Religious Reform: Parallels between the European Reformation and Contemporary Challenges in Muslim-Majority Societies
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Jan 31, 2024
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Abstract
This article explores into the profound dynamics of religious reform by drawing parallels between the European Reformation and the contemporary challenges facing Muslim-majority societies. While recognizing the unique contexts of these historical periods, the analysis sheds light on essential elements such as freedom, individualism, and the separation of religion from the state. It explores how these principles have played transformative roles in shaping Western modernity and their potential relevance in addressing current issues in Muslim-majority countries. The absence of a centralized religious authority in the latter context presents distinctive challenges, emphasizing the need for decentralized and context-specific reform strategies. The article underscores the importance of a multifaceted approach to reform, involving scholars, religious leaders, intellectuals, and civil society actors, in navigating the intricate path toward progress and renewal. Ultimately, this examination reaffirms the timeless pursuit of reform as a testament to human resilience and the enduring quest for positive change.
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Almassry, H. (2024). Religious Reform: Parallels between the European Reformation and Contemporary Challenges in Muslim-Majority Societies. Contemporary Issues on Interfaith Law and Society, 3(1), 1-42. https://doi.org/10.15294/ciils.v3i1.74483
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References
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Baron, Hans. "Burckhardt's ‘Civilization of the Renaissance’: A Century after its Publication." Renaissance News 13, no. 3 (1960): 207-222.
Bewersdorf, Joerg, Rainer Heintzmann, and Peter Kner. "Optical Microscopy: Emerging Methods and Applications." Current Opinion in Biotechnology 17, no. 1 (2006): 73-81.
Bloch, Marc. “Feudal Society, Estates, and the Origins of the French Revolution: A Reevaluation”. The Journal of Modern History 59, no. 4 (1961): 789-816.
Bowman, Glen. "Early Calvinist Resistance Theory: New Perspectives on an Old Label." Journal of Law and Religion 23, no. 1 (2007): 309-319.
Brady, Thomas A. "Erasmus, Luther, and the Political Economy of Faith." Journal of the History of Ideas 68, no. 4 (2007): 469-488.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968).
Butters, Humfrey. "The Renaissance." In The European World 1500–1800. (London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 257-266.
Cohen, Martin S. "Michael Servetus: A Solitary Quest for the Truth." Theology Today 47, no. 4 (1990): 389-402.
Cole, Michael G. “Italian Renaissance Art: A Historiographical Review.” Renaissance Quarterly 60, no. 1 (2007): 1-26.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973).
Davies, Jonathan. "Renaissance Italy: A Cultural Revival." Renaissance Studies 21, no. 5 (2007): 559-581.
Dawson, Jane EA. "John Knox and the Scottish Protestant Reformation." A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland, c. 1525–1638. (Leiden: Brill, 2021).
Dawson, Jane. "John Knox and the Reformation in Scotland." The Sixteenth Century Journal 46, no. 4 (2015): 915-939.
Edelstein, Dan. The Enlightenment: A Genealogy. (Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2019).
Eliade, Mircea. Patterns in Comparative Religion. (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1958).
Ferguson, Niall. "Printing and Propaganda in the Reign of Charles V and Ferdinand I (1500–1564)." Renaissance Quarterly 64, no. 3 (2011): 810-850.
George, Timothy. "The Reformation as a Turning Point in the Church’s Theology." Reformed Theological Review 65, no. 3 (2006): 146-156.
Gingerich, Owen. "Galileo and the Discovery of Jupiter's Moons." Scientific American 242, no. 6 (1980): 106-115.
Gingerich, Owen. "The Copernican System." Scientific American 232, no. 6 (1975): 92-100.
Hanushek, Eric A., and Ludger Woessmann. "Education and Economic Development." Journal of Monetary Economics 59, no. 2 (2012): 89-104.
Hawley, K. "Tawney and Marx." History of Political Economy 22, no. 3 (1990): 447-471.
Henrich, Joseph. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2018).
