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This book is an attempt to explain how, in the face of increasing religious authoritarianism in medieval Islamic civilization, some Muslim thinkers continued to pursue essentially humanistic, rational, and scientific discourses in the quest for knowledge, meaning, and values. Drawing on a wide range of Islamic writings, from love poetry to history to philosophical theology, Goodman shows that medieval Islam was open to individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism, even liberalism.
Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West by Makdisi George Makdisi Pdf
Challenging beliefs about intellectual culture, Makdisi reaffirms the links between Western and Arabic thought and shows that although scholasticism and humanism have long been considered to be exclusive to the Western world, they have their roots in the medieval Islamic world.
The present volume is the first attempt of its kind at presenting Islam as a religion of humanism in the light of the totality of its teachings as gleaned from the original sources, especially the Qur'an and Hadith (Apostolic Traditions). Contrasting sharply with the stereotyped, distorted image of islam, it provides penetrating insights into its broad humanistic aspirations aimed at full flowering of all the physical, intellectual and spiritual faculties man has been allowed with and given the status of being the noblest creature. The book deals in detail with the role played by Islam in the advancement of human thought and progress by opening up large dimensions of reason through inculcation of the spirit of scientific inquiry in man. It also objectively assesses the contribution of Islam as a civilizing agency with special reference to its secular, liberal and humanistic aspects in a manner that enables modern minds to understand and appreciate them fully. It is hoped that this volume will not only acquaint the readers with the genuine image of Islam, but also enlighten them on the chief ingredients of its dynamism.
Humanism in Islam - The West's generalized fear and lack of intellectual honesty toward Islam prevent it from recognizing the wealth of benefits Islam bestows on mankind. Demonstrates that Islam and Islamic law can make a vital contribution to the protection of human rights worldwide. Freed from European colonial tutelage and representing almost a billion souls, grouped in approximately forty states, the Muslims have entered the international scene without really having any other choice but to imitate the existing institutions, or to accept provisions in which they, historically speaking, have had no participation. Nevertheless, the process of modernization has not lured the Muslims away from the remembrance of a glorious heritage. On the contrary, wherever the movement of Westernization has been too brutal, it has run into a religious challenge. Islam thus reappeared as one of the grand moral and political forces of the contemporary world. Humanism in Islam has not been drafted only out of sympathy for the Muslims but also on account of historical evidence: Islamic civilization was the first to outline clear and mandatory provisions for protecting the destiny of man and society, and for creating order in the ties between peoples. As to its general character, this work attempts to encourage a certain Western public to abandon its ethnocentrism in order to better understand the legitimate aspirations - expressing themselves sometimes in chaos - of the present-day Muslims.
This text is an attempt to explain how, in the face of increasing religious authoritarianism in medieval Islamic civilization, some Muslim thinkers continued to pursue essentially humanistic, rational, and scientific discourses in the quest for knowledge, meaning, and values.
Humanism and Muslim Culture by Stefan Reichmuth,Jörn Rüsen,Aladdin Sarhan Pdf
The papers of this volume move from the abstract scheme of an intercultural humanism of the future to concrete cultural expressions of humanism within the Muslim culture of different times up to the present. They concentrate on three issues. The first is related to contemporary attempts to develop a humanist and historical hermeneutics of the Qur'an and of Islamic history. The second discusses the humanist heritage and the humanitarian trends of Muslim religious and literary culture. The third highlights the discussion on Humanism and Islam as a topic within European identity politics, covering the role of this discussion for the history of Islamic Studies in Europe and America, and the contemporary polemics around Islam in the Netherlands. Taken together, the contributions of the volume attempt to provide the groundwork for an assessment of the roots and prospects of an intercultural humanism with respect to the Muslim world.
Humanism and Muslim Culture by Stefan Reichmuth,Jörn Rüsen,Aladdin Sarhan Pdf
"The background of this book was an international symposium on 'Humanism in Islam: An Inter-Cultural Discourse', held from 6 to 8 April 2009 in Alexandria, Egypt. This event was among the international conferences convened by the project 'Humanism in the Era of Globalisation - An Intercultural Dialogue on Humanity, Culture and Values' of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI), Essen, Germany. It was held in cooperation with the Goethe Institute Alexandria at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt"--P. [9].
The World of Persian Literary Humanism by Hamid Dabashi Pdf
Humanism has mostly considered the question “What does it mean to be human?” from a Western perspective. Dabashi asks it anew from a non-European perspective, in a groundbreaking study of 1,400 years of Persian literary humanism. He presents the unfolding of this vast tradition as the creative and subversive subconscious of Islamic civilization.
