Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought

Cambridge Middle East Studies #5

by Daniel W. Brown

Modern Muslim intellectuals have been trying to reestablish a foundation for the revival of Islamic law. In this fascinating study, Daniel Brown assesses the implications of new approaches to the law on contemporary Islamic revivalist movements, and explores the impact of modernity on attitudes toward religious authority generally. This book will make a major contribution to the understanding of contemporary Islam, and will be of interest to scholars of the Middle East and South Asia, and to those teaching Islamic law.

Genres: Islam, Religion, Nonfiction, History

196 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 1996

About the author

Daniel Brown is the author of Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge) and A New Introduction to Islam (Wiley-Blackwell). He was awarded his doctorate in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago, has taught at Mount Holyoke College and Smith College and has been a visiting scholar at the Islamic University in Islamabad, the Institute of Islamic Culture in Lahore, Cairo University and Oxford University. His interests include modern Muslim intellectual history, Hadith studies, and Muslim-Christian relations. He directs the Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East.

Reviews

[Muhammad Fadel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was kept mentioned and praised by Dr Brown in various works of him, as an important work in understanding hadith intepretation in the modern era (19th century onwards).

This book started with short summary on the practice of early muslim generation in practising Sunna. For early generation, Sunna was a living practise. You don't need a Hadith to verify the practice. This is make sense as many of Companion and their heir were still alived. People can simply look into their practices, or asking them directly. However, as the early generation time passed, it was not easy to verify if certain practices was actually a Prophetic Sunna, or just saying of Companion. Besides, there were also numbers of fake hadith that was attributed to Prophet. Corresponding to this, Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz started the project to write hadith for Public with the help of Al-Zuhri. This was known as first major hadith collection writing aimed for public. This practice of guarding prophetic sunna through strict evaluation of hadith was continued by Al-Shafi'i and was later on the major focus of Hadith studies in next generation of scholar.

In the next section, the book discusses different challenges the so-called Tradional school in the modern period; from the Tradional Salafi in Yaman and Hijaz, Modern Salafi in Egypt/Pakistan as response to Orientalist, the Qur'an only movement in Pakistan. This book discuss brought summary on what are the key issues that is challenged by each movement, alongside with the proofs. Ahl Qur'an was the lengthiest topic in this book.

Overall, this a good book to provide a quick summary for everyone who intend to understanding different school in modern world in intepreting the hadith.

[Rawdah Gawaher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book!
Great book for those who wish to have a complete idea about the story of Islamic tradition.
Recommended.

[Uwais · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is immensely invaluable for those who would like to conveniently understand the modern and current arguments of anti-hadith protagonists and the rejoiners given to them by their relative contemporaries. This one volume will help students from resorting to dozens of volumes. It will also help give directions in identifying various thrusts, ideas and help provide further references.

One point though - the traditionist methodology has been undermined by the fact that the modern scholars have not really come to grasp the early traditionist methodolgy in the first place.

Reading and understanding hadith methodology from jurists or anti-hadith scholars cannot but give partial and misconstrued information.

In general, its a good read and I found it immensely beneficial. However, Zaman's review of it stands tall over it.