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Islam as a Religion of Tolerance and Moderation
Glorify Thy NameMoses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come .....
Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl has been described as "the most
important and influential Islamic thinker in the modern age." An
accomplished Islamic jurist and scholar, he received formal
training in Islamic jurisprudence in Egypt and Kuwait as well as
holding degrees from Yale, Princeton, and the University of
Pennsylvania School of Law. He is currently the Omar and
Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at the UCLA
School of Law. Before joining the faculty at UCLA, he taught
Islamic law at the University of Texas at Austin Law School,
Yale Law School and Princeton University.
How To Pass ExamsIn modern society passing educational examinations becomes an increasingly important and essential means to a better job and improved living ..... In the extended essay that begins his book, The Place of
Tolerance in Islam, Dr. Abou El Fadl argues that the
post-September 11th image of Islam as a reactionary, intolerant,
and violent religion does not accurately represent the real
traditional belief of Muslims. To the contrary, he declares his
"unwavering conviction that I belong to a great moral humanistic
tradition." Traditional Islamic jurists, he writes, "tolerated
and even celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought."
During the first centuries of Islam, clerics underwent a lengthy
and intellectually demanding training that included an open
discussion of differing viewpoints and interpretations. This
training prepared them to be community leaders and judges in
disputes between their coreligionists. As the secular authority
in Muslim states grew increasingly powerful, centralized, and
autocratic, Muslim clergy lost much of their authority,
Terrorists... Who Are They Really?Another terrorist act happened on September 8th at Jakarta, Indonesia. The attack injured more than 180 and killing at least nine. The latest attack ..... producing "a profound vacuum in religious authority" and "a
state of virtual anarchy in modern Islam."
As the Muslim clergy were increasingly marginalized, the great
centers of learning at which they were trained became equally
marginalized and more and more clerics were self-declared holy
men with little or no formmal training. Consequently, amateurish
interpretations of Islam, exemplified by those of Osama bin
Laden, gained sway over theologically illiterate Muslims
justifiably angry at the poverty and powerlessness they
experienced in comparison to citizens of the U.S. and other
Western nations.
Dr. Abou El Fadl is particularly critical of Wahhabism -- a
puritanical revision of Islam propagated by the Saudi monarchy.
While Wahhabism claims to be the "straight path" of Islam, it
is, according to Abou El Fadl, an abberant form of Islam, forged
in the 18th-century slaughter of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
To call it "fundamentalist," he asserts, is misleading, since it
flouts fundamental Islamic truths and distorts Islam by
rejecting "any attempt to interpret the divine law historically
or contextually."
He quotes specific passages to show that the Quran declares
diversity among peoples to be Allah's divine intent. Further,
contrary to what you may have been taught in a high school
history class, the Quran opposes forced conversion of others to
Islam, as practiced by the Taliban. In fact, the Quran
explicitly states that Jews and Christians as well as
Muslimswill go to Heaven.
Interpretations of the Quran that urge violence against
innocents, he argues, require poorly informed, out of context
readings of a line here/ a line there in my view, not unlike the
practice of many Christian Fundamentalists. To show that, he
cites the ambiguous verses by which Muslim extremists justify
their acts, and their deceitful disregard of everything Quranic
that prohibits their acts. He insists that any valid Quranic
interpretation must square with the holy book's "general moral
imperatives such as mercy, justice, kindness." "If the reader is
intolerant, hateful, or oppressive," he concludes, "so will be
the interpretation."
Far from sanctioning "holy war," Abou El Fadl reports, the Quran
does not even contain the phrase. The entire concept of jihad as
holy war was a later development rooted more in political and
economic conflict than in religious difference. Moreover, far
from supporting the "get even" (for Israel, for economic
imperialism, etc) justification for terrorism, the Quran warns
Muslims that the injustice of others does not permit them to be
The Concept Of UnschoolingThe Concept of Catholic Unschooling Author Interview with Suzie Andres, Homeschooling with Gentleness: A Catholic Discovers Unschooling by ..... unjust in return. Furthermore, warriors who attacked innocent
civilians were regarded by classic Muslim jurists to be
"corrupters of the earth and criminals" -- guilty of "especially
heinous crimes."
The eleven reactions to Abou El Fadl's essay add further depth
to the debate. Milton Viorst, Middle East correspondent for The
New Yorker, praises it as a "brilliant" explanation of why
Muslims are "on the brink of becoming a permanent global
underclass." Sohail Hashmi, who teaches international relations
at Mount Holyoke College, agrees that politically motivated
Quranic interpreters, not the Quran itself, feed the
us-against-them mentality of violent Muslims. British culture
critic Tariq Ali laments that "there was more dissent and
skepticism in Islam during the 11th and 12th centuries than
there is today." On the other hand, Abid Ullah Jan, a political
analyst from Pakistan, blames all debates about Islam on
"efforts by the United States and its allies to achieve economic
and cultural hegemony by dominating or destroying all
opposition." He denounces the essay as "an attempt to please
Islam-bashers."
Abou El Fadl's response to the commentaries asserts that the
extremists false fundamentalism threatens to turn Islam into "an
idiosyncracy -- a moral and social oddity that is incapable of
finding common ground with the rest of human society." His
motivation for engaging in debate against extremists, he says,
is "to deny such groups their Islamic banner." In his view, the
ultimate issue for all Muslims ought to be the extremists
degradation of "the moral integrity of the Islamic tradition."
Khaled Abou El Fadl, Tariq Ali, Milton Viorst and John Esposito.
The Place of Tolerance in Islam. Boston, Beacon Press, 2002.
About the author:
Dr. David F. Duncan is the President of Duncan & Associates, a
research and policy studies consulting firm in the areas of
public health, mental health, and drug abuse.
http://www.duncan-associates.com His Commonplace Book is a
collection of excerpts, book reviews, and commentary on classic
movies and favorite authors.
http://commonplacebook.tripod.com/home/
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