Is Free Speech Good for Muslims?
I recently watched a curious debate that took place in 2015 at the Free Press Society of Denmark. On one side was Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch politician and anti-Islam campaigner whose ascendance to power was, I’m happy to say, checked by the elections in the Netherlands this month. On the other side was Flemming Rose, the journalist who angered many Muslims in 2005 by publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
The crux of the debate was what to do with Muslims and Islam in Europe. Mr. Wilders argued that the Quran must be banned and mosques must be shut down. Mr. Rose, in contrast, explained that this view is unacceptably authoritarian, and Muslims deserve freedom like everyone else. “You cannot deny Muslims the right to build a mosque or to establish faith-based schools,” he said, simply because some Europeans find them offensive.
Most Muslims watching this debate would probably sympathize with Mr. Rose, thinking he was defending them. Mr. Rose, however, was merely defending a liberal principle: freedom for all. It was the very principle that led him to publish the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad — cartoons seen by many Muslims, including me, as offensive.
This is just one of many manifestations of a paradox Muslims, especially those of us living in the West, face in the modern world: They are threatened by Islamophobic forces against which they need the protections offered by liberalism — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, nondiscrimination. But the same liberalism also brings them realities that most of them find un-Islamic — irreverence toward religion, tolerance of L.G.B.T. people, permissive attitudes on sex. They can’t easily decide, therefore, whether liberalism is good or bad for Muslims.
The same paradox can also be seen in the debates over female dress. When illiberal secularists in the West interfere regarding the outfits of conservative Muslim women — with bans on the burqa, the “burkini” or even just the head scarf — the defense is found within liberalism: Women have the right to “dress as they please.” This, of course, is a perfectly legitimate argument in a free society.
But the idea that women can “dress as they please” doesn’t actually go over well with some Muslims — if that means, for example, tight jeans and miniskirts. In Saudi Arabia and Iran women are forced by law to cover their heads. In fact, in some ways Saudi Arabia is a mirror image of the culturally hegemonic dystopia that Mr. Wilders dreams of: a land where the scriptures and shrines of a foreign religion are banned — not the Quran and mosques, in this case, but the Bible and churches.
This is not to say that Muslims who ask for freedom in the West must be held accountable for the lack of freedom in “Islamic” states. But it does mean that Muslim opinion leaders — imams, scholars, intellectuals — should give serious thought to a key question: Is liberalism a good or bad thing for Muslims? Should they embrace freedom or not?
Often Muslims support liberalism when it serves them and reject it when it does not. They use the religious freedom in the West, for example, to seek converts to Islam, while condemning converts from Islam to another religion as “apostates” who deserve death. Or ask for the right to freely organize political rallies in Europe, while you are crushing opposition rallies at home — as the Turkish government recently did during its spat with the Netherlands.
Such double standards can be found in every society. Mr. Wilders himself, who cheers for “freedom” while aiming to ban the Quran, is a striking example. But some contemporary Muslims do it too easily, switching at will between “our rules” and “their rules.” The prominent Turkish theologian Ali Bardakoglu, the former head of the Religious Directorate, wrote about this “double morality” in a recent book and called on fellow Muslims to be more self-critical about it. Muslims should not be, he argued, “people who can surf between different value systems.”
The deeper problem is that Islam, as a legal and moral tradition, developed at a time when the world was a very different place. There was a very limited concept of individual freedom, as people lived in strictly defined communities. There were no notions of international law, universal human rights, the secular state or freedom of religion. Moreover, Muslims were often the dominant faith, making the rules to their advantage — such as tolerating non-Muslims as “protected” but inferior communities.
That premodern world is long gone. There is now an increasingly diverse world where boundaries fade, cultures meet and individuals roam. And the forces that try to reverse this trend — liberal globalization — are often the very forces that despise Islam and threaten Muslims.
Muslim opinion leaders have to decide where they stand. Do we Muslims want a free world with universal principles in which everyone, including us, lives according to their own values? Or do we prefer a segregated world where whoever grabs power imposes their values? And, if we choose the latter, what is going to protect us from all the Geert Wilderses of the world? In fact, what makes us any different?
Mustafa Akyol, a contributing opinion writer, is a visiting fellow at the Freedom Project at Wellesley College and the author, most recently, of “The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/opin ... &te=1&_r=0
Interpretation of faith in Islam
Ask a Muslim: What of Neanderthals and Aliens?
Not too long ago I received the following text:
Assalamoalaikum brother, do you have some ideas about the paleolithic man or what they say Neanderthal man. They hypothesize according to fossils that they are the human ancestorswho lived 1- 2000000 years ago...
I’m gonna guess that your question isn’t about evolution, per se, but about what happens when religion appears to put us at odds with evolution. If modern humans had numerous ancestors, and relatives that lived alongside us, but reached evolutionary dead-ends, then what do we do with an actual Adam and literal Eve?
I’ve an answer that might help modern Muslims like us come to terms with what we know of our biological ancestry—and, incidentally, might open the door to dealing with the existence of intelligent life somewhere out there. Because if Allah created aliens, we should totally be ready.
At least theologically.
.........
Sacred texts don’t have to change. The meanings we find in them do. Because we do. We don’t have to believe religion and science are necessarily at odds; there was a time when Muslims were known for their enthusiasm for empirical research, curiosity and discovery. Which way would Mecca be on the dark side of the moon? How would Ramadan work on Venus, where each day is many months long? Would Plutonian colonists have to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca or die trying? We don’t have to answer these questions, of course, until we need to.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we got to a point where we had to?
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/ask-a-mus ... 1-84570085
Not too long ago I received the following text:
Assalamoalaikum brother, do you have some ideas about the paleolithic man or what they say Neanderthal man. They hypothesize according to fossils that they are the human ancestorswho lived 1- 2000000 years ago...
I’m gonna guess that your question isn’t about evolution, per se, but about what happens when religion appears to put us at odds with evolution. If modern humans had numerous ancestors, and relatives that lived alongside us, but reached evolutionary dead-ends, then what do we do with an actual Adam and literal Eve?
I’ve an answer that might help modern Muslims like us come to terms with what we know of our biological ancestry—and, incidentally, might open the door to dealing with the existence of intelligent life somewhere out there. Because if Allah created aliens, we should totally be ready.
At least theologically.
.........
Sacred texts don’t have to change. The meanings we find in them do. Because we do. We don’t have to believe religion and science are necessarily at odds; there was a time when Muslims were known for their enthusiasm for empirical research, curiosity and discovery. Which way would Mecca be on the dark side of the moon? How would Ramadan work on Venus, where each day is many months long? Would Plutonian colonists have to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca or die trying? We don’t have to answer these questions, of course, until we need to.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we got to a point where we had to?
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/ask-a-mus ... 1-84570085
Indonesians Seek to Export a Modernized Vision of Islam
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The imposing, six-foot-tall painting is a potent symbol of modern Indonesian history: the country’s founding father, Sukarno, cradling a dead, barefoot rebel killed by Dutch colonial forces amid rice fields and smoldering volcanoes in late-1940s Java.
The fighter’s bloodied shirt draws immediate attention — but so does a necklace dangling from the body: a Christian cross, worn by the independence martyr for the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
The 2006 painting has become the symbol of a global initiative by the Indonesian youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest mass Islamic organization in the world, that seeks to reinterpret Islamic law dating from the Middle Ages in ways that conform to 21st-century norms.
Among other things, it calls for a re-examination of elements of Islamic law that dictate relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, the structure of government and the proper aims and conduct of warfare.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/worl ... 05309&_r=0
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The imposing, six-foot-tall painting is a potent symbol of modern Indonesian history: the country’s founding father, Sukarno, cradling a dead, barefoot rebel killed by Dutch colonial forces amid rice fields and smoldering volcanoes in late-1940s Java.
The fighter’s bloodied shirt draws immediate attention — but so does a necklace dangling from the body: a Christian cross, worn by the independence martyr for the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
The 2006 painting has become the symbol of a global initiative by the Indonesian youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest mass Islamic organization in the world, that seeks to reinterpret Islamic law dating from the Middle Ages in ways that conform to 21st-century norms.
Among other things, it calls for a re-examination of elements of Islamic law that dictate relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, the structure of government and the proper aims and conduct of warfare.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/worl ... 05309&_r=0
This is one of the best Stats found on Islam:
http://shianumbers.com/shia-muslims-population.html
Over 320 Million Shia People Live in Over 100 Countries
Worth a look.
http://shianumbers.com/shia-muslims-population.html
Over 320 Million Shia People Live in Over 100 Countries
Worth a look.
Morocco’s High Religious Committee Says Apostates Should Not Be Killed
Casablanca – Morocco’s High Religious Committee has retracted its Islamic ruling stating that apostasy is punishable by death and has decided to permit Muslims to change their religion.
The High Religious Committee in charge of issuing Fatwas (Islamic rulings) released a book in 2012 where it articulated its position on apostasy and argued that a Muslim who changes his or her religion should be punished with death, drawing on a widespread jurisprudence tradition.
Recently, however, the same entity issued a document titled “The Way of the Scholars,” in which it backtracked on its position of killing apostates. Instead, it redefined apostasy not as a religious issue but as a political stand more closely aligned with “high treason.”
The view that the apostate should not be killed in Islam is not a new one and can be found in the teachings of Sufyan al-Thawri in the first century AH. The scholar reviewed historical situations where the prophet Mohammed acted on the ruling, as opposed to the times he did not order the killing of the apostates. He concluded that killings occurred for political purposes and were not decisions based on religion. The apostates could, theoretically, disclose the secrets of the then fragile Islamic nation.
More...
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2017/0 ... ign=buffer
Casablanca – Morocco’s High Religious Committee has retracted its Islamic ruling stating that apostasy is punishable by death and has decided to permit Muslims to change their religion.
The High Religious Committee in charge of issuing Fatwas (Islamic rulings) released a book in 2012 where it articulated its position on apostasy and argued that a Muslim who changes his or her religion should be punished with death, drawing on a widespread jurisprudence tradition.
Recently, however, the same entity issued a document titled “The Way of the Scholars,” in which it backtracked on its position of killing apostates. Instead, it redefined apostasy not as a religious issue but as a political stand more closely aligned with “high treason.”
The view that the apostate should not be killed in Islam is not a new one and can be found in the teachings of Sufyan al-Thawri in the first century AH. The scholar reviewed historical situations where the prophet Mohammed acted on the ruling, as opposed to the times he did not order the killing of the apostates. He concluded that killings occurred for political purposes and were not decisions based on religion. The apostates could, theoretically, disclose the secrets of the then fragile Islamic nation.
More...
