Islamic modernism
Islamic modernism is a movement that has been described as "the first Muslim ideological response to the Western cultural challenge,"[Note 1] attempting to reconcile the Islamic faith with modern values such as democracy, civil rights, rationality, equality, and progress.[2] It featured a "critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence", and a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis (Tafsir).[1] A contemporary definition describes it as an "effort to re-read Islam's fundamental sources—the Qur'an and the Sunna, (the practice of the Prophet)—by placing them in their historical context, and then reinterpreting them, non-literally, in the light of the modern context."[3]
For Liberal movements in Islam, see Liberal Muslim movements. For the topic of Islam in the contemporary sociology of religion, see Islam and modernity.
It was one of several Islamic movements—including Islamic secularism, Islamism, and Salafism—that emerged in the middle of the 19th century in reaction to the rapid changes of the time, especially the perceived onslaught of Western civilization and colonialism on the Muslim world.[2] Islamic modernism differs from secularism in that it insists on the importance of religious faith in public life, and from Salafism or Islamism in that it embraces contemporary European institutions, social processes, and values.[2] One expression of Islamic modernism, formulated by Mahathir, is that "only when Islam is interpreted so as to be relevant in a world which is different from what it was 1400 years ago, can Islam be regarded as a religion for all ages."[4]
Prominent leaders of the movement include Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Namık Kemal, Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Muhammad Abduh (former Sheikh of Al-Azhar University), Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and South Asian poet Muhammad Iqbal. In the Indian subcontinent, the movement is also known as Farahi, and is mainly regarded as the school of thought named after Hamiduddin Farahi.[5]
Since its inception, Islamic modernism has suffered from co-option of its original reformism by both secularist rulers and by "the official ulama" whose "task it is to legitimise" rulers' actions in religious terms.[6]
Criticism[edit]
Many orthodox, fundamentalist, puritan, and traditionalist Muslims strongly opposed modernism as bid'ah and the most dangerous heresy of the day, for its association with Westernization and Western education,[113] although some orthodox/traditionalist Muslims, and Muslim scholars agree that going back to the Qur'an and the Sunnah to update Islamic law would not be in violation of the principles of fiqh.
One of the leading Islamist thinkers and Islamic revivalists, Abul A'la Maududi agreed with Islamic modernists that Islam contained nothing contrary to reason, and was superior in rational terms to all other religious systems. However he disagreed with them in their examination of the Quran and the Sunna using reason as the standard. Maududi, instead started from the proposition that "true reason is Islamic", and accepted the Book and the Sunna, not reason, as the final authority. Modernists erred in examining rather than simply obeying the Quran and the Sunna.[Note 7]
Scholar Malise Ruthven argues that the beliefs that were "integral" to at least one prominent modernist (Abduh) -- namely that the basic revealed truths of Islam and the observable, rational truth of science must be, "in the final analysis be identical" -- is problematic. This is because the idea is "based on the essentially medieval premise that science, like scripture itself is a finite body of knowledge awaiting revelation", when in fact science is "a dynamic process of discovery subject to continual revision". The establishment of non-religious institutions of learning in India, Egypt and elsewhere, which Abduh encouraged, "opened the floodgates to secular forces which threatened Islam's intellectual foundations".[115]
Advocates of political Islam argue that insofar as Modernism seeks to separate Islam and politics it is adopting the Christian and secular principle of "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's", but that politics is inherent in Islam, since Islam encompasses every aspect of life. Some, (Hizb ut-Tahrir for example), claim that in Muslim political jurisprudence, philosophy and practice, the Caliphate is the correct Islamic form of government, and that it has "a clear structure comprising a Caliph, assistants (mu'awinoon), governors (wulaat), judges (qudaat) and administrators (mudeeroon)."[116][117]