Islamic Reform and Conservatism Al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam Contributor(s): Gesink, Indira Falk (Author) |
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ISBN: 1780764278 ISBN-13: 9781780764276 Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company OUR PRICE: $42.52 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2014 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Religion | Islam - History - History | Middle East - General - Religion | Islam - Sunni |
Dewey: 297.81 |
Series: Library of Modern Religion |
Physical Information: 1.1" H x 5.4" W x 8.4" (0.80 lbs) 320 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Middle East - Religious Orientation - Islamic |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: The famed reform debates at al-Azhar Madrasa in nineteenth-century Cairo, one of the most influential centres of religious study in Sunni Islam, were enormously influential for twentieth-century Islamic thought. Here Indira Gesink offers a revisionist history of these debates over curricular and administrative reforms, and challenges our understanding of the struggle between Islamic reform and conservatism. It has been assumed that famous Islamic modernists such as Muhammad 'Abduh instigated the reform movement and the ideas of modern religious life that emanated from al-Azhar and permeated Islamic society, a development that religious conservatives opposed. Gesink draws on obscure, but important, archival sources, legal manuals and ephemeral journals to tell the other side of the story, and to illustrate the important contributions of conservative scholars to the evolution of twentieth-century Sunni Islam. Conservative 'opponents of reform' engaged many of the same issues as reformers and actively pursued alternative visions of reform. |