Muslims, Their Beliefs and Practices معرفی و نقد

The present issue, like the preceding one, is a synthesis of the development of Islam throughout its history, from the 7th to the 20th century, with an insight into the challenges of the future. Chapter 1, “Prehistory”, covers the 6th century, a period in the history of Arabia on which research about the constituent elements of the new religion has focused. For his part, Rippin puts forward a gradual process from the 6th to the 8th centuries in the broader spatial context of the Near East as a more suitable model to understand the emergence of Islam. Chapter 11, “Medieval Visions of Islam,” covers the process of reinterpretation of Islamic traditional disciplines in the post-clas- sical period (13th-18th centuries). Chapter 17 is an attempt to out- line the main challenges that Islam will have to face in the 21st century, challenges which, this time, are posed by dissenting voices from inside the Muslim community. To be precise, I am referring to the process operated through the Muslim West by means of which the Islamized Greek thought passed to Europe, affecting not only scientific and philosophical knowledge but also theologi- cal speculation. Thus, this collection of essays focuses upon the manner in which Islamic law, as an organic law, is constantly reconciling historically chang- ing socio-economic conditions with modernity and technology. The sec- ond portion of the book focuses on the regionalism of Islamic law and the manner in which the colonial period had a provocative impact upon the evolution and endurance of certain Islamic legal institutions.