Promises of A Brave New World

And for those who strive in Us (Our path)
To them We shall show Our ways
(Qur’an- 29:69)
And Ali said “The Mighty and Glorious Allah declared that ‘if you dispute anything refer it to Allah and his Apostle’. But this is the Qur’an

written in straight lines between two boards of its binding; it does not speak with a tongue, it needs interpreters and interpreters are people.”

Introduction:
A profound question that confronts religious thought in general is whether or not the idea of "change" may be reconciled with the "eternal" and "perennial" truth that religion is expected to convene. And if at all so, then to what extent. An unreserved succumbing to the flux of "change" undoubtedly leaves not much room for tradition, and thus for religion. Whereas blind insistence on the fixity of a rigid body of tradition, and denial of the radical transformations that have actually occurred in human mode of life, would render impossible living a religious life in today’s changing world.

The above statement raises significant and undeniable issues with regards to Islam and our approaches to it as Muslims. The statement though, may gloss over certain truths and make a few easy assumptions. To unpack the above statement: the truth is that Islam, inspite of the near universal sanctity among Muslims that is attributed to the Qur’an, as the word of Allah and the Sunna of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him) there are wide variances in their understanding and practice of the same. This stems from to say the least just the enormous breadth and diversity of the geographical, cultural and social spaces occupied by the Muslim umma. Thus Islam irrespective of its popular monolithic image is a contested terrain. The assumption the above statement also makes, is that tradition is an unchanging solid structure with no discontinuities whereas there is constant change in the other spheres of human existence. To assume so almost attributes to tradition an otherworldly flavor, as if it has not been the result of history, context and the beliefs of the body of interpreters that have articulated it and delimited its boundaries. This is not to deny the competence of the different madhabs (schools of Sharia), or to deny the rigorous methodological rules that were laid down in formulating the Sharia. But at the same time one shouldn’t overlook the fact that inspite of the integrity and methodological rigor of the early interpreters, they did live and function as products of certain histories and contexts and these factors definitely did influence their conclusions. Thus tradition too is neither an isolated sphere nor an unchanging body of rules. Inspite of its potrayal as such there has been a significant amount of give and take amongst different spheres of knowledge.

All this being so what then is the dilemma confronting many Muslims today. Simply put it is one of a silence about this reality of how religion is understood and how tradition plays itself out in the history of our times. The truth may be out there and it may even be acknowledged sometimes, but there seems to be an invisible but clearly present restriction against speaking it aloud. Hence we have on our hands an ostensible fight between the traditionalists and the reformers (as they are so branded). The fight is about the traditionalists claiming that what they hold is a part of an unbroken chain in Muslim history, and there is no space to change and question it. Religion/tradition has determined the world a priori and the other spheres of knowledge have to accommodate religion rather than vice-versa, irrespective of the pressing needs of the times. The arguments raised by the traditionalists cannot be dismissed lightly as either conservative or rigid, for their position raises important questions that have to be addressed if the debate can proceed with some integrity. The issues raised by the traditionalists at a deeper level are:
To say that religion has to change to keep step with the changes in other spheres of knowledge is to portray the other spheres of knowledge as value neutral. If anything this merely mirrors the Enlightenment discourse of reason and progress, both being hailed as ends in themselves. But recent history has clearly shown that neither science nor reason is value free. Both in their methodologies and consequences are value laden. Thus to demand that religion constantly accommodate these advances, is to undermine the moral framework of religion and to replace it with another.

Even if religion opens itself to competing interpretations, what is to prevent this from degenerating into a situation where people make any interpretation that suits their needs? If the purpose of religion is to provide a set of trans historical moral guidelines, then to open the sacred texts to any easy interpretation would defeat its very purpose.

The various attempts at reform invariably suggest open-ended methodologies. It is a rare attempt at reform that is rigorous enough to be able to state clearly a) what are the boundaries of this reform, b) how does one distinguish between the core values of the text and the alleged secondary values that can be changed according to current needs c) what are the elements of the text that have to be historicized and what should be considered trans-historical and finally d) is there any clear method that explains how and why such a distinction must be made?

To constantly criticize the clergy as arrogating to itself the sole right of interpretation and to demand for a more direct access to the texts, may sound democratic and almost Protestant in its need to do away with any mediators between the believer and God. But this position overlooks the fact that the clergy have been through a process of training, that has provided them with both the exposure and skills of interpretation of the various source texts painstakingly collected by scholars at different points in Muslim history. To dismiss this as irrelevant, by analogy implies that any layperson should be given the authority to perform a heart surgery irrespective of the skills/knowledge s/he possesses. It amounts to double standards by the reformers, to on the one hand embrace modernity and all the specializations and sub specializations it spawns and simultaneously advocate that religion requires no such specialization.

In sum the traditionalists accuse the reformers of populist arguments and demonizing the clergy, thereby constructing the proverbial straw man and proceeding to destroy it. This if anything the traditionalists believe oversimplifies both the problem and solution.

The reformers on the other hand catch the public imagination as rebellious loose cannons questioning the interpretation of God’s word for the first time. The reality of course is that neither is tradition an unbroken chain nor are these attempts at reform first occurrences in Muslim history. The whole drama has been played out time and again for hundreds of years.

