The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam From the Extremists (36 page)

I believe that both Muslims and non-Muslims have a role to play in forming the future of Islam. I will address the Muslim role first and then the non-Muslim role.

Earlier I noted the pivotal importance of taking a critical stance toward one’s own tradition. Many Muslims are of- fended by the idea of reform because they wrongly believe that this implies that Islam is somehow faulty or incomplete. But re- form is not about correcting God; reform is about improving our relationship with God, and about better serving the trust that has been given to us. God has given us a trust—that much most Muslims can agree on. Reform is about improving our understanding of the nature of that trust and also better serving the objectives of the trust. In other words, the critical reflection that I am calling for is about, first, reassessing in light of new challenges and changed conditions our understanding of the

nature of the trust placed in us by God; and second, once we develop a conception of that trust, assessing whether we are doing our duties toward that trust.

In this book, we have studied two approaches toward un- derstanding and serving that trust: the puritan and the moder- ate. Muslim scholars may emerge with a third alternative that is completely different. The possibility of a third choice or a different approach altogether is a matter that can be dealt with in other works. The issue that confronts most Muslims right now is: As to the two opposite poles that currently exist, to which pole do they wish to direct their faith?

I believe that Muslims can meet the formidable challenge of modernity by anchoring themselves in a humanistic under- standing of Islam, and from that point gain the power to leap and thrust forward in the moral and ethical direction God has given them. In doing so, Muslims will not only contribute pos- itively in shaping the ethical direction that our world will take, but they will also remain true to the spirit of the Islamic mes- sage. In this process, it is important that Muslims be well grounded in their history, to absorb its lessons, study its conti- nuities and potentialities, and analyze it critically. History teaches, but it does not dictate inevitabilities. Analyzing his- torical dynamics can yield a considerable amount of wisdom in dealing with the future, but staying frozen and immobile in the moment, clinging for security to a mythical idealized past or to static rules and regulations while refusing to change be- cause of anxiety and fear about what the future may bring is most unwise. It is this anxiety and fear that pervades so much of what the puritans believe in and do. Modernity has made them insecure, and they have responded to this insecurity in a variety of ways, much of it ugly and destructive.

For those Muslims who refuse to associate Islam with the destructive, ugly, and inhumane acts we have witnessed re-

cently, I think that the choice has been made. The problem, as alluded to earlier, is that the puritans are aggressive, zealous, vocal, and well funded. For moderate Muslims or for those Muslims who incline toward the moderate orientation, there is no choice but to be as aggressive, zealous, and vocal in repre- senting what we believe to be the more authentic and true Islam. Puritans speak loudly with acts of violence. Moderates have to speak more loudly with acts of peace. For instance, moderates should get into the habit of organizing massive demonstrations denouncing the violence of the puritans. Puri- tans fill the markets with their literature, beautifully printed but cheaply priced. For every puritan book written, there must be ten moderate books written in response. Puritans have es- tablished numerous seminaries and centers to promote their thought. Moderates must get into the habit of doing the same. Suffice it to say that before the 1970s, there were about five institutions focused on producing moderate scholarship, like the institute established in Pakistan by Fazlur Rahman. Today, there are none.

Puritans are able to do all of this for two reasons: they have money, and they have a jihad attitude about the spreading of their creed and thought—they deal with the propagation of their faith as a holy struggle and so they do it with unrelenting zeal. Moderates lack both of these elements.

Earlier I noted that all the Islamic seminaries and universi- ties in the premodern period were established by private en- dowments in the form of
waqf
(charitable trusts). Moderate Muslims have no real chance of winning unless they rekindle this charitable tradition. Put bluntly, moderate Muslims must spend generously on the propagation of moderate Islam, and they must do so with an attitude of jihad. It is due time that moderate Muslims realize that they are in a state of war with puritan Muslims. The power of moderate Muslims must come

from the belief that their cause is Divine and holy. While puri- tans wage violent jihad, to win this war, moderates must en- gage in the superior form of jihad—a peaceful jihad. Unless moderate Muslims realize that they are in a state of intellec- tual jihad over the future of Islam, they will never match the unrelenting zeal of the puritans.

To save the soul and reputation of Islam, moderates have a dual obligation. First, they must become educated as much as possible about Islam and the Shari’a. Only then can moderates have an equal claim to legitimacy and potentially attain the le- gitimate power to define Islam. Second, they must consider themselves in a state of defensive jihad to protect their religion from the onslaught of deformed interpretations and disinfor- mation perpetuated by puritans against Islam.
To win this very real war that has done inestimable damage to so many Mus- lims and to the truth of the Islamic faith, it is absolutely im- perative that moderates declare a counter-jihad against the puritan heresy.
This is not a call for the shedding of blood; it is a call for matching the zeal of puritans through unrelenting in- tellectual activism.
This is a counter-jihad to reclaim the truth about the Islamic faith and win the hearts and minds of Mus- lims and non-Muslims all around the world.

As for non-Muslims, what can they do? First and foremost, learn and understand, because nothing helps the puritans’ cause as much as Western ignorance, prejudice, and hate. As discussed, much of the puritan framework relies on the notion that the West despises Islam and conspires to destroy it. Prac- tically every book published in the West exhibiting prejudice and hatred toward Muslims is translated into Arabic, and the puritans quote from this type of hate literature extensively as justification for the puritans’ worldview. It is not an exaggera- tion to say that Islam-hating texts written in the West act as recruitment manuals for the puritans. Furthermore, Western

writings that advocate a bipolar view of the world by con- tending that there is an inevitable clash between the Judeo- Christian tradition on the one hand and the Islamic tradition on the other, confirm the puritan worldview, and literally serve as propaganda material for them.

