Human Rights and Reformist Islam (In Translation: Contemporary Thought in Muslim Contexts) - Hardcover

Kadivar, Mohsen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1474449301 ISBN 13: 9781474449304

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2021

Synopsis

Human Rights and Reformist Islam' critiques traditional Islamic approaches to the question of compatibility between human rights and Islam, and argues instead for their reconciliation from the perspective of a reformist Islam. The book focuses on six controversial case studies: religious discrimination; gender discrimination; slavery; freedom of religion; punishment of apostasy; and arbitrary or harsh punishments. Explaining the strengths of structural ijtihad, Mohsen Kadivar’s draws on the rational classification of Islamic teachings as temporal or permanent on the one hand, and four criteria of being Islamic on the other: reasonableness, justice, morality and efficiency. He rejects all of the problematic verses and Hadith according to these criteria. The result is a powerful, solutions-based argument based on reformist Islam – providing a scholarly bridge between modernity and Islamic tradition in relation to human rights.

About this title

About the Authors

Mohsen Kadivar is Research Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Duke University. One of the most original and prolific figures of the Iranian reform movement, he is a versatile theologian, philosopher and intellectual historian who has written ground-breaking books on human rights and Islam, Islamic political thought, and Islamic philosophy and theology. His forthcoming 'Islamic Theocracy in the Secular Age' will be published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2021. Kadivar has been a vocal critic of Iran’s doctrine of clerical rule and a strong advocate of democratic and liberal reforms in Iran as well as constructional reform in shari'a and Shi'a theology. He has served time in prison in Iran for his political activism and beliefs; his writings have been banned in Iran since 2009.

Mirjam Kuenkler is Research Professor at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. Her books include Female Religious Authority in Shiʿi Islam: Past and Present, Edinburgh University Press, 2021; A Secular Age Beyond the West, Cambridge University Press, 2018; Democracy and Islam in Indonesia, Columbia University Press, 2013; and the forthcoming The Rule of Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Power, Institutions, and Prospects for Reform, Cambridge University Press, among others. She is a PI of the Iran Data Portal, co-editor of the Cambridge Journal of Law and Religion, co-editor of the Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and Politics, and a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Islam in Asia (Brill), the Digest of Middle East Studies (Wiley), the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Wiley), and Iranian Studies (Cambridge). In 2023, Künkler was elected President of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS).

Niki Akhavan is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Media and Communication Studies at The Catholic University of America and author of Electronic Iran (Rutgers University Press, 2013). She has been a Persian-English translator for over 20 years.

From the Back Cover

A translation of the influential collection Haqq al-nas which argues for the compatibility of human rights and IslamHuman Rights and Reformist Islam critiques traditional Islamic approaches to the question of compatibility between human rights and Islam, and argues instead for their reconciliation from the perspective of a reformist Islam. The book focuses on six controversial case studies: religious discrimination; gender discrimination; slavery; freedom of religion; punishment of apostasy; and arbitrary or harsh punishments.Explaining the strengths of structural ijtihad, Mohsen Kadivar’s approach is based on the rational classification of Islamic teachings to temporal and permanent on the one hand, and four criteria of being Islamic on the other: reasonableness, justice, morality and efficiency. In the book, all of the verses and Hadith that are problematic in relation to human rights are abrogated rationally according to these criteria. The result is a powerful, solutions-based argument based on reformist Islam – providing a scholarly bridge between modernity and Islamic tradition in relation to human rights.Key Features? Written by an original and prolific intellectual of the Iranian reform movement? An extensive new introduction and annotations throughout the text from Mohsen Kadivar bring the work up-to-date and place it in its academic and public contexts? A preface by Professor Mirjam Künkler explains the importance of the translation and the value of its contribution to current scholarly debate? Critically compares Mohsen Kadivar’s approach to Islam and human rights with those of five leading contemporary scholars: Mahmoud M. Taha, Abdullahi A. an-Na’im, Ann E. Mayer, Mohammad M. Shabestari and Abdulaziz A. Sachedina? Includes a glossary of key terminology

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474449301
• ISBN 13: 9781474449304
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 552