On these boards, I have read many articles regarding tolerance in Islam. From the disgustingly ignorant statements of Christian evangelists to sensible discussion. We can add this excellent analysis to our list. John Esposito is a leading academic in Islamic studies, author of “The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?” Here he provides some insights into ‘the place of tolerance in Islam’ – answering the question – is Islam violent?
Achtung
ps. For those who say self-reflection needs to take place in the Muslim world - well here is a piece of it. And yah, i know its long…
Struggle in Islam
A Response to "The Place of Tolerance in Islam "
By John L. Esposito
The Boston Review http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR27.1/esposito.html
In the aftermath of September 11, Americans have had to face some hard
questions: about global terrorism, the Muslim world, and our own country.
“Is Islam more militant than other religions?” “Does the Qur’an condone
violence and terrorism directed against non-believers?” “Is there a clash of
civilizations between the West and the Muslim World?”
Khaled Abou El Fadl’s brilliantly incisive article raises and addresses many
of these fundamental issues. He describes with particular force a religious
struggle for the soul of Islam between “puritanism” and modern Islam. The
political side of this struggle is that a minority of extremists, who are
dangerous and fanatical and thus predominate in media coverage, struggle
against a majority which is often divided along a spectrum ranging from
conservative to reformist. The situation is complicated by the nature of
many Muslim governments—the Islamic authoritarian regimes, which limit
dissent and rely on their military and security forces to stay in power.
Failed states—politically and economically—and repression make for an
explosive combination.
Of course religious revival and associated political conflict are not
confined to the Islamic world. In recent years we have witnessed a global
religious resurgence encompassing all major world religions. Personal piety
has often been accompanied by political action in Israel, India, Sri Lanka,
America, and much of the Muslim world. The majority of Islamic movements
(“Islamic fundamentalists”) have operated within their societies. But a
minority have turned to violence and terrorism to overthrow regimes and
impose their vision of an Islamic state. Like all religious extremists,
militant Muslims exploit religion through selective reading and
interpretation of sacred texts, history, and doctrine. Osama bin Laden and
al-Qaeda appeal to grievances that exist among many mainstream Arabs and
Muslims, from foreign policy issues like Palestine, the American presence in
the Gulf, and the Russian presence in Chechnya, to domestic complaints
against repressive and corrupt governments and failed economies. However,
they transform Islam’s norms and values—about good governance, social
justice, and the requirement to defend Islam when under siege—into a call to
arms, in order to legitimate the use of violence, warfare, and terrorism.
Their theology or ideology divides the world into mutually exclusive
categories: the world of belief and that of unbelief, the land of Islam and
that of warfare, the forces of good and the forces of evil. Those who are
not with them, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, are the enemy; they are to be
fought and destroyed in a war with no limits, no proportionality of goal or
means.
The situation has been compounded by governments that have created and
support a compliant religious establishment. Some religious leaders are seen
as “lackeys” of the government, while many other ulama or religious scholars
are seen as possessing a worldview and skills that are medieval and out of
touch with the realities of modern Muslim life. They contribute to a
worldview that is anti-reformist at best or one that promotes a militant
exclusivist Islam and vision of the world. The spread of Wahhabi or Salafi
Islam is a reflection of this problem.
Abou El Fadl represents a visible critical mass of Muslim intellectuals,
laity, and clergy (ulama), men and women from Egypt to Indonesia. They
emphasize the importance of reading texts within the historical and social
contexts in which they were written. Distinguishing between universal
principles and laws and texts that address specific time-bound issues, they
explore major issues of modern reform: democratization, civil society,
pluralism and tolerance, the status of minorities and women. The dialectic
of change in the struggle between Puritanism and modern Islamic reform can
be clearly seen in the debates over democracy and jihad.
In current debate about political participation, secularists argue for the
separation of religion and the state. Rejectionists (both moderate and
militant Muslims) maintain that Islam’s forms of governance do not conform
to democracy. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, a long time ally of the West, says
that "the democratic system prevalent in the world is not appropriate in
this region.…The election system has no place in the Islamic creed, which
calls for a government of advice and consultation and for the shepherd’s
openness to his flock, and holds the ruler fully responsible before his
people."1 Extremists agree, condemning any form of democracy as haram,
forbidden, an idolatrous threat to God’s rule (divine sovereignty). Their
unholy wars to topple governments aim to impose an authoritarian “Islamic”
rule. Conservatives often argue that popular sovereignty contradicts the
sovereignty of God, with the result that the alternative has often been some
form of monarchy.
