Essays On Cultural Pluralism

Born in 1926, Jamal Khwaja has devoted a lifetime to the challenge of understanding and living the Quran with integrity. His forefathers worked closely with Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, and with Mahatma Gandhi. Khwaja studied philosophy in India and Europe. In 1957 he was elected to the Indian Parliament. However, his engagement with power politics was short lived. In 1962 he returned to his beloved, scholarly and contemplative lifestyle at the Aligarh Muslim University. He retired as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Philosophy. He is the author of seven major books. Khwaja's work seeks to answer three inter-related questions: Firstly, What does it mean to be an authentic Muslim? Secondly, How should a believer understand and interpret the Holy Quran in the 21st century? And finally, What is the role of Islam in a pluralistic society? Anyone interested in the intersection of Islam and Modernity will find Khwaja to be a reliable guide. His work is magisterial in scope. It is full of passion but remains balanced in perspective. Khwaja believes in judiciously creative modernization rooted in the Quran and firmly opposes shallow, unprincipled imitation of the West. His mission is to stimulate serious rethinking and informed dialog between tradition and modernity in Islam. Khwaja's work is the definitive contemporary discussion regarding the collision of Islam and Modernity. Readers of his work will be in turn, informed, inspired, and intellectually liberated.