Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century

In the introduction, the editors explain that the main motivation for producingthis volume is that, in the course of the last century or so, the Muslimworld has experienced unprecedented change to its societies and culturesthat, in turn, has had a tremendous impact upon its intellectual life. TheMuslim world’s encounter with modernity has been a source of tensionthat has turned “Islamic discourse in the twentieth century into a crisis” (p.3). In devising a framework for what they call the “dialectical relationship”between twentieth-century Islamic thought and modernity, SuhaTaji-Farouki and Basheer Nafi have resolved to construct their accountaround three themes: the emergence of new spokespersons, the diversityof twentieth-century Muslim discourse, and the connections and disruptionsbetween Islamic thought and the rest of “the global intellectualarena” (p. 5).With regards to the first theme, the key observation is that a new type ofintellectual, one who is not part of the ulama’ class, has taken center stage.The lack of consensus and almost “complete fragmentation” of present-dayIslamic thought is attributed to the external challenges that the Muslimworld has faced for the last 200 years. In fact, contemporary Islamic thoughtmirrors the very nature of modernity: the loss of certainty, challenged values,relativism, and an Islamdom – formerly assumed to be invincible – thathas been shaken to its inner core. An interesting observation made in thisrespect is “the blurring of the contours between expressions of Islamic intellectualismand the academic study of Islam” (p. 11). As a result of theirencounter with western scholarship, Muslim intellectuals felt increasinglycompelled to respond to what they saw as Orientalist distortions. However,as area study experts, social scientists, and specialists from the humanities –among them increasing numbers of Muslim scholars – began to study Islam,it became possible to discern a “meeting of the minds.” ...