The Complex Legacy of Muslim Modernism

In a world grappling with the complexities of identity, diversity and political turmoil, Teena Purohit’s work offers a poignant reflection on the intricate relationship between religious interpretation, cultural context and the path to progress.

Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism by Teena U. Purohit, associate professor of religion at Boston University, is an intellectually absorbing work for a significant reason. It consummately explores the shaping of Muslim modernist thought amid the challenges of modernity that confronted Muslim communities across the world during the era of colonial domination, from 1850 to 1950.

Moreover, as a scholar of South Asian religions whose “particular interests revolve around theoretical issues like conceptions of religion in modern Islam and the impact of colonial forms of knowledge on modern Muslim intellectual thought”, Purohit’s examination exposes a paradox at the core of reformist pursuits which echoes to this day in our contemporary landscape. With a reach that extends beyond academia, her work illuminates a critical historical juncture that speaks directly to our current challenges and delivers invaluable insights from the annals of the past.

Teena U. Purohit
Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism
Princeton University Press, 2023

Purohit brings a keen eye to her study of the responses of notable Muslim modernist scholars – from Jamal-ud-din Afghani (1838-1897) to Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938) and Syed Abu Ala Mawdudi (1903-1979). These scholars grappled with the urgent need to redefine Islam within an evolving global landscape of declining Muslim powers and the spread of European imperialism in the late 19th and the early 20th century.

The book shines a spotlight on Jamal-ud-din Afghani’s thought-provoking perspective on the decline of the Islamic civilisation. Taking a stance that harboured optimism, he suggested that Muslims could draw inspiration from the rapid advancement of the Western world. Afghani’s call for self-change, based on the Quranic verse, “Verily, God does not change the state of the people until they change themselves inwardly,” resonates with a transformative theme that courses through the works of all the scholars examined by Purohit.

The scholars’ collective response to the decline of Muslim powers and the concomitant need to redefine Islam in the face of colonial dominance underscores a common thread. As the Safavid, Mughal and Ottoman Empires crumbled and European powers expanded their reach, these thinkers sought to synthesise Islamic teachings with European ideas of education, science, and civilisational progress. Their quest was not to adopt European secularism in total but to reshape Islam in harmony with their evolving worldviews, all the while remaining loyal to their faith.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE WIRE

Saudi Arabia And Indonesia: Clashing Visions Of ‘Moderate Islam’ – Analysis

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (R) watches as former president Megawati Sukarnoputri and her daughter Puan Maharani, a minister in his cabinet, take a selfie with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman (C)

Two diametrically opposed visions of moderate Islam have emerged as major Muslim powers battle to define the soul of their faith in the 21^st century in a struggle that is as much about geopolitics as it is about autocratic survival and visualisations of a future civilisation and world order.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Yahya Cholil Staquf, the newly elected chairman of the central board of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim civil society movement, expressed their duelling visions in separate but almost simultaneously published interviews.

While the timing of the interviews was coincidental, they neatly laid out the parameters of a rivalry among major Middle Eastern and Asian Muslim-majority powers to dominate the discourse of Islam’s place as the world transits into an as yet undefined new world order.

Unsurprisingly, the visions expressed by the two leaders mirror the struggle epitomised by the Russian invasion of Ukraine between an autocratic, civilisationalist, and a more democratic and pluralistic vision of the world in the 21^st century.

FULL ARTICLE FROM EURASIAREVIEW.COM

Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar’s More Tolerant, Liberal Islam: Not What It Seems

The end of oil, the Abraham Accords and Turkey are forcing Gulf states to renegotiate the role of religion in their societies. Talking up openness and moderation, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha have different playbooks – but share a common aim

It wasn’t long ago that Gulf states were actively promoting ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam, and didn’t shy away from cultivating political Islam either. The U.S. National Intelligence Assessment from April 1970 judged Riyadh as “likely to support conservative non-governmental groups in the Arab world, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.”

But times are changing. Gulf states are being forced into a comprehensive rethink of their religious, political and economic systems, triggered by, most immediately, the prospect of drastically declining oil revenues as global demand shifts away from dependence on hydrocarbons. 

FULL ARTICLE FROM HA’ARETZ

Morocco trains foreign students in its practice of moderate Islam

RABAT (Reuters) – Naminata Koulibaly, 30, receives training in a Moroccan Muslim teaching institute, founded by King Mohammed VI in 2015, and hopes to return to her home in Ivory Coast better equipped to advise women on religious issues.

She is one of 100 women admitted every year to study for up to three years in the institute in Rabat, run by Morocco’s ministry of religious affairs.

Morocco, which is nearly 100 percent Muslim, has marketed itself as an oasis of religious tolerance in a region torn by militancy – and has offered training to imams and male and female preachers of Islam from Africa and Europe on what it describes as moderate Islam.

It currently trains 1,300 people mostly from the sub-Sahara nations of Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Guinea, Gambia and Chad, where Al Qaeda and Islamic State are active.