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2017/0 ... ign=buffer
Why India allows instant divorce
For Muslim Indian men, breaking up is easy to do
“CAN something found to be sinful by God be validated by men through law?” And, “if God considers it a sin, it can’t be legal, can it be?” These were among the weighty questions posed by India’s Supreme Court this week as it heard from women who have brought a case against the practice of “triple talaq”, whereby a Muslim man can divorce his wife simply by uttering the word talaq three times. There is substantial evidence to suggest that this practice, while age-old, is not actually prescribed in the Koran. Why does India allow it?
India has no uniform civil code. Instead it has several, treating matters such as marriage, divorce, alimony and inheritance differently for members of different religious communities. Triple talaq is part of India’s Muslim Personal Law. Yet it is not what was originally intended. The Koran recommends a process of dialogue over a 90-day period after talaq is verbally invoked. The marriage survives if both parties reconcile within that time-frame; failing that, a divorce becomes valid on the 91st day. A second divorce proceeding can be initiated at a later date, again with a cooling period of 90 days. Should talaq be called a third time, however, the divorce becomes irrevocable on the day the husband says the word. This staggered system was meant to give couples the opportunity to end their marriages only after careful deliberation. The three-count limit was set to prevent the husband from pronouncing talaq on a whim. The message appears to have got lost somewhere along the way, says Shadan Farasat, one of the lawyers arguing against the custom in its current form.
More...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economis ... lydispatch
For Muslim Indian men, breaking up is easy to do
“CAN something found to be sinful by God be validated by men through law?” And, “if God considers it a sin, it can’t be legal, can it be?” These were among the weighty questions posed by India’s Supreme Court this week as it heard from women who have brought a case against the practice of “triple talaq”, whereby a Muslim man can divorce his wife simply by uttering the word talaq three times. There is substantial evidence to suggest that this practice, while age-old, is not actually prescribed in the Koran. Why does India allow it?
India has no uniform civil code. Instead it has several, treating matters such as marriage, divorce, alimony and inheritance differently for members of different religious communities. Triple talaq is part of India’s Muslim Personal Law. Yet it is not what was originally intended. The Koran recommends a process of dialogue over a 90-day period after talaq is verbally invoked. The marriage survives if both parties reconcile within that time-frame; failing that, a divorce becomes valid on the 91st day. A second divorce proceeding can be initiated at a later date, again with a cooling period of 90 days. Should talaq be called a third time, however, the divorce becomes irrevocable on the day the husband says the word. This staggered system was meant to give couples the opportunity to end their marriages only after careful deliberation. The three-count limit was set to prevent the husband from pronouncing talaq on a whim. The message appears to have got lost somewhere along the way, says Shadan Farasat, one of the lawyers arguing against the custom in its current form.
More...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economis ... lydispatch
Is Ramadan Different for American Muslims?
Ramadan Mubarak! Insha’Allah, the first fast day of Ramadan will begin on Saturday, May 27, 2017 in the United States, Canada and the Americas.
Mike Ghouse
Is Ramadan different for different Muslims? What does Ramadan for American Muslims mean? The title of the essay sounds very divisive, but it is not. Indeed, it is an acknowledgement of the reality that Islam as practiced in America is not the same as practiced elsewhere on the earth. If you see it otherwise, express it in your comments below.
The only way to learn is to question everything and understand it. Over the years, I have been blessed with immense confidence in the religion of Islam, and I say without batting an eye,
“If it is not common sense, then it is not Islam.”
More...
http://ramadannews.com/is-ramadan-diffe ... n-muslims/
*******
Saudi Arabia releases video on National TV teaching husbands how to beat their wives
The national television of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has aired a video, in which a self-styled Islamic family doctor is seen teaching men in the country how to ‘properly’ beat their wives.
The video is believed to have been aired in the country in early February, 2016. The Kingdom’s government is said to have approved the video, and that is why it was given airtime on national television.
After airing the video in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government released the controversial video in the United States via the Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute, in April 2016. Women activists group describe the video as nothing less than infuriating.
The content of the video features the doctor who is said to specialize in therapy; Khaled Al-Saqaby teaching men how to ‘properly’ beat their wives if their [wives] disobey them.
More..
http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-eas ... story.html
Ramadan Mubarak! Insha’Allah, the first fast day of Ramadan will begin on Saturday, May 27, 2017 in the United States, Canada and the Americas.
Mike Ghouse
Is Ramadan different for different Muslims? What does Ramadan for American Muslims mean? The title of the essay sounds very divisive, but it is not. Indeed, it is an acknowledgement of the reality that Islam as practiced in America is not the same as practiced elsewhere on the earth. If you see it otherwise, express it in your comments below.
The only way to learn is to question everything and understand it. Over the years, I have been blessed with immense confidence in the religion of Islam, and I say without batting an eye,
“If it is not common sense, then it is not Islam.”
More...
http://ramadannews.com/is-ramadan-diffe ... n-muslims/
*******
Saudi Arabia releases video on National TV teaching husbands how to beat their wives
The national television of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has aired a video, in which a self-styled Islamic family doctor is seen teaching men in the country how to ‘properly’ beat their wives.
The video is believed to have been aired in the country in early February, 2016. The Kingdom’s government is said to have approved the video, and that is why it was given airtime on national television.
After airing the video in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government released the controversial video in the United States via the Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute, in April 2016. Women activists group describe the video as nothing less than infuriating.
The content of the video features the doctor who is said to specialize in therapy; Khaled Al-Saqaby teaching men how to ‘properly’ beat their wives if their [wives] disobey them.
More..
http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-eas ... story.html
BOOK
How to be a Muslim
A BOUNDARY-BUSTING MEMOIR OF LOVE, MENTAL ILLNESS, AND BEING MUSLIM IN AMERICA
Excerpts:
Unofficially, this book began with two short stories I was asked to contribute to two different collections. The first essay was a short story about how I became an atheist. The second story was about how I snuck out to prom, and kissed a girl in the process. More than once. At the time I was so terrified of the American Muslim echo chamber that I was sure I’d be excommunicated. Five or ten years ago, those topics might’ve been taboo. Instead my stories were embraced, and I realized I had a story to tell, Yale press or no press. Or, rather, another press. But I digress.
What’s the most important take-home message for readers?
That Muslims can be funny. And people. Because we are people. Amazingly. And it is really cool to sneak out to prom, unless you get dumped the next day. I’m still not quite over that.
Is there anything you had to leave out?
I ended the book in 2013, which means I didn’t get to tell the story of my work with the Shalom Hartman Institute, where I’m now the Fellow in Muslim-Jewish Relations. I wish I could have told the story of what it was like to be in New York during the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy.
At the end of How to be a Muslim, I’ve just gotten married, but I didn’t get to talk about that journey, about what it was like to fall in love again, or even just what it’s like to find your footing after a major failure, and how differently I look at the world today. If this book is about how I learned to find an Islam for myself, the next one would be what I think an Islam for the future could look like.
Because while some Muslims are interested in the past, I’m interested in crafting an Islam through which we make sense of our lives, anticipate the future, and bend it to a moral conscience.
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/a-genre-b ... 0-84570085
How to be a Muslim
A BOUNDARY-BUSTING MEMOIR OF LOVE, MENTAL ILLNESS, AND BEING MUSLIM IN AMERICA
Excerpts:
Unofficially, this book began with two short stories I was asked to contribute to two different collections. The first essay was a short story about how I became an atheist. The second story was about how I snuck out to prom, and kissed a girl in the process. More than once. At the time I was so terrified of the American Muslim echo chamber that I was sure I’d be excommunicated. Five or ten years ago, those topics might’ve been taboo. Instead my stories were embraced, and I realized I had a story to tell, Yale press or no press. Or, rather, another press. But I digress.
What’s the most important take-home message for readers?
That Muslims can be funny. And people. Because we are people. Amazingly. And it is really cool to sneak out to prom, unless you get dumped the next day. I’m still not quite over that.
Is there anything you had to leave out?
I ended the book in 2013, which means I didn’t get to tell the story of my work with the Shalom Hartman Institute, where I’m now the Fellow in Muslim-Jewish Relations. I wish I could have told the story of what it was like to be in New York during the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy.
At the end of How to be a Muslim, I’ve just gotten married, but I didn’t get to talk about that journey, about what it was like to fall in love again, or even just what it’s like to find your footing after a major failure, and how differently I look at the world today. If this book is about how I learned to find an Islam for myself, the next one would be what I think an Islam for the future could look like.
Because while some Muslims are interested in the past, I’m interested in crafting an Islam through which we make sense of our lives, anticipate the future, and bend it to a moral conscience.
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/a-genre-b ... 0-84570085
Shariah’s Winding Path Into Modernity
In June, Americans in about two dozen cities joined a “March Against Sharia.” For these protesters, the Arabic term is a code word for the oppression of women and men in the name of God — horrors like stoning and beheading. Since such brutalities do indeed happen in the name of Shariah, they may have had a point. But there were also points that they missed.
In Arabic, “Shariah” literally means “the way.” More specifically, it refers to the body of Islamic rules that Muslims see as God’s will — based either on the Quran or on the Prophet Muhammad’s reported words and deeds. It is conceptually impossible, therefore, for a Muslim who is serious about his faith to condemn Shariah. But the implementation of Shariah, which is called “fiqh,” or jurisprudence, is open to interpretation and discussion.
Much of Shariah is about personal observance: A good Muslim should pray five times a day while turned toward Mecca, for example, or should fast daily throughout Ramadan. Of course, there is no problem with these acts of personal piety — unless they are coerced. They should be welcome in any society with religious liberty.
However, a part of Shariah is about public law, including the penal code. And there are clear conflicts here with modern standards of human rights. First, Shariah lays out corporal punishments, such as chopping off hands, stoning, flogging and beheading. The Islamic legal code also proscribes crimes like apostasy, blasphemy and extramarital sex — none of which can be a crime at all in any liberal society.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/opin ... dline&te=1
In June, Americans in about two dozen cities joined a “March Against Sharia.” For these protesters, the Arabic term is a code word for the oppression of women and men in the name of God — horrors like stoning and beheading. Since such brutalities do indeed happen in the name of Shariah, they may have had a point. But there were also points that they missed.
In Arabic, “Shariah” literally means “the way.” More specifically, it refers to the body of Islamic rules that Muslims see as God’s will — based either on the Quran or on the Prophet Muhammad’s reported words and deeds. It is conceptually impossible, therefore, for a Muslim who is serious about his faith to condemn Shariah. But the implementation of Shariah, which is called “fiqh,” or jurisprudence, is open to interpretation and discussion.
Much of Shariah is about personal observance: A good Muslim should pray five times a day while turned toward Mecca, for example, or should fast daily throughout Ramadan. Of course, there is no problem with these acts of personal piety — unless they are coerced. They should be welcome in any society with religious liberty.
However, a part of Shariah is about public law, including the penal code. And there are clear conflicts here with modern standards of human rights. First, Shariah lays out corporal punishments, such as chopping off hands, stoning, flogging and beheading. The Islamic legal code also proscribes crimes like apostasy, blasphemy and extramarital sex — none of which can be a crime at all in any liberal society.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/opin ... dline&te=1
American Muslims growing more liberal, survey shows
(CNN)American Muslims are growing more religiously and socially liberal, with the number who say society should accept homosexuality nearly doubling during the past decade, according to a major new survey.
