The Crisis of Muslim Religious Discourse:
The Necessary Shift from Plato to Kant

By Lahouari Addi

Publisher: Routledge

Publication Date: September 25, 2023

Showing that Muslim societies are facing a crisis that is more cultural than religious, this book focuses on cultural representations through which social life is experienced in the Muslim world. It brings a new theoretical framework to address the secularization process that is underway and the contradictions it entails.

This volume will arouse a new debate on secularization and the relations between religion, culture and philosophy. The crisis Muslim societies are undergoing pertains to the culture and not to the Qur’an to the extent that people do not have access to the sacred in itself but only for oneself, meaning a cultural interpretation of the sacred. The Qur’an in itself is not an obstacle to secularization and modernization since any sacred text is experienced through culture. If we consider the European experience where secularization has first emerged, we see that culture has been transformed from medieval metaphysics to modern philosophy upholding a civic culture.

Discussing secularization through cultural representation, this book launches new ideas that fill an important gap in the literature on secularization. It is a key resource for any readers interested in religious studies, philosophy and the anthropology of religion.

Table of Contents

1. Plato and Plotinus in Medieval Abrahamic Theology
2. Islam and the Platonic Dualism
3. From Sufism to Islamism
4. Muhammad Abduh or the Failure of the Epistemic Transition
5. A Positivism Without Human Agency
6. Transcendence, History and Ethics: Contemporary Stakes
7. Shari’a, Fiqh and Muslim Law
8. Europe, Islam and Secularization

About the Author

Lahouari Addi is Professor Emeritus at Sciences Po, University of Lyon, and a member of the research center Triangle CNRS. Former member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2002-2003). Professor Addi’s current research focuses on Muslim Law in the light of Moral Philosophy. Author of Radical Arab Nationalism and Political Islam (2017).

More information on: Routledge

With the developments in the stem cell technology, a fully functional heart or a liver prepared in the laboratory to replace diseased organs may not remain a distant possibility. Scientists in different parts of the world are pursuing this ambitious goal using stem cells – the raw material from which other cells grow.

A recent article published in the Stem Cell Reports highlights that the voices of faith communities, especially Muslims, are relatively silent in the global discourse on stem cell ethics.

The authors of the paper, who are members of an International Ethics Thinking Group, foresee that this inclusion can strengthen the understanding of ethical issues, improve global guidelines and regulations, enhance public engagement in ethics debates and policy development, and enable broader participation in the knowledge society…Representation of faith communities in devising policies is crucial, especially when contested sources such as human embryos are used in stem cell research, argue the authors.

Considering this inherent bias and growing participation of Muslim countries in the stem cell science, the authors call for consciously expanding the participation of thought leaders from the Muslim world in global discussions.

Source: The News International

Religion, Ethics, Politics and Perpetual Modernity

By Mohammed Hashas

Publisher: Routledge (July 24, 2018)

Series: Routledge Islamic Studies Series

Suspicions about the integration of Islam into European cultures have been steadily on the rise, and dramatically so since 9/11. One reason lies in the visibility of anti-Western Islamic discourses of salafi origin, which have monopolized the debate on the “true” Islam, not only among Muslims but also in the eyes of the general population across Europe; these discourses combined with Islamophobic discourses reinforce the so-called incompatibility between the West and Islam.

This book breaks away from this clash between Islam and the West, by arguing that European Islam is possible. It analyzes the contribution that European Islam has made to the formation of an innovative Islamic theology that is deeply ethicist and modern, and it clarifies how this constructed European Islamic theology is able to contribute to the various debates that are related to secular-liberal democracies of Western Europe.

Part I introduces four major projects that defend the idea of European Islam from different disciplines and perspectives: politics, political theology, jurisprudence and philosophy. Part II uses the frameworks from three major philosophers and scholars to approach the idea of European Islam in the context of secular-liberal societies: British scholar George Hourani, Moroccan philosopher Taha Abderrahmane and the American philosopher John Rawls. The book shows that the ongoing efforts of European Muslim thinkers to revisit the concept of citizenship and political community can be seen as a new kind of political theology, in opposition to radical forms of Islamic thinking in some Muslim-majority countries.

