Portal: Modern Movements in Islam
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A plethora of modern religious, social, political, and intellectual movements have primarily defined themselves vis-à-vis the Islamic tradition. Some of these movements have embraced the Islamic tradition wholeheartedly in an attempt at revival, others have sought vigorously to reform and reorient it, and still others have rejected it out right and sought its dismantlement. Specific examples of each include the Deobandi traditionalist movement most notably expressed through the proliferation of madrasas across the Indian subcontinent, the puritanical Salafi movement powered by Saudi Arabia evidenced by the global distribution of Darussalam publications, and finally the fast-spreading ex-Muslim movements across the world iconized by the ongoing establishment of ex-Muslim councils in countries as diverse as Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, Britain, Norway, Jordan, America, Canada, Morocco, and many others.[1] While this last variety of movement - that is, those that define themselves against Islam - is perhaps not best described as a 'movement in Islam', it shares in common with the former varieties the fact that a particular, largely new-found relationship with the Islamic tradition comprises its essence, and thus can reasonably be grouped alongside them.
Traditionalism
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The All Pakistan Ulema Council is a Muslim organization in Pakistan, founded with the intention of reducing sectarian and interfaith violence through a return to the Islamic tradition, whose members include Islamic clerics and legal scholars from a range of persuasions. Its head is Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi.
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The Taliban is a politically and militarily mobilized fundamentalist Hanafi group operating in Afghanistan. The group governed part of the country between 1996 and 2001 and has since tried to restore its control. The group seeks to implement traditional Islamic law without cowering to Western imperatives.
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Salafism
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Salafism is a modern Islamic movement which seeks to reform Sunni Islam through a return to scripture and the ways of the salaf al-salih, or the first three generations of Muslims. The movement seeks particularly to replace what it perceives to be the excessive interpretive apparatus of the traditional madhhabs, or schools, of Islamic law with direct references to scripture. The Salafi movement also seeks, for similar reasons, to replace the Aristotelian theology of mainstream Sunnism as expressed by Asharism with the more scripturalist and literalist theology of the salaf.
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Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (محمد بن عبد الوهاب, born 1703 in 'Uyaynah; died 1792) was a Muslim scholar from the Najd region of what is today known as Saudi Arabia, who founded the eponymous Wahhabi branch of the Salafi movement, a movement which he would also be ultimately responsible for popularizing in general.
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Love for the sake of Allah and hate for the sake of Allah is an Islamic concept is known as Al Wala' Wal Bara' (loyalty and disavowal). A Muslim is required to love what Allah loves, and hate what Allah hates. The doctrine has become a core element of the modern Salafi movement which seeks through the doctrine to dichotomize the world into that which is Islam and un-Islamic, leaving little room for anything in between.
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Modernism
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Quranism is a modern movement which seeks to reconceive Islam solely in light of the Quran while disregarding the hadith. The movement is largely inspired by a distaste for the more unsavory contents of the hadith. Critics have argued that Quranism is hardly possible given that most of Islamic ritual, law, and doctrine derives from the hadith rather than the Quran. Several elite modern traditionalist scholars have declared Quranists heretics and non-Muslims.
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The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam was published after several Muslim-majority nations refused to sign the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The CDHRI purports to derive exclusively from Islamic scripture. The CDHRI has been heavily criticized for its denial of equal rights for men and women, religious freedom, free speech, and key rights.
Modern dawah (Islamic evangelism)
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Among the many and diverse matters discussed in or touched upon by Islamic scriptures are topics of direct or indirect scientific interest. These topics include reproductive science, embryology, cosmology, medicine, and a slew of other topics. While mainstream academic scholars and scientists have found the discussion of these topics contained in Islamic scripture to be unremarkable in its seventh-century context, in recent times, many traditional Muslim scholars and figures have argued that Islamic scriptures contains statements which not only adhere to but also predict modern science. Criticism of these ideas has been widespread and has even come from Muslim scholars themselves.
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A medical doctor by training, Naik is famous for theorizing and employing correlations between Islamic scripture and modern science for the purpose of dawah, or evangelism.
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Bucailleism is a term used for the movement to relate modern science with religion, principally Islam. Named after the French surgeon Maurice Bucaille, author of The Bible, the Quran and Science, Bucaillists have promoted the idea that the Quran is of divine origin, arguing that it contains scientifically correct facts, and that "one of the main convincing evidences" that lead many to convert to Islam "is the large number of scientific facts in the Quran."
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In the 1980s he accepted an invitation by the Embryology Committee of King Abdulaziz University to produce a special 3rd edition of his most successful book The Developing Human specifically for use by Muslim students in Islamic Universities. The additions to the text for this new edition were those of co-author Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. Moore's name is frequently cited by modern Islamic scholars.
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The ex-Muslim movement
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In the Islamic tradition, atheists are generally lumped together with all other disbelievers for the simple reason that they reject the 'Signs of Allah' and reject Prophet Muhammad's claim of being Allah's messenger. Modern Islamic scholars have concluded that atheism is the worst form of disbelief, and, according to a 2013 poll by Pew, the vast majority of the world's Muslims believe that atheists are immoral.
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Other movements
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Ahmadiyya (sometimes referred to as Qadiani) is a religious movement founded towards the end of the 19th century in Punjab, British India. Central to the Ahmadiyya is the belief in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder, as the Promised Messiah and Mahdi (the apocalyptic leader who Islamic scriptures say will bring peace and the final, global dominion of Islam). The Current leader, or Imam and caliph, of the Ahmadiyya community is Mirza Masroor Ahmad.