Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (7 page)

Yet the same gap that in a sense has created room for us also makes our task much more difficult. So many contemporary conversations about Islam in the crucial realms of law and theology would be laughed out of any medieval madrasa, with the accusations of superficiality and lack of rigor. As Khaled Abou El Fadl has pointed out, this has also resulted in a situation where pseudo-scholars and quasi-muftis now issue “Islamic verdicts” that often follow authoritarian tendencies. Examples could include Osama bin Laden’s
fatwa
calling for the murder of American civilians. All of this makes the task of progressives speaking as contemporary Muslims to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike much more difficult.

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So now we have some notion of what progressives are and are not. But precisely how is their version of talking different from other Muslim discourses? Let me offer a few key features.

Beyond apologetics

Here is a newsflash, courtesy of progressive Muslims: God is doing just fine. God doesn’t need any help. God doesn’t need any defenders. It is humanity that needs help, especially the oppressed, the downtrodden, the marginalized, and the all-but-forgotten who desperately need champions and advocates.

I bring this up to underscore that being a progressive Muslim means self-consciously moving beyond apologetic presentations of Islam. Our apologism does God no good, and it solves none of our real problems. And it is no exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of writings that

dominate Islamic centers fall into the realm of apologetics. Why do apologetic writings hold such appeal to religious folks, including Muslims?

The past few years have been a challenging time for nearly all people of faith. For Muslims, this has meant an urgent imperative to define what we stand for and, just as importantly, what we reject. For Catholics, it has meant coming to terms with the catastrophic sexual abuses in the Church. For Jews and Hindus, it has meant confronting the brutal violence committed or tolerated by nation- states that claim to represent them. It has been a time of a great deal of vocal but vexing public conversation about all religions, including Islam.

Part of the challenge is to recognize that there are many ways of talking about all religions, including Islam, in the public sphere. Two of them seem to have gained prominence in the post-9/11 world. One level is the normative, theological way, when self-designated (or selected) representatives speak with the weight of authority, and feel perfectly entitled to make statements like “Catholicism states. . .,” “Judaism teaches us that. . .,” and of course, “Islam states. . . .” The other way of talking about religion is more historical and descriptive, less theological, and more people centered. The followers of this perspective are likely to say, “This Jewish group practices the following ritual, while other Jewish groups practice otherwise. . .”; “These Muslim groups hold this interpretation of
jihad
, while their interpretations are opposed by the following groups. . .”

I find myself increasingly on the side of the second way of talking. Regarding many issues, the majority of Muslim scholars have formed a clear enough consensus
(ijma‘)
to allow us to speak of near unanimity. On other issues – precisely those that many contemporary Muslims and non-Muslims would be interested in hearing about and debating – there has been and remains a wide range of interpretations and practices among Muslim scholars and within Muslim communities. Our task as progressive Muslims is to begin by honestly chronicling the spectrum of Muslim practices and interpretations for both ourselves and society at large. We cannot and should not single out only sublime examples that are likely to be palatable to a non-Muslim public, just as we would not want the xenophobes to focus exclusively on the fanatical fringe of Muslim societies. It is imperative for all of us to demonstrate the full spectrum of interpretations, particularly in dealing with the “difficult” issues (gender constructions, violence, pluralism, etc.).

Furthermore, I find myself being less and less patient and satisfied with assertions that “Islam teaches us. . .” This seems to me to be an attempt to bypass the role of Muslims in articulating this thing called Islam. Let me be clear, and perhaps controversial here: “Islam” as such teaches us nothing. The Prophet Muhammad does. Interpretive communities do. I would argue that God does, through the text of the Qur’an. But in the case of texts, there are human beings who read them, interpret them, and expound their meanings. Even our encounter with the Prophet is driven by different (and competing) textual

presentations of his life, teachings, and legacy.
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In all cases, the dissemination of Divine teachings is achieved through human agency. Religion is always mediated. To drive this message home, I usually offer this intentionally irreverent comment to my students: “Islam” does not get up in the morning. Islam does not brush its teeth. Islam does not take a shower. Islam eats nothing. And perhaps most importantly for our consideration, Islam
says
nothing.
Muslims
do. Muslims get up in the morning, Muslims brush their teeth, Muslims shower, Muslims eat, and Muslims speak.

