Muslim Ethics and Modernity: A Comparative Study of the Ethical Thought of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Mawlana Mawdudi: 1 (Comparative Ethics) - Softcover

Sheila McDonough (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0889201625 ISBN 13: 9780889201620

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1985

Synopsis

A study of modern Muslim ethics, focused upon the lives and writings of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Mawlana Mawdudi, this book sheds light upon the modern ethical problems of contemporary Islam.

Sayyid Ahmad Khan, often called a liberal, a modernist, or an acculturationist, represents the "liberal" trend of Sunni Muslim ethics. Khan's approach borrows much from reason, but, for Khan, reason and revelation are not in conflict. Reason guides the interpretation of Islam when revelation is insufficient. In contrast, Mawlana Mawdudi's fundamentalism is, at least in part, anti-rational; it depends upon revelation (as it comes to one man in particular) and is very autocratic.

McDonough is concerned with Khan and Mawdudi, both writers within the Indo-Pakistan Muslim tradition. Their conflicting views, their differing interpretations of ethics that suit Islam in the contemporary world, exemplify the difficulties and turmoil faced by Muslims the world over. For these men, modernity has not spelled the end of Islam; yet each has found a different way of relating Islam to the present and the future in faithfulness to traditional Islam.

This book will be of interest to students of contemporary Islam, as well as to those interested in questions of comparative ethics, for the liberal/fundamentalist conflicts outlined in this book are analogous to manifestations of the same dichotomy in all world religions.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0889201625
• ISBN 13: 9780889201620
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136