Rethinking Islam

[-Serenity-]

Rethinking Islam

 

By Professor Ziauddin Sardar

 

Serious rethinking within Islam is long overdue. Muslims have been comfortably relying, or rather falling back, on age-old interpretations for much too long.

 

This is why we feel so painful in the contemporary world, so uncomfortable with modernity. Scholars and thinkers have been suggesting for well over a century that we need to make a serious attempt at Ijtihad, at reasoned struggle and rethinking, to reform Islam. At the beginning of the last century, Jamaluddin Afghani and Mohammad Abduh led the call for a new Ijtihad; and along the way many notable intellectuals, academics and sages have added to this plea - not least Mohammad Iqbal, Malik bin Nabbi and Abdul Qadir Audah. Yet, ijtihad is one thing Muslim societies have singularly failed to undertake. Why?

 

The why has now acquired an added urgency. Just look around the Muslim world and see how far we have travelled away from the ideals and spirit of Islam. Far from being a liberating force, a kinetic social, cultural and intellectual dynamics for equality, justice and humane values, Islam seems to have acquired a pathological strain. Indeed, it seems to me that we have internalised all those historic and contemporary western representations of Islam and Muslims that have been demonising us for centuries. We now actually wear the garb, I have to confess, of the very demons that the West has been projecting on our collective personality.

 

But to blame the West, or a notion of instrumental modernity that is all but alien to us, would be a lazy option. True, the West, and particularly America, has a great deal to answer for. And Muslims are quick to point a finger at the injustices committed by American and European foreign policies and hegemonic tendencies. However, that is only a part, and in my opinion not an insurmountable part, of the malaise. Hegemony is not always imposed; sometimes, it is invited. The internal situation within Islam is an open invitation.

 

We have failed to respond to the summons to Ijtihad for some very profound reasons. Prime amongst these is the fact that the context of our sacred texts – the Qur’an and the examples of the Prophet Muhammad, our absolute frame of reference – has been frozen in history. One can only have an interpretative relationship with a text – even more so if the text is perceived to be eternal. But if the interpretative context of the text is never our context, not our own time, then its interpretation can hardly have any real meaning or significance for us as we are now. Historic interpretations constantly drag us back to history, to frozen and ossified context of long ago; worse, to perceived and romanticised contexts that have not even existed in history. This is why while Muslims have a strong emotional attachment to Islam, Islam per se, as a worldview and system of ethics, has little or no direct relevance to their daily lives apart from the obvious concerns of rituals and worship. Ijtihad and fresh thinking have not been possible because there is no context within which they can actually take place.

 

The freezing of interpretation, the closure of ‘the gates of ijtihad’, has had a devastating effect on Muslim thought and action. In particular, it has produced what I can only describe as three metaphysical catastrophes: the elevation of the Shari`ah to the level of the Divine, with the consequent removal of agency from the believers, and the equation of Islam with the State. Let me elaborate.

 

Most Muslims consider the Shari`ah, commonly translated as ‘Islamic law’, to be divine. Yet, there is nothing divine about the Shari`ah. The only thing that can legitimately be described as divine in Islam is the Qur’an. The Shari`ah is a human construction; an attempt to understand the divine will in a particular context. This is why the bulk of the Shari`ah actually consists of fiqh or jurisprudence, which is nothing more than legal opinion of classical jurists. The very term fiqh was not in vogue before the Abbasid period when it was actually formulated and codified. But when fiqh assumed its systematic legal form, it incorporated three vital aspects of Muslim society of the Abbasid period. At that juncture, Muslim history was in its expansionist phase, and fiqh incorporated the logic of Muslim imperialism of that time. The fiqh rulings on apostasy, for example, derive not from the Qur'an but from this logic. Moreover, the world was simple and could easily be divided into black and white: hence, the division of the world into Daral Islam and Daral Harb. Furthermore, as the framers of law were not by this stage managers of society, the law became merely theory which could not be modified - the framers of the law were unable to see where the faults lay and what aspect of the law needed fresh thinking and reformulation. Thus fiqh, as we know it today, evolved on the basis of a division between those who were governing and set themselves apart from society and those who were framing the law; the epistemological assumptions of a ‘golden’ phase of Muslim history also came into play. When we describe the Shari`ah as divine, we actually provide divine sanctions for the rulings of by-gone fiqh.

 

What this means in reality is that when Muslim countries apply or impose the Shari`ah – the demands of Muslims from Indonesia to Nigeria - the contradictions that were inherent in the formulation and evolution of fiqh come to the fore. That is why wherever the Shari`ah is imposed – that is, fiqhi legislation is applied, out of context from the time when it was formulated and out of step with ours - Muslim societies acquire a medieval feel. We can see that in Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and the Taliban of Afghanistan. When narrow adherence to fiqh, to the dictates of this or that school of thought, whether it has any relevance to real world or not, becomes the norm, ossification sets in. The Shari`ah will solve all our problems becomes the common sentiment; and it becomes necessary for a group with vested interest in this notion of the Shari`ah to preserve its territory, the source of its power and prestige, at all costs. An outmoded body of law is thus equated with the Shari`ah, and criticism is shunned and outlawed by appealing to its divine nature.

