Islam Archives | Page 7 of 9 | Contending Modernities

CM Reacts: Election of Sadiq Khan – M. Christian Green

M. Christian Green
May 9, 2016August 14, 2019

The framework of radicalization, extremism, and terror may seem a grim background to be celebrating the election of Sadiq Khan as the Mayor of London and, indeed, the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital. But it is a necessary one in order to appreciate the importance and potential of the moment. The burden of being a demographic “first” is never an easy one, especially for “firsts” laden with social, cultural, and political symbolism—for that we can observe the many trials, tribulations, and, at times, the missed opportunities of the presidency of Barack Obama in the US. Read the full article »

Young women model MLine apparel, fashion for Muslim women

Turkish Muslimism: A New Islamic Engagement with Modernity

Garrett FitzGerald
May 6, 2016August 14, 2019

The engagement between modernity and religion is often presented through the use of binaries: secular and religious, public and private, liberalism and fundamentalism. But in a new volume, Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond, Turkish sociologist of religion Neslihan Cevik explores forms of religious engagement with modernity that resist these crude divisions, pointing instead to the possibility of a hybridity that blurs the lines between categories often viewed as diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive. Read the full article »

Five Observations on Muslimism

Slavica Jakelić
May 6, 2016August 14, 2019

SLAVICA JAKELIĆ

Cevik is rightly careful about the future developments of Muslimism, as they depend on various factors (political, economic, religious). On my reading, this cautious approach also ought to be taken with any comparisons between Muslimists and, say, Pentecostals in Latin America or US Evangelicals. Any comparative work in this area needs to be alert to the possible simplifications and repetitions of the old subtraction narratives about the ultimate victory of the secularizing impetus in modernity. Read the full article »

Further Reflections on Muslimism

Neslihan Cevik
May 6, 2016August 14, 2019

What Muslimists achieve is a conservative transformation of the concept of umma as something that has acquired throughout the ages an authoritarian style and conceptualization. It is not a rejection of umma or communal experience per se, but it is the demand that community, as an external source of power, is not the main agent of morality. For example, many Islamists see the hijab as a making symbol of Muslim community, a symbol that creates the Muslim community in its differentiation from others. Read the full article »

Struggling to Mieux Vivre Ensemble: The Sobering Reality of France’s new Plurality

Carol Ferrara
January 18, 2016January 27, 2024

2015 was a devastating year for France. The horrific Paris attacks of January and November gave rise to a climate of fear, suspicion, and social distrust, and present formidable and as of yet unresolved challenges for leaders and social actors to find new and more effective strategies to mieux vivre ensemble (live better together). Read the full article »

Los Angeles: A Microcosm for National Conversations on Religion, Public Life and Deep Diversity

Ahmet Tekelioglu
January 6, 2016January 6, 2023

The city of Los Angeles—a diverse, cosmopolitan, dynamically changing landscape—provides unique insights into how American Muslim and Catholic communities are engaging with the new plurality at different stages of their respective historical evolutions in the ever-changing American religious and legal-ethical landscape. Read the full article »

The New Western Plurality and Citizen Co-Existence

Robert Hefner
December 19, 2015March 2, 2023

Over the past generation the unprecedented expansion of migration to Western countries has coincided with the global revitalization of religion. These two developments have raised deep questions about received values and practices of pluralist co-existence in Western societies—questions that are likely to remain at the heart of political and social debate in Western societies for some years to come. Read the full article »

A Muslim Response to Pope Francis’s Environmental Encyclical: Laudato Si’

A. Rashied Omar
December 17, 2015August 12, 2019

A. RASHIED OMAR

Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home is undoubtedly one of the most important interventions in twenty first century campaigns for environmental justice. Muslims can and should engage substantively with Laudato Si’ in order to build broad solidarity with meaningful global commitments for the collective good, through responsible stewardship of the earth. Read the full article »

The Challenge of Updating Archaic Doctrine

Ebrahim Moosa
September 29, 2015August 12, 2019

Contending Modernities co-director Ebrahim Moosa’s recently published op-ed in the Washington Post, My madrassa classmate hated politics. Then he joined the Islamic State, provides a timely case study of a successful South African imam’s unlikely immigration to Syria to join the Islamic State. Read the full article »

Muslim Attitudes Towards Evolutionary Science

Ebrahim Moosa
February 7, 2014August 12, 2019

Despite the combative relationship that some Muslims had with modern science during the colonial period, science still embodies the hope for the “future recovery” of Muslim societies, argues the historian of science Ahmad Dallal.

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