Promises of a Brave New World: Prophecy as Social Criticism and Islamic Liberation

Abstract

The article makes a case for understanding religion as a communitarian discourse and a terrain for social criticism. It challenges the liberal defense of a universal rights discourse as socially alienating, ahistorical and strategically limiting. The argument relies on communitarian critiques of Rawlsian liberalism by foregrounding Michael Walzer’s views on social
critique. Building on the Rawls/Walzer debate the article develops a new communitarian lens to view the Prophet Mohammed as an engaged social critic and prophecy as essentially a communitarian method of social change.