But we seem to live in times where Muslims find it easier to live amongst contradictions rather then state them aloud and demand for a publicly debated change on Islamic lines. For example in most Muslim countries except for family law and to some extent criminal law, the Sharia is hardly applied. What are used instead are secular laws more often than not imported from the West to cover areas of finance, banking, international relations, trade etc. Not to mention emerging issues of intellectual property, information technology, international trade in the wake of globalization etc. There seems to be a psychological need to pay lip service to the Sharia irrespective of the possibility of applying it in its historical form. At the same time Muslims not only have to confront the hegemony of the West but also corrupt regimes with dismal human rights records within their own countries. This situation gives rise to extreme Islamic revivalist movements that demand that the only solution to the current crisis is to go back to the historical Sharia or to bypass the traditional schools and go back to the Qur’an and the Sunna and apply it verbatim. Though these revivalist movements capture the popular imagination because of the lack of any other high profile alternative, one wonders how doing so would actually benefit or better the lives of ordinary Muslims. Throughout the modern period in almost every Islamic movement in almost virtually every part of the Muslim world there has been some variation of the same double theme of protest against internal deterioration and external encroachment.

There are then various questions the reformers feel for good reason need to be urgently answered. What does being a Muslim in today’s world imply? How are we to engage with Islam and hence with people of other faiths? How are we to read and understand the Qur’an and the Sunna in the context of the huge changes in the other spheres of knowledge we encounter? How do we speak, understand and respond to the widespread social, economic and political injustice we see around us from an Islamic perspective? . These are questions that have been subject to a wide-ranging debate especially between the traditionalists and the reformers . Many of the reformers locate themselves at the point where these questions meet the traditionalist argument. Inspite of the criticisms/questions raised by the traditionalists, the reformers are not exactly easy targets or fit into the stereotype of the westernized intellectual. The reformers neither demand a rejection of religion nor a complete secularization. On the contrary they feel an urgent need for answers to pressing contemporary questions which the traditionalists are unable to answer. The reformers occupy the ranks of a vocal minority risking criticism and ostracization, but nevertheless courageously persisting in their search for solutions to the dilemmas confronting Muslims today.

With the backdrop of this ongoing debate, what I seek to do in this essay is to provide a theoretical framework and within it map the various strands of reformist arguments and criticisms of them. I shall be mainly focusing on the writings of four reformers : Mohammed Mojtahed Shabestari and Abdolkarim Soroush of Iran, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im of Sudan and Farid Esack of South Africa. Though there are differences amongst them as to how one could best resolve the crisis, there are considerable overlaps. What I hope to achieve in this process is through a comparative analysis attempt to address the doubts raised by the traditionalists and highlight a workable model for reform.

Reason and Faith – The Reflexive Revivalism of Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohammed Shabestari:

Background:
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that disposed off the Shah brought something more consequential than the fall of the old regime. By politicizing the polity, it forever changed the intellectual configuration of Iranian society. The theoretical ferment caused by the revolution and the major events that ensued inevitably affected the course of intellectual deliberations among Iranian intellectuals. The new regime, unlike its predecessor, relied heavily on its propaganda and ideological state apparatuses, and its ideology could not remain secluded from the reverberating echoes of a changing time and new ideas. Meanwhile, the formation of a modern theocracy had confronted the new ruling elites with novel questions and challenges in terms of how to govern, and what constitutes a revolutionary political culture. The essential needs of "governing" as well as remaining "revolutionary" required quick and immediate solutions to problems that did not previously exist. The revolution posed many serious questions to the Islamic ideologue. Is Islamic jurisprudence (feqh) capable of answering modern social and scientific challenges? Are technology, nationalism and parliamentary democracy compatible with Islam? What can the Islamic Republic bestow upon the rest of the world? In addition, such previously asked questions as to how to stop or reverse the advancing march of secularism, and how to confront the "West" and its various philosophical schools of thought remained unresolved. In a politically repressive yet intellectually flourishing era, these questions were bound to be answered differently by different people .

Modernisation, Secularisation and Reformation:
In order to better understand the theoretical framework of Soroush and Shabestari’s positions it is useful to distinguish three interrelated concepts: modernization, secularization and reformation.

We understand modernization (or, alternatively, "rationalization") as a process of progressive complexity and differentiation of institutions and spheres of life under the influence of economic and technological advances associated with the advent of capitalism. Secularization is an instance of modernization involving the differentiation of religion from economic and political institutions, namely separation of church and state. Secularization can also imply a separation of religion from culture and conscience. The two meanings of secularization can be expressed in the dichotomy of objective vs subjective secularization (profanation). Reformation (or, alternatively, revivalism) refers to attempts, on behalf of the religious, to anticipate, adjust, or respond to the changes associated with objective and subjective secularization. Thus, according to our sociological definition, not every religious innovation would qualify as reformation or revivalism.

One of the founders of the sociology of religion, Max Weber, expected secularization to succeed not only in separating religion from the state (that is, objective secularization) but also in eradicating it from culture and conscience altogether (subjective secularization or profanation). The world according to him would become increasingly and inescapably more rationalized, intellectualized, demystified, and disenchanted. What he obviously failed to foresee was religion’s resilience and its ability to reinvent itself as providing succor to the angst and alienation caused by the very processes of rationalization.

