Alhamdullilah I completed Fazlur Rahman's Islam last night. Now there are some disagreements, but that aside, what a book in terms of its comprehensive nature in covering a history of the development of Islamic intellectual thought and practice!
(The last few chapters on Education, Pre-Modernist Reform Movements, Modern Developments, and Legacy and Prospects really caught my attention as did the tracing of the historical development of Islamic theological schools - something Dr. Jackson does in more detail more recently.)
Imam Zaid recommended reading Islam; Dr. Umar F. Abd-Allah studied Arabic and Islamic Studies under Dr. Fazlur Rahman at the University of Chicago; Ebrahim Moosa edited his last manuscript - Revival and Reform in Islam and wrote the new foreword to Major Themes of the Qur'an; Ingrid Mattson writes:
In the summer of 1987, I was riding the train out to British Columbia to start a tree-planting job in the mountains. I had just finished my undergraduate degree in Philosophy and had only recently begun my personal study of Islam. I came across Fazlur Rahman's Islam in a bookstore a few days before my trip. Reading that book as I traveled across the Canadian prairies, I made the decision to apply to graduate school in Islamic Studies. His book sparked in me a keen desire to study the classical heritage of Islamic theology and law. Going a step further, I wrote a letter to Rahman (this was before we all used email) describing my situation and inquiring if I might be able to study with him. I dropped the letter in a post box somewhere in the Rockies and forgot about it until I returned east in August. There I found a hand-written note from him, inviting me to come to the University of Chicago to study with him. Rahman died before I arrived in Chicago, but it was his book and his encouragement that inspired me to start on the path to scholarship that I have found so rewarding.
He passed away, Allah have mercy on him, on July 26, 1988 at the age of 68.
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