Is this just semantics? I do not believe so. My experience, at the level of both devotional and academic communities, has been that many people simply ascribe their own (or their own community’s) interpretations of Islam to “Islam says. . .” They use such authoritative – and authoritarian – language as a way to close the door on discussion. And closing discussions is something that we cannot afford.
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No more “Pamphlet Islam”

Walk into any Islamic center, and there is likely to be a table in the hallway or in the library that features a wide selection of pamphlets. The pamphlets bear titles like “The Status of Women in Islam,” “Concept of God in Islam,” “Concept of Worship in Islam.” Printed in pale yellow, pink, and green shades, they promise truth in black and white. I hate these pamphlets.

I think we are in imminent danger – if we are not there already – of succumbing to “pamphlet Islam,” the serious intellectual and spiritual fallacy of thinking that complex issues can be handled in four or six glossy pages. They simply cannot. The issues involved are far too complicated, and the human beings who frame the issues are even more so. I recently saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed, “Islam is the answer.” If Islam is the answer, pray tell, what is the question? Modernity? Existence? God?

A few years ago, when I started teaching at an undergraduate college in New York, I was the only Muslim faculty member there. I was predictably appointed as the advisor to the small group of Muslim students on campus. There were about six of them at that time, vastly outnumbered by the other students on campus whom the Muslim students (perhaps rightly) considered to be woefully ignorant of even the basics of Islam. As we went around introducing ourselves, one of the students in the group gushed: “What I love about Islam is that it is so simple!” That comment spurred a great debate, which we are still having four years later. To me, Islam has never been simple. I remember having worked my way through some of the most important Muslim primary sources such as

Ghazzali’s
Ihya’
and Rumi’s
Masnavi
, as well as the masterpieces of scholarship on Islam like Marshall Hodgson’s
The Venture of Islam
and Harry Wolfson’s
The Philosophy of Kalam
. “Simple” is not exactly a word that comes to mind in describing any of them.

“Islam is simple” is a slogan used all too often as an excuse to avoid discussion, disputation, and even disagreement. After all, if Islam is simple, how can reasonable and intelligent people disagree over it? Do these disagreements occur because some are deluded away from the simple truth? Not so! Islam is not simple because Muslims are not simple. Surely our identities in these virulent and turbulent post-colonial times are far from simple. Muslims are every bit – not an ounce more, and not an ounce less – as complicated as all of the other members of humanity. We argue, we discuss, we disagree, we joke, we laugh, we walk away mad, we come back, we compromise. But we do not, have not ever, and will not ever all agree on one interpretation of Islam.

This is why I so dislike “pamphlet Islam” – and what seems to be taking its place now, “web Islam.”
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I do not want to hear about Islam from an authoritarian who hides his or her own views under a grand title like “The Islamic Position on Jesus.” I would prefer each author to tell me about her or his own position, identify his or her own argument and sources, and mention where they fit in a wider intellectual spectrum. When I mentioned this to some intellectual friends, they replied, “You have become too corrupted by post-modern thinking. That type of self-positioning only comes up in late modernity.” Is that so? I do not dispute that many schools of anthropology, post-colonial theory, and feminist hermeneutics have advocated such self-positioning. Indeed, many of us progressive Muslims have benefited from the fruits of those disciplines. But this self-positioning also seems to me to be one of the characteristic markers of the writings of many, though not all, pre-modern Muslim scholars like the famed Ghazzali.

We can do better than “pamphlet Islam.” We must. From time to time, of course, there is a need for concise articulation of Islam for ourselves and others. But let us do it honestly, without burying the dazzling array of interpretations that have always existed in Muslim thought and life.

