ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the foundations of the modernist-apologetic quest for reason and freedom within a revelation-based framework. It also examines the limitations of the modernist-apologetic promise for complete freedom of scientific investigation within a revelation-based framework. The book overviews modernist-apologetic concepts of political freedom, and how the term shura has been applied to argue that the essence of Islam is non-theocratic and non-despotic. At the turn of the twentieth century, Muhammad 'Abduh, the reform-minded Grand Mufti of Egypt, rejected the notion that Muslim societies need to separate religion and state, as modern Western societies did, if they wish to achieve scientific and political progress. 'Abduh's and al-Qaradawi's words are two articulations of an approach to the relation between Islam's revelation and science and politics, which, for over a century, has been a central part of Arab discourses on the future of Muslim societies.
