Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (6 page)

However, at least in some people’s usage the term “reformation” carries considerably more baggage than that. Based on these connotations, there are good reasons to resist the language of “Islamic reformation.” In speaking of the “Islamic reformation,” many people have in mind the Protestant Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther. It is this understanding that leaves many of us uneasy. Ours is not a project of developing a “Protestant” Islam distinct from a “Catholic” Islam. I for one am very dubious about thinking that other religious traditions (in this case Islam) must necessarily follow the historical and cultural course of action laid out by the Christian tradition. Many of us insist that we are not looking to create a further split within the Muslim community so much as to

heal it and to urge it along. Furthermore, embedded in the very language of “Reformation” is the notion of a significant break with the past. I would suggest that the progressive Muslim project is not so much an epistemological rupture from what has come before as a fine-tuning, a polishing, a grooming, an editing, a re-emphasizing of this and a correction of that. In short, it is a critical engagement with the heritage of Islamic thought, rather than a casual bypassing of its accomplishments. In some of the essays in this volume you will notice authors spending a great deal of time working through passages of the Qur’an, medieval legal texts, political philosophers, and contemporary writings. It might be an easier task to start with a
tabula rasa
, but that would not be an Islamic project. Being a progressive Muslim, at least in the view of this group, mandates a difficult, onerous, critical, uneasy engagement with the tradition.

None of the attempts to add nuance to the term “reformation” has prevented some members of the media from using the term to describe certain Muslim progressives. One, the Iranian progressive Muslim thinker Abdolkarim Soroush, was even branded the Iranian Luther!
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Comments like this tell us a great deal about the reporters who create such leaps of logic, revealing their fanciful wishes that a single intellectual can (as the title of the above article on Soroush reads) “shake the foundations of Islam.” At least in our group of progressive Muslims, there are no would-be Luthers. There
are
, however, Ebrahim Moosa and Zohara Simmons, Sa‘diyya Shaikh and Farish Noor, etc., and that is what matters here. Let us engage issues, not attempt to mold one another into the shape of long dead icons.

There is one other reason that I do not favor the language of “Islamic reformation.” Not long ago, I was asked to give a talk on Islamic aesthetics at a leading liberal arts college in North America. After a wonderful reception from the audience, the talk turned – as it invariably does – to contemporary politics, and more specifically to the agenda that progressive Muslims might have to offer as a way forward. A well-intentioned person in the audience asked what I thought of the fact that many economic and social factors (rise of the middle class, increase in literacy, etc.) had to be in place
before
the Protestant Reformation could occur in Europe. The answer came clear to my heart: we cannot wait. There are clearly far too many places in the Muslim world that suffer from an appalling lack of literacy, huge and ever-growing socio-economic gaps between the “haves” and the “have nots,” political tyranny, religious exclusivism, gender injustice, etc. In some cases, prognosticators have predicted that it may take decades, if not centuries, for the Muslim world to “catch up.” As progressive Muslims, we simply cannot wait. We do not have the luxury of sitting idly by in the vague hope that changes will take place
before
we start dealing with these difficult issues. In my reading of the Qur’anic call, we are all held accountable by God for the opportunities we are given in this life, and asked to answer for how we responded to them. Our responsibility of
khilafa
(vicegerency, stewardship) deals with the here and now, not twenty years from

now, not two hundred years. We are children of this moment (
ibn al-waqt
), and have to work within the societies in which God has placed us.

Having gone into some depth about the salient features of progressive Muslims, let me also take some time to describe what progressive Muslims are not about.

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Since I know some are going to make this same criticism, let me beat them to the punch. All of us who have contributed to this volume realize that the term “progressive” Muslim is far from perfect. Let us be honest, and admit that it has been a very abused term.

The real issue with “progressive,” of course, is that problematic “progress” embedded so deeply in it. Progress towards what, one may ask? Progress has all too often been conceived of as a Hegelian, unilateral march towards post- Enlightenment, rational, male, Euro-American civilization. Wasn’t the twentieth century allegedly the century of progress? While no doubt it witnessed the rise of many technological wonders, it also turned out to be among the most hateful and bloody in human history.

In the past 150 years of Islamic thought, a number of people have called for a whole host of “reform”- and “progress”-oriented interpretations of Islam, but in many cases these have proven to be nothing more – nor less – than a simple aping of the most recent Western trends. Furthermore, the term “progressive,” at least in the minds of some people, has a slightly elitist connotation, implying that the “progressives” are somehow better, smarter, or more advanced than the alleged “non-progressives.”

So why use the term? Can’t we find something better? Well, actually we tried.

Unfortunately, none of the alternatives was totally problem-free.

Some suggested the label “liberal Muslim.” It is certainly true that on many social issues most of us find ourselves on the “left,” so to speak. But many progressive Muslims also do not agree with the connotation of liberal as “loose, not strict,” as if progressives are only
loosely
Muslim, and they can be progressive only because they are not
strictly
following Islamic teachings. Furthermore, in

our view many self-declared “liberal Muslims” have been too enamored with modernity, too eager to identify themselves wholeheartedly with European and American structures of power. In the end, they have proven unable and unwilling to adopt a critical stance against the injustices of
both
Muslim societies
and
Western hegemony. It is precisely such a critical stance that we have identified here as multiple critique.

Another suggestion was “critical Muslims,” which has the great appeal of calling attention to the desperate need for critical thought. The problem is that in many non-academic circles, the term “critical” is taken to refer to those who criticize. It is certainly true that we critique many contemporary and historical

Islamic practices and interpretations, but we always do so with an eye toward more just and pluralistic alternatives. “Critical Muslims” can sound like a bunch of whiners who sit around and complain. For some, the term “critical Muslim” also implies pontificating about Islam without the attempt to change realities in Muslim societies on the ground level.

