Talibanization: Nemesis of a Betrayed Idea

In order for Islamic idea to stand up to the efficacious ideas of twentieth century dynamic societies, it has to recover its original efficacy, that is to say, to resume its position among the ideas that make history -Malik Bennabi

This Sunday, as I was surfing through Malik Bennabi’s ‘Islam in History and Society‘ at my car mechanic’s workshop, a 15 year illiterate boy who was working there asked me about the ‘Sabaq‘ (lesson) I was reading. I told him that it was not a ‘Sabaq‘ in the classical sense; rather, a book about history, society and religion. Perhaps deceived by the beard on my face and the title of the book, the kid spontaneously shared with me his own one-second sociological percept. “The establishment of Islamic law is better than the current system“, the boy remarked as if he was insinuating agreement with my presumable stand, “we will have quick justice and everybody will be equal.” I engaged with him for some time and by the end of our brief conversation, I realized how the kid’s perception was shaped by the complex matrix of economic deprivation, sense of injustice and a belief in an almost superficial Islamic ideal. While driving back, I kept wondering whether the boy would have any qualms accepting Taliban’s brand of Islam in exchange of justice as a starting point; would he doubt the authenticity of their religious pronouncements – unmarried women as war booty, the Jizya, dhimmi status of non-muslims, black turbans, long beards and 15th century school syllabi – if they promise to get his illegally detained cousin released from jail.

The phenomenon of Talibanization has been increasingly symbolized to depict all kinds of religious extremism in Pakistani society – “a response to modernity“, a recent analyst calls it. Even beyond a cursory judicial institutionalization and entirely ahistorical in nature, Taliban’s version of Sharia is understood to be dangerously myopic and repressive in character. Coalesced with a tribal outlook, Taliban’s rudimentary religious and political philosophy is seen to radiate a certain savage medieval character; a disposition which can be attributed to its proclivity for anti-westernization and thus against all kinds of modernity and enlightenment. The intellectual deficit is visible as unlike bimodal Islamic reform movements of first half of last century – where they had separate militant and scholarly wings – these radical militant groups under the umbrella of Taliban are totally deprived of any strong ideological backbone. Yet, with its radical physiognomy and onionskin ideological structure, Taliban movement is successfully endangering a nation’s existence which was built on a so-called strong and modern Islamic ideal just 60 years ago. Therefore, on an intellectual front, we should engage more with the phenomenological principles that are at work since the creation of Pakistan in the realm of ideas rather than actual happenings in the realm of persons and objects.

As much as I contemplate about the ideological foundation of Pakistan, I am forced to believe that the underlying idea was the triggering of a new cultural universe which can grow on its own, thereby transforming, reforming and keep enriching itself according to Islamic ideals. Due to its arguable historical reawakening, it was idealized that a socio-political future of Islam is possible in the subcontinent due to a presumable shift of centre of ideological gravity from the Mediterranean. A separate state for Muslims – which may not be an Islamic state per se – was understood to present a direct opportunity for Islam; “…an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times“, as articulated by Iqbal in his historical address of 1930.

In his philosophy of ideas, Malik Bennabi states that all the “ideas governing the moral and material order have their moment of grace“. “Archimedean moment“, he specifically terms it; but whether this moment successfully shapes the objective reality depends upon the sustenance of logical relationships between the idea and its archetypes. It still may be a genuine idea, even if it fails to do so, but it will not be an efficacious one, i.e., an impressed idea, it is; but not an expressed one.

When expressed ideas incessantly betray the impressed ideas – as it is happening in the land of pure for more than half a century – the latter eventually become dead, trigger a sociological metamorphosis and shape up new deadly ideas. Deadly ideas, which take vengeance and bring forth new crises which are never heard of hitherto. Modernity, justice, tolerance, religious harmony, revival and reformation – each great ideal falls one by one.

The mother of all crises, however, is the one related to identity. With all the statistical limitations of sample size, choice and demographics, figures reported by world value survey indicate few dimensions of this crisis: 83.5 percent of the subjects would like to identify themselves as Pakistanis first, in contrast to 14.2 percent who would like to be described as Muslims first. What is strange, however, is that 71.8 percent believe nationalism is incompatible with Islam in contrast to 2.2 percent who believe otherwise; 26 percent remain dithery. Large groups of people remain oblivious regarding most fundamental Islamic questions related to modernity; 50.8 percent do not know whether democracy is compatible with Islam; 63.4 percent remain clueless whether Islam permits killing of civilians if a country pursues laws harmful to Muslims and 74.2 percent cannot decide whether a true Islamic country should have a parliament with the right to pass laws. The only concrete deduction that can be successfully made out of these figures is the extent up to which an average Pakistani’s mind is plagued with atomism – a mind that is totally incapable of making systematic generalizations. Not surprisingly, therefore, 61.5 percent want implementations of Sharia law in contrast to 7.5 percent who disagree. The rest (30.9 percent), obviously, are still thinking.

