CORE MODULE OUTLINE AN INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ISLAMIC THINKING

INTRODUCTION This outline contains suggestions for an integral core module providing a foundation for a more thematic approach to further teaching and learning on contemporary Islamic thinking, or for a set of introductory lectures and seminars as part of an expanded module on contemporary Islamic thinking. The materials are designed for students with some foundation in the study of Islam on undergraduate and postgraduate level. The appropriate level of academic rigour can be achieved by the inclusion and exclusion of the proposed materials.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES This core module is set up as an intellectual history of the contemporary Muslim world. It provides a survey of the development of intellectual life throughout the present-day Muslim world in order to come to an understanding of Muslim thinking from the final decades of the 20th century onwards. It takes care to highlight developments in different parts of the Muslim world, focusing not only on the Arabic-speaking parts, but also taking specific notice of developments in Turkey, Iran, and South and Southeast Asia. Upon completion students will have a comprehensive overview of some core trends in contemporary Islamic thinking. It provides a foundation for further explorations of selected themes. The core module can also be expanded into an integral course on contemporary thinking drawing on the capita selecta provided as part of this resources pack.

EDUCATIONAL AIMS OF THE CORE MODULE To introduce students to the state of affairs in contemporary Muslim thinking on religion in its various aspects, as well as the broader cultural and social-political history of the presentday Muslim world. As a survey of present-day Muslim intellectual history, it focuses on the ways in which Muslims with varying outlooks, intellectual backgrounds, and ideological convictions have engaged with Islam as a religious tradition and its broader civilizational heritage. The course invites students to examine this subject matter on the basis of both primary texts and secondary academic literature. Attention is also paid to (self)-reflexivity and the insider/outsider perspective.

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LEARNING OUTCOMES Generic skills: To engage competently and critically with primary and secondary scholarly sources for the study of Islam and the Muslim world. To present ideas in both written and oral form in accordance with academic standards expected of students in British higher education.

Course specific skills: To come to an informed understanding of contemporary Islamic thinking within the context of the intellectual history of the Muslim world. To think critically about the overall relationship of Islamic thinking and the broader intellectual history of the contemporary Muslim world. To develop the critical skills for identifying a variety of possible readings of the Islamic heritage and appreciate the multiplicity in interpreting Islams intellectual legacy. To critically examine the Islamic intellectual tradition with a view to expose students to skills of cross-cultural dialogue and engagement. To provide students with an intellectual historical framework and context in preparation for engaging with a thematic approach to the further study of contemporary Islamic thinking To examine the cultural and ideological diversity within contemporary Islamic thinking on various subjects and topics.

TEACHING PLAN This course consists of a series of hybrid teaching sessions, combining lecturing and classroom discussion of assigned readings. In order to ensure that this interactive approach is effective, efficient and rewarding for all concerned, students are expected to attend these sessions, take care to prepare the readings, and take active part in discussing the selected texts. Lecturers can make a selection from the orientational readings and material for classroom discussion based on their own judgment. It is recommended that students used those texts not selected for classroom discussion as background readings which will help them contextualize the texts which will be subject of discussion. In addition, they will help them in selecting subjects for both formative and summative essays. At the teachers discretion, texts can also be used for classroom presentations by the students.

