Originally published: 1998.

Includes bibliographial references (p. 212-222) and index.

Introduction: the culture of modernity in Islam and the Middle East / Derek Hopwood -- Nature, hyperbole, and the colonial state: some Muslim appropriations of European modernity in late nineteenth-century Urdu literature / Javed Majeed -- The limits of the sacred: the epistemology of ʻAbd al-Karim Soroush / John Cooper -- Islamic scholar and religious leader: Shaikh Muhammad Saʻid Ramadan al-Buti / Andreas Christmann -- Islamic history, Islamic identity and the reform of Islamic law: the thought of Husayn Ahmad Amin / Nadia Abu-Zahra -- Mahmud Muhammad Taha's second message of Islam and his modernist project / Mohamed Mahmoud -- Mohamed Talbi's ideas on Islam and politics: a conception of Islam for the modern world / Ronald L. Nettler -- Can modern rationality shape a new religiosity? Mohamed Abed Jabri and the paradox of Islam and modernity / Abdou Filali-Ansari -- Islam, Europe, the West: meanings-at-stake and the will-to-power / Mohammed Arkoun -- Divine attributes in the Qurʼan: some poetic aspects / Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid.