The Muslim Speaks

Description

The Muslim Speaks reimagines Islam as a strategy for investigating the modern condition. Rather than imagining it as an issue external to a discrete West, Khurram Hussain constructs Islam as internal to the elaboration and expansion of the West. In doing so he reveals three discursive traps - that of 'freedom', 'reason' and 'culture' - that inhibit the availability of Islam as a feasible, critical interlocutor in Western deliberations about moral, intellectual and political concerns. Through close examination of this inhibition, Hussain posits that while Islamophobia is clearly a moral wrong, 'depoliticization' more accurately describes the problems associated with the lived experience of Muslims in the West and elsewhere. Weaving together his conclusions in the hope of a common world, Khurram Hussain boldy and quite radically deems that what Islam needs is not depoliticization, but infact repoliticization.

Khurram Hussain is an Assistant Professor in the Religion Studies department at Lehigh University, USA, where he teaches modern Islamic thought, philosophy of religion and religious ethics. He received his PhD in 2012 from Yale University. Before joining the faculty, Hussain was the recipient of a pre-doctoral fellowship funded by the Mellon Foundation through the Center of Global Islamic Studies at Lehigh University.

The Muslim Speaks is an intriguing and original contribution to the discussion on Islam in the Western secularist world ... Hussain presents a refreshing outlook as he does not seek to victimise the Muslims but instead calls for the narrative to expand and accept the plurality of the world and Islam. * Muslim World Book Review * In this wide-ranging and thought-provoking work, Hussain boldly asks, "What would it mean to imagine Islam as an immanent critique of the West?" In answering this question, he teases out for his readers just how Muslim voices-past and present-play an integral role in investigating the modern condition. * Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester *