Crisis in the Muslim Mind (original) (raw)

Call for the Return to the Qualities of the Traditional Muslim Mind

Dinamika Ilmu, 2021

The world we live today has undergone a dramatic change in values, science and technology. In a world so divided with contending ideologies and worldviews, humanity as a whole has derailed from its philosophy of co-existence, tolerance and mutual respect for one another’s faith and culture. The war that should have ended with the formation of the United Nations is still raging in many parts of the world. News and business are controlled by some powerful conglomerates. The gap between the haves and have not’s still persists. In the wake of the present global condition, Muslims and their religion are targeted and falsely labeled as a global threat. This apparent situation of the world calls for the new generation of Muslims to think and re-evaluate on how to respond to the challenges and criticisms that come from others. Moreover, they have to carve out new ways to co-exist with others and on how to preserve their religion and cultural heritage of the past. Through this paper, the researchers intend to investigate the style of thinking of the great Muslim scholars during the heydays of the Islamic civilization and propose the importance of reviving such an orientation of thinking in the contemporary Muslim world. As a qualitative study, the researchers intend to present some historical evidence on the remarkable achievement of the Muslim scholars of the bygone centuries. The textual and document analysis methods will be employed in interpreting the relevant data of the study. Pertinent data related to the research will be retrieved from print and electronic media.

Issues in Contemporary Islamic Thought

Issues in Contemporary Islamic Thought, 2005

This collection of papers presents a reformist project calling upon Muslim intellectuals and scholars everywhere to ‎comprehend the vast breadth and depth of the crisis engulfing Muslim thought today and the necessity of solving ‎this crisis to enable the Ummah to experience a revival and fulfill its role among the nations of the world. The reader ‎will find a variety of articles dealing with this intellectual crises, these include a chapter on ijtihad’s role and history, ‎important since our intellectual problems cannot be solved without the scholars’ use of independent reasoning and ‎creativity. Another discusses imitation (taqlid) calling upon Muslim scholars and intellectuals to abandon imitation ‎and to stop favoring the past over the present when trying to solve modern problems. Another looks at human ‎rights.‎

Islamic Thought: An Approach to Reform ‎

Islamic Thought: An Approach to Reform ‎, 2006

For the first time, Muslims are faced with a worldwide positivism which is working to use knowledge, the sciences ‎and their discoveries and achievements in a manner which severs the relationship between the Creator, the created ‎universe and man, thereby disregarding the world of the unseen and driving a wedge between science and values.‎ Lacking even the most modest store of vital Islamic doctrine on the intellectual level, university students and ‎researchers in the Islamic world are confronted with doctrines and philosophies which are presented to them ‎together with a flimsy, miserable defense of Islam. There is not a single academic institution in the Islamic world in ‎which Islamic thought is taught and in which the Islamic vision is given a deep-rooted foundation with the same ‎force and persuasiveness with which Western ideas and the Western vision are taught to students in the West, in a ‎coherent, comprehensive manner accompanied by seriousness and commitment on the part of all. The books argues ‎that this approach is diametrically opposed to the Islamic perspective and that we must disengage human scientific ‎achievement from positivistic philosophical premises and reemploy these sciences within a systematic ‎epistemological framework based on divine revelation, conferring honor upon all forms of knowledge, as having ‎been bestowed upon man by their Creator.‎

The Quest for Islam and Muslim Society: Late Twentieth- and Early Twenty-First-Century Muslim Intellectual Reflections on Reform

The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society, 2022

Since the nineteenth century, the Muslim world has been the subject of discussions that reveal its dire state of affairs. How Muslim intellectuals characterize their own predicament is integral to understanding Muslim articulations for reform, reconstitution and progress. There are elements that a diverse selection of Muslim intellectuals from various parts of the Muslim world (and beyond) seem to coalesce around, suggestive of a constitution of a shared reform vision. They represent a rigorous intellectual investment in meeting the challenges of modernity, the challenges to Muslim society, and in constituting a trajectory inspiring of change. These elements principally include: the reconciliation of the relationship of Islam to modernity and the 'Other'; the reinvigoration the Islamic civilizational essence and its tawḥidic epistemology; a centralization of Islamic heritage and its values; and, a restoration of Islamic epistemology. These elements form the theoretical underpinnings of reform and an Islamic alternative. The anticipation is that there would be revivification and a restoration of Muslim society and civilization, and a re-enchantment in modernity; thus, civilizational reform, renewal and progress.

The End of the Traditional Islamic Movement’s Era

The Islamic Movement (IM) proved that it is a crucial element in the local political equations in many Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Palestine, Iraq and others. It became a cornerstone in the revolutions of the Arab spring where the Muslim Brotherhood specifically arrived in power through fair and legitimate elections in Egypt, Tunisia, and before that in Palestine. Since the election victory of the IM, there has been violence aimed at the IM and their supporters to exclude them from the political scene resulting in turbulence and volatility in the Middle East as a whole. The article tries to examine the life cycle of the IM under the current circumstances and to discuss the need for a holistic renewal in the IM intellectual, strategic, structural, ethical and practical construction to cope with the radical political and societal changes in the region as a result of the Arab Spring. This article suggests five key fundamental changes that must be addressed.