Contemporary Issues in Islam (New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) - Softcover

Asma Afsaruddin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748632778 ISBN 13: 9780748632770

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2015

Synopsis

This book discusses key issues in Islam today including Shari'a, jihad, politics, gender and interfaith relations. This book deals with certain 'hot button' contemporary issues in Islam that are often the focus of public scrutiny, including the Shari'a, jihad, the caliphate, women's status, and interfaith relations. Notably, it places the discussion of these topics within a longer historical framework in order to reveal their multiple interpretations and contested applications over time. Most public - and occasionally academic - discourses in the West present the Islamic tradition as unchanging and therefore unable to respond to the modern world. Such an ahistorical approach can foster the belief that Muslim majority and Western societies are destined to clash. This book reveals instead the diversity and transformations within Islamic thought over time. Focusing on this internal diversity permits us to appreciate the scriptural and intellectual resources available within the Islamic tradition for responding to the challenges of modernity, even as this tradition interrogates and shapes modernity itself. It identifies seven key 'controversial' issues that frequently emerge concerning Islam in public discussions, academic and non academic. It offers a historically contextualised discussion of these key issues and concepts in the context of modernity and relations with the West. It challenges the 'clash of civilisations' thesis by identifying shared, universal values that are retrievable from a deeper, historicised investigation of the Islamic past and its connection with the present. It interrogates the premise that secularisation must precede a successful transition to modernity and that Western style modernity is the only paradigm available.

About this title

About the Author

Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Islamic Studies and Chairperson of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington.

From the Back Cover

'This long after 9/11, Western public discourse about Islam appears to be getting (if possible) even less subtle and nuanced than ever before. Complex questions about context, power and history are increasingly shunned in favour of simpler and simpler questions about Islam's timeless essence. Asma Afsaruddin reminds us in this learned and timely book that only a longer historical view allows us to better understand the complexities of the public expression of Islam in modern conditions that have been both imposed on Muslims from without and developed by them from within.' Andrew March, Yale University Discusses key issues in Islam today including Sharia, jihad, politics, gender and interfaith relations Key 'hot-button' contemporary issues in Islam, often at the centre of public scrutiny, are the focus of this book. By placing the discussion of topics such as the Sharia, jihad, the caliphate, women's status and interfaith relations within a longer historical framework, Contemporary Issues in Islam reveals their multiple interpretations and contested applications over time. Most public - and occasionally academic - discourses in the West present the Islamic tradition as unchanging and therefore unable to respond to the modern world. Such an ahistorical approach can foster the belief that Muslim-majority and Western societies are destined to clash. This book reveals instead the diversity and transformations within Islamic thought over time. Focusing on this internal diversity permits us to appreciate the scriptural and intellectual resources available within the Islamic tradition for responding to the challenges of modernity, even as this tradition interrogates and shapes modernity itself. Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures in the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author and/or editor of seven books, including Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (2013) and The First Muslims: History and Memory (2008). She was named a Carnegie Scholar in 2005. Crystal Mosque in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia (c) encikcasper/Shutterstock.com Cover design: [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748632778
• ISBN 13: 9780748632770
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232