- books on sira, hadith, fiqh, tafsir, usul, adab, and much more. Yet, my books, in this context you are so foreign, so marginal. You are an anachronism!Here, in this time and place, you are fossilized showpieces. The orientalist uses you to confirm the inferiority of the other, and the oriental uses you to apologize for being that other. As to the rest, you are incomprehensible, your language archaic and your universe of symbols impenetrable. Your terminology and categories impress that who is tolerant, enchant the patient, assure the alienated, misguide the stupid, and is ignored by the contemporary.Here in this place and now in this age, they do not care about your categories: the hasan or qabih, the 'ilal or maqasid, the 'amm or muqayyad, the zann or yaqin. Here and now, they care about deficits, portfolios, health insurance, gang violence, sexism, proms, drunk driving, date rape, and teenage pregnancies. Yet, I know that you are eternal and immutable because you speak forever. But you are contextual because the people who read you who must speak to the age, the people who read you who must transform through you into a book for our new age and new place.
-Khaled M. Abou El Fadl, Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam, p. 26
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