ভূমিকা
The following are some of the underlying presuppositions and claims of this method: (1) First, since the emergence of Islam, the interpretation provided by various scholars of this religious phenomenon has given rise to different discourses. Furthermore, within the Arabic language, the words used and the meanings of the words used differ from one discourse to another.
(2) Second, these discourses have been conditioned by the concepts, mental formations, economic conditions, and political attitudes of their particular historical situation. Therefore, in rendering a judgement on somebody's work, one has to pose questions about the historical conditions in which that discourse was produced. (3) Third, one has to study the different Islamic discourses of modern Islam in relation to the West.
(4) The West as a conceptual category should be historically and philosophically defined. (5) This comprehensive method proposed should elaborate on the possible connection between ideology and discourse. [^41] What is, therefore, the relationship between modern Islam and the West? Somebody may object to this formulation: how can we equate a theological construct with a purely political or geographic construct? The initial stage of this inquiry, however, is a matter of definition.
What is the West? What is Islam? What is the West? In dealing with the modern West, we are to discuss five salient movements: (1) Renaissance, (2) Reformation, (3) Industrialization, (4) Enlightenment , and (5) post-Enlightenment. I want to stress here that these movements are in essence philosophical movements. The philosophical underpinnings of the Renaissance were: rationalism, humanism, secularization.
The Reformation led to the resurgence of individuality and the annihilation of the communal Christian spirit. What is Islam? It is impossible, of course, to give a precise linguistic meaning to the term Islam.