ISLAM AND POSTMODERNISM: A STUDY OF ZIA UD DIN SARDAR’S PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Religions in general and Islam in particular has gone through different times and faced
different challenges and questions during these phases. Hence like all other religions and
cultures, Islam has also produced different scholars and intellectuals, in due process, who
tried to answer the questions and come up with the solutions to the challenges posed to it in
particular times.
Sardar, one of the outspoken contemporary Muslim intellectuals, tried to redefine Islam in the
context of postmodernism. His understanding of postmodernism is that ‘it’s a new kind of
imperialism of western culture’. He considers it to be a new way of crushing the hopes and
aspirations of people, and calls it a ‘linear progression and a natural conclusion to
modernity’ it is a new way west has come up with to avoid resistance modernity faced by
Islam, so criticising it severely as incompatible and hostile towards Islam.