Letter from the Editor
John L. Esposito, Editor in Chief
One of the most renowned scholars in the field of Islamic studies in the United States, Editor in Chief John L. Esposito provides a regular commentary for visitors to the site. These letters discuss topics pertaining to this resource and the Islamic world, developments on the site and other issues.
Dear Reader,
In Japan more than a decade ago, Indonesia's Abdurrahman Wahid (then leader of a 30 million-strong Islamic movement and later to become democratic Indonesia's first president) and I faced a ballroom of Japanese businessmen and diplomats. Islam's supposed incompatibility with modern science and technology and its inability to reform dominated their comments and questions. Echoing many who in the mid-twentieth century doubted whether Muslims could choose between "Mecca and mechanization," the Japanese expressed strong doubts that Muslims would embrace modernization, given their religion and culture. In an attempt to break through their stereotypes, I told them how as a young boy I was disappointed when I received a gift made in Japan. The "wisdom" of the time was that a product "made in Japan" was cheap and inferior to anything made in America; it was inconceivable that the Japanese would ever challenge American technological superiority. Yet here I was today, I announced, the proud owner of a Lexus! The light suddenly went on for many of our Japanese listeners.
"Islam needs a reformation" continues to be a common aspiration as well as criticism made by many Muslims and non-Muslims, by friends and foes alike. Critical to the future of Islam and Muslims and to countering global terrorism in the twenty-first century is the issue of Islamic reform. My most recent book, The Future of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2010), seeks to understand the struggle for reform in Islam, sometimes described as a struggle for the soul of Islam, to explore the religious, cultural, and political diversity of Muslims facing daunting challenges in Muslim countries and in the West, to clarify the debate and dynamics of Islamic reform, to examine the attempt to combat religious extremism and terrorism, and to look into the future of Muslim-West relations.
The call to reform Islam, to strengthen its relevance in a rapidly changing twenty-first-century world, has intensified. Some say that Islam is a perfect religion that doesn't need to change or adapt, while others stress that Islam is inherently dynamic and that reinterpretation and reform are critical in the struggle to respond to the demands of our times, to marginalize extremists, and to promote gender equality, religious pluralism, and human rights. This debate has been intensified by a number of forces, from modern technology and mass communications to the growth of religious extremism and terrorism in the name of Islam. In this debate, who and where are the Islamic reformers, the Muslim Martin Luthers of today?
For several decades, an influential group of vibrant Muslim intellectuals and religious leaders, from Africa to Asia, from Europe to America, have addressed the role of Islam in contemporary society: How do religion and Islamic law contribute to the modern nation-state? How do Islamic values apply to key issues of today, like democracy, secularism, gender equality, human rights, free market economies, modern banking? What is the role of the clergy (ulama)? Are they the preeminent authoritative voices who speak for Islam?
Reformists are clergy as well as intellectuals and activists, rulers and citizens, both traditionalist and modernist. They can be found at Islamic institutes and universities, at academic and religious conferences, and in parliamentary debates. Reformist ideas proliferate in hundreds of books and articles, audio recordings, video recordings, and DVDs, in newspaper editorials, in muftis' fatwas, and on the Internet. As with Christianity, change in Islam is not limited to debates in theology and law but also involves struggles in politics and society and at times violence and terror.
The struggle for reform, what some call the struggle for the soul of Islam, stretches from Egypt to Indonesia, from North America to Europe. A broad array of Muslim religious leaders and intellectuals, men and women, traditionalists and more modern-oriented reformists, discuss and debate in a dynamic process of reinterpretation and reform. A lively debate exists on issues as diverse as the extent and limits of reform, the role of tradition and its relationship to change, women's empowerment, legitimate and illegitimate forms of resistance and violence, suicide bombing and martyrdom, the dangers of fundamentalism, the question of Islam's compatibility with democracy and religious pluralism, and the role of Muslims in the West.
At the heart of Islamic reform are two interrelated questions: "Whose Islam?" and "What Islam?" Just as in the process of reform in Judaism and Christianity, so too in Islam, questions of leadership and the authority of the past (tradition) are critical. "Whose Islam?" Who reinterprets, decides, leads, and implements change? Is it rulers and regimes, the vast majority of whom are unelected kings, military, and former military, or should it be elected parliaments? Is it the ulama (religious scholars) or clergy, who continue to see themselves as the guardians of religion, the primary interpreters of Islam, despite the fact that many are ill prepared to respond creatively to modern realities? Or are Islamically oriented intellectuals and activists with a modern education most qualified?
