317
BOOK REVIEWS
Islam, secular modernity and the future
Sigvard von Sicard
A Faith for All Seasons: Islam and Western
Modernity
Shabbir Akhtar
251 pages, £25.00 (London, Bellew, 1990)
A Faith for All Seasons is a truly remark-
able piece of work in spite of the au-
thor's disclaimer that it represents but
'rudimentary beginnings' of an attempt
to create a Muslim response to western
modernity. The author shows that tradi-
tional Islam has resources for a meaning-
ful encounter with secular modernity.
This neither means changing revealed
Islam to suit human whims, nor does it
imply moulding it through the concen-
trated pressure of secularity and inter-re-
ligious encounter so as to lose any
resemblance to traditional Islam. Islam is
Islam and remains so. What is called for
and what the author spells out is the
need for Muslims to divest themselves of
manmade presuppositions, shake off the
shackles of intellectual paralysis and re-
possess the dynamic legacy of Mu-
hammad for the needs of the present
and the future. Muslims have to show
their critics that Islam is a progressive
and responsive faith. The book then can
be said to set the agenda for an 'Islamic
Enlightenment' which points to a dy-
namic contribution to the future of soci-
ety globally. The author shows how
Muslims can cultivate a reverent, yet
penetrating scepticism that teaches the
Dr yon Sicard, Centre for the Study of Islam
and Christian-Muslim Relations, Selly Oak
Colleges, 996 Bristol Road, Birmingham B29
6LQ, UK.
FUTURESApril 1991
ignorant and disturbs the orthodox,
while at the same time agitating and
educating the indifferent. This is done
by dividing the material into three parts
appropriately entitled, 'The age of inno-
cence', 'The virtues of heresy', and
'Modernity and beyond'.
Part 1 is divided into four chapters
dealing with: 'The fateful vision', 'A
change of masters', 'Poetry from
Heaven' and 'The silence of Allah'. It
begins with an analysis of the prophetic
and early period of Islamic develop-
ments. It then takes up the weaknesses
within contemporary Islam and the
failure of Muslim apologists and theor-
eticians to offer a thoughtful response to
modernity due to a deep-rooted anti-
intellectual strand within them. The au-
thor goes on to present the role of
independent reason in the interpreta-
tion of scriptural claims before present-
ing a cogent view of revelation, particu-
larly in relation to the Qur'an. At the
same time he indicates the intrinsic and
extrinsic difficulties which make the
quranic message inaccessible to contem-
porary audiences. The section ends with
an exploration of contemporary scepti-
cism about the presence of divine forces
in and behind nature.
Dialectical relationship
Part 2 deals with four themes--'The
wisdom of the fool', 'The brave new
world', 'The Kingdom of God' and 'The
riddle of man'. It begins with an exami-
nation of kufr and places various scep-
tical responses in a dialectical relation-
ship. These are treated in relation to
such questions as: 'Does humanity need
318 Book reviews
a merciful God as a basis for its deepest
inspiration? Is the misery of current
conditions caused simply by changeable
secular circumstances?' The author
argues that in spite of traditional Islamic
piety, which begins and ends with God,
there is a quranic basis for taking the
human condition seriously--if only as an
index to God and the transcendent--as a
basis for an Islamic theology relevant to
contemporary modernity, because a rel-
evant theology must contain in its pre-
mises a true statement about humanity
and hence about God.
The two chapters of the final part
which deal with 'Choice and destiny',
and 'The road to Mecca', take up the
need for a realistic and meaningful ecu-
menical encounter between faith, tradi-
tions and ideologies. The author begins
with some general comments about the
nature and limits of ecumenism before
turning briefly to Islam's confrontation
with Marxism. His main concern in this
section is issues pertaining to Christian-
-Muslim relations and dialogue. This
involves him in a discussion of the
conceptual location of Islam in the con-
temporary setting of irreligion and reli-
gious pluralism, The section ends with
an attempt to exemplify the dialogue
exercise within an acceptable Islamic
framework in relation to technology,
sexuality and morality.
Whether the author is on the right
track as far as orthodox Muslim scholars
are concerned, only the future can tell.
Developments will to a large extent
depend on the reaction of the author's
co-religionists and whether his ideas will
challenge their inherent God-given
capabilities to develop them further.
Refreshing approach
The most inspiring and promising aspect
of the work for future Christian-
Muslim relations is the author's refresh-
ing approach to the quranic text. One
feels at times as if one were looking at a
contemporary exegesis leading one into
new and deeper insights relevant to the
contemporary situation. It is encoura-
ging to note the honesty and bluntness
of the author in denouncing literalism,
be it Christian or Muslim (eg, page 227,
footnote 49). It is unfortunate that the
author finds it necessary to state the
obvious and to use the old clich6 about
the Qur'an being the norm of Arabic
literature (page 44) which is a circular
argument and is repeated in spite of
recent analyses of the text.
