Islam and Modernity Muslim Intellectuals Respond Edited by John Cooper, Ronald Nettler, and Mohamed Mahmoud. I.B. Tauris, 1998. 228 pp.

Abstract

The relation between Islam and modernity is a controversial topic and draws the
attention of both Mush and non-Muslim scholars. Islam and Modernity brings
together the ideas of a number of contemporary modernist and liberal Muslim
thinkers and examines their ideas, which attempt to respond to the challenges of
the postcolonial situation. The book comprises a collection of articles that analyze
the thought of a wide variety of figures from North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and
India and from both Sunni and Shi’i backgrounds. In so doing, it attempts to present
a new “map” that goes beyond the usual categorization of Islamic thought
according to area, language, or school of thought. For the most part, these thinkers
postdate the early wave of “modernist” thinkers, such as Muhammad Abduh and
Rashid Rida, and often differ from them in their thought - particularly in their
approach to the Qur’an, their evaluation of Islamic law, and their ideas on the connection
between Islam and politics.
In his introduction, Derek Hopwood raises the central issue of the book, which
is how change can be integrated into society and particularly how the challenges of
modernization can be integrated into Muslim societies. He argues that change is
caused by a variety of factors but that tension occuts when a traditional society is
challenged by the outside world, or when attempts are made to modernize it from
within. In the Islamic world, for example, it was the European influence, h u g h
the experience of colonization, that came to challenge the established ideas and
customs, and raised the issue of “modernity” in the minds of intellectuals.
Hopwood also hies to make a distinction between “modernization” and “modemity.”
Whereas “modernization” refers to the artihcts of modem life (transport, communication,
industry, technology, e&.) and is the general term used for the political
and cultural processes initiated by the integration of new ideas and new economic
systems, “modemity” is a system of thought and a way of living in the contemporary
world that is open to change.
In the first chapter, Javed Majeed explores some appropriations of European
modernity that appear in late nineteenth century Urdu literam and focuses on the
work of two of the main proponents of the Aligarh Movement, Sayyid Ahmad
Khan (1817-1898) and Altaf Hussain Hali (1837-1914). The aim of the Aligarh
Movement was to enable the Muslim Urdu-speaking elite, which it repsented, to
adjust to the realities of British power after the suppression of the Indian rebellion
of 1857. Sayyid Ahmad Khan played a central role in the establishment of the
Muhammadan AngIo-Oriental College in 1875 and was a key figure in defining
“Islamic modernism” in India ...