Religious studies

Posted: January 6th, 2014

Islam in the Modern World involves the meeting of two disparate worldviews. One is often rooted in the alleged infallibility of tradition and Islamic history, while the other is represented by something we call modernity, (see, for example, Soroush, p. 56). Muslim reformers, from a variety of regional backgrounds, representing both male and female interests, have struggled to either (a) bring these two worlds into balance, or (b) assert the primacy of one of these worldviews over the other.

Your paper should concentrate on either (A) a reformist thinker, or (B) a political, social or psychological issue with which reformists have struggled.

A. If you choose to focus upon a reform thinker, then anyone we have studied in the class is acceptable for further analysis. Be sure to take your discussion and research beyond lectures and readings. Or, you may have another reformer in mind, one that was not taken up in our course. What are his or her views of Islam? What is their regional background and do they have any formal educational training? What spiritual writings and what kinds of humanistic discourse are they influenced by? What issues do they see as central to the reformation of Islam? Is there an academic methodology involved in their reformist discourse? What prejudices might be involved in their reformist agenda? Have they helped or hindered the cause of Islam in the modern world, as you see it?

B. If you decide to concentrate upon an issue (the hijab, for example) make note of how this issue is discussed in more traditional sources (the Qur’ān, for example) before moving to a more modern analysis. When did the issue which you have selected arise in modern discourse? Did it arise in one specific region of Islam, or in several? If several, what are some of the contrasting views with respect to the treatment of the issue in question? What kind of intellectual standard can we use to adjudicate this issue? To what extent might the issue in question be symbolic, and representative of other Muslim concerns?