, and the implications of their struggle for the future of the Western world and of all free people. Illuminating, engaging, and thought-provoking, The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is an essential text for understanding the future of the United States and the West, and the implications of Muslim moderates' struggle for the free world.

Based on Islamist writings, political tracts, and interviews with Islamists, this book examines Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt from the perspective of Islamic conceptions of citizenship, and provides non-Muslim responses to those views.

This book focuses on the history and work of the Saudi Dār al-Iftā, one of the most central modern Islamic official religious institutions. The study was undertaken from two perspectives: (1) Dār al-Iftā creation, power structure, functions and the sociopolitical environment in which it operates; and (2) The actual work of this institution, mainly the mechanisms by which modern Saudi state muftis cope with clashes between Wahhābī idealism and the reality of an evolving society. This is a critical work which updates the readers' grasp of contemporary law and society in the modern Saudi state, in particular, and in Islamic jurisprudence in general.

This book brings together international scholars of Islamic philosophy, theology and politics to examine these current major questions: What is the place of pluralism in the Islamic founding texts? How have sacred and prophetic texts been interpreted throughout major Islamic intellectual history by the Sunnis and Shi‘a? How does contemporary Islamic thought treat religious and political diversity in modern nation states and in societies in transition? How is pluralism dealt with in modern major and minor Islamic contexts? How does modern political Islam deal with pluralism in the public sphere? And what are the major internal and external challenges to pluralism in Islamic contexts? These questions that have become of paramount relevance in religious studies especially during the last three-four decades are answered as critically highlighted in Islamic founding sources, the formative classical sources and how it has been lived and practiced in past and present Islamic majority societies and communities around the world. Case studies cover Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, and Thailand, besides various internal references to other contexts.

"An intelligent, erudite argument in which Mr. Akhtar (whose writings won the praise of Graham Greene and other British authors) challenges his fellow Muslims to bring their faith into the modern world. In the process he offers a clear and concise explanation of Islam's basic religious tenets."