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1) Introduction to the contemporary intellectual history of the Muslim world This introductory session is intended to reconnoiter the field, focusing on a key feature of contemporary Islamic thinking the collapse of dichotomies and binaries such as Islam versus the West and Modernity versus Tradition. It will also address the related issue of classifying or categorizing different types of contemporary Muslim strands of thinking. It is proposed to work with a very general division of contemporary intellectuals into (neo)traditionalists, Islamic Revivalists, and New Muslim Intellectuals. Orientational Readings and Material for classroom discussion Eickelman, Dale F. (2000) The Coming Transformation of the Muslim World Current History 99(633), pp. 16-20 Eickelman, Dale F. and Jon W. Anderson (1997) Print, Islam, and the Prospects for Civic Pluralism: New Religious Writings and Their Audiences, pp. 43-62 Feener, R. Michael (2007) Cross-Cultural Contexts of Modern Muslim Intellectualism Welt des Islams 47(3-4), pp. 264-82 Saeed, Abdullah (2007) 'Trends in Contemporary Islam: a Preliminary Attempt at a Classification' Muslim World 97:3, pp. 395-404. Shepard, William (2004) The Diversity of Islamic Thought: Towards a Typology. In: TajiFarouki, Suha and Basheer M. Nafi (eds.) Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, pp. 61-103

Further readings Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim M. (1996) Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World. Albany: State university of New York Press Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim M. (2004) Contemporary Arab Thought: Studies in Post-1967 Arab Intellectual History. London and Sterling: Pluto Press Boullata, Issa J. (1990) Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought. S.U.N.Y. Series in Middle Eastern Studies. Albany: N.Y. State University Press Daftari, Farhat (ed.) (2000) Intellectual Traditions in Islam. London: I.B. Tauris Esposito, John L. and John O. Voll (2001) Makers of Contemporary Islam. New York: Oxford University Press Kassab, Elizabeth Suzanne (2010) Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Contemporary Perspective. New York: Columbia University Press Kurzman, Charles (1998) Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press

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Said, Abdul Aziz, Mohammed Abu-Nimer and Meena Sharify-Funk (eds.) (2006) Contemporary Islam: Dynamic not Static. London and New York: Routledge Saeed, Abdullah (2006) Islamic Thought: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge Taji-Farouki, Suha and Basheer M. Nafi (eds.) (2004) Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Vogt, Kari, Lena Larsen & Christian Moe (eds.) (2009) New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring Reform and Muslim Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris

2) Contemporary Islamic Thinking and Modernity The key challenge still facing contemporary Muslims is how to cope with the impact of modernity in its Western guise. It has invited wide-ranging debates whether Islam is compatible with Islam, or rather from the Muslim point of view the reverse. It is possible to discern three general dispositions towards modernity: Adopt; adopt and adapt; resist and reject. This session will survey these various reactions and the strategies employed by Muslim intellectuals in formulating these responses. It will also explore the possibility of an Islamic version of modernity. Orientational Readings and Material for classroom discussion Abou el Fadl, Khaled (2003) The Ugly Modern and the Modern Ugly: Reclaiming Beauty in Islam In: Safi, Omid (ed.) Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. Oxford: Oneworld, pp. 33-77 Madjid, Nurcholish (2003) The Issue of Modernization Among Muslims in Indonesia: From a Participatns Point of View In: The True Face of Islam: Essays on Islam and Modernity in Indonesia. Jakarta: The Voice Center, pp. 19-34 Soroush, Abdolkarim (2009) The Changeable and the Unchangeable In: Vogt, Kari, Lena Larsen & Christian Moe (eds.) New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring Reform and Muslim Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 9-16

