Review article
https://doi.org/10.31337/oz.74.3.7
On Contemporary Mainstream Islam, the Holy War and Reading the Quran
Blerim Latifi
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Pristina
Kriste Shtufi
orcid.org/0000-0003-0050-3401
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Pristina
Abstract
The horrifying massacres committed during the civil war in Syria and Iraq by different groups, particularly those fighting under the banner of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) brought together many scholars, clerics, Islamic theologians and others throughout the world in a discursive effort to find a connection between the Quran and the military practices of the militants of this state, the self–proclaimed new caliphate. They maintain firmly that neither justifications nor arguments can be found in the Quran for the crimes of ISIS, though militants declare that their deeds in Syria and Iraq are nothing more than a fulfillment of the Quran obligation which in Islam is known as jihad. Who is in the right? In order to be able to answer this question, however inconclusive, one must dismantle a range of issues. The first involves the context of mainstream thinking in contemporary Islam. In order to resolve this issue we must ascertain what place groups, such as ISIS and Al Nusrat (which emerged as a branch of Al Qaeda) occupy in the typology and topology of Islamic doctrine. The second entails the concept of jihad, and ultimately the issue of the text of the Quran itself, its stance toward war and violence and also various possible interpretations of the text. The second and third questions enable us to envision the extent to which the pretensions of these groups of bringing about a reactualisation of authentic islam are tenable.
Keywords
contemporary Islam; Quran; violence; Weber; Hegel; contextualization
Hrčak ID:
221839
URI
Publication date:
8.7.2019.
Visits: 3.672 *