Bøger af Yohanan Friedmann

The dawn of the modern age posed challenges to all of the world's religions - and since then, religions have countered with challenges to modernity. In Religious Responses to Modernity, seven leading scholars from Germany and Israel explore specific instances of the face-off between religious thought and modernity, in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.As co-editor Christoph Markschies remarks in his Foreword, it may seem almost trivial to say that different religions, and the various currents within them, have reacted in very different ways to the "e;multiple modernities"e; described by S.N. Eisenstadt. However, things become more interesting when the comparative perspective leads us to discover surprising similarities. Disparate encounters are connected by their transnational or national perspectives, with the one side criticizing in the interest of rationality as a model of authorization, and the other presenting revelation as a critique of a depraved form of rationality. The thoughtful essays presented herein, by Simon Gerber, Johannes Zachhuber, Jonathan Garb, Rivka Feldhay, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Israel Gershoni and Christoph Schmidt, provide a counterweight to the popularity of some all-too-simplified models of modernization.

Expectation of a redeemer is a widespread phenomenon across many civilizations. Classical Islamic traditions maintain that the mahdi will transform our world by making Islam the sole religion, and that he will do so in collaboration with Jesus, who will return as a Muslim and play a major role in this apocalyptic endeavour. While the messianic idea has been most often discussed in relation to Shi';i Islam, it is highly important in the Sunni branch as well. In this groundbreaking work, Yohanan Friedmann explores its roots in Sunni Islam, and studies four major mahdi claimants Ibn Tumart, Sayyid Muhammad Jawnpuri, Muhammad Ahmad and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who made a considerable impact in the regions where they emerged. Focusing on their religious thought, and relating it to classical Muslim ideas on the apocalypse, he examines their movements and considers their achievements, failures and legacies including the ways in which they prefigured some radical Islamic groups of modern times.