Where are the "Reform Muslims?"

Great Debates
1

This thread is about abating my ignorance, and perhaps bringing forth some interesting commentary. What it is NOT about is slamming anyone’s religious beliefs.

There are Reform Jews. There are Protestant Christians. There are so many variations of Hinduism that one can probably find any sort of doctrine one likes. Buddhists, Zoroastrians–dunno. And I believe Scientology is under copyright and trademark.

So what about Islam?

Is there–is it even conceivable?–such a thing as Reform Islam, along the same lines as Reform Judaism? Both are “people of the Book.” Both began with a belief in their scriptures as the literal Word of God. Reform Jews are not accepted by many Jews as “real Jews,” so I understand. There is occasional open conflict between those two schools–demonstrations, violence, outraged preachings.

Yet Reform Judaism exists and thrives.

Why is there not a school of Reform Islam that has come to the fore, rejecting (for example) the tradition of absolute subjugation of women to their husbands, downplaying “jihad” (in the political sense) against the “infidel,” condemning (absolutely) “suicide bombing” and any complicity therewith; etc.?

I know that individual Islamic thinkers have held these positions. But there seems to be little tendency for even well-educated, better-off Muslims to unite around a moderate “live and let live” banner. Or if such tendencies exist, they seem far removed from the realities of the Middle East or Indonesia.

Is this purely a reaction to historically specific, perceived incursions and aggressions by Israel and “the northern world?” Or is it something distinct about the basic structure and tenets of Islam itself?

Or is it just a matter of coming back in a couple thousand years?

2

There ARE differences as to how Islam is practiced. Shia Islam, Sunni Islam and Sufism come to mind. Also, it’s not as old as Judaism or Christianity, so maybe the time isn’t right. Maybe that’s coming. Also, remember that the clergy in Saudi Arabia tightly control what sermons are given each Friday at prayers, at least in the mosques whose construction was financed by the Saudis, so there will be a certain unanimity to it and also a Wahabbist conservatism to the way Islam is practiced globally.

3

Yes, there are “Reform” Muslims. They are groups like the Wahabi and other ultra-extremists. Wahabi and their ilk formed in fairly recent times and seek to “purify” and “reform” Islam in much the same way the Protestant Reformation sought to do for Roman Catholicism. Now, if one knows a bit of history, one is well-aware that the Reformist movements were remarkably strict and stringent for at least a century or so, especially when dealing with people not of their own brand of religion. The Wahabi and similar movements are quite young and are still in that early phase.

The sort of accomodating to the world and tolerant Islam the original poster wants is actually a far older type of Islam.

4

There are moderate and extremist elements of Islam. The extreme ones are the ones who fly planes into buildings and set off bombs occasionally. The other billion or so tend not to do that, and don’t seem to be trying to do that or even want to do that, so I call them moderate muslims.

As for Protestant Christians, I believe that is something that was inspired by events in Europe rather than a fundamental general religious thing. A lot of religious beliefs don’t have “protest” varients, but do have different varients based on geographic isolation and/or political influences.

And there are some conflicts between moderate and extreme Islam, as seen (in part) in Iran recently.

5

http://www.secularislam.org/

6

I’m sorry, but you are misinformed about the issues you bring up here.

  1. There is no “tradition” in the teachings of Islam of “absolute subjugation of women to their husbands”

  2. Jihad means first of all trying to be the best Muslim possible, that means: every person has to overcome and fight against those things and issues that distracts him from this goal.
    Jihad in its militant form means defending the Umma (= the Muslim society) and Islam itself against enemies. That doesn’t mean attacking first yourself. It has to be taken in the meaning of sheer self-defence.

  3. There is no defence possible for “suicide bombing” at all in Islam.

“Live and let live” is well described in Al Qur’an.

You mix up religion with political issues. Maybe you could read about the situation of Jews and Christians in the historical Muslim world. Israel is a case on its own.

See above. There is nothing of what you bring up to be found in the teachings of Islam.

I relate this very biased and denegrating sounding stand you take here to the fact that you -as you say yourself- are completely un- or misinformed about the issue Islam.

Now about the reality of today.

  1. The reality learns that many women indeed suffer of injustice and restrictions in Islamic societies ( as women suffer in other societies as well, but let’s keep it here to the issue you raised ).
    Well… You could classify this under the “reform” you claim that isn’t there, while “reform” among Muslims and especially a variety of Islamic scholars since the early days is exactly the cause of these situations. Among that counts also the political split which resulted in the Shi’a Islam.

Let me elaborate:

In Al Qur’an is clearly stated that God created women and men different biologically, but equal. There can’t be any discussion on that.
The situations you speak of are the result of the influence and interaction between cultures and religion and the development and influence of the different laws schools, whose teachings were of course not free of the influence of local traditions and local customs and even local laws, which results in different views on the Shari’a = differences in Al Qur’an exegeses (tafsier) and introductions of hadieth. (Shi’a Muslims follow in addition to that other hadieth compilations then the Sunni.)

