Motive is the Primary Prerequisite

The ever hyped question of evolution of Islamic law has recently been reiterated in one of the leading local newspapers. The writer, who is an old schoolmate, has indicated some finer points regarding the dynamics of movement in Islam while completely missing the principle issue of motive which might bring about this structural movement.

Quoting Iqbal from his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, author contends that:

The argument being made here is not the traditionally liberal one that Islamic law being the law of a dynamic eternal religion needs to be capable of addressing the needs and concerns of evolving society and thus capable of evolving itself through ijtihad, but that the Islamic tradition is being evolved but only through the ijtihad performed by radicals, thus making it more bigoted and retrogressive.

Unless clerisy in Islamic societies, for instance Pakistan, is not ready to reconsider and analyze why they need Islamic thought to evolve so badly, criticizing radicalist agenda would seem nothing more than a meandering prattle. The liberals and progressives among these societies are not yet ready to reassociate their religious percept as it relates to political and moral philosophy in recent times. Therefore all the arguments against religious exclusivity and extremist interpretations, though accurate and true, would ultimately resonate better with logical positivism rather than a true religious discourse.

It would be sheer naivety if one disagrees with the assertion that many popular religious opinions are insinuations of hate and revenge politics rather than outcome of serious and erudite contemplation. Moreover denouncements of fellow Muslims as infidels and apostates are just quasi-legal judgments played by escapists to terminate assailable arguments. On the other hand, it is too simplistic to contend that absence of religious reform and scholarship is a primary cause of this booming radicalism. What we often fail to see is that intelligentsia in Pakistan is not ready to accept position of religion at the kernel of political, economic and social philosophy and merely insisting upon using it as a liberal nationalist’s tool to counter radical interpretations.

As a matter of fact, revolutionary transformists [sic] like Muhammad Iqbal cautioned ceaselessly about a similar pitfall:

We heartily welcome the liberal movement in modern Islam, but it must also be admitted that the appearance of liberal ideas in Islam constitutes also the most critical moment in the history of Islam. Liberalism has a tendency to act as a force of disintegration, and the race-idea which appears to be working in modern Islam with greater force than ever may ultimately wipe off the broad human outlook which Muslim people have imbibed from their religion. Further, our religious and political reformers in their zeal for liberalism may overstep the proper limits of reform in the absence of check on their youthful fervor {…} A careful reading of history shows that the Reformation was essentially a political movement, and the net result of it in Europe was a gradual displacement of the universal ethics of Christianity by systems of national ethics. {….} and then to move forward with self-control and a clear insight into the ultimate aims of Islam as a social polity.

It is interesting that statements like above can be taken either way as radical brand of Islam is also claiming the right to reform and is one of the manifestations of modernity, at least in the west. Puritanical Islamic movements, both historical and contemporary, also point us toward a bitter fact that reform and (re) interpretation can be a dangerous notion if enough groundwork is not there at the level of social and political level.

We have come about a long way since Iqbal’s times and have had enough share of enlightened and retrogressive reformists. Religious scholarship, no matter how much rigorous and enlightened, would ultimately fail to deliver if religious thought does not get the central and governing place in society. Talking about extrapolation of moral principles in Quran, applying them to our lives in an idealized culture of proverbial tolerance and enabling people to criticize different brands of Islam is jumping to the method before achieving decisive consensus regarding the motive.

Filed under: Criticism & Comments, Islam & Modernity, Land of the 'Pure', Traditional Islam

Revisiting Fazlur Rahman’s Ordeal

An anonymous commentator has inquired about the ‘backstory’ of banning of Fazlur Rahman’s ‘Islam‘ and forced me to terminate my prolonged hiatus from blogging.

