USMAN KARIM
world, and indeed the International community as a whole would prefer an Islamic world that is compatible with the rest of the system: democratic, economically viable, politically Stable, socially progressive, and follows the rules and norms of international conduct. They also want to prevent a ?clash of civilizations? in all of its possible Variants ?from increased domestic unrest caused by conflicts between Muslim Minorities and ?native? populations in the West to increased militancy across the Muslim world and its consequences, instability and terrorism. It therefore seems judicious to encourage the elements within the Islamic mix that are most compatible with global peace and the international community and that are friendly to democracy and modernity. However, correctly identifying these elements and finding the most suitable way to cooperate with them is not always easy.
Islam?s current crisis has two main components: a failure to thrive and a loss of connection to the global mainstream. The Islamic world has been marked by a long period of backwardness and comparative powerlessness; many different solutions, such as nationalism, pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, and Islamic revolution, have been attempted without success, and this has led to frustration and anger. At the same time, the Islamic world has fallen out of step with contemporary global culture, an uncomfortable situation for both sides.
Muslims disagree on what to do about this, and they disagree on what their society ultimately should look like. We can distinguish four essential positions:
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? ?Fundamentalists reject democratic values and contemporary Western culture. They want an authoritarian, puritanical state that will implement their extreme view of Islamic law and morality. They are willing to use innovation and modern technology to achieve that goal.
? ?Traditionalists want a conservative society. They are suspicious of modernity, innovation, and change.
? ?Modernists want the Islamic world to become part of global modernity. They want to modernize and reform Islam to bring it into line with the age.
? ?Secularists want the Islamic world to accept a division of church and state in the manner of Western industrial democracies, with religion relegated to the private sphere.
These groups hold distinctly different positions on essential issues that have become contentious in the Islamic world today, including political and individual freedom, education, and the status of women, criminal justice, the legitimacy of reform and change, and attitudes toward the West. The fundamentalists are hostile to the West and to the United States in particular and are intent, to varying degrees, on damaging and destroying democratic modernity. Supporting them is not an option, except for transitory tactical considerations. The traditionalists generally hold more moderate views, but there are significant differences between different groups of traditionalists. Values of their various potential allies and prot?g?s really are; and what the broader consequences of advancing their respective agendas are likely to be. Mixed approach composed of the following elements is likely to be the most effective:
Support the modernists first:
?Publish and distribute their works at subsidized cost.
?Encourage them to write for mass audiences and for youth.
?Introduce their views into the curriculum of Islamic education.
?Give them a public platform.
?Make their opinions and judgments on fundamental questions of religious interpretation available to a mass audience in competition with those of the fundamentalists and traditionalists, who have Web sites, publishing houses, schools, institutes, and many other vehicles for disseminating their views.
?Position secularism and modernism as a ?counterculture? option for disaffected Islamic youth.
?Facilitate and encourage an awareness of their pre-and non-Islamic history and culture, in the media and the curricula of relevant countries.
?Assist in the development of independent civic organizations, to promote civic culture and provide a space for ordinary citizens to educate themselves about the political process and to articulate their views.
Support the traditionalists against the fundamentalists:
?publicize traditionalist criticism of fundamentalist violence and extremism; encourage disagreements between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
?Discourage alliances between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
?Encourage cooperation between modernists and the traditionalists who are closer to the modernist end of the spectrum.
?Where appropriate, educate the traditionalists to equip them better for debates against fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are often rhetorically superior, while traditionalists practice a politically inarticulate ?folk
Islam.? In such places as Central Asia, they may need to be educated and trained in orthodox Islam to be able to stand their ground.
?Increase the presence and profile of modernists in traditionalist institutions.
Some are close to the fundamentalists. None wholeheartedly embraces modern democracy and the culture and values of modernity and, at best, can only make an uneasy peace with them.
The modernists and secularists are closest to the West in terms of values and policies. However, they are generally in a weaker position than the other groups, lacking powerful backing, financial resources, an effective infrastructure, and a public platform. The secularists, besides sometimes being unacceptable as allies on the basis of their broader ideological affiliation, also have trouble addressing the traditional sector of an Islamic audience.
Traditional orthodox Islam contains democratic elements that can be used to counter the repressive, authoritarian Islam of the fundamentalists, but it is not suited to be the primary vehicle of democratic Islam. That role falls to the Islamic modernists, whose effectiveness, however, has been limited by a number of constraints, which this report will explore.
To encourage positive change in the Islamic world toward greater democracy, modernity, and compatibility with the contemporary international world order, the United States and the West need to consider very carefully which elements, trends, and forces within Islam they intend to strengthen; what the goals and
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?Discriminate between different sectors of traditionalism. Encourage those with a greater affinity to modernism, such as the Hanafi law school, versus others. Encourage them to issue religious opinions and popularize these to weaken the authority of backward Wahhabi inspired religious rulings. This relates to funding: Wahhabi money goes to the support of the conservative Hanbali School. It also relates to knowledge: More-backward parts of the Muslim world are not aware of advances in the application and interpretation of Islamic law.
?Encourage the popularity and acceptance of Sufism.
Confront and oppose the fundamentalists:
?Challenge their interpretation of Islam and expose inaccuracies.
?Reveal their linkages to illegal groups and activities.
?Publicize the consequences of their violent acts.
?Demonstrate their inability to rule, to achieve positive development of their countries and communities.
?Address these messages especially to young people, to pious traditionalist populations, to Muslim minorities in the West, and to women.
?Avoid showing respect or admiration for the violent feats of fundamentalist extremists and terrorists. Cast them as disturbed and cowardly, not as evil heroes.
?Encourage journalists to investigate issues of corruption, hypocrisy, and immorality in fundamentalist and terrorist circles.
?Encourage divisions among fundamentalists.