Jacob, J. “John Knox and the Reformation in Scotland”. The Sixteenth Century Journal 46, no. 4 (2015): 915-939.
Jacob, Margaret C. "The Enlightenment: Philosophical Foundations and Impact." The Journal of Modern History 60, no. 3 (1988): 521-545.
Jacob, Margaret C. “The Enlightenment: A Genealogy”. Journal of Modern History 60, no. 3 (1988): 513-545.
Jardine, Lisa. "Erasmus and the Cultural Function of Literature." Renaissance Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1975): 1-32.
Kettani, M. Ali. "Muslims in non‐Muslim societies: challenges and opportunities." Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Journal 11, no. 2 (1990): 226-233.
Kraye, Jill (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Kroeker, Greta Grace. "Erasmus and Luther: Free Will and Tradition." A Companion to Erasmus. (Leiden: BRILL, 2023), pp. 90-102.
Laurence, Jonathan. "The 21st-century impact of European Muslim minorities on ‘Official Islam’in the Muslim-majority world." Philosophy & Social Criticism 40, no. 4-5 (2014): 449-458.
Lillie, Amanda. "The Florentine Palace in the Fifteenth Century: A New Look at the Palazzo Medici." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 64, no. 2 (2005): 146-179.
MacLeod, Daniel. "William Ian P. Hazlett, ed., A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland, ca. 1525–1638: Frameworks of Change and Development." Journal of Jesuit Studies 10, no. 1 (2023): 154-156.
Marenbon, John. “Crusading as an Act of Love: Aquinas on Self-Defense and the Crusades”. Journal of Religious Ethics 18, no. 1 (1990): 89-112.
McConchie, R. W. "Shakespeare and the Uses of Law." Law and Humanities 8, no. 1 (2014): 83-111.
McCormick, Michael. “Pirenne, Islam, and the Social and Economic History of Early Medieval Europe.” Speculum 62, no. 2 (1987): 233-265.
Meer, Nasar. "Misrecognizing Muslim consciousness in Europe." Ethnicities 12, no. 2 (2012): 178-196.
Meral, Ziya. "The politics of religious minorities in Muslim-majority states: old challenges and new trends." The Review of Faith & International Affairs 9, no. 2 (2011): 25-30.
Milligan, Scott, Robert Andersen, and Robert Brym. "Assessing variation in tolerance in 23 Muslim‐majority and western countries." Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 51, no. 3 (2014): 239-261.
Monfasani, John. "The Middle Ages and the Renaissance as Periods of Transition: The Challenge of Change." European Review 20, no. 2 (2012): 151-167.
Morrogh, Andrew. "The Architectural Patronage of the Medici, 1416-1494." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1233 (2006): 505-506.
Nederman, Cary J. "Machiavelli's Method and His Interpretation of the Ancient Virtues." Polity 27, no. 3 (1994): 381-399.
Needham, P. “The Printing Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry”. American Historical Review 102, no. 1 (1997): 1-21.
O'Malley, John W. "The First Jesuits: In Their Own Words." The Sixteenth Century Journal 35, no. 3 (2004): 910-912.
Ptak, Roderich. "Portuguese Expansion and Indigenous Response in Southeast Asia, 1511-1620." Itinerario 23, no. 3-4 (1999): 68-103.
Purves, Alex C. "Printing and Propaganda in the Reign of Charles V and Ferdinand I (1500–1564)." Renaissance Quarterly 64, no. 3 (2011): 810-850.
Richardson, Laurence Jr. "The Villa as Paradigm in Late Antiquity: The Historical and Archaeological Context of a Roman Villa at Monte Testaccio." American Journal of Archaeology 104, no. 2 (2000): 253-276.
Riddle, Phyllis. "Political authority and university formation in Europe, 1200–1800." Sociological Perspectives 36, no. 1 (1993): 45-62.
Rüegg, Walter, ed. A History of the University in Europe: Volume 3, Universities in The Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800–1945). (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950).
Sica, Alan. "The Ethics of Max Weber: Is There a 'Protestant Ethic' for the 21st Century?" Theory, Culture & Society 23, no. 5 (2006): 47-70.