American Muslims are also more likely to identify as political liberals and believe there are multiple ways to interpret the teachings of Islam, the survey found.
Conducted by the Pew Research Center, the survey of 1,001 American Muslims depicts a community in tumult, with the vast majority disapproving of President Donald Trump and worrying about the direction of the country. Even so, many remain hopeful about their future in the United States, the survey found, despite persistent anxiety about Islamic extremism and religious discrimination.
More..
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/us/pew-mu ... index.html
(CNN)American Muslims are growing more religiously and socially liberal, with the number who say society should accept homosexuality nearly doubling during the past decade, according to a major new survey.
American Muslims are also more likely to identify as political liberals and believe there are multiple ways to interpret the teachings of Islam, the survey found.
Conducted by the Pew Research Center, the survey of 1,001 American Muslims depicts a community in tumult, with the vast majority disapproving of President Donald Trump and worrying about the direction of the country. Even so, many remain hopeful about their future in the United States, the survey found, despite persistent anxiety about Islamic extremism and religious discrimination.
More..
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/us/pew-mu ... index.html
Saudis Wonder What’s Next After the King Allows Women to Drive
Excerpt:
Built on an alliance between a royal family and the descendants of an ultraconservative Muslim cleric, Saudi Arabia has struggled throughout its history with how to reconcile modernization with loyalty to religious heritage.
That debate heated up as oil wealth enriched the state, bringing in unfamiliar customs and technologies like television, public education and automobiles.
Over time, competing camps dug in around women and the right to drive.
For liberals, the driving ban was a blot on the national brand that was hampering modernization and weakening the economy.
Conservatives, including powerful clerics employed by the state, thought that allowing women to drive would be a crack in the dam that would allow secularism to flood in, washing away the kingdom’s unique Islamic identity.
The royal decree announced on Tuesday handed victory in that battle to the reformers, who had gained an advantage in recent years because of demographics, economics and the country’s young leadership, analysts said.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/worl ... d=45305309
Excerpt:
Built on an alliance between a royal family and the descendants of an ultraconservative Muslim cleric, Saudi Arabia has struggled throughout its history with how to reconcile modernization with loyalty to religious heritage.
That debate heated up as oil wealth enriched the state, bringing in unfamiliar customs and technologies like television, public education and automobiles.
Over time, competing camps dug in around women and the right to drive.
For liberals, the driving ban was a blot on the national brand that was hampering modernization and weakening the economy.
Conservatives, including powerful clerics employed by the state, thought that allowing women to drive would be a crack in the dam that would allow secularism to flood in, washing away the kingdom’s unique Islamic identity.
The royal decree announced on Tuesday handed victory in that battle to the reformers, who had gained an advantage in recent years because of demographics, economics and the country’s young leadership, analysts said.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/worl ... d=45305309
Turkey, Malaysia and Islam
A Turkish writer’s detention sends a sombre message about Islam
Mustafa Akyol’s arrest in Malaysia has been linked to his views on coercion
NOT long ago, Turkey and Malaysia were often bracketed together as countries that inspired optimism about the Muslim world. In both lands, Islam is the most popular religion. In both, democracy has been vigorously if imperfectly practised. And both have enjoyed bursts of rapid, extrovert economic growth.
In their early days in office, people in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party always found plenty of friends in Malaysia: allies who shared their belief that governance with a pious Muslim flavour was compatible with modernising, business-friendly policies and a broadly pro-Western orientation.
All that makes doubly depressing a recent incident in Malaysia involving a prominent writer from Turkey. Mustafa Akyol is an exponent, in snappy English as well as his mother-tongue, of a liberal interpretation of Islam. In his book “Islam Without Extremes” he argues that his faith should never use coercion either to win converts or to keep those who are already Muslim in order. In other words, he takes at face value the Koranic verse which says, “There is no compulsion in religion.”
Last month Mr Akyol was invited to Kuala Lumpur by a reform-minded Muslim group and asked to give three lectures. In his second talk, he warmed to the non-coercion theme. As he insisted, people who fall away from Islam or “apostasise” should not be threatened with death, as happens under the harshest Islamist regimes, or even sent for re-education, as can happen in Malaysia. (For its all terrible human-rights abuses, nothing of that kind happens in Turkey.)
More...
https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus ... lydispatch
A Turkish writer’s detention sends a sombre message about Islam
Mustafa Akyol’s arrest in Malaysia has been linked to his views on coercion
NOT long ago, Turkey and Malaysia were often bracketed together as countries that inspired optimism about the Muslim world. In both lands, Islam is the most popular religion. In both, democracy has been vigorously if imperfectly practised. And both have enjoyed bursts of rapid, extrovert economic growth.
In their early days in office, people in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party always found plenty of friends in Malaysia: allies who shared their belief that governance with a pious Muslim flavour was compatible with modernising, business-friendly policies and a broadly pro-Western orientation.
All that makes doubly depressing a recent incident in Malaysia involving a prominent writer from Turkey. Mustafa Akyol is an exponent, in snappy English as well as his mother-tongue, of a liberal interpretation of Islam. In his book “Islam Without Extremes” he argues that his faith should never use coercion either to win converts or to keep those who are already Muslim in order. In other words, he takes at face value the Koranic verse which says, “There is no compulsion in religion.”
Last month Mr Akyol was invited to Kuala Lumpur by a reform-minded Muslim group and asked to give three lectures. In his second talk, he warmed to the non-coercion theme. As he insisted, people who fall away from Islam or “apostasise” should not be threatened with death, as happens under the harshest Islamist regimes, or even sent for re-education, as can happen in Malaysia. (For its all terrible human-rights abuses, nothing of that kind happens in Turkey.)
More...
https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus ... lydispatch
Saudi Prince, Asserting Power, Brings Clerics to Heel
BURAIDA, Saudi Arabia — For decades, Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment wielded tremendous power, with bearded enforcers policing public behavior, prominent sheikhs defining right and wrong, and religious associations using the kingdom’s oil wealth to promote their intolerant interpretation of Islam around the world.
Now, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is curbing their power as part of his drive to impose his control on the kingdom and press for a more open brand of Islam.
Before the arrests on Saturday of his fellow royals and former ministers on corruption allegations, Prince Mohammed had stripped the religious police of their arrest powers and expanded the space for women in public life, including promising them the right to drive.
Dozens of hard-line clerics have been detained, while others were designated to speak publicly about respect for other religions, a topic once anathema to the kingdom’s religious apparatus.
If the changes take hold, they could mean a historic reordering of the Saudi state by diminishing the role of hard-line clerics in shaping policy. That shift could reverberate abroad by moderating the exportation of the kingdom’s uncompromising version of Islam, Wahhabism, which has been accused of fueling intolerance and terrorism.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/worl ... d=71987722
BURAIDA, Saudi Arabia — For decades, Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment wielded tremendous power, with bearded enforcers policing public behavior, prominent sheikhs defining right and wrong, and religious associations using the kingdom’s oil wealth to promote their intolerant interpretation of Islam around the world.
Now, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is curbing their power as part of his drive to impose his control on the kingdom and press for a more open brand of Islam.
Before the arrests on Saturday of his fellow royals and former ministers on corruption allegations, Prince Mohammed had stripped the religious police of their arrest powers and expanded the space for women in public life, including promising them the right to drive.
Dozens of hard-line clerics have been detained, while others were designated to speak publicly about respect for other religions, a topic once anathema to the kingdom’s religious apparatus.
If the changes take hold, they could mean a historic reordering of the Saudi state by diminishing the role of hard-line clerics in shaping policy. That shift could reverberate abroad by moderating the exportation of the kingdom’s uncompromising version of Islam, Wahhabism, which has been accused of fueling intolerance and terrorism.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/worl ... d=71987722
Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last
The crown prince has big plans to bring back a level of tolerance to his society.
Excerpt:
But guess what? This anticorruption drive is only the second-most unusual and important initiative launched by M.B.S. The first is to bring Saudi Islam back to its more open and modern orientation — whence it diverted in 1979. That is, back to what M.B.S. described to a recent global investment conference here as a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.”
I know that year well. I started my career as a reporter in the Middle East in Beirut in 1979, and so much of the region that I have covered since was shaped by the three big events of that year: the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Saudi puritanical extremists — who denounced the Saudi ruling family as corrupt, impious sellouts to Western values; the Iranian Islamic revolution; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
These three events together freaked out the Saudi ruling family at the time, and prompted it to try to shore up its legitimacy by allowing its Wahhabi clerics to impose a much more austere Islam on the society and by launching a worldwide competition with Iran’s ayatollahs over who could export more fundamentalist Islam. It didn’t help that the U.S. tried to leverage this trend by using Islamist fighters against Russia in Afghanistan. In all, it pushed Islam globally way to the right and helped nurture 9/11.
A lawyer by training, who rose up in his family’s education-social welfare foundation, M.B.S. is on a mission to bring Saudi Islam back to the center. He has not only curbed the authority of the once feared Saudi religious police to berate a woman for not covering every inch of her skin, he has also let women drive. And unlike any Saudi leader before him, he has taken the hard-liners on ideologically. As one U.S.-educated 28-year-old Saudi woman told me: M.B.S. “uses a different language. He says, ‘We are going to destroy extremism.’ He’s not sugar-coating. That is reassuring to me that the change is real.”
Indeed, M.B.S. instructed me: “Do not write that we are ‘reinterpreting’ Islam — we are ‘restoring’ Islam to its origins — and our biggest tools are the Prophet’s practices and [daily life in] Saudi Arabia before 1979.” At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, he argued, there were musical theaters, there was mixing between men and women, there was respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia. “The first commercial judge in Medina was a woman!” So if the Prophet embraced all of this, M.B.S. asked, “Do you mean the Prophet was not a Muslim?”
Then one of his ministers got out his cellphone and shared with me pictures and YouTube videos of Saudi Arabia in the 1950s — women without heads covered, wearing skirts and walking with men in public, as well as concerts and cinemas. It was still a traditional and modest place, but not one where fun had been outlawed, which is what happened after 1979.
If this virus of an antipluralistic, misogynistic Islam that came out of Saudi Arabia in 1979 can be reversed by Saudi Arabia, it would drive moderation across the Muslim world and surely be welcomed here where 65 percent of the population is under 30.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opin ... pring.html
The crown prince has big plans to bring back a level of tolerance to his society.
Excerpt:
But guess what? This anticorruption drive is only the second-most unusual and important initiative launched by M.B.S. The first is to bring Saudi Islam back to its more open and modern orientation — whence it diverted in 1979. That is, back to what M.B.S. described to a recent global investment conference here as a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.”
