Dr. Ayesha Qurrat ul Ain

This research is multilayered as it tries to understand the role of modernity, in triggering the debate between science and religion in the context of twentieth century sub-continent, and the response of indigenous Muslim epistemes to the modern idea of evolution as manifested in Qurānic hermeneutics. The understanding of modernity, hereby, is derived from Jung’s thesis where Islamic modernity is not ‘an undisputed and coherent cultural program’ . Rather the proponents of Islamic tradition have interacted with ‘a pool of authoritative religious concepts, symbols and practices’ while reconstructing and reinterpreting the religious discourses responding to the questions posed by the modern scientific knowledge. For understanding the (non)binary relationship of religion and science, Peter Gotsschalk’s theoretical framework has been employed. He suggested that ‘Western imperial control and hegemonic influence’ altered the indigenous epistemes and the educated elites of the sub-continent produced a religious literature that is ‘identical to a translation that is neither the original nor uniquely independent’. This idea can serve as theoretical underpinning while analyzing the trends of exegesis in the twentieth century sub-continent. The Muslim scholars of the colonized sub-continent have responded to the Western scientific knowledge in a variety of ways. These responses ranged from the absolute refutation of modern scientific theories by traditionalist Ulema to the enthusiastic approval by rationalist reformists. In the spectrum between denial and advocacy, there lies a middle approach of the apologetic reaction of the semi-traditionalist scholars who tried to find the alternative approaches by reconciling the modern knowledge with Islamic legacy. They instilled new connotations to the Qurānic text thus laying the foundations of new trends of Qurānic hermeneutics. They tried to transform the semantics of the Islamic tradition in order to align it with the modern scientific knowledge. The array of responses to the Darwinian idea of evolution can serve as a litmus test to classify the expressions of Islamic modernity in the twentieth century sub-continent.