Pathways to Modern Islam

Abstract

Modern Islam, in contradistinction to traditionalist or pre-modern Islam, emerged in the mid nineteenth century as a reaction to the overwhelming of Muslim societies by a rapidly expanding Occident. Modern Islam sought to effect the perspectives and consciousness of Muslims by a focus on the political dimension of Muslims’ disempowerment. A number of often conflicting political, doctrinal, and social currents emerged that sought to reposition Islam in its modern context. However, the Modern Islam project has effectively ended and degenerated into an obscurantist exposition of the religion, extreme extenuation of the Shia-Sunni schism, and the growth of a nihilistic and destructive understanding and practice of jihad. Muslims must thus look beyond the false promise of a new Islamic ‘Reformation’ or ‘Enlightenment’.