There is no doubt that Islam-haters and Islamophobes will continue to write this drivel, but the average non-Muslim can help by not buying these books, creating a financial disincen- tive for prominent publishers to distribute material that essen- tially reproduces the hateful worldview of the puritans. At the same time, it is of crucial significance that non-Muslims sup- port the work of moderate Muslims by purchasing and dis- tributing their works. This is the only way that non-Muslims can help overcome the formidable financial resources of the puritans. If non-Muslims purchase and read moderate Islamic literature, not only will they help overcome the financial vul- nerability of moderates, but they will also find much common ground with moderate Muslims upon which to build partner- ships to promote goodness and Godliness on earth.

In addition, I believe it is imperative that citizens living in Western democracies bring considerable pressure upon their governments to stop lending support to any state, whether Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Israel, or any other coun- try, that uses torture. The practice of torture is literally a fac- tory and processing line for the production of puritans. It is also undeniable that bringing a swift end to the occupation of Iraq and finding a just and fair solution to the Palestinian problem will help dry up the sources of recruitment for puri- tanism.

All of the recommendations I have made are based on my practical sense of what would help in giving the upper hand to moderates in the fight for the soul of Islam. But it is not my practical calculations that I ultimately rely on. As a man of

faith, in the final analysis I rely on that faith. I believe, as the Qur’an teaches, that Islam is intended as a mercy for all hu- mankind, and that the earmark of a Muslim is moderation. Thus Islam and Muslims should be the means through which all humans should see the mercy and compassion of God demonstrated. If the two foundational values of Islam are mercy and moderation, and these foundational values are re- membered and rekindled in the hearts of most Muslims, then extremism will have no quarter, and the shared pursuit of Godliness among all humankind can progress in earnest. There is no other choice.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the Islamic tradition, it is said that one seasoned intellect is the product of a thousand years. However, it takes much more than one intellect to produce and publish a book such as this, and for that I have many people I wish to thank and acknowledge. First, I wish to thank my parents, Medhat Abou El Fadl and Afaf El Nimr, my first teachers, who taught me the importance of learning and knowledge and, by exam- ple, moderation and balance. I am grateful to my wife, Grace, who was instrumental in reading, editing, and helping this book to its completion, along with our newborn son and her parents in tow. I also wish to thank my son Cherif for reading and commenting on the text. I am grateful to my brother Tarek and his family, who provided me with the tranquil en- vironment and sustenance needed through the writing pro- cess. I thank my executive assistants, Naheed Fakoor and Omar Fadel, for their invaluable help and support. I owe a debt of gratitude to Muhammad Farid for his belief in my work and for his generous ongoing support. I give special thanks to Lesley Karsten DiNicola for her friendship and for introducing me to the excellent group of editors and staff at Harper San Francisco. I feel especially fortunate to have worked with Steve Hanselman, Gideon Weil, Anne Connolly, and Miki Terasawa at Harper. I am especially thankful for the incredible support of UCLA Law School, and particularly

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Acknowledgments

Dean Michael Schill and Associate Dean Ann Carlson, for their friendship and ongoing support. Lastly, I wish to thank the many people who have contacted me over the years to ask for assistance in understanding the differences in Islamic con- ceptions of moderation and extremism. It is in large part their search for the authentic, moderate Islam that inspired this work, and I hope that I have, at least in some small way, con- tributed to a clearer vision of what I learned is the true Islam—the Islam of moderation. May God accept.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1 Peter G. Riddell and Peter Cotterell,
Islam in Context: Past, Present, and Fu- ture
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academics, 2003), have two chapters on the radi- cal and moderate Islamist worldviews, 164–94.

CHAPTER 1: ISLAM TORN BETWEEN EXTREMISM AND MODERATION

1 Ralph Ketcham,
The Idea of Democracy in the Modern Era
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 30–39.

CHAPTER 2: THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM

1. See Gary R. Bunt,
   Islam in the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Islamic Environments
   (London: Pluto Press, 2003), 124–80.
   

2. On the interesting historical phenomenon when Shi’i jurists trained in Sunni seminaries and law, see Devin Stewart,
   Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelve Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System
   (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1998).
   

3. For a description of the disintegration of the Shari’a, see Wael Hallaq, “Can the Shari’a Be Restored?” in
   Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity,
   ed. Yvonne Haddad and Barbara Stowasser (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 21–53.
   

4. The best sources on the reformists of this period remain: Albert Hourani,
   Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939
   (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1983), and Daniel Brown,
   Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought
   (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
   

5. For other studies on the thought of the moderates, see John Cooper, Ronald Nettler, and Mohamad Mahmoud, eds.,
   Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectu- als Respond
   (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000); Omid Safi, ed.,
   Progressive Muslims
   

   (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2004). For those interested in reading excerpts from the original sources written by moderate Muslims, see Charles Kurzman, ed. and trans.,
   Liberal Islam: A Source Book
   (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
   

6. On many occasions I give two dates: the first date is according to the Islamic Era and the second is according to the Common Era. The Islamic calendar, which commenced from the year in which the Prophet migrated from Mecca to Medina, relies on the lunar year.
   

7. See Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Dijjawi, “al-hukm ‘ala al-muslimin bi’l kufr,”
   Nurr al-Islam
   (also known as
   Majallat al-Azhar: The Azhar University Journal
   ) 1, no. 4 (1933): 173–74.
   

8. Muhammad Ibn Qayyim,
   A’lam al-Muwaqqi’in
   (Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d.), 3:3.
   

9. Said K. Aburish,
   Nasser: The Last Arab
   (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004), 141. Arab secularists, such as the cited author, often recognize Nasser’s in- terferences with Azhar University, which led to extensive curriculum changes and also to the organizational restructuring of the thousand-year-old seminary. But they believe that these interferences led to necessary reforms. In reality, these interfer- ences completely undermined the authority and credibility of Azhar University.