“When I go back to my country, I will find some children and women who did not go to school and don’t know a lot about religion…we will be very useful to them and we will teach them about the fundamentals of religion,” said Koulibaly.

FULL ARTICLE FROM REUTERS

The Creeping Liberalism in American Islam

By Mustafa Akyol

Since 9/11, a recurrent theme in the far-right circles of America has been “creeping Shariah.” It reflects the fear that Islamic law will silently spread through the land of freedom to ultimately overtake it — to put all women in burqas and all adulterers to death. In this scenario, American Muslims, who make up only 1 percent of the population, will pursue this grand scheme because they are here not for freedom and opportunity, but to form a fifth column in it, as Steve Bannon seriously claimed in 2016.

Those with deeper knowledge of American Muslims, a minority that is much better integrated than some of their counterparts in Europe, can easily see such sordid fantasy as paranoia. Those with some knowledge of American history can also see that this new calumny about Islam has precedents, in the McCarthyism of the Cold War era and the anti-Catholicism of the 19th century.

But here is something even more ironic: When you examine the internal discussions among conservative Muslim leaders or pundits in America today, they don’t come across as concocting some “Protocols of the Elders of Mecca.” Instead of cheering for any creeping Shariah, they seem worried about a creeping liberalism within American Islam.

Read Mikaeel Ahmed Smith, for example. He’s an imam in Virginia who has titled an internet article “A Spiritual Disease in American Muslims, Making Them Gods Above God.” His criticism targets a new genre of Muslim bloggers and writers who he says “challenge or outright reject the traditionally normative Islamic view on social issues and Muslim life.” These young people care less about traditional religious texts, the imam warns, because of “a rejection of any authority other than one’s own intellect.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES 

The Berlin Muslims reforming Islam, one co-ed prayer meeting at a time

German security services were recently in touch with one of Berlin’s best-known Muslim clerics. He should take their warnings seriously, they again told Abdul Adhim Kamouss. Death threats were being made against him by members of the Islamic State extremist group and they were real, the officers said.

Mr. Kamouss knows why he is being threatened but he will continue with his plans. The 41-year-old Berlin local wants to start his own mosque, where he will preach mainly in German; he also wants to establish an advisory service for Muslims, a center to combat radicalization and a Muslim scout group.

To do all this, Mr. Kamouss started a foundation called Islam in Germany. He sees himself as somebody who will bring his religion into the 21st century, encouraging his congregation to play a larger role in mainstream German culture and fighting what he calls “the rat catchers” – radicals who preach a hateful version of his religion to entice younger Muslims to do their bidding.

FULL ARTICLE FROM HANDELSBLATT GLOBAL (GERMANY)

A shift in Islam – and beyond

What is the right balance between a living faith that embraces the changing times and the religious traditions and doctrines that are often millenniums old?

Taylor Luck’s cover story this week appears to be about a shift within Islam. From Jordan to Tunisia, Taylor sees seeds of political moderation taking root. The cataclysmic failure of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, together with broader trends in globalization, is prompting a rethink among many Islamic political activists. They are seeing that women’s rights, religious tolerance, and other democratic ideals can be a winning combination.

Yet the story also hints at a deeper and more universal question that faces not only Islam, but also Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and the core views of many other faiths. What is the right balance between a living faith that embraces the changing times and the religious traditions and doctrines that are often millenniums old?

Most readers of Taylor’s story will surely cheer the changes now affecting Islam. Women’s rights and the expansion of civil liberties are essential elements of human progress. But change the focal distance, and the comfortable acceptance of cultural change in some distant place can become more unsettling closer to home. If modern cultural forces are bringing a welcome breeze of enlightenment to Islam, then why are such forces sometimes seen as threatening religious traditions in other places?

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 

Morocco: Model Of Moderate Islam And Intercultural Dialogue – Analysis

Since tSince the advent of the unfortunate events of 9/11 in New York in 2001, Islam has, duly, become an easy target for Western attacks and, as a result, Islamophobia has increased in intensity and scope and has, consequently, even turned into a kind of religion for Muslim-haters, especially those who believe, wrongly, that Islam is an insidious force and subliminal belief of hate, destruction and backwardness.

As such, today, regrettably, Islam is equated with violence, with hatred, with terrorism, with death etc., bearing in mind that those so-called Muslims who opted for extremism, for political reasons and gains, are a handful and their motives are very suspicious, secretive and totally criminal.

Indeed, such dangerous and lethal groups like: al-Qaeda, ISIS, and associated dormant cells and lone wolves, etc. can in no way represent 1.5 billion peace-loving Muslims around the globe and speak in their name, at all. But, alas, these inhuman and violent so-called Muslims have triggered  much hatred in the West towards Islam, in general. Indeed, Trump, as a US presidential candidate, vilified Muslims, at will, and as a president he signed the so-called Muslim ban, barring the citizens of some Muslim countries from entering the US.

FULL ARTICLE FROM EUROASIA REVIEW