Following Muhammad
Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World
Published on 12. October 2005
272 pages
978-0-8078-7580-3 (ISBN)
Description
Avoiding the traps of sensational political exposes and specialized scholarly Orientalism, Carl Ernst introduces readers to the profound spiritual resources of Islam while clarifying diversity and debate within the tradition. Framing his argument in terms of religious studies, Ernst describes how Protestant definitions of religion and anti-Muslim prejudice have affected views of Islam in Europe and America. He also covers the contemporary importance of Islam in both its traditional settings and its new locations and provides a context for understanding extremist movements like fundamentalism. He concludes with an overview of critical debates on important contemporary issues such as gender and veiling, state politics, and science and religion.
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Book
08/2004
The University of North Carolina Press
€34.00
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Person
Carl W. Ernst is W. R. Kenan Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he maintains the website www.unc.edu/~cernst/islam.htm, which provides up-to-date links to resources for learning about Islam. Ernst is author of Sufi Martyrs of Love: Chishti Sufism in South Asia and Beyond, among other books.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Preface
- 1. Islam in the Eyes of the West
- Islam as Part of the Contemporary World
- Anti-Islamic Attitudes from Medieval Times to the Present
- Avoiding Prejudice in Approaching Islam
- 2. Approaching Islam in Terms of Religion
- Islam and the Modern Concept of Religion
- Islam and the Historical Study of Religion
- Islam Defined by the State and by the Numbers
- Islamic Religious Language
- 3. The Sacred Sources of Islam
- The Seal of the Prophets: The Prophet Muhammad
- The Word of God: The Qur'an
- 4. Ethics and Life in the World
- Islamic Religious Ethics
- Greek Philosophy as a Source of Ethics
- Islamic Ethics in the Colonial Age
- The End of the Caliphate and the Concept of the Islamic State
- Examples of Islam and the Modern State in Practice
- Liberal Islam
- Gender and the Question of Veiling
- Islam and Science
- 5. Spirituality in Practice
- Early Sufism and the Cultivation of Mystical Experience
- The Spirituality of Shi'ism
- Later Sufism
- What Is Islamic Art?
- 6. Postscript: Reimagining Islam in the Twenty-first Century
- Beyond East and West
- New Images of Islam
- Islam and Pluralism
- Notes
- Suggested Further Reading
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
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