Contemporary sociologists have tried to explain the continued existence and persistence of religion. It is from the perspectives of three contemporary sociologists of religion, Daniel Bell, Peter Berger, and Robert Bellah, on the nature and future of religion in the post traditional world, that the views of Soroush and Shabestari can be better understood. Their views not only pertain to Western societies but also for all societies that confront modernization and secularization. Their views can be summarized as follows:

First: Religion, in the modern world, has clearly lost its monopoly on public perception, morality, and conscience. Modernization and secularization have made religious exclusion or absorption of competing ways of life and belief nearly impossible. Hence the inevitable and simultaneous emergence of tolerance and pluralism on the outside and ecumenism and voluntarism on the inside of the religious sphere. Religion has become a matter of preference in the contemporary "faith market."
Second: Secularization signifies the institutional separation of church and state. Social and political functions of the church are thus relegated to other institutions is understood as objective secularization. Subjective secularization or "profanation" involves an entry into cultural practices and personal imagination by the profane. While Weber found this profanation to be the inevitable result of secularization, contemporary sociologists of religion have concluded that the continued persistence of religion as going against such a strong theory of secularization. Though objective secularization as a process is firmly established, it is the extent of subjective secularization or profanation that is doubtful. Profanation of course is not uniform but is firmly meshed in a matrix of locations, classes, genders, and cultures. Although profanation has its grip more firmly in the West than in any other part of the world, recent patterns have shown an emergence of fissures and reversals especially with the ascendancy of new age spirituality, television evangelism etc.
Third: the new definitions of religion take seriously the desire of human beings for order, purpose, justice, and salvation. These are issues that the founders of the sociology of religion neglected. Religion is anchored, not in the need for social control and social integration (per Marx and Durkheim) nor in the innate requirements of human nature (Schleiermacher and Otto). Rather, it is rooted in "the awareness of men of their finiteness and the inexorable limits of their power, and the consequent effort to find a coherent answer to reconcile them to human condition." Contemporary sociology perceives religion as a set of coherent answers to the core existential questions that confront every human group. Thus, the social function of religion is no longer its sole explanation.

Does religion have a future? Contemporary sociologists agree that religion as the sole organizer and arbiter of human society and consciousness has vanished forever. The solid "sacred canopy" has dissolved. It has been replaced by a patchwork of local faiths. The sacred seems irreversibly divorced from the secular. However, the demise of the supernatural in the public sphere is counteracted by its upsurge in the individual and group quest for transcendence. Religion in this sense is not only alive and well; it is thriving.

The above views about the relationship between religion and modernity form the leaven from which arise the views of Soroush and Shabestari , but there is a significant difference. The difference between the views of the contemporary sociologists and those of Soroush and Shabestari lies in the fact that whereas the former are trying to describe why profanation of religion hasn’t followed secularization, the latter firmly advocate secularization without the corollary of profanation. Both the Iranian intellectuals engage in an attempt at secularization of their polity and at the same time believe that this is possible with the core values of Islam being a guide in this process. This approach is neither a form of modernism nor a kind of rejectionist revivalism of Ayatollah Khomeini or Sayyid Qutub . What this approach is, is a kind of reflexive revivalism that talks about cultural exchange between Islam and advances in the other spheres, without the concomitant abandonment of Islam itself.

Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari:
A brilliant cleric, Shabestari was born in Tabriz in 1936 and graduated from the Qom Theological Seminary after eight years of rigorous study. Fluent in German, English, and Arabic, he served as the director of the Islamic Center of Hamburg, West Germany, for nine years immediately before the revolution and, for brief time in 1979, published a high quality bi-weekly entitled Andisheh-ye Eslami. In a series of articles, which were published concurrently with Sorush’s essays, Shabestari, is presently a professor of theology at Tehran University and a member of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, raised similar themes and concerns.

Shabestari’s primary criticism of the Iranian clergy stems from his belief that although religion and state have merged in the Islamic Republic, the legislations are purely reactive. He accuses the legislations of being based merely on Zarurat (necessity) and Maslahat (analogy), without any theoretical foundation. Legislations according to him though juristic in nature have to rely on other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, theology, natural sciences etc. Without this, they end up being reactive and are either futile or blunders. Concepts such as ownership, employment, exploitation etc are complex issues and unless the religious academics engage with them in an interdisciplinary manner, the legislations they help draft are bound to have ruinous impacts on people who are affected by them. Fatvas that constitute Feqh are essentially human endeavors. To describe the products of such endeavor, with all its limits of time and place and its fallibility, as ordinances of the sharia and to take them to be unchanging, would be not only to attribute something to religion that is alien to its nature but also to help stagnation prevail over Islamic societies.

Another significant feature of Shabestari’s views that has resulted in much controversy is his belief that one has to historicize the commands and the prohibitions contained in the Qur’an and the Sunna. His view goes on to elaborate that these commands and prohibitions have to be contextualized to the political and social conditions of their time and should not be understood as trans-historical and absolute. Only the ’fundamental values’ (osul-e arzeshi) laid down by God and the Prophet possess that character, and they must be applied in concrete terms by Muslims in every day and age in accordance with the prevailing conditions of life.

