In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers
Series Editor: Abdou Filali-Ansary

This series aims to broaden the current debate regarding Muslim cultures and societies by making available material in English that has previously been published in a range of other languages from Arabic to Urdu. It will offer access to avenues of thinking that might otherwise be unavailable, encouraging new ways of perceiving social, political and economic conflicts, and greater dialogue and understanding among Muslim and non-Muslim readers.

Islam: Between Message and History
Author: Abdelmadjid Charfi
Translated by David Bond
Edited by Abdou Filali-Ansary and Sikeena Karmali Ahmed
Publication Date: Sept. 2009

This book could easily be called “A Guide for the Modern Muslim”, someone for whom the sentiments of his or her ancestors resonate but who cannot accept the canonised formulas of a stultified education. Charfi spells out what for him is the essential message of Islam, followed by a history of its unfolding through the person of the Prophet Muhammad who he perceives as a visionary, seeking to change the ideals, attitudes and behaviours of the society in which he lived. The message and its history are delineated as two separate things, conflated by tradition. Charfi’s reflections cross those horizons upon which few Muslim scholars have dared to tread, until now. He confronts with great lucidity the difficult questions with which Muslims are struggling, attempting to reconsider them from a moral and political perspective that is independent of the frameworks produced by tradition.

This AKU-ISMC publication is produced as part of the Islamic Studies catalogue at Edinburgh University Press. For further information and/or to order the books please see the In Translation: Modern Muslim Thinkers series page.

Abdelmadjid Charfi was Professor of Arabic Civilisation and Islamic Thought at University of Manouba until his retirement in 2002. Among his publications are Al-Islam aw-l- Hadatha (1990) and Al-Islam Bayn ar-risala wa-t-tarikh (2001).

David Bond studied Arabic at Wadham College (Oxford) and has lived in North Africa since 1993. He is the editorial coordinator of the review IBLA of the Institut des belles-lettres arabes in Tunis and has a degree in Arabic Literature from the University of Tunis.

Abdou Filali-Ansary is Senior Professor at AKU-ISMC and was the founding director of the Institute from 2002-2010. He is the author of several books including Is Islam Hostile to Secularism? and Reforming Islam? An Introduction to Contemporary Debates.

Sikeena Karmali Ahmed is Manager, Publications and Editing at AKU-ISMC. She is the author of a collection of poetry, Places to Remember, and an award-winning novel entitled A House by the Sea.

Forthcoming Volumes

Islam and the Foundations of Political Power
Author: Ali Abdelraziq
Translated by Maryam Loutfi
Edited by Abdou Filali-Ansary and Aziz Esmail

The publication of this essay in Egypt in 1925 took the contemporaries of Ali Abdelraziq by storm. It was the focus of much attention and the seed of a heated debate. At a time when certain Muslim societies were in great turmoil over the abolition of the caliphate by Mustapha Kamal Ataturk in Turkey, Abdelraziq, a religious cleric trained at Al-Azhar University argued in favour of secularism. The abolition of the caliphate had re-ignited the issue of Islam and politics, as traditional political systems were dissolving under pressure from European powers while most Muslim countries had lost their sovereignty.

This essay gave rise to a series of “refutations” of which three were published the same year. It also unleashed the Arab world’s first great public debate with polemics supporting or refuting Abdelraziq’s ideas, published in the press. Eventually he was tried by the Al-Azhar court, denounced, stripped of his title of ‘alim and barred from future employment in education and the judiciary; however this was later revised.

Ali Abdelraziq came from a wealthy, landowning family that was politically active. He was educated in the traditional curriculum and graduated from Al-Azhar University in 1915 as an ‘alim. He went on to travel to Britain and study at Oxford University for a short period, followed by further study at the newly founded Egypt University. The outbreak of World War I interrupted his courses in politics and economics, compelling him to return to Egypt where he served as an Al-Azhar alim, a judge in the traditional Islamic Courts of Alexandria, and as a teacher of Arabic.

Maryam Loutfi has worked as a freelance translator both in Morocco and in Europe, and has collaborated in the translation of various European studies, notably in the domain of the preservation of the common historical patrimony of Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula.

Aziz Esmail is the former Dean of The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London (1988-98) and, since 1998, has served as one of its Governors. His writings include The Poetics of Religious Experience (1996) and a A Scent of Sandalwood (2002).

Governance from the Perspective of Islam
Author: Ayatullah Aqa Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Na’ini
Commentary by Ayatullah Sayyid Mahmoud Taleqani
Translated by Lotfali Khonji and Mohammed Nafissi
Edited by Mohammed Nafissi

This early twentieth century treatise by the esteemed Ayatuallah Aqa Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Na’ini is translated along with the 1955 Persian commentary on the treatise by the Iranian Ayatullah Sayyid Mahmud Taleqani. It takes into account two types of governance, the first is a legitimate guardianship and the second a necessarily corrupted monopoly. Ayatullah Na’ini addresses the foundations of “truth”, the limitation of power during the occultation of the Imam, the function of constitutional governance, the nature of parliament and parliamentary representation, the forces of despotism and how to overcome them. The treatise is a discussion of 'Islamic' governance and its relationship to the Shia, Ithnā ‘ashari doctrine of Imamat based on two basic principles: preservation of the domestic order and infrastructure, and safeguarding from foreign intervention. In other words, “preserving the essence of Islam”. In addition to clarifying the often complex and at times obscure passages in Naini’s treatise, Taleqani’s commentaries offer the views of a key leader of the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 on Islam and governance.

Ayatullah Aqa Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Na’ini (1860-1936) was born in Na’in in Central Iran and was a leading mujtahid, or legal scholar, during the first half of the 20th Century. 

Ayatullah Sayyid Mahmoud Taleqani (1911-79) was born in Iran’s northern city of Taleqan and received his higher religious education in Qom, Iran’s premier centre of Shi’a learning. 

Lotfali Khonji is a writer and freelance translator. His English translations include the Symphony of the Dead (a Persian novel by Abbas Maroufi), Beyond the Horizon (an anthology of Esmail Khoi’s Persian poems), and Closed Circuit (an anthology of Shadab Vajdi’s Persian poems).