With my mind drifting and meandering, I kept driving back home with a whole lot of ‘Sabaq’ in my mind – Bennabi, Iqbal, Jinnah and the philosophies they proposed and stood for in their own respective ways. But the strongest voice that kept tearing me apart was of Abul Kalam Azad. Almost prophetically with a pinch of well-placed acerbity, he wrote as he finished his own account of partition of India:

It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different. It is true that Islam sought to establish a society which transcends racial, linguistic, economic and political frontiers. History has however proved that after the first few decades or at the most after the first century, Islam was not able to unite all the Muslims countries on the basis of Islam alone.

Unlike Mukhtar Masood, the proverbial cat within me does not walk away hearing this; yet, my heart is unable to sync with the first part of the contention. I am not ready to believe that the whole idea was nothing more than a hoax. Believing that would mean suicidal self destruction. At the same time, however, I do believe that an idea is true as long as it brings success. There is no question defending it indefatigably without trying to restore its efficacy.

Filed under: Islam & Modernity, Land of the 'Pure', Reflections, Sociology of Religion

Death of an Idea

The post was originally published on Pak Tea House blog.

A dead idea is an idea whose origins have been betrayed, one that has deviated from its archetype and thus no longer has any roots in its original cultural plasma.

-Malik Bennabi

It is amazing to discover the similarity with which history repeats itself in the cherished land of the pure. We often talk about the repeated military takeovers, political betrayals, judicial activism and ongoing misery of civil society but never fully realize the extreme ephemerality of our memories. At least I did not, until last night when almost accidentally, I picked up Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad from my bookshelf and went through a piece that was done in 1981 by one of the greatest liberal minds of Pakistan. The article is titled “General Zia is Now the Law”. Note that how explicitly the content becomes valid once you just change the names.

Now, General Zia has virtually destroyed the only peaceful recourse citizens had against the untrammeled abuses of power. On March 25, he fired at least nineteen senior judges when they refused to endorse his “constitutional order”, which restricts the civil courts, outlaws all political parties except the…[...]

Among the senior judges who declined to take the required oath of allegiance to this new “constitutional order” was Anwar ul-Haq, the chief justice of Pakistan, an appointee of General Zia, whose earlier compliances with the junta had done much to lower citizen respect for judiciary. Three of the six sitting judges of Supreme Court and a state High Court chief justice also refused. Another Supreme Court judge, Safdar Shah, had earlier fled the country on foot through the Hindu Kush Mountains. Twelve High Court judges, well known for their judicial integrity, were not invited to take the oath and automatically lost their posts.[...]

“A judiciary’s job is to interpret the law and administer justice, not to challenge the administration,” General Zia proclaimed at a March 27 press conference. As for lawyers, rule of law and civil liberties were none of their business. “They must mind their own business and not meddle in other affairs,” said the general[...]

For their defense of the rule of law, lawyers have been hit harder than the judges. A recent crackdown on the democratic opposition to the junta added another two thousand political prisoners, of whom a significant portion are lawyers. Since March, some two hundred senior High Court advocates have been jailed in Pakistan; the number of young attorneys in detention may be higher.[...]

Rarely in modern times have so many judges and lawyers shown such courage or suffered this much collective punishment in defense of the rule of law.

Eqbal Ahmad’s observations are telling in many ways. Even though they depict a silver lining in the form of constancy of purpose on the part of civil community to stand against the totalitarianism of despotic regimes, these also serve as a painful reminder. An admonisher that what we are witnessing recurrently may not be an experience entirely belonging to the momentary trivialities of the physical world; rather, most important nuances of this experience belong to the realm of ideas.

Its like a photographic reel that is playing itself time and again since last few decades. On the screen we can see a society, silent majority of which has not only learnt to survive without the food of ideas but over the years, has mastered the art of doing so.

In my opinion, it may be so that the present fulminations are not the result of continuing hegemonies of old actors with new masks but an idea that is breathing its last. Only time will tell whether we can collectively construct a new idea to hold ourselves together before becoming completely colonizable.