According to Shabestari the whole idea propagated by the clergy that Islam is perfect misses the point. Allah wanted to communicate, and he communicated in a perfect form the Qur’an. Perfection does not mean that it has to have a clear answer to every question. The quest for answers has to involve ‘reason’ which Allah has endowed human beings with. Islam does not wish to replace science and technology, what it tries to do is to provide a value system to live by. To measure the perfection of Islam in terms of its ability to address each and every human need would be foolish.

Shabestari further questions attributing to Allah the role of a contemporary legislator. Allah established values in accordance with which human beings have to make laws. The prophets were sent down to establish eternal values and to proclaim the truth, and not to provide a comprehensive legal system. Laws have to be made depending on the context and needs of a particular society. This is proved by the fact that most Islamic laws were based on the customs, habits and moral practices current among the Arabs at the time of Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him). The only function of the Islamic jurists therefore is to try and ensure that contemporary laws embrace the core values of Islam.

The logical conclusion that Shabestari draws from these considerations is that Islam has not provided any particular system of government for regulating the human being’s political and social life. ’According to the teaching of the Koran, it is not consistent with the dignity of religion to define the forms and methods of governing the state.’ Religion only determines the relevant values, which include justice. What is important in determining the form of the state from the standpoint of religion is the exclusion of contradictions to the values religion has postulated. It cannot be said of any government system that it automatically corresponds to certain standards. No one can claim to make Islam a reality or create an Islamic constitution. What is correct is to work for a constitution that does not disagree with Islam. ’If the people, on the basis of their own experience and knowledge, come to the conclusion that a form of government based on elections and a system of councils will better guarantee justice, then religious duty clearly lies in the creation of a system based on these principles. Shabestari goes so far as to declare that the values anchored in the Koran and the sunna have no predetermined definitions. Rather, they represent universal and abstract formulations which in every new case must be checked and interpreted with regard to the concrete capabilities, needs, realities and possibilities of the people involved.

Abdolkarim Soroush:
Abdolkarim Sorush a non-cleric inherited the mantle of an engaged intellectual in the tradition of Ali Shariati. The engaged intellectual (roushanfekr) in the Iranian tradition occupies as Weber puts it, the roles of both emissary and exemplary prophecy. The engaged intellectual is not just a producer if ideas and a seeker of truth, but his/her lifestyle exemplifies a selfless and courageous endeavor to speak truth to power and to embody these ideas in one’s own lifestyle. Soroush is equally knowledgeable in Islam, western philosophy and natural science and his criticisms seem to be a rich mixture of all three. His writings have been the subject of much debate and also virulent criticism. In fact though the essence of Soroush’s writings isn’t very different from Shabestari’s position, it is Soroush who has been severely denounced by the clergy. This is more so because of Soroush’s trenchant criticisms of the clergy and him not being a cleric himself like Shabestari. Soroush was born in Tehran in 1945 and attended Tehran University as a student of pharmacy. He later went to the University of London where he first studied chemistry and then became interested in the history and philosophy of science. Soroush pursued his interest in the subject of indeterminacy in science by working on a dissertation dealing with the history of monomolecular reactions. Before the revolution, he worked mainly in pharmaceutical jobs in Bushehr and Tehran. After the revolution, Soroush occupied the following posts: member of the High Council of Cultural Revolution (responsible for revising the academic curriculums of Iran’s primary, secondary, and higher institutions of learning); university professor (teaching such subjects as Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of History), researcher at the Iranian Academy of Philosophy, and was a member of the Iranian Academy of Sciences. In addition, Soroush served on such academic and cultural councils as Iran’s mission to UNESCO, and the Iran University Press.

Though the core of Soroush’s position is similar to that of Shabestari, which is the need for religion to be receptive to developments in other spheres of knowledge, the instructive difference lies in Soroush’s careful analysis of the development of religious thought itself and it’s interrelationship with the other sciences.

Soroush’s cardinal claim is that all sciences and fields of knowledge are in a state of constant transformation, and that changes in any domain of learning are bound to cause modifications in the other domains as well, including jurisprudence. As a historian of science, he espouses the view that scientific discoveries have an impact on epistemology which in turn cause a new philosophical understanding. This new understanding, Soroush maintains, subsequently affects humanity’s knowledge of itself and its environment, and finally leads to a transformation of religious knowledge. As a historical illustration of this domino effect, he referred to scientific breakthroughs in mathematics which transformed the discipline of logic and in turn humanity’s understanding of philosophy, revelation, and theology. Soroush advocates therefore a healthy interaction between the clergy and the scientists. Rather than trying to isolate themselves from modern scientific findings, the clergy must respond to practical questions of our times, and participate in an ongoing dialogue and intellectual exchange.

Soroush maintains that this prescription for interaction does not mean that he questions the divinity of the Sharia. He maintains that while the Sharia itself is divine, its understanding and interpretation is human, its cognition is contemporary. He admits the revelatory essence of Islam but insists that the engagement and interpretation of the clergy is a human exercise and must be seen as such. That being the case, there shouldn’t be any bar to opening oneself to the questions posed by developments in the other spheres of knowledge.

