Thinkers and Believers: The Making of Modern Islam

By: Fitzroy Morrissey

It is related that the Prophet Muhammad announced that God would send someone to renew Islam--a concept called tajdid--at the beginning of every century. Over the last two centuries, Islam has been transformed through its encounter with modernity. Yet that transformation was not simply something that happened to Muslims; it was brought about by Muslim thinkers through a process of engagement with their religious tradition. In reforming Islam to meet the challenges of their time, they were able to draw on tajdid. Often claiming to be renewers of the faith themselves, these thinkers set the contours of modern Islam by calling for an end to the blind emulation of juristic authority and fanatical devotion to the schools of law, while also challenging key features of popular piety and introducing the egalitarian idea that ordinary believers could interpret and understand their religion for themselves. They were in fact calling for a return to the Qur'an and Hadith.

Thinkers and Believers traces the development of these ideas, from 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi and Shah Wali Allah in the 18th century through to Muhammad 'Abduh and Abu A'la Mawdudi in the 20th century. In so doing, it highlights the relevance of classical traditions of Islamic mysticism, theology, philosophy, and law to modern Islamic reform. Covering such topics as the role of dreams and visions in inspiring projects of religious renewal, the rise of Wahhabi and Salafi scripturalism, modern developments in legal theory and philosophy among the Shi'ah, and competing interpretations of the relationship between Islam and politics in the modern Middle East and South Asia, it offers both a comprehensive survey of Islamic reformist thought and a detailed dive into the texts that have defined modern Islam.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0197683649
• ISBN13: 9780197683644
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Dimensions: 5.5" x 8.3"