Modern Islam - Revivalism, Modernism, and Fundamentalism - Literature review Example

Islam in the Modern World: Revivalism, Modernism, and Fundamentalism According to Lumbard, Islam contains a powerful tradition of revivalism, modernism, and fundamentalism.1 The ideas of renewal and reform are fundamental notions within Islam. The teachings of Islam itself are demonstrated in the Quran as the revival of the true religion of God and reform of corrupt activities that had crept into the activities of religion by previous communities. The complex question of Muslim loyalty to India provided their attachment with the entire of community of Islam worldwide has created an intricate web of narratives on the qaum as well as the territorial homeland. Lumbard further demonstrates that the faithfulness and the unfaithfulness of Muslims not only to the nation of India but also to the British raj have resulted into two main misconceptions among historians of nationalism and imperialism particularly in south Asia. Islam is the fastest enlarging religion in the whole world and is second only to Christianity in number of believers. Muslims are located in all areas of the world, although a good number of Muslims are concentrated in the Middle East and Asia. The Quran developed and embraced religion by a new road, untraded by the former scriptures, a route proper and feasible equally to the contemporaries of the revelation and to their successors.2 The ideas of Juan are in common with Muhammad Abduh because the evidence of Muhammad rested its case on a quality of eloquence beyond the competence of the rhetoricians to reproduce. Juan provides all that God allows his people or is significant for them to understand His characteristics.3 The aim of Abduh was to demonstrate that the supporters of the Islam modernism naturally believed that it was not only potential but very important to show how modern standards and associations could be acquiescent with dependably Islamic perfections. Abduh tried to bring together a wide array of information on modernist Islam from across the Muslim world. The allegation of a loyally knowledgeable cultural identity by an expressive group of ashraf (respectable Muslims) who are viewed to have motivated the separatist politics that ultimately ended in the division of India in 1947. According to the views of Lumbard, the decision that was made by the British to concede different representation under the Morley Minton reforms of 1909, irrespective of whether or not it was motivated by an offensive policy of divide and rule, was viewed as indicating the achievement of the Muslim society. However, both perceptions are represented in the involving proportional analysis of the nexus among territory, country, as well as society in Egypt and India leading to the failure of the Copts and the achievement of the Muslim’s safeguarding different representation from the imperial rulers in the early 20th century. Abduh takes the spotlight on the interplay among class, region, and community in exploring the territorial and extra-territorial allegiances of India’s Muslims in both their restraining and unreserved magnitude. For instance, He shows that a considerable number of Muslim’s first place of consultation was unquestionably the society. For instance, family members, the local kinship network, religion, as well as county. This is because a person`s society was quite knowledgeable than the forced homogeneities of a religiously distinct group in survey record recommendations. The ideas of Jamal can be situated in the wider intellectual project of the Islamic modernists in that he shows through the powerful connections to the state and region, a communitarian Muslim identity came to attain its key idioms at the time of transition from company to crown raj.4 For instance, there had existed some sense of religiously knowledgeable cultural differences in the subcontinent long before the experience with western colonialism, yet even in their social and political performances, religiously informed cultural differences were negotiable and amendable to accommodations. In the author`s pioneering study on colonial adaptations of the communication networks of late 18th and 19th northern India , he illustrates that pre-colonial social enquiry and representation were not collective in the sense that they viewed India as a field of conflict of two incompatible faiths. In addition, indo-Muslim governing principles were not secular in the sense that religion was viewed as a matter of political indifference and the colonial state`s avowed policy of neutrality based on political indifferences toward religion was easier to proclaim than translate into practice.5 As an ethical stand, it interfered with the essentials of ruling a culturally unfamiliar community. This was so because the main aim of the British was to appropriate existing symbols of cultural legitimacy so that religion could never be a matter of political indifference to the British. Fundamental for the search for coordinators and the organization of social control, religion was in the service of the colonial state political purposes and thus had qualitatively various penalties from the political management of religious conviction in the foregoing centuries. Immediately after the suppression of the revolt of 1857, the wide contours of the agreement between the north Indian Muslim elite and the colonial state on the other side were outlined. The representations of Muslims as the instigators of the rebellion and the extraordinary targeting of those living in Delhi made a strong notion of the difficult coexistence of Indian Islam with British colonialism. Such sloppiness was in disparity to the vitriolic writings of the Anglo Indian press, focused on showing up the Muslims as irremediably treacherous to the crown. The portrayals of Muslims as a society united by religion provided an opening to those desiring to represent the special interests that the British believed existed, and parts of the Hindu press, for reasons of their own saw no need to refute. According to Lumbard, Sayyid Ahmed Khan took it upon himself to control a wandering group of co-religionists into better places within the colonial system. Despite the fact that he spend most of his time in education, he also controlled the press to project an idea of persistent of Muslims with the colonial state`s epistemology of communitarians. It was easier for Muslims to rise above their interior differences on issues concerning co-religionists in Persia than to exercise unity in religion within India. Although Indian Muslims identified with their co-religionists the world over, they were firmly situated in India where it was British rule not the temporal and spiritual authority of the Ottoman caliphate. As a result, Sayyid together with others associates had to take up a truncheon against any trial to confuse the identity or religion with the identity of the nation. The outbreak of World War I caused Muslim ideas of nationality to a serious challenge.6 With Britain and Turkey in different camps, Islamic sentiments had to be measured against the essentials of subjecthood in colonial India. Under the force to experience the implications of their extra territorial affiliations in the light of changed situations, Muslims responded according to their place in the colonial system. Those with a stake in the collaborative networks of the raj attempted to justify their loyalist stand by arguing that Britain was not directly waging war against Ottoman turkey. The acceptance of different electorates by the congress resulted into the possibility of Muslims voluntarily coordinating mainstream Indian nationalism. After the war, the prospects of Muslim anti-colonialism making way for a united nationalist front seemed promising than ever. In conclusion, Islam holds an influential custom of revivalism, modernism, and fundamentalism. The ideas of renewal and reform are primary notions within Islam. The teachings of Islam itself are demonstrated in the Quran as the renewal of the true religion of God and reform of dishonest activities that had crept into the activities of religion by previous communities. Juan`s ideas were concerned with showing the way in which the Muslims reformed in the nineteenth century that most historians referred to as Islamic modernism. The aim of Kamran was to demonstrate that the supporters of the Islam modernism logically supposed that it was not only probable. However, very significant to show how modern standards and associations could be compliant with consistently Islamic perfections. The representations of Muslims as a society under the unity of religion offered an opportunity to those desiring to symbolize the exceptional interests that the British believed existed. Bibliography Cole, Juan. Modernity and culture: from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Columbia: University of Columbia, 2009. Kurzman, Charles. Modernist Islam, 1840-1940. New York: Oxford University Press, n.d. Lumbard, Joseph. Islam, fundamentalism, and the betrayal of tradition: essays by western Muslim scholars. New York, NY: World Wisdom, Inc, 2009. Malik, Jamal. Muslim culture and reform in 18th century south Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Muhammad, Abduh. The theology of unity (Risalat al-Tauhid). New York, NY: Islamic book Trust, 2004. Talattof, Kamran. Modernist and fundamentalist debates in Islam: a reader. Boston: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Read More