 

The elevation of the Shari`ah to the divine level also means the believers themselves have no agency: since The Law is a priori given people themselves have nothing to do expect to follow it. Believers thus become passive receivers rather than active seekers of truth. In reality, the Shari`ah is nothing more than a set of principles, a framework of values, that provide Muslim societies with guidance. But these sets of principles and values are not a static given but are dynamically derived within changing contexts. As such, the Shari`ah is a problem-solving methodology rather than law. It requires the believers to exert themselves and constantly reinterpret the Qur’an and look at the life of the Prophet Muhammad with ever changing fresh eyes. Indeed, the Qur’an has to be reinterpreted from epoch to epoch – which means the Shari`ah, and by extension Islam itself, has to be reformulated with changing contexts. The only thing that remains constant in Islam is the text of the Qur’an itself – its concepts providing the anchor for ever changing interpretations.

 

Islam is not so much a religion but an integrative worldview: that is to say, it integrates all aspects of reality by providing a moral perspective on every aspect of human endeavour. Islam does not provide ready-made answers to all human problems; it provides a moral and just perspective within which Muslims must endeavour to find answers to all human problems. But if everything is a priori given, in the shape of a divine Shari`ah, then Islam is reduced to a totalistic ideology. Indeed, this is exactly what the Islamic movements – in particularly Jamaat-e-Islami (both Pakistani and Indian varieties) and the Muslim Brotherhood – have reduced Islam to. Which brings me to the third metaphysical catastrophe. Place this ideology within a nation state, with divinely attributed Shari`ah at its centre, and you have an ‘Islamic state’. All contemporary ‘Islamic states’, from Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan to aspiring Pakistan, are based on this ridiculous assumption. But once Islam, as an ideology, becomes a programme of action of a vested group, it looses its humanity and becomes a battlefield where morality, reason and justice are readily sacrificed at the alter of emotions. Moreover, the step from a totalistic ideology to a totalitarian order where every human-situation is open to state-arbitration is a small one. The transformation of Islam into a state-based political ideology not only deprives it of its all moral and ethical content, it also debunks most of Muslim history as un-Islamic. Invariably, when Islamists rediscover a ‘golden’ past, they do so only in order to disdain the present and mock the future. All we are left with is messianic chaos, as we saw so vividly in the Taliban regime, where all politics as the domain of action is paralysed and meaningless pieties become the foundational truth of the state.

 

The totalitarian vision of Islam as a State thus transforms Muslim politics into a metaphysics: in such an enterprise, every action can be justified as ‘Islamic’ by the dictates of political expediency as we witnessed in revolutionary Iran.

 

The three metaphysical catastrophes are accentuated by an overall process of reduction that has become the norm in Muslim societies. The reductive process itself is also not new; but now it has reached such an absurd state that the very ideas that are supposed to take Muslims societies towards humane values now actually take them in the opposite direction. From the subtle beauty of a perennial challenge to construct justice through mercy and compassion, we get mechanistic formulae fixated with the extremes repeated by people convinced they have no duty to think for themselves because all questions have been answered for them by the classical `ulamas, far better men long dead. And because everything carries the brand name of Islam, to question it, or argue against it, is tantamount to voting for sin.

 

The process of reduction started with the very notion of `alim (scholar) itself. Just who is an `alim; what makes him an authority? In early Islam, an `alim was anyone who acquired `ilm, or knowledge, which was itself described in a broad sense. We can see that in the early classifications of knowledge by such scholars as al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali and Ibn Khuldun. Indeed, both the definition of knowledge and its classification was a major intellectual activity in classical Islam. So all learned men, scientists as well as philosophers, scholars as well as theologians, constituted the `ulama. But after the ‘gates of ijtihad’ were closed during the Abbasid era, ilm was increasingly reduced to religious knowledge and the `ulama came to constitute only religious scholars.

 

Similarly, the idea of ijma, the central notion of communal life in Islam, has been reduced to the consensus of a select few. Ijma literally means consensus of the people. The concept dates back to the practice of Prophet Muhammad himself as leader of the original polity of Muslims. When the Prophet Muhammad wanted to reach a decision, he would call the whole Muslim community – then, admittedly not very large – to the mosque. A discussion would ensue; arguments for and against would be presented. Finally, the entire gathering would reach a consensus. Thus, a democratic spirit was central to communal and political life in early Islam. But over time the clerics and religious scholars have removed the people from the equation – and reduced ijma to ‘the consensus of the religious scholars’. Not surprisingly, authoritarianism, theocracy and despotism reigns supreme in the Muslim world. The political domain finds its model in what has become the accepted practice and metier of the authoritatively ‘religious’ adepts, those who claim the monopoly of exposition of Islam. Obscurantist Mullahs, in the guise of the `ulama, dominate Muslim societies and circumscribe them with fanaticism and absurdly reductive logic.

