Civil Rights - General, General & Miscellaneous Islam, Civil Rights - General & Miscellaneous, Islamic Law, Politics & Islam
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Overview
"In this book, Mohamed Charfi tackles a pressing question facing all Arab-Muslim nations today. Contemporary Arab governments have yet to conceive the very idea of democracy in terms of today's criteria, and until they do so, the debate between traditionalists and democrats cannot progress. Charfi rejects the position of those who downplay Islamist violence and legitimise fundamentalist positions. But, although he is attuned to the relationship between some forms of Islamism and popular dispossession, he remains convinced that fundamentalist constructions are deeply damaging for all people, not least for women." Charfi advocates a profound revision of Islamic thought. He insists on a new reading of Islamic history and Islamic law and presses for a society that allows for dissent, secularism and freedom of belief. Above all, he stresses the overriding importance of educational reform - an area where he himself played a pivotal and pioneering role when minister of education in his own country, Tunisia, in the early 1990s.Synopsis
Mohammed Charfi tackles the central question facing all Arab-Muslim nations: is Islam compatible with contemporary notions of democracy, legality and the State? A century ago, thinkers like Abdoh and Tahar Haddad called for an approach to religion compatible with modern realities, yet the twenty-first century is witnessing a sad regression in the independence of the law from holy writ. Charfi advocates a profound revision of Islamic thought. He stresses the importance of education, which from the 1970's onwards has been left in the hands of propagandists whose identity and source of authority is bound up with a particular interpretation of Islam.
Book Details
Published
August 1, 2005
Publisher
Zed Books
Pages
224
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9781842775103