Legitimizing Modernity in Islam Muslim Modus Vivendi and Western Modernity by Husain Kassim (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005, 176 pages.)

Abstract

The question of Islam’s compatibility with modernity has primarily been
approached from one of three methodological positions: First, Islam (as
variable) must adapt itself to modernity (as constant) by eliminating all
beliefs and practices that are incompatible with modernity; second,
“Islamic modernity” rejects all modernist principles that are inconsistent
with Islamic teachings; and third, modernity and Islam are mutually compatible
and reconcilable when based on a particular (re)interpretation of
Islam. The author, who adheres to the third approach, thus questions
whether a society can be simultaneously Islamic and adhere to modernity’s
general criteria.
His methodological approach consists of identifying specific categories
in which to ground an intellectual reinterpretation of the Shari`ah.
The five categories that he chooses are considered acceptable to jurists,
and, as such, remain within the scope of Muslim jurisprudence: mandatory
(wajib), recommended (mustahabb), indifferent (mubah), reprehensible
(makruh), and prohibited (haram). Kassim uses these categories to frame
debates over a range of issues in an attempt to find the intellectual space
to accommodate modernity within Islam. His overarching argument is that
the Islamic ethos can be interpreted as compatible with modernity’s fundamental
features.
Kassim begins by presenting modernity’s basic tenets: rationality and
universalism. While universalism is a feature of both modernity and the
Shari`ah, rationality is not typically ascribed to Islamic thought. Kassim
attempts to redress the neglect of rationality in Islamic thought by arguing
that a Muslim modus vivendi drawn from Mu`tazilite rationalism can find its
place in modernity. He thus grounds his analysis in Mu`tazilism, a theology
developed in the eighth century CE that was eventually adopted by the ...