During the huge public discourse, especially in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, Muslim mind-set toward modernity frequently came into question. A whole theology bas came into being on the question whether Islam and modernity are compatible to each other. Neither the question nor the arguments are new. Similar debates arose in the nineteenth century whe […].
Modernité 14
“We need new intellectual tools for the age we live in”.
Conversation with Ebrahim Moosa (1). by Farish A. Noor (2) You are mostly known for the work that you have done on contemporary Muslim thought and Muslim thinkers of the 20 t h century. Yet despite the enormous changes that have taken place all over the Muslim world, we see that Muslim intellectual activity has arrived at an impasse. Muslim societies se […].
“The Compatibility of Islam, Secularism and Modernity”.
Conversation with Asghar Ali Engineer (1) by Farish A. Noor (2) You are known in many parts of the Muslim world for a number of things: your work on women’s rights in Islam, your struggle against religious intolerance and sectarianism, and your studies on secularism. You are seen as a Muslim modernist and you have often spoken about the compatibility of […].
The Responsibilities of the Muslim intellectual in the 21st Century.
Professor Abdolkarim Soroush is an Iranian philosopher and social scientist who is currently based at the Institute for Epistemological Research in Tehran, Iran. A well-known scholar and Islamist intellectual in Iran and abroad, his writings have been widely disseminated both in print and via the Internet. In Iran, he is seen as an advocate of institutiona […].
“I Defend a Moderated Version of Socialism”.
nterview with Hashem Aghajari. Interviewer: Hamshahri (Persian Morning Daily) Sunday, May 12, 2002. Hamshahri: The left-wing of government has a heavy past which nobody has ever tried to deal with seriously, nor have the leftists been ready to defend the performance of their predecessors in a transparent manner or frankly. Many of the projects implement […].
Tune into the “new conscience of Islam”.
Interview with Abdou Filali-Ansary. Interview by Sophie Boukhari, UNESCO Courier journalist. There is a reformist current in Islam, one that takes a critical approach to its origins. For Moroccan philosopher Abdou Filali-Ansary*, if Muslims had more room to freely debate issues, religion and politics might no longer be so closely entwined Since the 19th […].
Islam, modernité et laïcité.
Même dans les pays appartenant à la même culture et traversant les mêmes avatars de l’histoire comme les pays musulmans avec leur combat commun pour la rénovation religieuse et contre la colonisation européenne, les processus de modernisation ne sont pas les mêmes. Même dans les pays appartenant à la même culture et traversant les mêmes avatars de l’hist […].
The Contradictions of the Islamic World
Tariq Ramadan, controversial Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Fribourg, argues that instead of blaming only the West, Muslims need to start to criticise themselves in order to strengthen their position. For almost a century the Arab world seems immobilised, rooted in its failures as much as in its divisions. No other region in the world […].
Islamic Civil Society.
We can certainly move the present as well as the future generation towards the new Islamic civilization through setting our eyes on horizons farther away, being together with understanding and helping each other as brothers. For this to become a reality, all of us must dedicate ourselves to the realization of the “Islamic civil society in our respective co […].
Fundamentalism and Modernism in the Contemporary Iranian Islam
Summary: `Islamic fundamentalism’ and `Islamic modernism’ are questions that Hojjatoleslam Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari has discussed in a lecture delivered at the University of Sorbonne in France in February 26, 1997. Text: In this article we will try to answer the following questions: a. What is Islamic fundamentalism? b. What is Islamic modernism? c. Wh […].
Islamists in Postmodern Times
Why are the postmodern times in which we are living important and what isso different about them. In general, every generation that lives assumes itis unique and is different from the generation that came before it. So ifwe are going to claim that we are living in a time which is different fromother times we have to justify that to some extent. Why are t […].
The democrat [Abdolkarim Soroush].
IF IRAN’S DEMOCRATIC REFORM movement has a house intellectual, it’s Abdolkarim Soroush. IF IRAN’S DEMOCRATIC REFORM movement has a house intellectual, it’s Abdolkarim Soroush. A small, soft-spoken philosopher with fiercely expressive eyebrows, Soroush specializes in mysticism, Sufi poetry, Islamic theology, chemistry, pharmacology, and the philosophy of […].
Types of Religiosity.
When we come to experiential religiosity, we step from the domain of separation into the domain of union. The previous types of religiosity can be described as religiosities of distance, for the first was physical and practical and the second mental and reflective. The first was based on instrumental rationality and the second on theoretical rationality.
Adapting to Contemporary Islam
Is Islamic law compatible with democracy and human rights? One of Iran’s best-known reformist clerics has an answer to this question – an answer that challenges Islamic orthodoxy. Journalist Bahman Nirumand reports on a progressive and uncomfortable reformist theologian. Born in 1959, Mohsen Kadivar originally wanted to be an electronic engineer. However […].