The second major question is "What Islam?" Is Islamic reform simply a restoration of past doctrines and laws, or is it a reformation, a reinterpretation and reformulation of Islam to meet the demands of modern life? Thus, while some call for an Islamic state based on the reimplementation of classical formulations of Islamic laws, others argue for the need to reinterpret and reformulate that law in light of the new realities of contemporary society.
The process of Islamic reform is difficult. As in all religions, tradition—centuries-old beliefs and practices—is a powerful force, rooted in the claim of being based on the teachings of the Qur'an or the practice (Sunnah) of the Prophet. The vast majority of religious scholars and local mosque leaders (imams) and preachers, who wield significant influence over the religious education and worldview of the majority of Muslims, are products of a more traditional religious education. The ideas of a vanguard of reformers will never have broad appeal and acceptance unless they are incorporated within the curricula of seminaries and schools and universities where religion is taught. A twofold process of reform, intellectual and institutional, will be required in the face of powerful conservative forces, limited human and financial resources, and a culture of authoritarianism that limits or controls freedom of thought in many countries.
Like Christians and Jews, Muslims represent many diverse orientations, from literalist/fundamentalist, conservative, and traditionalist to secular and reformist. In contrast to Christian reforms, which grew out of and were influenced primarily by conditions in the West over several centuries, Islam and Muslims have decades, not centuries, to make significant progress in a globalizing world characterized by Western political, military, and economic hegemony. Many Muslims today pursue reform not from a position of power and strength but from one of relative weakness, struggling for change in the face of authoritarianism and repression, limited freedom of speech and the press, and in some cases war and terror.
Who Are Today's Islamic Reformers? Looking for the Martin Luthers and Billy Grahams of Islam
Islamic reformers include not only the ulama but also educated laity, who combine a knowledge of Islam and modern sciences. Today, the laity shares with the ulama the role of preachers and interpreters of Islam. Often obscured by the rants of hard-line clerics and terrorists who receive a disproportionate amount of coverage are the Muslim voices of reform; scholars (ulama and lay intellectuals), the "Martin Luthers," and televangelists, the "Billy Grahams," represent a diverse collection of Muslims: men and women, laity and clergy, professionals, scholars, and popular preachers. Their audience exists throughout the world.
Tariq Ramadan and Amr Khaled were both named to Time magazine's 2006 annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Preeminent muftis like Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Mustafa Ceric, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Qatar's Yusuf Qaradawi are well-known senior religious officials with differing styles and perspectives. Nurcholish Madjid in Indonesia, Timothy Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad) in Britain, Farhat Hashmi in Pakistan and Canada, Amina Wadud in the United States, and Heba Raouf in Egypt are Islamically and Western-educated scholars from very diverse cultural contexts. Hashmi, Wadud, and Raouf are female reformers who often have diametrically opposed positions on women in Islam. Abdullah Gymnastiar in Indonesia, like Amr Khaled from Egypt, represents a new breed of popular televangelists addressing key questions about "How shall we live?" for Muslims around the world.
Reformers call for a bold reinterpretation (ijtihad) of Islamic law and theology, one that would distinguish between the fundamental and unchangeable religious observances of Islamic law (prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage) and social legislation (marriage, divorce, contracts, and even political systems) that can be reformulated and changed to meet the demands of changing societies and modern life.
A major challenge for all Muslim reformers is the importance of linking, of showing continuity, between proposed changes and long-held Islamic beliefs and traditions. Other faiths (Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish) have gone through and still struggle with a similar process, as they deal with reforming traditional norms for marriage, divorce, abortion, and homosexuality or new issues like stem cell research and cloning. The legitimacy of Islamic reformist thought, its acceptance or rejection, hinges on its perceived Islamic character and authenticity. Therefore, the "how" is as important as the "what"; the process of change (methodology) is often as important as the actual reforms themselves.
A key method employed by many reformers is the important distinction between unchanging, divinely revealed principles and values (Shariah) and historically conditioned human interpretations (fiqh), or manmade Islamic laws. These manmade laws must be able to respond to changing circumstances and new problems arising in modernity. Like Islamic modernists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most reformers today draw a sharp distinction between obligations to God or worship (such as prayer, zakat, the fast of Ramadan) and laws that govern social and human affairs (marriage, divorce, inheritance, contracts, bank interest, mortgages), which can be changed in response to new circumstances.
Reformers debunk entrenched perceptions: that Islam is medieval, static, and incapable of change; that Islam is a violent religion that also degrades women; that Islam and democracy are incompatible; that Muslims do not speak out against religious extremism and terrorism; that they reject religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue; that they certainly cannot be loyal citizens of non-Muslim countries.
