Enter the following into google & google news and you get….
Islamic Enlightenment-85,800 results / Islamic Enlightenment-44 news stories
Islamic Reformation-58,200 / Islamic Reformation-33 news stories
The "Reformation" hits for the news stories often dealt with Irshad Manji’s book. But in any case, it seemed that the "Islamic Enlightenment" hits were usually due to the words Islamic & enlightenment being on the same page (though not always), while the phrase "Islamic Reformation" is in pretty wide usage as a duet.
I think that this is interesting in light the following comment by Diana:
However…I find this phenomenon of Islamic freethinkers/apostates/what-have-you’s fascinating. It’s kind of like what the Jews went thru in the 19th century. Freed from the ghetto and pouring into the universities in one generation. Educated daughters of illiterate mothers. And so on. We are seeing the same thing, but on a more gigantic scale, because there are so many more Muslims.
While I have heard of the Jewish Enlightenment (the Haskalah), I rarely hear of the "Jewish Reformation." Though Hasidism and Reform Judaism might be conceived as "Reform" Jewish traditions[1], it seems that Jews have succumbed to secularism (or been liberated by) to a greater degree than Christians.
This might be the result of the special nature of the Jewish people. But, I would like to note that there are many similarities between traditional Jewish practice & Muslim practice. Jews & Muslims, less Hellenized than Christians, have always emphasized orthopraxy over orthodoxy (right practice rather than right belief). Sharia ~ Halakhah, Halal ~ Kosher, etc. It seems that the popular conceptions of religious change in Islam look to Christianity, but one might find the Jewish experience instructive as well….
More later.
fn1. Lutheranism and many of the Protestant Reformations yearned for a more primitive Christianity, less sullied by pagan accretions, whether in ritual or thought. Sola Scriptura and Justification by Faith alone. Hasidism to me more resembles Pietism and Reform Judaism seems like some of the more de-racinated forms of liberal Protestanism, despite their protests that they look back to pre-Pharisaic Judaism (Reform Jews ~ Christians with curly hair?).
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