The Prospects of Islamic Innovation and Modernism
The author considers Islam’s openness to innovation and improvements and shows how the Islamic principle of bid’a correlates with Tawheed and absolute monotheism. It is noted that Ummah has no common view thereof. The issue remains a source of canonical contradictions between the classical Islam, Wahhabism-Salafism, Sufism and other doctrines in Islam. In this context, the militarist content of Jihad closing the way to the introduction of innovation to Islam and its appropriate integration into the world civilization is critisized. The author believes that in religious studies exclusive thinking often dominates, directing the confessional process along the dividing trajectory and contributing to the emergence of extremist deviations. The necessity of the transition to inclusive thinking forming a tolerant culture is substantiated. The author concludes that it is important to find a balance between traditions and innovation in Islam in order to preserve its cultural and confessional identity in contemporary neo-modernistic transformations.