Selectively support secularists:
?Encourage recognition of fundamentalism as a shared enemy; discourage secularist alliance with anti-U.S. forces on such grounds as nationalism and leftist ideology.
?Support the idea that religion and the state can be separate in Islam too and that this does not endanger the faith but, in fact, may strengthen it. Whichever approach or mix of approaches is chosen, we recommend that it be done with careful deliberation, in knowledge of the symbolic weight of certain issues; the meaning likely to be assigned to the alignment of U.S. policymakers with particular positions on these issues; the consequences of these alignments for other Islamic actors, including the risk of endangering or discrediting the very groups and people we are seeking to help; and the opportunity costs and possible unintended consequences of affiliations and postures that may seem appropriate in the short term
Reference
. Benard, Cheryl, 1953-
Civil democratic Islam, partners, resources, and strategies /Cheryl Benard.
p.cm.
?MR- 1716.?
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8330-3438-3 (pbk.)
- Islam and civil society.
- Islamic modernism.
- Democracy ?Religious aspects ?Islam.
- Islam ?University.
- Islam ?21st century.I.Title.
BP173.63 .B46 2003
320.5’5’0917671 ?dc21
Partners, Resources, and Strategies
The Islamic world is involved in a struggle to determine its own nature and values, with serious implications for the future. What role cans the rest of the world? threatened and affected as it is by this struggle, play in bringing about a more peaceful and positive outcome? Devising a judicious approach requires a finely grained understanding of the ongoing ideological struggle within Islam, to identify appropriate partners and set realistic goals and means to encourage its evolution in a positive way.
The United States has three goals in regard to politicized Islam.
First, it wants to prevent the spread of extremism and violence. Second, in doing so, it needs to avoid the impression that the United States is ?opposed to Islam.? And third, in the longer run, it must find ways to help address the deeper economic, social, and political causes feeding Islamic radicalism and to encourage a move toward development and democratization.
The debates and conflicts that mark the current Islamic world can make the picture seem confusing. It becomes easier to sort the actors if one thinks of them not as belonging to distinct categories but as falling along a spectrum.
Their views on certain critical marker issues help to locate them correctly on this spectrum. It is then possible to see which part of the spectrum is generally compatible with our values, and which is fundamentally inimical. On this basis, this report identifies components of a specific strategy.
This report should be of interest to scholars, policymakers, students, and all others interested in the Middle East, Islam, and political Islam.
MAPPING THE ISSUES: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE RANGE OF THOUGHT IN CONTEMPORARY ISLAM
The Setting: Shared Problems, Different Answers
? Positions on Key Issues Democracy and Human Rights
? Polygamy
? Criminal Punishments, Islamic Justice
? Minorities
? Women?s Dress
? Husbands Allowed to Beat Wives
Chapter Two
FINDING PARTNERS FOR THE PROMOTION OF DEMOCRATIC ISLAM: OPTIONS
? The Secularists
? The Fundamentalists
? The Traditionalists
? Distinguishing Between Traditionalists and Fundamentalists
? Potentially Useful Democratic Elements
? The Danger of Domestic Backlash
? The Potential for Weakening Credibility and Moral
? Persuasiveness
? The Possibility of Undermining Reforms
Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies
? The Modernists
? Modernism Has Respected Intellectuals and Leaders
? Weaknesses of the Modernists
? Two Special Cases of Modernism
? Sufis
Chapter Three
A PROPOSED STRATEGY
Appendix A
THE HADITH WARS
Appendix B
HIJAB AS A CASE Study
STRATEGY IN DEPTH
There is no question that contemporary Islam is in a volatile state, engaged in an internal and external struggle over its values, its identity, and its place in the world. Rival versions are contending for spiritual and political dominance. This conflict has serious costs and economic, social, political, and security implications for the rest of the world. Consequently, the West is making an increased effort to come to terms with, to understand, and to influence the outcome of this struggle. Clearly, the United States, the modern industrialized world, and indeed the international community as a whole would prefer an Islamic world that is compatible with the rest of the system: democratic, economically viable, politically stable, socially progressive, and follows the rules and norms of international conduct. They also want to prevent a ?clash of civilizations? in all of its possible variants?from increased domestic unrest caused by conflicts between Muslim minorities and ?native? populations in the West to increased militancy across the Muslim world and its consequences, instability and terrorism. It therefore seems judicious to encourage the elements within the Islamic mix that are most compatible with global peace and the international community and that are friendly to democracy and modernity. However, correctly identifying these elements and finding the most suitable way to cooperate with them is not always easy.
Islam?s current crisis has two main components: a failure to thrive and a loss of connection to the global mainstream. The Islamic world has been marked by a long period of backwardness and comparative powerlessness; many different solutions, such as nationalism, pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, and Islamic revolution, have been attempted without success, and this has led to frustration and anger. At the same time, the Islamic world has fallen out of step with contemporary global culture, an uncomfortable situation for both sides. Muslims disagree on what to do about this, and they disagree on what their society ultimately should look like. We can distinguish four essential positions:
? Burqa The voluminous, all-covering outer garment worn by Afghan women
? Fatwa A formal pronouncement on a doctrinal or legal matter by an Islamic scholar or scholarly body
? Hadith A narrated story relating to the actions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and his closest followers, presumed to reflect the correct way of doing things and to supplement the guidance given in the Quran. An exacting science has been created around the need to substantiate and verify hadith, but the very hugeness of the body of hadith makes it subject to accidental or intentional misuse.
