Progressive Muslims

Will Islam�s �silenced majority�[1] reclaim its voice or will the extremists continue to set the agenda? That is the central question in the Muslim world today. Inseparable is the broader issue of the relationship between the Qur�an, Sunnah and Hadith, and modern concepts such as democracy and human rights.

The issue is debated a thousand times a day in tea houses and online chat sessions around the globe, and it is being played out in such gritty political confrontations as those between Saudi Arabia�s Liberal Tendency and the Wahabis, and the liberals and literalists of Indonesia.

The need for an adaptation of Islam to the modern world was at the heart of Mahathir Mohamed�s October speech to the Islamic summit. �Islam is not just for the seventh century A.D. Islam is for all times,� he told his fellow Muslim leaders. �And times have changed.�[2]

Mahathir may not have had Bob Dylan in mind when he chose that phase, but the �60s counter-culture bard was very much on the minds of the authors of Progressive Muslims, a collection of pieces from Muslim intellectuals who are part of a larger international network by the same name, which begins with twin quotations from the Qur�an and Dylan�s The Times, They are A-Changin�.

�We realize the urgency of the changin� times in which we live, and seek to implement the Divine injunction to enact the justice (�adl) and goodness-and-beauty (ihsan) that lie at the heart of the Islamic tradition,� the book�s editor, Colgate University professor Omid Safi, writes in his introduction.

The debate over how � and whether � Islam should be adapted to changing times is as old as the religion itself. It gave birth to the 8^th century Mu�tazilite movement and has been reflected in the writings of countless reformers, such as the 19^th century Egyptian Qasim Amin, who challenged traditional assumptions of the role of women in Islam and took on conservative clerics who labeled him a heretic. �To these people I will respond: Yes, I have come up with heresy, but the heresy is not against Islam. It is against our tradition and social dealings, which ought to be brought to perfection.�

That response is echoed in Progressive Muslims. UCLA law professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, for example, believes that the emergence of �supremist puritanism,� together with the arguments of Muslim apologists, have �fossilized� Islam, turning it into �an untouchable, but also entirely ineffective, beauty queen, simply to be admired and showcased as a symbol, but not to be critically engaged in its full nuance and complexity.�

The authors, who tackle a range of topics from democracy and economic justice to sexuality, race and ethnicity, build their case for a modern vision of Islam on a foundation of textual references.

�Shura [consultation] and ijima� [consensus] are two key doctrines that Muslims can use today for the religious development of democratic notions of government and politics as well as human rights,� writes Ahmed S. Mousalli of the American University of Beirut, in a passage reflective of the book�s constant return to Qur�anic legitimacy.

But even as they take on the �violent zealots,� who wield religious texts �like whips to be exploited by a select class of readers,� the contributors to Progressive Muslims also lash out at the �increasingly hegemonic Western political, economic, and intellectual structures that perpetuate an unequal distribution of resources around the world.�

The essential nature of social justice in any modern interpretation of Islam is a theme woven through the book. Mousalli argues that because, in his view, the Muslim notion of divine oneness (tawhid) refers not just to the unity of Allah but also to the individual�s connection to fellow humans, �deep philosophical commitment to Islam must involved the economic, social, and political concerns of society.�

Indeed, this focus, the authors say, is what separates their movement from that of other would-be Muslim reformers.

�[P]rogressive Muslims differ from the host of �modernist� Muslim thinkers,� Safi writes, in that they �no longer look to the prevalent notion of Western modernity as something to be imitated and duplicated in toto.� South African Muslim theologian Farid Esack, currently at Xavier University in Cincinnati, takes it a step further; noting that progressives �challenge the patriarchal nature of social reality,� while the so-called �liberal Islam� has �functioned as an ideology of and for the bourgeois.�

While the �liberals� would vigorously dispute that characterization, they agree that the difference between a �progressive� and a �liberal� Muslim is more than just semantics.

�The main question is American hegemony; this is the key word for the progressive Muslim activists,� observes Ulil Abshar Abdallah, head of Indonesia�s Liberal Muslims Network, �while the liberal Muslim activists are more focused on the issues of democracy and civil liberties in general.�[3]

Though they insist that it is not their intention to make Islam �a fa�ade for some contemporary political ideology,� the book�s contributors, with their talk of a �theology of liberation,� their labeling of �Market Capitalism� as a �fundamentalist� religion, and their stated �affinity with some form of communitarianism,� have produced a work that carries the strong flavor of a manifesto.

There is a certain incongruity in the fact that while they list opposition to Pax Americana as one of the key priorities of progressive Muslims, almost all of the book�s 15 contributors are associated with U.S. universities. That said, as poll after poll has shown, any movement that hopes to capture the attention of the �silenced majority� must communicate a message that addresses the dichotomy of the mustadafeen (downtrodden) and the mustakbareen (arrogant).

The question is: Do the world�s 1.3 billion Muslims want to hear it from a group of intellectuals sitting in the U.S.?

Lawrence Pintak is the author of Seeds of Hate: How America�s Flawed Middle East Policy Ignited the Jihad. He is the Howard R. Marsh Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan. He can be contacted at lp@pintak.com.

[1] Radwan Masmoudi, "The Silenced Majority," Journal of Democracy 14, no. 2 (2003).

[2] Mahathir Mohamed, Close Ranks, Muslims Urged [Newspaper] (The Star, Oct. 16, 2003 [cited Oct. 19 2003]); available from http://thestar.com.my/oic/story.asp?file=/2003/10/17/oic/6507802&sec=OIC.

[3] Conversation with Author, Oct. 24, 2003.

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