Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity. Tariq Ramadan

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Название Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity
Автор произведения Tariq Ramadan
Жанр Культурология
Серия
Издательство Культурология
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780860374398



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order to rush forward to the future in all freedom. In the name of this same freedom, the ideologues of modernism have made of this élan the reference itself, the only reference. It will have as a name: growth, progress, science or technology, but the substratum is the same.

      From economic crises to political and social crises, from the imbalance of the North-South divide to ecological imbalances, it is nonetheless imperative that man’s gain becomes the subject of his history, that he reinvests in diverse fields of activity in order to fix priorities, limits, meanings; this for lack of being able to determine values.

      It is difficult, as we see, to disassociate the positive and negative aspects of modernity. In its origin, it is a claim of liberty, a call for autonomy of reason in an acceptance of change. The evolution, in course from the seventeenth century through to and mainly in the twentieth century, has provoked excesses and given birth to an ideology. It is this that we have attempted to identify, so that the ground is cleared for a more precise usage of terms, and in order to avoid indulging in a hotchpotch. Hotchpotch, for example, would consist in confusing the process of modernisation with its recent excessive rendering, and thus justifying, in the process, all the rejections. In the same fashion, by reinserting the process of access to modernity in its European history, it is possible for us to avoid inoperative comparisons, and so especially, avoid confusing modernity with occidentalism. This because to accept the principles of liberty, autonomy of reason or the primacy of the individual is something, but it is something else to identify these solely with Western history which has seen their accession to the social field being done after a conflict whose extent and consequences on mentalities is still unappreciated. The West has given us a particular form of modernity, it partakes of its history and points of reference. Another civilisation can, from within, fix and determine the stakes in a different fashion. This is the case of Islam at the end of this twentieth century.

       Notes

       Part One

       At the Shores of TranscendenceBetween God and Man

       At the Shores of Transcendence