 

Numerous other concepts have gone through similar process of reduction. The concept of Ummah, the global spiritual community of Muslims, has been reduced to the ideals of a nation state: ‘my country right or wrong’ has been transpose to read ‘my Ummah right or wrong’. So even despots like Saddam Hussein are now defended on the basis of ‘Ummah consciousness’ and ‘unity of the Ummah’. Jihad has now been reduced to the single meaning of ‘Holy War’. This translation is perverse not only because the concept’s spiritual, intellectual and social components have been stripped away, but it has been reduced to war by any means, including terrorism. So anyone can now declare jihad on anyone, without any ethical or moral rhyme or reason. Nothing could be more perverted, or pathologically more distant from the initial meaning of jihad. It’s other connotations, including personal struggle, intellectual endeavour, and social construction have all but evaporated. Istislah, normally rendered as ‘public interest’ and a major source of Islamic law, has all but disappeared from Muslim consciousness. And Ijtihad, as I have suggested, has now been reduced to little more than a pious desire.

 

But the violence performed to sacred Muslim concepts is insignificant compared to the reductive way the Qur’an and the sayings and examples of the Prophet Muhammad are brandied about. What the late Muslim scholar, Fazlur Rahman called the ‘atomistic’ treatment of the Qur’an is now the norm: almost anything and everything is justified by quoting individual bits of verses out of context. After the September 11 event, for example, a number of Taliban supporters, including a few in Britain, justified their actions by quoting the following verse: ‘We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. They serve other gods for whom no sanction has been revealed. Hell shall be their home’ (3: 149). Yet, the apparent meaning attributed to this verse could not be further from the true spirit of the Qur’an. In this particular verse, the Qur’an is addressing Prophet Muhammad himself. It was revealed during the battle of Uhud, when the small and ill equipped army of the Prophet, faced a much larger and well-equipped enemy. He was concerned about the outcome of the battle. The Qur’an reassures him and promises the enemy will be terrified with the Prophet’s unprofessional army. Seen in its context, it is not a general instruction to all Muslims; but a commentary on what was happening at that time. Similarly hadiths are quoted to justify the most extremes of behaviour. And the Prophet’s own appearance, his beard and cloths, have been turned into a fetish: so now it is not just obligatory for a ‘good Muslim’ to have a beard, but its length and shape must also conform to dictates! The Prophet has been reduced to signs and symbols – the spirit of his behaviour, the moral and ethical dimensions of his actions, his humility and compassion, the general principles he advocated have all been subsumed by the logic of absurd reduction.

 

The accumulative effect of the metaphysical catastrophes and endless reduction has transformed the cherished tenants of Islam into instruments of militant expediency and moral bankruptcy. For over two decades, in books like The Future of Muslim Civilisation (1979) and Islamic Futures: The Shape of Ideas to Come (1985), I have been arguing that Muslim civilisation is now so fragmented and shattered that we have to rebuild it, ‘brick by brick’. It is now obvious that Islam itself has to be rethought, idea by idea. We need to begin with the simple fact that Muslims have no monopoly on truth, on what is right, on what is good, on justice, nor the intellectual and moral reflexes that promote these necessities. Like the rest of humanity, we have to struggle to achieve them using our own sacred notions and concepts as tools for understanding and reshaping contemporary reality.

 

The way to a fresh, contemporary appreciation of Islam requires confronting the metaphysical catastrophes and moving away from reduction to synthesis. Primarily, this requires Muslims, as individuals and communities, to reclaim agency: to insist on their right and duty, as believers and knowledgeable people, to interpret and reinterpret the basic sources of Islam: to question what now goes under the general rubric of Shari`ah, to declare that much of fiqh is now dangerously obsolete, to stand up to the absurd notion of an Islam confined by a geographically bound state. We cannot, if we really value our faith, leave its exposition in the hands of under educated elites, religious scholars whose lack of comprehension of the contemporary world is usually matched only by their disdain and contempt for all its ideas and cultural products. Islam has been permitted to languish as the professional domain of people more familiar with the world of the eleventh century than the twenty-first century we now inhabit. And we cannot allow this class to bury the noble idea of Ijtihad into frozen and distant history.

 

Ordinary Muslims around the world who have concerns, questions and considerable moral dilemmas about the current state of affairs of Islam must reclaim the basic concepts of Islam and reframe them in a broader context. Ijma must mean consensus of all citizens leading to participatory and accountable governance. Jihad must be understood in its complete spiritual meaning as the struggle for peace and justice as a lived reality for all people everywhere. And the notion of the Ummah must be refined so it becomes something more than a mere reductive abstraction. As Anwar Ibrahim has argued, the Ummah is not ‘merely the community of all those who profess to be Muslims’; rather, it is a ‘moral conception of how Muslims should become a community in relation to each other, other communities and the natural world’. Which means Ummah incorporates not just the Muslims, but justice seeking and oppressed people everywhere. In a sense, the movement towards synthesis is an advance towards the primary meaning and message of Islam – as a moral and ethical way of looking and shaping the world, as a domain of peaceful civic culture, a participatory endeavour, and a holistic mode of knowing, being and doing.