Smith, Jonathan Z. “Mircea Eliade and the Phenomenology of Religion”. History of Religions 25, no. 4 (2010): 253-271.
Spitz, J. E. “The Calvinist Tradition and the Theory of Revolution”. Journal of the History of Ideas 39, no. 3 (1973): 507-520.
Spitz, Lewis W. "The course of German humanism." In Itinerarium Italicum: The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror of its European Transformations. (Leiden: BRILL, 1975), pp. 371-436.
Spitz, Lewis W. "The third generation of German Renaissance humanists." In Aspects of the Renaissance. (Texas: University of Texas Press, 1967).
Spitz, Lewis W. “The German Reformation: A Preliminary Overview”. Renaissance Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1976): 223-242.
Statham, Paul, and Jean Tillie. "Muslims in their European societies of settlement: a comparative agenda for empirical research on socio-cultural integration across countries and groups." In Muslims in Europe. (London: Routledge, 2018).
Stork, David G. "From Alhazen to van Gogh: The Use of Optics in Art." Proceedings of the IEEE 90, no. 1 (2002): 28-48.
Tawney, R. H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. (New York: Mentor Books, 11926).
Trittler, Sabine. "Consequences of religious and secular boundaries among the majority population for perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities in Western Europe." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45, no. 7 (2019): 1127-1147.
Trivellato, Francesca. "The Jewish Diaspora in the Sixteenth Century: Historical Geography and the Politics of Memory." Past & Present 188, no. 1 (2005): 65-93.
Van Zyl, A. E. "Martin Luther on education." Journal for Christian Scholarship/Tydskrif vir Christelike Wetenskap 43, no. 3-4 (2007): 179-199.
Volker, Hans P. "Michelangelo: Art, Anatomy, and the Kidneys." Kidney International 78, no. 9 (2010): 817-823.
Wallace, Peter G. The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict, and The Search for Conformity, 1350-1750. (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019).
Witte, John. "John Calvin's Views on Church and State." Church History 78, no. 3 (2009): 513-529.
Witte, John. "Rights, Resistance, and Revolution in the Western Tradition: Early Protestant Foundations." Law and History Review 26, no. 3 (2008): 545-570.
Anderson, Benedict. "Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism—Twenty Years After." Nations and Nationalism 12, no. 4 (2006): 579-586.
Anthony Ossa-Richardson, and Margaret Meserve. Et Amicorum: Essays on Renaissance Humanism and Philosophy: in Honour of Jill Kraye. Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, Volume: 273. (Leiden: BRILL, 2018).
Armitage, David. "The Spanish Monarchy and the Invention of Modern Democracy: Rethinking the Global Age of Revolutions." Past & Present 203, no. 1 (2009): 43-89.
Baker, Keith M. "Feudal Society, Estates, and the Origins of the French Revolution: A Reevaluation." The Journal of Modern History 59, no. 4 (1987): 789-816.
Baron, Hans. "Burckhardt's ‘Civilization of the Renaissance’: A Century after its Publication." Renaissance News 13, no. 3 (1960): 207-222.
Bewersdorf, Joerg, Rainer Heintzmann, and Peter Kner. "Optical Microscopy: Emerging Methods and Applications." Current Opinion in Biotechnology 17, no. 1 (2006): 73-81.
Bloch, Marc. “Feudal Society, Estates, and the Origins of the French Revolution: A Reevaluation”. The Journal of Modern History 59, no. 4 (1961): 789-816.
Bowman, Glen. "Early Calvinist Resistance Theory: New Perspectives on an Old Label." Journal of Law and Religion 23, no. 1 (2007): 309-319.
Brady, Thomas A. "Erasmus, Luther, and the Political Economy of Faith." Journal of the History of Ideas 68, no. 4 (2007): 469-488.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968).
Butters, Humfrey. "The Renaissance." In The European World 1500–1800. (London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 257-266.
