Poem: Jawab-e-Shikwah
Poet: Mohammad Iqbal

As one who identifies himself strongly with the idea of a liberal Islam and also advocates moderation in the manifestation and – expression of Islamic politics, I believe it is important that we flush out this “political identity”. In an era when who we are determines what we do politically, it is imperative that we clarify the “we” in politics.

American media uses the term moderate Muslim to indicate a Muslim who is either pro-western in her politics or is being self-critical in her discourse. Therefore both President Karzai of Afghanistan and Professor Kahlid Abul Fadl of UCLA wear the cap with felicity, the former for his politics the latter for his ideas.

Muslims in general do not like using the term, understanding it to indicate an individual who has politically sold out to the “other” side. In some internal intellectual debates, the term moderate Muslim is used pejoratively to indicate a Muslim who is more secular and less Islamic than the norm, which varies across communities. In America, a moderate Muslim is one who peddles a softer form of Islam – the Islam of John Esposito and Karen Arm Strong – is willing to co-exist peacefully with peoples of other faiths and is comfortable with democracy and the separation of politics and religion.

Both, Western media and Muslims, do a disservice by branding some Muslims as moderate on the basis of their politics. These people should general be understood as opportunists and self-serving. Most of the moderate regimes in the Muslim World are neither democratic nor manifest the softer side of Islam. That leaves intellectual positions as the criteria for determining who is a moderate Muslim, and especially in comparison to whom, since moderate is a relative term.

Both Muslims and the media are generally on the mark when they identify moderate Muslims as reflective, self-critical, pro-democracy and human-rights and closet secularists. But who are they different from and how?

I believe that moderate Muslims are different from militant Muslims even though both of them advocate the establishment of societies whose organizing principle is Islam. The difference between moderate and militant Muslims is in their methodological orientation and in the primordial normative preferences which shape their interpretation of Islam.

For moderate Muslims Ijtihad is the preferred method of choice for social and political change and military Jihad the last option. For militant Muslims, military Jihad is the first option and Ijtihad is not an option at all.

Ijtihad narrowly understood is a juristic tool that allows independent reasoning to articulate Islamic law on issues where textual sources are silent. The unstated assumption being when texts have spoken reason must be silent. But increasingly moderate Muslim intellectuals see Ijtihad as the spirit of Islamic thought that is necessary for the vitality of Islamic ideas and Islamic civilization. Without Ijtihad, Islamic thought and Islamic civilization fall into decay.

For moderate Muslims, Ijtihad is a way of life, which simultaneously allows Islam to reign supreme in the heart and the mind to experience unfettered freedom of thought. A moderate Muslim is therefore one who cherishes freedom of thought while recognizing the existential necessity of faith. She aspires for change, but through the power of mind and not through planting mines.

Moderate Muslims aspire for a society – a city of virtue — that will treat all people with dignity and respect. There will be no room for political or normative intimidation. Individuals will aspire to live an ethical life because they recognize its desirability. Communities will compete in doing good and politics will seek to encourage good and forbid evil. They believe that the internalization of the message of Islam can bring about the social transformation necessary for the establishment of the virtuous city. The only arena in which Moderate Muslims permit excess is in idealism.

Today, the relationship between Islam and the rest is getting increasingly worse. Muslim militants are sowing seeds of poison and hatred between Muslims and the rest of humanity by committing egregious acts of violence in the name of Islam. In this precarious environment, it is important that everyone finds and nurtures the many wonderful examples of moderate Muslims one can still find.

Chandra Muzaffar in Malaysia, Tarik Ramadan in Europe, Maulana Waheeduddin Khan and Asghar Ali Engineer in India, Khalid Abul Fadl and Louay Safi in the US, Karim Soroush and Muhammad Khatami in Iran and many many more who are committed to their Jihad (struggle) to revive the spirit of Ijtihad. Fortunately the tradition is alive globally; it needs the support and the attention of all who aspire for peace and understanding.

As tensions between the Muslim and Western worlds continue to grow, there is one largely overlooked area of activity that may play a role in building bridges: Ijtihad. While Ijtihad can be a tool for understanding Islamic principles in a way that fits the needs and challenges of individuals and societies, there is no universal agreement on its proper role.

The Islamic tradition has two conceptions of Ijtihad. One is a very narrow, legalistic notion of it as a process of juristic reasoning employed to determine the permissibility of an action when primary sources, namely the Koran and Sunnah (Tradition of the Prophet), are silent and earlier scholars of shari’a (Islamic law) had not ruled on the matter. For those who hold this view of Ijtihad, who can perform Ijtihad is often more important than the need for Ijtihad.

