This book examines the evolution of Islam in our modern world. The renowned Tunisian scholar Mohamed Haddad traces the history of the reformist movement and explains recent events related to the Islamic religion in Muslim countries and among Muslim minorities across the world. In scholarly terms, he evaluates the benefits and drawbacks of theological-political renovation, neo-reformism, legal reformism, mystical reformism, radical criticism, comprehensive history and new approaches within the study of Islam. The book brings to life the various historical, sociological, political and theological challenges and debates that have divided Muslims since the 19th century. The first two chapters address failed reforms in the past and introduce the reader to classical reformism and to Mohammed Abduh. Haddad ultimately proposes a non-confessional definition of religious reform, reinterpreting and adjusting a religious tradition to modern requirements. The second part of the book explores perspectives on contemporary Islam, the legacy of classical reformism and new paths forward. It suggests that the fundamentalism embodied in Wahhabism and Muslim Brotherhood has failed. Traditional Islam no longer attracts either youth or the elites. Mohamed Haddad shows how this paves the way for a new reformist departure that synthesizes modernism and core Islamic values.

Toward an Islamic Reformation is an ambitious attempt to modernize Islamic law, calling for reform of the historical formulations of Islamic law, commonly known as Shari'a that is perceived by many Muslims to be part of the Islamic faith. As a Muslim, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is sensitive to and appreciative of the delicate relationship between Islam as a religion and Islamic law. Nevertheless, he considers that the questions raised here must be resolved if the public law of Islam is to be implemented today. An-Na'im draws upon the teachings and writings of Sudanese reformer Mahmoud Mohamed Taha to provide what some have called the intellectual foundations for a total reinterpretation of the nature and meaning of Islamic public law.

The author stresses the importance of focusing on the diverse Muslim world rather than on one of its parts. He rejects popular arguments that there is an incompatibility between human rights and Islam.

After September 11, Islam became nearly synonymous with fundamentalism in the eyes of Western media and literature. However widely held this view may be, it is at odds with Islam’s rich political history. Renowned Egyptian scholar Nasr Abû Zayd here considers the full breadth of contemporary Muslim writings to examine the diverse political, religious, and cultural views that inform discourse in the Islamic world. Reformation of Islamic Thought explores the writings of intellectuals from Egypt to Iran to Indonesia, probing their efforts to expand Islam beyond traditional and legalistic interpretations. Zayd reveals that many Muslim thinkers advocate culturally enlightened Islam with an emphasis on individual faith. He then investigates the extent of these Muslim reformers’ success in generating an authentic renewal of Islamic ideology, asking if such thinkers have escaped the traditionalist trap of presenting a negative image to the West. A fascinating and highly relevant study for our times, Reformation of Islamic Thought is an essential analysis of Islam’s present and future.

Reforming Modernity is a sweeping intellectual history and philosophical reflection built around the work of the Morocco-based philosopher Abdurrahman Taha, one of the most significant philosophers in the Islamic world since the colonial era. Wael B. Hallaq contends that Taha is at the forefront of forging a new, non-Western-centric philosophical tradition. He explores how Taha’s philosophical project sheds light on recent intellectual currents in the Islamic world and puts forth a formidable critique of Western and Islamic modernities. Hallaq argues that Taha’s project departs from—but leaves behind—the epistemological grounds in which most modern Muslim intellectuals have anchored their programs. Taha systematically rejects the modes of thought that have dominated the Muslim intellectual scene since the beginning of the twentieth century—nationalism, Marxism, secularism, political Islamism, and liberalism. Instead, he provides alternative ways of thinking, forcefully and virtuosically developing an ethical system with a view toward reforming existing modernities. Hallaq analyzes the ethical thread that runs throughout Taha’s oeuvre, illuminating how Taha weaves it into a discursive engagement with the central questions that plague modernity in both the West and the Muslim world. The first introduction to Taha’s ethical philosophy for Western audiences, Reforming Modernity presents his complex thought in an accessible way while engaging with it critically. Hallaq’s conversation with Taha’s work both proffers a cogent critique of modernity and points toward answers for its endemic and seemingly insoluble problems.

In this new book, Tariq Ramadan argues that it is crucial to find theoretical and practical solutions that will enable Western Muslims to remain faithful to Islamic ethics while fully living within their societies and their time. He notes that Muslim scholars often refer to the notion of ijtihad (critical and renewed reading of the foundational texts) as the only way for Muslims to take up these modern challenges. But, Ramadan argues, in practice such readings have effectively reached the limits of their ability to serve the faithful in the West as well as the East. In this book he sets forward a radical new concept of ijtihad, which puts context -- including the knowledge derived from the hard and human sciences, cultures and their geographic and historical contingencies -- on an equal footing with the scriptures as a source of Islamic law.

Continuing her journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a post at Harvard, the brilliant, charismatic and controversial New York Times and Globe and Mail #1 bestselling author of Infidel and Nomad makes a powerful plea for a Muslim Reformation as the only way to end the horrors of terrorism, sectarian warfare and the repression of women and minorities. Today, she argues, the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims can be divided into a minority of extremists, a majority of observant but peaceable Muslims and a few dissidents who risk their lives by questioning their own religion. But there is only one Islam and, as Hirsi Ali shows, there is no denying that some of its key teachings—not least the duty to wage holy war—are incompatible with the values of a free society. For centuries it has seemed as if Islam is immune to change. But Hirsi Ali has come to believe that a Muslim Reformation—a revision of Islamic doctrine aimed at reconciling the religion with modernity—is now at hand, and may even have begun. The Arab Spring may now seem like a political failure. But its challenge to traditional authority revealed a new readiness—not least by Muslim women—to think freely and to speak out. Courageously challenging the jihadists, she identifies five key amendments to Islamic doctrine that Muslims have to make to bring their religion out of the seventh century and into the twenty-first. And she calls on the Western world to end its appeasement of the Islamists. “Islam is not a religion of peace,” she writes. It is the Muslim reformers who need our backing, not the opponents of free speech. Interweaving her own experiences, historical analogies and powerful examples from contemporary Muslim societies and cultures, Heretic is not a call to arms, but a passionate plea for peaceful change and a new era of global toleration. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, with jihadists killing thousands from Nigeria to Syria to Pakistan, this book offers an answer to what is fast becoming the world’s number one problem.