In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers

Secularism in the Arab World: Contexts, Ideas and Consequences

Explores secularism and secularisation in Arab societies since the mid-19th century. This book is a translation of Aziz al-Azmeh’s seminal work Al-'Ilmaniya min mandhur mukhtalif that was first published in Beirut in 1992. Both celebrated...

The Sorrowful Muslim's Guide

Explores the interaction between pre-Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities Published as Dalīl al-Muslim al-ḥazīn ilā muqtada-l-sulūk fī’l-qarn al-ʿishrīn in 1983, this book remains a...

Islam and the Foundations of Political Power

The publication of this essay in Egypt in 1925 took the contemporaries of Ali Abdel Razek by storm. At a time when there was widespread turmoil over the abolition of the caliphate by Ataturk in Turkey, Ali Abdel Razek, a religious cleric...

Islam : Between Message and History

This book could easily be called ‘A Guide for the Modern Muslim’, someone for whom the sentiments of his or her ancestors resonate but who cannot accept the canonised formulas of a prescriptive education. Charfi spells out what for him is...

Series Editor: Abdou Filali-Ansary

In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers aims to broaden the current debate around Muslim civilisations. Although global in scope, academic and media conversations about Muslims often overlook works of new and original thinking produced in non-European languages.

This series aims to identify and translate some of these works, which have engendered important debates within their own indigenous settings, thereby introducing them into the domain of the larger discussion about Muslim civilisations taking place on the world stage.

In addition, the remarkable scope of modern scholarship in the Muslim world spans a multitude of languages: not just Arabic and Persian, but also Indonesian, Bengali, Swahili, Russian, Turkish, Urdu and so forth.

Muslims, who seek new ways of thinking about social, political, and economic conflicts, therefore often lack access to the works of academics or scholars due to language barriers.

By translating and making available in English (the lingua franca of the academic world) important contributions to the contemporary debates of the Muslim world, this series hopes to encourage greater dialogue and understanding among Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers.

The texts chosen for the series represent some of the most important, new, and cutting edge thinking from the Muslim world over the past century (1900-2013).

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Secularism in the Arab World: Contexts, Ideas and Consequences

Aziz al-Azmeh, Author
David Bond, Translator

Explores secularism and secularisation in Arab societies since the mid-19th century.

This book is a translation of Aziz al-Azmeh’s seminal work Al-'Ilmaniya min mandhur mukhtalif that was first published in Beirut in 1992. Both celebrated and criticised for its reflections on Arab secularisation and secularism in the modern history of the Arab World, it is the only study to date to approach its subject as a set of historical changes which affected the regulation of the social, political and cultural order, and which permeated the concrete workings of society, rather than as an ideological discussion framed from the outset by the assumed opposition between Islam and secularism.

The author takes a comprehensive analytical perspective to show that an almost imperceptible yet real, multi-faceted and objective secularising process has been underway in the Arab world since the 1850s.
- Traces the concrete secular transformations in Muslim societies which occurred at particular times and by specific social agencies
- Explores how secular changes influenced the functioning of different strata and groups, and the central attitudes of their members
- Devotes considerable attention to religious reform in the broader context of the developments studied, and of the ideological, political and institutional religious reactions to both
- Includes a new Preface by the author to introduce the English translation
The Sorrowful Muslim's Guide

Hussein Ahmad Amin, Author
Yasmin Amin, Translator
Nesrin Amin, Translator

Explores the interaction between pre-Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities

Published as Dalīl al-Muslim al-ḥazīn ilā muqtada-l-sulūk fī’l-qarn al-ʿishrīn in 1983, this book remains a timely and important read today. Both the resurgence of Islamist politics and the political, social and intellectual upheaval which accompanied the Arab Spring challenge us to re-examine the interaction between the pre-modern Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities.

This book does exactly that, raising questions regarding issues about which other Muslim intellectuals and thinkers have been silent. These include – among others – current religious practice vs the Islamic ideal; the many additions to the original revelation; the veracity of the Prophet’s biography and his sayings; the development of Sufism; and historical and ideological influences on Islamic thought.

Key Features
- Makes available in English an important contribution to modern Muslim thought from a prominent Egyptian thinker
- Looks at how current religious practice conforms (or not) to the Islamic ideal when Islam was first revealed
- Explores the relationship between core, inner religious values and ritualistic practices
- Engages critically with the sources by using historical, literal and logical criticism
Islam and the Foundations of Political Power

Ali Abdel Razek
Maryam Loutfi, Translator
Abdou Filali-Ansary, Editor

The publication of this essay in Egypt in 1925 took the contemporaries of Ali Abdel Razek by storm.

At a time when there was widespread turmoil over the abolition of the caliphate by Ataturk in Turkey, Ali Abdel Razek, a religious cleric trained at Al-Azhar University, argued in favour of secularism.

The abolition of the caliphate had re-ignited the question of Islam and its relationship to political power. This essay unleashed the Arab world’s first great public debate published in the press with polemics supporting or refuting Ali Abdel Razek’s ideas.
Islam : Between Message and History

Abdelmadjid Charfi
Abdou Filali-Ansary, Editor
Sikeena Karmali Ahmed, Editor
David Bond, Translator

This book could easily be called ‘A Guide for the Modern Muslim’, someone for whom the sentiments of his or her ancestors resonate but who cannot accept the canonised formulas of a prescriptive education.

Charfi spells out what for him is the essential message of Islam, followed by a history of its unfolding through the person of the Prophet Muhammad, whom he perceives as a visionary seeking to change the ideals, attitudes and behaviours of the society in which he lived. Charfi delineates the message and its history as two separate elements, conflated by tradition.

Charfi confronts with great lucidity the difficult questions with which Muslims are struggling, attempting to reconsider them from a moral and political perspective independent of traditional frameworks.