"Lost in the Sacred" poses questions about the Muslim world that
no other book by a Western writer has dared to ask. Focusing on the
Arab Middle East, Dan Diner asks what caused the Muslim world to
lag behind so dramatically. Is Western dominance to blame? Or is
the problem even with Islam itself? These questions, however
unsettling, need to be asked--and they are being posed all across
the Muslim world today. This book provides cautious answers that
are no less disturbing than the questions.
Diner argues that Islam's cultural stasis is not due to the
Muslim faith itself, but to the nature of the sacred it is infused
with and that penetrates every aspect of life--spiritual and
material. He reveals how the sacred in Islam suspends the
acceleration of social time, hinders change, and circumvents
secularization and modernity. Diner takes readers on an
unforgettable intellectual journey, from today's global conflicts
back into the distant past. He describes the Muslim encounter with
the emerging West in early modernity, the challenges Western
imperial expansion posed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
the time-suspending impact of Arabic as a sacred language, the
prevention of print, the classical age of Islam with its dazzling
heights of learning and culture--and much more. Diner traces an
entangled perspective, combining the spiritual with the social, and
the cultural with the political. Throughout, he draws our attention
to the urgent need for secularization and modernization in
Islam.
The Muslim world is in crisis. "Lost in the Sacred" explains
why.
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