Islamic Modernism and the Re-Enchantment of the Sacred in the Age of History

Abstract

Shows how the adoption of historicism in the 19th century engendered Islamic modernism as a theological reform movement Provides a new framework for conceptualising the relationship between Western and non-Western modernities Explores Islamic Modernist rewriting of Islamic history as it reconfigured the nature and function of religion as a category of analysis Shows that Islamic Modernists adopted intellectual frameworks that first emerged in Europe, then deployed them to argue for the superiority of Islam Looks at how Islamic Modernists claimed Islam as the motor of modernity and the solution to contemporary ‘backwardness’ Includes case studies of 4 Islamic Modernists: Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Iran), Imam Bayezidof (Russia), Namik Kemal (Ottoman Empire) and Syed Ameer Ali (India) This book studies the complex relationship of religion to modernity. Monica M. Ringer argues that modernity should be understood as the consequence, not the cause, of the new intellectual landscape of the 19th century. Using the lens of Islamic Modernism, she uncovers the underlying epistemology and methodology of historicism that penetrated the Middle East and South Asia in this period, both forcing and enabling a recalibration of the definition, nature, function and place of religion. And she shows that Muslim Modernists, like their counterparts in other religious traditions, engaged in a sophisticated project of theological reform designed to marry their twin commitments to religion and to modernity – they were in conversation not only with European scholarship and Catholic Modernism but, more importantly, with their own complex Islamic traditions.