Islam and Modernity

Islam and Modernity

KEY ISSUES AND DEBATES
Edited by Muhammad Khalid Masud, Armando Salvatore and Martin van Bruinessen

Recent events have focused attention on the perceived tensions between the Muslim world and
the modern West, with the sense that Islam appears resistant to internal development and
inherently pre-modern. However Muslim societies have experienced most of the same
structural changes that have impacted upon all societies: massive urbanisation, mass
education, dramatically increased communication, the emergence of new types of institutions
and associations, some measure of political mobilisation, and major transformations of the
economy. These developments are accompanied by a wide range of social movements and by
complex and varied religious and ideological debates.

This is the first book to provide an introduction to and overview of the debates and questions
emerging regarding Islam and modernity. Key issues are selected to give readers an
understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon, an historical perspective and access to
several manifestations of modernity in Muslim life such as social change, gender politics and
shifts in religious authority.

Key Features
• Includes summaries of secondary literature
• Each chapter concludes with a summary of the key ideas presented and a set of questions
• Provides a range of reflections on major debates on modernity in Islam
• Contributing authors are drawn from the best-known academics in the field and have

Islam and
summarised and updated the main results from their specialised fields of scholarship

Armando Salvatore and Martin van Bruinessen

Muhammad Khalid Masud is Chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology in Islamabad. His

Edited by Muhammad Khalid Masud,

publications include Shatibi’s Philosophy of Islamic Law (1995) and the edited volume Travellers in
Faith, Studies on Tablighi Jama’at (2000). Armando Salvatore is Associate Professor of Political
Sociology of Modern and Contemporary Islam at the Oriental Studies University, Naples. Among
his most recent books are The Public Sphere: Liberal Modernity, Catholicism, Islam (2007), and
Islam in Process: Historical and Civilizational Perspectives (2006). Martin van Bruinessen is
Professor of the Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies at Utrecht University in
the Netherlands, Leiden. His publications include Kurdish Ethno-Nationalism versus Nation-
Building States (2000), and Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam (co-edited with Julia D. Howell, 2007).
Modernity
KEY ISSUES AND DEBATES

ISBN 978 0 7486 3793 5

Edinburgh University Press
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www.euppublishing.com
Edited by Muhammad Khalid Masud,
Jacket image: iStockphoto
Jacket design: www.paulsmithdesign.com Armando Salvatore and Martin van Bruinessen