About the Author

Mohammed Hashas is a Research Fellow at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, Italy.

Table of Contents

– Introduction: From Islam in Europe to European Islam

– Part I: Voices of European Islam

1. Bassam Tibi: Cultural Modernity for Religious Reform and Euro-Islam
2. Tariq Ramadan: From Adaptive to Transformative Reform and European Islam
3. Tareq Oubrou: Geotheology and the Minoriticization of Islam
4. Abdennour Bidar: Self Islam, Islamic Existentialism and Overcoming Religion

– Part II: European Islamic Thought and the Formation of Perpetual Modernity Paradigm

5. Ontological Revolution and Epistemological Shift in European Islamic Thought
6. Conceptualizing the Idea of European Islam: Taha Abderrahmane’s Trusteeship Critique for Overcoming Classical Dichotomous Thought
7. Consolidating the Idea of European Islam through Perpetual Modernity Paradigm
8. European Islam as a Rawlsian Reasonable Comprehensive Doctrine

– Conclusion: From European Islam to Arab Islam

Reviews

– “Mohammed Hashas’s book points to ways to break away from essentialized and inverted perceptions of Islam and Muslims by focusing on the original thinking of European Muslim thinkers who are providing new theological responses to address the specifics of European Muslims, therefore taking a much needed distance from Middle Eastern and/or salafi religious discourses. His work discusses the specificity of European Islamic thinking and emphasizes the importance of considering it as seriously as we consider thinkers in the Middle East or Asia.” (Jocelyne Cesari, Georgetown University and University of Birmingham)

– “In this meticulous and frequently brilliant study of the ideas, practices and precedents of European Islam, Mohammed Hashas illuminates and engages intellectual landscapes at the intersection of geography, theology, philosophy and politics. This book deserves a wide readership. After the dust settles, and it always does, The Idea of European Islam will remain on bookshelves and syllabi for years to come.” (Jonathan Laurence, Professor of Political Science, Boston College)

– “In a serious effort to capture the contours and details of European Islam, Mohammed Hashas provides an engaging account of several Muslim thinkers in Europe. He provides a theory to discuss the content of Muslim moral philosophy, theology and politics in conversation with leading thinkers based in Europe and those outside the continent in a search for solutions. Provocative as well as engaging. Anyone interested in one of the most important questions regarding the future of Europe in an age of migration and technological acceleration will find this to be an important book.” (Ebrahim Moosa, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Notre Dame, USA)

Source: Routledge

Bringing together researchers specializing in Islamic civilization, psychology, ethics, leadership, management, finance and education, CITE’s staff has extensive academic experience in Islamic studies, and importantly, substantial understanding of the needs and aspirations of the Australian Muslim communities.

The approach is strength based and does not examine the Muslim community as a ‘subject’ of inquiry that is inscribed by ‘otherness.’ The Center will have major, ongoing impact on the deeper understanding of Islam and Muslims, and their place in Australia and the modern world. CITE will provide a model for research, teaching and community engagement that are informed by a comprehensive understanding of Islam and Muslims based on Islam’s sacred traditions and contemporary realties.

CITE will engage with academics, journalists, politicians, and the wider community in order to inform, educate, and build bridges of understanding, and to promote a spirit of interconnectedness.

Academic Research

CITE engages in first-class and cutting-edge academic research with a focus on Islam and Muslims within an Australian/Western context. Research topics include:

• Interconnectedness of civilizations: Islam and the West
• Contextualization of Islamic thought
• Islamic schooling renewal: school improvement, school effectiveness, quality teaching and learning; Islamic and Arabic studies; pedagogy and curriculum; and teacher training, informed by the philosophy and principles of Islamic education and best contemporary practice
• Management and leadership as a practice and theory; a combination of contemporary and Islamic focus
• Family relationships and combating domestic violence
• Islam in Australia
• Islam, culture and identity
• Islamic banking and finance

Teaching

CITE’s staff have extensive experience in teaching university level courses in Islamic and non-Islamic areas such as:

• History of Islamic civilization
• The scientific enterprise in the Islamic civilization
• Islamic law
• Islamic finance
• Islam and the media
• Islamic education (including matters related to teaching philosophy, pedagogy, worldview, vision of Islamic schools, Islamic studies, behavior management, character education and school-home partnerships)
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Psychology of the Justice system
• Family relations
• Leadership processes

CITE will offer a host of Islamic studies programs for communities, schools, government departments and non-government and corporate organizations.

