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With resurgent interest in the Muslim world and in particular political Islam, this collection of translated essays by Muslim thinkers from the Middle East and South Asia demonstrates the ongoing and contentious debate between modernizers seeking to adapt Western ways and fundamentalists who rejected them. From Jamal al Din al Afghani in the 19th century to Ayatollah Khomeini in the 20th the selections provide an opportunity to examine a diversity of Muslim thinkers thoughts on important topics like jurisprudence, politics, relations with the west, and women in their own words. During the second half of the 19th century, a group of prominent Muslim theologians began to critically examine classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence and devised a new approach to Islamic theology. This new approach was nothing short of an outright rebellion against Islamic orthodoxy, displaying an astonishing compatibility with 19th century Enlightenment era thought. In the 20th century this modernist movement declined, to be replaced by another cultural episode, characterized by the growing power of Islamic fundamentalism. This volume looks at these two very different approaches to Islam. The editors have selected the most prominent Islamic thinkers of modernist and fundamentalist viewpoints, diverse nationalities, and from both the late decades of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century. The writers discuss their own views with regard to such issues as philosophical and political perceptions of democracy, the state, the history of Islam, women’s rights, personal lifestyle, education and the West.
