Why I became Muslim with Jacob Williams : Blogging Theology - Jan 15,2024

Paul Williams of Blogging Theology Interviews Jacob Williams                                                           YouTube Video:                                                                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuWla29Xeew&t=20s 

 

M Jacob Williams , Director, JPW, London, Education: B.A Philosophy,Politics & Economics, University of Oxford, MA, Religious Studies, King's College, London, PhD Candidate, University of Oxford.

 Publications: * Islamic Traditionalists:" Against the Modern World" ?                                         The Muslim World '"Islamic traditionalism' or 'neo-traditionalism' has been analysed by scholars as either (à la Masooda Bano) a progressive movement sympathetic to gradual reform of Islamic traditions, or (à la Mark Sedgwick) as a contemporary incarnation of the radically anti-modern Traditionalist School connected to René Guénon and Julius Evola. Neither judgement can be the whole truth. Through an analysis of the discourse of three prominent Islamic traditionalist thinkers -- Timothy Winter, Hamza Yusuf, and Umar Faruq Abd Allah -- on three topics salient to debates about the place of Islam in the modern world, a more nuanced picture will emerge. The Islamic traditionalist positions on religious pluralism, Western identity, and gender roles illustrate an attempt to represent Islam as a balancing principle that preserves the good in modernity while rejecting excesses. This view owes a surprising amount to an extensive engagement with Western conservative intellectuals beyond the radical Traditionalist School. Islamic traditionalists today neither wholly negate nor enthusiastically support the ideas of modernity, progress, and liberalism".                                     Source: Full Article - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/muwo.12475

* Why I became Muslim? - First Things

The first part of the Islamic ­shahada, or testimony of faith, is la ilaha il’Allah, “there is no god but God”—an uncompromising statement of pure mono­theism. Islam puts the One God front and center, a simple and commanding being. Philosophy had persuaded me that God was an intellectual and moral necessity. I did not know whether his existence could strictly be proven, but I recognized the dishonesty and intellectual contortions atheism required. Without an absolute, transcendent Lord, I could see no way to objective morality and to a purpose and order in the cosmos that could overcome the transience of this world. I doubted that we could justify even belief in causal regularities without a constantly acting Creator to guarantee them. If I were to embrace God, then God would need to be an ­unmediated, undifferentiated, and decisive Omnipotence, whom I might ­willingly obey."

"I experience being Muslim and being British not as tension, but as convergence. As the Islamic scholar Umar Faruq Abd-Allah puts it, Islam is the clear water of pure mono­theism, colored by the bedrock of the native soil over which it flows. Life as a Muslim in the West does not consign you to being a diasporic Arab or Desi; it need not produce awkward and anxious suspension between two civilizations. Another scholar, Timothy Winter, sums up my feelings eloquently: “[Islam] is generous and inclusive. It allows us to celebrate our particularity, the genius of our heritage; within, rather than in tension with, the greater and more lasting fellowship of faith.” It is my ardent hope that the cause of God and truth will be served when others, too, come to see this."

Source -Full Article :https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/05/why-i-became-muslim