Imaginaires of Islamic Modernity

Diverse manifestations of modernity, from the experience of colonial subjugation, the struggles for the formation of independent nation-states, and the rise of modern-day global networks, shaped and reshaped the Muslim world. As active agents in the dialogical processes of adapting to, accommodating with, and resisting modern impulses, Muslims have been actively engaged in forging a distinct Islamic Modernity.  Linking the various intellectual agendas and interests of members of the Islamic Modernity research cluster are how enchantment, aspiration, and nostalgia encode and engender particular modalities of the modernist project. From informing educational ideals to planning urban lifestyles, from driving feminist Qur’anic interpretations to recapturing Islamic humanism, from engendering particular religious politics to crafting new communities through mourning and remembering our research engages core theoretical issues, mostly ignored in Islamic studies that remain focused on textual religious discourses and traditions that are mostly driven by western-centric perspectives, definitions and concerns of “religion,” “secularism,” and increasingly, “violence.”