Description
Royal Book Company Renaissance and Reformation of Islamic Society Need for Revival and Development of Confidence Creativity & Pluralism by Wajih-Uddin Siddiqui
Islamic society, once highly vibrant, innovative and progressive, leading the world in virtually all branches of human activity for 500 years, suddenly decided to commit a sort of intellectual suicide in the thirteenth century. Since then it has been descending into various phases decline and degeneration, losing in the process, the central ethos of its classic period such as confidence, creativity and pluralism. Today, Islamic society is amongst the most backward; rife with medieval social practices, ruled by obsolete and oppressive systems of government and plagued by unenlightened, dogmatic and extremist views in its religious beliefs. In the early 20th century, however, certain Muslim countries introduced multifaceted reforms to improve the overall state of their communities, but most of their efforts failed to survive as they were too radical and lacked public support. Hence there is now an urgent need to launch fresh programs for reforms in the Islamic societies under new paradigms, avoiding earlier mistakes. This book reviews critically, the entire spectrum of the existing Islamic society, encompassing its social, political, commercial and legal practices and highlights areas where urgent reforms are needed. Extensive discourse on sensitive issues such as family laws, apostasy, riba etc. are very informative and reflective for the educated Muslim class to whom the book is primarily addressed and who alone, in the opinion of the author, can spearhead sustainable reform movements to modernize the Islamic society through an evolutionary process backed by enlightened Ijtihad.