Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Thinkers and Believers: The Making of Modern Islam

Thinkers and Believers: The Making of Modern Islam

Morrissey, Fitzroy

Hardcover

PhilosophyIslamGeneral Eastern Religions

PREORDER - Expected ship date October 27, 2026

ISBN10: 0197683649
ISBN13: 9780197683644
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Oct 27 2026
Pages: 368
Language: English
It is related that the Prophet Muhammad announced that God would send someone to renew Islam--a concept called tajdid--at the beginning of every century. Over the last two centuries, Islam has been transformed through its encounter with modernity. Yet that transformation was not simply something that happened to Muslims; it was brought about by Muslim thinkers through a process of engagement with their religious tradition. In reforming Islam to meet the challenges of their time, they were able to draw on tajdid. Often claiming to be renewers of the faith themselves, these thinkers set the contours of modern Islam by calling for an end to the blind emulation of juristic authority and fanatical devotion to the schools of law, while also challenging key features of popular piety and introducing the egalitarian idea that ordinary believers could interpret and understand their religion for themselves. They were in fact calling for a return to the Qur'an and Hadith.

Thinkers and Believers traces the development of these ideas, from 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi and Shah Wali Allah in the 18th century through to Muhammad 'Abduh and Abu A'la Mawdudi in the 20th century. In so doing, it highlights the relevance of classical traditions of Islamic mysticism, theology, philosophy, and law to modern Islamic reform. Covering such topics as the role of dreams and visions in inspiring projects of religious renewal, the rise of Wahhabi and Salafi scripturalism, modern developments in legal theory and philosophy among the Shi'ah, and competing interpretations of the relationship between Islam and politics in the modern Middle East and South Asia, it offers both a comprehensive survey of Islamic reformist thought and a detailed dive into the texts that have defined modern Islam.

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