Hanafi One of the schools of Islamic law; more liberal on most matters. Hanbali One of the schools of Islamic law; more conservative on most matters hijab literally, the Islamic ?dress code? for women; the term can be used to refer to the simple headscarf or to more elaborate coverings hudud Specific Islamic criminal punishments ijma Community consensus as a tool of modifying and interpreting Islamic law
Ijtihad The practice of informed interpretation, another tool for establishing and modifying correct Islamic practice Khilafa another spelling for Caliphate Kufr Non-Islamic disbelief
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Madrassa Generic term for an Islamic religious school, whether of the traditional nonpolitical variety or as a politicized source of radical fundamentalist indoctrination mullah An Islamic preacher, regardless of the level of training and education Quran The Islamic holy book sharia Also commonly spelled shariah or shariat; the entire body of Islamic law and guidance, based on the Quran, hadith, and scholarly judgments and open to selective use and interpretation Shi?a Islam Literally, faction or party; a dissident version of Islam that began with a dispute over the leadership succession shortly after the death of Muhammad and then developed further doctrinal and political differences vis-?-vis orthodox, Sunni Islam
Sufism Islamic mysticism, either in its variant as a populist folk religion or organized in Sufi religious orders. Sunni Islam the orthodox version of Islam adhered to by the overwhelming majority, although Shi?a Islam is dominant in some countries and regions Sunnah The body of tradition complementing the Quran Sura a section or verse of the Quran and the organizing principle structuring the revelations Ulama Body of scholars, scholarly community Ummah The community of believers Wahhabi An extremist, puritanical, and aggressive form of Islamic fundamentalism founded in the 18th century and adopted by the house of Saud; disrespecting other versions of Islam, including Sufi Islam, Shi?a Islam, and moderate Islam in general as incorrect aberrations of the true religion. Its expansionist ambitions are heavily funded by the Saudi government.
MAPPING THE ISSUES: AN INTRODUCTION TO THERANGE OF THOUGHT IN CONTEMPORARY ISLAM
The notion that the outside world should try to encourage a moderate, democratic interpretation and presentation of Islam has been in circulation for some decades but gained great urgency after September 11, 2001. There is broad agreement that this is a constructive approach. Islam is an important religion with enormous political and societal influence; it inspires a variety of ideologies and political actions, some of which are dangerous to global stability; and it therefore seems sensible to foster the strains within it that call for a more moderate, democratic, peaceful, and tolerant social order. The question is how best to do this. This report identifies a direction. We begin by setting the scene for the main ideological fissures in the discussion over Islam and society. The second chapter analyzes the pros and cons of sup-porting different elements within Islam. The final chapter proposes a strategy.
Immediately following September 11, 2001, political leaders and policymakers in the West began to issue statements affirming their conviction that Islam was not to blame for what had happened, that Islam was a positive force in the world, a religion of peace and tolerance. They spoke in mosques, held widely publicized meetings with Muslim clerics, invited mullahs to open public events, and inserted Quranic Suras into their own speeches. In a typical formulation, for example, President Bush asserted that ?Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world? and that ?has made brothers and sisters of every race. It?s a faith based upon love, not hate? (Bush, 2002).
This approach has not been unique to the United States but is also prevalent in Europe, where it led some commentators to note sarcastically that the political Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies went a backlash that might have inspired acts of violence and hostility aimed at their respective Muslim minorities. In addition, there were at least two foreign policy motivations, one short term and the other longer term. In the short run, the goal was to make it politically possible for Muslim governments to support the effort against terrorism by detaching the issue of terrorism from the issue of Islam. In the longer run, the Western leaders were attempting to create an image, a vision, which would facilitate the better integration of Islamic political actors and states into the modern international system. The academic community quickly joined in, trying to make the case that Islam was at a minimum compatible with, if indeed it did not demand, moderation, tolerance, diversity, and democracy.
In his introduction to Abdulaziz Sachedina?s The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism, Joseph Montville expresses the purpose of such studies and the motivation of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in funding this one, We knew that, like every great world religion, Islam embraced certain universal human values that could be recognized and accepted as the basis of community by non-Muslims . . . Prof. Sachedina . . . knew he could highlight those parts of the Koran . . . that emphasized the dignity of the individual, freedom of con-science, and God?s love for all creatures, People of the Book and even people without a book. (Sachedina, 2001, p. 1) And the author himself explains, This work undertakes to map some of the most important political concepts in Islam that advance better human relationships, both within and between nations. It aims at uncovering normative aspects of Muslim religious formulations and specifying their application in diverse cultures to suggest their critical relevance to the pluralistic world order of the 21st century. . . . The goal here is not to glorify the Muslim past but to remember it, retrace its path, interpret it, reconstruct it and make it relevant to the present. (Sachedina, 2001, p. 1; emphasis added)
However, even as one group of authors was seeking to ?highlight? one set of values to be found in the Quran and tradition, other authors were successfully finding and energetically publicizing quite another set of values. Even as liberal scholars within and outside the Muslim world were gathering intellectual arguments that supported liberal, tolerant Islam, the terrorists were making equal reference to Islam, asserting that their mission and methods were mandated directly by their religion. The celebratory tone taken in some Islamic communities following the attacks soberingly showed that this view was shared by certain?and not a small?segment of the Muslim public. Even a year after the event, radical clerics meeting in London to celebrate the September 11 attacks averred in their press conference that these had been an exercise in ?just retribution? and thus a proper Islamic act (Bowcott, 2002). Leadership ?collectively appears to have acquired an instant postgraduate degree in Islamic studies, enabling them to lecture the population concerning the true nature of Islam? (Heitmeyer, 2001). In part, this demonstrative public embracing of Islam by opinion leaders and politicians had a domestic rationale: Western leaders were attempting to pre-Western leaders and supportive governments in the Muslim world have tried hard to detach the terrorists? goals from Islam; the radicals are equally deter-mined to keep the issues joined. For many Western opinion leaders, the goal of opposing terrorists, of preventing the conflict from turning into a ?clash of religions,? and of discrediting the radicals? interpretation of Islam, made it seem all the more advisable to support the more benign strains within Islam?but which ones, exactly, and with what concrete goal in mind? Identifying the elements that should be supported, choosing appropriate methods, and defining the goals of such support are difficult. It is no easy matter to transform a major world religion. If ?nation-building? is a daunting task, ?religion-building? is immeasurably more perilous and complex. Islam is neither a homogeneous entity nor a simple system. Many extraneous issues and problems have become entangled with religion, and many of the political actors in the region deliberately seek to ?Islamize? the debate in a way that they think will further their goals.
