Reclaiming the legacy of Maulana Thanawi (RA)
Comprehensiveness, subtlety, psychological perspicuity and courage to chart new paths. Mass Education and Mass Media have been accompanied by certain degeneration, and decadence in the use of language, in the level of scholarly discourse, besides general trivialization and ideological colouring; as such oblivion of, or alienation from, intellectual and spiritual elite that resist this reduction. What strikes us today in popular literature on Islam is, generally speaking, superficiality, polemical spirit, lack of serious engagement with all the facets of tradition as a whole, failure to be respectfully critical of great predecessors, reluctance to exercise ijtihad, and baneful influence of certain politicization of discourse. What equally strikes us, however, in the case of such figures as Maulana Thanawi, is profundity, comprehensiveness, subtlety, psychological perspicuity and courage to chart new paths. There are some gifts for the century to help coun...