Teacher Training and Professional Development Programs and Courses:

• Short courses and certificate programs
• Islamic School Induction Programs for new staff
• Islamic Studies short courses for teachers
• Workshops and short courses tailored to needs of schools

External Engagement

It is CITE’s deep conviction that academic research and teaching must positively impact on external engagement with community, media, government and NGOs. This is at the heart of CITE’s philosophy.

The CITE strives to be a voice of expertise, enriched by a deep understanding of the Islamic faith and Muslim peoples within an Australian context, to empower the community to meet the many challenges with strength, dignity and wisdom. The CITE will actively engage with government, NGOs and media to enrich both dialogue and positive partnerships with Australian Muslims, informing policies pertaining to them, and inform reporting of Islam and Muslims in the media.

The CITE will genuinely engage with, and benefit from, members of the Australian Muslim communities: the youth, women, the religious and the administrative leadership, as well as the community at large; giving them a voice and ownership to issues that affect their lives in Australia.

The CITE will actively engage with the wider Australian community, the Australasian and international communities, and collaborate on projects and programs of mutual benefit.

Research Projects

• Islamic Studies Curriculum Projects

CITE in partnership with the Islamic Schools Association of Australia (ISAA) as well as curriculum partners Nationally and Internationally are leading the design and development of an Islamic Studies Curriculum (Prep – Grade 10) and a Senior Islamic Studies Syllabus known as Applied Islam (Grade 11 – 12). The Islamic Studies Curriculum (P – 10) will align with the Australian Curriculum in structure and both this and the Senior Islamic Studies Applied Islam Syllabus propose to authentically integrate the Islamic sciences such that they are relevant to student’s lives, responsive to the Australian context, and age appropriate with scope for inquiry, critical thinking and reflective assessment. CITE and project partners will lead the consultative design and implementation phases.

• Applied Islam

Young Australian Muslims are faced with various challenges that impact on, and make them question, their faith and identity. These challenges can include religious, social, political and cultural dimensions. In an age of nihilism, narcissism, and violence in the name of Islam, these challenges seem insurmountable and difficult to counter. Furthermore, given the absence of an alternative narrative that is grounded in the sacred tradition, and an understanding of contemporary issues, our young people are left without the necessary knowledge and skills to overcome such mighty challenges. While Islamic schools, madrassas and mosques in the Western context offer some relief, they are often not equipped to provide valid Islamic answers to these challenges. This leaves our most valued, yet most vulnerable, group of young people lost amidst the turmoil of modern society, searching for deeper meaning to these questions and their place as emerging Australian Muslims. Applied Islam has been designed to fill this vacuum, and begin to quench the thirst of these young people by providing them with the much needed answers.

Applied Islam is tailor made to meet the needs and expectations of emerging young Australian Muslims to equip them with the necessary knowledge, insight and experience to meet the aforementioned challenges. The program utilizes traditional sacred sciences combined with an understanding of contemporary issues, established on social science methods, aimed at answering questions related to faith, identity, modernity, secularism, existence, cultural norms and practices and their relation to Sacred Law. The program also explores the historical context of Islam, including the biography of the Prophet, and derives lessons for modern challenges. Furthermore, the program exposes students to the meaning, scope and application of Sharia, the legacy of the Islamic civilization and its tremendous contributions to the various fields of knowledge, and the active contributions Muslims had with non-Muslims throughout the ages.

Applied Islam allows students to navigate through the many contemporary issues they encounter with an Islamic lens embedded within an Islamic worldview that is cognizant of the modern world. The Applied Islam project was delivered over 2 years in Brisbane, Australia, and is currently being delivered to a number of Islamic schools in Victoria, NSW and South Australia.

