Interpreting the Qurʼān

Interpreting the Qurʼān
Author: Abdullah Saeed
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780415365383

How is the Qur'an - central to all Muslim societies - to be understood today in order to meet the needs of these societies? Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, explores the interpretation of the ethico-legal content of the Qur'an, whilst taking into consideration the changing nature of the modern world. Saeed explores the current debates surrounding the interpretation of the Qur'an, and their impact on contemporary understanding of this sacred text. Discussing the text's relevance to modern issues without compromising the overall framework of the Qur'an and its core beliefs and practices, he proposes a fresh approach, which takes into account the historical and contemporary contexts of interpretation. Inspiring healthy debate, this book is essential reading for students and scholars seeking a contemporary approach to the interpretation of the Qur'anic text.

Misquoting Muhammad

Misquoting Muhammad
Author: Jonathan A.C. Brown
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2014-08-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1780744218

AN INDEPENDENT BEST BOOKS ON RELIGION 2014 PICK Few things provoke controversy in the modern world like the religion brought by Prophet Muhammad. Modern media are replete with alarm over jihad, underage marriage and the threat of amputation or stoning under Shariah law. Sometimes rumor, sometimes based on fact and often misunderstood, the tenets of Islamic law and dogma were not set in the religion’s founding moments. They were developed, like in other world religions, over centuries by the clerical class of Muslim scholars. Misquoting Muhammad takes the reader back in time through Islamic civilization and traces how and why such controversies developed, offering an inside view into how key and controversial aspects of Islam took shape. From the protests of the Arab Spring to Istanbul at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and from the ochre red walls of Delhi’s great mosques to the trade routes of the Indian Ocean world, Misquoting Muhammad lays out how Muslim intellectuals have sought to balance reason and revelation, weigh science and religion, and negotiate the eternal truths of scripture amid shifting values.

The Koran Interpreted

The Koran Interpreted
Author: Arthur John Arberry
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 673
Release: 1983
Genre: Koran
ISBN: 9780192816283

Interpreting Islam in China

Interpreting Islam in China
Author: Kristian Petersen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190634340

During the early modern period, Muslims in China began to embrace the Chinese characteristics of their heritage. Several scholar-teachers incorporated tenets from traditional Chinese education into their promotion of Islamic knowledge. As a result, some Sino-Muslims established an educational network which utilized an Islamic curriculum made up of Arabic, Persian, and Chinese works. The corpus of Chinese Islamic texts written in this system is collectively labeled the Han Kitab. Interpreting Islam in China explores the Sino-Islamic intellectual tradition through the works of some its brightest luminaries. Three prominent Sino-Muslim authors are used to illustrate transformations within this tradition, Wang Daiyu, Liu Zhi, and Ma Dexin. Kristian Petersen puts these scholars in dialogue and demonstrates the continuities and departures within this tradition. Through an analysis of their writings, he considers several questions: How malleable are religious categories and why are they variously interpreted across time? How do changing historical circumstances affect the interpretation of religious beliefs and practices? How do individuals navigate multiple sources of authority? How do practices inform belief? Overall, he shows that these authors presented an increasingly universalistic portrait of Islam through which Sino-Muslims were encouraged to participate within the global community of Muslims. The growing emphasis on performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, comprehensive knowledge of the Qur'an, and personal knowledge of Arabic stimulated communal engagement. Petersen demonstrates that the integration of Sino-Muslims within a growing global environment, where international travel and communication was increasingly possible, was accompanied by the rising self-awareness of a universally engaged Muslim community.

Reading the Qur'an in the Twenty-First Century

Reading the Qur'an in the Twenty-First Century
Author: Abdullah Saeed
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-12-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317974158

Reading the Qur’an in the Twenty-First Century considers the development of Qur’anic interpretation and highlights modern debates around new approaches to interpretation. It explores how Muslims from various theological, legal, socio-political and philosophical backgrounds think about the meaning and relevance of the Qur’an, and how their ideas apply in the contemporary world. The book: reflects on one of the most dominant approaches to interpretation in the pre-modern period, textualism, and the reaction to that in Muslim feminist readings of the Qur’an today. covers issues such as identifying the hierarchical nature of Qur’anic values, the criteria for the use of hadith in interpretation, fluidity of meaning and ways of ensuring a degree of stability in interpretation. examines key Qur'anic passages and compares pre-modern and modern interpretations to show the evolving nature of interpretation. Examples discussed include: the authority of men over women, the death of Jesus, shura and democracy, and riba and interest. Abdullah Saeed provides a practical guide for interpretation and presents the principal ideas of a contextualist approach, which situates the original message of the Qur’an in its wider social, political, cultural, economic and intellectual context. He advocates a more flexible method of interpretation that gives due recognition to earlier interpretations of the Qur’an while also being aware of changing conditions and the need to approach the Qur’an afresh today.

