The Recent Engagement Of Contemporary Islamic Thought With...

Serhan Tanriverdi Contemporary Islamic Thought Dr. Ermin Sinanovic Reflection Paper The Recent Engagement of Contemporary Islamic Thought with Modernity in the West Modernization theory has been one of the master theoretical narratives to understand the major institutional and cultural transformation from traditional societies to modern ones. It was developed by the founders of sociology and has dominated the widespread understanding and explanations of many social differentiation processes including rationalization, individualization, urbanization, and secularization for several decades. Thus, sociologists believed that the consequences of modernization were unavoidable route and common destinations and patters for modern or all†¦show more content†¦They suggest that we should re-systematize and correct the classical theory of modernization in the light of multiple modernities frameworks because multiple modernities do not assume that global modernity is derived from the West as a single pattern (source) and describe the possibility of a plural modernity experiences. In fact, there are many modernities, not only one single patter of mo dernization. These developments forced sociologists for a paradigm shift in the dominant one-side understanding of western modernity. In this context, Islam and the discourse of western Muslim intellectuals have gradually gained visibility and significance through the continuing migration and the growth of new generations in the western societies. Western Islam also has emerged in the hearth of modernity; yet did not follow the same patters of classical modernization trends. However, it could not escape the hegemonic influence of modernity. As a result, western Islam is emerging not only as a response to the challenges (premises) of modernity, but also through a ‘transformative dialectical engagement’ with the ethos of modernity, which gradually pave the path towards the rise of Islamic modernism (Islamic modernity) in the west. Hence, the multiple modernities thesis serves as a more adequate theoretical approach than the prevailing modernization, the secularization perspective or many other approaches to