Postmodernism and Islam:

Abstract

According to postmodemists, modemists have passed their intentional,planned, and personal assertions as laws to justify their oppression,injustice, terrorism, and exploitation of the poor peoples of the world forseveral centuries. A cursory look at the record of Euro-American colonialismand neocolonialism across the globe bears out this fact One canthink of their laws, totalitarian state regulations, the Nixon and Carterdoctrines, and many recent resolutions of the raped United Nations as examplesof personal beliefs and desires, even whims, justified as laws.Paradoxically, the secular fundamentalist tradition of postmodernismitself has justified its own free-wheeling metanarrative as a revolt againstall traditionalism without distinguishing between lasting and fleeting so­cietal values. Sardar and Davies, in their Distorted Imagination (1990),illustrated this phenomenon by referring to Salman Rushdie's porno­graphic writings, such as The Satanic Verses. This characteristic confusionof postmcxiernism can be partly tmderstood by the mission of one ofits founders (Habennas), which was to complete the Wlfinished businessof western modernism: a noble cause of enlightenment rooted in "objectivescience, universal morality, and autonomous art according to theirinner logic." Baring the civil autonomy of art, tirades against objectivityand the universality of modernism and its morality are considered thevery backbone of postmodernism.Ahmed's book is an excellent expose of this paradox of postmodernismas it relates to Islam. The quixotic western beliefs about, attitude to­wards, and treatment of Islam and Muslims as the new perceived enemiesare part of its central theme. He sees for Islam, in its fresh encotmter withthe West and its powerful propagandist media, many problems and a pro­mise. Keeping his tradition of critical self-evaluation, he points out manyweaknesses of the Muslims and their present leadership. The promise, hefeels, lies in the openness of the postmodernist and in the proven survivabilityof Islam's universal principles.The book features six chapters preceded by a preface and followedby exhaustive references and the two usual indexes. Ahmed states in thepreface that this book is an attempt to understand the present times interms of their prospects and promises, and that his arguments are basedlargely on his south Asian background, which may be impressionisticwithout necessarily being chronological or sequential. In reality, it is acompendium of cogent proofs exposing the illogical nature of the imagesand impressions of Muslims and Islam constructed by the global media ...