Morality, justice and women's rights: a portrait of Islam for the 21st century

[Caano Geel]

Morality, justice and women's rights: a portrait of Islam for the 21st century

Suna Erdem in Istanbul, February 27, 2008

 

Turkey's highest religious authority is preparing to publish a groundbreaking guide to Islam for the modern world, putting the words of the Prophet Muhammad into context for a sweeping reinterpretation of the religion.

 

The Presidency of Religious Affairs in this Muslim, but strongly secular, country has commissioned a thorough review of the sayings of the Prophet, or the Hadith, which constitute the second most sacred text in the religion after the Koran.

 

“The project takes its inspiration from the interpretations of the modernist vein of Islam,” Professor Mehmet Gormez, vice-president of religious affairs and senior Hadith lecturer at Ankara University, told The Times. “This gets obscured by modern clichés but reinterpretation is actually part of the basic fabric of Islam.”

 

He said that one of the aims was to separate the religion from the traditionalist cultural elements that have long hampered a true vision of Islam. The Hadith guide, to be published as a book this year, would make it much more difficult to justify extreme, misogynistic and violent interpretations of Islam, Professor Gormez said.

 

“We want to bring out the positive side of Islam — that promotes personal honour, human rights, justice, morality, women's rights, respect for the other,” he said. He added that nobody should expect revolutionary new thinking on the issue of women covering their hair in the Muslim manner, for instance. “This is an academic study — one thing you will not see is an attempt to make Islam look cute for the Western world.”

 

The project is a fitting example of how Turkey — a Nato member and European Union candidate run by a pragmatic, free-market-loving government of former political Islamists — has quietly become a laboratory for reinterpreting Islam over the years.

 

Touching on subjects such as women, morals, prayer and Man's relationship to nature, the thousands of Hadith are provided with a context to demonstrate whether they have relevance for today's Muslims, a move unlikely to find favour with hardline “literalists” who believe that the Prophet's 7th-century sayings are a cast-iron guide to life.

 

“Our aim is to present the intentions of the Prophet Muhammad to the people of today in a language they can understand,” Yavuz Unal, who leads the Ankara-based Hadith Project, said. “All the theology professors in Turkey have been invited to contribute and we are talking about 162,000 hadith in existence.”

 

While many sections — including some on women — have yet to be finalised, the more than 10,000 Hadith selected are expected to include sayings showing that religious conversion was tolerated and that its punishment was an irrelevant political sanction. Another Hadith prohibiting women from travelling for more than three days without their husbands, for instance, would be included but with the context that this referred to travelling in caravans of camels or donkeys and was more of a security issue for the time. “Clearly that would not apply to modern travel,” Dr Unal said.

 

While the Justice and Development Party of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan — which was created as a conservative group by moderate Islamists, social liberals and economists — concentrates on issues such as the economy and joining the EU, other institutions and Turkish society are changing the way Islam is lived.

 

Having long ago separated its dislike of usury from the pursuit of business profit, a large group of devout businessmen have made themselves an important force in the growth of Turkey as an emerging markets financial powerhouse. In tandem an Islamic bourgeoisie has been created in recent years, leading to a fundamental shift in a secular society where previously a Western-looking, strongly secularist elite, backed by the military, was the only dominant force.

 

A feminisation of the male-dominated world of Islamic preachers is also taking place with the appointment of women vaize, or senior imams, who appeal directly to women and condemn tradition-based practices such as the “honour killing” of women.

 

“There is a big misunderstanding in the West of Islam as simply an Arab religion, and Turkish scholarship can become overlooked. Yet for the understanding of Islam, Turkey is an incredible laboratory,” Taha Akyol, a political commentator, said. “A revolution is taking place here. In other countries you have reform of Islam pushed through by despotic or modernist regimes but in Turkey you are seeing the reform taking place in the middle classes. And that is real reform.”

[N.O.R.F]

I’m ever more impressed with the Turks these days. Lets hope a thorough report aimed at providing ‘understanding’ is produced and not one hoping to simply appease.

 

Should be interesting to read when issued.

[Geel_jire]

^ I dont seem too hopeful but will hold back on judging until it is released.

 

“We want to bring out the positive side of Islam — that promotes personal honour, human rights, justice, morality, women's rights, respect for the other,”

the religion is completet does not need modernizing or updating, it's principles hold true for all time and places.

 

I find it arrogant to the point of Kufr, that someone thinks he/she can improve on what Allah has set down and the prophet has narrated to us, do they somehow think that Allah and his messenger did not plan ahead ??? or foresee the new technological/social problems that would be introduced in the future.

 

I'm just ranting cuz I read a BS paper a while back written by a so called sheikh about modernizing islam, but will wait and see what these guys have to offer.

[N.O.R.F]

After reading another article in the Islam section I'm tempted to retract my earlier statement.

[-Lily-]

Geel jire, whilst I think 'modernizing' is a shifty phrase when applied to religion I don't see anything wrong with promoting the goodness of the faith, which may help other Muslims better themselves.

[Geel_jire]

you are right, but my comment was with regard to people who choose to follow only parts of the religion that appeals to them and apologize for and make excuses for parts which they don't like personally.

 

The paper I mentioned was about a local sheik who took issue with 'Qisaas' and 'Xad' saying things like it is outdated, it is not of this time.

 

I dont expect anything positive when i see Islam + 21st centry + women rights together in a title but i may be wrong .......... let's wait n see

[Che -Guevara]

A Saudi kid in my class was making a presentation about women's right to employement in Saudi Arabia. As it is always the case, some one brought the issue of woman not being allowed to drive. The kid asserted that under Islam women are indeed not allowed to drive. Our professor jumped into the fray and countered by pointing out that they were no cars 14 hundred years ago. Seeing the silliness in the kid's argument, a white kid joined the rackus and ridiculed the Saudi kid by coming in with camel joke and proceeded to say "maybe they weren't allowed to ride camels back in the day". Instead of elaborating on the issue and make solid argument for his stance, the Saudi just relented and with no sense of sagaciousness passively agreed with old steroetype. He contended that the Quran and the Prophet (PBUH) banned women from riding camels and cars. And then argument turned on the kind person the Prophet was,and started explaining the life of the prophet and he started with this following line, " Mohammed (PHUB) was the son of God". That was the last straw. I had to rudely jumped in, and I spent the rest of his presentation time explaing Islam. Eventually the teacher had to cut us off so others could do their presentations. The point here, before we even talk about "modernising" Islam, one has to first know and understand the basic fundemental principles of their religion.

[Socod_badne]

What exactly is wrong with saying muslim women can travel without their husbands or FGM is not sanctioned by Islam?

[chubacka]

^ very true, we all have an obligation to know about our religion because we are seen, willing or not as spokespeople for it.

 

The worrying thing is that there is an agenda behind this revision which is to make Islam more modern and acceptable to the ppl of today. Jst tell ppl what they want to hear, and say everything not politically correct is an misinterpretaion/understanding.

 

Let the hadith be reinterpreted (if need be) by scholars with no political motives, not by a country with a very strained relationship with its own faith.

 

we shall see what they come up with an how its viewed by the rest of the muslim world.