Revival of Religion: Contemporary Needs And Demands ( In The Context Of Twentieth Century) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Back to the Beginnings: Islamic Resurgence/Renewal/Revival and the Comparative Study of Religions
The revival and return of religion in the last two or three decades has posed a challenge to the study of religions. Some stress the continuity of these religions from the past, while others to the reconstruction and re-invention of these post-modern religious traditions. In my presentation, I examine approaches to the renewal of Islam in the 20th century. In particular, I ask how the comparative study of religions may contribute to the study of a familiar trope involving origins and beginnings in the history of Islam. Returning to the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad and his close companions is the professed inspiration and motivation for a diverse range of movements in Muslim societies. These range from fundamentalist political movements to modernist intellectuals, with Sufi orders and social movements in between. Despite their diversity and divergence, these individuals and groups claim to return to the original teachings of Islam in the past. In this presentation, I present current debates on such renewal movements from the perspectives of the social sciences. I then consider the opportunities of approaching Islamic renewal from the perspective of the history of religions. In particular, I examine and develop an etic term, mujaddid, for a deeper study of Islamic renewal/resurgence/revival. Does it provide a window to the phenomenology of renewal movements in the history of Islam? Can tajdid capture both the diversity and identity of these diverse movements? How can the study of origins and beginnings within a religious tradition make a contribution to the study of religions in general?
Reflections on the Sources of the Contemporary Islamic Revival
Bustan, 2024
The groups and movements that comprise the Islamic revival of the past half century share an ideology of return to the origins of the faith and strictly following the scriptures. They are habitually divided into Islamist activists, who seek involvement in the political arena; Salafi purists, who censure "deviations" from "true" Islam; and Traditionalist ʽulama, who uphold the living legal, theological, and Sufi tradition. This article offers some reflections on the intricate connections and conflicts among these three large religious trends by reviewing three recently published studies that touch upon the ideational sources on which they draw. It shows the ambiguous stand of Sunni Islamic Modernists, the precursors of Islamism, toward old and new Muslim sects; the lingering exclusivism and militancy of Wahhabis, who form a subset of Salafism, in al-Qaʽida and ISIS; and the versatility of Traditionalists in accommodating to modernity.
Islam and modernity, Towards New Paradigm (Historian)
it is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of a complex of phenomena that to direct observation appear to be quite separate things. A. Einstein 1 But it is precisely the loss of connection with the past, our uprootedness, which has given rise to the "discontents" of civilization and to such a flurry and haste that we live more in the future and its chimerical promises of a golden age than in the present, with which our whole evolutionary background has not yet caught up.
Religions
The 19th and 20th centuries were times of great change and transformation for the Muslim world. The salvation of the ummah—which is getting politically, militarily, and economically more backward against the West, terms such as revival (ihya), renewal (tajdid) and reform and reconstruction (islah)—have occupied almost all intellectuals and ulama. Many prescriptions have been proposed on this subject, the most vivid examples of which are mainly related to new approaches to the Qur’an and its interpretation. This article deals with the innovations put forward by reformist–revivalist leaders in different Muslim geographies regarding the interpretation of the Qur’an under the influence of modernism. We see that these approaches, which are basically based on the assumption of the inadequacy of classical methods and understandings, open up to questions and discussions for many hermeneutical devices that have become entrenched in the classical period and even argue that they are now unnece...
Arabica, 1999
In this essay, I plead for an understanding of modern Islamic thought in terms of two separate but interconnected debates: One about modernisation, the other about secularisation. The first debate - between fundamentalists, modernists and traditionalists - is a continuation of premodern debates about the interpretation (ijtihad) or Koran and Sunna and the renewal (tajdid) of Islam. The second debate - between islamists and secularists - is a novel debate about the hegemony of the western Enlightenment discourse of secular reason. This distinction, I argue, creates conceptual space for what I see as the essential modernist project of an 'Islamic' modernity without secularisation. It also shows that political islam or 'islamism' - the demand for an Islamic state and law - emerged seamlessly from Muslim modernism and not in opposition to it. In other words, it makes understandable that not all ‘islamists’ are also ‘fundamentalists’, as a common perception holds: Some argue for modernisation and renewal, while others oppose it. This essay was published before – and in a way foresaw – the global advent of the ‘fundamentalist’ islamism of political 'salafism' as opposed to the relative ‘modernist’ Islamism of the Muslim Brothers.
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.
Islamic Political Thought: An Introduction Edited by Gerhard Bowering, 2015
Revival and reform, tajdīd and iṣlāḥ, are terms widely disseminated across a range of genres in Muslim literature. They are found in commentaries of prophetic traditions, political discourses, debates about shari'a, and the integrity of learning and scholarship. Often these key words are rhetorically invoked in exhortations of moral awakening in order to advance a Muslim social and political gospel. Over time, these terms have been used together to represent a concept that links newness and creativity (renewal/revival) to wholeness and integrity (iṣlaḥ, reform). Whether the "renewal and reform" is aimed at the collective or the individual or both, the discourse of revival and reform addresses stability and change, the mutable and immutable in Muslim thought. In this larger semantic framework, two things loom large: political theology and the integrity of the learned tradition. Renewal and revival (tajdīd) stem from the root j-d-d, to make new, to innovate, to refresh and resuscitate. One may think of reform as a discourse of improvement, recovery, and healing. Indeed, iṣlāḥ (repair) is derived from the Arabic root ṣ-l-ḥ, which means to mend, restore, and improve.
This course is an introduction to Islam as a prophetic religious tradition. It explores the different ways in which Muslims have interpreted and put into practice the prophetic message of Muhammad through historical and anthropological analyses of varying theological, philosophical, legal, and political writings.These analyses aim for course participants to develop a framework for explaining the sources through which historically specific experiences and understandings have been understood as “Islamic.” The course focuses in particular on the classical and modern periods of Islamic history. We will begin with a debate on the representation of Islam, in order to understand how Islam has been polemically framed. Subsequently, we will discuss the foundations of Islam, as a religious tradition, in order to understand its historical contexts and different philosophical perspectives. The third section of the course deals with different understandings of Islam in the contemporary context, focusing on transformations and religious experience under modern conditions. The final section engages the relation of Islam to politics and empire, specifically focusing on geopolitics after September 11.
"Controversies on Recent Reforms in Islam"
Islamochristiana 44 , 2018
In honor of Fr Maurice Borrmans, M.Afr. Several Muslim scholars struggle, along with many other authorities, journalists and human rights activists, for a reform of Islam. They desire a paradigm shift, a reinterpretation of the Quran and of the Tradition, and a clear separation between religion and politics. This article presents the status quaestionis of these reforms within the Islamic world, i.e. the attempts to renew religious discourse (taǧdīd ḫiṭāb al-dīn). Three principle ways have been highlighted that seriously undertake a profound renewal of the face of Islam: the reform of the curriculum of studies, the individual and communal research into another paradigm, and a better articulation of the relationship between Islam and the State. The article underlines also the limits of these attempts as well as the benefits that such a reform may entail not only for the dialogue with Christian theology but also for the whole humanity.