Soroush warns against another radical misunderstanding. In speaking of the Shari’a, or fiqh, one must not confine its scope to the body of Islamic legal system. He rather stresses that it is an affliction of religious education in our time that fiqh in the restricted sense receives such an inflated image, and that a more profound understanding of religion is so ruthlessly sacrificed at the shrine of fiqh. The truth is that fiqh, or Shari’a in the restricted sense, is but a small part of religious knowledge. For a student of religious thinking, it is a set of clashing and changing opinions and decisions arrived at by a group of specialists: It is their understanding of a collection of received traditions known as legal traditions –(riwayat al-fiqhiyya). And this understanding has, in turn, always depended on the prevalent understanding of other parts of religion. Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh, thrives on jurisprudential methodology, on theology, on the interpretation of the Qur’an, and the jurisprudent’s knowledge of history and of the other sciences in general. For him, it cannot be overstressed that fiqh is a man-made system of knowledge and has absolutely no vantage position between other such systems. It is subject to change just like any other man-made body of knowledge. The same is true of the interpretation of religious texts, of theology, and of the rational methodology of jurisprudence (Osul il-fiqh). What is eternal is religion itself not our understanding of it. Every man’s religion is his understanding of the truth about religion, just as every man’s science is his understanding of the truth about nature.

Soroush is careful to stress that he should not be misunderstood as saying that religion itself is another sphere of knowledge and allowing secularization from the back door. In fact he is saying the very opposite. The wealth of knowledge amassed by other spheres of knowledge should be used to elaborate and refine human being’s understanding of religion. Religion is the main source, and it should be aided by other developments. The religious scholar ought to consult the texts and tradition in a rigorous manner, but s/he should simultaneously be conscious of the framework within which his/her conclusions stem from. This framework must constantly be updated so as to make it rationally viable.

The core of Soroush’s arguments as discussed above is framed in what he calls his “Theory of Expansion and Contraction of the Shari’a”. Stating its three main principles can sum up this Theory. First: The principle of evolution- This states that human knowledges (human science and philosophy) is subject to expansion and contraction. Second: The principle of interpenetration-This states that any expansion or contraction in these spheres of cognition invariable affects our perception of religion. Third: The principle of coherence and correspondence- Any understanding of religion (correct or incorrect) bears on the body of human knowledge and tries to be in coherence (explain) with the latter.

Criticisms:
Soroush’s views were subject to severe interrogation and criticism by both the clergy and academia. Though many of these criticisms were misplaced there were a few of them that were serious and warrant reflection:

In response to Sorush’s central thesis that the framework of deriving fiqh should constantly expand and keep abreast with developments in the other spheres of knowledge, the critics declared that this one-way dependence was neither possible nor desirable. Religion and the other sciences function on entirely different methodologies and it is logically erroneous for religion that relies on faith to include within its understanding scientific developments that constantly demand material proof. What is likely to occur irrespective of whether Soroush intended so, is this attempt at inclusiveness would gradually erode the very foundations of religious beliefs. Interdisciplinary approaches are possible only if both disciplines share a consensus on the methodology to be used for deriving conclusions. Otherwise the whole endeavor would be reduced to comparing apples with oranges.

In the age of post-modernity, when all the philosophical axioms are being called into question, Soroush according to his detractors displays a naïve faith in the neutrality of science. They feel that Soroush does not adequately explore the fact that western science itself is a result of a historical process and its methodologies are anything but value free. To imbibe uncritically scientific developments wouldn’t mean an interaction but an abandonment of religious values. What has occurred in the West despite attempts at openness of religion to inputs from other spheres is a defeat of religion rather than an imbibing of religious values in the other disciplines.

Soroush according to his critics avoids an attempt to define the concept of ‘religion’ and takes it as a given. He is uncertain about what ultimately remains unchangeable and where the boundaries can be drawn between religion as sacred and eternal and religion as human interpretation. He seems to equate religion to the Qur’an, the Sunna and Shari’a ignoring the reasons why people believe what they believe.

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im:

Background:
The Republican Brotherhood of Sudan gained international attention when its leader, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, was executed in 1985 by the Sudanese regime of Jaf’ar Numayry, who was overthrown in the same year. The Republicans had however been an established if small group in Sudan for many years. The organization had been founded by Taha as the Republican party in the midst of the nationalist struggle at the end of World War 2. Taha strove to create an alternative to the nationalist political parties because he felt that the leaders of the traditionalist Muslim groups in Sudan dominated them. The party had little electoral success but Taha began to emphasize on the need for Islamic reform and liberation from domination by “sectarian” forces.

In coming years Taha developed a methodology for interpreting the Quran especially as a basis for a new Shari’a which addressed the needs of contemporary times, and ensured protection of the rights of women, upheld civil liberties, protected the rights of religious minorities in Islamic countries and as established a basis for a democratic Islamic government. A comprehensive collection of his ideas was called The Second Message of Islam that was brought out in 1967 and later was published in an English translation by An-Na’im in 1987.
An-Nai’m came into contact with the Republican Brotherhood in his student days while studying law in the University of Khartoum in the 1960s. He used to attend discussions in Ustad Taha’s house and by 1968 An-Nai’m had joined the Republican Brotherhood as a full-fledged member. An-Na’im went on to complete his Phd in the UK and returned to Sudan. By 1979 he was the Head of the Department of Public Law at the University of Khartoum. While teaching law An-Na’im wrote and published several articles for local newspapers and spoke to various interested people on Taha’s ideas. This was significant in itself since Taha was banned from participating in public activities in the early 1970’s itself. The activities of the Republican Brotherhood had been severly restricted by Numayry’s regime.