Anyone examining the newspapers of second half of 68′ would know with ease that the whole episode was one of the earliest and most unfortunate sagas of political hijacking of Islam. It is immaterial whether Fazlur Rahman was labeled a kaafir, an apostate or a religious hypocrite and how the political environment at that time overshadowed an otherwise academic issue; what is important however, that Fazlur Rahman proved to be a victim of misdirected traditionalist emotionalism and paid the heavy price of abandoning his cherished goal of transforming intellectual heritage of Muslims and deploying a modern religious education policy in Pakistan.

Tragically, he suffered a lot due to peculiarity of his dual associations; wherein he was an active proponent of reforming traditional understanding of primary religious sources while being an academic chairing a prestigious national institution (Central Institute of Islamic Research) at the same time. The tradionalist circles, in their blinded zeal to safeguard Islamic tradition, targeted him in person by unjustly questioning his intentions rather than postulating a fair and academic rebuttal to his thought and works. Additionally, he was misquoted by way of limiting his statements (made in his book) to specific meanings. Whereas these were deep philosophical assertions directed only to academics and students who were presumed to be technically familiar with that kind of discourse. It is also important to understand that Rahman was primarily trained in philosophy and two specific angles from which he analysed and re-evaluated the historical development of Islam are philosophy and education. He dealt with both these aspects throughout his writings and proved himself as one of the most important contemporary proponents of Islamic modernity.

Purposefully searching his works to find controversial parts is an intellectually trying experience and most of the times it is obvious that scholars who vociferously spoke against him did not take enough pain to read and understand him at all. For instance the objectionable parts in ‘Islam’ where Fazlur Rahman allegedly denied the physical existence of angels or doctrine of locomotive mir’aj are basically pointers towards the intellectual immaturity (according to Rahman) of orthodoxy and possiblities of better philosophical expositions of nature of Prophetic religious experiences. Moreover, all these arguments are rooted in the language of Quran and doubting his intentions is nothing but religious bigotry. Rahman’s assertions against the externality of revelation vis-à-vis the person of Prophet instigated most of the clamoring in traditional circles. Albeit, no direct denial of objectivity and verbal character of revelation came from him and he explicitly explained his views afterwards, controversialists argued incessantly that he has questioned the divine nature of revelation. Even if we suppose, for the sake of argument, that Rahman actually believed in divine revelation of meanings and Prophetic transmission of words, he would not have been the first one to contend so. Years before him Jalaluddin Suyuti recorded a similar opinion (one of three opinions) regarding nature of revelation in his magnum opus on Quranic studies. If language is understood to support such a belief 500 years ago, there is no academic justification whatsoever to blatantly disregard any of the textual interpretation in modern times.

On a different note, it is also true that parts of Rahman’s overall methodology can be disagreed with strongly. He was an intellectually honest scholar and kept no secrets while admiring the work of Joseph Schacht and other orientalists in general. It is interesting however that while positing a strong criticism against some of Schacht’s assertions he also ended up drawing heavily from one of his major works as well. I always remember a valuable comment by one of my teachers who wrote (while helping me to evaluate some of Rahman’s contentions):

Max Weber’s ‘methodology of history’ demonstrates that Rahman’s position on the method of historical research was seriously flawed. Harlad Motzki’s research on the reliability of hadith reports demonstrates that Rahman’s position on hadith was flawed. Rahman was part of that generation of scholars (both in the West and the Muslim world) who treated traditional sources of knowledge with great deal of skepticism. More recently developments, variously called the post-critical school or the Yale School, assert that while there are some problems in the traditional sources those problems are not egregious enough to discount the entire tradition. This is a position that has emerged within modern western secular academia. Those Muslims still taking Schacht and Goldziher seriously are way behind the times.

Its tricky to unbrace all the knots, articulate every disagreement and encompass each complication of this great scholar’s thought. I ramble on and eventually meander whenever I sit to do so. But while I drift and sway, I revisit some enlightened bits of Fazlur Rahman’s legacy and live over the bitterness of his times.

Filed under: Debates & Disputes, Islam & Modernity, Land of the 'Pure', Scholars