Islamic Modernities in World Society: The Rise, Spread, and Fragmentation of a Hegemonic Idea

How is one ＂authentically＂ modern?

Substantively drawing on contemporary social theory, this book investigates the multiplicity of answers that Muslims have given to this question since the end of the nineteenth century. Through six historical and thematic case studies the chapters examine the historical evolution of multiple modernities within Islam. The book argues that we can observe the rise and spread of a relatively hegemonic idea according to which the relation to Islamic traditions bestows projects of Muslim modernities with cultural authenticity. At the same time, it provides an interpretation of this specifically Islamic discourse of modernity as an inherent part of global modernity in conceptual terms understood as the emergence of world society.

Dietrich Jung is Professor and Head of the Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies, University of Southern Denmark. He holds a MA in Political Science and Islamic Studies, as well as a Ph.D. from University of Hamburg, Germany. He was a fellow at the University of Victoria, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, the International Islamic University Malaysia, the National University of Singapore, the University of Leipzig and the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich. His most recent books are Muslim History and Social Theory: A Global Sociology of Modernity, Palgrave (2017), Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity. Islamic Traditions and the Construction of Modern Muslim Identities, edited with Kirstine Sinclair, Brill (2020) and Der Islam in der Globalen Moderne. Soziologische Theorie und die Vielfalt islamischer Modernitäten, Springer (2021).