Innovation in Islam Traditions and Contributions [Hardcover]

Why has the West developed and modernized, while the Muslim world has lagged behind? Why has democracy not found a hospitable home in much of the Muslim world? Why have the opponents of innovation found their message so resonant with ordinary Muslims? Featuring essays by a multidisciplinary group of leading scholars, this volume offers in-depth analyses of the history, causes, consequences, and obstacles to innovation in Islam. Focusing on the ways and means through which the teachings of Islam have been produced and perpetuated over time, the contributors investigate such areas as the arts and letters, jurisprudence, personal status, hermeneutics and epistemology, and Muslims perceptions of the self in the modern world.Innovation in Islamilluminates a debate that extends beyond semantics into everyday politics and societyand one that has ramifications around the world.

Contributors: Nasr Abu-Zayd, Adonis, Mohammed Arkoun, Walter Denny, Nelly Hanna, Sherman Jackson, Patrick Laude, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Tariq Ramadan, John Voll

Mehran Kamravais Interim Dean of Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service in Qatar and also the Director of the Schools Center for International and Regional Studies. He is the author ofThe Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War(second edition, UC Press) andIrans Intellectual Revolution.He has also editedThe New Voices of Islam: Rethinking Politics and Modernity(UC Press).

In a clear and historically incisive argument, Kamrava and the other contributors indicate how the Islamic concept of innovation (Arabic,bid a) is an essentially contested and adaptive concept. Since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims have vigorously argued about its meaning and how to apply it. This incisive collection of essays range far beyond the confines of theology and jurisprudence, integrating ideological concerns with the exigencies of mundane l³e