Fazlur Rahman’s Influence on Contemporary Islamic Thought

Abstract

This article examines the influence of Fazlur Rahman, one of the most widely quoted scholars among contemporary Muslim modernists, on contemporary Islamic thought. It explores how Rahman’s ideas about revelation and the interpretation of the Qurʾān have influenced some contemporary Muslim scholars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, such as Abdolkarim Soroush, Arash Naraqi, Abdullah Saeed, Nurcholish Madjid, Farid Esack and Amina Wadud, and thus have given rise – whether directly or indirectly – to such schools of thought as Islamic liberation theology and feminist exegesis of the Qurʾān. The article also provides a critical evaluation the thought of Fazlur Rahman, and examines how its shortcomings have been rectified by his followers. The article ends with some recommendations to contextualist scholars about Qurʾānic justice and its relation with our contemporary understandings of justice.