The Muslim Speaks

Review

“In this wide-ranging and thought-provoking work, Hussain boldly asks, “What would it mean to imagine Islam as an immanent critique of the West?” In answering this question, he teases out for his readers just how Muslim voices-past and present-play an integral role in investigating the modern condition.” ―Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester

Product Description

The Muslim Speaks reimagines Islam as a strategy for investigating the modern condition. Rather than imagining it as an issue external to a discrete West, Khurram Hussain constructs Islam as internal to the elaboration and expansion of the West. In doing so he reveals three discursive traps – that of 'freedom', 'reason' and 'culture' – that inhibit the availability of Islam as a feasible, critical interlocutor in Western deliberations about moral, intellectual and political concerns.

Through close examination of this inhibition, Hussain posits that while Islamophobia is clearly a moral wrong, 'depoliticization' more accurately describes the problems associated with the lived experience of Muslims in the West and elsewhere. Weaving together his conclusions in the hope of a common world, Khurram Hussain boldy and quite radically deems that what Islam needs is not depoliticization, but infact repoliticization.

About the Author

Khurram Hussain is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion Studies at the Lehigh University, USA.

Khurram Hussain is an Assistant Professor in the Religion Studies department at Lehigh University where he teaches modern Islamic thought, philosophy of religion and religious ethics. He received his PhD in 2012 from Yale University. Before joining the faculty, Hussain was the recipient of a pre-doctoral fellowship funded by the Mellon Foundation through the Center of Global Islamic Studies at Lehigh University.