I know that year well. I started my career as a reporter in the Middle East in Beirut in 1979, and so much of the region that I have covered since was shaped by the three big events of that year: the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Saudi puritanical extremists — who denounced the Saudi ruling family as corrupt, impious sellouts to Western values; the Iranian Islamic revolution; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
These three events together freaked out the Saudi ruling family at the time, and prompted it to try to shore up its legitimacy by allowing its Wahhabi clerics to impose a much more austere Islam on the society and by launching a worldwide competition with Iran’s ayatollahs over who could export more fundamentalist Islam. It didn’t help that the U.S. tried to leverage this trend by using Islamist fighters against Russia in Afghanistan. In all, it pushed Islam globally way to the right and helped nurture 9/11.
A lawyer by training, who rose up in his family’s education-social welfare foundation, M.B.S. is on a mission to bring Saudi Islam back to the center. He has not only curbed the authority of the once feared Saudi religious police to berate a woman for not covering every inch of her skin, he has also let women drive. And unlike any Saudi leader before him, he has taken the hard-liners on ideologically. As one U.S.-educated 28-year-old Saudi woman told me: M.B.S. “uses a different language. He says, ‘We are going to destroy extremism.’ He’s not sugar-coating. That is reassuring to me that the change is real.”
Indeed, M.B.S. instructed me: “Do not write that we are ‘reinterpreting’ Islam — we are ‘restoring’ Islam to its origins — and our biggest tools are the Prophet’s practices and [daily life in] Saudi Arabia before 1979.” At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, he argued, there were musical theaters, there was mixing between men and women, there was respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia. “The first commercial judge in Medina was a woman!” So if the Prophet embraced all of this, M.B.S. asked, “Do you mean the Prophet was not a Muslim?”
Then one of his ministers got out his cellphone and shared with me pictures and YouTube videos of Saudi Arabia in the 1950s — women without heads covered, wearing skirts and walking with men in public, as well as concerts and cinemas. It was still a traditional and modest place, but not one where fun had been outlawed, which is what happened after 1979.
If this virus of an antipluralistic, misogynistic Islam that came out of Saudi Arabia in 1979 can be reversed by Saudi Arabia, it would drive moderation across the Muslim world and surely be welcomed here where 65 percent of the population is under 30.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opin ... pring.html
Greece prepares to do away with compulsory sharia in Western Thrace
Nearly a century after the sultans left, Greek Muslims will no longer have to live by Ottoman rules
AS PART of a passionate campaign to solve an apparently non-existent problem, American state legislatures have been presented, over the past decade, with at least 120 bills that sought to outlaw the practice of sharia, the Islamic legal system, and 15 of them have been enacted. With or without these laws, America’s attachment to its own constitution and judicial and legal system seems pretty robust.
Things are not quite so clear-cut on the other side of the Atlantic. Thanks to a vagary of history, there is one little patch of the European Union where sharia has hitherto held sway, not as a self-imposed code of behaviour but as a system under which Muslim citizens have been pressured to regulate their business, especially involving inheritance. That region is Western Thrace, a part of Greece adjoining the land border with Turkey. Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s leftist prime minister, is about to introduce legislation that will change that odd state of affairs.
More...
https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus ... lydispatch
Nearly a century after the sultans left, Greek Muslims will no longer have to live by Ottoman rules
AS PART of a passionate campaign to solve an apparently non-existent problem, American state legislatures have been presented, over the past decade, with at least 120 bills that sought to outlaw the practice of sharia, the Islamic legal system, and 15 of them have been enacted. With or without these laws, America’s attachment to its own constitution and judicial and legal system seems pretty robust.
Things are not quite so clear-cut on the other side of the Atlantic. Thanks to a vagary of history, there is one little patch of the European Union where sharia has hitherto held sway, not as a self-imposed code of behaviour but as a system under which Muslim citizens have been pressured to regulate their business, especially involving inheritance. That region is Western Thrace, a part of Greece adjoining the land border with Turkey. Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s leftist prime minister, is about to introduce legislation that will change that odd state of affairs.
More...
https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus ... lydispatch
How Islamism Drives Muslims to Convert
Excerpt:
The core problem is that traditional Islamic jurisprudence, and the religious culture it produced, were formed when society was patriarchal, hierarchical and communitarian. Liberal values like free speech, open debate and individual freedom were much more limited. Hence Muslim jurists saw no problem in “protecting the religion” by executing apostates and blasphemers, and by enforcing religious observance. Some of them, like Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, whose ninth-century teachings were a precursor of modern-day Wahhabism — also championed blind faith, a notion of believing “without asking how.”
Modern society, however, is a very different place. People are more individualistic and questioning, and have much more access to diverse views. Questions cannot be answered by platitudes, and ideas cannot be shut down by crude dictates. And those who insist in doing so will only push more people away from the faith they claim to serve.
That is why, if Islamic authoritarianism persists, it is likely to produce mass secularization in Muslim societies. Islam may still count as the fastest-growing religion in the world, thanks to high birthrates, but it will lose some of its best and brightest. Worse yet, such influential apostates will probably become not merely post-religious but anti-religious, bringing more conflict to Muslim societies and deepening the crisis of Islam.
Luckily, the Islamic tradition has means other than coercive power with which to present itself. The medieval Muslim theologians and philosophers employed reason to articulate the faith, and wrestled with foreign ideas like Greek philosophy, rather than banning them. Meanwhile, the mystical Sufi orders focused on developing virtue, which allowed them to spread the faith through inspiration and example.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/opin ... dline&te=1
Excerpt:
The core problem is that traditional Islamic jurisprudence, and the religious culture it produced, were formed when society was patriarchal, hierarchical and communitarian. Liberal values like free speech, open debate and individual freedom were much more limited. Hence Muslim jurists saw no problem in “protecting the religion” by executing apostates and blasphemers, and by enforcing religious observance. Some of them, like Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, whose ninth-century teachings were a precursor of modern-day Wahhabism — also championed blind faith, a notion of believing “without asking how.”
Modern society, however, is a very different place. People are more individualistic and questioning, and have much more access to diverse views. Questions cannot be answered by platitudes, and ideas cannot be shut down by crude dictates. And those who insist in doing so will only push more people away from the faith they claim to serve.
That is why, if Islamic authoritarianism persists, it is likely to produce mass secularization in Muslim societies. Islam may still count as the fastest-growing religion in the world, thanks to high birthrates, but it will lose some of its best and brightest. Worse yet, such influential apostates will probably become not merely post-religious but anti-religious, bringing more conflict to Muslim societies and deepening the crisis of Islam.
Luckily, the Islamic tradition has means other than coercive power with which to present itself. The medieval Muslim theologians and philosophers employed reason to articulate the faith, and wrestled with foreign ideas like Greek philosophy, rather than banning them. Meanwhile, the mystical Sufi orders focused on developing virtue, which allowed them to spread the faith through inspiration and example.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/opin ... dline&te=1
Book
The Shari’a: History, Ethics and Law (Muslim Heritage Series)
Why is the term shari'a―the mention of which conjures up images of a politicised religion in many parts of the world―understood in the ways that it is today? For Muslims and non-Muslims alike, much is read into this term, often with scant regard for its historical, cultural or theological underpinnings. The politics of identity has a profound effect on contemporary life, both secular and religious, and this includes our understandings of the shari'a. Yet at the core of this concept, for Muslims, is the quest for a moral compass by which to navigate a path through life (Qur'an, 45:18), informed deeply by revelation and its interpretation by the Prophet Muhammad as well as his closest Companions.
Built on this foundation is an ongoing human endeavour to grasp and lend expression to that teaching―elaborately in law, but no less so in devotional, ethical and customary practices in diverse Shia and Sunni Muslim communities, including in the West. Popular myths about the shari'a ― that it is divine law, that it is contained in a single code recognised by all Muslims, that it is about controlling behavior, that it 'defines' Islam ― are challenged in this volume by leading scholars, with a view to illuminating how we arrived here and where we might be headed. The claims of the modern state as the custodian of the shari'a are put into perspective, alongside the vital role of a pluralist civil society.
From bioethics, human development, family law and finance to constitutional and human rights issues, this fifth volume in the Muslim Heritage Series offers an accessible account of the ideals and realities of the shari'a. As such, it will appeal not only to specialists in the humanities and social sciences, but also to the general reader with an interest in global affairs and informed citizenship.
https://www.amazon.com/Sharia-History-E ... 178831316X
****
Chapter: "Sustaining and Enhancing Life" by Professor Karim H. Karim's
/ismailimail.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/the_sharia_sustaining_and_enhancing_life.pdf
The Shari’a: History, Ethics and Law (Muslim Heritage Series)
Why is the term shari'a―the mention of which conjures up images of a politicised religion in many parts of the world―understood in the ways that it is today? For Muslims and non-Muslims alike, much is read into this term, often with scant regard for its historical, cultural or theological underpinnings. The politics of identity has a profound effect on contemporary life, both secular and religious, and this includes our understandings of the shari'a. Yet at the core of this concept, for Muslims, is the quest for a moral compass by which to navigate a path through life (Qur'an, 45:18), informed deeply by revelation and its interpretation by the Prophet Muhammad as well as his closest Companions.
Built on this foundation is an ongoing human endeavour to grasp and lend expression to that teaching―elaborately in law, but no less so in devotional, ethical and customary practices in diverse Shia and Sunni Muslim communities, including in the West. Popular myths about the shari'a ― that it is divine law, that it is contained in a single code recognised by all Muslims, that it is about controlling behavior, that it 'defines' Islam ― are challenged in this volume by leading scholars, with a view to illuminating how we arrived here and where we might be headed. The claims of the modern state as the custodian of the shari'a are put into perspective, alongside the vital role of a pluralist civil society.
From bioethics, human development, family law and finance to constitutional and human rights issues, this fifth volume in the Muslim Heritage Series offers an accessible account of the ideals and realities of the shari'a. As such, it will appeal not only to specialists in the humanities and social sciences, but also to the general reader with an interest in global affairs and informed citizenship.
https://www.amazon.com/Sharia-History-E ... 178831316X
****
Chapter: "Sustaining and Enhancing Life" by Professor Karim H. Karim's
/ismailimail.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/the_sharia_sustaining_and_enhancing_life.pdf
Reconciling Faith and Modernity for Ramadan
Excerpt:
This practical solution to a problem of jurisprudence must be welcome in the high latitudes. But it also raises a more complex, two-part theoretical question that is often ignored by Islam’s jurists but that deserves to be probed because it’s at the tip of a theological iceberg: How historical is the Quran’s language? And how literally should it be interpreted today?
This is a question raised by modern Muslim theologians like Fazlur Rahman Malik, who died in 1988; his reformist ideas led to his exile from his home country, Pakistan, and then to a safe haven at the University of Chicago. Like every Muslim worthy of the name, Dr. Rahman believed that the Quran is the word of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
Yet, in Dr. Rahman’s opinion, God had not spoken in a vacuum. He had instead spoken to a specific community, the Arabs, and at a specific time, the early seventh century. This context, Dr. Rahman argued, played a role in the composition of the Quran’s text. And when new contexts arose, the injunctions of the Quran had to be reinterpreted in the light of the moral intentions behind the text.
