Al Banna - A call to restore Islam’s golden age

[Blessed]

A call to restore Islam’s golden age

 

Hamida Ghafour

 

Gamal al Banna has been criticised for his views on the status of women in Muslim society. Victoria Hazou for The National

 

CAIRO // At 87 and barely five feet tall, Gamal al Banna is dwarfed by the tottering towers of papers and books on his desk. Despite his age, he remains sharp and gives an erudite opinion on why he believes the Islamic world is stagnant.

 

His main argument is this: Muslims must seek knowledge directly from the Quran instead of accepting unquestioned the writings of ancient jurists and clerics, whose centuries-old interpretations have held back progress in medicine, science and philosophy.

 

“I’m advocating radical change,” he said. “We should understand the Quran from the Quran itself and not through an interpretation.”

 

Mr al Banna is a liberal thinker, but his preoccupation with the role of Islam in public life is more than an academic argument.

 

This week, two key Muslim countries vividly displayed the struggle of Muslims as they try to find Islam’s appropriate role in a modern world.

 

In Pakistan’s Swat valley, Taliban supporters celebrated a truce with the government which allows Sharia law to be established in a former tourist region now overrun with militants burning girls’ schools.

 

Most of the world has expressed concern that Pakistan has given in to the Taliban.

 

There was praise for Saudi Arabia, however, where King Abdullah appointed the first ever woman to the cabinet and replaced a religious leader who recently called for the execution of television executives broadcasting what they said were immoral programmes.

 

Mr al Banna has for the last half century witnessed first-hand the rise of Islamism.

 

He is the brother of the late Hassan al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most influential Islamist movement in modern times and which marked its 80th anniversary last year.

 

Mr al Banna has never been a member of the Brotherhood – he opposes its conservative views – but does have one thing in common with the group: a preoccupation with cultural and economic backwardness in the Islamic world.

 

The long and slow decline of Arab civilisation is the defining paradigm in the region. Academics and intellectuals anxiously debate how to reclaim that golden age between the eighth and 17th centuries when Islamic philosophy, arts and science surpassed anything produced in Christian Europe.

 

The prevailing thinking is that to rejuvenate Islamic civilisation, the clock must be turned back and Muslims must reject the modernity brought by western countries.

 

Among Pakistan’s Taliban supporters, this means the introduction of Sharia law in every aspect of life.

 

But Mr al Banna is part of a small band of Arab intellectuals who believe that the Islamic world needs to radically change the way it approaches Islam by embracing the values of critical thinking and debate that were a hallmark of the ancient Muslim world.

 

“This is precisely what Muslims did during the time of their renaissance before the door of ijtihad was closed,” he said, referring to the act of revising Sharia law to allow Islam to adapt to contemporary times.

 

It is precisely these contrary views that make him both a figure of derision, and one in demand.

 

His views on the status of women and the veil are not typical of prevailing orthodoxy.

 

“It is not an Islamic obligation [to wear the veil], it is an Islamic tradition,” he said. “Three-quarters of the [hadith] relating to women are fabricated. Men and women are equal.”

 

He is equally open-minded on religious freedom and conversion.

 

“The Quran has about 100 verses that call for freedom of belief, that ‘he that follows the right path follows it for his own good and he that goes astray does so at his own peril’.”

 

His opponents dismiss him as liberal, or worse, too western.

 

Mr al Banna’s opinions, outlined in the 30 books and 100 papers he has written over the past half-century certainly set him apart from his family and the prevailing thinking in the region.

 

Islam has no clergy and relies on jurists and clerics to interpret the verses of the Quran and the hadiths. Among the most influential jurists is Ahmad bin Hanbal, who lived in the eighth century and founded an extremely conservative school of Sunni thinking.

 

“Although ancestors like Ahmad bin Hanbal or al Shafiya wanted to serve Islam, they were the result of their age and means of knowledge was little. Although 1,000 years ago it was good, now it is not good,” Mr al Banna said.

 

“Today they [Muslims] don’t know how to use their mind to do something new. This is the idea we say, the call for the revival of Islam. Our Islam is the Islam of our time, the Islam of the Prophet. Their Islam is the Islam of ancestors. As development occurs we have to change accordingly to apply the spirit of Sharia.”

 

He is also philosophical about his late brother’s legacy. Hassan al Banna, influenced by Egypt’s experience with British colonialism, rejected secularisation and wanted to reorganise society along Islamic doctrines. He was assassinated in 1949 for his alleged role in the murder of an Egyptian prime minister.

 

It is difficult to overestimate the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence. It has provided inspiration for various strains of political Islam, from Sayyid Qubt – a Brotherhood member whose writing advocating violence against non-believers influenced al Qa’eda – to Hamas.

 

Mr al Banna is convinced that if his older brother were alive today he would have adapted and moderated his views. “He was very flexible, he spoke in a very democratic way,” he said.

 

“I talked to him about the position of women for example and he’d say, ‘Not now, there will be a time for this’. He was a leader of the masses and had to pay attention to that, and could not move too forward away from them.”

 

 

source

[Hayat]

i don't know this guy had me hanging on a thin edge. just when i thought he hit the nail on the head, he lapses saying something quite contrary.

 

example:

We should understand the Quran from the Quran itself and not through an interpretation.”

 

i agree with this, but isn't different interpretations needed in oder for critical views to be arrived at. Even in the modern world "thinkers" and ancient jurists are needed, to provide a base which can lead to progress.

 

 

This is precisely what Muslims did during the time of their renaissance before the door of ijtihad was closed,” he said, referring to the act of revising Sharia law to allow Islam to adapt to contemporary times.

 

this is true, but i also believe that it should be done by the right people, who are rightfully equipped. Our ancestors have done it right(like Hanbali etc) but in a time of prevailing ignorance how do you ask for radical change when many of us dont even know the quran itself?

 

 

soon enough one would be too flexible and much arrive like him bits of pieces of accuracy but ultimately flawed. somewhat tooo lenient and modernasied. I think with this sort of thinking he is going to ask for the quran to be changed to adapt to this so called "contemporary times".

 

 

The prevailing thinking is that to rejuvenate Islamic civilisation, the clock must be turned back and Muslims must reject the modernity brought by western countries.

i wholly agree with this, but are we not running around in circles? how can you advocate "radical change" and progress to modernity when you are rejecting the very idea. Or is he calling for "muslim-modernity"?