Readings in Islamic Thought

“This book is one of the most prominent contemporary works… explaining the great humanitarian principles that the message of Islam brought more than fourteen centuries ago. It brought about a new revival in the broad world of Islamic vision and thought, based on liberation, enlightenment and deep reflection on the meanings of the verses of the Holy Quran… and the positions of the noble Sunnah on the issues of life. This was ever since its author read it aloud in successive episodes on Egyptian radio in the early 1960s, and it met with enormous demand… which led some senior religious scholars to call for it to be prescribed in schools at the time. Abdel Rahman Al-Sharqawi devoted long years in the sanctuary of Islamic thought, wiping the dust from it and freeing it from superstitions and flimsy interpretations, to affirm that the message of Islam was in essence a social and human revolution, springing from the words ‘there is no god but God,’ to topple all forms of enslavement and servitude except to God alone, there being nothing like unto Him, and to free all the oppressed and shatter every form of social understanding and laws of despotic domination that confiscate man’s right to a better tomorrow. In his in-depth readings of Islamic thought, Al-Sharqawi takes us through the virtues of Islam via many positions of the righteous predecessors, delving into the meanings of religion, revolution, freedom of opinion, jihad, and the explanation of Islam’s principles on the style of governance, freedom, justice, knowledge and equality, and why political conflict arose in the name of religion, while affirming the supreme value of Islamic thought in its main pillar of freedom, saying: ‘Islam is not a religion of rituals or particular formalities. It is a religion that addresses the heart and the mind together.'”