Let me demonstrate how urgent a non-apologetic, progressive presentation of Islam can be by tackling two of the most pressing issues that have dominated the public discourse on religions in general and Islam in particular: the need for tolerance, and the positing of Islam as a religion of peace.

Islam beyond “tolerance”

Since September 11, 2001, we have been told time and again that our task as global citizens is to increase tolerance towards one another and to achieve a more tolerant society. Many Muslims have also emphasized that there are great strands of tolerance in Islam that must be articulated more clearly.

I beg to differ. I am not interested in teaching or preaching “tolerance.” Naturally I don’t want to see us kill and oppress each other. But words are powerful vehicles in shaping our thoughts, and there are often many layers of meaning embedded in words. The connotations of “tolerance” are deeply

problematic. Allow me to elaborate this point: the root of the term “tolerance” comes from medieval toxicology and pharmacology, marking how much poison a body could “tolerate” before it would succumb to death. Is this the best that we can do? Is our task to figure out how many “others” (be they Muslims, Jews, blacks, Hindus, homosexuals, non-English speakers, Asians, etc.) we can
tolerate
before it really kills us? Is this the most sublime height of pluralism that we can aspire to? I don’t want to “tolerate” my fellow human beings, but rather to engage them at the deepest level of what makes us human, through both our phenomenal commonality and our dazzling cultural differences. If we are to have any hope of achieving anything resembling a just peace in the future, that examination needs to include both the greatest accomplishments of all civilizations, and also a painful scrutiny of ways in which the place of privilege has come at a great cost to others. That goes equally for both the Islamic civilization and for the Western powers of today.

In short, progressive Muslims do not wish for a “tolerant” Islam, any more than we long for a “tolerant” American or European society. Rather, we seek to bring about a pluralistic society in which we honor and engage each other through our differences and our commonalities.

Islam beyond “religion of peace”

After September 11, 2001, almost every Muslim I know, including myself on a number of occasions, found himself or herself repeating something akin to this phrase: “Islam is a religion of peace. The actions of these terrorists do not represent real Islam.” And yet for some reason, I – speaking not on behalf of any other progressive Muslims, just myself – am less and less satisfied with this mantra. Let me be clear here: at a fundamental level, I believe that the Islamic tradition offers a path to peace, both in the heart of the individual and in the world at large, when the Islamic imperatives for social justice are followed. Yet there is something pathetically apologetic about turning the phrase “Islam is a religion of peace” into a mantra. It is bad enough to hear Muslim spokespersons repeat it so often while lacking the courage to face the forces of extremism in our own midst. It is just as bad to hear a United States President reassure us that he respects Islam as a “religion of peace” as he prepares to bomb Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq, or support the brutal oppression of Palestinians. In both of the above senses, “Islam is a religion of peace” has become to my ears a hollow

phrase, full of apologism and hypocrisy.

As Muslims, we owe it to ourselves to come to terms with the problems inside our own communities. All societies have their beautiful and noble citizens, along with their share of hateful and extremist ones. Muslims are human, not an ounce less and not an ounce more than any other people. We too have our saints and sinners, our fanatical zealots and compassionate exemplars. At this stage of history our primary responsibility is to come to terms with the

oppressive tyrants and fanatics inside our own communities, our own families, and our own hearts. Hiding behind the simple assertion that “Islam is a religion of peace” does not solve our problems.

There is another reason that I have come to detest this slogan. It seems to me that we have lost sight of the real meaning of “peace,” just as we have lost a real sense of “war.” Many have come to think of peace as simply the absence of war, or at least the absence of violent conflict. Yet, as progressives, we must preserve the possibility of upholding resistance to well-entrenched systems of inequality and injustice through non-violent conflict. This is one of the great challenges of our time: affirming the right of a people who have been dehumanized and oppressed to resist, while encouraging them to do so non-violently. This is a great challenge indeed.