People in earlier days could choose and follow a lawschool, yet when not satisfied by judgements or advises, look at an other or more then one to see how things where explained and implemented there.
In theory that is still the case, yet in practice law schools (madhab) are now specified by the country one lives in and thus the Shari’a follows these particular teachings.
This doesn’t mean that every country who follows a particular madhab has implemented its shari’a at the same amount and in the same way in Constitution and laws. That varies between every country, since every country has its own constitution and laws, which describe how and when and at which points the Shari’a has an influence. (or no inlfuence at all, like in Turkey today)

You see that it is not as simple as you paint it and in any case subjugation of women is against the core teachings of Islam.
Islam was in fact a revelation for the women at the time of Muhammed because although there were some women who were what we would call now “independent” (like the first wife of Muhammed was) most of them were nothing more then a posession and part of a man’s heritage, with no rights at all. (you can find several verses in Al Qur’an condemning this and giving instructions how to abandon and alter these practises.)

  1. From in the early days of Islam, the term Jihad in its meaning of militant self-defence was misinterpreted unto the point of abuse. Since my studyfield covered Islamic history, I can state that it wasn’t always “self defence” that led the Muslims to war. (Yet on the other hand it wasn’t about “converting at all costs at the point of the sword” like is teached in certain circles in the West.)

  2. There is no excuse for attacking and murdering innocent people , never and in no circumstances. I know there are some Muslims -and some of them even have an authority in their own circles or country- who say that such people “fight for Islam” and are “martyrs for Islam”.
    They have no right to say this. Killing yourself is against God’s law in the first place and killing innocent people is violating God’s law again.
    Better would be to see behind this rethoric and discover the following:

  3. Those who claim that this is permitted and even “martyrism” have a political agenda.

  4. Those who are brought so far to commit suicide by tearing innocent people with them into death, are used by those with a political agenda.

  5. When it comes to Palestinians doing this, and now recently Tchetchens: Those people are so desperate that for them it became the only way to “help the political cause” of their country and their people. Again this is a pure personal drama of the suicide bomber and of the situation of his/her society that provokes this, which has political and not religious roots. They become themselves the tools of organisations with a political agenda, who on their turn use the religion (abuse it) to throw oil on the political fire.

You can make in this a comparison with the terror of the IRA, where the core of the problem is political and the religion only present “in name”.

Salaam. Aldebaran.

7

To Calculus of Logic,

I looked at the link you gove.

I’m sorry, but this is a website obviously set up by people who want to bring Islam in discredit. That is clear from the first words you read there.

It is not that the things they bring up don’t exist.
It is their repeated claim that such things are “Islamic” = inherent on the teachings of Islam.

I’m utterly disgusted by just reading a few lines.

This website can only put oil on the fire of the mistunderstandings and misinformations.

Salaam. A.

8

Contrast Islam to Christianity. Some Christian sects insist the bible is the literal word of God, exactly true, while others (Catholics, Methodists, etc) believe it to be an inspired work, but not inerrant.

But I get the impression that there is no sub-group of Islam that believes that the Koran is not exactly the true word of Allah. Is there no group in Islam that will say of the Koran “I think they got that passage wrong”?

9

Aldebaran,I have several questions about Islam but not enough information to ask them. In light of your previous post what sites could you recommend?

10

Qadgop,

That is a good question, but the offical answer is no in all cases, becauseMuslims believe that Al Qur’an reflects exactly what was transmitted to the prophet Muhammed, which was : the Message of God. It is what every Muslim believes.

Yet since I made Islam my studyfield and answering from that background:
Nobody can give absolute proof that everything Muhammed preached is to be found in the Uthmanian Redaction and nobody can give absolute proof that nothing was introduced which wasn’t originally preached by Muhammed and nobody can give absolute proof that when introducing the diactrical signs nothing was added or altered and so on…
In fact: there is a lot of discussion possible on many things and there actually is a lot of discussion on many things when it comes to discuss or publish on the redaction of Al Qur’an.

But what is probably true is that although slightly different readings always existed even after the redaction under Uthman, (and still exist): the contenance itself wasn’t altered since then.

So it is up to belief if you want to claim that Al Qur’an is the Word of God, as it was revealed to Muhammed.

Personally I had several discussions with the most famous Imams yet I was never called an apostate, even when I do have questions by certain passages who are in my opinion victim of errors made by copyists. And in one case I find the discrepancy with the whole contenance of the rest of the message that shocking that I tend to believe that it must be a mistake, deliberately made or not.