The fact that Islamic tradition, law, and theology are based on the Qur'an and Prophetic traditions has led many Muslims to embrace a methodology that sacralizes tradition or classical/medieval Islam. Many authorities, past and present, regard the major interpretations of early Islamic schools of law, the corpus of classical Islamic law, as authoritative sources that cannot be substantially questioned or altered. Indonesia's Nurcholish Madjid addresses this issue, pointedly urging Muslims to "desacralize" tradition, to distinguish between the universal and the particular, between unchanging prescriptions of God and Muslim cultures and traditions that are subject to change. Madjid, like his fellow Indonesian Abdurrahman Wahid, Oxford's Tariq Ramadan, and Bosnia's Grand Mufti, Mustafa Ceric, has identified the danger of a sacralized and static religious worldview in which the boundaries between the transcendent (unchanging) and the particular (those laws and beliefs that are subject to change) are blurred.
While they respect tradition, they advocate a creative synthesis of traditional and modern scholarship. While emphasizing the merit of classical Islam and its legacy, they maintain that tradition is not an absolute reference point or religious authority but rather a tool for solving modern problems. Thus, when necessary, they go directly to the Qur'an. They feel free to reject past interpretations that they see as conditioned by historical and social contexts, no longer relevant or useful and, most important, not based on a Qur'anic prescription. They reread sacred texts in today's context and produce new or fresh interpretations of the Qur'an.
The globalization of communications has also produced a crop of Muslim media stars, both scholars like Yusuf Qardawi and Tariq Ramadan and a new breed of charismatic and enormously successful preachers like Amr Khaled and Abdullah Gymnastiar. Popular Muslim televangelists or telepreachers blend appeals to Islam with motivational speaking to mobilize young men and women, middle class and poor, urging them to combine faith and action to improve their lives. Like Christian theologians and preachers who have become religious media stars, these Muslim televangelists, ulama and laity alike, reach millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, filling huge auditoriums and sports stadiums and spreading their message on DVDs, videotapes and audiotapes, satellite television and radio, and the Internet.
Televangelists and their organizations provide a religious alternative to traditional clerics, mosques, muftis, and fatwas. Prominent ulama may call for a greater centralization of religious authority, but these popular alternative outlets enable Muslim televangelism, like Christian televangelism, to move in the opposite direction, toward a decentralization of religious authority. Most preach a direct, down-to-earth message, dispensing advice on everyday problems, promoting a practical, concrete Islamic spirituality of empowerment and success in this life as well as the next. Some, like Indonesia's Abdullah Gymnastiar, combine religion, popular Western business motivational principles and techniques, entrepreneurship, marketing, and modern media to produce a model that joins modern principles of business organization with the teachings of Islam. Their audiences are drawn not so much by their religious or scholarly credentials as by their personalities, preaching styles, and distinctive messages.
One of the most significant and contested areas of reform is that of gender equality. Today, Muslim women and Islamic scholars and activists, representing many ideological orientations, are empowering themselves not just as defenders of women's rights but also as interpreters of the Islamic tradition. Many argue that patriarchy as much as religion—indeed, patriarchy linked to religion—accounts for customs that became longstanding traditions affecting gender relations. The primary interpreters of Islam (of the Qur'an, traditions of the Prophet, and law) have been men, functioning in and reflecting the values of patriarchal societies. Religion was linked to patriarchy through its interpreter-scholars and their appeal to Islam to legitimate their formulations of doctrine and law.
In areas as diverse as the Arab world, Iran, and South and Southeast Asia, women have formed their own organizations, created their own magazines, and contributed to newspapers to set forth new religious and social interpretations on issues ranging from dress and education to employment and political participation. Organizations like Women Living Under Muslim Laws (Geneva) and Sisters in Islam (Malaysia) have become visible and vocal representatives within their own countries and internationally—writing, publishing, and participating in international conferences. Increasingly they have emerged as a vanguard in a long-term process of Islamic reassessment, reform, and transformation.
Like believers of other faiths, Muslims struggle with how to live out and apply their faith in a rapidly changing world. Some want to restrict religion to private life; many others, who see Islam as integral to their lives, differ significantly about how to interpret and reinterpret their faith and history. Reform-minded Muslims articulate a progressive, constructive Islamic framework. However, they are still a minority facing formidable obstacles, caught between forces that drive change and those that block it. Repressive authoritarian regimes see all reform, any real power sharing and freedoms, as threatening their power and privilege. Religious extremists believe they have a mandate from God to impose "their Islam" and destroy anyone who disagrees with them. Intransigent conservative religious leaders, many of whom are well meaning but wedded to medieval paradigms, often use their authority to delegitimize reforms as a departure from tradition and "heresy."
John L. Esposito
Editor in Chief
Oxford Islamic Studies Online
May 2010