Further Readings Azmeh, Aziz al- (2009) Islam and Modernities. 3rd Edition. London and New York: Verso Bennett, Clinton (2005) Muslims and Modernity: An Introduction to the Issues and Debates. London: Continuum Berry, Donald (2003) Islam and Modernity through the Writings of Islamic Modernist Fazlur Rahman. Lewiston etc.: Edwin Mellen Press Binder, Leonard (1988) Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press
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Boland, B.J. (1971) The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia .The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, Bruinessen, Martin van and Julia Day Howell (eds.) (2007). Sufism and the Modern in Islam. London: I.B. Tauris Cooper, John, Ronald Nettler and Mohamed Mahmoud (eds.) (2000) Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond. London: I.B. Tauris Fazlur Rahman (1982) Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: Chicago University Press Jahanbegloo, Ramin (ed.) (2004) Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity. Lanham etc.: Lexington Books Kamrava, Mehran (ed.) The New Voices of Islam: Rethinking Politics and Modernity Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press Lee, Robert D. (1997) Overcoming Tradition and Modernity: The Search for Islamic Authenticity. Boulder: Westview Press Martn-Muoz, Gema (ed.) (1999) Islam, Modernism and the West. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Mirsepassi, Ali (2003) Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization: Negotiating Modernity in Iran. Cambridge and New York@ Cambridge University Press Ramadan, Tariq (2004) Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press Saleh, Fauzan (2001) Modern Trends in Islamic Theological Discourse in 20th Century Indonesia: A Critical Survey, Leiden/Boston/Kln: Brill. Salvatore, Armando (1997) Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity. Reading: Ithaca Press Tapper, Richard (ed.) (1991) Islam in modern Turkey: Religion, Politics, and Literature in a Secular State. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Tibi, Bassam (2009) Islams Predicament with Modernity: Religious Reform and Cultural Change

3) Islamic Revivalism/Islamism The Muslim rejectionist response to modernity is represented by a strand of thought which is presented under many names. It is suggested to use the characterization Islamic Revivalism as a gloss category accommodating other designations such as Salafism and Islamic Fundamentalism. The generic political transposition of Islamic revivalist thought is known as Islamism, manifesting itself in a variety of guises, including Wahhabism and
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Jihadism. The lecture will be geared towards problematizing all these terms and introduce the students to the wide-ranging debates involving Muslims and non-Muslims on the subject. Orientational Readings and Material for classroom discussion Bin Laden, Usama (2009) Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places In: Euben and Zaman (eds.), pp. 425-259 Haykel, Bernard (2009) On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action & Appendix: AlQaedas Creed and Path. In: Meijer, Roel (ed.) Global Salafism: Islams New Global Movement. London: C. Hurst & Company, pp. 33-57 Nafi, Basheer (2004) The Rise of Islamic Reformist Thought and its Challenge to Traditional Thought. In: Taji-Farouki, Suha and Basheer M. Nafi (eds.) Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, pp. 28-60 Ruthven, Malise (2002) The Aesthetics of Martyrdom In: A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America. London and New York: Granta Books., pp. 72-98

Further Readings Euben, Roxanne L. And Muhammad Qasim Zaman (Eds.) (2009) Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press Hansen, Stig Jarle, Atle Mesy and Tuncay Kaerdas (eds. (2009) The Borders of Islam: Exploring Samuel Huntingtons Faultlines from Al-Andalus to the Virtual Ummah. London: Hurst and Company Kepel, Gilles (2002) Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Cambridge (Mass.): The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Lacroix, Stphane (2011) Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Meijer, Roel (ed.) (2009) Global Salafism: Islams New Religious Movement. London: Hurst and Company Zakariyya, Fouad (2005) Myth and Reality in the Contemporary Islamic Movement. Translated and with an introduction and Bibliography by Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press

3) (Neo-)Traditionalists Traditional Islam, and its representatives known as Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamaah, face challenges from within and without. The latter in the form of the onslaught of modernity, originating in the West, and the former by Islamic reformists insisting on returning to the scriptural sources of Islam in order to defy western-introduced modernity by reviving Islamic tenets and doctrines without being encumbered by traditional learning or taqlid. This session will examine how
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traditional Muslims have responded to this double challenge and how they present the relevance of taqlid for contemporary Muslims. A central issue is question of religious authority of the guardians of traditional Islamic learning, the ulam. Aside from consolidating traditional Islamic learning attention will also be paid to persistence of Islamic spiritual thought and practice, or Sufism, in present-day Muslim world. Orientational Readings and Material for classroom discussion Abou el Fadl, Khaled (2009) Islamic Authority In: Vogt et al (eds.), pp. 129-44 Bula, Ali (2006) The Most Recent Reviver in the Ulama Tradition: the Intellectual Alim. Fethullah Glen In: Hunt and Aslandoan (eds), pp. 85-101 Saritoprak, Zeki (2003) Fethullah Glen: a Sufi in His Own Way. In: M. Hakan Yavuz and John L. Esposito (eds.), pp. 156-69 Van den Bos, Mathijs (2007) Elements of Neo-Traditional Sufism in Iran In: van Bruinessen and Howell (eds.), pp.61-75 Zeghal, Malika (2007) The Recentering of Religious Knowledge and Discourse: The Case of al-Azhar in Twentieth-Century Egypt In: Hefner and Zaman (eds.) pp. 107-30

