scholarly journals Islam Reformed in Indian History: The Dynamic Sufi Heart in Vital Transition to Printed Scripture

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-92
Author(s):  
Harlan O. Pearson

Attempting to comprehend the controversial subject of Islamic reform, this study compares the development of Indian Islam to the Protestant Reformation. Seminal findings from social science aid in understanding religious reform as an evolving historical process. During the transition to colonial rule in India, Christian missionaries introduced a scripturally defined concept of religion that challenged the traditional worldview with Sufis at the heart of organic universal order. Shah Waliullah interpreted the social disorder as the historical operation of the transcendent and willful God, declaring Islamic scriptures as the only authoritative guide for believers. Reformers translated the Qur’ān, preached to the masses, and established independent Muslim schools. Scripturalism expressed as literalism became puritanical resulting in sectarian fragmentation and conflict with Islamic and Christian reform. But the most disruptive change agent was technological: the printing press transformed scripture from oral and manuscript traditions, and the pervasive printed Qur’ān in local languages shaped individual and communal Muslim identity. The profound historical impact of religious reform with printed scripture could portend a new era with digital scripture in cyberspace.

Author(s):  
Paolo Scolari

Nietzsche is almost always regarded as one of the thinkers who advocate extreme individualism, totally indifferent to or exclusively polemical towards the public human dimension. While this is very difficult to contradict, if we read his texts carefully we can see how his constant celebration of the individual runs parallel to an acute awareness of living in a new era, which he defined as ‘the century of the multitude and the masses’. The herd, conformism, mediocrity, public opinion: a civilisation in which community attempts suffocate all individual inspiration, and which therefore seems to row in the opposite direction. Although Nietzsche often uses collective life merely as a negative pole for more effectively emphasising the individual, his provocative words—pushed to the limits of the inexorable victory of the herd and of the paradoxical impossibility of all that is ‘public’—offer us a direct testimony of the tragic way of life of the man of his time. This provides us with an extremely clear and interesting phenomenological cross-section of the social sphere, as well as a very finely tuned and valuable seismograph for the continual monitoring of our everyday coexistence with and perception of the constantly incumbent dangers of its degeneration.


1994 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Rogers

Interpretations of ethnic and cultural nationalism in South Asia have been marked by a tension between “primordialist” and “modernist” approaches. In keeping with the more influential general works on ethnicity and nationalism (Gellner 1983; Anderson 1983; Horowitz 1985; Tambiah 1989), modernist interpretations now generally prevail in scholarly accounts. These works usually trace the roots of ethnic and cultural nationalism to the social and religious reform movements of the nineteenth century, which are seen as indigenous responses to the impact of colonial rule. The emphasis given to particular aspects of colonialism varies, but includes cultural influences, such as Western education; economic factors, including changes in class structure; and political changes, such as the extension of representative government. These modernist interpretations, however, are not entirely unchallenged within scholarship, and primordialist views, which draw more direct links between ethnic nationalism and precolonial identities, remain strong in political, journalistic, and popular forums.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Celal Hayir ◽  
Ayman Kole

When the Turkish army seized power on May 27th, 1960, a new democratic constitution was carried into effect. The positive atmosphere created by the 1961 constitution quickly showed its effects on political balances in the parliament and it became difficult for one single party to come into power, which strengthened the multi-party-system. The freedom initiative created by 1961’s constitution had a direct effect on the rise of public opposition. Filmmakers, who generally steered clear from the discussion of social problems and conflicts until 1960, started to produce movies questioning conflicts in political, social and cultural life for the first time and discussions about the “Social Realism” movement in the ensuing films arose in cinematic circles in Turkey. At the same time, the “regional managers” emerged, and movies in line with demands of this system started to be produced. The Hope (Umut), produced by Yılmaz Güney in 1970, rang in a new era in Turkish cinema, because it differed from other movies previously made in its cinematic language, expression, and use of actors and settings. The aim of this study is to mention the reality discussions in Turkish cinema and outline the political facts which initiated this expression leading up to the film Umut (The Hope, directed by Yılmaz Güney), which has been accepted as the most distinctive social realist movie in Turkey. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Asra Afrin

Colonialism is one of the most important aspects of Indian history and Indian literature. The colonial rule has left its impression in both positive and negative ways. The paper looks at the positive aspects of the British rule in Ballari a District in Karnataka. The paper/article deals with the development that took place during the colonial rule in Ballari. It explores the adoption of modern technology and science and opening of missionary schools at Ballari and its positive impact on the region and regional/native people. The paper shows how the modernization and Westernization made its way in Ballari.


