Citizenship and equity. An excursus within the Nahda between Islamic Pluralism and Religious exclusivism

This analysis seeks to investigate an inconsistency, a seemingly incomprehensible superiority, a clear contradiction which is present alongside a pluralist Islamic eschatological approach, one which was present in the early centuries of Islam just as it is in the contemporary age, and a religious exclusivist attitude, which is seemingly designed to preserve a popular devotion against otherness. However, this introduction doesn’t investigate the different Tafsir’s positions on the Muslims, or on Muslims in the hereafter; on the contrary, it examines the positions of those relevant shuyukh who have adopted an interesting approach concerning the salvation of others. Mohammad Hassan Khalil in Islam and the Fate of Others1 detects in the thought of Al-Ghazali, Ibn ’Arabi, Ibn Taymiyya and Rashid Rida, the beginnings of a theological interpretation of the possibility of Salvation for non-Muslims, and sees this as an indication of a plural and comprehensive Islamic understanding of otherness.