Islam has a dissonant relationship with modernity in that it agrees with central aspects of this epochal phenomenon and parts ways with others. This is the key to understanding how Islam engages with the two main components of modernity, namely its intellectual discourse and its political project. A thorough study of Islam’s intellectual tradition reveals, in Ernest Gellner’s words, that Islam agrees with basic orientations of modernity like universalism, rationality and the emphasis on following the law or the sharia, while it strongly shuns secularism. This opens the way to what is termed multiple modernities where a particular civilization charts its own way to progress, gender equality, empowerment and representative government, while adhering to the principal components of their heritage and ethical traditions. It will be argued in the course of the article that this position is unique to Islam as recent historical experience has shown that other, non-western, societies seem to undergo a process of cultural metamorphosis as they come to terms with modernity. Their entry into modern times involves a measure of cultural secularism. This article aims to show that only the adherence to the paradigm of multiple modernities will ensure a balanced, clear-sighted entry into modernity, one which would ensure adherence to Islam’s basic ethos and principles. Conversely surrender to any constitutive components of modernity, whether its intellectual discourse or political project, would “humanize” the faith and render the Muslim world absorbable within the contemporary hegemonic world system. Evidence will be marshaled for the first aspect from two major contemporary Muslim thinkers (Mohammad Arkoun and Abdol Karim Soroush) and for the latter from the trajectory of the tenure of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey.
Source: World Journal of Islamic History and Civilization
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