Synopsis
This is the second revised edition of the author's original book Exploring Islam in a New Light: An Understanding from the Quranic Perspective, iUniverse, 2008. It is a comprehensive and in-depth description of Islam in light of the Quran alone. Its main focus is the essence of the central message of the Quran, which is essentially a call for a moral, spiritual, and intellectual practice. The book shows that Islam, seen from the perspective of the Quran alone, is a tolerant, humane, and progressive religion that meets the social and economic challenges of modern time. It is a religion of peaceful co-existence, justice, equality, compassion, and service to humanity - far removed from a fanatic, misogynistic, and militant image in which it is most often portrayed in the West. The Hadith, though widely revered by Muslims as a second authoritative source of religious law and guidance in Islam, is found by this book to be untenable and unreliable on theological, historical, and objective grounds. The book lays out a bold yet well-argued case for a reform of Islam as it is practiced today, which is beset with numerous problematic features and misconceptions borrowed from the Hadith. Also, it provides more meaningful, deeper interpretations of various tenets of the Quran such as prayer (salat), fasting (siam), spending in God's way (zakat, sadaqa), pilgrimage (hajj), marriage (nikah), divorce (talaq) and remarriage of divorced wives, and so on than are generally being understood by Muslims.
About the Author
Abdur Rab is basically an economist. Except for a brief stint as a Lecturer in Dhaka University, he held research and consulting positions throughout his career with numerous organizations, including the Bangladesh and former undivided Pakistan governments. He served the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics as a Staff and Research Economist, the Pakistan Tariff Commission as a Member, and the Bangladesh Planning Commission as Section Chief and Senior Consultant. He was an Industrial Economist with UNIDO, Financial and Monetary Advisor for the Uganda government under a World Bank assignment, and a Senior Industrial Economist for the Qatar government under a UNIDO assignment. He also offered his consulting services to various development projects of Bangladesh supported by USAID, the World Bank, UNDP, and the Asian Development Bank. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Dhaka University and a PhD from Harvard.
Born and brought up in a traditional Bengali Muslim family, Abdur has been a devoted follower of the traditional teachings and rituals of Islam since his very childhood. However, when he went to college, he came into close contact with a versatile spiritual teacher Shah Aksaruddin Ahmad and underwent a paradigm change in his religious approach. Inspired by him, Abdur closely studied the Quran to learn about genuine Islam. Afterwards he studied also the Hadith and relevant literature of modern Islamic scholars. He came to the United States in December 1999. His original book on Islam has taken more than four years.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
