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Wednesday April 27, 2005 Call to change Reformers take on traditionalists over the future of the faith By Charles Levinson prayer Source: Adam Bernstein While political reform and economic reform have become popular buzzwords in the Middle East, vociferously avowed goals of ruler and opposition al ike, religious reform remains the arena of an embattled but increasingly visible few. They argue that, whether the goal of change in the Middle East is the spread of democracy and human rights, the development of eco nomies, the creation of knowledge, or the defeat of extremism, a radical change in the dominant discourse of Islam is necessary. when Europe began to progress, the first progress was rel igious reform, says the 84-year-old Gamal Al Banna (whose more conservat ive brother, Hassan, founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928). Because it liberated the soul, the conscience, the mind ... this is a necessary element for political and economic reform. Al Banna, the author of numerous books on Islamic reform, however, remain s among a tiny minority of religious scholars willing to defy Islams pow erful orthodoxy. Inside Egypt, religious thinkers who are willing to thi nk outside the box have endured all sorts of persecution, from economic boycott, to exile, to murder. As a result, the vast majority of those wh o seek change in Egypt and the Arab world are content to confine their e fforts to the political realm. Islam and democracy In the past, some have argued that Islam and democracy simply dont mix. T hough recently it has been the reformers voicing these concerns, in the 1980s some Islamic groups denounced democracy. The Egyptian-born sheikh and professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, Muhammad Mandoura, said in Al Sharq Al Awsat in 1985 that the sanctification of individual free dom and guarantees like the freedom of religion, freedom of opinion, fre edom of ownership and personal freedom; Sheikh Shaban, then head of the Movement for Islamic Unificati on in Lebanon told Al Safir newspaper in 1985 that, We in Lebanon do not demand half the parliament because we do not believe in parliamentary r ule, since democracy... Twenty years on, however, one is unlikely to find many religious leaders openly touting such ideas. For one thing, the idea of democracy is unass ailable in the global community today. For another, Islamic movements of all stripes long ago realized that democracy is their friend, and their most likely route to power. Realizing this, the Brotherhood is a crucia l partner in the current political reform movement in Egypt. Essam Al Er ian, one of the leading moderate figures of the Muslim Brotherhood, defe nded the Brotherhoods commitment to democracy in the Al Ahram Centers Th e Democracy Journal in Spring 2003. The Muslim Brotherhood, he wrote con siders that the system of constitutional rule is, of all the systems of rule present in the world today, closest to Islam, and it is not equaled by any other system. They came under fire in January, however, when the Supreme Leader, Mahdi Akef, told Al Masry Al Youm that the Muslim Brotherhood did not object t o a fifth presidential term for Hosni Mubarak, not because of their comm itment to the principles of constitutional democracy, but simply because he is the guardian of the state, and Islam in the holy Quran obliges us to obey him. asks Sayed Al Qem ani, an Egyptian writer who has published 15 books promoting a reinterpr etation of Islamic texts, and who writes critiques of traditional Islam in the weekly Rose Al Youssef.
because the governments are fascist governments, and in order t o rule the people, they want to continue the Islamic idea that the ruler is in place for all his life, and he rules with Islam, and thus he shou ld be obeyed, says Al Qemani. The history of the past 50 years in Egypt, as seen by Al Qemani, is the h istory of the state forging its legitimacy through the exploitation of r eligion. The rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser, commonly portrayed as a relativ ely secular period in Egyptian history, was in fact the golden age for t he revival of Islam and its men, according to Al Qemani. Quran and praying Source: Adam Bernstein Nasser, he points out, established the High Council for Islamic Affairs i n 1960 and then the Islamic Research Council, a conservative bastion wit h Al Azhar, and gave it wide-ranging censorship powers. In addition, say s Al Qemani, under Nasser the number of Azhari institutes in the governo rates of Egypt grew from seven in 1952 to over 2,000 at the time of Nass ers death. That Sadat allowed the Brotherhood back into Egypt and allowed them to op erate openly in the street and on university campuses to counter the Mar xist left is well known. More recently, President Mubarak has given sign ificantly expanded censorship power to Al Azhar. Reshaping Islam Thinkers like Al Banna and Al Qemani claim to be reinterpreting Islamic t exts, seeking to bridge the gap between the text and modern society. The y say that, instead of recycling the religious interpretations of Islams earliest thinkers, interpretations that have come to occupy a sacrosanc t and unassailable position in traditional Islam, they are remolding Isl am to fit with todays values. In doing so, they arecontroversiallyclaimi ng the right to proffer their own interpretations. In the words of the Al Azhar-educated Qatari writer, Abdel Hamid Al Ansar i, Were talking about reason, rationality and critical thinking with reg ards to Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic history. Prominent Syrian writer Muhammad Shahrour puts it another way, saying wha t was good for 1,000 years ago, might not be appropriate today in this t ime and civilization. In the years that followed the death of Muhammad, as Islam spread across much of the Middle East and North Africa and became an empire, the relig ion expanded to address the changing needs of empire, and to respond to the internal differences inside Islam, principally between the Sunni and Shia sects. The sheer volume of texts that resultedtexts regarded by the orthodoxy wi th a reverence similar to that of the Quranhas made the religions intric acies inaccessible to all but a specialized elite. These texts include p illars of the Islamic canon such as the hadith and early tafseer, or int erpretations of the Quran, written by thinkers during the first centurie s of Islam. Important parts of the reform movement have been aimed at stripping these writings of their hallowed status. Educational reformers at Al Azhar, g oing back to the 19th century, have criticized the system of education t hat simply re-explained the previous explanations of old explanations wi thout creating new interpretations. Today, one of the more persecuted reform movements in Egypt, the Quraniyo on, is calling to get rid of the hadith entirely and make the Quran the only source for Islamic jurisprudence. With regards to both the hadith and early Islamic legal rulings, many wer e created to suit the distinctly political needs of the sultan, argue ma ny. The popular notion of a golden age of Islam where sharia ruled is a fabrication, says Othman Muhammad Ali, an Egyptian pharmacist and author on reforming Islam.
Caliph Abou Gafar Al Mansour asked for a book that he could use to lead the people, he says. The Malaki school is one of the four schools of Islam which still dominat e Sunni Islamic thought to this day. The founders of the four schools al l lived and died in the eight and ninth centuries and their vision of Is lam reflects and responds to the needs and circumstances of that era, an d in many respects they emphasize a starkly undemocratic relationship to the state, says Muhammad Ali. Ibn Taymiyya, a 13th century thinker, is credited with spreading Islams r igid Hanbali school and freezing the ongoing interpretation and reinterp retation of Islam, what is known as the closing of the doors of ijtihad. Ibn Taymiyya, writing during the chaos brought on by the Mongol invasio ns, is commonly credited with the opinion that it is better to live for 60 years under tyrant than one day in the absence of authority. Islamic jurisprudence was created in an environment of oppr...
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