[Haddad]

This part of the article:

All contemporary ‘Islamic states’, from Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan to aspiring Pakistan

clashes with this part:

Not surprisingly, authoritarianism, theocracy and despotism reigns supreme in the Muslim world.

How much size do Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan & Pakistan constitute in the Muslim world? Pakistan could hardly be called of the contemporary ‘Islamic states’. So is Sudan. Much of the Muslim world's leaders & governments are based on secularism. What has led authoritarianism and despotism to reign in the Muslim world is secularism. Theocracy doesn't reign supreme in the Muslim world; a simple fact like that isn't hard to miss.

 

What the author, using a long route, aided by shiny & made-to-impress terms, is trying to say is: Islam has to be reformed the way other religions (namely Christianity) have been reformed, in order to be considered a civilized religion, and in order for Muslims to catch up with the civilized world. But, what he neglected to note is, much of the leaders/governments of the Muslim world didn't or do not use Islam in a significant way- yet, it didn't lead them to catch up with the civilized world.

[Nur]

A great read, in the mind of Prof Zardar.

 

The Prof has made some good observation, his intentions seem to be for the good of our faith, his opinion is open for interpretation though.

 

Does Islam has to be "Reworked again"

 

A problem that affects Muslims who were born in non Muslim majority countries is the adoption of the thinkng of their host countries.

 

Being born in UK, and briefly working in Saudi, with all its good and bad aspects like any other country, the Prof. draws a mental picture, with an Islamic paint brush on a Western canvas .

 

There is no doubt that Muslim ummah is in sick condition, in many aspects, I agree with the Prof on that, however, their "sickness" is drawn from their collective defficieny in the application of the Sharia, not from there failure to modernise the Sharia, because, the Sharia is not grown in vaccuum, it must be applied on real cases and accepted by the adherents of the faith, it is the dynamic interpretation of the devine teachings in the Quraan and the Sunnah. But unlike Christianity which never developed a similar code, the Sharia which literally means the law, is the collection of the Devine rulings and the Prophetic directives in cases related to the interaction of the faithful with their lives, business and personal relationship, thus, the legislator is Allah SWT through His Prophet. So, in Islam, we have Jurists ( Fuqaha) but not legislators, as that was done with by Allah SWT.

 

The moral of the Sharia is Preservation of:

 

1. Faith

2. Life

3. Property

4. Family, decendants ( NASL)

5. Mind

 

 

These never change, any development in Sharia that threatens the above is against the moral of the Deen, thus unacceptable.

 

The author claims that Sharia is not devine, so, its can be changed at will to fit our needs. This is gross over simplication: Allah SWT says in Quraan: " Thumma jacalnaaka calaa Shariicatin minal amri fattabichaa, wa laa tattabic ahwaa a alladheena laa yaclamuun " meaning " Thus we ordered you ( O Muhammad) to follow a law, so follow it, and do not follow the desires of those who know not "

 

So it is true that the Sharia as a code, it is not a God ( devine) but it is a law from God, which mustr be adhered to and followed.

 

As life progresses it becomes complicated, and I agree that we as Muslims must always find a solution in the Sharia, the tricky part here were the Prof takes a nose dive is that when the Sharia and our interests diverge, which one should be held constant and which one should be changed? unlike the American constitution that endured over 200 years without a major change, the Sharia, the oldest applied code in the history of humanity, is sound and kicking, what id needs is our modification of our lifestyles to adapt to the sharia, not the otehr way around, Alcohol will never be made halaal, and premarital sex will never be accepted, nor Soddomy marraiages like the modern society has come to accept.

 

I understand the frustration of generations of Muslims who grew up in the west, being torn between the yearning of the good life in the west on one hand, and the testing demands islam as a faith demands from the faithful.

 

From time immomorial, Moses and his followers suffered injustices and redicule, so was Jesus and Muhammad, if the life of this world and its enjoyment alone is the call of our faith, then I would have to agree with the prof. on his logic of modernization of the Sharia, if on the otherhand, we condider this life as the first half of a game, than, rules are rules, playing here means paying there and vice versa, Islam ( austere submission to God ) is not fun here, but it leads to eternal happiness in the hereafter, I know of no scripture, Torah, Gospel or Quraan that negates that statement.

 

Nur

[Medley of extemporanea]

This guy is another one of those people that blame everything problem any Muslim has on Islam. All Muslims aren’t the same and all their problems aren’t the same.

 

This guy thinks the problem all Muslims face is Islam.

 

The problems effecting some muslim societies is not with Islam, it’s that they don’t follow Islamic principles in their lives.

 

“Serious rethinking within Islam is long overdue. Muslims have been comfortably relying, or rather falling back, on age-old interpretations for much too long.

 

This is why we feel so painful in the contemporary world, so uncomfortable with modernity. Scholars and thinkers have been suggesting for well over a century that we need to make a serious attempt at Ijtihad, at reasoned struggle and rethinking, to reform Islam.â€

 

I think that’s missing the point.

