Friday, October 10, 2003

Islam, Reform, and Renaissance

I went over to Regnum Crucis and saw this post, which says in part:

A lot of Western commentators, horribly uninformed about the details of their own history, have opined since September 11 about how Islam "needs a Reformation." Aziz Poonawalla and Ikram Saeed have made a very good point - Wahhabism is the Islamic version of the Reformation and its legacy has basically been the same. The difference is that while the European nations were able to pull themselves out of the sinkhole of sectarian warfare after ~150 years of religious warfare, many Muslim nations, especially in the Middle East, are prevented from doing so because of the number of thug regimes that have come to power there since the end of colonialism.

To find out what Dan Darling means by "horribly uninformed about the details of their own history," you have to follow the link he indicates, which leads to this post by Aziz Poonawalla at Unmedia. The post quotes a commenter named Ikram Saeed. I'll repeat the Saeed quote in full:

Wahbism _is_ the reformation. Traditional Sunni Islam has four Madhabs (schools of thought), and the interpretation of religion is only permitted by religious scholars in that Madhab. To become a scholar requires many years of work, and an understanding of some 1400 years of religious thought and commentary. Traditional Sunni-ism is somewhat centralized and "Catholic" (though not nearly as mush as Shi'ism -- "the fifth madhab?").

Wahabis smash this hierarchy, and go extreme "protestant" They argue that the 1400 years of interpretation has clouded and distorted the original message of the Prophet. Muslims need to go back to the fundamentals, to Islam the way it was practiced at the time of the prophet. Each Muslim should read the Quran, and particularly the Hadiths, and reach his own, correct, understanding.

It so happens that Wahabis believe the correct understanding is one that, by the standards of America's relaxed morality, is reactionary and repressive. Religious authority is being decentralized among hatemongers and fanatics.

And, for Christians who know their own religious history, this shouldn't be surprising. Calvin was an intolerant religious bigot. And Luther has long been accused of being a grade 'A' anti-semite. Both Luther and Calvin launched Europe into 300 years of religious warfare (that still continues in N.Ireland).

300 years of religious warfare -- is that the reformation Den Beste wants?
The Christian Reformation occurred as a reaction to corruption in the catholic church, not as a reaction to strict morals. If anthing, teetotalling moralistic protestants were more violent and more strict than Catholics. Similarly, Wahabis are more strict than "Madhabis" to coin a term.

We do need to note that not everyone means precisely the same thing when they say "Islam needs a Reformation." Saeed is being a bit too rigorous about the analogy, I think, and is viewing the Christian Reformation through a too-narrow consequentialist lens. The long-term effects of the Protestant Reformation weren't exclusively deleterious, though I gladly acknowledge the negatives Saeed points out re: Luther's and Calvin's intolerance and centuries of religious war. The other side of the coin, though, the strong metal that came out of that forge, is the theologically liberal wing of modern Christianity that rejects blind fundamentalism, accepts the need for (and actively promotes!) continued hermeneutical variety, and exists in constant, spirited, peaceful dialogue with its coreligionists.

When people say Islam needs a Reformation from within, this is what they're talking about, and it's no use deliberately misunderstanding them.

To my mind, Islam needs the one thing it rejects the most vigorously: a notion of the secular. Although there's no single definition for what secularism is and means, I think it's safe to contend that, so far in history, only secularism has provided the necessary neutral ground on which various beliefs can peaceably (if not always harmoniously) interact. No religion, no society based on a religion or possessing a state religion, has been able to provide nearly as satisfactory a neutral ground as Western-style secularism, a ground specifically congenial to diverse versions of human flourishing. I can think of no Buddhism-based society that both upholds and tolerates variety to the extent America does, for example. No Christian society does, either (something we can actually see within America, too, in quasi-hermetic communities like the Mennonites). Certainly no Muslim society has ever allowed the kind of peaceful pluralism America enjoys-- and the historical example of non-Muslim monotheists living as second-class citizens who pay a jizya tax simply for belonging to another faith does not, in my opinion, equate to what a secularism-aided pluralism provides its people. How would a Saivite Hindu and his family have fared in such a "tolerant" Muslim society, I wonder? Examples from Islam's glorious past provide no clue as to what Islam needs to do next-- not without serious reinterpretation, anyway. This is one reason why I place a lot of hope in feminist Muslims who've lived their whole lives in Western societies. The "reform from within" must and will be an alloy that includes influences from without-- an inevitable fact if you grant that phenomena are dependently co-arisen. Nothing simply "arises" ex nihilo.

I understand Saeed's basic point and agree with it, but feel he may be missing the actual intention of the people calling for Muslim reformation. This could be an instance of folks talking past each other. That's my take on the matter, anyway.

Aziz Poonawalla at Unmedia points out this post, which disagrees with Saeed's contention that Wahhabism is like the Reformation.

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