Islam and the Tyranny of Authenticity: An Inquiry into Disciplinary Apologetics

Many scholars of Islam are interested in creating a liberal, inclusive, pluralistic, feminist, and modern version of the religion that they believe to be explicit in the pages of the Quran, but missed by earlier interpreters. In so doing, they create good Islam and, in the process, seek to define what does and does not get to count as authentic. As the purveyors of what they now believe to be veritable Islam, they subsequently claim that rival presentations are bastardizations based either ...