 

Take the Somali people for example. I think the fundamental problems facing Somali society can be solved by apply the most basic and elementary Islamic ideals. One of example, which I think if it was applied would have greatly improved my life and the life of my family and countless other Somali is the principle of not killing other people and loot their property, another is that social interaction be governed by rule of law and justice. The situation of the Somali people would be greatly improved by applying basic Islamic principle.

 

“Yet, ijtihad is one thing Muslim societies have singularly failed to undertake. Why?â€

 

We are not even following the most elementary principles, how can we be pursuing issues that require Ijtihad?

 

I ask, what are the issues which we face that require new ideas which are not a symptom of our neglecting fundamental Islamic principles?

 

“Far from being a liberating force, a kinetic social, cultural and intellectual dynamics for equality, justice and humane values, Islam seems to have acquired a pathological strain.â€

 

How dare you Mr. Sardar! Everywhere I look in the world, I see problems which have their root in the failure to apply Islamic principles.

 

“This is why while Muslims have a strong emotional attachment to Islam, Islam per se, as a worldview and system of ethics, has little or no direct relevance to their daily lives apart from the obvious concerns of rituals and worship. Ijtihad and fresh thinking have not been possible because there is no context within which they can actually take place.â€

 

What are problem for which Islam is not giving him an answer? What is that he needs to reinterpret?

 

What pressing issue of social which requires Ijtihad is causing us to “feel so painful in the contemporary world, so uncomfortable with modernity†Mr. Sardar?

 

And he says “From the subtle beauty of a perennial challenge to construct justice through mercy and compassion, we get mechanistic formulae fixated with the extremes repeated by people convinced they have no duty to think for themselves because all questions have been answered for them by the classical `ulamas, far better men long dead. And because everything carries the brand name of Islam, to question it, or argue against it, is tantamount to voting for sin.†What things which carry the ‘band name of Islam’ is he talking about?

[NGONGE]

And yet, despite all of that, he still makes many good points. Watching contemporary Islam is like being caught between the rock of reformation and the hard place of conservatism. Neither side is willing to give an inch.

 

 

The good news is that Islam today is under the control of the rigid dogmatists. They’re not very nice bosses to have. They order one about and all their conversations are mostly littered with the words YES and NO, with more of the latter than the former. They preach a version of Islam that’s full of anger and fury. They point to and accuse those that are different to them. They see a heretic in every shadow and behind every wall. They honourably remind Muslims of their duties to Allah. Sometimes, they forcefully remind people of their duties to Allah. They carry lists of groups of Muslims whom they deem deviant! Some get so consumed by such trivial pastimes that they forget their original intention and, instead, spend their time trying to prove the deviancy of abovementioned groups .

 

But, all is not lost. The good thing about our conservative brothers is that they try to stay close to the essence of Islam. Though they habitually err, though the more they zealously resist the more they move away from the original message, and despite the occasional deviancy, they still remain the closet thing to the spirit of Islam. One hopes that with more awareness and more reflection most of these (well meaning) zealots will eventually loosen up.

 

The bad news is that the number of reformists is on the rise! They’re everywhere and are commenting on all Islamic issues. In the recent past, most of the Muslim world was shielded and isolated from the glare of such reformers. Books, magazines and publications that carried any ideas that were incompatible with Islamic doctrine were banned. Individuals that spread any thoughts that were contradictory to Islam were jailed (or killed). The Islamic world (at least in relation to matters of faith) was inward looking and insular. Nothing was allowed to penetrate or question the traditional idea of Islam. There was nothing there to challenge the faith, and as a result, there was hardly anything there to rationally defend it. The people (and governments) got used to the easy way of beating others into submission (see our brothers in Saudia Arabia who are not police officers yet still beat up people for the tiniest assumed lapse).

 

The BAD news is that the number of reformists is on the RISE! With the introduction of Satellite Television and the Internet, their reach has become limitless and unrestricted! The conservatives are fighting a losing battle. Even if the conservatives somehow contrive to win, it will simply be a Pyrrhic Victory! The end result is likely to be something the reformists (such as the author of the article above) would love.

 

The curious thing about most Muslim ‘moderates’ and ‘reformists’ is that many of them are really not that knowledgeable about Islam. A substantial number simply started off by having their queries ignored, crushed or ridiculed. Many of them have a grievance against Islam (or, for the pedants here, the conservative elements in Islam). What is even more curious is the large number of self-appointed Mullahs who are no better (knowledge-wise) than these ignorant reformers. Should one pose a question to either of these groups (regardless of their level of knowledge) all would volunteer with a juicy answer. While the reformists are calling for a new interpretation of the Koran, many ‘conservatives’ are already doing that in their attempts to rebuff the reformists!

 

Many Muslims (liberals and conservatives) are offended and upset by comments such as “ there is a problem with Islam†or “Islam needs to changeâ€! They resolutely argue that the problem is not with Islam but Muslims! The Muslims they speak about of course (the ones with the problem), are not they. It’s other Muslims! Ones that live in far away lands and give Islam a bad name (bad bad people). They interpret the religion wrong, you see. Islam is PERFECT it’s the interpretation that is not. Yes, yes, it’s the interpretation.

