Islam and Modernism A Study of Muslim Scholars of Indo Pak subcontinent

Abstract

The present study aims to explore and examine the trend of Islamic modernism in Muslim societies, particularly in Indo-Pak Subcontinent. It explores the origin and structure of modernism in general and the Islamic modernism in particular. Besides, it also examines the contribution of modern Muslim scholars and reformers (modernists, traditionalists and Islamists) to social, cultural, political, religious and scientific progress and development in Indo-Pak Subcontinent. newlineThe thesis consists of five-chapter plan in addition to the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter discusses the origin and background of modernity and modernism in the West or in other words how this philosophy of modernism came in debate and discussion. The first chapter entitled Defining Modernism in Western Perspective. First, it discusses the origin and connotation of the terms modern and modernity with reference to the Oxford dictionaries and other works. Then it examines the Western concept of modernism, its characteristics and features. As the Western concept of modernism developed during the period of Renaissance and enlightenment and based on the characteristics and features of rationalism and reason over the tradition of the past, new technological and scientific atmosphere, new political, social and economic environment. It discusses how this movement originated in West, particularly in Rome, France, England, Italy and Germany and argues that modernism reflected a reaction against the increasing centralization of the church authority in the pope and the papal bureaucracy. It also highlights the views of different Western scholars like Bernad Lewis (b. 1916), Max Weber (d. 1920), Wilfred Cantwell Smith (d. 2000), Samuel P. Huntington (d. 2008), David E. Apter (d. 2010), C. E. Black, and Michael P. Todaro (b. 1942) etc....... newline