ABSTRACT
As I have written elsewhere – so will refrain from repeating myself here – we have seen in modern times a period of intense activity, comparable to that of the Middle Ages, in the field of the study and interpretation of the Qur’an in the Islamic world.1 By modern times, I mean particularly the twentieth century, even if the renaissance of the Islamic world can be traced back to the second half of the eighteenth century. This can be explained by the fact that, in the present age, Muslims have been obliged to confront and come to terms with the civilisation and culture of Europe and the modernity they have ushered in. This modernity can be summed up under the headings of key concepts characteristic of European civilisation and, from many points of view, very different from the traditional mentality and culture of Islam. The first of these key concepts is secularism. Like many terms intended to
define a variety of ideas, the word is somewhat ambiguous. Its use here should be understood in a general way as a separation between interior and exterior, between religion and society (and, above all, between religion and politics). Islam, with its deeper ideological essence, is able to integrate the sacred dimension into that of social and worldly relations (al-Isla-m dı-n wa dunya-), although it cannot be said that the sacred is immediately integrated with the political (al-Isla-m dı-n wa dawla).2 Islam in fact is an all-embracing concept of reality, a global Weltanschauung. It is for this reason that secularism – where the sacred is separated from social behaviour – and, to an even greater extent, radical secularism – where all aspects of public life, ranging from social ethics to the running of the state, are entirely separated
from religion – would seem to be alien to Islam. Second, whereas the scientific and technological knowledge of modernity has subjected nature to human domination instead of seeking a harmony between nature and humankind, in Islam knowledge is life rather than power, and humankind must work with nature (even if it exploits it for its own benefit), rather than forcing it into an alien mould.3 Third, the nation, democracy (understood as government of the people by means of freely elected representatives, which emerged in opposition to absolute monarchy) and natural rights are political categories that clash with classic concepts of Islamic political philosophy and jurisprudence such as umma (community), the caliphate and the origin of law and rights in revelation and the will of God.4 Last, the individualism so typical of Western modernity, and further compounded by postmodernity, stands in sharp contrast to the predominantly collectivist and holistic nature of Islam. From one point of view, the dialectic encounter with modernity has meant
alienation, since modernity has meant that Muslims have been obliged to reread, revisit, evaluate, sometimes to adjust and in any case to seek a better understanding of the fundamental tenets of their own culture in an attempt to relate them to a reality that seemed, and still seems in the early twentyfirst century, to be dominating and even crushing the Islamic world. It should not be forgotten that, for many decades, the triumph of European modernity meant the colonial subordination of the Islamic world to Western imperialism. Muslims’ first introduction to modernity was through colonial occupation and military conquest, events that could not fail to be traumatising. It could be argued however that, without this encounter, Muslims would have remained inward-looking and inclined towards negative feelings of superiority and self-sufficiency or would at least have taken longer to integrate into the modern world (although it is possible that more gradual integration might have been less traumatic).5
