9781909942738
9781909942745
In Rethinking Islam, Katajun Amirpur argues that the West’s impression of Islam as a backward-looking faith, resistant to post-Enlightenment thinking, is misleading and—due to its effects on political discourse—damaging. Introducing readers to key thinkers and activists—such as Abu Zaid, a free-thinking Egyptian Qur’an scholar; Abdolkarim Soroush, an academic and former member of Khomeini’s Cultural Revolution Committee; and Amina Wadud, an American feminist who was the first woman to lead the faithful in Friday Prayer—Amirpur reveals a powerful yet lesser-known tradition of inquiry and dissent within Islam, one that is committed to democracy and human rights. By examining these and many other similar figures’ ideas, she reveals the many ways they reject fundamentalist assertions and instead call for a diversity of opinion, greater freedom, and equality of the sexes.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Foreword
1. On the Way to the Modern
The Tradition of Reform Islam
Secularism and Islamism
2. Islamic Reformers Today
Post-Islamism
Islamic Feminism
Men on the Side of Women
Islam in and for Europe
Criticism as Self-Criticism
3. Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: Who’s the Heretic Here?
A Born Conqueror
Africa, America, Asia
Severance from the Homeland
The Word of God
Does God speak Arabic?
Disaster Politics
Scholarship: The Personal is Political
4. Fazlur Rahman: from the Qur’an to Life, and Back Again to the Qur’an
A Traditional Scholar
The Decline of Muslim Societies
The Dictation Theory
The Qur’an as Ethical Guide
The People of the Book
Reception and Criticism
5. Amina Wadud: In the Midst of the Gender Jihad
A Muslim by Conviction
Why Islam?
Female, Muslim, Black
Gender in the Qur’an
What Does the Qur’an Say to Us Today?
Perspectives of Islamic Feminism
6. Asma Barlas: As Though Only Men Were Objective
A Eurocentric View of Islam
The Patriarchal Interpretation of the Qur’an
Islamic Feminism?
As a Muslim Woman in the USA
Liberation Theology
The Appeal for Another Image of God
Will the Best Interpretation Prevail?
7. ‘Abdolkarim Soroush: More than Ideology and State
A Revolutionary in the Name of Islam
From Court Theologian to Dissident
The Variability of Religious Knowledge
A Religious and Democratic Government
Against the Ideologization of Religion
Whose Qur’an?
8. Mohammed Mojtahed Shabestari: The Prophet Reads the World
Tradition and the Break with it
As a Cleric in Hamburg
Truth and Method in Iran
The Reception of Protestant Theology
Political Movements in Religious Garb
A Prophetic Reading of the World
The Qur’an as Narrative
The Future of Islam
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Glossary
Index of Persons
1. On the Way to the Modern
The Tradition of Reform Islam
Secularism and Islamism
2. Islamic Reformers Today
Post-Islamism
Islamic Feminism
Men on the Side of Women
Islam in and for Europe
Criticism as Self-Criticism
3. Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: Who’s the Heretic Here?
A Born Conqueror
Africa, America, Asia
Severance from the Homeland
The Word of God
Does God speak Arabic?
Disaster Politics
Scholarship: The Personal is Political
4. Fazlur Rahman: from the Qur’an to Life, and Back Again to the Qur’an
A Traditional Scholar
The Decline of Muslim Societies
The Dictation Theory
The Qur’an as Ethical Guide
The People of the Book
Reception and Criticism
5. Amina Wadud: In the Midst of the Gender Jihad
A Muslim by Conviction
Why Islam?
Female, Muslim, Black
Gender in the Qur’an
What Does the Qur’an Say to Us Today?
Perspectives of Islamic Feminism
6. Asma Barlas: As Though Only Men Were Objective
A Eurocentric View of Islam
The Patriarchal Interpretation of the Qur’an
Islamic Feminism?
As a Muslim Woman in the USA
Liberation Theology
The Appeal for Another Image of God
Will the Best Interpretation Prevail?
7. ‘Abdolkarim Soroush: More than Ideology and State
A Revolutionary in the Name of Islam
From Court Theologian to Dissident
The Variability of Religious Knowledge
A Religious and Democratic Government
Against the Ideologization of Religion
Whose Qur’an?
8. Mohammed Mojtahed Shabestari: The Prophet Reads the World
Tradition and the Break with it
As a Cleric in Hamburg
Truth and Method in Iran
The Reception of Protestant Theology
Political Movements in Religious Garb
A Prophetic Reading of the World
The Qur’an as Narrative
The Future of Islam
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Glossary
Index of Persons
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