Jul 14, 2004
Ijtihad.
There's a post about Irshad Manji in the Islamic Feminist community. (And a considerably less gushing review in MuslimWakeUp!.) What's interesting to me is this sentence: "The core concept in Manji's thought — and that of all progressive Muslims — is 'itjihad'."
Oh? I used to think that, too. But I was won over by the argument that Abdullahi An-Na'im makes in this book, which is that ijtihad (mistakenly spelled "itjihad" through the entire article above, btw) isn't going to automatically lead to a reformation in Islamic thought, not if the same forces doing all the so-called reasoning are the same figureheads we see now arguing their regressive politics in the newspapers. An-Na'im calls for a much more specific recasting of Islamic interpretation and jurisprudence, starting with a few premises such as the rejection of Shari'a, the need for constitutionalism and self-determination, and the defense of the rights of women and religious minorities. He's opposed to secularism in majority-Muslim countries and even rejects the strategic use of the doctrine of necessity (neither, he believes, will be sustainable in the long run), but his suggested solution, which I find really interesting, is to favor the Mecca surahs over the Medina ones, even though the Medina ones were revealed later, arguing that the latter were only to be implemented in times of stress and persecution of the Islamic community. But doesn't this qualify as a time of stress and persecution of the Islamic community? No, he says. Mohammed and his followers were a small band of believers being pursued by the most powerful tribe in Arabia, which is not at all akin to a billion Muslims living in however many countries spread across the globe, and, beyond that, employing constitutionalism and other forms of defense against the assault on human rights is an effective tool in challenging imperialism.
I can see why this vision wouldn't fly with conservatives of any stripe, Muslim or otherwise, but I think he's right that a progressive version of Islam needs to start with something more specific than the call for ijtihad.
