Quran Liberation and Pluralism

About the Book: Quran Liberation and Pluralism

The demise of apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s followed an unprecedented unity in struggle against oppression from members of different faith traditions. Determined as South African Muslims were to participate with the rest of the oppressed in solidarity against apartheid, this brought them into conflict with interpretations of the Quran that denied virtue outside Islam, and left them searching for a theology that would allow them to both co-operate against injustice and be true to their faith. In this challenging account, Farid Esack reflects on key quranic passages used in the context of oppression to rethink the role of Islam in a plural society. He exposes how traditional interpretations of the Quran were used to legitimize an unjust order, and demonstrates that those very texts used to support religious intolerance, if interpreted within a contemporary socio-historical context, support active solidarity with the religious Other for change.

About the Author: Farid Esack

Farid Esack has an international reputation as a Muslim scholar, speaker and human rights activist. He has lectured widely on religion and Islamic studies and also served as a Commissioner for Gender Equality with Nelson Mandelas government. He is author of Quran, Liberation and Pluralism and The Quran: A Short Introduction both published by Oneworld). He has taught at the Universities of the Western Cape, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, and at Union Theological Seminary (New York).