Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was one of the most courageous, and controversial, Arab intellectuals of the late twentieth century. His ideas about the textual status and meaning of the Qurʾan were so challenging to his Egyptian academic contemporaries that they provoked one of the most globally notorious scandals about free speech and the limits of academic inquiry of the past decades. Yet, despite his many years of exile in Europe and the international renown of his ideas and l'affaire Abu Zayd, there has, remarkably, been no book-length study of his intellectual career. Until now. Nadia Oweidat's Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam is not only the first such book but is remarkable for its breadth and subtlety. It will remain the standard work on Abu Zayd indefinitely. * Andrew F. March, author of Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus * Many have known Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd because of what happened to him, not for what he said and thought. His Arabic-language writings are rich and complex. Now, Nadia Oweidat has made his ideas accessible, revealing not only their systematic and daring nature but also why they were disturbing to those he criticized and exciting to those seeking to build a liberal alternative to traditional interpretations of Islam. * Nathan Brown, author of Auguring Islam after the Revival of Arab Politics * Nadia Oweidat's comprehensive study of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd is the first book-length publication about this ground-breaking scholar of Islam and Muslim intellectual. Reform and its Perils in Contemporary Islam contextualizes Abu Zayd's contributions to the critical study of the Qur'an within the wider intellectual setting of the modern and present-day Muslim world and shows how in the face of persecution he became a combative advocate of the freedom of thought. * Carool Kersten, author of Contemporary Thought in the Muslim World: Trends, Themes *