Islamic Modernities in World Society: The Rise, Spread, and Fragmentation of a Hegemonic Idea

by Dietrich Jung

Overview

How is one "authentically" modern?

Substantively drawing on contemporary social theory, this book investigates the multiplicity of answers that Muslims have given to this question since the end of the nineteenth century. Through six historical and thematic case studies the chapters examine the historical evolution of multiple modernities within Islam. The book argues that we can observe the rise and spread of a relatively hegemonic idea according to which the relation to Islamic traditions bestows projects of Muslim modernities with cultural authenticity. At the same time, it provides an interpretation of this specifically Islamic discourse of modernity as an inherent part of global modernity in conceptual terms understood as the emergence of world society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474492645
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	08/01/2025
Series:	Edinburgh Studies of the Globalised Muslim World
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Dietrich Jung is Professor and Head of the Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies, Universityof Southern Denmark. He holds a MA in Political Science and Islamic Studies, as well as a Ph.D. from Universityof Hamburg, Germany. He was a fellow at the Universityof Victoria, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, the International Islamic UniversityMalaysia, the National Universityof Singapore, the Universityof Leipzig and the Universityof the Bundeswehr in Munich. His most recent books are Muslim History and Social Theory: A Global Sociology of Modernity, Palgrave (2017), Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity. Islamic Traditions and the Construction of Modern Muslim Identities, edited with Kirstine Sinclair, Brill (2020) and Der Islam in der Globalen Moderne. Soziologische Theorie und die Vielfalt islamischer Modernitäten, Springer (2021).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; Series Editor’s Foreword; Introduction: Why this Book and What Is its Argument?; I. State of the Art and Theoretical Framework; 1. Islam and Modernity: A Brief Discussion of the State of the Art; 2. The Emergence of World Society: Projects of Modernity in Global Social Contexts; II. Modern State Formation and the Islamic Discourse of Modernity; 3. From Empire to National States: Modernization in the Ottoman Empire; 4. Making Modernity Islamic: The Quest for Religious, Political and Social Reform; 5. Diverging Directions: Secularist and Islamist Projects of Muslim Modernities; III. Economics, Science, and Agency in the Islamic Discourse of Modernity; 6. Boundary Negotiation between Islam and Science: The Islamization of Knowledge and the Idea of an Islamic University; 7. Boundary Negotiations between Islam and Economics: Islamic Finance, Halal Markets, and the Muslim Entrepreneur; 8. Multiple Jihads: Modern Social Actorhood in the Name of Islam; Conclusions: The Mosaic of Islamic Modernities; Bibliography; Index

Editorial Reviews

In this solid theoretical and empirical work, Jung effectively lays to rest the view that Islam is monolithic and not modern. Instead, multiple Islamic modernities have been entangled in the emergence of a single world society, co-constructing world societal systems and providing resources for modern individual and institutional agency.

Peter Beyer

A lively book in which social theory and observation flows effortlessly to tell the story of how Muslims across multiple continents navigate the challenges of modernity. Dietrich Jung is an astute observer, and what the author dubs as his 'last act' on the topic of Muslim peoples' encounter with modernity will no doubt spur productive debate and conversation.

Ebrahim Moosa