 

This is the shallow end of any argument about Islam. Every imbecile can safely join this argument. Islam is from Allah; Allah is the creator of the whole entire universe; Allah is perfect; All Allah’s creations are perfect; Islam is perfect. When you say there is a problem with Islam you imply (god forbid) a fault with Allah! For a simplistic pedant, this is the best style of argument to have. No believing Muslim could possibly carry on with such an argument you see, ergo certain win. But, does it deal with the point about there being a problem with Islam?

 

 

As time goes on, people will find more and more articles like the one written above. Simple brush-offs and dismissals will not suffice. I personally, despite not being in total agreement with him, enjoyed reading this article and did not find many flaws in the professor’s logic. There is a heavy liberal tint in his words that I don’t feel comfortable with but I have to admit that he presents powerful arguments. Such arguments will have to be tackled and dealt with sooner or later.

 

The price of not responding to such fierce (and fair) criticism of Islam is immeasurable - though it’s safe to say it’s likely to involve more erosion of Islamic values, how more, is anybody’s guess.

[xiinfaniin]

We (as Muslims) are in a testing times. That we desperately need reform and change is patently obvious reality and self-evident truth. How and what should we do to embark on this much needed reform is the question of our time. It’s here where ideas diverge and thoughts wander. As many of you probably did, I have given this issue serious thought. There is nothing wrong with Islam at all! The problem is not with Islam and it remains intact and integral; its articles of faith unbroken, its system of justice wholly superior, and its reservoir of universal values forever kept. The beauty of Islam is its originality and it will remain under God’s divine guard. When one suggests that there is a problem with Islam it must mean what it says which is utterly wrong. There is no two ways about it; a broken argument which a good Muslim can’t be neutral about. It’s even worse when one proposes specific reforms to transform Islam and attempts to alter its message; a futile effort that is bound to fail.

 

Now I can easily agree that Muslims need be reformed and renewed. We need to go back to our roots and understand the fundaments of our religion. We need to understand the nature of our problems and device a workable solution for it. Our problems are manifolds indeed. In a one level it seems that we’ve forgotten the concept of Ummah; we don’t feel the pain of our fellow Muslims and we’ve adopted the ways of thinking of our adopted countries (those who are in the west) and see things through lenses of our interests. As the result of that attitude, we’ve become segmented and fragmented Ummah.

 

In another level, we’re consumed with politics and blinded by its overwhelming effects. The hatred of others seems to have cloaked our sense of justice; it determines how we react and revenge, through it we justify our deeds and explain away things, and it become the scale of our thinking. To day, we are so angry that we don’t know what we doing and neither can we decide what course we should take so we can remedy our problem. Angry people, as Mahathir said, can’t make right decisions. We are all confused. Even in these wars of aggression, some of us are asking which side we should take! We feel exploited and wrongfully labeled. Look at the Muslims of Britain who’re wronged and put on the defense; the ceaseless apologies, the pledges of cooperation, and the whole scheme of guilty by association; a wicked concept that thrives in the west.

 

But it needs not be so. It must be in the domain of common sense that Islam is a global religion and Muslims are mortal sinners. When one of them sets a bomb off, it should not compel the rest to state the obvious and issue apologies. Press conferences should not be held do tell the world that Islam is against violence and does not condone it. That Muslims are not all terrorists. It is really sickening and ridiculous.

 

The invasions of Muslim lands, exploiting Muslim resources, keeping and supporting oppressive Muslim regimes and denying millions of Muslims the right to choose their leaders had been and still is the doings of the west; a consequential policy whose fruits we are all harvesting.

Muslims had been under the big guns of the west for a prolonged period of time. Colonized and humiliated. Enslaved and exploited. There are historical and religious overtones to this conflict, we must remember. The war on terror is no less and no different than those colonial wars and its destined to be lost.

 

But as Muslims we must realize that means don’t justify goals. Killing unsuspecting civilians taints the cause we intend to advance. It must be clear to us that indiscriminate bombings (suicide or guided missile) are acts of forbidden terror. They are desperate acts of angry men and do not represent the values of the mainstream in the both communities. It’s equally clear to me that this war is going to continue unless its root causes are adequately addressed. As long the west and Muslim reformers continue to insist that problem is with Pakistani Madrasas or Saudi curriculum (with Islam), this war, I am afraid, is bound to go on. And the drums of reformers will even beat louder, but to no avail.

[Paragon]

NGONGE, do you believe Islam is the problem? If so, will you be so kind to tell us exactly where the problem lies. Explain it to us please, or rather enlighten us.

 

Thank you.

[NGONGE]

Jamaal, saaxib, I’ve never known you to be this sloppy in the past. This is a case of semantics and not dogma. Islam and Muslims are interchangeable words. An aim of a piece of writing is understood by reading the entire piece and comprehending it rather than picking out random words and protesting at their meaning.

 

Most of these writers that announce a problem with Islam go on to spell out their meaning and criticise Muslim practices rather than Allah’s message. You and I might disagree with their outlook and their logic but we can’t accuse them of claiming to have a problem with ‘Islam’. To make an issue of that one word either indicates that one has been educated beyond his cognitive capacity (i.e. many of the one line crew found on this website) or that one is deliberately being obtuse to avoid the countering the original argument.

