The Future of Islam in the West

NOTES FROM THE IIIT CONFERENCE ON APPROACHING THE QUR’AN AND SUNNAH #1

[This is the first in a series of my notes on the International Institute of Islamic Thought conference on approaching the Qur’an and Sunnah held in Herndon VA. These notes are raw material for an edited report I will write on the conference later and represent my perception of the discussion. The proceedings will be published by IIIT at a later time. The Minaret of Freedom Institute thanks IIIT for the grant that makes the publication of these notes possible. Responsibility for any errors in the notes is mine alone.]

Opening lecture by Sherman (Abdul Hakeem) Jackson

“Beyond the Fiqh-Reform Paradigm: The Challenge of Cultural Authority and the Future of Islam in the West”

Too often reconciliation is merely an attempt to force fiqh to conform to Western standards. Why has the reconciliation of polygyny with gender equality never appealed to permissibility of polyandry?

We need appropriation rather than reconciliation.

It is an error to focus on fiqh. The introduction of ethics is not an attempt to displaced fiqh, but a realization that it fulfills functions fiqh cannot serve. As Tariq Ramadan put the matter, despite emphasis on ijtijihad, etc., Muslims have failed to produce answers and repeatedly engaged in apologetics.

Before 9/11 Muslims tended to simply reject the West. Since then there has been an emphasis on reconciliation. We need an emphasis on diagnosis instead.

It is unsurprising that there is an element of protest against the West in that the adjective “Islamic” is put forward not as opposed to atheism or other faiths, but as opposed to the West. For the first time in history there is the belief that the appropriation of ideas from the now ascendant West constitutes an acknowledgment of an inherent superiority in the West. As Steven Carter put it: “Religion at its best is subversive; religion resists.” Another scholar said Christians must teach their children to challenge the state, not in the name of human rights, but as a means of measuring the state’s justice against that of God. The purpose is not to raise an individual or some group’s interests to an absolute, for that would be making a false god. Muslims must always be concerned with enshrining cultural artifacts not sanctioned by their religion. That is the source of the concern over bid`a. “Watch us and listen.” Consider e.g., the Prophet’s adoption of the adhan. Principled acceptance, reasoned caution or automatic rejections all are examples of implementations of this idea. Nativism would be an insistence that all things Islamic come from Muslims and imply a negative predisposition toward non-Muslim ways.

The tendency to invoke provenance as the sole measure of Islamicity is not new. Consider Al `az ibn Abdus-Salam when asked about “foreign dress; what is the difference between foreign and non-Arab?’ ibn Abdus-Salaam’s response explicitly says foreigners are those we are specifically been forbidden to imitate, but only refers to those things that explicitly contradict the Islamic law. The issue is preserving the cultural authority of the Muslim community. The issue is not WHAT was being borrowed but WHY it was being borrowed. What appears to be a concern with provenance is actually a concern about cultural authority. In that case even superficially permissible acts may be forbidden if they undermine that authority. Consider Prophet’s initial style of not parting his hair when he arrived in Medina but later he parted it. Conversely, he initially prohibited [some Arab practices] but later allowed them once they weren o challenge to Islamic cultural authority.

While Islamic cultural authority is necessary for the establishment of an Islamic order it is insufficient to the task. The Prophet adopted a number of non-Muslim practices. Even now, neither domes nor minarets originated from Muslims. The question is whether one has the cultural authority to engage in the adoption of a practice. Even if Americans knew that ice cream came from the Arabs they would not be concerned because they feel they have the cultural authority to appropriate such a practice. Acquiring cultural authority comes not from rejecting all things Western, but to develop a modality for being thoroughly Western and thoroughly Islamic, as the Prophet and his companions developed a modality for being thoroughly Muslim and thoroughly Arab. It is the dominant culture that determines what is and is not worthy of imitation.

We have invested reason or aql with a panacean power that stunts our imagination, though the power of imagination and not just reason plays a role in the development of cultural authority. In our quest to find balance and direction the purification of the nafs will play a vital and critical role. In the jihad against the self and foreigners provenance ceases to be the sole source of guidance.

