Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Islam and Plurality, Old and New

  • Symposium: Formulas of Peace
  • Published:
Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

All of the historical religions emerged in a context of religious plurality and, at times, bitter inter-religious rivalry. In our late modern age, the challenge of plurality has become all the more pervasive. This paper examines the varied traditions of knowledge and practice developed by Muslim jurists, political leaders, and religious thinkers to engage people of non-Muslim faith, from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to today. It highlights three themes. First, there was never any single message with regard to how the Muslim community should engage plurality. Second, the historical practice of Muslim rulers has often shown greater variation (and occasional "liberality") with regard to questions of plurality than has jurisprudence. Third, and last, however, as with the practitioners of other faiths, Muslims in modern times have had to revisit and rethink their traditions with regards to plurality, and both inclusive and exclusive currents have emerged. The challenge of plurality is likely to remain a core issue in Muslim politics and public ethics for some years to come.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For an example in the early Christian context, see Howard Clark Kee, Christian origins in sociological perspective: Methods and resources (Westminster Press, 1980).

  2. For an assessment of this thesis and analysis of the ritual economy of pre-Islamic Mecca, see Patricia Crone, Meccan trade and the rise of Islam (Gorgias Press LLC, 2004).

  3. Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and coercion in Islam: Interfaith relations in the Muslim tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 58–69.

  4. Jonathan P. Berkey, The formation of Islam: Religion and society in the Near East, 600–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 48–49.

  5. Uri Rubin, “The ‘Constitution of Medina’: Some Notes.’ Studia Islamica 62 (1985): 5–23.

  6. For an eloquent example of this argument, see Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Toward an Islamic Reformation (Syracuse 1990), 161–81.

  7. Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The view from the edge (Columbia University Press, 1994), 40.

  8. Bulliet, Islam: The View, 39; Friedman, Tolerance and Coercion, 58–74.

  9. See Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, 1984); Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994).

  10. Anver Emon, Religious Pluralism and Islamic Law (Oxford University Press, 2012), 335.

  11. John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 39; Douglas Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire (Oxford University Press, 1989), 28.

  12. Yohanan Friedmann, “Dhimma,” Encyclopeaedia of Islam, 3rd Ed., Edited by Gudrun Kramer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson; Brill Online 2013, 2; accessed September 7, 2013.

  13. Karen Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 13.

  14. Barkey, Empire of Difference, 23.

  15. Barkey, Empire of Difference, 22, 23.

  16. Halil Inalcik, An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire: 1300–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 257.

  17. Barkey, Empire of Difference, 16.

  18. Barkey, Empire of Difference, 17.

  19. Gilles Veinstein, “Le modèle ottoman,” in Nicole Grandin and Marc Gaborieau, eds., Madrasa: La transmission du savoir dans le monde Musulman (Paris: Éditions Arguments, 1997), 71–81, here citing p. 71.

  20. See Colin Imber, Ebu’s Su’ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition (Stanford University Press 1997), 24–58; and Haim Gerber, Islamic Law and Culture: 1600–1840 (Brill 1999), 58–76.

  21. See Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Shari’ah Law: An Introduction (One World 2008), 7–8.

  22. Karen Barkey, “Rethinking Ottoman Management of Diversity: What Can We Learn for Modern Turkey?” in Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan, eds., Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (Columbia University Press, 2012), 12–31, citation from p. 15.

  23. Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab world: the roots of sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 130–68.

  24. Barkey, Empire of Difference, 25.

  25. Knut S. Vikor, Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law (Oxford University Press

    2005), 230–31.

  26. Vikor, Between God and the Sultan, 239; Clark B. Lombardi, State Law as Islamic Law in Modern Egypt: The Incorporation of the Sharî’a into Egyptian Constitutional Law (Brill, 2006), 110–16.

  27. See Carl Brown, Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (Columbia University Press 2000), 123–30.

  28. Brown, Religion and State, 127–29.

  29. See Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton University Press, 1996); and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton University Press, 2002).

  30. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a (Harvard University Press 2008), 117–39, 289.

  31. Gudrum Kramer, “Pluralism and Tolerance,” in Gerhard Bowering, ed., The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (Princeton 2013), p. 419.

  32. Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunnî usûl al-fiqh (Cambridge University Press 1997), 180–95.

  33. See Muhammad Khalid Masud, Shâtibî’s Philosophy of Islamic Law (Islamic Book Trust, 2005), 139–42.

  34. See Vikor, Between God and the Sultan, 232, 234; and Bernard G. Weiss, The Spirit of Islamic Law (University of Georgia Press 1998), 87.

  35. Tariq Ramadan, Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation (Oxford University Press 2009), 259.

  36. Ramadan, Radical Reform, 272

  37. Ramadan Radical Reform, 212. The Muslim feminist historian, Kecia Ali, has made a similarly vital argument with regard to the way in which classical jurists formulated their rulings on family and marriage; see her Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (One World, 2006).

  38. Ramadan, Radical Reform, 270.

  39. Ramadan, Radical Reform, 270–271.

  40. Khaled Abou El Fadl, Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, edited by Joshua Cohen and Deborah Chasman (Princeton University Press 2004), 3.

  41. Ramadan, Radical Reform, 294.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, Boston University, 10 Lenox Street, Brookline, MA, 02446, USA

    Robert W. Hefner

Authors
  1. Robert W. Hefner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert W. Hefner.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hefner, R.W. Islam and Plurality, Old and New. Soc 51, 636–644 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-014-9836-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-014-9836-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation