Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon AnswersA Berber from the mountainous region of Algeria, Mohammed Arkoun is an internationally renowned scholar of Islamic thought. In this book, he advocates a conception of Islam as a stream of experience encompassing majorities and minorities, Sunni and Shi'a, popular mystics and erudite scholars, ancient heroes and modern critics. A product of Islamic culture, Arkoun nonetheless disagrees with the Islamic establishment and militant Islamist groups; as a student of twentieth-century social science in the West and an admirer of liberalism, he self-consciously distances himself from Western Orientalists and Western conceptions of liberalism.This book—the first of Arkoun's works to be widely available in English—presents his responses to twenty-four deceptively simple questions, including: Can one speak of a scientific understanding of Islam in the West or must one rather talk about the Western way of imagining Islam? What do the words “Islam,” “Muslim,” and “Qur'an” mean? What is meant by “revelation” and “tradition''? What did Islam retain from the previously revealed religions—Judaism and Christianity? What did it retain from the religions and customs of pre-Islamic Arabia? In answering these and other questions, Arkoun provides an introduction to one of the world's great religions and offers a biting, radical critique of Islamology as it has been practiced in both East and West.This is a book for the beginning student of Islam and for the general reader uneasy with media images of Islam as a monolithic, anti-Western, violence-prone religion. It is also a book for specialists seeking an entré into Arkoun's methhodology—his efforts toapply contemporary thinking about anthropology, philosophy, semiotics, history, and sociology to the Islamic tradition and its relationship to the West. It is a book for anyone concerned about the identity crisis that has left many Muslims estranged from both a modernity imposed upon them and a tradition subverted for nationalist and Islamist purposes. |
Other editions - View all
Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers Mohammed Arkoun,Robert D. Lee Limited preview - 2019 |
Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers Mohammed Arkoun,Robert D. Lee No preview available - 1994 |
Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers MOHAMMED. LEE ARKOUN (ROBERT D.),Robert D Lee No preview available - 2020 |
Common terms and phrases
ahl al-kitab al-Ghazali al-kitab Algeria anthropological Arab Arabia Atatürk authority Averroës believers Book Book/book caliph called century Christianity civilization concept consciousness contemporary Muslim context critical critique cultural dhimmi divine dogmatic closure domain economic emergence ethical exegesis faith Fernand Braudel French function Greek groups hadith human rights ideological imaginary imam intellectual Islamic discourse Islamic thought Islamic tradition Islamist Islamology isnād Jews jihad Khariji L'Islam language legitimate liberation linguistic linked Maisonneuve et Larose meaning Mecca Medina Mediterranean militant modern Mohammed Arkoun movement Mu'tazili Muhammad mushaf Muslim countries Muslim societies Muslim world musulman mystical mythical orthodoxy Paris person perspective philosophy political Prophet question Qur'an Qur'anic discourse reason religious revelation revolution sacralization and transcendentalization sacred scholars sciences scientific secular semantic shari'a social spiritual status Sufism Sura 9 symbolic capital teaching theological tion translated truth ulema Umayyads umma University verses West Western