 

The above article is full of controversial issues that one could ponder. The replies that followed (including my own) all contain the opinions and thoughts of the various Nomads on this subject (some even contentious)! It’s therefore baffling (not to mention a great shame) that you chose to ignore all of that and deal with the inconsequential and pedantic issue of there being a problem with Islam or not, instead!

 

I personally blame that dreadful chat room for this new trend of replying to what is essentially a debate forum with pernickety one-liners and senseless drivel. This is not directed at your personally, saaxib (though as I’ve admitted earlier, you seem to have caught the bug too). It’s directed to all those who have opinions (or disagree with opinions) but neither put in the effort of providing a satisfactory reply nor stay away altogether! Though it’s predictable, it’s still grating.

[Paragon]

NGONGE, you shouldn't call names the person who has only asked you for an explanation. I have asked you a straightfoward question, now will you answer it by showing exactly where the problem lies? Or do you want to resort to cheap assumptions of my very person and the charactors of other nomads.

 

To remind you of the issue at hand, here is one of your quotes:

 

Every imbecile can safely join this argument. Islam is from Allah; Allah is the creator of the whole entire universe; Allah is perfect; All Allah’s creations are perfect; Islam is perfect. When you say there is a problem with Islam you imply (god forbid) a fault with Allah! For a simplistic pedant, this is the best style of argument to have. No believing Muslim could possibly carry on with such an argument you see, ergo certain win.

But, does it deal with the point about there being a problem with Islam?

Exactly what is this 'problem with Islam' that you wish us to deal with? Tell us, is that too much to ask?

 

PS: If it makes you feel better, you can resort to the nonsense that I 'been affected' or that I have 'caught a bug'.

[NGONGE]

Jamaal. Now you’re arguing for argument’s sake, saaixb! If you actually bothered to read my quote before hastily copying it, you would have noted that I’ve already conceded this trivial battle of words. One can’t even give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn’t read my post (you’re quoting me after all!). So, are you being pedantic? Is it a case of not grasping the point being made? Maybe you’re bored!

 

 

If you have the capability to deal with the original article and ‘rethink Islam’ I’ll be more than happy to read and fully engage any of your points. However, and you can take this in any way you like, if you want to stay in the superfluous edge of arguing semantics and simple word interchanges, I’m afraid I neither have the patience nor the humour for such a game of amateur pedantry.

 

 

Trust me brother, it does not make me happy at all to see you lower yourself to the level of asking obtuse questions that lead nowhere. I’m seriously tempted to give a long lecture on reading comprehension and break down this trivial issue sentence by sentence, alas this will only lower me to the rank of the one-line-reply-brigade and will be (going by previous evidence) a waste of my time. Therefore, I will not. My words are as clear as day, can you comprehend them?

[Paragon]

^^^ NGONGE, c'mon now. Don't you think talking about lowering one's self and writing veiled insults are female traits? What is there to lower or higher yourself about? It is a question, which I must add, about something you brought up the second time. I thought, in your clever state atleast, you would answer me straight-forwardly, or ignore it altogether. Instead you are making a fool out of yourself by assuming me to be things I wouldn't assume about you.

 

Now c'mon, I want to understand what you saying about the problem with Islam. Mind you, the topic is about 'rethinking islam' and is very much inline with the topic of 'the problem with Islam'. And if say, you state a problem with islam and I ask you about it, how am I playing a game of 'pedantry'?

 

PS: sxb your trip of assuming things about others seems to be driving you towards paranoia. Take it easy . It is all good.

[NGONGE]

Good morning, Jamaal.

 

I see you’re still insisting on carrying on with your pedantry. Now, I’m not sure if this is genuine naïveté (not meant in a disparaging sense mind) or just a game of words. I shall not assume anymore, for despite the clear evidence in front of me, you keep telling me that my assumptions are wrong!

 

Now call all your one-liner friends and those that zealously guard Islam, over. I’m about to impart a lesson in comprehension, saaxib.

 

I’m not sure what levels of competency I’m dealing with here but I’ll base this on Jamaal’s question (those of a lower level of comprehension I’m afraid I can’t help, and, luckily for all of us, it’s also unlikely that they can understand any of this anyway).

 

Now, Jamaal sees my comment about something being wrong with Islam and despite my quote being very clear and scornful of people that would jump to the rescue of Islam when reading such a comment, he nonetheless, dives in headfirst!

 

I’m sure that if I said I thought this site was full of smelly topics, Jamaal will not suddenly brandish an air-freshener and try to literally disinfect the site (though such a thing would be very handy I must admit)! No, I believe that you have the competence and ability to understand the meaning without any further explanation. Similarly, if I said that the standards of this site were dropping and that I could KILL the admin for letting things deteriorate in such a way, I’m again sure that neither Jamaal nor the admin would hurry to hire personal bodyguards. Do you follow my drift? Now time for a story:

 

Once upon a time, a man was sitting down with a group of children and telling them a story about dragons. The children were being naughty and wild. So, the man just walked away and left them to their unruliness.

