Modern things on trial : Islam's global and material reformation in the age of Rida, 1865-1935 / Leor Halevi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Halevi, Leor, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā.

Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā.

Islamic modernism.

Islamic countries--Civilization.

Islamic countries.

Civilization.

Muslims--Intellectual life.

Muslims.

Islam and science.

Physical Description:

xi, 367 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2019]

Summary:

In cities awakening to global exchange under European imperial rule, Muslims encountered all sorts of strange and wonderful new things - synthetic toothbrushes, toilet paper, telegraphs, railways, gramophones, brimmed hats, tailored pants, and lottery tickets. The passage of these goods across cultural frontiers spurred passionate debates. Realizing that these goods were changing religious practices and values, proponents and critics wondered what to outlaw and what to permit. In this book, Leor Halevi tells the story of the Islamic trials of technological and commercial novelties of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He focuses on the communications of an entrepreneurial Syrian interpreter of the shari'a named Rashid Rida, who became a renowned reformer by responding to the demand for authoritative and authentic religious advice. Upon migrating to Egypt, Rida founded an Islamic magazine, The Lighthouse, which cultivated an educated, prosperous readership within and beyond the British Empire. To an audience eager to know if their scriptures sanctioned particular interactions with particular objects, he preached the message that by rediscovering Islam's foundational spirit, the global community of Muslims would thrive and realize modernity's religious and secular promises. Through Rida's international correspondence, Halevi argues that religious entanglements with new commodities and technologies were the driving forces behind local and global projects to reform the Islamic legal tradition.

Contents:

Prologue: the parable of the Montgolfiere and the translation of Haleby's corpse

Introduction: Good things made lawful: Euro-muslim objects and laissez-faire fatwas

1. The toilet-paper fatwa: hygienic innovation and the sacred law in the late imperial era

2. Fatwas for the partners' club: a global mufti's enterprise

3. In a material world: European expansion from Tripoli to Cairo

4. Paper money and consummate men: Capitalism and the rise of laissez-faire Salafism

5. The Qur'an in the gramophone: sounds of Islamic modernity from Cairo to Kazan

6. Telegraphs, photographs, railways, law codes: Tools of empire, tools of Islam

7. Arabian slippers: the turn to nationalistic consumption

8. Lottery tickets, luxury hotels, and Christian experts: Economic liberalism vs. Islamic exclusivism in a territorial framework

Conclusions

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780231188661

0231188668

OCLC:

1069722391