This volume presents a comparison of seven major religious reformers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: For Islam, Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh and Muhammad Rashid Rida; for Hinduism, Dayananda Sarasvati and Swami Shraddhananda; for Confucianism, K’ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao. Each of these reformers attempted to bring a major world religion in line with global modernity by creatively reinterpreting the traditions on which this religion was based. The book outlines the lives and major ideas of these reformers, highlights the similarities between them, interprets their agenda as expressions of peripheral geoculture (centrist liberalism, antisystemic movements, positivism) in line with the Modern World-System (MWS) approach and links them with their ‘fundamentalist’ successors from the mid-twentieth to the early twenty-first centuries. This way, the author seeks to redress the Eurocentric bias that sometimes sneaks into the MWS perspective.
While there are numerous studies dealing with each of these reformers, the original contribution of this book is to provide a systematic comparison between them and to interpret them within a larger theoretical framework. It will be of interest for scholars and students working on issues related to religion, modernity and historical sociology.
By:
Christian Lekon
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Volume: 8
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781138187719
ISBN 10: 1138187712
Series: Routledge Religion in Contemporary Asia Series
Pages: 222
Publication Date: 17 April 2019
Audience:
College/higher education
,
General/trade
,
Primary
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction, 1. Islam: Salafiyya, 2. Hinduism: Arya Samaj, 3. Confucianism: Kung-yang, 4. Centrist Liberalism, 5. Antisystemic Movements, 6. Positivism, Conclusion
Christian Lekon received his PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Currently, he is lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University.
