Blurb:

The author situates this book in the context of his other publications. The point of departure here, is that Islamic religious studies represents an unhealthy commixture of apologetics for Islam with the dominant discourse of religious studies that privileges experience over praxis and the “religious” as if it somehow existed independently from more social or political (i.e., mundane) concerns. This confusion of critical scholarship with constructive theology has created numerous problems for the field. It means, for one thing, that historical and critical questions are largely ignored and are instead replaced with the quest to create a normative Islam that corresponds to that which are perceived to be universally recognized, as opposed to modern Western, values.