In contrast to both secularists and rejectionists, Islamic reformers have
suggested ways to reinterpret key traditional Islamic concepts and
institutions—consultation (shura) of rulers with those ruled, consensus
(ijma) of the community, reinterpretation (ijtihad), and the public welfare
(maslaha). They operate within Islam, and aim to show how Islamic ideas can
be interpreted to support forms of parliamentary governance, representative
elections, and religious reform. Just as it was appropriate in the past for
Muhammad’s senior Companions to constitute a consultative assembly (majlis
al-shura) and to select or elect his successor (caliph) through a process of
consultation, Muslims should now, according to these reformers, reinterpret
and extend this notion to the creation of modern forms of political
participation, parliamentary government, and the direct or indirect election
of heads of state. The essential point, often missing from popular
discussion, is that the debate about the virtues of democracy is not simply
a debate between Islam and western liberalism, but a debate within Islam
itself.
Jihad provides a major example of this struggle within Islam. In the late
twentieth and twenty-first centuries the word jihad has gained remarkable
currency, becoming more global in its usage. On the one hand, jihad’s
primary religious and spiritual meanings, the “struggle” or effort to follow
God’s path, to lead a good life, became more widespread. On the other hand,
in response to European colonialism, authoritarian regimes, and other
contemporary conditions, jihad has been used by resistance, liberation, and
terrorist movements alike to legitimate their causes and motivate their
followers. The Afghan Mujahiddin, the Taliban, and the Northern Alliance,
have all waged jihads in Afghanistan against foreign powers and among
themselves; Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, Daghestan, the southern
Philippines, Bosnia, and Kosovo have all fashioned their struggles as
jihads; Hizbollah, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad Palestine have characterized war
with Israel as a jihad; the Armed Islamic Group has engaged in a jihad of
terror against the Algerian government; and Osama bin Laden has waged a
global jihad against Muslim governments and the West.
Today, the term jihad has become comprehensive; resistance/liberation
struggles and militant campaigns, holy and unholy wars, are all declared to
be jihads. Jihad is waged at home not only against unjust rulers in the
Muslim world but also against a broad spectrum of civilians. Jihad’s scope
abroad became chillingly clear in the 9/11 attacks, which targeted not only
the American government but also innocent civilians.
Terrorists like bin Laden and others go beyond classical Islam’s criteria
for a just jihad and recognize no limits but their own, employing any
weapons or means. They reject Islamic law’s regulations regarding the goals
and means of a valid jihad—that violence must be proportional and that only
the necessary amount of force should be used to repel the enemy; that
innocent civilians should not be targeted; and that jihad must be declared
by the ruler or head of state. Today, individuals and groups, religious and
lay, seize the right to declare and legitimate unholy wars in the name of
Islam.
At the same time, Islamic scholars and religious leaders across the Muslim
world—such as the Islamic Research Council at al-Azhar University, regarded
by many as the highest moral authority in Islam—have made strong,
authoritative declarations against bin Laden’s initiatives: "Islam provides
clear rules and ethical norms that forbid the killing of non-combatants, as
well as women, children, and the elderly, and also forbids the pursuit of
the enemy in defeat, the execution of those who surrender, the infliction of
harm on prisoners of war, and the destruction of property that is not being
used in the hostilities."2
As in the modern reform processes in Judaism and Christianity, questions of
leadership and the authority of the past (tradition) are critical to both
debates. Whose Islam? Who leads and decides? Is it rulers, the vast majority
of whom are unelected kings, military, and former military? Or elected prime
ministers and parliaments? Is it the ulama or clergy, who continue to see
themselves as the primary interpreters of Islam, although many are ill
prepared to respond creatively to modern realities? Or is it modern,
educated, Islamically oriented intellectuals like Abou El Fadl and others?
Lacking an effective leadership, will other Osama bin Ladens fill the
vacuum?
Moreover, there is the question: “What Islam?” Is Islamic reform simply a
returning to the past and restoring past doctrines and laws, or is it a
reformation or reformulation of basic Islamic ideas to meet the demands of
modern life? Some call for an Islamic state based upon the re-implementation
of classical formulations of Islamic laws. Others argue the need to
reinterpret and reformulate law in light of the new realities of
contemporary society.
As we pick up the pieces and move forward, Muslims face critical choices. If
Western powers need to rethink and reassess their foreign policies and their
support for authoritarian regimes, mainstream Muslims worldwide will need to
address more aggressively the threat to Islam from religious extremists. The
struggle for reform faces formidable obstacles: the conservatism of many
(though not all) ulama; the traditional training of religious scholars and
leaders; and the power of more puritanical, exclusivist Wahhabi or Salafi
brands of Islam. To overcome these obstacles, this jihad for openness and
renewal will need to move forward rapidly on religious, intellectual,
spiritual, and moral fronts, and to embrace a wide-ranging process of
reinterpretation (ijtihad) and reform.<