Filed under: Land of the 'Pure', Philosophy, Reflections , Eqbal Ahmad, Ideas, Martial Law, Pakistan

Pak Tea House Blog

Here is a new group blog reviving the spirit of the traditional Pak Tea House. Please visit and do pour in your comments.

Filed under: Blogs & Blogging, Land of the 'Pure'

Ramadan Reflections 2: Harnessing the desire to consume

From the translation of Amin Ahsan Islahi’s Tazkiya-e-Nafs:

[...] people tend to make Ramadan a month of festivities and fun time. They think that they are not answerable for the extravagance made in this month. They relish everything they eat. The result is that instead of trying to discipline themselves they end up pampering themselves. Throughout their fasts they keep dreaming about the delicious things they will eat once the fast is over. The result is that they end up learning nothing from their fasts.

To prevent such a thing from happening, it is necessary that a person should eat just enough to keep him working and not make eating the sole object of his life. Whatever is obtainable without too much of an effort should be eaten with thankfulness to the Almighty. Whatever is presented by the family should be consumed without fuss even if it is not tempting. The rich instead of overindulging themselves should give more to the needy and the poor. This is something which increases the blessings of fasting and has been commended by the Prophet (sws).

More about philosophy of fasting can be read here.

Sustained culture of consumption has brought about an unleashed spending boosterism which is one of the primary culprits responsible for recent price hike and hoarding of necessary commodities (like wheat and rice) in the month of Ramadan.

One truly wonders how religion miserably fails each year in the land of the ‘pure’.

Filed under: Land of the 'Pure', Reflections, Sociology of Religion , Fasting, Islahi, Pakistan, Ramadan, Reflections

60th Year of Despondence

Not much has changed since last year; similar discontentment in another damp summer. Only this time, I see my boys getting familiarised with the first slogans of patriotism holding their foremost symbols of independence. But while they wave their five rupee flags saying Pakistan Zindabad animatedly, they are still unable to see the despondency in the eyes of those who are drudging in heat to earn those five rupees.

For me, Pakistan will be independent when the boys like above will learn to ask questions. Question like why His Bounteous Highness has presented a handsome amount of 7.5 million to his entertainers for pleasing him (and his court) on the night of celebrating Independence?

Long live Pakistan.

Filed under: Land of the 'Pure' , Pakistan

Understanding Pakistan Project

An Investigation into the Life and Times of a Nation
Just came to know about this amazing project. Here is the objective statement:

The “Understanding Pakistan” Project is designed to help us look behind to see ahead. It is a collaborative effort to enable us to learn from each other and discover our fascinating past. Each week, starting from June 4th until October 13th, a panel of writers and commentrators will examine and critique a certain period of Pakistan’s history (1937-2007). These individuals, through their varying backgrounds in policy, media, political science, law, and public service etc., bring their varying perspectives and biases to this collective reading and writing of the country’s history.

I am looking forward to read some great quality stuff.

Filed under: Blogs & Blogging, Land of the 'Pure' , Blogs, Pakistan, Websites

Discussion on Jamia Hafsa

A religious discussion on Jamia Hafsa issue featuring Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and others will be aired on Geo TV tonight.

I’ll review main points of discussion after watching it. Insha’Allah.

I hope it is being broadcasted on Geo US and UK too.

Update 21/4/07: That was an enlightening discussion; instructive for those who are not familiar with Ghamidi’s methodology. As it was revealed, discussion would probably constitute few parts; at least two. I’ll obviously recapitulate after it finishes, which would be a week or two from now.

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

Pakistan Resolution or Muslim League’s Search for Survival

I actually wanted to go through a phase of introspection and make some important confessions to myself yesterday. Foremost being that I should stop finding footsteps in the mire; realizing for good the futility of my persistant infatuation with the infamous ideology question. There are number of reasons for this desperate conclusion. Firstly, Pakistan Studies in my view, is merely an academic exercise having no objective influence on present state of affairs as well as future course of our collective action. Secondly, we are a nation (if it is accurate enough to be identified as such) purposefully failing to make sense of our past and being proud of this relentless obliviousness, we are always ready to be duped by petty slogans and sleazy shibboleths. Last but not the least, the above two observations have now become conventional wisdom and there is no reason one should remain stuck forever in one’s own stubborn optimism.

