Reforming Islam: Where Should One Start?
By Ameer Ali –July 7, 2016
Dr. Ameer Ali
The call for reforming Islam, in spite of the confusions surrounding the word “Islam”, is nothing new and Muslim scholars and activists have articulated that call whenever they felt that certain elements of fiqh or rules derived from the Quran and traditions of the Prophet that are supposed to govern Muslim societies, incongruent with modernity and change. In fact, the late Mohammed Arkoun (1928-2010), one of the most influential secular scholars in Islamic studies, titled his “extraordinary” book, “Islam: To Reform Or To Subvert” (2006).
However, there is a new genre of calls arising chiefly from a minority of non-Muslim and once-Muslim agitators, who directly point at the Quran and demand that the reformation should start by “banning” or “excising” the Holy Scripture itself. One of them even compared the Quran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf. This scurrilous demand, apart from its bigotry overtone demonstrates an abject misunderstanding not only of the history of the Quran but also of the centrality that it occupies in the hearts and minds of the entirety of believing Muslims. It adds insults to an injury caused centuries ago when Christendom confronted Islamdom. Adding further to its negativity this call has added another weapon to the propaganda armoury of Jihadists to recruit volunteer fighters for the so called “Crusader-Zionist War”.
Reform in reality is not a one off event to be accomplished by introducing a new or revised document or an itemised agenda but an ongoing process that keeps a phenomenon updated and relevant to meet the growing challenges of an ever growing stock of human knowledge and civilization. In that sense the history of Islamic thought bears ample testimony to the fact that Islam had been reforming quite intrusively and extensively during the first six centuries of its introduction and superficially and restrictively thereafter.
The presence of different schools of Islamic jurisprudence today both in the Sunni and Shia sects, and the survival of many mystical sects in Islam, if anything, are an indicator of the dynamics of this reforming trend. In the relative ambience of intellectual and spiritual freedom that prevailed in medieval past the founders of these schools and sects were engaged in translating a religion that was originally revealed to Muhammad in Arabic and in Arabia, and making it accommodative and practicable in societies living in different cultural and geographical climes. That is why unlike in Christianity Islam never produced a Protestant Movement which ended in Wars of Religion in Europe. Reform in Islam was an embedded process.