Discussion

Mahmoud Ayoub: Consider the tobacco controversy in Iran. I would narrow provenance to legal issues. Equation of fiqh with Shariah is a problem. We should avoid the pitfall of the Jews who replaced Torah with rabbinic Judaism.

Jackson: my presentation is not about whether or not we need a new fiqh, which would not resolve the problem of cultural authority.

Robert Crane: It would follow that the maqasid must also be carefully handled. How do we prevent ethics from replacing the full spiritual dimension of Islam. How do you avoid undermining religious imagination?

Jackson: Maqasid based on ethics is just a more sophisticated method of reconciliation. The degree to which we can imagine the changes faith can bring to our lives through God is essential.

Abdl Hadi Honercamp: Could you take West out of the title and still be comfortable? I’m uncomfortable with the conflation of ethics with a pious ritualistic perspective not helpful to establishing an ethical cultural authority. Are we talking about adâb, akhlâq, or what?

Jackson: In the same way that I identified the limitations of fiqh,that it is important but not exhaustive, I am saying the same for ethics. You can judge hip-hop, but how do you develop an alternative? Ethics may simply reduce us to another devotional mode.

Sami Catovic: Why did the fuquha adopt what are now considered misogynist positions?

Jackson: Even cultural authority is insufficient to assure an Islamic order.

Jasser Auda: How can we develop cultural authority other than through the fuquha?

Jackson: The Nation of Islam was able to take cultural artifacts from the dominant culture and reinterpret them with their own values so that their 3-piece suits and bowties acquired their own meanings, while on a Christian it would be seen as the mark of an Uncle Tom.

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad: The tie is a good example. I wear a variety of western clothes without concern that they are un-Islamic, but resist wearing the tie which is a symbol of submission to Western authority. Cultural authority requires having a dynamic and living culture; that is, we cannot oppose the dynamic culture of the West with the frozen cultures we brought with us from our respective homelands.

Jackson: A faqih said if I’ve changed my mind after 20 hours in America, why should you have been here 20 years not do so?  I once gave a talk on Halloween and stated it is not haram; yet I do not allow my children to go trick or treat because I fear they will fall under another cultural authority. Young Muslims should not feel they are under the dominance of Western culture, but see themselves as cultural agents. Cultural dependence is my concern.

Jackson: Japan has satisfied itself with a hybrid culture and is proud of the Western part of its culture. Cultural authority is not an about reasoning. Muhammad Ali is not a thinker, he’s a boxer with cultural authority.

Ayoub: If something is stifling our cultural achievement it is probably our cultural conservatism.

Azzedine Azzimani (student): Taqlid is negative.

Jackson: No one will win a case before the Supreme Court by using ijtihjad. Taqlid is bad when improperly implemented.

Khaleel: A hip hop artist said: “[Biblically know] the game; don’t let the game [biblically know] you.”

Ahmed Rafiq: In Indonesia we dressed to show we are different from the colonizer.  I remember one pasandra calling itself a modern pasandra not only said it is permissible to wear the tie but made it mandatory to do so. Fuquha are part of the cultural dynamic.

Jackson: That is not cultural production, except that by it may permit cultural generation.

Ahmad: We need to discuss taqlid at more length. I would argue Brown v. Board of Education was an example of winning a case with ijtihad. The encounter of two dynamic cultures is like Noah Feldman’s encounter of two mobile concepts: If they are both universal, flexible, and simple, they can result in a synthesis. We may not have an Islamic hipp-hop, but we do have Islamic rap, as with Native Deen and with the pro-Palestinian rappers.?

Jamal Barzinji: What about niqab? It is not mandatory, so would it be an example of cultural authority for Muslims to call for its banning?

Jackson: No. There is a right to religious accommodation.

Ahmad: It is accommodation of religiously motivated not religiously mandated activity.

Barzinji: What about homosexuality?

Jackson: Why don’t we have the same problem with Muslims that drink alcohol?

Ayoub: Homosexuality s condemned in no uncertain terms, but Muslims have always tolerated it. There is a literature and music on “beardless boys.”

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
Minaret of Freedom Institute
www.minaret.org

ImadadDean