Cohen, Martin S. "Michael Servetus: A Solitary Quest for the Truth." Theology Today 47, no. 4 (1990): 389-402.
Cole, Michael G. “Italian Renaissance Art: A Historiographical Review.” Renaissance Quarterly 60, no. 1 (2007): 1-26.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973).
Davies, Jonathan. "Renaissance Italy: A Cultural Revival." Renaissance Studies 21, no. 5 (2007): 559-581.
Dawson, Jane EA. "John Knox and the Scottish Protestant Reformation." A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland, c. 1525–1638. (Leiden: Brill, 2021).
Dawson, Jane. "John Knox and the Reformation in Scotland." The Sixteenth Century Journal 46, no. 4 (2015): 915-939.
Edelstein, Dan. The Enlightenment: A Genealogy. (Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2019).
Eliade, Mircea. Patterns in Comparative Religion. (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1958).
Ferguson, Niall. "Printing and Propaganda in the Reign of Charles V and Ferdinand I (1500–1564)." Renaissance Quarterly 64, no. 3 (2011): 810-850.
George, Timothy. "The Reformation as a Turning Point in the Church’s Theology." Reformed Theological Review 65, no. 3 (2006): 146-156.
Gingerich, Owen. "Galileo and the Discovery of Jupiter's Moons." Scientific American 242, no. 6 (1980): 106-115.
Gingerich, Owen. "The Copernican System." Scientific American 232, no. 6 (1975): 92-100.
Hanushek, Eric A., and Ludger Woessmann. "Education and Economic Development." Journal of Monetary Economics 59, no. 2 (2012): 89-104.
Hawley, K. "Tawney and Marx." History of Political Economy 22, no. 3 (1990): 447-471.
Henrich, Joseph. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2018).
Jacob, J. “John Knox and the Reformation in Scotland”. The Sixteenth Century Journal 46, no. 4 (2015): 915-939.
Jacob, Margaret C. "The Enlightenment: Philosophical Foundations and Impact." The Journal of Modern History 60, no. 3 (1988): 521-545.
Jacob, Margaret C. “The Enlightenment: A Genealogy”. Journal of Modern History 60, no. 3 (1988): 513-545.
Jardine, Lisa. "Erasmus and the Cultural Function of Literature." Renaissance Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1975): 1-32.
Kettani, M. Ali. "Muslims in non‐Muslim societies: challenges and opportunities." Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Journal 11, no. 2 (1990): 226-233.
Kraye, Jill (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Kroeker, Greta Grace. "Erasmus and Luther: Free Will and Tradition." A Companion to Erasmus. (Leiden: BRILL, 2023), pp. 90-102.
Laurence, Jonathan. "The 21st-century impact of European Muslim minorities on ‘Official Islam’in the Muslim-majority world." Philosophy & Social Criticism 40, no. 4-5 (2014): 449-458.
Lillie, Amanda. "The Florentine Palace in the Fifteenth Century: A New Look at the Palazzo Medici." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 64, no. 2 (2005): 146-179.
MacLeod, Daniel. "William Ian P. Hazlett, ed., A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland, ca. 1525–1638: Frameworks of Change and Development." Journal of Jesuit Studies 10, no. 1 (2023): 154-156.
Marenbon, John. “Crusading as an Act of Love: Aquinas on Self-Defense and the Crusades”. Journal of Religious Ethics 18, no. 1 (1990): 89-112.
McConchie, R. W. "Shakespeare and the Uses of Law." Law and Humanities 8, no. 1 (2014): 83-111.
McCormick, Michael. “Pirenne, Islam, and the Social and Economic History of Early Medieval Europe.” Speculum 62, no. 2 (1987): 233-265.
Meer, Nasar. "Misrecognizing Muslim consciousness in Europe." Ethnicities 12, no. 2 (2012): 178-196.
Meral, Ziya. "The politics of religious minorities in Muslim-majority states: old challenges and new trends." The Review of Faith & International Affairs 9, no. 2 (2011): 25-30.