Nevertheless, while I was getting fagged out by PTV’s high-sounding portrayal of Lahore Resolution and trying to find my misplaced patriotism where I usually discover it (i.e in Mukhtar Masood’s brilliant essay Minar-e-Pakistan), I couldn’t resist taking Brother Adil Najam’s excellent advice and once again read the resolution myself; only this time with a side by side exposition of Dr Ayesha Jalal.

In my humble opinion, the argument that the resolution somehow delineated the demand for Pakistan per se, as seen in the political realities of 1937-40 in Sub Continent, is not very accurate. And albeit its contextual importance vis-à-vis creation of Pakistan in 1947 has now become debatable in the light of fresh research, its textual importance cannot be undermined at all. A close look at the text itself and politics which environs it tells us so much about the bitter realities of Muslim politics in mid 30s and may further help us to investigate our failure in becoming a nation intrinsically, without founding its cornerstones on our enmity with Hindu India.

The foremost thing that breaks the presumable sacredness of the document is the fact that it miserably failed or was intentionally obfuscated so as not to point slightly towards a possible partition. The third and most sacred paragraph

Resolved that it is the considered view of this Session of the All-India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to the Muslims unless it is designed on the following basic principles, viz., that geographically contiguous units’ are demarcated into regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute Independent States in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.

did not even consider the wispiest proposition for a center. The concessions were obviously given to get backing of majority provinces in the form of proposing independant sovereign states. The language insinuated that there was a single common national voice speaking for the collective ineterest of Muslims of Indian Sub Continent. However, there were inherent contradictions between the interests of Muslim majority and minority provinces. An apprehension to resolve these contradiction are self evident in paragraph four which states that:

That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards should be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in these units in the regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultations with them and in other parts of (British) India where the Mussalmans (Muslims) are in a majority adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.

The ostensibly complicated phraseology probably represents the political quandaries of All India Muslim League at that time. The question of safeguarding the interest of Muslims in provinces in which they were in minority could not have been left unaddressed and territorial readjustments (as mentioned in third paragraph) were deemed necessary. On the other hand it was blatantly obvious that there would be as many Muslims left outside the soverign independant states as there would be inside. What would than be the best options available?

Not many I guess, except to keep the dialogue open ended to some extent by carefully balancing and trimming the text, avoiding to resolve contradictions and hoping for some constitutional arrangement which may ultimately safeguard the interests of all Muslims of India.

This did not happen unfortunately and Muslim League finally had to settle for less i.e. to safeguard the interests of Muslims in minority provinces by trading off security of non-Muslim minority in Muslim dominated provinces; textual base of which was already there in the fourth paragraph.

What happened finally to the proposition of territorial readjustments? These were never really on the cards; as Choudhry Khaliquzzaman wrote to Jinnah on 7th October 1942 and Ayesha Jalal cites in a footnote on page 59 of her excellently researched book:

One of the basic principles lying behind the Pakistan idea is that of keeping hostages in Muslim Provinces as against the Muslims in Hindu Provinces. If we allow millions of Hindus to go out of our orbit of influence, the security of the Muslims in minority Provinces will greatly be minimised

The phrase mentioning territorial readjustments was finally removed in the revised version of Lahore Resolution of April 1946.

There is no point going too far with this and as I said in the begining, the aim can be nothing objective except academic satisfaction. We can keep on reading the resolution for different reasons, searching different motivations and reaching different (and sometimes contradictory) conclusions.Our strictly theoretic approach towards history cannot make us more or less Pakistani. Certainly not less than those who took part in drafting and expressing that resolution. In fact, the subsequent positions of those founding fathers would come as a great surprise for many young Pakistanis, if made part of history text books.

On second thoughts, I do not necessarily consider those poitical realities as bitter. Though subjected to a completely different ball game, those politicians were as pragmatic politically as we are now. Sikandar Hayat Khan, a staunch Unionist and the one who actually drafted the constitution, later denounced it openly in Punjab legislative assembly after being exposed to and pressed by Khalsa Nationalist Party’s provincial concerns. The Bengal Tiger In 1941, after the creation of National Defence Council, attacked Jinnah for being an ‘omnipotent authority over the destiny of 33 million Muslims in the province of Bengal’. Jinnah himself did not care to expand upon the Lahore Resolution till the arrival of Cabinet Mission in 1946.

On the whole, I tend to agree with the view that Lahore resolution was principally put as a political card of Jinnah and Muslim League’s search for survival and the claim that it was representing the consentaneous, realistic and coherent demand of a Muslim nation has very little backing from political history. And this realisation does not, in any way, scuppers my patriotism.

Filed under: Land of the 'Pure'

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