Editorial
During periods of social, political or economic discontent leading to communal unrest, people tend to turn against established social patterns in search of saviours to ameliorate their sufferings and restore order. For believing communities, such as the Muslim community, recourse has been ma...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IIUM Press
2014
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| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/37164/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/37164/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/37164/1/04_Editorial_.pdf |
| Summary: | During periods of social, political or economic discontent leading to
communal unrest, people tend to turn against established social patterns
in search of saviours to ameliorate their sufferings and restore order.
For believing communities, such as the Muslim community, recourse
has been made to religion in the hope of enjoying what the Qur’ān calls
“ḥayātan ṭayyibah” (a good and prosperous life) promised to those
who uphold its values. The vanguards of transformation who are the
torchbearers in Islamic religious thought are known as revivalists or
reformers. Their regenerative activities are often described as iṣlāḥ
(reform), iḥyā’ (revival), tajdīd (renewal), or ṣaḥwah (awakening),
among others.
Among the prominent early Muslim reformers are al-Ghazālī (d.
1111), Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), and Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406). Shah
Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī (d. 1762), Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (d.
1792), Uthman dan Fodio (d. 1817), and Ahmad ibn Idris (d. 1837)
are among the well-known reformers of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries (Rahman, 1970; Voll, 1999). These individuals or movement
leaders differed in their approaches; yet their primary concern, as Fazlur
Rahman observes, was with the socio-moral reform and reconstruction
of Muslim societies based on the values promoted in the Qur’ān and
Sunnah (Rahman, 1970, p. 640). |
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