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1 Chapter 12 Describing modernity For the history of European colonialism and the aftermath of Napoleon see William L. Cleveland, Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 4th edition, Boulder, CO, Westview, 2009, especially part 2. Studying modern Islam An overview of the development of modern Islam is available in Kenneth Cragg, Religious Developments in Islam in the 20th Century, Cahiers d histoire mondiale/journal of World History, 3 (1956), The phenomenon of modernity For an analysis of the key elements of the modern crisis of Islam see Francis Robinson, Crisis of Authority: Crisis of Islam? Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland (Third Series), 19 (2009), The characteristics of the modern era Harvey Cox, Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1984, provides a classic statement of the impact of change on religion. See David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985, for illustrations of the impact of historical studies on the rise of modernity. The five pillars of modernity On secularization see R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, Beyond Tradition and Modernity: Changing Religions in a Changing World, London, The Athlone Press, The greatest critique of contemporary studies of Islam is found in Edward Said, Orientalism, New York, Pantheon Books, Even after that it was still possible for some scholars to write ignoring the critique. See, for example, W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Fundamentalism

2 and Modernity, London, Routledge, 1988, and my review of that book in Journal of Semitic Studies, 36 (1991), Characteristics of the modern era in the Muslim world Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1985, provides an insightful picture into the impact of modernity on the Muslim world. On the impact of demographics and its impact on religiosity see Michael Slackman, Stifled, Egypt s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor, The New York Times, Sunday, February 17, 2008, A1. Ascendancy and decline On the perception of the cycles in history see Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1982, chapter 1. Also see Frances Robinson, Other-Worldly and This-Worldly Islam and the Islamic Revival. A Memorial Lecture for Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britian and Ireland (Third Series), 14 (2004), 47 58, on the impact of European colonialism on the conception of Islam among Muslims. Nationalism and socialism On issues related to nationalism see John J. Donohue, Islam and the Search for Identity in the Arab World, in John L. Esposito (ed.), Voices of Resurgent Islam, New York, Oxford University Press, 1983, pp Zionism and the establishment of Israel See Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice since 1967, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, for some views (many quite controversial) on the impact of the 1967 Arab Israeli war and the 1973 oil boycott. For more recent reflections see Colin Chapman, Israel as a Focus for the Anger of Muslims Against the West, in Ron Geaves, Theodore Gabriel, Yvonne Haddad and Jane Idleman Smith (eds), Islam and the West Post 9/11, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, pp Oil

3 On ideas of oil as a gift from God see Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age, San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1989, who refers to this with the nice formulation, the mythologization of oil (p. 195). Other factors Film has proven an ideal medium for conveying and critiquing the tensions (and the absurdities) of the modern era. See, for example, the biting social critique of modern Arab life presented in the 1989 Algerian/French film De Hollywood à Tamanrasset directed by Mahmoud Zemmouri accessible on Google videos. In a more subtle way, the Iranian films of Abbas Kiarostami, such as Taste of Cherry (1997) and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), provide a similar vision; see Godfrey Cheshire, How to Read Kiarostami, Cineaste, 25 (4) (2000), The role of Islam in the modern world On the political role of the symbol of Islam see Dietrich Jung, Islam and Politics: A Fixed Relationship? Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 16 (2007), Mohammed Arkoun argues convincingly for the linguistic grounding (and construction) of Islam in civilization: see his Rethinking Islam Today, Washington, DC, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, For a conservative view that holds that the sharīʿa is the basis of Islamic civilization see Seyyid Hossein Nasr, The Sharῑʿah and Changing Historical Conditions, in his Islamic Life and Thought, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1981, pp The post-modern phenomenon For further reflections on the challenge and the role of post-modernism to and in Islam see Ian Almond, The New Orientalists: Postmodern Representations of Islam from Foucault to Baudrillard, London, I. B. Tauris, 2007 (with special attention to Salman Rushdie and Orhan Pamuk) and Ali Mirsepassi, Political Islam, Iran, and the Enlightenment: Philosophies of Hope and Despair, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011, which argues for a connection between radical Islamist politics and some contemporary trends in European philosophy.

4 Classification of Muslim approaches to modernity The terms normative, neo-normative and acculturating are used in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1982, pp See also William E. Shepard, Islam and Ideology: Towards a Typology, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19 (1987), , especially pp , note 2, for a full review of other terms and categories used in various analyses. This categorization of terms makes some sense concerning comparative religion if the labels are seen in light of both the authority of the past and the attitude to change. Judaism s division between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform and even Christianity s Catholic, Evangelical and Protestant may all be analyzed in this way. The history of the development of these groups makes the situation of each religion quite different, however. For another overview of typologies of contemporary Muslims see John Esposito, Tradition and Modernization in Islam, in Charles Wei-hsun Fu and Gerhard E. Spiegler (eds), Movements and Issues in World Religions: A Sourcebook and Analysis of Developments since 1945: Religion, Ideology, and Politics, New York, Greenwood Press, 1987, pp The Traditionalist group For the role of Muslim scholars in preserving and adapting Islam within the Traditionalist framework see Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change, Princeton, Princeton University Press, Islamism and revivalism Fazlur Rahman, Islam: Challenges and Opportunities, in Alford T. Welch and Pierre Cachia (eds), Islam: Past Influence and Present Challenge, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1979, pp , provides an excellent overview of the revival of Islam. On the use of the term fundamentalism see William Shepard, Fundamentalism Christian and Islamic, Religion, 17 (1987), ; see also his What is Islamic fundamentalism, Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses, 17 (1988), 5 26, and see the critiques of it by Bruce Lawrence and Azim Nanji, Religion, 19 (1989), For a sociologically focused

5 study see Martin van Bruinessen, Muslim Fundamentalism: Something to be Understood or to be Explained Away? Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 6 (1995), For a useful discussion of the different forms of (and terms used for) Islamic radicalism see Thomas Hegghammer, Jihadi-Salafis or Revolutionaries? On Religion and Politics in the Study of Militant Islamism, in Roel Meijer (ed.), Global Salafism: Islam s New Religious Movement, New York, Columbia University Press, 2009, pp Islamic modernism and its history Knowledge of European intellectual thought played an important role in the development of Modernist thought; many ideas emerged that enunciated not only the influence of such thought but also a critique. An example may be seen in Simon A. Wood, Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs: Rashid Rida s Modernist Defence of Islam, Oxford, Oneworld, 2008, which contains a translation of Riḍā s work Shubuhāt al-naṣārā wa ḥujaj al-islām.