Qur'an in Conversation

Qur'an in Conversation
Author: Michael Lawrence Birkel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Qurʼan
ISBN: 9781481300971

The Qur'an is God's verbatim speech for most traditional Muslims. Qur'an in Conversation reflects how this sacred text of Islam comes into dialogue with the contemporary world through the voices of the eloquent interpreters gathered in this volume. In Qur'an in Conversation, author Michael Birkel engages North American Muslim religious leaders and academics in conversations of scriptural interpretation. Scholars, practicing imams, and younger public intellectuals wrestle with key suras of the Qur'an. Qur'an in Conversation demonstrates a wide spectrum of interpretation and diversity of approaches in reading Islam's scripture. The discussions directly address key issues in Muslim theology--good versus evil, the nature of God, and the future of Islam. Younger North American Muslims read the Qur'an in varied ways; this is analogous to the diverse ways in which Jews and Christians have interpreted their own holy books. Michael Birkel welcomes people of goodwill into a public conversation about the current role of Western Muslims in Islam. Qur'an in Conversation encourages non-specialists and Muslim scholars alike to imagine how the Qur'an will be interpreted among North American Muslims in years to come. --Omid Safi, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of North Carolina "Publishers Weekly"

A Reader on Classical Islam

A Reader on Classical Islam
Author: F. E. Peters
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 437
Release: 1993-12-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1400821185

To enable the reader to shape, or perhaps reshape, an understanding of the Islamic tradition, F. E. Peters skillfully combines extensive passages from Islamic texts with a fascinating commentary of his own. In so doing, he presents a substantial body of literary evidence that will enable the reader to grasp the bases of Muslim faith and, more, to get some sense of the breadth and depth of Islamic religious culture as a whole. The voices recorded here are those of Muslims engaged in discourse with their God and with each other--historians, lawyers, mystics, and theologians, from the earliest Companions of the Prophet Muhammad down to Ibn Rushd or "Averroes" (d. 1198), al-Nawawi (d. 1278), and Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406). These religious seekers lived in what has been called the "classical" period in the development of Islam, the era when the exemplary works of law and spirituality were written, texts of such universally acknowledged importance that subsequent generations of Muslims gratefully understood themselves as heirs to an enormously broad and rich legacy of meditation on God's Word. "Islam" is a word that seems simple to understand. It means "submission," and, more specifically in the context where it first and most familiarly appears, "submission to the will of God." That context is the Quran, the Sacred Book of the Muslims, from which flow the patterns of belief and practice that today claim the spiritual allegiance of hundreds of millions around the globe. By drawing on the works of the great masters--Islam in its own words--Peters enriches our understanding of the community of "those who have submitted" and their imposing religious and political culture, which is becoming ever more important to the West.

Radical Reform

Radical Reform
Author: Tariq Ramadan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2009-02-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0195331710

In this new book, Tariq Ramadan argues that it is crucial to find theoretical and practical solutions that will enable Western Muslims to remain faithful to Islamic ethics while fully living within their societies and their time. He notes that Muslim scholars often refer to the notion of ijtihad (critical and renewed reading of the foundational texts) as the only way for Muslims to take up these modern challenges. But, Ramadan argues, in practice such readings have effectively reached the limits of their ability to serve the faithful in the West as well as the East. In this book he sets forward a radical new concept of ijtihad, which puts context -- including the knowledge derived from the hard and human sciences, cultures and their geographic and historical contingencies -- on an equal footing with the scriptures as a source of Islamic law.

Major Themes of the Qur'an

Major Themes of the Qur'an
Author: Fazlur Rahman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2009-06-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0226702863

In this introduction to the Qur'an, Fazlur Rahman unravels its complexities on themes such as God, society, revelation, and prophecy.

Feminist Edges of the Qur'an

Feminist Edges of the Qur'an
Author: Aysha A. Hidayatullah
Publisher:
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2014
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0199359571

Aysha A. Hidayatullah offers the first comprehensive examination of contemporary feminist Qur'anic interpretation, exploring its dynamic challenges to Islamic tradition and contemporary Muslim views of the Qur'an.