Islam in the Modern World: Challenged by the West, Threatened by Fundamentalism, Keeping Faith with Tradition

by Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Overview

The foremost U.S. authority on Islam and, Seyyed Hossein Nasr discusses today’s hot button issues—including holy wars, women’s rights, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and the future of Moslems in the Middle East—in this groundbreaking discussion of the fastest-growing religion in the world. One of the great scholars in the modern Islamic intellectual tradition, and the acclaimed author of books such as The Garden of Truth and The Heart of Islam, Nasr brings incomparable insight to this exploration of Muslim issues and realities, delivering a landmark publication promoting cross-cultural awareness and world peace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061905810
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/24/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.31(d)

About the Author

Seyyed Hossein Nasr is university professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University. Author of over fifty books, Professor Nasr is a well-known and highly respected intellectual figure both in the West and in the Islamic world. Born in Tehran, raised from the age of twelve in the United States, and a graduate of MIT and Harvard University, Nasr is well qualified to explain Islam to a Western audience. He appears frequently on Meet the Press, as well as other national news shows.

Table of Contents

List of Transliterations xiii

Preface to the Revised Edition xv

Preface to the Original Edition xvii

Prologue: What Is Traditional Islam? 1

I Contentious Issues Debated in Islamic Circles Today

1 Islam in the Present-Day Islamic World An Overview 17

2 Jihad Its Spiritual Significance 42

3 Islamic Work Ethics 50

4 The Male and the Female in the Islamic Perspective Remembering Certain Basic Principles 62

5 Traditional Twelve-Imam Shi'ism and the Reality of Sht'ism Today 73

II Traditional Islam and Modernism

6 Islamic Spirituality

Reflections on Conditions Today and Prospects for Tomorrow 89

7 "Development" in the Contemporary Islamic World 119

III Tensions Between Tradition, Modernism, and "Fundamentalism"

Education

8 Islamic Education, Philosophy, and Science A Survey in Light of Present-Day Challenges 129

9 Islamic Philosophers' Views on Education 149

Philosophy and Science

10 Teaching Philosophy in Light of the Islamic Educational Ethos 165

11 Traditional Islamic Science and Western Science Common Heritage, Diverse Destinies 188

Art and Architecture

12 Islamic Art and Its Spiritual Significance in the Contemporary World 205

13 The Architectural Transformation of the Urban Environment in the Islamic World 227

14 The Principles of Islamic Architecture and Urban Design, and Contemporary Urban Problems 242

IV Postscript

15 The Islamic World Present Tendencies and Future Trends 259

Appendices

Appendix I The Traditional Texts Used in the Persian Madrasahs and the Question of the Revival of Traditional Islamic Education 283

Appendix II Philosophy in the Present-Day Islamic World 298

Appendix III Western Interpreters of the Islamic Tradition Academic Scholars 323

A In Commemoration of Louis Massignon: Catholic Scholar, Islamicist, and Mystic 325

B Henry Corbin: The Life and Works of the Occidental Exile in Quest of the Orient of Light 343

Appendix IV Islam and Some of the Major Western Traditionalists 361

A René Guénon and His Influence in the Islamic World 362

B Frithjof Schuon and the Islamic Tradition 376

C With Titus Burckhardt at the Tomb of Muhyi al-Din ibn 'Arabi 390

D Martin Lings and His Islamic Legacy 395

Credits 403

Notes 405

Index 455

Editorial Reviews

An erudite and unusually accessible look into the ongoing struggle for the heart of Islam.” — Booklist

From the Publisher

An erudite and unusually accessible look into the ongoing struggle for the heart of Islam.

Booklist

An erudite and unusually accessible look into the ongoing struggle for the heart of Islam.

Booklist

Newly revised edition of a well-considered academic study of the modern challenges to traditional Islam.

To reflect some of the staggering world developments since he published this work more than 20 years ago, Iranian-American scholar Nasr (Islamic Studies/George Washington Univ.; The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam's Mystical Tradition, 2007, etc.) provides significant revisions and added material. As a deeply believing Muslim as well as a scholar, Nasr imparts a tremendous sense of the Muslim's responsibility and worldview, organically linked to Islam's origins as a religion of divine revelation, and only recently having endured intrusions by secularism. The author takes great pains to define the many types of Muslims, though he believes that for most, their religion defines their ethical and social code and shapes their relationships to family, friends, nation, business, etc. For the first 1,000-plus years of its existence, "Islam lived with full awareness of the truth and the realization of God's promise to Muslims that they would be victorious if they followed His religion"—yet then succumbed to Western domination and manipulation, the latter in the form of Arab nationalism and the Taliban in Afghanistan. In response to the mutual mistrust of the West, strains of fundamentalisms have emerged, such as the Wahhabi movement, the Society of Islam in Pakistan, the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Mahdiism, whose adherents anticipate a messiah "who will destroy inequity and reestablish the rule of God on earth." In discrete, carefully honed essays, Nasr looks at some of Islam's thorny issues, such as jihad, which is really the "continuous exertion" of a believer to maintain equilibrium in all things; work ethics; the roles of male and female and the central divinity of erotic love; considerations of Shi'ism; and a holistic approach to education, encompassing philosophy, art and science (traditional Islamic vs. Western).

Scholarly appendices (e.g., traditional texts used in the Persian madrasas) give an idea of the erudite, wide-ranging purview of this rigorous study.

Kirkus Reviews