Islam doesn’t need liberalising

Continuous renewal is central to Islamic jurisprudence. Those who say that Islam should reform itself have misunderstood it, says Mohammad Seddon.

Muslims are often asked why their faith does not get modern or undergo liberalisation. Such a question shows a misunderstanding of Islam and its relationship to modernity.

As a phenomenon essentially of the Christian world, modernity has not affected the Muslim world to the same extent. The impact of the Enlightenment in Europe culminated in a separation between faith and reason. Secularisation publicly elevated the profane and relegated religion to the realm of the private.

The growth of a sizeable Muslim population throughout Europe has given rise to a new discourse on modernity and Islam. However, this new enquiry is often extended beyond how Muslims contextualise their faith and culture within the evolving federalism of the new Europe. It does not isolate the European Muslims from the rest of the Umma (the worldwide Muslim community).

Muslims in Europe are largely measured by their first-generation migration experience, which locates them as diasporic: while this may be true, the experiences of their second and third British or European-born progeny are far removed from that of their parents. Many British-born Muslims have successfully negotiated their multiple identities: religious, ethnic and national, and are becoming acculturated, adapting to a different milieu.

Recent studies seek to offer a global overview to try to understand the underlying influences on this new community. They note that many young British-born Muslims who experience poor education and job opportunities are being drawn to religious radicalism.

For Muslims experiencing migration, the preservation of religious identity has always taken precedence over cultural and ethnic identities. This is because, while Islam is global in its essence, it is not monolithic in its practice or cultural manifestations. Therefore, ethnic and cultural identities can be adopted and evolved.

Early assumptions of assimilation and of the first-generation Muslim immigrants becoming Europeanised were simplistic. Studies by social scientists such as Philip Lewis and Jessica Jacobson on the British Muslim community have revealed that, while ethnic and cultural identities may be transformed, Muslims have been resilient in maintaining their religious identity. Yet other commentators, the theologian Jorgen Neilson and the sociologist Ziauddin Sardar, for example, appear to suggest that the problem of constructing an Islamic-European identity is primarily a theological contention with modernity.

These observers advocate a response echoing that of modern Christian theologians to the Bible. They suggest that Muslims should undertake a theological “reformation”, which should start with a rethinking of the nature of revelation, and therefore a reinterpretation of the revealed text. However, observers who would have Muslims rethink such things have fundamentally failed to understand the concept of God, prophethood and divine revelation in Islam.

SHARIAH (Islamic law) does not, as is often assumed, regulate every aspect of a Muslim’s devotional and personal life. Nor does it impose a static legislation for the Muslim state. Rather, it provides universal principles and guidelines, rather like the ten commandments, from which “time-and-space” contextualised jurisprudence (Fiqh) is derived.

Islamic jurisprudence has a number of established principles traditionally followed by Muslim jurists. It includes the various degrees of lawful (Halal) and prohibited (Haram) actions, and takes into consideration local customs and practices (‘Urf). The result is a localised form of Islamic expression, different from one geo-cultural time and place to another. This contradicts the current insistence by some Muslims of the creation of a monolithic homogenous Islamic state.

A further example of the contextualisation of the Shariah is the contentious issue of punishment. Punishments are prescribed for certain crimes: these are traditionally found within the Hadud laws, which are completely circumstantial — each case is judged on its own merits. So, as with the death penalty in some parts of the United States, not everyone automatically receives the prescribed punishment.

The popular idea that Islamic law has not changed since medieval times is apocryphal. This misunderstanding perpetuates the assertion that Islam, like Christianity, should undergo a “reformation”. It is simply a transposition of the Western secular worldview on to Islam.

The concept of continuous renewal is central to Islamic jurisprudence. Ijtihad (legal renewal), which locates the law within a specific time and space, is a reinterpretation of law based on new social contexts. This has been a constant feature of Islamic jurisprudence in the Muslim world from the early medieval period, through the Renaissance to the advent of modern secular liberalism (itself an imposition of recent Western hegemony).

Resistance in the Muslim world to such impositions as secularism and liberalism has resulted in a rise in ultra-religious conservatism. This response is retrogressive, and often leaves little room for the Qur’anic instruction: “And surely we have established you as the moderate nation” (2.143). However, “Islamic revivalism”, a post-colonial phenomenon, is moving towards the reinstitution of Ijtihad (legal renewal) as a means of “Islamisation”.

Iran, for example, having declared itself an “Islamic Republic” in 1979, has developed into a moderate Muslim nation-state, and is currently experiencing liberalisation. This does not mean that the state and the state religion are separating. Rather, it is that the Islamic legal interpretations of the state are realistically reflecting the modern world.

Source: (The Church Times, 13 December 2002 p.6)