Reclaiming Islamic Tradition: Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage

Edited by Elisabeth Kendall, Ahmad Khan

Recent events in the Islamic world have demonstrated the endurance, neglect and careful reshaping of the classical Islamic heritage. A range of modern Islamic movements and intellectuals has sought to reclaim certain concepts, ideas, persons and trends from the Islamic tradition. Reclaiming Islamic Tradition: Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage profiles some of the fundamental debates that have defined the conversation between the past and the present in the Islamic world. Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic law, gender, violence and eschatology are just some of the key themes in this study of the Islamic tradition’s vitality in the modern Islamic world. This book will allow readers to situate modern developments in the Islamic world within the longue durée of Islamic history and thought.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Notes on Contributors

Introduction, Elisabeth Kendall & Ahmad Khan

1. Modern Shiʿite Legal Theory and the Classical Tradition, Robert Gleave

2. Muḥammad Nāṣīr al-Dīn al-Albānī and Traditional Hadith Criticism, Christopher Melchert

3. Islamic Tradition in an Age of Print: Editing, Printing, and Publishing the Classical Tradition, Ahmad Khan

4. Reaching into the Obscure Past: The Islamic Legal Heritage and Reform in the Modern Period, Jonathan A. C. Brown

5. Reading Sūrat al-Anʿām with Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā and Sayyid Quṭb, Nicolai Sinai

6. Contemporary Iranian Interpretations of the Qur’an and Tradition on Women’s Testimony, Karen Bauer

7. Ibn Taymiyya between Moderation and Radicalism, Jon Hoover

8. The Impact of a Sixteenth-Century Jihad Treatise on Colonial and Modern India, Carole Hillenbrand

9. Jihadist Propaganda and Its Exploitation of the Arab Poetic Tradition, Elisabeth Kendall

10. Contemporary Salafi Literature on Paradise and Hell: The Case of ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar, Christian Lange

Index