Modernist and Fundamentalist Debates in Islam

The two editors of this volume have successfully pooled their expertise insociology, politics, and modern Islam to bring together a cogent and wellorganizedreader of key texts depicting the self-statements of what maybe tentatively called Islamic “modernism” and “fundamentalism.” Theselection of 34 articles and treatises (18 on modernism, 16 on fundamentalism)is preceded by a scholarly introduction that also contains shortbiographies of the writers represented in this volume.For the purpose of organizing this anthology, the editors chose tohighlight what they describe as two “episodes” in modern Islam: thepowerful wave of Islamic modernism that arose in the last quarter of thenineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries, and the perhapsmore powerful wave of Islamic fundamentalism that arose from the1930s onward. This semi-chronological division of two sociocultural andideological waves is to be taken not as a representation of rigid categories,but merely as an heuristic devise meant to focus the reader’sattention on the contrasts and differences between them. The editors areaware that the designations “modernism” and “fundamentalism” areideal types, that the distinction between them begins to weaken as oneclosely examines their particular and concrete manifestations, and thatone type may develop traits or characteristics of the other, given appropriatesocial circumstances.As ideal types, however, the editors believe that Islamic modernismand fundamentalism may be identified on the basis of positions taken byspecific intellectuals or ideologues on five central and “historically significant”issues: jurisprudence, politics, western civilization, gender, andlifestyle. Consequently, these are the categories according to which they ...