Reclaiming Islamic Tradition: Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage

Recent events in the Islamic world have brought to our attention the formidable potency of the classical Islamic tradition. Debates over reform, revival, and change in the Islamic world, whether of a political, religious, or economic nature, revolve around an engagement with Islamic history, thought, and tradition. This book examines such debates by exploring modern texts, groups, and figures that stake out some sort of claim to pre-modern traditions in disciplines as diverse as Islamic law, Qur'anic exegesis, politics, literature, and jihad. It challenges the tendency to locate modern scholars and groups in the Islamic world on an ideal spectrum running in a linear way from 'modernism' to 'Islamism.' It provides new insights into the complex religious landscape of the Islamic world, drawing attention to important scholars and intellectuals, some of whom have received little or no attention in western scholarship. It provides an examination of how the classical Islamic heritage functions in today's Islamic world in regions as diverse as the Middle East, Iran, and the Indian subcontinent. In its scope and coverage, this book transcends an increasing tendency towards bifurcation between classical and contemporary Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements; About the Contributors viii Introduction 1 Elisabeth Kendall and Ahmad Khan 1 Modern Shiʿite Legal Theory and the Classical Tradition 12 Robert Gleave 2 Muaammad Nā‚īr al-Dīn al-Albānī and Traditional Hadith Criticism 33 Christopher Melchert 3 Islamic Tradition in an Age of Print: Editing, Printing and Publishing the Classical Tradition 52 Ahmad Khan 4 Reaching into the Obscure Past: The Islamic Legal Heritage and Reform in the Modern Period 100 Jonathan A. C. Brown 5 Reading Sūrat al-Anʿām with Muaammad Rashīd Ri∂ā and Sayyid Qu†b 136 Nicolai Sinai 6 Contemporary Iranian Interpretations of the Qurʾan and Tradition on Women’s Testimony 160 Karen Bauer KENDALL 9781474403115 PRINT (11/13).indd 5 04/03/2016 13:06 vi | reclaiming islamic tradition 7 Ibn Taymiyya between Moderation and Radicalism 177 Jon Hoover 8 The Impact of a Sixteenth-Century Jihad Treatise on Colonial and Modern India 204 Carole Hillenbrand 9 Jihadist Propaganda and Its Exploitation of the Arab Poetic Tradition 223 Elisabeth Kendall 10 Contemporary Salafi Literature on Paradise and Hell: The Case of ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar 247 Christian Lange Index

About the Author :
Elisabeth Kendall is Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Pembroke College, Oxford University. Previously, she held positions at the Universities of Edinburgh and Harvard, as well as serving as Director of a UK government sponsored Center focused on building Arabic-based research expertise. Her current research examines how militant jihad groups exploit traditional local Arab cultures. She has lectured at government and academic institutions all around the world. Ahmad Khan is postdoctoral researcher at Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut. In 2014-15, he was Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Oriental Studies. His D.Phil (Oxon) examined discourses of heresy and the formation of medieval Sunni orthodoxy. His current research focuses on the history of medieval Iran. His second research specialism concerns modern Islamic history/thought, particularly the emergence of publishing houses and editors in the Islamic world.

Review :
Ranging from law to exegesis and poetry, this volume presents prodigious evidence that tradition is not fragile and static, as many assume, but malleable and often re-interpreted. The contributors skilfully show that the past is not ‘a foreign country’, but an intimate part of the contestation over authority and meaning in modern Muslim societies. An excellent treatise for anyone who intends to understand debates in the Islamic world today and explore how Islamic tradition is continuously being reinterpreted, recast, reconfigured, and manipulated to address complex situations.