Islamic Charities and Islamic Humanism in Troubled Times by Jonathan Benthall Pdf
This book is the fruit of twenty years' reflection on Islamic charities, both practically and as a key to understand the crisis in contemporary Islam. On the one hand Islam is undervalued as a moral and political force whose admirable qualities are epitomised in its strong tradition of charitable giving. On the other hand, it suffers from a crisis of authority that cannot be blamed entirely on the history of colonialism and stigmatisation to which Muslims have undoubtedly been subjected - most recently, as a result of the "War on Terror". The book consists of seventeen previously published chapters, with a general introduction and new prefatory material for each chapter. Part one reviews the current situation of Islamic charities from many different viewpoints. Part two expands the coverage to explore the potential for a twenty-first century global "Islamic humanism" devised by Muslims. This means addressing contentious topics such as religious toleration.
Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam by Joel L. Kraemer Pdf
Under the enlightened rule of the Buyid dynasty (945-1055 A.D.) the Islamic world witnessed an unequalled cultural renaissance. This book is an investigation into the nature of the environment in which the cultural transformation took place and into the cultural elite who were its bearers. After an extensive introductory section setting the stage, the book deals with the main schools and circles and with the outstanding individual representatives of this renaissance. The main expression of this renaissance was a philosophical humanism that embraced the scientific and philosophical heritage of Classical Antiquity as a cultural and educational ideal. Along with this philosophical humanism, a literary humanism was cultivated by litterateurs, poets, and government secretaries. This renaissance was marked by a powerful assertion of individualism in the domains of literary creativity and political action. It thrived in a remarkably cosmopolitan atmosphere - Baghdad, the center of the 'Abb?sid empire and of Buyid rule.
Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam by Kraemer Pdf
Under the enlightened rule of the Buyid dynasty (945-1055 A.D.) the Islamic world witnessed an unequalled cultural renaissance. This book is an investigation into the nature of the environment in which the cultural transformation took place and into the cultural elite who were its bearers. After an extensive introductory section setting the stage, the book deals with the main schools and circles and with the outstanding individual representatives of this renaissance. The main expression of this renaissance was a philosophical humanism that embraced the scientific and philosophical heritage of Classical Antiquity as a cultural and educational ideal. Along with this philosophical humanism, a literary humanism was cultivated by litterateurs, poets, and government secretaries. This renaissance was marked by a powerful assertion of individualism in the domains of literary creativity and political action. It thrived in a remarkably cosmopolitan atmosphere — Baghdad, the center of the ‘Abbāsid empire and of Buyid rule.
The question of who 'we' are and what vision of humanity 'we' assume in Western culture lies at the heart of hotly debated questions on the role of religion in education, politics, and culture in general. The need for recovering a greater purpose for social practices is indicated, for example, by the rapidly increasing number of publications on the demise of higher education, lamenting the fragmentation of knowledge and university culture's surrender to market-driven pragmatism. The West's cultural rootlessness and lack of cultural identity are also revealed by the failure of multiculturalism to integrate religiously vibrant immigrant cultures. A main cause of the West's cultural malaise is the long-standing separation of reason and faith. Jens Zimmermann suggests that the West can rearticulate its identity and renew its cultural purpose by recovering the humanistic ethos that originally shaped Western culture. In tracing the religious roots of humanism from patristic theology, through the Renaissance into modern philosophy, we find that humanism was originally based on the correlation of reason and faith. In this book, the author combines humanism, religion, and hermeneutic philosophy to re-imagine humanism for our current cultural and intellectual climate. The hope of this recovery is for humanism to become what Charles Taylor has called a 'social imaginary', an internalized vision of what it means to be human. This vision will encourage, once again, the correlation of reason and faith in order to overcome current cultural impasses, such as those posed, for example, by religious and secularist fundamentalisms.
What is Islam? How do we grasp a human and historical phenomenon characterized by such variety and contradiction? What is "Islamic" about Islamic philosophy or Islamic art? Should we speak of Islam or of islams? Should we distinguish the Islamic (the religious) from the Islamicate (the cultural)? Or should we abandon "Islamic" altogether as an analytical term? In What Is Islam?, Shahab Ahmed presents a bold new conceptualization of Islam that challenges dominant understandings grounded in the categories of "religion" and "culture" or those that privilege law and scripture. He argues that these modes of thinking obstruct us from understanding Islam, distorting it, diminishing it, and rendering it incoherent. What Is Islam? formulates a new conceptual language for analyzing Islam. It presents a new paradigm of how Muslims have historically understood divine revelation—one that enables us to understand how and why Muslims through history have embraced values such as exploration, ambiguity, aestheticization, polyvalence, and relativism, as well as practices such as figural art, music, and even wine drinking as Islamic. It also puts forward a new understanding of the historical constitution of Islamic law and its relationship to philosophical ethics and political theory. A book that is certain to provoke debate and significantly alter our understanding of Islam, What Is Islam? reveals how Muslims have historically conceived of and lived with Islam as norms and truths that are at once contradictory yet coherent.
