This post is heavily influenced by Karen Armstrong books.
Recently there is an increasing tendency amongst Muslims to reform their religion based on Quran and hadis. Salafies are the most prominent examples of this, who question the established schools of thought amongst sunnies and wish to reinterpret Islam in a return to roots idea.
Other educated Muslims also have this tendency, particularly when they see the more abhorrent cultural practices that have gradually become integrated into how we traditionally practice Islam.
But this “return to roots” always produces a new religion, disconnected from what you wanted to become. When the reformation occurred in Christianity, Protestants did not end up returning to the original way of life of the hebrews, althought they did manage to lose a good deal of Christian life as it used to be.
Modernity has changed who you are and how you think, and it will be with very changed eyes that you will look at an unchanged text.
When you being to reinterpret God’s words divorced from what has been done before, not only do you discard the intellectual achievements of Muslims across the ages and discounting your religious heritage, You do not have the cultural context of those who lived closer in the time of the Prophet had, and were better placed to interpret his life and words. You lose a society’s evolution over time, and adaptation of Islamic laws to cultural contexts and modernity.
I am not saying we shouldnt reinterpret Islamic laws, ijtihad should be a continuing process, but it should take feedback from earlier thought and not just the earliest revelations.
if earlier thought is not contrary to or adding or deleting from what is spelled out. he earlier thought may be from a very holy person, but its just that prson’s interpretations based on his time and circumstances, yeah they should be factored in but not be taken as word of god. in my humble opinion
Agree to some extent with contrary, and deleting. I dont agree about addition, because then your leaving no room for ijtihad.
furthermore how do we proceed if your interpretation of what the word of God is conflicts with the “very holy person’s” interpretation of the word of God? how do you establish who is correct?
I have two problems with the way people are modernizing religion. First there are those who completely ignore the evolution of Muslim thought. They try to reinvent the wheel only with potentially inauthentic historical accounts that they cannot now establish if they are correct or not. Or they believe that an earlier person’s views conflicted with/added to/deleted from God’s religion without taking into account that this statement is also only a view, and cannot be regarded as God’s religion either, by anyone except his esteemed self. Thus it shouldnt be regarded as the final word (as is the tendency in some modernizers not you personally)
Ofcourse that is the problem with modernity. The words, objective and subjective did not arise much in the past. Everything we can know now about religion can only form our subjective viewpoint.
Why would you trust your own view of Islam, isolated from historical basis. Even if you were a trained scholar in Quran and versed in Hadis, are you not only one person, with a very subjective view on the world? Is it wise to ignore consensus, or atleast a larger group’s view of Quran and Hadis?
Y2k_zaid…no that is not the core point. The core point is how we modernize it.
If you read her books you would know that is not the case.
nahi bhai, I meant that she doesnt argue about the importance of tradition or how we should reform our religion, that i know of. her influence in this post is limited to me gaining an appreciation for the gradual evolution of Muslim thought, and the circumstances under which the Christian reformation took place.
Well, I don't totally disagree with your original post.
First thing is that I was reminded of the incident when Umar bin Khattab radiAllahuanhu asked his christian servant to become muslim because he wanted to appoint him to a government position, the servant refused and Umar replied that there is no compulsion in religion and he didn't appoint the servant.
With regards to tradition, we have to check if these traditions are consistent with Islam. Some traditions are totally wrong while others may have some benefit. Essentially, we have to weigh all traditions against the Quran and Sunnah and see if they are okay and it doesn't matter if these traditions are good or not.
Similarly, some traditions from Jahiliyyah were incorporated into Islam and others were thrown out. For example, growing the beard was something that was done by the arabs before Islam.
Something else to consider is that during the time of Umar radiAllahuanhu, people were starting to pray a lot around the tree under which Bayat ur Ridhwan was given. So he ordered that the tree be cut down. Allahu Alim, if that tree would have been there today I am pretty sure people would have done some weird thing related to it.
Today, such traditions are embedded so much into our society that people are not even willing to let go of them. There was this other thread about significance of historical sites, and this same story can apply to that as well because this tree was definitely very important and it was even mentioned in the Quran.
It could be that these traditions came from something religion related but that doesn't mean that they are needed. In the end it could be that these traditions end up doing more harm than good.