By 1983 these restrictions reached a peak when the Brotherhood took a public position against Numayry’s imposition of his interpretation of Islamic Law on the country. Numayry came into power in 1969 as a leader of a group of soldiers and went through a phase of radical socialism. But his position was reinforced when he was able to bring some kind of settlement to the civil war fought between the Muslim North and the non Muslim South of Sudan. Later he started identifying increasingly with the Muslim North and that was a time when he forcibly imposed his version of Islamic Law on the entire country.

Taha and thirty other members of the Brotherhood including An-Na’im were interned without charge for nearly a year and a half. And though they were released briefly towards the end of 1984, Taha was rearrested on charges of sedition and other offenses and publicly executed in 1985. Though other members of the Brotherhood were arrested too on similar charges only Taha was killed. An-Na’im played a major role in trying to secure the release of more than 400 members of the Brotherhood, but was unable to secure a pardon for Taha. After this the Brotherhood was disbanded.

Since the killing of Taha, Numayry was overthrown. But the Brotherhood has not reorganized. But since then it has worked informally within the community trying to facilitate a process of Islamic reform and propagating Taha’s ideas. An-Nai’m has built on the ideas of Taha and presents a model of a workable Islamic public law as an alternative to historical Sharia. His book Towards an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law provides a framework for this alternative. An-Na’im should not be presumed to be advocating secular ideas under the guise of reform. He is anything but that. He believes that secular ideologies will have little appeal for Muslims in the long run. To seek secular answers, according to him is to simply abandon the field to the extremists, who will succeed in carrying a vast majority of the population with them by citing religious authority for their policies and theories. An-Na’im therefore feels that Muslims should remain within the religious framework and try to work at the reforms that would make Islam a viable modern ideology.

Towards an Islamic Reformation:
An-Na’im begins his arguments with an important foundational assumption. Muslims have a right to self-determination including application of Islamic law as long as they don’t violate the legitimate rights to self-determination of other groups and individuals both within and outside the Muslim community. Obviously a large portion of this foundation is restricted to countries where Muslims form the majority of the population, especially regarding governance structures being in accordance with the fundamentals of Islam. Nevertheless his foundation is also applicable to countries where Muslims form a minority especially when it comes to the laws applicable to Muslims. When An-Na’im uses the word self-determination, he understands it in the sense of a right to organize life/lives, applicable laws and governing systems in a manner so as to uphold fundamentals of one’s faith, religious or otherwise. This right extends to the point where it does not hinder another person of a different faith/persuasion from exercising a similar right. An-Na’im believes that the basis of this foundational assumption is the universal principle of reciprocity. To be treating others as one would want to be treated. This principle of course has its echoes through history, from the Biblical dictum of “to do onto others…” to Immanuel Kant’s ‘Categorical Imperative’ and finally the corner stone of Liberalism, specifically elaborated in John Rawl’s Theory of Justice.

The question that An-Na’im concerns himself with is how does one implement this commitment to Islam in concrete policy and legal terms? Echoing the sentiments of Michael Hudson , the question he feels isn’t as crude as is Islam compatible with political development? But on the contrary, what are the kinds of Islam that are compatible with and necessary for political development in the Muslim world?

The Impossible Project of Historical Shari’a:
An-Nai’m is aware of the lack of distinction in the historical Shari’a between private and public law. Though the early jurists made no such classification if one seeks answers to contemporary questions of public law in Islamic countries, one is bound to find them within the traditional schools of jurisprudence. The difficulty though is the impossibility of its application without a serious encroachment on advances made in areas of rights of women, religious minorities, issues of apostasy, slavery, international law etc. In many of the Islamic countries rather than engaging with the process of reform of historical Shari’a, what has occurred is its gradual displacement in matters such as commercial law, criminal law etc in favor of imported laws from secular countries. In the sphere of family law however a huge number of significant changes have been made in the manner in which it was interpreted. An-Na’im opines that what is occurring is a process of displacement of historical Shari’a without making it a conscious process. Most Muslims are comfortable with the double standards of non-application of historical Shari’a as long as it does not become a publicly stated discourse aggressively pursued by the state. Secularization is a word that does not go down easily and for good reason since to Muslims, Shari’a represents the whole duty of humankind, moral and pastoral theology, ethics, high spiritual aspiration and detailed ritualistic and formal observance. It encompasses all aspects of public and private law, hygiene and even courtesy and good manners. To publicly attribute inadequacy to any part of it amounts to heresy.

