Islam in the Modern World: Challenged by the West, Threatened by Fundamentalism, Keeping Faith with Tradition

This book deals with the hot-button issues of concern to the West: holy wars women's roles in Islam the rise of fundamentalism the future of Shi‘ism in Iran Additionally, the author explores lesser-known controversies within Islam, such as the challenge of modern science to religious belief, controversial art and architecture in Islamic cities, the role of the madrassas in education, and urban conditions and challenges in the Islamic world. Islam in the Modern World offers an inside look at this increasingly factious religion with increasing global relevance.

As Muslims grow in numbers, and as Islam's role in world affairs becomes larger, we've begun to see the breakdown of unity among believers. The misunderstandings and friction between Islamic civilization and the modern West continue, but even within Islam, Iran's clerics are split, militant fundamentalists clash with students from Islamic universities, and moderate Muslim-Americans think nothing like Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia. Islam seems to be at war with itself. Extremist factions whose angry rhetoric currently shapes our fears and prejudices have attempted to co-opt the Islamic faith. In Islam in the Modern World, one of the foremost Islamic scholars in the United States takes that faith back, describing and defending traditional Islam against all critics—without and within the faith.

Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
List of Transliterations
Preface to the Revised Edition
Preface to the Original Edition
Prologue: What Is Traditional Islam?
Part I: Contentious Issues Debated in Islamic Circles Today
Chapter One - Islam in the Present-Day Islamic World
Chapter Two - Jihād
Chapter Three - Islamic Work Ethics
Chapter Four - The Male and the Female in the Islamic Perspective
Chapter Five - Traditional Twelve-Imam Shī‘ism and the Reality of Shī‘ism Today
Part II: Traditional Islam and Modernism
Chapter Six - Islamic Spirituality
Chapter Seven - “Development” in the Contemporary Islamic World
Part III: Tensions Between Tradition, Modernism, and “Fundamentalism”
Education
Chapter Eight - Islamic Education, Philosophy, and Science
Chapter Nine - Islamic Philosophers’ Views on Education
Philosophy and Science
Chapter Ten - Teaching Philosophy in Light of the Islamic Educational Ethos
Chapter Eleven - Traditional Islamic Science and Western Science
Art and Architecture
Chapter Twelve - Islamic Art and Its Spiritual Significance in the Contemporary World
Chapter Thirteen - The Architectural Transformation of the Urban Environment in the Islamic World
Chapter Fourteen
Part IV: Postscript
Chapter Fifteen - The Islamic World
Appendices
Appendix I
Appendix II
Appendix III
Appendix IV
Credits
Index
About the Author
Also by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Copyright
About the Publisher