Anthology of Liberal Islam

This article presents the anthology of liberal Islam by revisiting the controversy that has arisen since the era of the modern Arab Renaissance about the relationship between Islam and modernity in general and liberalism in particular. This debate has been dependent, in large part, on the fluctuations of Muslims' relationship with the West. In this respect we identified two main moments in this debate. In the first one, Muslims were required to review their foundational and traditional religious texts in order to become liberals. In the second one, they were asking the West to review its liberal values and to give up the polarizing view of Islam's relationship with liberalism. This second moment witnessed the birth of the famous notion of "liberal Islam" thanks, in particular, to the writings of Charles Kurzman largely influenced by the the points of view of John Rawls on liberalism and the ideas of "the end of history" and "the clash of civilizations", respectively defended by Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington.


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This article presents the anthology of liberal Islam by revisiting the controversy that has arisen since the era of the modern Arab Renaissance about the relationship between Islam and modernity in general and liberalism in particular. This debate has been dependent, in large part, on the fluctuations of Muslims' relationship with the West. In this respect we identified two main moments in this debate. In the first one, Muslims were required to review their foundational and traditional religious texts in order to become liberals. In the second one, they were asking the West to review its liberal values and to give up the polarizing view of Islam's relationship with liberalism. This second moment witnessed the birth of the famous notion of "liberal Islam" thanks, in particular, to the writings of Charles Kurzman largely influenced by the the points of view of John Rawls on liberalism and the ideas of "the end of history" and "the clash of civilizations", respectively defended by Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington.


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