The problem that concerns An-Na’im isn’t so much as these double standards as the emergence of a form of uncritical revivalism in much of the Muslim world today that is gradually gaining ground. There is a widespread feeling of humiliation and disempowerment among ordinary Muslims. The causes for these are both external and internal. External to the extent of the lack of political clout or moral integrity of Muslim governments to check the role of West on a variety of geopolitical issues sensitive to Muslims. Internal as regards their own corrupt and autocratic governments and their history of abuse of civil liberties and the lack of development, land reform, employment etc in some of the Muslim countries. Extreme revivalist movements who advocate that the cause of all this is the umma (the community of Muslims) straying from the path of Islam and the solution lies in a reapplication of historical Shari’a and a literlist interpretation of the Qur’an and the Sunna capitalize on this frustration. The result is a growing demand amongst large sections of the Muslim public for complete islamicization of the laws and the governing structure. Though this is fine in itself since An-Na’im advocates the right of self –determination of the Muslim peoples, the difficulty is that this vision of a true Islamic state is more a popular imagination fueled by these revivalist movements rather than a clear comprehension amongst ordinary Muslims as to what in reality it actually involves. There is little knowledge or grasp of the impossibility of this project without serious encroachment of a variety of rights and lifestyles taken for granted by many Muslims today. What is more is the complete non-feasibility of this project especially as regards dealing with the contemporary global economic and political scenario and notions of democracy within these countries themselves.

This being the case An-Na’im feels bound to present an alternative vision. An alternative vision that reclaims religious space occupied by the extreme revivalists and presents a workable alternative for the application of Shari’a while at the same time respecting the rights of self-determination of other people within and outside the Muslim community.

On the Sources and Development of the Shari’a:
An-Na’im believes that the only way to manage to acquire legitimacy among the Umma for a process of rethinking historical Shari’a and making it viable for contemporary needs is to establish that the historical Shari’a isn’t a part of the divine revelation of the Qur’an but rather an interpretation and extrapolation from the Qur’an, Sunna and the other sources of Islamic jurisprudence. This being primarily a human endeavor necessarily means that it is open for scholars of today to work out an alternative from the very same sources.

Formative Stages of Shari’a and the Development of Islamic Jurisprudence:
The first three centuries of Islam (7th to 9th century A.D.) were the formative period of the Shari’a. Within a few decades after the death of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him) in 632 A.D. the Islamic empire had spread from the small city-state of Medina and extended from Spain in the West to Northern India in the East. It is important to note that just the sheer geographical range and cultural and ethnic diversity of the peoples under the Islamic empire played a significant role in the manner of development of the Shari’a and the governing institutions and policies it spawned. The late Umayyad and the early Abbasid eras were periods of consolidation and assimilation where diverse groups were brought became a coherent and integrated Islamic whole. This process of Islamization involved the adoption and adaptation of pre-Islamic norms and institutions of both Arab and non-Arab segments of the population. The Umayyad dynasty primarily focused on internal cohesion and external expansion, and laying out a framework for the Shari’a was not exactly a priority though some work did take place on it. The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads on the ground that the later failed to pursue a rigorous Islamization and it was during the early Abbasid era that the techniques and the content of the four surviving Sunni schools (madhahib) of Islamic jurisprudence were established.

The four main sources of the Sharia are the Qur’an, Sunna or the traditions of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him), ijma (consensus) and qiyas (reasoning by analogy). Ijtihad which is independent juristic reasoning was also considered in the early tradition as a source of Shari’a. Though ijma and qiyas are not specifically mentioned either in the Quran or the Sunna, they have been considered as a source of Shari’a through the process of ijtihad.

All the laws within the Shari’a have to be in some way derived from the verses of the Qur’an or at least by virtue of an interpretation of it based on the Sunna or Ijma or Qiyas. Out of the 6, 219 verses of the Qur’an only about 500 (600 according to some scholars) specifically deal with law. A vast majority of these 500 verses deal with rituals of worship leaving only about 80 verses of legal subject matter in the strict sense. But these 80 verses and other non-legal verses have been interpreted such as to extract the utmost legal content from them. Herein lies the Muslim belief that the Shari’a is the direct law of Allah for human kind. Though there was difference of opinions amongst the early jurists about the nature and relevance of certain verses in the formation of the Shari’a these debates were resolved by ijma or consensus.
Of particular importance in the formation of the Shari’a was the principle of Naskh ( the abrogation or repeal of legal efficacy of some of the verses in the Qur’an in favor of other verses). The principle of Naskh is accepted as legitimate by a majority of Sunni jurists and schools of thought and is the basis of many of the principles and rules of the Shari’a. An abrogated or repealed verse was to remain so, in order to maintain consistency. This is the juncture wherein An-Na’im begins his construction of a workable alternative of the Shari’a by asking whether it wouldn’t be possible to use the very same principle and emphasize on some of the previously abrogated verses keeping in mind the drastic changes that have occurred since the second century of Islam.

Towards a Workable Shari’a: An-Na’im and Mohammed Taha:
An-Na’im strongly believes that as long as Muslims stick to the framework of the historical Shari’a it would be impossible for them to achieve the reforms they desire. The reason being that in order to do realize this reform they would end up using the reform techniques within the Shari’a and would thus be restricted by the limitations of these very same techniques.

