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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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RETREAT AND RAGE |
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Islamic reformism, Islam was for the first time dissected and
re-evaluated; Western norms and concepts were borrowed; and the
self-sufficiency of Islam was shattered. Liberty, constitutionalism
and public interest came to be regarded as the key to progress and
material achievement. The concept of shurs (consultion), provided
for in the Koran, was rediscovered and interpreted to imply
parliamentary democracy.Ijma (consensus among the ulema) was
similarly equated with public opinion. The well-known advocate of
pan-Islamism, Jamal al-Din al- Afghani, belonged to the group of
reformers as much as Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan in India and Muhammad
Abduh in Egypt.Al-Afghani, in fact, sought to demolish the edifice
of Islamic philosophy by pointing out its anachronism and futility
in the age of modern science and technology.
The reformist phase has to be broken
up into two-the period of the ascendancy of Western style liberals
and that of military officers and others who sought inspiration
first from Nazism and then from communism. The second period
followed the failure of the liberals. |
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