• Dignified Way

Dignified Way is a whole-community approach to character education and classroom management within a Prophetic pedagogical framework for quality teaching and learning and building of strong school culture. Dignified Way offers a purpose fit model aligning with the principles of Islamic education for Islamic schools and Madrassah. The Dignified Way philosophy prioritises transformation over compliance, incorporating notions of authenticity, presence, dignity, empathy, justice and mercy. Dignified Way proposes to 1) assist in the alignment of the purpose of learning with the pedagogy of the classroom; 2) develop strong and positive school culture emanating from the classroom; and 3) inculcate the essential ingredient of adab in the learning partnership between teachers, students, school leaders and parents.

• inspiredNAFSi

inspiredNAFSi is a 13-weeks personal leadership program, underpinned by a strength-based approach and Muslim worldview, that uses the Yarning Circle Tool to create self-awareness in individuals facing daily life challenges and struggle with articulating their thoughts and views. The program empowers them with skills to heal any trauma and empower themselves; thereby reducing their isolation and reintegrating them into workplaces/society as a way forward. Individuals gain practical skills that assist them in decision-making processes and links them up with various support and services that exist within their communities.

• Islamic School Renewal

School reviews, evaluations and appraisals; school satisfaction reports; action-research projects, staff induction, teacher training and professional development and learning, curriculum renewal, pedagogical practice and whole-school solutions for renewal and school improvement support within Islamic schools.

Induction Workshops

Annual Workshops provide quality induction for new teachers in Islamic schools (both Muslim teachers and teachers who do not identify as Muslim) to enhance the educational experience of Australian Muslim students. The workshop covers religious and cultural competency in Muslim communities and Islamic schools; Islamic education principles, perspective and philosophies; responsive pedagogy for teaching Muslim students; and contemporary issues in the Australian Islamic school classroom.

• Leadership Processes in Islamic Organizations

This project deals with processes of leadership across organizations, which entails the leaders’ and followers’ behaviors, actions, attitudes and the perceptions concerning the leadership process among various stakeholders.

• Ethical Finance

This program focuses on Islamic finance as an alternative financing model in the Australian and global finance markets. The program is designed for teaching and research at under- and post-graduate levels and incorporates the understanding of new paradigms in ethical finance premised on Islamic legal criteria, comparative studies of conventional commercial and tax laws. These paradigms resonate with Islamic trade practices and alternative investment practices that fall under the general rubric of ethical finance.

Contacts

• Address: De Lissa Building, UniSA Magill Campus, Lorne Avenue, Magill, SA 5072, Australia
• Phone: +61 8 8302 4910
• Email: cite@unisa.edu.au
• Website: http://www.unisa.edu.au/Research/Centre-for-Islamic-Thought-and-Education/

A Study in Ethics and Law

By Mairaj U. Syed

Publisher: Oxford University Press (November 17, 2016)

Series: Oxford Islamic Legal Studies

In Coercion and Responsibility in Islam, Mairaj Syed explores how classical Muslim theologians and jurists from four intellectual traditions argue about the thorny issues that coercion raises about responsibility for one’s action. This is done by assessing four ethical problems: whether the absence of coercion or compulsion is a condition for moral agency; how the law ought to define what is coercive; coercion’s effect on the legal validity of speech acts; and its effects on moral and legal responsibility in the cases of rape and murder.

Through a comparative and historical examination of these ethical problems, the book demonstrates the usefulness of a new model for analyzing ethical thought produced by intellectuals working within traditions in a competitive pluralistic environment. The book compares classical Muslim thought on coercion with that of modern Western thinkers on these issues and finds significant parallels between them. The finding suggests that a fruitful starting point for comparative ethical inquiry, especially inquiry aimed at the discovery of common ground for ethical action, may be found in an examination of how ethicists from different traditions considered concrete problems.

