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  Excerpt from The Rise and Fall of Muslim Civil Society by Dr. Omar Imady --  Planting the seeds of Muslim Civil Society: (1871-1879)  The Activist: Jamal al-Din al-Afghani  Although Iranian and Shici 33 by birth, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897) was known to most of his contemporaries as a Sunni Afghan. He described himself as such out of purely practical considerations, namely, to avoid being dismissed by religious scholars and political leaders of Sunni Muslim countries. In actuality, however, al-Afghani was neither a Shici nor a Sunni. His worldview, rather, was a synthesis of tasawwuf (an approach to Islam that emphasizes the spiritual experience, henceforth: sufism) and philosophy, combined with an intense inclination towards political activism. Al-Afghani was trained as a traditional scholar in Iraq and was, seemingly, self-taught in Western philosophy and political institutions during his subsequent stay in India. After living in Afghanistan (1866-1868), where he wa

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  The Severe Trial During the ninth century, the Abbasid khalifah1 al-Mamun (r. 813-833) set out to convert ahl al-sunnah, or the traditionalists who emphasized the authority of the Qur’an and Prophetic traditions, to a theological doctrine held by the Muc tazilah, or the rationalists who emphasized the authority of reason and philosophical principles. Traditionalist scholars were forced to recant their belief in the non-created nature of the Qur’an in favor of the rationalist doctrine which held that the Qur’an was a creation of God. Those who refused were tortured and, at times, executed. In 848, fifteen years after the beginning of the government sponsored inquisition, termed al-Mihnah, or the Severe Trial, by Muslim historians, al-Mutawakkil (r. 847-861) ordered the end of all government sponsored attempts to enforce the rationalist doctrine. Al-Mutawakkil’s decision reflected his awareness that the inquisition had simply not succeeded and that its continuation might well

We do not publish fiction, but one of our writers, Omar Imady, writes some pretty terrific novels. His newest is The Gospel of Bethany: Mormon Coffee and Sufi Tea. (The link is to a page that contains all his works.) From the description, it will be a roller coaster experience and emotional wringer of a read. Definitely looking forward to a great bedside book. Recommending it to all, based not only on the description but also on Omar's other work of fiction, The Gospel of Damascus , which is an extraordinary book--and available in four languages: English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. The Gospel of Damascu s is published by Villa Magna; the books are available on Amazon. In addition, Omar has written two works that MSI Press has published: When You're Shoved from the Right, Look to Your Left: Metaphors of Islamic Humanism , a delightful book that everyone I know who has read it loves. One Catholic priest uses the stories for his homilies--testimony to the fact that the

Introduction  Various scholarly explanations have been set forth regarding why Islamic reform, a movement preoccupied with reviving Islamic civilization and resisting Western colonialism through the creation of a Muslim civil society, was superseded, in the mid-twentieth century, by Islamic fundamentalism, a movement preoccupied with creating an ‘Islamic state’ by violence if necessary Such explanations can be classified into two major categories: ‘traditional legacy’, and ‘external dynamics’.  The ‘traditional legacy’ category includes works that explain Islamic fundamentalism as a product of the traditional legacy of Islam, which makes no separation between religion and state and which promotes political violence through the emphasis it places on jihad or morally ordained struggle/resistance.Muslim religious scholars, however, strongly discouraged violent political descent. Regarding the confrontation of government authority, Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) wrote: “What is well known regardi