THE SETTING: SHARED PROBLEMS, DIFFERENT ANSWERS
Islam?s current crisis has two main components: The Islamic world has been marked by a long period of backwardness and comparative powerlessness; many different solutions, such as nationalism, pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, and Islamic revolution, have been attempted without success; 1 and this has led to frustration and anger. At the same time, the Islamic world has fallen out of step with contemporary global culture, as well as moving increasingly to the margins of the global economy. Muslims disagree on what to do about this, on what has caused it, and on what their societies ultimately should look like. We can distinguish four essential positions, as the following paragraphs describe.
The fundamentalists 2 put forth an aggressive, expansionist version of Islam that does not shy away from violence. They want to gain political power and then to impose strict public observance of Islam, as they they define it, forcibly on as broad a population worldwide as possible. Their unit of reference
1 See, especially, Roy (1994); Tibi (1988); Ajami (1981); and Rejwan (1998).
2 The term Islamist is being variously used by different authors to describe either the fundamentalists or the traditionalists. To avoid confusion, it will not be used in this report.
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It is not the nation-state or the ethnic group, but the Muslim community, the ummah; gaining control of particular Islamic countries can be a step on this path but is not the main goal.
We can distinguish two strands within fundamentalism. One, which is grounded in theology and tends to have some roots in one or another kind of religious establishment, we will refer to as the scriptural fundamentalists. On the Shi?a side, this group includes most of the Iranian revolutionaries and, as one Sunni manifestation, the Saudi-based Wahhabis. The Kaplan congregation, active among Western Diaspora Turks and in Turkey, is another example.
The radical fundamentalists, the second strand, are much less concerned with the literal substance of Islam, with which they take considerable liberties either deliberately or because of ignorance of orthodox Islamic doctrine. They usually do not have any ?institutional? religious affiliations but tend to be eclectic and autodidactic in their knowledge of Islam. Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and a large number of other Islamic radical movements and diffuse groups worldwide belong to this category.
The fundamentalists do not merely approve of the Islamic practices of the past. More significantly, they expand on them, applying some of the more stringent rules more rigorously than the original Islamic community ever did, exercising an arbitrary selectivity that allows them to ignore or drop more egalitarian, progressive, tolerant aspects of the Quran and the sunnah, and inventing some new rules of their own. This is particularly true of the radical fundamentalists.
Not all fundamentalists embrace or even endorse terrorism, at least not the indiscriminate type of terrorism that targets civilians and often kills Muslims along with the ?enemy,? but fundamentalism as a whole is incompatible with the values of civil society and the Western vision of civilization, political order, and society.
The traditionalists are also divided into two distinct groups: conservative traditionalists and reformist traditionalists. The distinction is significant. Additionally, there are often important differences between conservative traditionalists who live in the Islamic world or in the Third World generally and those who live in the West. Being an essentially moderate position, traditionalism tends to be adaptive to its environment. Thus, conservative traditionalists who live in traditional societies are likely to accept practices that are prevalent in such societies, such as child marriage, and to be less educated and less able to distinguish local traditions and customs from actual Islamic doctrine. Those who live in the West have absorbed more-modern views on these issues and tend to be better educated and more linked to the transnational discourse on issues of orthodoxy.
Reformist traditionalists think that, to remain viable and attractive throughout the ages, Islam has to be prepared to make some concessions in the literal application of orthodoxy. They are prepared to discuss reforms and reinterpretations.
Their posture is one of cautious adaptation to change, being flexible on the letter of the law to conserve the spirit of the law. The modernists actively seek far-reaching changes to the current orthodox understanding and practice of Islam. They want to eliminate the harmful ballast of local and regional tradition that has, over the centuries, intertwined itself with Islam. They further believe in the historicity of Islam, i.e., that Islam as it was practiced in the days of the Prophet reflected eternal truths as well as historical circumstances that were appropriate to that time but are no longer valid.
They think it is possible to identify an ?essential core? of Islamic belief; further, they believe that this core will not only remain undamaged but in fact will be strengthened by changes, even very substantial changes, that reflect changing times, social conditions, and historical circumstances.
The things that modernists value and admire most about Islam tend to be quite different and more abstract than the things the fundamentalists and the traditionalist?s value. Their core values?the primacy of the individual conscience and a community based on social responsibility, equality, and freedom?are easily compatible with modern democratic norms. The secularists believe that religion should be a private matter separate from politics and the state and that the main challenge lies in preventing transgressions in either direction. The state should not interfere in the individual exercise of religion, but equally, religious customs must be in conformity with the law of the land and with human rights. The Turkish Kemalists, who placed religion under the firm control of the state, represent the laciest model in Islam.
These positions should be thought of as representing segments on a continuum, rather than distinct categories. There are no clear boundaries between them, so that some traditionalists overlap with the fundamentalists; the most modernist of the traditionalists are almost modernists; and the most extreme modernists are similar to secularists. Conservative traditionalists believe that Islamic law and tradition ought to be rigorously and literally followed, and they see a role for the state and for the political authorities in encouraging or at least facilitating this. However, they do not generally favor violence and terrorism.
Historically, they have grown accustomed to operating under changing political circumstances, and this has led them to concentrate their efforts on the daily life of the society, where they try to have as much influence and control as they can, even when the government is not Islamic. In the social realm, their goal is to preserve orthodox norms and values and conservative behavior to the fullest extent possible. The temptations and the pace of modern life are seen as posing a major threat to this. Their posture is one of resistance to change. Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies each of these outlined positions takes a characteristic stance on key issues of controversy in the contemporary Islamic debate. And their ?rules of evidence? for defending these positions are also distinct, as sketched in Table 1 (starting on page 8).