It is not just that the other terms had problems. There is something about this term “progressive.” It is more than anything else an umbrella term that signifies an invitation to those who want an open and safe space to undertake a rigorous, honest, potentially difficult engagement with tradition, and yet remain hopeful that conversation will lead to further action.

We felt adamant that the title of this work should be “Progressive Muslims,” and not “Progressive Islam.” The distinction may be irrelevant to some, but it matters a great deal to us. On one hand, as one of the contributors to this volume has stated, “Islam has always been progressive. It is Muslims that have not always been so.” On the other hand, we are also wary of falling into the easy dichotomy of “I love Islam, it is those darn Muslims that I have a problem with.” For better or worse, in truth and ignorance, in beauty and hideousness, we call for an engagement with real live human beings who mark themselves as Muslims, not an idealized notion of Islam that can be talked about apart from engagement with those real live human beings. Even if we take Islam in the most ordinary sense of submission to the Divine, there can be no Islam without the humanity who is doing the submitting. Take humanity out of the equation, and all we are left with is the God who stands prior to and beyond Creation. About that understanding of God no human being is perhaps qualified to speak, since for them to speak they would have to exist, thus implying by necessity the very act of creation. But in terms of a relationship between humanity and the Divine, Islam cannot be interpreted, experienced, or articulated without engaging with real live human beings. To keep the focus on the responsibilities of human beings, we have titled this volume “Progressive Muslims,” rather than “Progressive Islam.”

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The volume you hold in your hand is the result of almost an entire year of conversation, dialogue, and debate among the fifteen contributors. It had its real genesis in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, in what we saw as the urgent need to raise the level of conversation, and to get away from the standard apologetic presentations of Islam. During the past year, we have exchanged some six hundred email messages and spent countless hours on the telephone in an effort to harmonize our endeavors.

One of the key points about this volume is that it represents Muslim intellectuals and activists whose understanding of Islam has been shaped by the

academic study of Islam in Western institutions. To understand the significance of this point, it is important to recognize the wider ramifications for the Muslim world of the decline of the traditional Islamic universities (
madrasas
).

One of the real challenges facing Muslim communities around the world has been the marked decline of the madrasa system. Many scholars have directly attributed this decline to the impact of European colonialism, positing that the colonial system undermined the relevance and prestige of Islamic education in favor of more technological and scientific institutions. In places like North Africa, the colonial powers actually shut down some of the most prestigious institutions of higher Islamic learning. This much is certainly clear: in many places around the Muslim world, madrasa institutions are no longer the center of creative, critical thinking. In the pre-modern world, the very brightest Muslim minds (at least the male ones, since the females were usually relegated to education at home
24
) were to be found in the madrasas. The traditional curriculum was based on the memorization of the foundational texts (Qur’an, etc.), and learning the rigorous methodology by which one could arrive at a religious opinion. How strange it must seem to many modern Muslims to read a pre-modern theologian like Ghazzali offer an opinion in such a fashion: The following group holds this opinion, while group 2 states something to the contrary. Group 3 is still different, holding to such-and-such a belief, while group 4 follows this practice. As for myself (i.e., Ghazzali himself), I find myself

in accordance with the views of the third group.

How refreshing! How intellectually honest, to summarize the perspectives of various schools of thought, to legitimize a range of opinions and to acknowledge a spectrum of interpretations! It is then, and only then, that a learned scholar like Ghazzali would situate himself in that wider spectrum. Such a willingness to undertake self-positioning may not have been the norm, but it was utilized by some of the leading pre-modern Muslim thinkers. How different is this attitude from so many contemporary Muslim pundits who hijack an entire tradition, claiming to be a one-man (and it is almost always a man) spokesperson for all Muslims: “Islam states... .” No debate, no discussion, no spectrum of perspectives. The Almighty Islam has spoken, or so we are told, and the conversation is over.

It is above all the rigor displayed by pre-modern thinkers like Ghazzali that is sorely missing from contemporary madrasa training. With few exceptions (Iran, for example), the brightest minds in the Muslim world are no longer found in madrasas. Instead, they are training to be doctors, engineers, computer scientists, and lawyers. Good for them. And bad for us. It is a sad reality that in many places in the Muslim world, the madrasas now attract many of the weaker students who could not make it into more competitive schools of higher education. In other places, such as Pakistan, many of these madrasas have become at best institutions of social welfare providing free room and board, and at worst a breeding ground for the most virulent type of fanaticism.

The decline of the traditional Islamic educational system has had another important consequence: many of the leading Muslim intellectuals in the world today have achieved their intellectual and spiritual understanding of Islam largely outside the traditional madrasa curriculum. That is certainly the case for the contributors to this volume. While a few of us (Ebrahim Moosa, Khaled Abou El Fadl, and Farid Esack) have studied in traditional madrasas, all of us have grown in our understanding of Islam through Ph.D. programs in Islamic studies at Western (or Western-style) universities. Without the benefit of a traditional madrasa curriculum, there are surely some limitations to our arguments. No doubt there are many advantages as well, since we have enjoyed the room and latitude to approach old problems from new perspectives. In a real sense, lay Muslim intellectuals and activists are now stepping into the vacuum created by the marginalization of the traditional Islamic madrasas. This is particularly the case given that many of the products of the contemporary madrasa system have failed to address issues of social justice, pluralism, and gender justice.