Cosmopolitans and Heretics New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam By Carool Kersten (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. 288 pages.)

Abstract

It is a rare treat to find an English-language work of intellectual history by a
scholar who is proficient in Arabic, Indonesian, and French – and thus capable
of bringing together the Indonesian Islamicist Nurcholish Madjid (1939-
2005), the Egyptian philosopher Hasan Hanafi (1935-), and the French-
Algerian Islamicist Mohamed Arkoun (1928-2010). Carool Kersten offers
the first systematic treatment in English of these three figures’ thought and
convincing arguments for why they not only deserve consideration together,
but also why, when taken together, they represent a significant development
in Islamic thought.
Kersten argues that these three Islamic thinkers form part of “the first generation
of Muslim thinkers reaching intellectual maturity in the postcolonial
age” and are “representative of a new type of Muslim intellectual emerging
in the 1960s” (p. xiv). Despite the enthusiastic language he associates with
these “pioneers” and “trailblazers” (p. xvi), the author wisely takes care to
draw attention to what these figures owe to earlier scholars and thinkers at
many points. He also avoids overstated claims about how they either exemplify
or hold great influence over their generation as a whole ...