Ziauddin Sardar

Ziauddin Sardar (born 1951) is a London-based writer who specializes in topics dealing with the future of Islam, as well as Islamic science and technology. He often writes columns in "The Observer", a British Sunday newspaper and "New Statesman", a weekly magazine.

Currently he is a visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies, Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University, London and has published over 40 books on various aspects of Islam, science policy, cultural studies and related subjects. He received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of East London in 2005

Sardar is a writer, broadcaster and critic. He lived in Saudi Arabia from 1975 to 1980 and often comments on current and future trends in Islam. He is keenly interested in the interchange and dialog between Islam and the modern world and has published widely on scientific and technological topics.

In his work, "Reformist Ideas and Muslim Intellectuals," Sardar states that "Muslim people have been on the verge of physical, cultural and intellectual extinction simply because they have allowed parochialism and petty traditionalism to rule their minds. We must break free from the ghetto mentality."

On the subject of Hadith and Qur'an, Sardar is sometimes compared with Rudolf Bultmann in stating that each generation must "reinterpret the textual sources in the light of its own experience". Although identifying himself as a moderate, Sardar embraces a willingness to look at scripture as a product of its time which must be periodically reexamined, lest it lose its relevance for those who love it. This point of view is considered anathema by conservative Muslim scholars who insist that the Qur'an was and continues to be whole and perfect.

Sardar suggests that decades of European dominance and colonialism have contributed to the decline and constriction of Islamic science into a narrow defense of the religion. See Nature, vol 448, 12 July 2007, "Beyond the Troubled Relationship" (of science and Islam).

Sardar is the editor of "Futures", the monthly journal of policy, planning and future studies and co-editor of "Third Text", the critical journal of visual art and culture. In 2006 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights [http://www.cehr.org.uk/content/commissioners.rhtm#ziauddinsardar] .

Books

* "How Do You Know? Reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations", Pluto Press 2006 (Introduced and edited by Ehsan Masood)
* "Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim", Granta Books 2005
* "American Dream, Global Nightmare", Icon Books 2004 (Written with Merryl Wyn Davies)
* Sohail Inayatullah and Gail Boxwell (eds), "Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures: a Ziauddin Sardar reader", Pluto Press 2004
* "Why Do People Hate America?", Icon Books 2003 (Written with Merryl Wyn Davies)
* "The A to Z of Postmodern Life: Essays on Global Culture in the Noughties", Vision 2002
* Ziauddin Sardar and Sean Cubitt (eds), "Aliens R Us: The Other in Science Fiction Cinema", Pluto Press 2002
* "Thomas Kuhn and the Science Wars", Icon Books 2000
* "Orientalism" (Concepts in the Social Sciences Series), Open University Press 1999
* "Postmodernism and the Other: New Imperialism of Western Culture", Pluto Press 1997
* Ziauddin Sardar, Ashis Nandy, Claude Alvarez, Merryl Wyn Davies, "Barbaric Others: A Manifesto on Western Racism", Pluto Press 1993
* "Information and the Muslim World: A Strategy for the Twenty-first Century", Islamic Futures and Policy Studies, Mansell Publishing Limited, London and New York 1988
* "Islamic Futures: The Shape of Ideas to Come", Mansell 1986
* "The Future of Muslim Civilisation", 1979
* "ISLAM: Outline of a classification scheme". Clive Bingley Ltd., London 1979
* Desperately seeking paradise, 2001

Sardar has also contributed a number of books to the "Introducing..." series published by Icon Books, including "Introducing Muhammad" and "Introducing Cultural Studies"

References

*Ziauddin Sardar, "Listening to Islam", in "Listening to Islam: Praise, Reason and Reflection", ed. John Watson (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005).

External links

* Ziauddin Sardar, "New Statesman" December 11, 2006, [http://www.newstatesman.com/200612110045 "Welcome to Planet Blitcon"]
* Ziauddin Sardar, "New Statesman", July 18, 2005, [http://www.newstatesman.com/People/200507180004 "The struggle for Islam's soul"]
* Ziauddin Sardar, "New Statesman", June 14, 2004, [http://www.newstatesman.com/200406140018 'Is Muslim civilisation set on a fixed course to decline?' Wahhabism, the Saudis' brand of Islam, negates the very idea of evolution in human thought and morality]
* Ziauddin Sardar, "New Statesman", August 9, 2004, [http://www.newstatesman.com/200408090035 Lost in translation: most English-language editions of the Qur'an have contained numerous errors, omissions and distortions. Hardly surprising, writes Ziauddin Sardar, when one of their purposes was to denigrate not just the Holy Book, but the entire Islamic faith]
* Ziauddin Sardar, June 2002, [http://www.islamfortoday.com/sardar01.htm "Rethinking Islam"]
* Ziauddin Sardar, [http://www.ru.org/sardar-112.htm "Medicine and Multiculturalism"] , "New Renaissance", Vol. 11, No. 2, issue 37, Summer 2002
* [http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/katz/20042005/ziauddin_sardar.html Audio and video of Ziauddin Sardar's 2005 lecture, "Islam and Modernity: The Problem with Paradise"]
* [http://ummahpulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=388&Itemid=71 Ziauddin Sardar and the founders of the Quilliam Foundation]
*Ziauddin Sardar, "The Royal Society", [http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=5747 "Islam and science: lecture transcript"]