Al-Azmeh traces how political Islam breaks with core elements of the Muslim tradition and, at the same time, roots many of its concepts in European reactionary and romantic thought. Surveying both its social origins end its intellectual genealogy, he rethinks the relationship between Islam end the West, uncovering a rich actual history of interaction. This second edition, enriched by three new essays, wlll challenge the cliches of crusaders and fanatics on both sides and help to dispel the ignorance which breeds such fear and distrust.

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.

Islam has become the new spectre haunting Europe. All too often, even well-meaning liberals portray the modern resurgence of Islam as the new "Green Menace"-intolerant, medieval and barbaric-which has replaced Communism as the main threat to Western civilization and values. For Aziz Al-Azmeh, this Orientalist and racist view of Islam is nothing but the mirror-image of the myths propagated by Islamic fundamentalists and radicals. Both views share an erroneous and ahistorical conception of Islam as an unchanging and monolithic entity. Surveying both its social origins and its intellectual genealogy, Al-Azmeh rethinks the relationship between Islam and the West, uncovering a rich actual history of interaction. In this expanded new edition, the author examines the discourse surrounding Islamism and irrationalism after 9/11.

What does it mean to be modern? This study regards the concept of ‘society’ as foundational to modern self-understanding. Identifying Arabic conceptualizations of society in the journal al-Manar, the mouthpiece of Islamic reformism, the author shows how modernity was articulated from within an Islamic discursive tradition. The fact that the classical term umma was a principal term used to conceptualize modern society suggests the convergence of discursive traditions in modernity, rather than a mere diffusion of European concepts.

"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

The Present Title Is A Descriptive Analysis Of The Nature, Motivation And Changes In Islam In Modern Indian Perspectives. It Has Been Studied From Three Point Of Views Metaphysical Institutional And Historical. Metaphysical Studies Deals With The Concept Of Truth And Its Ultimate Destiny, However Institutional Study Involves In Mode Of Belief And Worship. Both Studies Are Challenged By Modern Islamic Historians. All Islamic Modernists Have Raised Question Mark On The Traditional Islamic Thought And Theology. The Creation Of New Values And Preservation Of Old Tradition Has Created Some Problem Among Islamic Modernists. In Context Of Indian Muslims, Such A Fresh Outlook By Indian Islamic Scholars, Is Absolutely Essential For Giving Enlightment And Guidance Of Lay Muslims, Who Stand Totally Confused By The Antagonistic Ideas.

Demonstrates how new Islamic modernities are being negotiated and constructed through popular and visual culture in Indonesia.