Synthesist Islamic Thinkers and Tajdid (Renewal) in Modern Times

Dr. Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Shinqiti

November 28th 2022

Within the framework of the 2022-2023 academic term conferences, Dr. Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Shinqiti gave his lecture on the subject of “Synthesist Islamic Thinkers and Tajdid (Renewal) in Modern Times” at IDE’s main lecture hall on the evening of the 28th of November 2022. This lecture is meant to be a start of a yearlong project under the name of “Islam in the 21st century” facilitated by IDE’s International department.

Dr. Shinqiti began his lecture by referring to a quotation from the famous philosopher and politician Alija İzetbegovic saying “You cannot change the world by denying it. You can only change the world by accepting its existence as a fact” and stated that religion itself is going to play an important role in this change. In this context, Dr. Shinqiti emphasized that religion is not an abstract idea like most philosophies, but an idea deeply embedded in praxis.

Dr. Shinqiti indicated a feature of Islamic civilization that differs it from other civilizations by drawing attention to the structure of Islamic culture and civilization which is open to synthesis with different civilizations. Additionally, he said that the divine message that came from the heavens and its principles in religion have become burdened through the course of time by the commentary and explanations made upon it, and this situation can be overcome only by Tajdid (renewal) in religion.

Finally, Dr. Shinqiti addressed the changes and transformations in the field of religion in contemporary times, ending his lecture by stating that we should be careful when synthesizing our compositional thought in religion if we wanted to reach a true renewal without demolishing its basics.