Daily Times

Contemporary discourse about Islamic thought is one where the faith of over one billion people is at odds with the tenants of modern life. It seems that modern Islamic thought has failed to grapple with the challenges of modernity; these failures are reflected in the poor state of human rights, democratic governance, civic debate, economic progress and technological innovation in Muslim societies. This leaves most people to conclude that Islam simply lacks the moral and legal foundations to support a functioning liberal democracy.

But is the story as simple as this? Mehran Kamrava has done a stellar job in collecting an anthology of writings from Muslim clerics and intellectuals from the far corners of the Muslim world, from Iran to Malaysia to Europe, to illustrate the case for a new emerging liberal project of Islamic thought. The overall message one gleans is that there are sufficient moral, legal and philosophical resources within the Islamic tradition for Muslims to sustain liberal democracies. Human rights, democracy, liberty, secularity and the freedoms we generally associate with western democracies are indeed possible within the Islamic universe of reference. That, indeed, one can stay rooted in the Islamic tradition whilst suitably engaging and confronting the challenges of modernity.

In the past, classical liberal and modernist scholars such as Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Iqbal, Nursi, Afghani, Abdel Raziq and others all put forward the idea of ijtihad and how religious interpretation needed to be reformed. But the liberal project of these intellectuals inevitably failed due to pressure from autocratic secularists and the rise of a charismatic and populist Islamism embodied in the works of Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Maududi.

The 60s and 70s saw the spread of these popular Islamist themes alongside the booming discourse of Wahabbism funded by Saudi petro-dollars. Facing these intense pressures, the liberal project simply collapsed. However, in recent years, due to the relative failure of this new Islamism embodied in the unhappy experiences of the Iranian revolution, the failure of new religious parties to make any substantial improvements in political life, there is a trend, which Professor Bayat characterises as a drive towards a “post-Islamist” society. With the failure of popular Islamism due to either it’s own internal contradictions or pressures from autocratic secularists in countries like Egypt, there has been a revival in the liberal project.

Due to globalisation and the changing patterns of Muslim immigration to the West, the new Muslim communities in these western democracies find themselves in a position to directly reconcile their religious beliefs and new-found identity as democratic citizens. This has given rise to a new generation of western Muslim intellectuals like Tariq Ramadan who are trying to fashion an Islamic narrative consistent with democratic and liberal sensibilities. The persecution of liberal intellectuals in the Muslim world means thinkers such as Mohsen Kadivar of Iran or the late Nasr Abu Zayd of Egypt flee towards the West. The liberal project asks: how do you popularise these new, sophisticated notions of Islamic interpretation? How do you ensure that the common man on the street has an idea of what you are talking about?

Kamrava identifies these problems in the book because it is perhaps the very high powered intellectualism of the liberal project, which makes it a marginal force in Muslim societies. Also, it is hard to compete in public spaces where popular Islamisms appeal to the raw emotions of passion along with references to a zealous religious identity, or where secular autocrats in the form of militaries, monarchies or dictators clamp down on dissent.

What you get from the book is an Islam that defends human rights, democracy, gender equality and freedom of expression and conscience. Some of the arguments are controversial and could alienate many readers, but patience and perseverance are advised because, though the reasoning of these intellectuals is complex, it is ultimately rewarding in succeeding to fashion new ideas about faith that are conducive in establishing new liberal societies.

The conclusions of many of these intellectuals are bold; ijtihad is necessary, the penal code of Islam needs reform, gender equality is an Islamic principle, the blasphemy laws and apostasy laws need to be reformed — if not discarded outright — secularism is necessary for an Islamic society and that the framework of liberal democracy is the best system of governance. These intellectuals argue all these points using the Islamic tradition, with interpretations from the Quran and quotations from classical Muslim scholars.

There is a real intellectual cosmopolitanism about these new liberal intellectuals as all of them seem at ease when discussing Islamic thought such as the intricacies of fiqh but also when discussing European philosophy on issues like globalisation or multiculturalism, switching effortlessly between the two.

The precious value of this anthology lies in the coverage given to Islamic feminism with the inclusion of three Muslim feminist intellectuals who argue for gender equality from within the shariah tradition. Leila Ahmed, Amina Wadud and the doyen of modern Islamic feminist thought, Fatima Mernissi, are all given space, and it is here that readers encounter an alternative reality, a reality where intelligent and articulate Muslim women are grappling and interpreting their faith for themselves. These three contributions do much to address the quandary of Islamic scholarship, which is a male dominated discourse. By allowing women to enter into debates about fiqh, shariah and ethics, the patriarchal assumptions of male Quranic interpreters can be disputed and challenged.

The virtues of liberal democracy can be grounded and justified using religious philosophy, which means Muslims need not choose between liberal democracy or Islam, rather they can be combined and synthesised to give a distinctly religious liberalism, as seen, for instance, in contemporary Turkish politics with the ruling AKP party.

This book is a must read, and will open the reader’s mind to the new emerging discourse of Islamic liberalism, which might be an influential force given the impending failures of popular Islamism and the inadequacies of theocracies or the ineptitude of secular politics.

The writer is a student at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. He can be reached at ahmadalikhalid@ymail.com