Islam at the Crossroads: Orthodoxy and Reform
By admin • Nov 17th, 2012 • Category: Islam, LecturesThe Western media typically portrays the 1.2 billion Muslims as a monolith- a uniform mass with traditional outlook, conservative life-style and extremist political tendencies. Contrary to this inaccurate depiction, Muslims are quite diverse in every respect: theological beliefs, educational level, life-style, outlook and political orientation.
This diversity is quite apparent in Muslims’ response to modernity. In the past few decades, there has been an intense debate within the Muslim scholarly circles on whether Muslims should embrace or reject modernity? Can Islam accommodate the modern norms, life-styles and socio-political institutions?
Two opposing camps have emerged: Traditional-minded conservatives and liberal-minded reformers. These two groups of Muslim scholars have opposing views on the nature and merits of modernity. Conservatives still dominate the Muslim world, but reformers are growing in numbers and social influence (particularly in Iran, Egypt and Turkey).
This lecture examines the theological debate between conservatives and reformers in the contemporary Islamic world- a debate that will have far-reaching consequences for the future of Islam and international relations.
