Overview
- Offers an interpretation of the history of Islam that combines a faith perspective with a modern scholarly critique
- Tells a story about Islamic foundations that is rarely heard by Muslims or Westerners
- Illustrates how Islam can be revered for its achievements even and especially when modern critical scholarship is applied to its foundations
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Religious Studies (BRIEFSRESTU)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
When radical Islamists use social media to try and convert young followers to a Jihadist cause, they refer often to the narrative about the Prophet, the original Islamic community (Ummah), and the holy book (Qur’an). The references usually imply that these are under threat by infidels, either non-Muslim Westerners or Muslims themselves who follow allegedly errant forms of Islam. The narrative itself is, however, never questioned; it is taken as merely factual with every word to
be taken literally, including words that appear intolerant of difference and given to violence. As such, it can serve well the forms of fundamentalism that lie at the heart of radical Islamism and Jihadism.
Because of a shortage of critical scholarship about Islam’s central narrative, the radical Islamist understanding of it differs too little from that of mainstream Muslims. Neither tends to take sufficient account of the context of the writing, its original purpose or the many interpretive elements that have been overlain. This makes it difficult for mainstream Islamic authorities to counter effectively the radical Islamist discourse or to distinguish moderate and liberal forms of religious practice from radical breakaway forms. In turn, this causes confusion among Muslims, who know the radical Islamists are in error but find it hard to say just why, and even greater confusion and angst among non-Muslims, for whom the allegation that all of Islam is inherently violent and to be feared is clearly being heard by an increasing number.
This book sets out to address this problem by applying forms of scholarship that can preserve the best of the Islamic narrative while, at the same time, illustrating just how errant is the radical Islamist understanding of it.
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Amir Moghadam is a conjoint academic at the University of Newcastle, Australia where he has been teaching topics including the history of Islam and Islamic philosophy. He has recently received his PhD from the University of Newcastle. Amir’s thesis was on the power and knowledge in the history of Tabari. Amir’s other areas of research are Middle Eastern Studies, Historical Narratives, and the Problems of Historical Consciousness.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The History of Islam
Book Subtitle: Revelation, Reconstruction or Both?
Authors: Terence Lovat, Amir Moghadam
Series Title: SpringerBriefs in Religious Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67717-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-67716-3Published: 14 September 2017
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-67717-0Published: 05 September 2017
Series ISSN: 2510-5035
Series E-ISSN: 2510-5043
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 89
Topics: Sociology of Religion, Islam, Religion and Education