Description
In Rethinking Islam, Katajun Amirpur argues that the West’s impression of Islam as a backward-looking faith, resistant to post-Enlightenment thinking, is misleading and—due to its effects on political discourse—damaging. Introducing readers to key thinkers and activists—such as Abu Zaid, a free-thinking Egyptian Qur’an scholar; Abdolkarim Soroush, an academic and former member of Khomeini’s Cultural Revolution Committee; and Amina Wadud, an American feminist who was the first woman to lead the faithful in Friday Prayer—Amirpur reveals a powerful yet lesser-known tradition of inquiry and dissent within Islam, one that is committed to democracy and human rights. By examining these and many other similar figures’ ideas, she reveals the many ways they reject fundamentalist assertions and instead call for a diversity of opinion, greater freedom, and equality of the sexes.
Chapter
2. Islamic Reformers Today
3. Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: Who’s the Heretic here?
4. Fazlur Rahman: from the Qur’an to Life, and Back Again to the Qur’an
5. Amina Wadud: In the Midst of the Gender Jihad
6. Asma Barlas: As Though Only Men Were Objective
7. ‘Abdolkarim Soroush: More than Ideology and State
8. Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari: The Prophet Reads the World