REVIVAL AND REFORM IN ISLAM pdf download

Revival And Reform In Islam – A Study Of Islamic Fundamentalism by Fazlur Rahman

REVIVAL AND REFORM IN ISLAM

From the Book

In pursuit of freedom, he sought out the humanist aspects of Islam.

He tirelessly tried to find the proper balance between reason and revelation.

 And, if there was a price to be paid for his cherished ideals, then he was ready to face such hardships.

“In the face of the heavily obscurantist and hypocritical atmosphere in almost all sectors of public life [in Pakistan], and intellectually radical position gave me greater satisfaction as time went on because it did the work of shock treatment…

The results may be uncertain. It may jerk some members of the large segment of educated and committed Muslims into active Islamic re-thinking.”  

As a person who held strong convictions and the author of provocative ideas, Fazlur Rahman was maligned and castigated by the Muslim clerical establishment, neo-revivalist political activists, and political conservatives in Pakistan and wherever their influence extended.

Demagogues, of both religious and political stripes, orchestrated campaigns of mass hysteria and protests against him on the pretext that they ostensibly found some of his views and interpretations offensive.

 The threats against him escalated to the point that there were genuine concerns for his safety and the real possibility of physical harm. In the end, he chose a self-imposed exile for the last nineteen years of his life in the United States.

It was in the United States that he found an environment conducive to furthering his scholarship and formulating some of his landmark ideas in interpreting modern Islam. As a researcher, he was prolific.

As a teacher, he is remembered for being kind and caring. The effects of his legacy can be seen in the work of his students and his impact on scholarship in Islamic studies is highly valued.

There can be no better tribute to Fazlur Rahman than the words of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, the doyen of Western Islamicists, who said: “He was a person of integrity; a religious man with a brilliant mind using it as part of his religion.

He was a moral person; a serious Muslim motivated by a deep concern for his culture and his people.