The present work, The Struggle of My Life: An Autobiography of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, is an English translation of Sahajanand’s autobiography, written in Hindi, Mera Jeevan Sangarsh. It carries an introduction by the translator which briefly deals with the Swami’s life and legacy. It needs to be emphasized that this is not an autobiography in the common run. Its primary focus is not on Swami’s persona; its central theme is the cause of the freedom movement in general and in particular, of the peasant movement under his leadership. It tells of the life and legacy of one of the most uncompromising and fearless freedom fighters and peasant leaders. It covers the social and political history of one of the most crucial periods of our national life, 1920–47. Today, when the Indian peasantry is faced with a number of intractable problems, it reminds them of the struggles of the peasants of yesteryears and the kind of trials and tribulations they went through. It is also remarkable that despite his vast learning and command over Sanskrit, Swami chose to write in simple, colloquial Hindi. That only speaks for his total identification with the masses. Both the teaching and student community as well as general readers would find this book useful, interesting and intellectually stimulating.


1983 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Herbert F. Weisberg

We are now entering a new era of computing in political science. The first era was marked by punched-card technology. Initially, the most sophisticated analyses possible were frequency counts and tables produced on a counter-sorter, a machine that specialized in chewing up data cards. By the early 1960s, batch processing on large mainframe computers became the predominant mode of data analysis, with turnaround time of up to a week. By the late 1960s, turnaround time was cut down to a matter of a few minutes and OSIRIS and then SPSS (and more recently SAS) were developed as general-purpose data analysis packages for the social sciences. Even today, use of these packages in batch mode remains one of the most efficient means of processing large-scale data analysis.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mohamed Amine Brahimi ◽  
Houssem Ben Lazreg

The advent of the 1990s marked, among other things, the restructuring of the Muslim world in its relation to Islam. This new context has proved to be extremely favorable to the emergence of scholars who define themselves as reformists or modernists. They have dedicated themselves to reform in Islam based on the values of peace, human rights, and secular governance. One can find an example of this approach in the works of renowned intellectuals such as Farid Esack, Mohamed Talbi, or Mohamed Arkoun, to name a few. However, the question of Islamic reform has been debated during the 19th and 20th centuries. This article aims to comprehend the historical evolution of contemporary reformist thinkers in the scientific field. The literature surrounding these intellectuals is based primarily on content analysis. These approaches share a type of reading that focuses on the interaction and codetermination of religious interpretations rather than on the relationships and social dynamics that constitute them. Despite these contributions, it seems vital to question this contemporary thinking differently: what influence does the context of post-Islamism have on the emergence of this intellectual trend? What connections does it have with the social sciences and humanities? How did it evolve historically? In this context, the researchers will analyze co-citations in representative samples to illustrate the theoretical framework in which these intellectuals are located, and its evolution. Using selected cases, this process will help us to both underline the empowerment of contemporary Islamic thought and the formation of a real corpus of works seeking to reform Islam.


HISTOREIN ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Costas Gaganakis

<p>This article attempts to chart the “paradigm shift” from social history, dominant until the early 1980s, to new cultural history and the various interpretive trends it engendered in the 1990s and 2000s. The privileged field of investigation is the history of the Protestant Reformation, particularly in its urban aspect. The discussion starts with the publication of Bernd Moeller’s pivotal <em>Reichsstadt und Reformation </em>in the early 1960s – which paved the way for the triumphant invasion of social history in a field previously dominated by ecclesiastical or political historians, and profoundly imbued with doctrinal prerogatives – and culminates in the critical presentation of interpretive trends that appear to dominate in the 2010s, particularly the view and investigation of the Reformation as communication process.</p>


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document