Milligan, Scott, Robert Andersen, and Robert Brym. "Assessing variation in tolerance in 23 Muslim‐majority and western countries." Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 51, no. 3 (2014): 239-261.
Monfasani, John. "The Middle Ages and the Renaissance as Periods of Transition: The Challenge of Change." European Review 20, no. 2 (2012): 151-167.
Morrogh, Andrew. "The Architectural Patronage of the Medici, 1416-1494." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1233 (2006): 505-506.
Nederman, Cary J. "Machiavelli's Method and His Interpretation of the Ancient Virtues." Polity 27, no. 3 (1994): 381-399.
Needham, P. “The Printing Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry”. American Historical Review 102, no. 1 (1997): 1-21.
O'Malley, John W. "The First Jesuits: In Their Own Words." The Sixteenth Century Journal 35, no. 3 (2004): 910-912.
Ptak, Roderich. "Portuguese Expansion and Indigenous Response in Southeast Asia, 1511-1620." Itinerario 23, no. 3-4 (1999): 68-103.
Purves, Alex C. "Printing and Propaganda in the Reign of Charles V and Ferdinand I (1500–1564)." Renaissance Quarterly 64, no. 3 (2011): 810-850.
Richardson, Laurence Jr. "The Villa as Paradigm in Late Antiquity: The Historical and Archaeological Context of a Roman Villa at Monte Testaccio." American Journal of Archaeology 104, no. 2 (2000): 253-276.
Riddle, Phyllis. "Political authority and university formation in Europe, 1200–1800." Sociological Perspectives 36, no. 1 (1993): 45-62.
Rüegg, Walter, ed. A History of the University in Europe: Volume 3, Universities in The Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800–1945). (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950).
Sica, Alan. "The Ethics of Max Weber: Is There a 'Protestant Ethic' for the 21st Century?" Theory, Culture & Society 23, no. 5 (2006): 47-70.
Smith, Jonathan Z. “Mircea Eliade and the Phenomenology of Religion”. History of Religions 25, no. 4 (2010): 253-271.
Spitz, J. E. “The Calvinist Tradition and the Theory of Revolution”. Journal of the History of Ideas 39, no. 3 (1973): 507-520.
Spitz, Lewis W. "The course of German humanism." In Itinerarium Italicum: The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror of its European Transformations. (Leiden: BRILL, 1975), pp. 371-436.
Spitz, Lewis W. "The third generation of German Renaissance humanists." In Aspects of the Renaissance. (Texas: University of Texas Press, 1967).
Spitz, Lewis W. “The German Reformation: A Preliminary Overview”. Renaissance Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1976): 223-242.
Statham, Paul, and Jean Tillie. "Muslims in their European societies of settlement: a comparative agenda for empirical research on socio-cultural integration across countries and groups." In Muslims in Europe. (London: Routledge, 2018).
Stork, David G. "From Alhazen to van Gogh: The Use of Optics in Art." Proceedings of the IEEE 90, no. 1 (2002): 28-48.
Tawney, R. H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. (New York: Mentor Books, 11926).
Trittler, Sabine. "Consequences of religious and secular boundaries among the majority population for perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities in Western Europe." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45, no. 7 (2019): 1127-1147.
Trivellato, Francesca. "The Jewish Diaspora in the Sixteenth Century: Historical Geography and the Politics of Memory." Past & Present 188, no. 1 (2005): 65-93.
Van Zyl, A. E. "Martin Luther on education." Journal for Christian Scholarship/Tydskrif vir Christelike Wetenskap 43, no. 3-4 (2007): 179-199.
Volker, Hans P. "Michelangelo: Art, Anatomy, and the Kidneys." Kidney International 78, no. 9 (2010): 817-823.
Wallace, Peter G. The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict, and The Search for Conformity, 1350-1750. (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019).
Witte, John. "John Calvin's Views on Church and State." Church History 78, no. 3 (2009): 513-529.
Witte, John. "Rights, Resistance, and Revolution in the Western Tradition: Early Protestant Foundations." Law and History Review 26, no. 3 (2008): 545-570.