THE CONCEPT OF MODERNIZATION AN ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY ISLAMIC THOUGHT

Abstract

One of the main characteristics of contemporary Islamic thought,
especially within the traditions of Islamic revival movements and the
Islamization of knowledge movement, is its critical attitude toward both
the Islamic heritage and western ideas, concepts, and theories. Thinkers
and scholars of these movements have neither rejected entirely the western
contributions toward knowledge, unlike the rejectionists, nor have
they accepted it blindly, like the adoptationists. Most thinkers in these
movements do not accept western ideas and concepts without a critical
evaluation from an Islamic perspective. Khurshid Ahmad aptly remarks:
The Islamic movement clearly differentiates between development
and modernization on the one hand and westernization and
secularization on the other. It says “yes” to modernization but
“no” to blind westernization.’
Such a stance on modernization may not be attributed only to such
Islamic movements as the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt,2 established by
Hasan al Banna,’ and the Jama‘at-e-Islami of the Indian subcontinent,~
founded by Abul A‘la Mawdudi,’ but also to the Islamization of knowledge
movement.6 The type of modernization welcomed by scholars of
these movements is not the same as that conceived by the West; rather,
it is an Islamic modernization based on an Islamic epistemology ...