Journal Article — Religions: From Phobia to Understanding — by Nasr Abu-Zayd

This lead article in the Fall 2010 issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge celebrating him is one of the last published by the renowned scholar of Islam and Humanism, Professor Nasr Hamed Abu-Zayd, before his sudden passing in July 2010. In this paper, he argues that the challenge for Muslim thinkers nowadays is how to reconnect the fragmented Islamic culture of the past, which made the great Islamic civilization between the 9th and the 12th centuries, and contributed to the modern world’s values of freedom, equality and justice. It is not an impossible task to accomplish, Abu-Zayd argues, if the modern thinkers have the courage to critically rethink tradition. In his view, a creative humanistic hermeneutics must be developed given that so many creative and courageous thinkers are already active. These voices have to be heard and the world has to listen.