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Sat 21 Dec 2019 6:45 pm – 8:15 pm

Islam and Modernity

A discussion on evolution of faith

Speakers

Sultan Shahin
Editor, NewAgeIslam.com
Syed Mohammed Faisal
Postdoctoral Fellow, International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru
Aakar Patel
Columnist

Date & Time

Saturday Sat, 21 Dec 2019

Categories

Location

Bangalore International Centre
7, 4th Main Road, Domlur II Stage
Bangalore, Karnataka 560071 India

Contact

[email protected]

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Orthodox Islam provided Muslims with a mechanism called Ijtihaad to creatively rethink Islamic postulates and bring them in line with the needs of changing times. But this mechanism has been largely used to take Islam back to 7th century CE when Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) was engaged in an existential battle for survival. Present Islamic theology, the theology which is approved by the consensus of all schools of Islamic thought, evolved at a time when Muslim rulers were engaged in a war of expansion of their territories.  The result is that it is a theology of violence and exclusivism. It is this theology of offensive Jihad that is taught in our madrasas and that is available on the internet. The reason Jihadism has attracted so many of our youth in such a short time is that it is not saying anything new; it is essentially based on the theology of consensus.

However, the need of modern times is that we Muslims understand that we are living now in a very different world. We can no longer conquer new lands and be their legitimate owners. Our world today is so intricately connected that we just cannot live in isolation. Our Medieval theology is not going to help us survive in this New Age. We need a theology of peace and pluralism. It should be based on the foundational instructions of God in Quran and not the contextual.  It should be as internally consistent and coherent as the present theology. It should be able to answer all questions that arise in the minds of modern people. It’s only with the help of such a counternarrative that we can prevent our people from taking an extremist path and be able to live honourably in the 21st century world. This is the true purpose of Ijtihad, a mechanism that was originally meant for us to make progress, and not to go back to medieval times.
-Text by Sultan Shahin

Speakers

Sultan Shahin

Editor, NewAgeIslam.com

Sultan Shahin is the Founding Editor of a multi-lingual progressive Islamic website NewAgeIslam.com. Born in 1949 in Bihar, he has over four decades of experience in national and international journalism. He believes Islam is a spiritual path to salvation, one of the many, not a totalitarian political philosophy to dominate the world. As a human rights defender, he has been representing major international NGOs and participating in debates at the UN Human Rights Council at Geneva since 1999.

Mr. Shahin considers preventing radicalisation among Muslims as his prime concern in present times. For this, NewAgeIslam.com is focussed on refuting point by point the various theological misinterpretations that are being used to subvert Muslim youth. NewAgeIslam.com promotes a progressive, pluralistic interpretation of Islamic scriptures and seeks to breach the stagnation in Islamic theological thinking. In short, it is engaged in evolving a theology of peace and pluralism emphasising introspection to counter the theology of violence and intolerance that has been gaining ground in the last decades.

Syed Mohammed Faisal

Postdoctoral Fellow, International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru

Syed Mohammed Faisal is trained as an anthropologist from the University of Sussex. His doctoral dissertation explored trade, religion and kinship networks on the Konkan coast of Karnataka (2018). He is trying to understand the non-utilitarian significance of Urdu literary traditions. Especially, exploring ideas such as love, sacrifice and abandon and their sufi-mystical roots in the Akhlaq tradition to conceptualise an alternative theory of political economy. Faisal is currently a postdoctoral felllow at the International Institute of Information technology, Bengaluru.

Aakar Patel

Columnist

Aakar is columnist and member of Bangalore International Centre.