Key Features:

• Aids understanding of the legal and ethical problems involving coercion through the use of hypothetical scenarios
• Compares schools of thoughts, disciplines, and intellectuals from different cultures and times
• Conducts synchronic and diachronic analysis of legal and theological thought
• Offers a new model for how scholars should evaluate ethical thought produced by intellectual traditions in a pluralistic environment

About the Author:

Mairaj U. Syed is an Assistant Professor in the department of religious studies at the University of California, Davis. His research explores the history of Islamic legal and ethical thought, particularly areas dealing with public law, family law, and politics. He is also interested in the development of hadith literature and the social network that transmitted and preserved it in the first 250 years of Islamic history. Syed holds Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University, and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Texas, Austin.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Compulsion and Moral Agency in Muʿtazilism

2. Coercion and Moral Agency in Ashʿarism

3. Defining Coercion in Ḥanafism

4. Defining Coercion in Shāfiʿism

5. Coerced Speech Act Jurisprudence in Ḥanafism and Shāfiʿism

6. Coerced Harm Jurisprudence in Ḥanafism and Shāfiʿism

Conclusion

Reviews

– “Mairaj Syed’s important work traces accounts of coercion and responsibility in several of the most important Muslim theological and juridical schools. That contribution is impressive enough. Syed ranges more widely, however, proposing that we explain certain features of these differing accounts by way of the factors he calls “constraint” and “contingency”. In addition, Syed opens the door for comparison between Muslim and Anglo-American approaches to his subject. He thus makes contributions to the comparative study of law and ethics, as well as to the history of Muslim tradition. This is a very fine piece of work.” (John Kelsay, Florida State University, USA)

– “Lucid, erudite and highly original, Syed’s book analyses an important, yet hitherto understudied, concept central to the ethical reasoning of classical Islamic thought. It makes a valuable contribution to bridging the divide between the study of jurisprudence and the study of theology, and should be read by those interested in either field.” (Ayman Shihadeh, SOAS, University of London)

Source: Oxford University Press

Edited by: Farhad Daftary, Amyn B. Sajoo, Shainool Jiwa

Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd (September 29, 2015)

Series: Muslim Heritage Series

The world’s 200 million Shi’i Muslims express their faith in a multiplicity of ways, united by reverence for the ahl al-bayt, the family of the Prophet. In embracing a pluralistic ethic, fourteen centuries of Shi’i Islam have given rise to diverse traditions and practices across varied geographic and cultural landscapes. The Shi’i World is a comprehensive work authored by leading scholars from assorted disciplines, to provide a better understanding of how Shi’i communities view themselves and articulate their teachings. The topics range from Shi’i Islam’s historical and conceptual foundations, formative figures and intellectual, legal and moral traditions, to its devotional practices, art and architecture, literature, music and cinema, as well as expressions and experiences of modernity. The book thus provides a panoramic perspective of the richly textured narratives that have shaped the social and moral universe of Shi’i Muslims around the globe. This fourth volume in the Muslim Heritage Series will appeal to specialists and general readers alike, as a timely resource on the prevailing complexities not only of the ‘Muslim world’, but also of the dynamic Shi’i diasporas of Europe and North America.

Contents

1. Remembering Muhammad (Omid Safi)
2. Imam Ali (Reza Shah-Kazemi)
3. Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq and the Elaboration of Shi‘ism (Karim Douglas Crow)
4. Legal Traditions (Andrew J. Newman)
5. Intellectual Traditions (Paul E. Walker)
6. Governance and Pluralism under the Fatimids (909–996 CE) (Shainool Jiwa)
7. Moral Authority in the Safawid State (Rula J. Abisaab)
8. Devotional Practices (Ali S. Asani)
9. Shi‘i Communities in History (Farhad Daftary)
10. Remembering Fatima and Zaynab: Gender in Perspective (Zayn Kassam and Bridget Blomfield)
11. Art and Architecture (Jonathan M. Bloom)
12. Literature (Eric Ormsby)
13. Music (William Sumits)
14. Shi‘ism in Iranian Cinema (Nacim Pak-Shiraz)
15. Diasporas (Zulfikar Hirji and Karen Ruffle)
16. Modernity: The Ethics of Identity (Amyn B. Sajoo)

Source: I.B.Tauris