The discussion over fasting is, in fact, a minor case of the need for such reinterpretations. Some more important issues include corporal punishments, which create some of the most controversial perceptions of Islam in the modern world. The Quran, in fact, is free of some of the harsh corporal punishments commonly associated with Islamic law — such as stoning of adulterers — but it does include others. “As for the thieves,” it decrees, “amputate their hands in recompense for what they committed.”
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/opin ... sting.html
Excerpt:
This practical solution to a problem of jurisprudence must be welcome in the high latitudes. But it also raises a more complex, two-part theoretical question that is often ignored by Islam’s jurists but that deserves to be probed because it’s at the tip of a theological iceberg: How historical is the Quran’s language? And how literally should it be interpreted today?
This is a question raised by modern Muslim theologians like Fazlur Rahman Malik, who died in 1988; his reformist ideas led to his exile from his home country, Pakistan, and then to a safe haven at the University of Chicago. Like every Muslim worthy of the name, Dr. Rahman believed that the Quran is the word of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
Yet, in Dr. Rahman’s opinion, God had not spoken in a vacuum. He had instead spoken to a specific community, the Arabs, and at a specific time, the early seventh century. This context, Dr. Rahman argued, played a role in the composition of the Quran’s text. And when new contexts arose, the injunctions of the Quran had to be reinterpreted in the light of the moral intentions behind the text.
The discussion over fasting is, in fact, a minor case of the need for such reinterpretations. Some more important issues include corporal punishments, which create some of the most controversial perceptions of Islam in the modern world. The Quran, in fact, is free of some of the harsh corporal punishments commonly associated with Islamic law — such as stoning of adulterers — but it does include others. “As for the thieves,” it decrees, “amputate their hands in recompense for what they committed.”
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/opin ... sting.html
Authority and Plurality in Muslim Legal Traditions: The Case of Ismaili Law
American Journal of Comparative Law, Forthcoming
NUS Law Working Paper No. 2018/008
NUS - Centre for Asian Legal Studies Working Paper 18/02
21 Pages ●Posted: 19 Mar 2018 ●Last revised: 1 May 2018
Arif A. Jamal
National University of Singapore (NUS) - Faculty of Law
Date Written: February 15, 2018
Abstract
Islamic law is often said to be very pluralistic due to its interpretational variations. At the level of sources, however, accounts of Islamic law have generally emphasized the reliance on a set of major ‘roots’ of law, with other lesser sources. This paper discusses on the case of Nizari Ismaili law in historical as well as contemporary terms, elaborating its authority structure, especially the concept of Imamat and role of the Imam, as well as using it to strengthen the case that plurality in Islamic law can and should be extended to a plurality of sources as well as of rules.
Keywords: Ismaili, Islam, Imamat, plurality, authority, Muslim
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... id=3141048
American Journal of Comparative Law, Forthcoming
NUS Law Working Paper No. 2018/008
NUS - Centre for Asian Legal Studies Working Paper 18/02
21 Pages ●Posted: 19 Mar 2018 ●Last revised: 1 May 2018
Arif A. Jamal
National University of Singapore (NUS) - Faculty of Law
Date Written: February 15, 2018
Abstract
Islamic law is often said to be very pluralistic due to its interpretational variations. At the level of sources, however, accounts of Islamic law have generally emphasized the reliance on a set of major ‘roots’ of law, with other lesser sources. This paper discusses on the case of Nizari Ismaili law in historical as well as contemporary terms, elaborating its authority structure, especially the concept of Imamat and role of the Imam, as well as using it to strengthen the case that plurality in Islamic law can and should be extended to a plurality of sources as well as of rules.
Keywords: Ismaili, Islam, Imamat, plurality, authority, Muslim
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... id=3141048
A Thousand (and One) Interpretations of the Qur'an
Video:
https://iis.ac.uk/video/thousand-and-on ... ions-quran
Video:
https://iis.ac.uk/video/thousand-and-on ... ions-quran
11 and Married: Malaysia Spars Over an Age-Old Practice
GUA MUSANG, Malaysia — Norazila and Ayu were best friends and they shared everything that girls do: sleepovers, selfies, musings about cute boys.
But their friendship, which had blossomed in their placid hamlet in northern Malaysia, was destroyed late last month when Norazila, 14, discovered that Ayu, 11, had secretly become her father’s third wife.
“My best friend is my stepmother now,” said Norazila, whose family name is Che Abdul Karim, as she scrolled through her Facebook page filled with posts of the girls posing with adolescent pouts and fingers forming peace signs. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Ayu’s marriage to Che Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid, a 41-year-old rubber trader with a prominent role at his mosque and a fleet of fancy cars, has reignited debate in Malaysia about the persistence of conservative Islamic traditions in this modern, multiethnic democracy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/29/worl ... 3053090730
GUA MUSANG, Malaysia — Norazila and Ayu were best friends and they shared everything that girls do: sleepovers, selfies, musings about cute boys.
But their friendship, which had blossomed in their placid hamlet in northern Malaysia, was destroyed late last month when Norazila, 14, discovered that Ayu, 11, had secretly become her father’s third wife.
“My best friend is my stepmother now,” said Norazila, whose family name is Che Abdul Karim, as she scrolled through her Facebook page filled with posts of the girls posing with adolescent pouts and fingers forming peace signs. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Ayu’s marriage to Che Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid, a 41-year-old rubber trader with a prominent role at his mosque and a fleet of fancy cars, has reignited debate in Malaysia about the persistence of conservative Islamic traditions in this modern, multiethnic democracy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/29/worl ... 3053090730
BOOK
The Sorrowful Muslim's Guide
Hussein Ahmad Amin
Translated by Yasmin Amin, Nesrin Amin
Published in Association with the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
Explores the interaction between pre-Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities
Published as Dalīl al-Muslim al-ḥazīn ilā muqtada-l-sulūk fī’l-qarn al-ʿishrīn in 1983, this book remains a timely and important read today. Both the resurgence of Islamist politics and the political, social and intellectual upheaval which accompanied the Arab Spring challenge us to re-examine the interaction between the pre-modern Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities.
This book does exactly that, raising questions regarding issues about which other Muslim intellectuals and thinkers have been silent. These include – among others – current religious practice vs the Islamic ideal; the many additions to the original revelation; the veracity of the Prophet’s biography and his sayings; the development of Sufism; and historical and ideological influences on Islamic thought.
Key Features
Makes available in English an important contribution to modern Muslim thought from a prominent Egyptian thinker
Looks at how current religious practice conforms (or not) to the Islamic ideal when Islam was first revealed
Explores the relationship between core, inner religious values and ritualistic practices
Engages critically with the sources by using historical, literal and logical criticism
https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/bo ... guide.html
The Sorrowful Muslim's Guide
Hussein Ahmad Amin
Translated by Yasmin Amin, Nesrin Amin
Published in Association with the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
Explores the interaction between pre-Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities
Published as Dalīl al-Muslim al-ḥazīn ilā muqtada-l-sulūk fī’l-qarn al-ʿishrīn in 1983, this book remains a timely and important read today. Both the resurgence of Islamist politics and the political, social and intellectual upheaval which accompanied the Arab Spring challenge us to re-examine the interaction between the pre-modern Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities.
This book does exactly that, raising questions regarding issues about which other Muslim intellectuals and thinkers have been silent. These include – among others – current religious practice vs the Islamic ideal; the many additions to the original revelation; the veracity of the Prophet’s biography and his sayings; the development of Sufism; and historical and ideological influences on Islamic thought.
Key Features
Makes available in English an important contribution to modern Muslim thought from a prominent Egyptian thinker
Looks at how current religious practice conforms (or not) to the Islamic ideal when Islam was first revealed
Explores the relationship between core, inner religious values and ritualistic practices
Engages critically with the sources by using historical, literal and logical criticism
https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/bo ... guide.html
True Islam Does Not Kill Blasphemers
The Quran has 6,236 verses, none of which tell the faithful to stifle blasphemy by force.
The agony of Asia Bibi, a 54-year-old Roman Catholic and mother of five, shows there is something rotten in her country, Pakistan — and in the broader world of Islam.
She was arrested for blasphemy in 2009 after Muslim co-workers on a destitute farm denounced her for merely drinking from the same cup and, during the subsequent quarrel, for “insulting Prophet Muhammad” — a charge Ms. Bibi always denied. Yet she was convicted in 2010 and spent the next eight years in solitary confinement, on death row.
Luckily, Pakistan’s Supreme Court last month saved her from execution, clearing her of the charges and also setting her free. But Pakistan’s militant Islamists, especially those in the notorious Tehreek-e-Labbaik religious party, which is obsessed with punishing blasphemers, were enraged. They forced the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to accept a court petition to reverse the case and bar Ms. Bibi from leaving the country. She and her family, fearing vigilante violence, went into hiding.
I am hoping that the traumatized family will be able to leave Pakistan safely, to find asylum in some free nation. As a Muslim, I feel ashamed of the cruelty they have suffered at the hands of people who act in the name of my faith.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/opin ... dline&te=1
The Quran has 6,236 verses, none of which tell the faithful to stifle blasphemy by force.
The agony of Asia Bibi, a 54-year-old Roman Catholic and mother of five, shows there is something rotten in her country, Pakistan — and in the broader world of Islam.
She was arrested for blasphemy in 2009 after Muslim co-workers on a destitute farm denounced her for merely drinking from the same cup and, during the subsequent quarrel, for “insulting Prophet Muhammad” — a charge Ms. Bibi always denied. Yet she was convicted in 2010 and spent the next eight years in solitary confinement, on death row.
Luckily, Pakistan’s Supreme Court last month saved her from execution, clearing her of the charges and also setting her free. But Pakistan’s militant Islamists, especially those in the notorious Tehreek-e-Labbaik religious party, which is obsessed with punishing blasphemers, were enraged. They forced the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to accept a court petition to reverse the case and bar Ms. Bibi from leaving the country. She and her family, fearing vigilante violence, went into hiding.
I am hoping that the traumatized family will be able to leave Pakistan safely, to find asylum in some free nation. As a Muslim, I feel ashamed of the cruelty they have suffered at the hands of people who act in the name of my faith.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/opin ... dline&te=1
Video: Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World
https://the.ismaili/news/video-understa ... ised-world
The Ismaili Centre London hosted a reception and launch event last month for the newly released book Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World published by I.B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS). The book encourages new thinking about the history of sharia and its role in the world today.
Based on years of research, the publication has been written by Raficq S. Adbulla and Dr Mohamed M. Keshavjee, both British trained and qualified lawyers. Although the authors claim that this is not an academic book, as it is easily accessible to read, it is an academic and timely piece of research.
