Emin Poljarevic

Theorizing Islam: Disciplinary Deconstruction and Reconstruction

Book review by Emin Poljarevic of Theorizing Islam: Disciplinary Deconstruction and Reconstruction, Aaron W. Hughes

Malik al-Shabazz’s Practice of Self-Liberation

In the year 2015 we remembered the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination in Harlem, New York. Spurned by the commitment to continue the critical work that Malcolm X began, the scholars represented in the book have analysed the enduring significance of Malcolm X’s life, work and religious philosophy. Edited by Dustin J. Byrd and Seyed Javad Miri, Malcolm X: From Political Eschatology to Religious Revolutionary, represents an important investigation into the religious and political philosophy of one of the most important African-American and Muslim thinkers of the 20th century. Thirteen different scholars from six different countries and various academic disciplines have contributed to our understanding of why Malcolm X is still important fifty years after his death. Contributors are: Syed Farid Alatas, Dustin J. Byrd, Bethany Beyyette, Louis A. DeCaro, Stephen C. Ferguson, William David Hart, John H. McClendon, Seyed Javad Miri, John Andrew Morrow, Emin Poljarevic, Rudolf J. Siebert, Nuri Tinaz and Yolanda Van Tilborgh.

Ventures into a ‘New’ Paradigm of Social Reality

If we are to believe the latest works of Alain Touraine, contemporary sociology is in a crisis. The last two decades have brought about unexpected and dynamic change to our societies; rapid shifts in the social world that a myriad of social theory attempts to explain. Since the fall of communism, we have observed changes which were hardly predictable by anyone. We have also seen disintegration of states, development of new political entities, the intensification of intraand inter-state conflicts, repeated financial collapses and recoveries, rapid medical and technological advancements, environmental disruptions of global proportions, and diffusion of information technologies on the scale never before experienced. These overwhelming disruptions have all contributed to a rapid social transformation the world over. The depth of such transformations makes many sociological approaches and demands a new paradigm of thought. Today, Touraine claims, we can observe the increasing fragmentation of movements and a wider gap between actors and social institutions, particularly in the Western context. Rampant globalization processes, on the one hand, unify markets and economies and subjugate entire populations under an imposed ideological structure; whereas on the other hand, we observe increased focus on ethnic particularities and communitarianism. Consequently, the development of global movements is concerned with a variety of contentious questions ranging from perceived political misrepresentation to environmen-