Modern Islam versus Islamic Modernity Hossein Aghababa 1 + 1 University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran Abstract. Islam and modernity in their historical encounter have experienced different days. Success and failure of this historical interaction have been owed to the level of recognition of Islamic and modern west scholars from each others’ essence and main attributes of spiritual property. Nonetheless, to be fair, the inherent nonconformity of some of Islamic and modern affairs has been another reason to make this communication rough. However, what has been recorded in history is the impatience of Islam and modernity to break their geographical borders. The reciprocal influence of Islam and modernity has made each one to host another inside its borders. In this regard, the concerns of Islamic scholars (‘ulamā”) and intellectuals in confronting the modern affair have created a set of vectors with different magnitudes and directions whose ultimate results are different reactions of people in Islamic territories and all the Muslims in the entire world towards the modernity. Undoubtedly, reconcilable points in the communication of Islam and modernity are not so much of a serious challenge. Naturally, the efforts of Islamic scholars and their Westerner counterparts are dedicated to study the segregation points between Islam and modernity. Admittedly, study in no field is as enlightening as history. Among the mainstream Islamic scholars this question has been always a major topic of discussion: “which one should be characterized by the other: Islam or modernity?”. A historical review reveals that Islamic scholars have not been unanimous on answering this question and both answers have been always existent. Anyways, discussion on the quiddity of modern Islam and Islamic modernity as well as historical research provides a basis for a true analysis on the reality of interaction between Islam and modernity. Besides, this study could provide a set of solutions making this communication smooth. Keywords: Islam, modernity, history 1. History of modernity Neither “modern” for Islam nor “Islamic” for modernity are considered necessary accident (‘arad lāzim) for each other. That is, genesis and retro-gradation of Islam and modernity have no vital relationship to each other. Hence, since separation of each one from the subject of another is not rationally impossible, “modern” for Islam and “Islamic” for modernity are considered parting accident (arad mufāriq). Therefore, an independent historical overview to the very modernity and the confrontation of Islamic world with that is recognized. Historians have distinguished different periods for history of modernity. Based on a classification proposed by [1] written in one of Marshall Berman’s books [2] modernity is periodized to the following stages: 1- Early modernity: 1500-1789 (in traditional historiography, this period is between 1453-1789) 2- Classical modernity: 1789-1900 (according to Hobsbawm’s model this period corresponds to long 19 th century (1789-1914)) 3- Late modernity: 1900-1989 Many believe that modernity has been abolished in mid or late 20th century and since then human lives in a new period, namely post-modernity. Some other theorists like Giddens consider the period from late 20th century to present to be merely another phase of modernity. This period is called “High” modernity by + Hossein Aghababa. Tel.: +98-21-22516106. E-mail address: h.aghababa@ece.ut.ac.ir, h_aghababa@yahoo.com. 25 2011 2nd International Conference on Humanities, Historical and Social Sciences IPEDR vol.17 (2011) © (2011) IACSIT Press, Singapore