Postmodernism and Islam: Epistemological Challenges and Sociopolitical Perils

• Published in: The Journal of Rotterdam Islamic and social studies 2013-01, Vol.4 (1), p.53-62
• Main Author: Bazzi, Emad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Din Bilimleri; Felsefe & Psikoloji & Sosyoloji; globalization; hermeneutics; metanarrative; modernity; postmodernism; reason
• ISSN: 1877-6671; 1877-6671; 2199-6172
• DOI: 10.2478/jriss-2014-0006

Postmodernism is sometimes described as an intellectual position that is congenial to a sanctioning of a pluralistic epistemology and a tolerant and inclusive society. This outlook is supposed to extend to religious methodologies and communities of faith. This seems to be a superficial view, however, in that postmodernism’s questioning of modernity’s intellectual premises does not translate into a sympathetic outlook toward religion, Islam in particular, since postmodernism opposes foundational systems of thought and Islam qualifies as a worldview that bases its epistemology on foundations, which it considers objective and universal. Nor is the situation better in the sociopolitical field since postmodernism’s theoretical decentering of the West remains just that, while in reality the modernist project goes on unchecked, its hegemony exacerbated, and its consumerist lifestyle proliferating at an unprecedented rate with the onset of globalization. It is this last aspect that is more perilous to religious worldviews since it is ultimately the availability and allure of various lifestyles and tastes, of which Western culture has a dominant share, that ultimately threaten religious convictions, more so than the deconstruction of the theoretical premises of a particular system of faith.