In reality, this view is designed to stifle independent thought among Muslims and to confine the right to understand and explain Islam to Muslim jurists. It is also opposed to reasoning, because it essentially says that reason shall be employed only when the texts are silent and no medieval scholar has addressed the issue under scrutiny. Reason, according to this viewpoint, is the last resort for understanding the will of God. For those who hold this view, opening the doors of Ijtihad would make no difference, since their very conception of it is impoverished and limited.

The second view, often espoused by non-jurists and particularly by those who advocate some form of Islamic modernism and liberalism, envisions Ijtihad more broadly. For modernist Muslims — and I believe that Islamic modernism deeply influences all “moderate” Muslim thinking — Ijtihad is about freedom of thought, rational thinking and the quest for truth through an epistemology covering science, rationalism, human experience, critical thinking and so on.

When modernist Muslims claim that the door of Ijtihad has been closed, they are lamenting the loss of the spirit of inquiry that was so spectacularly demonstrated by classical Islamic civilization at its peak. They are, in a sense, nostalgic for Ibn Sina’ (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), for al-Farabi, al-Biruni and al-Haytham — scientists, philosophers and jurists of Islam’s “Golden Age”. Thus, modernist Muslims see Ijtihad as the spirit of inquiry and desire for all forms of knowledge, not just religious and juristic, that needs to be revived to revitalize and restore Islamic civilization.
As long as a majority of Muslims equates Islam with shari’a, Islamic scholarship with Fiqh (jurisprudence) and real knowledge with juristic knowledge, Ijtihad will remain a limited jurisprudential tool and closed minds will never open. Islamic modernists have been trying, since the time of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the great Muslim reformer of the 19th century, to re-instill a sense of the value of knowledge and an appreciation for science and philosophical inquiry. Yet, as a Muslim, I acknowledge that there is no research institution worthy of recognition in this way in the entire Muslim world.

Muslims must go back and read Ibn Rushd (Fasl al-Maqaal, The Decisive Treatise), and learn how he bridged science and religion, in order to understand that Islam has nothing to fear from reason and so to open their hearts and minds to rational thought. This is the goal that Ibn Khaldun, the great 14th century Arab historian and philosopher, would have called the “engine of civilization.” Modernist Muslims subscribe to and advocate this spirit of Islam.

Islamic reformation can be understood in two different ways. It can mean the reform of society to bring it back to what have been considered Islamic norms and values: most Islamic and Islamist reformers are pursuing this type of reform. The other reform strategy is to question the existing understanding of Islam and seek to articulate a reformed understanding of Islam: this is where Islamic modernists and rationalists have always plied their trade.

Here, Ijtihad is employed as an instrument to critique prevalent understanding and articulate a more compassionate, more modern and, perhaps, even a more liberal understanding (which some would call the truly-traditional understanding). The rethinking of Islam vis-à-vis democracy is an area in which Islamic reformist thinking is taking place.

In my opinion, Muslims can modernize without de-Islamizing or de-traditionalizing. India and Japan have shown that societies can modernize without losing their traditional cultures. Muslim societies today have to distinguish between Islam and culture, retain their Islamic essence and reform dysfunctional cultural habits that hinder development, progress, equality and prosperity.

Without holding fast to revelation, Muslims will lose their connection with the divine, which would cause life to lose meaning and purpose for many. The challenge for Muslims today is to latch on to the currents of democracy, modernity and globalization without cutting the umbilical cord to the heavens. I believe that we can do it. American Muslims are demonstrating this in their lives.

When it comes to the modern practice of Ijtihad, American Muslims are miles ahead of other Muslim communities. Not only are there a large number of scholars pushing for Ijtihad in the U.S., but there are also national organizations and prominent Islamic centers that are, in principle, willing to put initiatives advanced by Ijtihad into practice.

An excellent practical example of this is the adoption of guidelines for women-friendly mosques by many Islamic centers. An outstanding theoretical example is the now widespread acceptance in the U.S., and to some extent in Europe, of the idea of Fiqh al Aqliyaat (minority jurisprudence), which is the idea that Muslims who live as minorities need to revisit and rearticulate Islamic legal positions, keeping in mind their minority status. We can see the product of American Ijtihad in the progressive role that women play in the American-Muslim community and in Islamic scholarship. Another important indicator is the absence of embedded radicalism in American Islam and the enormous appetite that American Muslims and their organizations express for democracy, civil rights, pluralism and civic engagement.

Thus, a broad vision of Ijtihad ensures that Islam and Muslim communities continue to reform in positive ways without losing the connection to Divine revelation and traditional culture. Muslims must continue to embrace this spirit of inquiry and desire for all forms of knowledge in order to revitalize and restore Islamic civilization.

This article was originally published at ijtihad.org