 

The above is a simple and meaningless off the cuff story. Any normal adult should be able to understand it without the need for further explanation. However, a child with reading comprehension difficulties might find it hard to decipher. The story states that the man was sitting down; it implies that the children were sitting round him (as happens when stories are being read); it clearly talks about how unruly the children were, but does not describe it. It then goes on to inform us that the man had had enough and walked away! Here, it does not explain the thought process of the man. It could have said: faced with this rowdiness, the man knew how pointless it was to read a story to such uncontrollable children and reasoned that the best course of action was to walk away. So, he stood up, ignored the queries of the kids and walked nimbly away.

 

As you can see, the extra detail does not change much of the story – if anything; it makes it sound even more boring than what it originally was. Still, I’m hoping that those with even the slightest ability to comprehend understood the meaning and aim.

 

Now let us talk about writing and reading...

 

 

The author has the licence to use words, phrases and expressions to gain the maximum dramatic effect (providing of course that he’s not being completely insane). The reader’s job is to selectively skim through a story, article or piece of writing and decode all the words, their connection to each other and meaning, and then finally (based on all of that) arrive at the overall aim of the piece. If the reader is a child, then he/she is probably not fully developed (cerebrally) to comprehend every piece of writing - fortunately for humanity, children eventually grow up. However, if the reader is an adult, one has to question this person’s abilities of grasping small ideas and word interplay! If the reader is a chronic pedant then one could at least regard it as an affliction and point out how inappropriate it is (pedantry) in some topics.

 

There is a third explanation for the lack of comprehension. This one is more underhand and treacherous. In this example, our reader’s ability to comprehend is all perfectly in good working order, but the reader chooses to act obtuse and pretend not to understand! It’s possible that the reader disagrees with the piece but lacks the intellectual courage or the ability to respond in kind. Therefore it’s easier to go down the pedantic route and nit-pick on random words that the reader already understands the meaning of!

 

The cure for the child and the habitual pedant is to read more, write more and force oneself to eventually comprehend (here, force does not carry any physical meaning, Jamaal). In addition, those that wish to improve will need to read loudly and repeatedly. With time, the child will improve and the pedant will learn to choose his targets more carefully.

 

As for the intellectual coward! I’m afraid (literally shaking here) that he’ll have to face reality (make sure you’re dressed to impress) and concede (as in: giving way) that though he/she may dislike the feel of some topics, he/she are not able (as in: can’t) to fully (as in: altogether) engage it.

 

Now Jamaal, do you finally understand what the problem with Islam is?

 

 

PS

All of the above should be regarded as common sense and not some philosophical theories on education.

 

PPS

If my words seem mocking of scornful, it is no coincidence; this is the only way to reply to such queries. My disdain is with the level the topic is at and not the questioner.

[Paragon]

^^^ NGONGE. Are you familiar with the art of 'sarbeeb' and 'hoosaasin'? Surely, you have a long way to go before you master that art. But sxb, were you really trying to insult my intelligence and comprehension? Good God!

 

Do continue brother, you are doing fine. I like the 'children' analogy, very neat indeed .

 

Sxb you can't blame me, I am trying to learn from you by socratically questioning you. Hoping to be the future student of a clever teacher, I am bound by principle to not utter insult against you. You see where I am coming from?

 

PS: I have picked on 'the problem with Islam' 'cos it seems the gist of the topic is just that. But then you don't seem to realise that. Plus, no one else in this forum posts articles about/or promotes the point of there being a problem in Islam, except you. You do this by prividing suggestions in the form of posting articles and advocating for authors who habbitually question Islam, sometimes rightfully and at times wrongly. Since you are the propagator of these authors and their questioing habbits, why do you feel upsurd when questioned about what you and them write?

 

PPS: Well, what do I know, I am the fool with little capacity of comprehension, remember? As Somalis say, doqon far weyn baa wax loogu qoraa . So do just that for me, adoo mahadsan . One more thing, leave the chatroom, the admin, the quality of the site and other nomads' charactors out of this. You don't have to blame everyone except yourself.

[NGONGE]

^^^^ Sheekado waa Damned if I did and damned if I didn't maya?

 

Never mind, I answered your original questions and I’m sure that, in spite of yourself, you probably picked up a pearl or two from that free wisdom.

 

To say it’s I that advocates for these articles makes it sound as if I posted dozens of pieces on this site (it was only the one and you deleted it in no time, saaxib)! Are we moving from bad comprehension to over overstatement now?

 

I said it before and I’ll repeat it again, I don’t enjoy rolling in the lower and muddy echelons of discussion. If you wish, we can talk about Islam, the problem with it, the problem I have, the one you have, etc. A discussion where we both hopefully will learn, saaxib. What’s taking place right now is senseless; I’m doing all the teaching here!

[Viking]

Originally posted by NGONGE:

If you wish, we can talk about Islam, the problem with it, the problem I have

, the one you have, etc. A discussion where we both hopefully will learn, saaxib.

NGONGE,

Isn't that what he asked for? That is before all this p*ussyfooting.