Islam, Modernity and a New Millennium: Themes from a Critical Rationalist Reading of Islam

Abstract

Modernity is a complex and fluid ideology comprised of a set of philosophical, cultural, political and sociological circumstances, and is a movement that touches the majority of Muslims in the present day. Often it is thought that it is only Muslims living in western states who are presented with these ideas, but with the rise of globalisation, technology and the digital space there are very few Muslims in any country unaffected by modernity and its products. This leads to a well-known conundrum: how do members of a religion formalised many centuries ago interact with "the new"?