To the non-specialist in contem-
porary Christian theology, the book
raises a number of questions. Are, for
example, the writers of the 'Christian'
tradition that the author refers to--ie, D.
Cupitt, J. Hick and R. Swinburne--truly
representative of the 'Christian' tradi-
tion, whatever that term might be meant
to cover? Has the author not fallen into
the trap of selectivity and generaliza-
tions? How deeply has he actually stu-
died the very broad spectrum of Chris-
tian theology, something he demands
that Muslims do? This matter is high-
lighted by his treatment of revelation,
where the impression is of an imposition
of a particular understanding of revela-
tion on another--ie, the quranic on the
biblical--rather than, as he demands
elsewhere, that each tradition be al-
lowed to be its own interpreter. A gener-
ally accepted Christian definition of the
Bible is that it is 'the word of God written
by the apostles and prophets through
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit'. If the
qur'an lays down its own rule of inter-
pretation so does the Bible. On page 155
the author assumes that the Law as
expounded in the Old Testament was
'repealed' by the grace of Christ. A
careful study of the New Testament
would have drawn his attention to such
passages as Mt 5:17 and Lc 16:17 which
speak of 'fulfilment' of the Law.
Perhaps the most disappointing part
of the book for future developments of
Christian-Muslim relations is the section
on dialogue (pages 171ff). It seems to
continue the traditional debate or en-
counter approach rather than the
quranic injunctions: 'Call unto the way
of your Lord with wisdom and fair exhor-
tation, and reason with them in the
better way' (Q16:125) and also Q29:46.
Above all it does not seem to have taken
into account the command: 'Vie with
one another for forgiveness from your
Lord' (Q3:133). Whatever 'competition'
there is to be, surely it is to be not for the
glorification of Christianity or Islam, but
in the service and to the glory of God.
FUTURES April 1991

Having said that the author does
offer some tantalizing prospects for a
deep and meaningful exchange between
Christians and Muslims in the future
when he hints, perhaps inadvertently, at
the intriguing relationship between a
Christian understanding of the sacra-
mental and the Muslim emphasis on the
legal. One is also intrigued by the poten-
tial comparison of a Christian interpre-
tation of 'sin' and a Muslim one of
Communicating Islam to the 21st century
Sohail Inayatullah
Beyond Frontiers: Islam and Contemporary
Needs
Merryl Wyn Davies and Adnan Khalil
Pasha
216 pages, £30.00 (London, Mansell, 1989)
Beyond Frontiers intends to communic-
ate the message of Islam to believers and
non-believers. The focus of this collec-
tion of essays is Dawa or the communi-
cation of Islam. The essays cover a wide
range of topics from the role of dawa in
economic development to the role of
present broadcast media in excluding
the message of Islam. The questions
asked by the authors are important not
only to Islam but to other civilizational
perspectives as well. They attempt to
take dawa out of the religious discourse
(preaching) and into the social discourse
(how communication can aid economic
and social development) as well as the
reconstruction discourse (how Islam can
Sohail Inayatullah is at 555, 12th Avenue,
Honolulu, HI 96816, USA. His research in-
terests include the Islamic discourse and its
placement within structural and poststruc-
tural narratives.
FUTURESApril 1991
Book reviews 319
'hypocrisy'. A careful study of patterns of
acceptance and rejection of the two
traditions, as intimated in Chapter 5, is
yet another area of challenge to com-
mitted Christians and Muslims seeking
to serve God in faithfulness to their
respective traditions.
All said and done the book deserves
a wide circulation and should prove a
useful tool for study and discussion
groups at various levels.
be reinterpreted to make it relevant to
the 21st century). Adnan Khalil Pasha
says it well:
How can dawa ... promote self-sufficiency
and self-reliance? How can dawa be used to
tackle the ills of Muslim society, from
poverty and illiteracy to parochialism and
sectarianism, that so deform Muslim socie-
ties: What can be done to wean Muslims
away from religious factionalism? How can
we emphasize the rich diversity of Islam?
What should be the position of
multiculturalism in Muslim societies? (pages
1-2).
Beyond Frontiers thus acknowledges the
decline of Muslim civilization in the
modern world, but it asks: given this
decline what can be done to develop a
dynamic and progressive Islam in the
future? How can the eternal teachings of
Islam be expressed in a rapidly changing
world? The essays in the book do not
long for a return to fundamentalism, a
return to a secure past, but rather they
attempt to begin the process of taking a
rich tradition and reinstilling it with new
life based on the diversity that is today.
Contributing to the postmodern debate
As with other Muslim efforts, these
essays are critical of the West, of mod-