The Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010) was one of the 20th century's foremost Islamic modernists. A professor of Islamic thought in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Cairo University, as well as a practising Muslim, Abu Zayd became well known in Egypt and beyond when the Egyptian Court of Appeals declared him an apostate in 1995, a judgment that, in mainstream interpretations of Islamic law, can carry the death penalty. To protect his life and that of his wife, Abu Zayd fled to the Netherlands, a victim of "intellectual terrorism" carried out by the forces of religious extremism. Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam offers an intellectual history and critical analysis of Abu Zayd's work. Abu Zayd believed there could be a positive relationship between modernity and Islam. He sought to reinterpret central aspects of the Islamic tradition to render them more conducive to modern conceptions of religion, society, and politics. Nadia Oweidat situates this prominent Muslim scholar both within his modernist intellectual milieu and in opposition to his numerous critics, elucidating and providing summary translations of Arabic texts that, until now, have remained largely unknown to Western audiences. Abu Zayd's fate, Oweidat argues, illustrates the hostility faced by modernist intellectuals who attempt to subject the Islamic tradition to academic scrutiny.

About the Author
Nadia Oweidat is Assistant Professor at Kansas State University and was a Middle East Fellow at the Wilson Center for International Scholars for the 2021-2022 academic year. She specializes in the religions, cultures, politics, and history of the Middle East and North Africa.

Reviews
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was one of the most courageous, and controversial, Arab intellectuals of the late twentieth century. His ideas about the textual status and meaning of the QurE3/4an were so challenging to his Egyptian academic contemporaries that they provoked one of the most globally notorious scandals about free speech and the limits of academic inquiry of the past decades. Yet, despite his many years of exile in Europe and the international renown of his ideas and l'affaire Abu Zayd, there has, remarkably, been no book-length study of his intellectual career. Until now. Nadia Oweidat's Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam is not only the first such book but is remarkable for its breadth and subtlety. It will remain the standard work on Abu Zayd indefinitely. * Andrew F. March, author of Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus *
Many have known Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd because of what happened to him, not for what he said and thought. His Arabic-language writings are rich and complex. Now, Nadia Oweidat has made his ideas accessible, revealing not only their systematic and daring nature but also why they were disturbing to those he criticized and exciting to those seeking to build a liberal alternative to traditional interpretations of Islam. * Nathan Brown, author of Auguring Islam after the Revival of Arab Politics *
Nadia Oweidat's comprehensive study of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd is the first book-length publication about this ground-breaking scholar of Islam and Muslim intellectual. Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam contextualizes Abu Zayd's contributions to the critical study of the Qur'an within the wider intellectual setting of the modern and present-day Muslim world and shows how in the face of persecution he became a combative advocate of the freedom of thought. * Carool Kersten, author of Contemporary Thought in the Muslim World: Trends, Themes *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197744093
Author Nadia Oweidat
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 544g
Dimensions(mm) 226mm * 152mm * 25mm