Fazlur Rahman (1919-88) was “a notable scholar of Islamic philosophy and an important liberal Muslim thinker of the twentieth century,” who is considered “to be amongst the most influential Muslim modernists in both the Western and Muslim worlds.” This is how Ahad Ahmed introduces this famed Pakistani-American scholar of the twentieth century.
During his lifetime, Fazlur Rahman was praised as “an outstanding intellectual” and “one of the clearest and wisest Islamic thinkers of the Islamic world today.” After his death, he has been described variedly as “Pakistan’s Influential Reformist Thinker,” “one of the most important and influential Muslim modernist thinkers of the second half of 20th century,” and “one of the most daring and original contributors to the discussion on the reform of Islamic thought in the twentieth century.” He wrote on diverse topics, and on a wide range of subjects, including “Islamic education, interpretation of the Qur’an, hadith criticism, early development of Islamic intellectual traditions and reform of Islamic law and ethics.
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