In the contemporary Islamic struggle, ?lifestyle? issues are the field on which the contending positions try to stake their claims and that they use to signal their control. Doctrine is territory and is being fought over. This explains the prominence of such issues in an ideological and political contest.
The utility of ?mapping? the views of the various Islamic positions is that, on issues of doctrine and lifestyle, they adhere to fairly distinct and reliable platforms, which define their identity and serve as identifiers toward like-minded others?a kind of ?passport.? Thus, while it is possible for groups to dissimulate concerning their attitude to violence, to avoid prosecution and sanctions, it is not really possible for them to distort or deny their views on key value and lifestyle issues. These are what define them and attract new members. Conservative traditionalists accept the correctness of past practices, even when they conflict with today?s norms and values, on the principle that the original Islamic community represents the absolute and eternal ideal, but they no longer necessarily attempt to reinstate all of the practices. Often, however, their reason for this is not that they would not like to do it, but that they assess it to be temporarily or permanently unrealistic to do so. Reformist traditionalists reinterpret, rebut, or evade practices that seem problematic in today?s world. Modernists see the same practices as part of a changing and changeable historical context; they do not regard the original Islamic community or the early years of Islam as something that one would necessarily wish to reproduce today. Secularists prohibit the practices that conflict with modern norms and laws and ignore the others as belonging to the private sphere of individuals. Secularists do not concern themselves with what Islam might or might not require. Moderate secularists want the state to guarantee people?s right to practice their faith, while ensuring that religion remains a private matter and does not violate any standards of human rights or civil law. Radical secularists, including communists and laciest, oppose religion altogether.
Conservative traditionalists seek guidance from conventional Islamic sources: the Quran, the sunnah, Islamic law, fatwas, and the religious opinions of respected scholars. Reformist traditionalists use the same sources but tend to be more inventive and more aggressive in exploring alternative interpretations. They are aware of the conflicts between modernity and Islam and want to reduce them to keep Islam viable into the future. They seek to reinterpret traditional content, to find ways around the restrictions or rulings that trouble them or stand in the way of desired changes or that harm the image of Islam in the eyes of the rest of the world. There are ironic similarities in the way radical fundamentalists and modernists approach the issue of change. In keeping with convention, they both refer to the Quran, Sunnah, law, fatwas, and authorities (of course, choosing different selections from each). But ultimately, both positions are guided by their respective visions of the ideal Islamic society. Each feels authorized to define and interpret the individual rules and laws in keeping with that vision. Obviously, this gives them a lot more freedom to maneuver than the traditionalists have. Fundamentalists have as their goal an ascetic, highly regimented, hierarchical society in which all members follow the requirements of Islamic ritual strictly, in which immorality is prevented by separating the sexes, which in turn is achieved by banishing women from the public domain, and in which life is visibly and constantly infused by religion. It is totalitarian in its negation of a private sphere, instead believing that it is the task of state authorities to compel the individual to adhere to proper Islamic behavior anywhere and everywhere. And ideally, it wants this system?which it believes to be the only rightful one?to expand until it controls the entire world and everyone is a Muslim.
Modernists envision a society in which individuals express their piety in a way each finds personally meaningful, decide most moral matters and lifestyle issues on the basis of their own consciences, seek to lead ethical lives out of inner conviction rather than external compulsion, and base their political system on principles of justice and equality. This system should coexist peacefully with other orders and religions. The modernists find concepts within Islamic orthodoxy that support the right of Muslims, as individuals and as communities, to make changes and revisions even to basic laws and texts. When a question arises that is not covered in Islamic orthodox texts, or when it is but they do not like the answer, fundamentalists and modernists both refer instead to their ideal vision and then innovate a solution. Since innovation is not generally accepted in Islam, they both define it as something else.
Modernists speak of ?faith-based objections? to specific aspects of Islam, of the ?good of the community? as a value that overrides even the Quran, of ?community consensus? (ijma) that legitimizes even radical change.4
Radical fundamentalists reclaim ijtihad, the controversial practice of interpretation, or refer mysteriously to ?higher criteria.? No traditionalist would ever argue that orthodox content of the Quran or the hadith can be ?technically
4 See, for example, El Fadl (2001). Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies
Table 1
?Marker Issues? and the Major Ideological Positions in Islam and strict rules of evidence.
Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies defensible? but still be contrary to the ?spirit of the Prophet?s tradition? and therefore may be abandoned. The next section illustrates how the positions define their views on the key issues we have identified. In terms of its public manifestation, the division between the contemporary positions in Islam plays itself out in regard to issues of lifestyle and values. In
Some ways, this is what marks it most clearly as a religion-based dispute: Distinctions that may appear relatively minor in the grand scheme of things take on enormous importance because they signify allegiance or no allegiance, victory or stalemate. The obvious example is the ?head scarf.? It is important for outside actors to keep this in mind. When U.S. government agencies appear to endorse the head scarf, for example, considering this to be a minor matter of preference in dress code that cheaply enables them to signal tolerance, they are in fact unwittingly taking a major stand on a central, wildly contested symbolic issue. They are aligning them-selves with the extreme end of the spectrum, with the fundamentalists and the conservative traditionalists, against the reformist traditionalists, the modernists, and the secularists.
