Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam

Abstract This book is an intellectual history and thematic survey of the prominent Muslim scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, one of the twentieth century’s foremost Islamic modernists. Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam presents a critical analysis of Abu Zayd’s thought as representative of a modernist intellectual trend that aims to reinterpret central aspects of the Islamic tradition to render it more conducive to modern conceptions of religion, society, and politics. This study contextualizes Abu Zayd’s thought by situating him both within his modernist intellectual milieu and in opposition to his numerous critics. In addition, it elucidates and provides summary translations of Arabic texts which remain largely unknown to Western audiences. The position of advocates for humanist values in the Middle East continues to be perilous, a reality that deprives wider audiences around the world of their unique perspectives. The case of the Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943–2010) illustrates the hostility faced by modernist intellectuals who attempt to subject the Islamic tradition to academic scrutiny. A professor of Islamic thought in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Cairo University, as well as a practicing Muslim, Abu Zayd became well known in Egypt and beyond when the Egyptian Court of Appeals declared him an apostate in 1995, a judgment that, in mainstream interpretations of Islamic law, can carry the death penalty. To protect his life and that of his wife, Abu Zayd fled to the Netherlands. With Abu Zayd as a case study, this book analyzes the intellectual trend that argues that there can be a positive relationship between modernity and Islam. It also examines the obstacles to reforming Islamic thought, whether from oppressive regimes, intolerant religion, or intellectual argumentation.