Kashmir College Professor publishes book with Oxford University Press

Srinagar: A college professor from the J&K’s Higher Education Department (JK-HED) has published a book with the Indian branch of the reputed publishing company, Oxford University Press.

The book, authored by Dr Tauseef Ahmad Parray, highlights an emerging discourse in the Islamic political thought, “Islam and Democracy in the 21 st Century”.

Dr. Parray, an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the JK-HED since 2016, is presently posted at GDC Sogam, Kupwara, and hails from south Kashmir’s Tral, Pulwama.

Dr. Parray has done his Masters and PhD from University of Kashmir and Aligarh Muslim University, respectively, and has numerous publications (journal articles, book chapters and essays/reviews) and seven books to his credit.

His major areas of specialization are Islamic political thought, Islam and modernity, Islamic intellectual tradition and Quranic studies.

Spanning over 400-pages, the book offers very “useful discussions in framing the contemporary debates surrounding Islam and democracy”, by treading through “diverse theoretical Islamic texts like the Qur’an, Sunnah and other more contemporary works by eminent scholars” and analysts and activists of the Arab world, sub-continent and the Muslims scholars of the West of the last two-and-half-centuries. It consists of seven chapters and discusses democracy and democratization in the Muslim world, democratic notions in Islam, Islam-democracy discourse (from mid-19 th to 21 st centuries) in the light of both proponents and opponents. It addresses the crucial question: Is Islam compatible with democracy?

The book was announced officially by OUP on 13th September and is currently available on OUP website, Amazon and other online portals (Publisher’s Link; Amazon Link) by publishing this book, Dr Tauseef, in his late 30s, has become one of the youngest academicians of J&K to be published by OUP and thus is a feat attained by a college Professor. It is “a huge accomplishment at such a young age”, said a professor.

The book has endorsements and praise from internationally acclaimed eminent scholars and specialists of Islamic Studies and Islamic political thought from the USA (Professor Asma Afsarudin), Australia (Professor Abdullah Saeed), Qatar (Professor Louay Safi) and Bosnia (Dr. Joseph J. Kaminski).

Furthermore, it has a foreword by Dr. M. A. Muqtedar Khan (an Indian-American Professor and expert on Islam and global affairs at the University of Delaware, USA), who has described it as being “central to Islam and democracy, and any future research on the topic can and should begin with this book”.

The book is a helpful source for the students and scholars of comparative politics and islamic studies, and is equally fascinating for the readers interested in knowing the contemporary political dynamics of the Muslim world.