POSITIONS ON KEY ISSUES
Democracy and Human Rights
Illustrations of the radical fundamentalist position on issues of political doctrine can readily be found in print and online in the publications of Hezbi-Islami and Hizb-ut-Tahrir, to name only two sources:
According to Hezbi-Islami, parliaments and other democratic institutions are clear and obvious forms of disbelief, and of shirk, or setting up rivals to Allah (by ascribing legislative power to people) and an unforgivable sin, and a contradiction of the purpose of creation.5
The goal is to impose the correct order, that of Islam, over all others. According to Green (1994),
This is not a confrontation of civilizations, nor is it a clash of cultures. Islam does not oppose the West, or anyone else, because of revenge over past hostilities, out of a desire to restore injured pride or because of the desire to amass their wealth and lands. The fight is for one purpose only and that is to establish
5 Note that all our quotations from and citations of online materials reflect the content as it existed between January and September 2002. Some of these texts have been changed or modified since then, though not substantially. Permission to marry up to four wives was given to Muslim men. The Prophet himself had special dispensation and married 13 women in total, all except Aisha being widows or divorcees needing care . . . Polygamy is also allowed if a man?s wife becomes so physically ill that she is no longer able to look after him or the family, or if she becomes mentally ill. Should a man be expected to live for the rest of his life without any sexual comfort, or should he divorce the unfortunate wife, or should he marry another?
(The author?a woman?does not explain why the reverse occurrence should not therefore authorize the woman to take more than one husband.) Similarly, in his book Islam Today, which received the Los Angeles Times award for best nonfiction book of the year, U.S. reformist traditionalist Akbar Ahmed (2001, p. 152) writes, There is another idea about family life that is difficult to lay to rest in the West.
It is of Islam as a man?s paradise with every man possessing at least four wives . . . . The Quran has clearly given permission for men to marry more than once, and in certain circumstances this is a social necessity: . . . ?marry such women as seem good to you, two, three or four? (4:3). But in the next line the Quran lays down a clause: ?If you think you will not act justly, then one.? This is a stringent condition making it difficult for a person to marry more than once. Indeed the Quran itself says that polygamy is not possible: ?You will never manage to deal equitably with women no matter how hard you try? (4:129). The true spirit of the Quran thus appears to be monogamy . . . . None the less Muslims are not apologetic or defensive about polygamy . . . . Modernists do not need to engage in such elaborations. They simply point to the fact that ?changing times? bring changing customs and moralities. What was acceptable hundreds of years ago is no longer considered acceptable today?and of course the Quran was ambivalent about it even then. Instead of focusing on specifics that are no longer relevant in the entirely different setting of a modern urban world, one should concentrate on the essence of the Prophet?s teachings and his example. One will then find that he strove toward ever greater equality, justice, and harmony as the guiding principles of social interaction, that he was a social reformer. Therefore, introducing reforms into society is in keeping with the spirit of Islam.
Criminal Punishments, Islamic Justice
Fundamentalists and many conservative traditionalists argue for the deterrent value of Islam?s severe criminal penalties. This is usually not true of reformist traditionalists, however. As traditionalists, they do not feel able to criticize or deny the rules. Instead, they look for ways around them.
In the case of theft, for example, some do this by arguing that most instances of that crime fall outside the strict legal definition of the circumstances that would warrant amputation. If poverty, material need, hunger, or the desire to provide for one?s family is present as a motive, they claim, the thief is exonerated? society is to be blamed for the crime, not the person who was forced by adverse circumstances to commit it. If, on the other hand, the theft is completely frivolous, it clearly constitutes a mental disturbance, which again is a mitigating circumstance that excuses the perpetrator from such a severe punishment. (See, for example, Maqsood, 1994b, p. 137.) How Muslim countries resolve such dilemmas mirrors the forces active within them. Pakistan, for example, is home to a vocal and politically potent fundamentalist segment; it also has a significant traditionalist population; and politically, it wishes to affiliate itself with the modern international community. How can the country reconcile these goals on the issue of Islamic criminal justice? Abandoning shari?a law would alienate the fundamentalists and portions of the traditionalists, but amputating hands and stoning adulterers would lead to international condemnation and alienate domestic modernists and some traditionalists.
The solution: Impose shari?a sentences but do not carry them out. (See, for example, Reuters, 2002.)
We can also apply the reverse approach, deducing a country?s goals from the policy it chooses on shari?a law. If a country not only pays lip service to shari?a law but actually imposes the consequent sentences, we can conclude that it is interested only in the audience of fundamentalists and conservative traditionalists and has no desire to align itself with the modern democratic world.
Besides amputations of the hands and, in the cases of repeat offenders, also the feet of thieves, shari?a law imposes the death sentence for adultery and flogging for fornication. This is not controversial among fundamentalists or the conservative traditionalists closest to them?but it should be, because there is significant ambiguity in the Quran on this issue. Concerning the treatment of adulterous women, the text says to ?call in four witnesses from among you against them; if they testify to their guilt confine them to their houses till death overtakes them or till Allah finds another way for them.? This can be interpreted to mean that the woman should be immured or walled in until she dies of suffocation, or starvation, but equally, it can be taken to require her solitary lifelong confinement until her natural death. There is no reported instance of this punishment in either interpretation being implemented in any Muslim country, even though the Quran is unequivocal in ordering it. Instead, women (and men) deemed guilty of adultery have variously been beheaded, stoned, or shot, with stoning the most common method.
The more commonly seized-upon escape clause for reformist traditionalists and conservative traditionalists refers to the rules of evidence. An adultery charge requires four Muslim witnesses. The text itself, as we saw, does not specify what exactly these witnesses ought to have seen. Orthodox scholars generally say that they must have seen the actual act of adultery, not just circumstantial evidence leading them to believe that it had likely taken place. This clearly stacks the deck significantly in favor of the defendant.
