Over the last two decades we have seen a vast number of books published in the West that treat Islamic fundamentalism as a rising threat to the western values of secularism and democracy. In the last decade scholars began proclaiming an existent or emerging "clash" between East and West, Islam and Christianity, or in the case of Benjamin R. Barber, "Jihad and "McWorld." More recently, some western scholars have offered another interpretation. Focusing on the work of contemporary Muslim intellectuals, these scholars have begun to argue that what we are witnessing, in Islamic contexts, is tantamount to a Reformation. An Islamic Reformation attempts to evaluate this claim through the work of emerging and top scholars in the fields of political science, philosophy, anthropology, religion, history and Middle Eastern studies. The overall goal of this volume is to question the impact of various reformist trends throughout the Middle East. Are we witnessing a growth in fundamentalism or the emergence of an Islamic Reformation? What does religious practice in this region reflect? What is the usefulness of approaching these questions through Christian/Islamic and West/East dichotomies? Unique in its focus and scope, An Islamic Reformation represents an emerging vanguard in the discussion of Islamic religious heritage and practice and its effect on world politics.

Toward an Islamic Reformation is an ambitious attempt to modernize Islamic law, calling for reform of the historical formulations of Islamic law, commonly known as Shari'a that is perceived by many Muslims to be part of the Islamic faith. As a Muslim, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is sensitive to and appreciative of the delicate relationship between Islam as a religion and Islamic law. Nevertheless, he considers that the questions raised here must be resolved if the public law of Islam is to be implemented today. An-Na'im draws upon the teachings and writings of Sudanese reformer Mahmoud Mohamed Taha to provide what some have called the intellectual foundations for a total reinterpretation of the nature and meaning of Islamic public law.

The essays that comprise this study eschew stereotypical representations of a politicized Islam in the Mediterranean Region. The contributors consider the reality that lies behind current issues in the area and the role that an embedded Islam has played or may play in the region.

Jesus was a product of Semitic monotheism, moral law, piety and humility. His kingdom was the other worldly. His ethical monotheism was transformed by the Roman Empire and mythology. The supernatural, Trinitarian and miraculous Roman Christianity transitioned into unintelligible dogmas, the abolition of law, moral laxity, this worldly kingdom and divine right absolutism. Natural theology, law, cosmology and politics were all compromised. Religious freedom was barred, and persecutions were normalised. Latin Christendom was a persecutory society. Islam was an intellectual cure to Christian paradoxes and an egalitarian pluralistic alternate to Christian inquisitions and religiopolitical absolutism. It spread in the Eastern Christian territories like a bush fire. This reformation of Christian excesses in religiopolitical theology reformed its paradoxical incarnational theology, antinomianism, grace-based salvation scheme, divine right Church and monarchy, interventionist cosmology and religious persecutions. This insightful and groundbreaking new book provides an in-depth study of the Is- lamic, Southern Reformation of Christianity; a reformation seldom acknowledged or studied by the historians. It explores how the Islamic reformative scheme emphasised ethical, transcendental monotheism, natural theology and rational discourse. It limited monarchy and placed significance on an inclusive, pluralistic and free society. The Seventh Century Islamic natural, rational, moral, republican and egalitarian reformation was the Southern Reformation of Christianity, long before the partial Northern Reformation of Luther and Calvin.

The first comprehensive analysis of Muslim movements of reform in modern sub-Saharan AfricaBased on twelve case studies (Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar and the Comoros), this book looks at patterns and peculiarities of different traditions of Islamic reform. Considering both Sufi- and Salafi-oriented movements in their respective historical contexts, it stresses the importance of the local context to explain the different trajectories of development.The book studies the social, religious and political impact of these reform movements in both historical and contemporary times and asks why some have become successful as popular mass movements, while others failed to attract substantial audiences. It also considers jihad-minded movements in contemporary Mali, northern Nigeria and Somalia and looks at modes of transnational entanglement of movements of reform. Against the background of a general inquiry into what constitutes areform, the text responds to the question of what areform actually means for Muslims in contemporary Africa.Key featuresBiographies of reformist scholars complement the textCase studies are placed in the context of the dynamics of areform in the larger world of IslamAddresses the importance of trans-national entanglements and their formative powerFocuses on the dynamics of social and religious development, the political dynamics of Islamic areform and issues of youth, generational change and gender

Early modern Protestant scholars closely engaged with Islamic thought in more ways than is usually recognized. Among Protestants, Lutheran scholars distinguished themselves as the most invested in the study of Islam and Muslim culture. Mehmet Karabela brings the neglected voices of post-Reformation theologians, primarily German Lutherans, into focus and reveals their rigorous engagement with Islamic thought. Inspired by a global history approach to religious thought, Islamic Thought Through Protestant Eyes offers new sources to broaden the conventional interpretation of the Reformation beyond a solely European Christian phenomenon. Based on previously unstudied dissertations, disputations, and academic works written in Latin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Karabela analyzes three themes: Islam as theology and religion; Islamic philosophy and liberal arts; and Muslim sects (Sunni and Shi‘a). This book provides analyses and translations of the Latin texts as well as brief biographies of the authors. These texts offer insight into the Protestant perception of Islamic thought for scholars of religious studies and Islamic studies as well as for general readers. Examining the influence of Islamic thought on the construction of the Protestant identity after the Reformation helps us to understand the role of Islam in the evolution of Christianity.

The articles in this volume build up ethnographic analysis complementary to the historiography of South Asian Islam, which has explored the emergence of reformism in the context of specific political and religious circumstances of nineteenth century British India. Taking up diverse popular and scholarly debates as well as everyday religious practices, this volume also breaks away from the dominant trend of mainstream ethnographic work, which celebrates sufi-inspired forms of Islam as tolerant, plural, authentic and so on, pitted against a 'reformist' Islam. Urging a more nuanced examination of all forms of reformism and their reception in practice, the contributions here powerfully demonstrate the historical and geographical specificities of reform projects. In doing so, they challenge prevailing perspectives in which substantially different traditions of reform are lumped together into one reified category (often carelessly shorthanded as 'wah'habism') and branded as extremist - if not altogether demonised as terrorist.

The tension between tradition and reform in the Arab world is one of the most urgent and problematic issues of today. The Sufis of Egypt are one of the most important sects in the Islamic world. Using material recorded at Sufi gatherings over the last five years, this book presents a contemporary, balanced study of their attempts to reform Sufism from within and maintain its traditions in defence of hostile criticism.