EXPLORING ISLAM IN A NEW LIGHT: An Understanding from the Quranic Perspective - Tapa blanda

This Islam is spiritual, humane, and scientific, far from its fanatic and militant image it carries in the West. It shows how man can evolve spiritually to lead an enriched, progressive, and blissful life. It advocates tolerance and peaceful co-existence and disapproves of gender or human discrimination and harsh punishments. Abdur Rab argues that, regrettably, the Hadith undermines and misrepresents Islam. Numerous Hadith texts contradict the Quran, reason, and science and send conflicting, confusing messages. The criteria used to authenticate the Hadith are flawed and simply inadequate.

This book is an impassioned call to understand Islam solely in Quranic terms and to reform practiced Islam, distorted by Hadith-based ideas.

Abdur Rab graduated with Honors, and received his Master's degree from Dhaka University.and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He has had a long career in economic research and consulting analyzing various public policy issues ranging from public resource mobilization to industrial development and trade policy reform, while serving the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan and the Bangladesh and former undivided Pakistan governments, and various international organizations. He served the Pakistan Tariff Commission as a Member, and the Bangladesh Planning Commission as a Section Chief and a senior Consultant. He worked as an Industrial Development Officer with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Vienna. He worked as a financial adviser for the government of Uganda under a World Bank assignment, and as a senior industrial economist for the Qatar government under a UNIDO assignment. Under a UNDP assignment, he contributed to part of a business plan for a trade and development bank of the Economic Co-operation Organization (whose founding members are Iran, Turkey and Pakistan). He also worked on various development projects of Bangladesh supported by donor agencies such as the World Bank, USAID and the Asian Development Bank. He also did some consulting as an agricultural trade specialist for the US-based International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC).Abdur Rab grew up in a traditional Bengali Muslim family. Since his school days, he has been devoted to religion. A turning point in his religious approach came when he came in contact with a virtually unknown but versatile Bengali spiritual guide Shah Aksaruddin Ahmad who possessed deep Quranic and spiritual knowledge. Under his guidance, Abdur received some preliminary lessons in spiritual exercises. Inspired by him, Abdur closely studied the Quran and the Hadith and relevant Islamic literature of modern scholars. Born in Bangladesh, he lives in the Un