Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi'

Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World - SUNY series in Near Eastern Studies Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi'

A systematic treatment of the religious, intellectual, cultural, and social foundations of the Islamic resurgence in the modern Arab world that is grounded in the larger context of Arab and Islamic intellectual history.

"This is the most interesting, comprehensive, and intelligible study of the Arab/Islamic resurgence I have read to date. It stands in a class by itself as a learned synthesis of its subject. Its special strength is the richness of Arabic-language source material, looked at with the aid of sophisticated philosophical and culture-criticism discourse." -- Frederick M. Denny, University of Colorado at Boulder

"This book provides an excellent summary of the intellectual origins of the Islamic resurgence, drawing on the best Muslim and western scholarship. The breadth of the analysis of scholarship is complemented by the more focused treatment of al-Banna, Qutb, and Fadlallah. It could easily be adopted as a text in undergraduate and some graduate courses." -- John L. Esposito, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University

This is a systematic treatment of the religious, intellectual, cultural, and social foundations of Islamic resurgence in the modern Arab world. Because of the complex origin and controversial nature of this movement, Abu-Rabi' has grounded its thought in the larger context of Arab and Islamic intellectual history. Islamic resurgence has offered a multitude of solutions to the perceived problems of modern Arab and Muslim societies through the pens of its most sophisticated thinkers and philosophers. This study documents in detail the ideas of such leading Islamist thinkers as Hasan Banna, Sayyhid Qutb, Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, and Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It also discusses contemporary Arab views on resurgence and the relationship between religion and society.

"The book is lively, well-written, and engaging. The scholarship is thoroughly up to date. What I like most is the author's skill in interweaving the narrative thread of the ideas of Islamic resurgence with the approach of intertextual and epistemological analysis. He has succeeded admirably in that effort." -- Karl K. Barbir, Siena College