Source: Muslim Futures Network
http://www.wnrf.org/cms/islam_negotiating_future.shtml
Muslim Futures
Islam: Negotiating the future
By staff writer, May 31, 2006
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| Islam: Negotiating the Future (2006), by Rashid Shaz |
For centuries Muslims have been accustomed to living in the past. While considering that past to be bright, Dr. Rashid Shaz considers it a deadening effect today on Islamic civilization. Instead of relying on the wisdom of dead souls, Shaz challenges fellow Muslims to use their own minds to look into the Qur'an for fresh guidance.
Shaz describes an Islam desperate to regain the lost glory of bygone days, ending up with just a romanticization of the past. He calls a new generation of Islam to leave that conventional abode and face the stark realities of the present and the past.
In keeping with the Prophet Mohammed's prayer, "My Lord! Show me the things as they are', Shaz essays uncover half-baked ideas within popular Islam today, such as waiting for the Messiah or a future Mujaddid; or using a closed-mind set to guide juristic pronouncements, or bolstering one of Islam's sectarian schools such as Hanafi, Shafei, Maleki or Hambali.
Written as a wake up call to millions who want to futurize Islam, Islam: Negotiating the Future also serves as an excellent book to anyone in the West who wants to read one of Islam's authentic reformation voices. A helpful glossary provides non-Muslim audiences with a key to understanding unique terminology.
About the Author: Dr. Rashid Shaz, of New Delhi, author of Understanding the Muslim Malaise, has been at the forefront of working for a regeneration in Islamic thought among Indian Muslims. After the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1993, he launched an international weekly magazine, the Milli Times. Presently he is chairman of Peace India International and edits a bi-monthly journal on Future Islam in English, Arabic and Urdu. FutureIslam.com explores how Muslims can emerge from a'ghetto-mind' and find a Quranic basis of a global living.
Table of Contents:
What shall we do now?
Futurizing Islam
The death of a discourse
Is a new Enlightenment possible?
In search of a prophetic voice
Beyond an Islamic reformation
Reconstructing the Ummah Muslimah
Calling for a paradigm shift
Is there a way out of this polytheism?
Is religion all about rituals?
Why God's help has faltered!
The Palestinian problem: If truth be told
Can a Muslim woman lead congregational prayers?
Conventions should not be mistaken for Islam
Islam needs new interpreters
Living through an uncreative tension
Digression from Iqra
Clinging to false hopes
An Islamic future?
International Council on Islam
Citation:
Shaz, R. (2006). Islam: Negotiating the future. New Delhi: Milli Publications. Hardback: ISBN: 81-8785605X.
© 1998-2010 by World Network of Religious Futurists.
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