The authors suggest that Islamic Law and jurisprudence are neither an exclusive legal system nor a fixed set of beliefs. Instead, the book proposes that sharia is underpinned by ethical principles, and is open to change depending on context and circumstance. As such, the authors encourage new thinking about the history of sharia and its role in the world today.
The numerous themes covered in the book include the historical development, geographical expansion, and multiple manifestations of sharia, as well as a commentary on modern topics of relevance such as human rights, gender considerations, and criminal justice in the context of Islamic Law. Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World addresses the gaps in our knowledge of sharia.
Their publication has been endorsed by academics of various fields and theologians of different religions; Christian, Jewish, and Muslim alike. The book launch event at the Ismaili Centre London took the form of a conversation with the authors, moderated by Russell Harris, an accomplished writer and translator, who also edited the book.
https://the.ismaili/news/video-understa ... ised-world
https://the.ismaili/news/video-understa ... ised-world
The Ismaili Centre London hosted a reception and launch event last month for the newly released book Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World published by I.B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS). The book encourages new thinking about the history of sharia and its role in the world today.
Based on years of research, the publication has been written by Raficq S. Adbulla and Dr Mohamed M. Keshavjee, both British trained and qualified lawyers. Although the authors claim that this is not an academic book, as it is easily accessible to read, it is an academic and timely piece of research.
The authors suggest that Islamic Law and jurisprudence are neither an exclusive legal system nor a fixed set of beliefs. Instead, the book proposes that sharia is underpinned by ethical principles, and is open to change depending on context and circumstance. As such, the authors encourage new thinking about the history of sharia and its role in the world today.
The numerous themes covered in the book include the historical development, geographical expansion, and multiple manifestations of sharia, as well as a commentary on modern topics of relevance such as human rights, gender considerations, and criminal justice in the context of Islamic Law. Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World addresses the gaps in our knowledge of sharia.
Their publication has been endorsed by academics of various fields and theologians of different religions; Christian, Jewish, and Muslim alike. The book launch event at the Ismaili Centre London took the form of a conversation with the authors, moderated by Russell Harris, an accomplished writer and translator, who also edited the book.
https://the.ismaili/news/video-understa ... ised-world
The Creeping Liberalism in American Islam
Far from spreading Shariah, as Islamophobes have suggested, America’s Muslim clerics are focusing on a more familiar trend: youngsters blending into American life.
Excerpt:
For that reason, I find the American Muslim quandary fascinating — and promising. “Liberalism” as a framework for a free society is painfully lacking in large parts of the Muslim world today. If the Muslim community in the United States, what Mr. Patel called the “American ummah,” can embrace that by reinterpreting its traditions without losing itself, it could contribute to the broader ummah by offering new perspectives and a lived example.
Charles Taylor, one of the most prominent thinkers on religion today, reminds us of a historical precedent in an essay from 2011: In the 19th century, American Catholics were seen by the Protestant majority as “inassimilable to democratic mores, in ways very analogous to the suspicions that nag people over Islam today.” But, Mr. Taylor added, “American Catholicism evolved and, in the process, changed world Catholicism in significant ways.”
A similar transformation took place within American Judaism, as Steven R. Weisman shows in his recent book, “The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became an American Religion.” Rabbinical authority waned, women became empowered, practices were modernized and Reform Judaism flourished.
To say that change would never happen in Islam would be a view too unfair to this third big Abrahamic religion. It would also underestimate America’s great potential to attract, and also transform, people of all faiths and races under a simple but rare principle — equal justice under the law. Shouldn’t some of those who call themselves “American nationalists” know this better than they seem to know these days?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/opin ... dline&te=1
Far from spreading Shariah, as Islamophobes have suggested, America’s Muslim clerics are focusing on a more familiar trend: youngsters blending into American life.
Excerpt:
For that reason, I find the American Muslim quandary fascinating — and promising. “Liberalism” as a framework for a free society is painfully lacking in large parts of the Muslim world today. If the Muslim community in the United States, what Mr. Patel called the “American ummah,” can embrace that by reinterpreting its traditions without losing itself, it could contribute to the broader ummah by offering new perspectives and a lived example.
Charles Taylor, one of the most prominent thinkers on religion today, reminds us of a historical precedent in an essay from 2011: In the 19th century, American Catholics were seen by the Protestant majority as “inassimilable to democratic mores, in ways very analogous to the suspicions that nag people over Islam today.” But, Mr. Taylor added, “American Catholicism evolved and, in the process, changed world Catholicism in significant ways.”
A similar transformation took place within American Judaism, as Steven R. Weisman shows in his recent book, “The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became an American Religion.” Rabbinical authority waned, women became empowered, practices were modernized and Reform Judaism flourished.
To say that change would never happen in Islam would be a view too unfair to this third big Abrahamic religion. It would also underestimate America’s great potential to attract, and also transform, people of all faiths and races under a simple but rare principle — equal justice under the law. Shouldn’t some of those who call themselves “American nationalists” know this better than they seem to know these days?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/opin ... dline&te=1
Timely and much-needed publication by Institute of Ismaili Studies:
“Understanding Sharia – Islamic Law in a Globalized World” receives positive review from Britain’s Financial Times
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON MARCH 20, 2019
New book throws light on one of the most misunderstood topics of our time.
Book Review by David Gardner- International Affairs Editor, Financial Times
In a ruminative lecture on Islamic Sharia’s place in English law a decade ago, Rowan Williams, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, asked whether small, culturally and religiously intimate matters of mainly family law might not be delegated to Muslim religious courts. “What a Burkha”, the Sun newspaper boomed in the furore that ensued. While the tabloid response was predictable, it probably summarised accurately the popular image of sharia, as something veiled, menacing and alien. This rich and important book is a lucidly argued and accessibly written corrective.
Take that headline-grabbing burka. The Muslim practice of veiling women copied the (Christian) Byzantines, who probably borrowed it from the (Zoroastrian) Persian culture of hiding upper-class women from all men but their own. Similarly, other early Muslim practices seen as signatures of sharia law such as the imposition of a poll tax on Jews and Christians — which Islamist extremists would like restored — are also borrowings, in this case from the (pagan) Romans.
Veiling, the authors note, has more to do with identity politics and local custom than the Koran, which merely enjoins modesty — on men and women alike. Similarly, the holy book “speaks of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace without cursing Eve . . . Adam alone is the recipient of divine reproach”. The turn against Eve began in the ninth century, when Muslim scholars homogenised their teaching, aligning it with Christianity.
The evolution of sharia was heavily influenced by customary law once Islam burst out of Arabia, into the Levant, Persia, north Africa and Europe. This rapid growth of empire created the need to codify sharia into a more uniform and predictable jurisprudence. That helped kill the spirit of inquiry encouraged by the Koran. Succeeding Muslim dynasties and an increasingly confident clerical and judicial caste had a common interest in discouraging philosophy, theology and speculation. Attributions to the Prophet Mohammed played a big part in shaping sharia. The process helped divinise the Prophet and the hadith (sayings or acts attributed to him) turning a man who pronounced “I am mortal like you” into what the Turkish scholar Mustafa Akyol calls “an omniscient prognosticator who knew everything about the future”. The whole exercise shutdown the process of ijtihad — reasoning by analogy encouraged by the Koran to deal with contemporary problems unforeseen in the Koranic revelation — in favour of “a more ossified process of exegesis and the formulation of rules”.
The authors are particularly good at laying out the evolution of the classic schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Their story also highlights how cyclical and dynamic Muslim civilisation has been — as it spread from the Oxus river in Central Asia to the Pyrenees — and how different its colours depending on whether it mixed with Jews and Christians, as in Moorish Spain, or collided in Africa with Berbers or Yorubas.
Christians should not be too quick to dismiss the “convoluted degree of casuistry” to which Islam and sharia could descend. A 12th-century judge in Cordoba may have said the final word in godliness lay in the righteous conundrum: is it permissible to ride a camel that has drunk wine, since the rider could be polluted by its inebriate sweat? But that judge was the grandfather of the philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes) who helped make Europe’s renaissance possible. There is clearly a problem if sharia law as a core marker of Islamic identity has been deemed closed to change for almost a millennium, as well as being seen as a shield against the dislocations of modernity.
The authors defend the humanist dimension of Islam and the Koran. They see paths to a modernised sharia through Muslim scholars working in the west and retrieving the authenticity of 19th-century reformers such as Mohammed Abduh, the Egyptian scholar, and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani who, despite his name, was probably a Persian and a Shia. They argue that the mystic traditions of Sufi Islam and often more supple practices of Shiism have “the potential of retrieving for sharia its higher ethical purpose” — a purpose this book admirably presents.
The reviewer is the FT’s international affairs editor.
Book Review was published on Financial Times website on March 17, 2019. Ismailimail has received permission to publish this review on our website.
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/04140232-471 ... d669740bfb
https://ismailimail.blog/2019/03/20/tim ... -financia/
“Understanding Sharia – Islamic Law in a Globalized World” receives positive review from Britain’s Financial Times
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON MARCH 20, 2019
New book throws light on one of the most misunderstood topics of our time.
Book Review by David Gardner- International Affairs Editor, Financial Times
In a ruminative lecture on Islamic Sharia’s place in English law a decade ago, Rowan Williams, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, asked whether small, culturally and religiously intimate matters of mainly family law might not be delegated to Muslim religious courts. “What a Burkha”, the Sun newspaper boomed in the furore that ensued. While the tabloid response was predictable, it probably summarised accurately the popular image of sharia, as something veiled, menacing and alien. This rich and important book is a lucidly argued and accessibly written corrective.
Take that headline-grabbing burka. The Muslim practice of veiling women copied the (Christian) Byzantines, who probably borrowed it from the (Zoroastrian) Persian culture of hiding upper-class women from all men but their own. Similarly, other early Muslim practices seen as signatures of sharia law such as the imposition of a poll tax on Jews and Christians — which Islamist extremists would like restored — are also borrowings, in this case from the (pagan) Romans.
Veiling, the authors note, has more to do with identity politics and local custom than the Koran, which merely enjoins modesty — on men and women alike. Similarly, the holy book “speaks of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace without cursing Eve . . . Adam alone is the recipient of divine reproach”. The turn against Eve began in the ninth century, when Muslim scholars homogenised their teaching, aligning it with Christianity.
The evolution of sharia was heavily influenced by customary law once Islam burst out of Arabia, into the Levant, Persia, north Africa and Europe. This rapid growth of empire created the need to codify sharia into a more uniform and predictable jurisprudence. That helped kill the spirit of inquiry encouraged by the Koran. Succeeding Muslim dynasties and an increasingly confident clerical and judicial caste had a common interest in discouraging philosophy, theology and speculation. Attributions to the Prophet Mohammed played a big part in shaping sharia. The process helped divinise the Prophet and the hadith (sayings or acts attributed to him) turning a man who pronounced “I am mortal like you” into what the Turkish scholar Mustafa Akyol calls “an omniscient prognosticator who knew everything about the future”. The whole exercise shutdown the process of ijtihad — reasoning by analogy encouraged by the Koran to deal with contemporary problems unforeseen in the Koranic revelation — in favour of “a more ossified process of exegesis and the formulation of rules”.