Fundamentalists are not usually constrained by that rule, which shows that they are well outside the bounds of orthodoxy. There were, for example, no witnesses at all in the case of the Nigerian woman recently sentenced to death for adultery. In her case, the fact that she had given birth to a child, although she was not married, sufficed as evidence. Neither the Quran nor any of the thou-sands of hadiths mentions such a conclusion, although surely such a circum-stance must also have occurred at some point during those years. If anything, this judgment contradicts the Quranic injunction that a woman should ?never be made to suffer on account of her child.? It is not difficult to extend that injunction to mean that a woman probably should not be executed on account of her child. But fundamentalists, as noted earlier, do not feel constrained by the literal substance of Islam. Nowhere was this more evident than with the Taliban. They executed women by shooting them?a penalty certainly not in keeping with the literal law of Islam, which originated before the age of guns. The Taliban also executed homosexuals, inventing in that case both the death penalty and the means of executing it: tying them to a wall and running a bulldozer over them to crush them to death (see Ahmad Rashid, 2000, and Amnesty International, 1999). The Quran says: ?If two men among you commit indecency punish them both. If they repent and mend their ways, let them be? (4:13). It does not mention the nature of the punishment, but bulldozers cannot have been involved, and it does not seem likely that, given the alternative, the Taliban?s victims were given the option of ?repenting? and refused it.
Shari?a law prescribes flogging as a penalty for various offenses, such as the consumption of alcohol. International public opinion no longer considers this to be a civilized form of punishment. Again, traditionalists cannot override the fact that Islamic law clearly calls for this punishment. They can only seek arguments to make it somehow more palatable. The case reformist traditionalist author Ruqaiyyah Maqsood (1994a, p. 138) makes is typical: There are numerous rules governing the administration of Islamic flogging; it is not just a savage beating inflicted capriciously . . . . It has to be done with control, in accord with justice, and in the kindest possible way in the circum-stances, following a long list of stipulations, including deferment when some-one is sick, not to touch face, head or private parts, women to be fully clothed and allowed to sit, not to be done on days of extreme heat or cold, and so forth. As with adultery, one can also minimize the chances that the undesirable penalty will be applied by adding to the burden of proof. For instance, a number of hadiths discourage believers from spying on each other, denouncing others or trying to find fault with them. These can be used to argue that drinking in the privacy of one?s own home should not be punished, since it would not have been discovered in the first place if someone had not first violated the injunction against meddling and spying.
Minorities
The picture that study of the text yields about other monotheistic religions is mixed. The Quran contains many hostile, incendiary passages about Jews and Christians, but it also contains some conciliatory ones. This has been explained in reference to historic circumstances?the original Islamic community was at war with these groups. In general, non-Muslims living under Muslim control are supposed to be permitted to practice their religions without obstacles. Muslim men are even instructed to allow their Jewish or Christian wives to practice their faiths freely. Minorities should be able to have their own courts and apply their own laws in civil matters. Historically, minority communities have often fared relatively well under Islamic empires.
Fundamentalists do not continue this tradition, instead tending to act repressively toward non-Muslims living under their control. Fundamentalist terrorist groups have attacked churches in Pakistan, killing the worshipers. In Saudi Arabia, Christians and Jews may not establish churches or synagogues and may not observe their own religious holidays. The Taliban imposed its rules on everyone.9 When the Taliban adopted the Wahhabi religious interpretation that women should not be permitted to drive cars, it also applied to foreign women working with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Hindus were excused from the forcibly imposed public prayers but at the expense of stigmatization: They were supposed to wear yellow identifying patches. Traditionalists tend to be ecumenical, although their goals are to establish an
Islamic society and encourage conversion. In theory, this should be accomplished by setting a good example and by persuasion, not by compulsion.
9 The Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Suppression of Vice appears to have not only been copied from but also trained and funded by the Saudi religious police, or mutaween (Fisk,
1998).
Women?s Dress
On purely objective grounds, it is surprising that the issue of hijab has managed to attain such vast importance, because the Quran very manifestly does not support it. The Quran requires modest dress and modest conduct for both men and women. It does not specify what that means in terms of clothing but cites two guidelines: local custom and the person?s station in life, i.e., his or her work. Only a very specific group of women, namely the Prophet?s wives, were instructed to cover themselves in the hijab sense of the term. This provision is contained in a late section of the Quran that specifically addresses the ways in which their situation differs from that of other women. They are asked to consider their unusual circumstances and to accept exceptional restrictions?not to remarry after the Prophet dies and to wear special concealing garments?and in return they are promised ?double the reward? of ordinary mortals.
Modernists and the more progressive among reformist traditionalists point this out. They also note the explanation given in the Quran and hadith for the rules of dress: Modest people are supposed to avoid attracting special notice. Where it is not the majority dress, hijab accomplishes the opposite. It draws special attention to a woman and causes people to stare at her, the very effect she should be trying to avoid, were she truly modest. Finally, they refer to two basic messages in the Quran: that there should be ?no compulsion in religion? and that ?God does not desire hardship, but desires ease? for his followers. Pressuring women to wear a certain mode of dress they have not freely chosen, constraining their ability to work, singling them out for hostility or discrimination, causing a negative impact on their comfort and health?none of these are in harmony with that injunction. Scriptural fundamentalists and traditionalists engage in lengthy debates over the issue of women?s dress, weighing the pros and cons of various arguments before coming to some sort of judgment. Web sites in which people narrate the years long soul-searching they have personally engaged in over this issue are very popular, as are narratives of girls describing why they have decided to wear or not to wear hijab, and pronouncements by numerous religious experts.