An-Na’im generally agrees with John Voll’s 3 methods of tajid-islah (renewal-reform) that have been replayed by different Islamic scholars in the major eras of pre-modern and modern Islamic history. These are 1) Return to or strict application of the Qur’an and the Sunna. 2) Assertion of the right to exercise Ijtihad (independent juristic reasoning) rather than Taklid (imitation or blind following of one of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. 3) Reaffirmation of the authenticity and uniqueness of the Qur’anic experience. As far as the first method goes it necessarily implies ijtihad as natural corollary since a return to the source implies an elimination of taklid which necessarily means re-interpretation or independent reasoning. Ijtihad itself is a controversial area since the gates of ijtihad are widely believed to have closed in 10th century A.D. Even so ijtihad as a method for reformation is bound to fail because as a jurisprudential tool it is to be used only in situations where there does not exist a clear verse of the Qur’an or anything in the Sunna that deals with the subject matter under consideration. This becomes an insurmountable obstacle in the path of aspiring reformers since the areas of the Shari’a that they are desirous of reforming are covered by clear verses of the Qur’an and reaffirmed by the Sunna. What is left is the re-affirmation of the uniqueness and the authenticity of the Qur’anic message. Here ijtihad was allowed but the reformer cannot borrow from non-Islamic traditions as a way of adding to the basic Islamic principles. The other form linked to this third method is the mystic mode. The mystic mode is a conscious willingness to recognize the universality of religious experience, and make an effort towards synthesis. Though these mystics did not see their efforts as in any way contrary to the Muslim belief that the Qur’an and the Sunna are complete as guides for humanity. What they strove for was to highlight the heart of the Qur’anic message.

It is this third method of reform that Mohammed Taha relies on obliquely. Taha read the Qur’an as divided into two parts. The verses revealed by Allah to the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him) in Mecca and those revealed in Medina. The verses revealed in Mecca consist of the transcendental values and moral pillars of Islam that are eternal. Those revealed in Medina were specific to the needs of the Muslim community at that time and were intended to provide a politico legal framework for the community that was under siege. The Prophet (Peace be upon Him) started receiving the revelations in Mecca by 610 A.D and the general reaction of the Arab community many of whom were pagans, Christians and Jews were extremely hostile. The Prophet (Peace be upon Him), his Companions and many of the Muslims faced extreme persecution especially by the Quraysh, his own tribe. For these reasons he along with his followers had to flee to Medina in 622 A.D this known as hijra (migration) and taken to be the beginning of the Muslim calendar. The hijra marked not only a dramatic change in the growth of the number of Muslims and the establishment of the first Muslim polity or state in Medina, but also a significant shift in the subject matter and content of the message. The Meccan message was characterized by equality between men and women, emphasis on the fundamental dignity of all human beings irrespective of gender, religious belief, race and so on, complete freedom of choice in matters of religion and faith etc.

Taha in response to the question as to why Allah revealed the earlier message inspite of it being inadequate for the time viewed that it wasn’t lack of knowledge of the circumstances on God’s part. The true reason for these two different kinds of messages was that in accordance with the Muslim belief, Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon Him) was the last prophet and the Qur’an was the final revelation, God had to intimate to posterity, that which was for immediate application and that to be applied to appropriate future circumstances. The other reason Taha believed had to do with the dignity and freedom God endowed on humankind, God wanted human beings to learn through their own practical experience as to when the different messages of the Qur’an would be applicable.

The main implication of Taha’s argument therefore was that public law in the Shari’a was based on the Qur’an and the related Sunna of the Medina period rather than the Meccan one. This was done by the early jurists relying on the principle of naskh stating that the earlier verses were abrogated in favor of the later ones for the purposes of the Shari’a. Taha believed that this naskh was not permanent because that would question the very validity of the revelation of the earlier verses. On the contrary Taha advocated an evolutionary principle of interpretation, where the same naskh principle could be relied upon to go back to the Meccan verses for the purposes of working out a Shari’a suited for contemporary needs.

The principle of naskh has been accepted by a vast majority of Muslim jurists, though they have disagreed on what verses are abrogated in favor of others. Nevertheless without this device for reconciling apparently contradictory verses of the Qur’an, it would have been impossible to develop the Shari’a as a coherent and internally consistent system. For example many of the earlier verses of the Qur’an emphasized freedom of choice and non-compulsion in matters of religion whereas the later verses and the Sunna texts clearly sanction the use of force against the non-believers. As far as the founding jurists were concerned the only way to reconcile these verses was to abrogate the earlier ones in favor of the later verses. Taha relies on the legitimacy of the principle of naskh within the Qur’an itself. When Allah said “Whenever We abrogate any verse (ayah) or postpone it (nunsi’ha), We bring a better verse or a similar one. Do you not know that God is capable of everything?” (Q 2:106). Taha interprets the words ‘better verse’ to mean verses that are closer to the understanding of the people and their needs at that point in time, and the word ‘postpone’ to mean that certain verses were postponed until their appropriate time comes.

It is by relying on Taha’s evolutionary mehod of Qur’anic interpretation that An-Na’im constructs a comprehensive framework of Islamic public law. In his brilliant work Towards an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law, An-Na’im deals with issues of modern constitutionalism, criminal justice, modern international law and basic human rights and fits them within a framework of an alternative Shari’a.