ABSTRACT
Religious Perspectives in Modern Muslim and Jewish Literatures could well be the title for a series rather than a single book. Jewish literature goes back over two thousand years, and the fi rst text of Muslim literature, the Quran, took form in the early seventh century. Since our project was to produce a single volume, however, we decided not to cover the historical spectrum of Jewish and Muslim literatures, but to limit ourselves to modern times, that is, the last 200 years. There are two main reasons for choosing this period. First, where studies have been made of religious themes and expressions of religious experience in these literatures, they have tended to focus on pre-modern writing; the Scriptures and mystical and liturgical poetry, for instance, have attracted much attention. By contrast, work on modern Muslim and Jewish literatures often either does not pay attention to religious themes, or does so tangentially. This may refl ect general tendencies in research into modern literatures at the present time, but it does not do justice to the place of religion in the Jewish and Muslim cultures even today. Second, all religions have had to face some similar challenges in modern times, such as the secularisation of public life and the acceptance of the idea of a universe governed by rational laws and of certain principles commonly held to be universally applicable in society, among them the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the principle of freedom of conscience. They have also had to adapt to the conditions of a technological age in which communication has become easier than ever before and is open not only to elites but to a wide range of people who have benefi ted from mass education. Consequently, traditional structures of authority have been shaken and traditional teachings called into question. Like other religions, Judaism and Islam have had to respond to these challenges. Thus it is likely that Muslim and Jewish writers who explore themes of religion and religious experience today are to some extent working within comparable contexts.
