What Is Islam?: The Importance of Being Islamic
(eBook)

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Book Cover Information

Hoopla Extract Information

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    [year] => 2015
    [artist] => Shahab Ahmed
    [fiction] => 
    [coverImageUrl] => https://cover.hoopladigital.com/pup_9781400873586_270.jpeg
    [titleId] => 13283634
    [isbn] => 9781400873586
    [abridged] => 
    [language] => ENGLISH
    [profanity] => 
    [title] => What Is Islam?
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    [pages] => 624
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                    [name] => Shahab Ahmed
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            [0] => Islam
            [1] => Islamic Studies
            [2] => Religion
            [3] => Social Science
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    [price] => 1.49
    [id] => 13283634
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    [synopsis] => "Winner of the 2016 Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2016" Shahab Ahmed (1966-2015) was postdoctoral associate in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University. 
	A bold new conceptualization of Islam that reflects its contradictions and rich diversity

What is Islam? How do we grasp a human and historical phenomenon characterized by such variety and contradiction? What is "Islamic" about Islamic philosophy or Islamic art? Should we speak of Islam or of islams? Should we distinguish the Islamic (the religious) from the Islamicate (the cultural)? Or should we abandon "Islamic" altogether as an analytical term?

In What Is Islam?, Shahab Ahmed presents a bold new conceptualization of Islam that challenges dominant understandings grounded in the categories of "religion" and "culture" or those that privilege law and scripture. He argues that these modes of thinking obstruct us from understanding Islam, distorting it, diminishing it, and rendering it incoherent.

What Is Islam? formulates a new conceptual language for analyzing Islam. It presents a new paradigm of how Muslims have historically understood divine revelation-one that enables us to understand how and why Muslims through history have embraced values such as exploration, ambiguity, aestheticization, polyvalence, and relativism, as well as practices such as figural art, music, and even wine drinking as Islamic. It also puts forward a new understanding of the historical constitution of Islamic law and its relationship to philosophical ethics and political theory.

A book that is certain to provoke debate and significantly alter our understanding of Islam, What Is Islam? reveals how Muslims have historically conceived of and lived with Islam as norms and truths that are at once contradictory yet coherent. "Anyone interested in exploring the intricacies and complexities of Islam as a religion, philosophical system and social text should study the new book What Is Islam? . . . [A] perfect antidote to our present discourse."---Hussein Ibish, New York Times "A fascinating, often difficult, but ultimately rewarding study. Embracing and indeed celebrating what is most creative and explorative in Islam, Ahmed is sick of people reducing the religion to nothing more than a mess of prohibitions and restrictions."---Thomas Small, Times Literary Supplement "One can't but be impressed by the grandeur of Ahmed's vision."---Malise Ruthven, London Review of Books "This is an enduring and timely work well worth the effort for those interested in discerning the essence of Islam beyond the seeming paradoxes of its own representations." "A bold new conceptualisation of Islam that reflects its contradictions and rich diversity." "[A] major new study … a strange and brilliant work, encyclopedic in vision and tautly argued in the manner of a logical proof, yet pervaded by the urgency of a political manifesto." "We can be grateful … that Ahmed managed to complete this extraordinary work. Scholars from east and west will be under his influence for years to come."---Sameer Rahim, , Prospect "In this monumental work, the late Shahab Ahmed sought new answers to important questions: How does one understand what Islam is? How does one study it meaningfully? . . . This volume will be central to the study of Islam and of religion more broadly for the foreseeable future." "If the task sounds monumental, Ahmed's staggering erudition and range has more than equipped him for the challenge. . . . To call the book ambitious is an understatement."---Alireza Doostdar, Shii Studies Review "Remarkable."---Damian Howard, The Tablet "What Is Islam? is both a substantive critique of the field of Islamic studies and a radical reconceptualization of 'Islam'/'Islamic' that seeks to account for the manifold and often mutually contradictory ways in which Muslims have understood, expressed, and
    [url] => https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/13283634
    [pa] => 
    [subtitle] => The Importance of Being Islamic
    [publisher] => Princeton University Press
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