Radical fundamentalists ignore the debate; for them, the issue is settled, and hijab is mandatory. One hallmark of radical fundamentalist doctrinal practice is their selectivity. Typically, their publications on this subject will quote the sura urging ?believing women to lower their gaze? but will leave out the rest of the sentence, which identically requires ?believing men to lower their gaze.? However, while the largest part of the burden of maintaining ?public morality? falls on women, who must accept restrictive dress and banishment from public space, fundamentalist men are not entirely exempt. As the Australian fundamentalist
Web site Nida?ul Islam recommends, all children should be taught to 22 Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies feel uncomfortable in the presence of the opposite sex and embarrassed about their bodies (Islam, 1998): We should use the Prophet as an example: Abu Said Al Khudri reported that the
Prophet was shyer than a virgin in her own room. (Bukhari) If we instill this into [children] at an early age then, inshallah, whenever they are near the vicinity of the opposite sex, they will feel shy and, therefore, will not act inappropriately.10
This premise?that a person who is socialized to feel inhibited and neurotic about sexuality is more likely to act ?appropriately? in this sphere is an adult? clearly depends on one?s definition of what constitutes appropriate conduct. In any event, the issue of hijab has become highly politicized. As one expert notes, 11
Hijab . . . has become a symbol of traditionalism and fundamentalism. As such it is politicized and used by anti-Western groups from Turkey to Malaysia and throughout the Arab world. Western governments, especially the U.S., should refrain from making any references to ?the right of women to wear the hijab? as being a simple democratic right. It is more than this, and the hidden message behind hijab is very dangerous.
Husbands Allowed to Beat Wives
Fundamentalists have no problem with this. In the case of radical fundamentalists, it fits their hierarchical view of society and their ideal of female subordination. Scriptural fundamentalists find it to be in accord with their overall disciplinary approach to human conduct, which includes such institutions as a religious police armed with whips and sticks, patrolling the streets to monitor the length of men?s hair, the observance of prayers, the absence of polish on intended to correct the wife?s wrongful behavior ?for her own good,? which is acceptable, and an abusive exercise of domestic violence, which is not.
Reformist traditionalists usually do not support the practice but search for justifications and alternative interpretations.
This is the text:
As for those [women] from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. (4:34)
This Quranic passage offers potential ambiguity in two places: in the term specifying what kind of cause might justify such a response and in the term describing the response itself. Some latch onto the first ambiguity and argue that this passage applies only to very major offenses. While they remain unspecified in the text, Muhammad?s contemporaries undoubtedly knew what was meant. They argue that the Arabic term used to describe the wife?s offense is closer to ?rebellion? than to ?disobedience? and suggest that it perhaps was meant to refer to apostasy or to subversive political activity on the part of the wife.
Some authors focus on the second ambiguous term. Traditionalist authorities can spend many paragraphs discussing the exact terminology and concluding that the text does not really mean to ?beat? or even to ?strike,? but should be interpreted as meaning to ?lightly tap? (Rauf, 2002). Qaradawi instructs that wives may be hit, but not on the face. The American Muslim publication Islamic Horizons, in a special issue dedicated to the topic of domestic violence, proposes in all seriousness that the correct application of this Quranic verse is for the husband to give an errant wife ?a few taps? with a ?Msiwak,? a kind of toothbrush. This, the author concludes, is ?reasonable, dignified, and fairly flawless, for each spouse?s human dignity is respected? (Abusulayman, 2003, p. 22). We would be hard-pressed to invent a better illustration for the inability of Islamic traditionalists, even reformist traditionalists, to manage the challenges of modernity than a text like the one above, which earnestly proposes the spectacle of a man resolving disputes by hitting his wife with a toothbrush as an example of a dignified relationship. For modernists, again, this issue is not a problem. Like the Old Testament, the Quran includes content no longer relevant today, and there is no need to struggle with it. Further, they doubt the authenticity of that sura altogether, since it contradicts what one knows about the Prophet?s attitudes and behavior, other passages in the Quran, and the bulk of hadiths concerning marital relations and the appropriate conduct of a husband toward a wife. Numerous hadiths disapprove of marital violence, but these do not make their way to fun- women?s fingernails, and the like.
Conservative traditionalists also accept the practice 12 but try to make a distinction between a ?benevolent? didactic intervention, employed rarely and
10 Note that the title of the article in which this appears uses G-B as a discreet abbreviation for Girlfriend-Boyfriend, a relationship apparently too horrible even to spell out. Let it be noted that, on the basis of hadith, one rather gains the impression that Muhammad was relaxed and informal in the presence of women. He liked to socialize with Aisha?s friends, stayed in the room when they visited her to play music, joked with women in the neighborhood, and gave advice to women on a variety of quite intimate matters.
11 Birol Yesilada, personal communication, March 2003.
12 For example, see Abdur Rahman Doi (2001):
A refractory wife has no legal right to object to her husband exercising his disciplinary authority.
Islamic law, in keeping with most other systems of law (which ones might those be? He does not specify), recognizes the husband?s right to discipline his wife for disobedience. Doi is Director of the Center for Islamic Legal Studies, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaira, Nigeria. Fundamentalist or to conservative traditionalist Web sites. In one such hadith, the Prophet makes the point that it is inappropriate and primitive to hit a person with whom one intends in the future again to be intimate. Famously, the Prophet?s final deathbed comment warned men to ?fear God in your treatment of women.? And finally, due to the intense scrutiny paid to the Prophet?s private life by his contemporaries, we have a large number of anecdotes related to disputes he had with his wives. From these stories we know that when he became angry he made the house for an entire month. The Quran was not recorded in writing until well after the Prophet?s death. It was then assembled by collecting various scraps of bark or bone upon which witnesses to the revelations had recorded them and by locating individuals who had memorized sarcastic remarks, sulked, complained to his father-in-law, and at least once withdrew to a different floor of certain suras and having they dictate the text as best they recalled it. This project eventually resulted in the production of several versions of the Quran, which differed from each other. Eventually, to prevent discord, all versions but one was destroyed (see Parwez, 2002). It is widely accepted that at least two suras were lost in that process. Modernists point out that some may also have been falsely or inaccurately recorded. To traditionalists, however, who revere as infallible and divine each letter of the Quran and even the paper it is printed on, that notion is anathema gies
about writer usman karim based in lahore pakistan [email protected]