The authors are particularly good at laying out the evolution of the classic schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Their story also highlights how cyclical and dynamic Muslim civilisation has been — as it spread from the Oxus river in Central Asia to the Pyrenees — and how different its colours depending on whether it mixed with Jews and Christians, as in Moorish Spain, or collided in Africa with Berbers or Yorubas.
Christians should not be too quick to dismiss the “convoluted degree of casuistry” to which Islam and sharia could descend. A 12th-century judge in Cordoba may have said the final word in godliness lay in the righteous conundrum: is it permissible to ride a camel that has drunk wine, since the rider could be polluted by its inebriate sweat? But that judge was the grandfather of the philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes) who helped make Europe’s renaissance possible. There is clearly a problem if sharia law as a core marker of Islamic identity has been deemed closed to change for almost a millennium, as well as being seen as a shield against the dislocations of modernity.
The authors defend the humanist dimension of Islam and the Koran. They see paths to a modernised sharia through Muslim scholars working in the west and retrieving the authenticity of 19th-century reformers such as Mohammed Abduh, the Egyptian scholar, and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani who, despite his name, was probably a Persian and a Shia. They argue that the mystic traditions of Sufi Islam and often more supple practices of Shiism have “the potential of retrieving for sharia its higher ethical purpose” — a purpose this book admirably presents.
The reviewer is the FT’s international affairs editor.
Book Review was published on Financial Times website on March 17, 2019. Ismailimail has received permission to publish this review on our website.
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/04140232-471 ... d669740bfb
https://ismailimail.blog/2019/03/20/tim ... -financia/
Stoning Gay People? The Sultan of Brunei Doesn’t Understand Modern Islam
The Ottoman Empire was more liberal.
At a time when Islam’s place in the modern world is a matter of global contention, Brunei, a small monarchy in Southeast Asia, has offered its two cents. By April 3, the nation, which is predominantly Muslim, had begun adhering to a new penal code with harsh corporal punishments. Accordingly, gay men or adulterers may be stoned to death, and lesbians may be flogged. Thieves will lose first their right hand, and then their left foot.
Understandably, these bits of news brought outcries from the United Nations, human rights organizations and celebrities like George Clooney. In return, the Brunei government dismissed all criticisms, reminding the world that the country is “sovereign” and “like all other independent countries, enforces its own rule of laws.”
As a Muslim, I should first tell my coreligionists in Brunei that their argument is not very good. Of course every country can enforce its own laws, but the content of those laws isn’t immune from criticism when it violates human rights. Otherwise, we would have no basis to criticize China’s totalitarian persecution of Uighur Muslims or the illiberal bans on “religious symbols,” including the Islamic head scarf, in France and, more recently, Quebec.
However, the real issue isn’t Brunei. It is Islamic law, or Shariah, the penal code from which law is applied not just in Brunei but in about a dozen other nations as well, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan. It includes brutal corporal punishments that shock the rest of the world. It also criminalizes acts that shouldn’t be crimes at all — such as consensual sex, loss of faith in Islam (“apostasy”) and the right to criticize it (“blasphemy”).
Muslims who insist on keeping or reviving these measures have a simple logic: Shariah is God’s law, and enforcing it is a religious duty. But their blind literalism is wrong for three reasons.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/opin ... dline&te=1
The Ottoman Empire was more liberal.
At a time when Islam’s place in the modern world is a matter of global contention, Brunei, a small monarchy in Southeast Asia, has offered its two cents. By April 3, the nation, which is predominantly Muslim, had begun adhering to a new penal code with harsh corporal punishments. Accordingly, gay men or adulterers may be stoned to death, and lesbians may be flogged. Thieves will lose first their right hand, and then their left foot.
Understandably, these bits of news brought outcries from the United Nations, human rights organizations and celebrities like George Clooney. In return, the Brunei government dismissed all criticisms, reminding the world that the country is “sovereign” and “like all other independent countries, enforces its own rule of laws.”
As a Muslim, I should first tell my coreligionists in Brunei that their argument is not very good. Of course every country can enforce its own laws, but the content of those laws isn’t immune from criticism when it violates human rights. Otherwise, we would have no basis to criticize China’s totalitarian persecution of Uighur Muslims or the illiberal bans on “religious symbols,” including the Islamic head scarf, in France and, more recently, Quebec.
However, the real issue isn’t Brunei. It is Islamic law, or Shariah, the penal code from which law is applied not just in Brunei but in about a dozen other nations as well, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan. It includes brutal corporal punishments that shock the rest of the world. It also criminalizes acts that shouldn’t be crimes at all — such as consensual sex, loss of faith in Islam (“apostasy”) and the right to criticize it (“blasphemy”).
Muslims who insist on keeping or reviving these measures have a simple logic: Shariah is God’s law, and enforcing it is a religious duty. But their blind literalism is wrong for three reasons.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/opin ... dline&te=1
For These Muslims, Learning the Quran Starts With YouTube
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Every year, as the Islamic holy month of Ramadan approached, Surya Sahetapy and his close friends would start to feel depressed.
They were at their wits’ ends about how to help more Indonesians study the Quran, Islam’s holiest book, which may seem surprising in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
Traditionally, Muslims around the world recite the entire Quran during the month of Ramadan, which began in Indonesia on May 5. Learning all 114 chapters, known as surahs, can take years, and many here learn the melodic Arabic recitations — as well as Indonesian translations and interpretations — by listening to audio recordings.
But Mr. Surya, 25, and his friends had a unique challenge when it came to studying the sacred texts: They are deaf.
“My deaf friends and I felt depressed because we didn’t have any way to help other deaf people to access Islam,” he said in an interview, accompanied by a sign-language interpreter.
All that changed last year when Mr. Surya teamed up with a local Islamic organization on a project to produce sign-language videos, translating all 114 surahs.
Video and more....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/worl ... 3053090510
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Every year, as the Islamic holy month of Ramadan approached, Surya Sahetapy and his close friends would start to feel depressed.
They were at their wits’ ends about how to help more Indonesians study the Quran, Islam’s holiest book, which may seem surprising in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
Traditionally, Muslims around the world recite the entire Quran during the month of Ramadan, which began in Indonesia on May 5. Learning all 114 chapters, known as surahs, can take years, and many here learn the melodic Arabic recitations — as well as Indonesian translations and interpretations — by listening to audio recordings.
But Mr. Surya, 25, and his friends had a unique challenge when it came to studying the sacred texts: They are deaf.
“My deaf friends and I felt depressed because we didn’t have any way to help other deaf people to access Islam,” he said in an interview, accompanied by a sign-language interpreter.
All that changed last year when Mr. Surya teamed up with a local Islamic organization on a project to produce sign-language videos, translating all 114 surahs.
Video and more....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/worl ... 3053090510
BOOK REVIEW: Understanding Sharia Islamic law in a globalised world
Zubeida Jaffer 15 Jun 2019 13:37
Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World (2018)
Raficq S. Abdullah and Mohamed M. Keshavjee
Post 9/11, Sharia or Islamic law has peppered global discourses like never before in modern times.
Negative statements about Sharia have hogged newspaper headlines leaving the public with little room but to conclude that it was a system of law that was unjust and backward.
Last year, two Muslim lawyers took the bull by the horns and published a 321-page book outlining the evolution of Sharia from the time of revelation of the Quran to the present day. The book, Understanding Sharia, Islamic Law in a Globalised World has been written for both Muslim and non-Muslim readers.
On the back cover, theologian and interfaith specialist, the Reverend Canon Dr Alan Race describes it as follows: “Accessible, informative and wonderfully enlightening, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to acquire an unprejudiced perspective on the meaning of sharia for today.”
I have to agree with him. The book drew me in like I never expected. It allowed me to learn about the ethical underpinnings of sharia flowing from the Quran and the myriad of twists and turns the laws took in different countries over the past 1 400 years since the birth of Islam. It also helped me understand the interplay between local customary law and Sharia and how adjustments were made to accommodate the good functioning of different societies. According to the authors, with these modes of accommodation between political authority and the religious establishment on the one hand and the religious establishment and customary practice in newly conquered areas on the other hand, sharia met the needs of Muslim communities as they developed over the course of history.
One of the central challenges throughout the ages has been developing rules that guide the individual’s pursuit of his or her faith while at the same time establishing a righteous society that would allow the individual to develop and expand. Islam lays great stress on social duties which serve to test and train individual character.
The two authors are well placed to have done this research. Interestingly both are South African-born but based in the United Kingdom.
Raficq Abdulla was born in Durban and his father was a businessman Shaik Abdulla of Hyderabadi background. His mother was of Malay background from the Cape. Her name was Moseda Ismail. She became a doctor, qualifying at Edinburgh University, in the 1930s. His mother’s two grandparents were important imams in the Cape, one of whom represented Sultan Abdul Hamid IIl.
He was sent to the UK in the early 1950s to attend a prep and public school. He studied Jurisprudence in Brasenose College, Oxford and qualified as a Barrister at Law at Middle Temple Inn. For over 25 years, he has been on the panel of advisers of the Muslim Law Sharia Council of the UK He has written two books interpreting the poems of Rumi and Attar respectively and is a poet in his own right. His years of work on interfaith relations amongst Muslims, Jews and Christians earned him an MBE in 1999.
Mohamed M Keshavjee was born in Pretoria of Indian parents and was educated at Pretoria Indian High School. He left South Africa for Kenya in 1962 where he completed his high school education. He went to the UK in 1967 and qualified as a Barrister at Law at Gray’s Inn and then returned to Kenya to practice law. In 1973 he migrated to Canada and completed an LLB at Queens University and then practiced at the Ontario Bar. Life was to bring him back to the UK in 1998 where he specialised in Islamic Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Eventually in 2016 he was the recipient of the Gandhi King Ikeda Peace Award for his work on Peace and Human Rights education. He is also a member of the Darwin International Institute for the study of Compassion.
In this book, the authors do not only outline the history, identifying the different schools of thought and great legal minds that shaped sharia, but also turn to contemporary challenges in the Muslim world. Sharia is examined with regard to issues such as human rights and criminal penalties, including those dealing with blasphemy, adultery, commercial transactions, bio-medical ethics and other matters.
https://mg.co.za/article/2019-06-15-boo ... ised-world
Zubeida Jaffer 15 Jun 2019 13:37
Understanding Sharia: Islamic Law in a Globalised World (2018)
Raficq S. Abdullah and Mohamed M. Keshavjee
Post 9/11, Sharia or Islamic law has peppered global discourses like never before in modern times.
