Many scholars of Islam are interested in creating a liberal, inclusive, pluralistic, feminist, and modern version of the religion that they believe to be explicit in the pages of the Quran, but missed by earlier interpreters. In so doing, they create good Islam and, in the process, seek to define what does and does not get to count as authentic. As the purveyors of what they now believe to be veritable Islam, they subsequently claim that rival presentations are bastardizations based either on Orientalism and Islamophobia (if one is a non-Muslim) or misogyny and homophobia (if one is a Muslim that disagrees with them). Instead of engaging in critical scholarship, they engage in a constructive and theological project that they deceive themselves into thinking is both analytical and empirical. This book provides a hard-hitting examination of the spiritual motivations, rhetorical moves, and political implications associated with these apologetical discourses. It argues that what is at stake is relevance, and examines the consequences of engaging in mythopoesis as opposed to scholarship.
Aaron W. Hughes holds the Philip S. Bernstein Chair in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester. He is the author 10 books and over 50 articles and book chapters.
"Aaron Hughes's Islam and the Tyranny of Authenticity is but the most recent of his ongoing efforts to invite scholars of Islam to see their object of study as no more or less human than any other, suggesting that their methods should not only be comparable to those found in other sub-specialties but also that their field can be the beneficiary of advances that have taken place elsewhere." --Russell T. McCutcheon, University of Alabama

Aaron W Hughes