A Comparative Study of Allama Iqbal and Dr. Fazlur Rahman on Islamic Modernity
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Date
2009
Journal Title
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Publisher
Department Of Philosophy, University Of Peshawar
Abstract
The present study aims to examine the comparison between Allama Iqbal and Dr
Fazlur Rahman on Islamic Modernity. The main attempt of Islamic intellectual tradition
has been to define the nature of knowledge and beingitself as given by the authority of
revelation and the view of God’s omnipotentiality over the Universe. However, with the
development of modern society along with the political and economic changes in the
West, it brought new scientific and philosophical visions. Those revolved around the
themes of man as a subject and the abstraction of nature. As a thinker deeply involved in
these issues, Iqbal and Dr. Fazlur Rahman represents an effort that tries to transform
Islamic intellectual tradition into the language of modern world. They stand out as an
original thinker having a modernist attitude of Muslim intellectuals or “oppositional” to
the traditional Ulama. Inthis study, it will also argue that transformation of the language
ofIslamic intellectual tradition to that of modernity is how much necessary, if we want to
evaluate Islam and Modernity in a non-reductionist way. The present study will also help
to prevent the mutual misunderstanding between the two Worlds; Islam and the West.It
will also present the contribution of Iqbal and Fazlur Rahman to opening the doors for a
possible dialogue between two different intellectual traditions and the phenomenon of
intellectual interaction between Islamic and Western philosophical and theological
traditions.
The present study titled “A Comparative Study of Allama Iqbal and Dr Fazlur
Rahman on Islamic Modernity” consists of Five Chapters. 1 is of Islamic Modernity. In
this chapter the background of Islamic Modernity, the meaning of modernity, moderation
and modernism has been discussed. In Islamic Modernity, the need of Jjtihad, Islam is
not opposed to modernism, has been discussed. Modernism cannot be separated from
change. In fact, Islam, like many other religions, was a product of fundamental social and
economic changes, which were occurring, in the Arab society. Islam laid great emphasis
on these values while welcoming the change-taking place in the society.
In Chapter 2 Islamic Modernist thinker Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani, Muhammad
Abduh, Ali Shariati, Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, and Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi views has
been discussed. Afghani is considered to be the founding father of Islamic Modernism.