Further Readings Abou El Fadl, Khaled M. (2001) Speaking in Gods Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women. Oxford: Oneworld Press Abou El Fadl, Khaled M. (2001) Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Graf, Bettina and Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen (eds.) The Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf al-Qaradawi. London: Hurst & Company Khuri, Richard K. (1998) Freedom, Modernity, and Islam: Towards a Creative Synthesis. London: The Athlone Press Qaradawi, Yusuf al- (1987) Islamic Awakening: Between Rejection and Extremism. London: Zain International Sirriyeh, Elizabeth (1998) Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defence, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism in the Modern World . London: Curzon Press Van Bruinessen, Martin and Julia Day Howell (eds.) (2007) Sufism and the Modern in Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, Yilmaz, Ihsan, Jean Michael Cros etc/ (ed.) (2007) Peaceful Coexistence: Fethullah Glens Initiatives in the Contemporary World. Leeds: Leeds Metropolitan University Yilmaz, Ihsan, Eileen Barker etc. (2007) (eds.) Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Glen Movement. Leeds: Leeds Metropolitan University
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Zaman, M. Qasim (2002) The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity PresS

4) New Muslim Intellectuals: Heritage (Turath)Thinkers The final decades of the 20th century saw the emergence of a new strand of thinking about the place of Islam in the contemporary Muslim world. Exponents of this discourse advocate a comprehensive and inclusivist view of the Islamic tradition by understanding it as a civilizational heritage or turath. These turathiyun or heritage thinkers combine an intimate familiarity with the Islamic tradition with an equally solid understanding of recent developments and advances in the human sciences, using it for a critical engagement with Orientational Readings and Material for classroom discussion Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim (1996) Turth Resurgent? Arab Islamism and the Problem of Tradition In: Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World. Albany: State University of New York, pp. 40-61 Khosrokhavar, Farhad (2004) The New Intellectuals in Iran, pp. 191-202 Kersten, Carool (2009) Indonesias New Muslim Intellectuals Religion Compass 3(6), pp. 971-985 Meeker, Michael E. (1991) The New Muslim Intellectuals in the Republic of Turkey, pp. 189-219

Further Readings Alam, Rudy Harisyah and Ihsan Ali-Fauzi (eds.) (2003) The True Face of Islam: Essays on Islam and Modernity in Indonesia. Jakarta: Voice Center Arkoun, Mohammed (2002) The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought. London: Saqi Book Armajani, Jon (2004) Dynamic Islam: Liberal Muslim Perspectives in a Transnational Age. Washington: University of America Press Hanafi, Hasan (2000) Islam in the Modern World. 2 Vols. 2nd edition. Cairo: DarKebaa Bookshop [1995] Jabri, Mohammed Abed al- (1999) Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Contemporary Critique. Translated from the French by Aziz Abbassi. Austin: The Center for Middle Eastern studies, The University of Texas at Austin Jabri, Mohammed Abed al- (2009) Democracy, Human Rights and Law in Islamic Thoughts. London and New York: I.B. Tauris

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Kamrava, Mehran (2009) Irans Intellectual Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Kersten, Carool (2011) Cosmopolitans and Heretics: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam. London and New York: Hurst Publishers & Columbia University Press Majid, Anouar (2007) A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America. Mineapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press

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