Reclaiming Islamic Tradition: Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage

by Elisabeth Kendall (Editor), Ahmad Khan (Editor)

Overview

Recent events in the Islamic world have brought to our attention the formidable potency of the classical Islamic tradition. Debates over reform, revival, and change in the Islamic world, whether of a political, religious, or economic nature, revolve around an engagement with Islamic history, thought, and tradition. This book examines such debates by exploring modern texts, groups, and figures that stake out some sort of claim to pre-modern traditions in disciplines as diverse as Islamic law, Qur’anic exegesis, politics, literature, and jihad. It challenges the tendency to locate modern scholars and groups in the Islamic world on an ideal spectrum running in a linear way from ‘modernism’ to ‘Islamism.’ It provides new insights into the complex religious landscape of the Islamic world, drawing attention to important scholars and intellectuals, some of whom have received little or no attention in western scholarship. It provides an examination of how the classical Islamic heritage functions in today’s Islamic world in regions as diverse as the Middle East, Iran, and the Indian subcontinent. In its scope and coverage, this book transcends an increasing tendency towards bifurcation between classical and contemporary Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474432160
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	02/22/2018
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Elisabeth Kendall is Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Pembroke College, Oxford University. Previously, she held positions at the Universityies of Edinburgh and Harvard, as well as serving as Director of a UK government sponsored Center focused on building Arabic-based research expertise. Her current research examines how militant jihad groups exploit traditional local Arab cultures. She has lectured at government and academic institutions all around the world.

Ahmad Khan is postdoctoral researcher at Universityät Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut. In 2014-15, he was Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Oriental Studies. His D.Phil (Oxon) examined discourses of heresy and the formation of medieval Sunni orthodoxy. His current research focuses on the history of medieval Iran. His second research specialism concerns modern Islamic history/thought, particularly the emergence of publishing houses and editors in the Islamic world.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements;

About the Contributors viii

Introduction 1

Elisabeth Kendall and Ahmad Khan

1 Modern Shiʿite Legal Theory and the Classical Tradition 12

Robert Gleave

2 Muaammad Nā‚īr al-Dīn al-Albānī and Traditional Hadith

Criticism 33

Christopher Melchert

3 Islamic Tradition in an Age of Print: Editing, Printing and

Publishing the Classical Tradition 52

Ahmad Khan

4 Reaching into the Obscure Past: The Islamic Legal Heritage and

Reform in the Modern Period 100

Jonathan A. C. Brown

5 Reading Sūrat al-Anʿām with Muaammad Rashīd Ri∂ā and

Sayyid Qu†b 136

Nicolai Sinai

6 Contemporary Iranian Interpretations of the Qurʾan and

Tradition on Women’s Testimony 160

Karen Bauer

KENDALL 9781474403115 PRINT (11/13).indd 5 04/03/2016 13:06

vi | reclaiming islamic tradition

7 Ibn Taymiyya between Moderation and Radicalism 177

Jon Hoover

8 The Impact of a Sixteenth-Century Jihad Treatise on Colonial

and Modern India 204

Carole Hillenbrand

9 Jihadist Propaganda and Its Exploitation of the Arab Poetic

Tradition 223

Elisabeth Kendall

10 Contemporary Salafi Literature on Paradise and Hell: The Case of

ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar 247

Christian Lange

Index

What People are Saying About This

Ranging from law to exegesis and poetry, this volume presents prodigious evidence that tradition is not fragile and static, as many assume, but malleable and often re-interpreted. The contributors skilfully show that the past is not ‘a foreign country’, but an intimate part of the contestation over authority and meaning in modern Muslim societies.

Durham University James Piscatori

Ranging from law to exegesis and poetry, this volume presents prodigious evidence that tradition is not fragile and static, as many assume, but malleable and often re-interpreted. The contributors skilfully show that the past is not ‘a foreign country’, but an intimate part of the contestation over authority and meaning in modern Muslim societies.

Editorial Reviews

Ranging from law to exegesis and poetry, this volume presents prodigious evidence that tradition is not fragile and static, as many assume, but malleable and often re-interpreted. The contributors skilfully show that the past is not ‘a foreign country’, but an intimate part of the contestation over authority and meaning in modern Muslim societies.

Durham University James Piscatori

An excellent treatise for anyone who intends to understand debates in the Islamic world today and explore how Islamic tradition is continuously being reinterpreted, recast, reconfigured, and manipulated to address complex situations.

Reading Religion - Sania Ismailee

"Ranging from law to exegesis and poetry, this volume presents prodigious evidence that tradition is not fragile and static, as many assume, but malleable and often re-interpreted. The contributors skilfully show that the past is not 'a foreign country', but an intimate part of the contestation over authority and meaning in modern Muslim societies." — James Piscatori, Durham University

"An excellent treatise for anyone who intends to understand debates in the Islamic world today and explore how Islamic tradition is continuously being reinterpreted, recast, reconfigured, and manipulated to address complex situations." — Sania Ismailee, Reading Religion

From the Publisher