Negative statements about Sharia have hogged newspaper headlines leaving the public with little room but to conclude that it was a system of law that was unjust and backward.
Last year, two Muslim lawyers took the bull by the horns and published a 321-page book outlining the evolution of Sharia from the time of revelation of the Quran to the present day. The book, Understanding Sharia, Islamic Law in a Globalised World has been written for both Muslim and non-Muslim readers.
On the back cover, theologian and interfaith specialist, the Reverend Canon Dr Alan Race describes it as follows: “Accessible, informative and wonderfully enlightening, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to acquire an unprejudiced perspective on the meaning of sharia for today.”
I have to agree with him. The book drew me in like I never expected. It allowed me to learn about the ethical underpinnings of sharia flowing from the Quran and the myriad of twists and turns the laws took in different countries over the past 1 400 years since the birth of Islam. It also helped me understand the interplay between local customary law and Sharia and how adjustments were made to accommodate the good functioning of different societies. According to the authors, with these modes of accommodation between political authority and the religious establishment on the one hand and the religious establishment and customary practice in newly conquered areas on the other hand, sharia met the needs of Muslim communities as they developed over the course of history.
One of the central challenges throughout the ages has been developing rules that guide the individual’s pursuit of his or her faith while at the same time establishing a righteous society that would allow the individual to develop and expand. Islam lays great stress on social duties which serve to test and train individual character.
The two authors are well placed to have done this research. Interestingly both are South African-born but based in the United Kingdom.
Raficq Abdulla was born in Durban and his father was a businessman Shaik Abdulla of Hyderabadi background. His mother was of Malay background from the Cape. Her name was Moseda Ismail. She became a doctor, qualifying at Edinburgh University, in the 1930s. His mother’s two grandparents were important imams in the Cape, one of whom represented Sultan Abdul Hamid IIl.
He was sent to the UK in the early 1950s to attend a prep and public school. He studied Jurisprudence in Brasenose College, Oxford and qualified as a Barrister at Law at Middle Temple Inn. For over 25 years, he has been on the panel of advisers of the Muslim Law Sharia Council of the UK He has written two books interpreting the poems of Rumi and Attar respectively and is a poet in his own right. His years of work on interfaith relations amongst Muslims, Jews and Christians earned him an MBE in 1999.
Mohamed M Keshavjee was born in Pretoria of Indian parents and was educated at Pretoria Indian High School. He left South Africa for Kenya in 1962 where he completed his high school education. He went to the UK in 1967 and qualified as a Barrister at Law at Gray’s Inn and then returned to Kenya to practice law. In 1973 he migrated to Canada and completed an LLB at Queens University and then practiced at the Ontario Bar. Life was to bring him back to the UK in 1998 where he specialised in Islamic Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Eventually in 2016 he was the recipient of the Gandhi King Ikeda Peace Award for his work on Peace and Human Rights education. He is also a member of the Darwin International Institute for the study of Compassion.
In this book, the authors do not only outline the history, identifying the different schools of thought and great legal minds that shaped sharia, but also turn to contemporary challenges in the Muslim world. Sharia is examined with regard to issues such as human rights and criminal penalties, including those dealing with blasphemy, adultery, commercial transactions, bio-medical ethics and other matters.
https://mg.co.za/article/2019-06-15-boo ... ised-world
Seyyed Hossein Nasr on Role of Thinking in Islam: Past, Present, and Future
EDITORS’ NOTE: Seyyed Hossein Nasr — a prominent Islamic philosopher and one of the most important scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies — discusses his insights on Islam and the modern world, his criticism of, and solutions to, Western approaches to religious education, the importance of traditionalism, the role of thinking in Islam, and his own personal search. This interview was published for the Boniuk Institute of Rice University.
Excerpt:
SB: We often talk about the intellectual tradition of Islam. You have said in a lecture on Islam and the modern world that “there has been an increasing trend among Muslims of anti-intellectualism, the great honor of not thinking.”
SHN: That is right.
SB: You said, “In Islam, it occurred very recently, and it went against the grain of the whole of Islamic civilization that always emphasized ‘ilm, knowledge, knowing, learning, etc.”
Can you elaborate on what you mean by “the great honor of not thinking”? …
SHN: … What I mean is that there re-developed in the Islamic world an element of that opposition to thinking about and meditating upon matters of religion, as there was also in other religions where there appeared schools of thought that said that you should only follow what “the gods” have said and not “think” about it. And so, we also observe such a phenomenon in Islam, but before modern times it was always a minority voice. The majority of schools in Islam, both Sunni and Shi’ite, always emphasized the importance of thinking, of intellection, of knowledge, following the teachings of the Quran and Ḥadīth on this issue.
The Quran equates actually being saved, being attached to God, with using our ‘aql. People who do not understand the reality of religion are not using their intellect. They do not think correctly and therefore do not understand. The Quran is based on the primacy of knowledge combined with faith, the highest of which is Lā ilāha illa’Llāh (There is no god but God), from which flow other forms of authentic knowledge.
The main challenge today that the Islamic world faces is not American bombs or anything like that. It is ideas. It is ideas that are challenging the whole existence of Islam, and so our main challenge is intellectual, and it cannot be answered by anti-intellectualism. On the one hand, there is the preservation of religion while confronting the West, although of course that has also weakened in certain circles. On the other hand, there is the anti-intellectualism that leaves the whole back door open. …
SB: In that same vein, it would seem to me that without new thought, new perspectives, new ideas, all we are really left with is existing past knowledge, which eventually degenerates into an unchallengeable prescriptive corpus of dogmatic orthodoxy. What can be done to reverse or diminish these unhealthy trends?
SHN: First of all, I do not agree with you about the negative use of the term dogmatic orthodoxy. I know what you mean, but that is also itself a prejudice of modernism. Dogma, originally a medieval Christian term, meant actually authentic belief about God and other religious doctrines, which were based on truth. And orthodoxy means ultimately Sirat-al-mustaqim, the right path, and also the right doctrine (ortho-docta). I consider myself to be completely orthodox, but I do not consider myself to be dogmatic, in a sense of trying to force my ideas upon people.
SB: Which is what I meant, right.
SHN: In addition to faith, I can provide arguments for my beliefs, and I am adamant in preserving my worldview because I have studied it and gained certainty about its truth through both faith and intellection. I have written about it; I have taught about it for decades on the basis of the certainty of the truth that it contains.
SB: Of course.
Representing Traditional Islam in Contemporary Language for Today’s Minds
SHN: Living religion is actually like a spring; water continues to flow from it, which then inundates and nourishes the fields around it. It does not have to change, but what it does have to do is to remain a spring, to remain active. What Islam is today, what modern is, what reformism is, are defined often by people who have mostly weak intellectual knowledge of the Islamic tradition. In twenty years’ time, who will read what they are writing now? I am sure that you have seen examples of famous reformists who were writing in Pakistan or some other Islamic country thirty years ago, but who have now faded into obscurity and no one hears about them anymore.
What is important is to represent traditional Islam in a contemporary language, to write about the eternal truths in a contemporary language.
More...
https://sahilbadruddin.com/seyyed-hosse ... nd-future/
EDITORS’ NOTE: Seyyed Hossein Nasr — a prominent Islamic philosopher and one of the most important scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies — discusses his insights on Islam and the modern world, his criticism of, and solutions to, Western approaches to religious education, the importance of traditionalism, the role of thinking in Islam, and his own personal search. This interview was published for the Boniuk Institute of Rice University.
Excerpt:
SB: We often talk about the intellectual tradition of Islam. You have said in a lecture on Islam and the modern world that “there has been an increasing trend among Muslims of anti-intellectualism, the great honor of not thinking.”
SHN: That is right.
SB: You said, “In Islam, it occurred very recently, and it went against the grain of the whole of Islamic civilization that always emphasized ‘ilm, knowledge, knowing, learning, etc.”
Can you elaborate on what you mean by “the great honor of not thinking”? …
SHN: … What I mean is that there re-developed in the Islamic world an element of that opposition to thinking about and meditating upon matters of religion, as there was also in other religions where there appeared schools of thought that said that you should only follow what “the gods” have said and not “think” about it. And so, we also observe such a phenomenon in Islam, but before modern times it was always a minority voice. The majority of schools in Islam, both Sunni and Shi’ite, always emphasized the importance of thinking, of intellection, of knowledge, following the teachings of the Quran and Ḥadīth on this issue.
The Quran equates actually being saved, being attached to God, with using our ‘aql. People who do not understand the reality of religion are not using their intellect. They do not think correctly and therefore do not understand. The Quran is based on the primacy of knowledge combined with faith, the highest of which is Lā ilāha illa’Llāh (There is no god but God), from which flow other forms of authentic knowledge.
The main challenge today that the Islamic world faces is not American bombs or anything like that. It is ideas. It is ideas that are challenging the whole existence of Islam, and so our main challenge is intellectual, and it cannot be answered by anti-intellectualism. On the one hand, there is the preservation of religion while confronting the West, although of course that has also weakened in certain circles. On the other hand, there is the anti-intellectualism that leaves the whole back door open. …
SB: In that same vein, it would seem to me that without new thought, new perspectives, new ideas, all we are really left with is existing past knowledge, which eventually degenerates into an unchallengeable prescriptive corpus of dogmatic orthodoxy. What can be done to reverse or diminish these unhealthy trends?
SHN: First of all, I do not agree with you about the negative use of the term dogmatic orthodoxy. I know what you mean, but that is also itself a prejudice of modernism. Dogma, originally a medieval Christian term, meant actually authentic belief about God and other religious doctrines, which were based on truth. And orthodoxy means ultimately Sirat-al-mustaqim, the right path, and also the right doctrine (ortho-docta). I consider myself to be completely orthodox, but I do not consider myself to be dogmatic, in a sense of trying to force my ideas upon people.
SB: Which is what I meant, right.
SHN: In addition to faith, I can provide arguments for my beliefs, and I am adamant in preserving my worldview because I have studied it and gained certainty about its truth through both faith and intellection. I have written about it; I have taught about it for decades on the basis of the certainty of the truth that it contains.
SB: Of course.
Representing Traditional Islam in Contemporary Language for Today’s Minds
SHN: Living religion is actually like a spring; water continues to flow from it, which then inundates and nourishes the fields around it. It does not have to change, but what it does have to do is to remain a spring, to remain active. What Islam is today, what modern is, what reformism is, are defined often by people who have mostly weak intellectual knowledge of the Islamic tradition. In twenty years’ time, who will read what they are writing now? I am sure that you have seen examples of famous reformists who were writing in Pakistan or some other Islamic country thirty years ago, but who have now faded into obscurity and no one hears about them anymore.
What is important is to represent traditional Islam in a contemporary language, to write about the eternal truths in a contemporary language.
More...
https://sahilbadruddin.com/seyyed-hosse ... nd-future/