Book recommendations?

Question/Discussion ❔

Greetings --

As someone who is interested in the possibility of converting to Islam, but who is also wary of overly conservative elements in resources on converting, I would like to ask: what is a book that you would recommend that you think best represents or distills the essence of "progressive Islam." Thank you,

in progressive_islamby itsameeemaaariooo

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itsameeemaaariooo

These are really helpful — thank you! I have come across Safi’s name mentioned but haven’t read him yet. Will begin looking here.

As for topics, I am most interested in two specific topics: religious pluralism (progressive Islam’s relation to other religions) and the problem of religious authority, i.e., by what sources and means do progressive Muslims authorize their modern interpretation of Islam? And how do they define Islam as a “tradition”? By what criteria does one reinterpret or reform various elements therein? I guess these are questions pertaining to meta-epistemology.

SabzQalandar

Non-Sectarian | Hadith Acceptor, Hadith Skeptic

Thanks for elaborating.

As far as religious pluralism, I would recommend Farid Esack’s “Quran: Liberation and Pluralism” (I couldn’t paste in the Amazon link for some reason).

As far as progressive Islamic epistemologies and hermeneutics— the anthology “Progressive Muslims” edited by Omid Safi that I recommended above is one of the best intros in my opinion. You’ll also get this in Esack’s book.

There are books that are more specialized but I would start with those two.

Edit: Khalid Abou El Fadl has dedicated much of his academic life with dealing with tradition, religious authority, etc. However, I would recommend reading him after you’ve read the introductory items.

itsameeemaaariooo

Great reply! Thank you — it is much appreciated.

I am a PhD in comparative religious studies (my speciality is outside of Islam), so while I am unfamiliar with this specific set of literature, I am open to reading anything as I go along — even if it’s a little more complicated.

So if there are any other more dense or advanced texts, I would be pleased to add them to my list to read!

Thank you so much for your time and response :)

SabzQalandar

Non-Sectarian | Hadith Acceptor, Hadith Skeptic

Ohh that’s good to know okay so when you read anthology you’ll find that each of the essays are written by Muslims who are religious studies academics. You can use that book as a guide to identify the leading western academic scholars working in this space. Def use that as a guide to finding deeper academic works in each of their subdisciplines.

Additional people you should look into Nasr Abu Zayd and Javad Hashmi— they specialize in historical-critical analysis of the Quran which has a major impact on Progressive Islam’ approach to text and authority.

I’ll try to put together a list— have been meaning to for a while anyways.