Publisher's Synopsis
The religion of Islam is of vital concern to everyone in the contemporary world. Understanding what Muslims think about the modern world and how they react to its challenges is an important task for all who wish to locate Islam in contemporary life. Andrew Rippin focuses on how Muslims perceive the contemporary period and explores how they understand the Qur'an and the figure of Muhammad as relevant to life today. Professor Rippin explains how, in Muslim life today, a revealed, inherited world view is in tension with and changing alongside an emerging, newly discovered world view. He explores how these two world views are to be reconciled and analyzes the various recommendations of selected Muslim thinkers. He looks at modern Muslim views on religious authority, including feminism's "new" Islam, and shows how these views affect the actual lived practice of Islam.