Read neck,

I’ll take a look at a few… I’m not a an of websites so I don’t have such in my database. If I find some who seem to be informative, I’ll post them tomorrow.
What type of information are you looking for?

Salaam.A.

11

When you start from scratch it’s hard to measure the quality of the source. I’ve been looking these two sites primarily for general knowledge.

http://www.islamworld.net/
http://www.al-islam.org/

12

I briefly looked at them.

The first one is Sunni, rahter superficial and all to much “proselytizing” structured and the second one the same, but from Shi’a point of view.

I’ll see if I can find some good informative site for you by tomorrow or so.

Now I have to go.

Salaam. A.

13

First, to the OP, may I kindly suggest with as much patience as I can muster to do some reading and research before posting silly tripe. At the very least a search on the keywords Islam along with my user name and better yet, Tamerlane will uncover a number of threads of great utility in reducing your fairly substantial ignorance. Also a thread by Muslim Guy was at one time particularly helpful.

Okya, once more. Sufism is not seperate from either Shia or Sunni Islam. Again, it sa style of worship and an approach to the religion and most Sufi tariqas [proper pl: turuq] (orders, literally paths) fall well within the Sunna. Some few Sufis orders have perhaps passed into being outside the Sunna, but that’s vanishingly rare.

If you need a rough analogy, in general popular level Sufism is relatively analagous to Charismatic Xianity in terms of popularised worship and the like. A very rough analogy indeed, but hopefully at some point I will stop reading this tripe about Shia, Sunni and Sufi.

No, no, no.

Despite loose and sloppy usage, the dominant strains of Islamic conservatism in religion is NOT Wahhabite, but rather Muslim Brotherhood connected Salafi (roughly “roots”) movements, which is quite theologically distinct from Wahhabite thinking, properly said. Saudi Wahhabis have tended to ally themselves with the Salafi movements insofar as in reality Wahhabite thinking properly speaking has proven utterly incompatible with anywhere but Saudi Arabia (or broadly the Gulf, although ‘real’ Wahhabism is Saudi through and through).

As to QtM:
No, there is no particular sect in Islam that does not hold the Quran is not the literal revealed word of God.

However, most Muslim thought has always held - in keeping with the Quran’s injunction that not all knowledge is within the Quran alone, i.e. God (Allah if you will) is not contained alone in the book - that investigation and science are necessary. There was recently a discussion on this here - hijacked in part by a twit - but as a general matter Islam is not hostile to analogical or metaphorical interpretations of the Quran, indeed Sufi style worship is often very much based on this. I might also add that it is widely held that the Quran itself is not always the clearest exposition, being highly poetic and metaphorical in its language, so as always interpretation is needed. That’s where the ‘sciences’ of the faqih came from, Drs. of Islamic law based not only on the Quran but the rather more… discussable Hadith.

In the end, the history of the Quran is so different from that of the Bible that such comparisions are not helpful and only led astray. The Quran has a ‘cleaner’ editorial history – although Aldebaran correctly refers to potential problems in re the Caliph Uthman’s assembling of “The” Quran about 1 generation after Muhammed died. The issue arose from reciters differing slightly, subtly and perhaps sometimes not so subtly on certain passages. Uthman, to prevent degredation, ordered the assembly of all versions.

I believe it is generally understood by serious scholars that whatever issues might have arisen in this context, they pale in the context of the issues in re the Bible with its issues of translations, competing texts etc.

On the other hand, an item perhaps little less understood or better recognized is the degree to which meanings of words in the Quran may have changed or better accreted post-facto meanings. Especially among the Salafi and esp. amongst the extreme among them, they like to hold the Sacred Text is unchanging - fine and good, but the langauge has moved, and shadings of meanings -e.g. what exactely is conveyed by Hijab- have come into being post-facto, after Revelation.

Tricky business this. There is a genuine question of the permissability of Ijtihad, formal (re)interpretation with the Arab Sunni Ulema being largely hostile to “re opening” the “door” - but there are those in favor, and I would hazard the opinion there is popular support for the idea.

Finally, perhaps to address the OP in a broad sense: I live and work among the ‘reform’ Muslims every day for the past decade. That they’re not all waving their banners around in English or French, etc for the West to read is not particularly their fault.

(I’m also puzzled by the bizare inclusion of Indonesia)

Oh yes, the Secular Islam site is anti-Islamic tripe as well.

14

Aldebaran,

Are you sure that you have really studied the Koran?

In one of your posts you make the preposterous claim that: -

There is no “tradition” in the teachings of Islam of “absolute subjugation of women to their husbands”

I checked out my moderately well thumbed edition of the Koran, which I purchased about the time that a nutball called the Ayatollah Khomeini assumed power in Iran, just to find out what made him and his ilk tick (It became very clear after I read that book, incidentally).

Amidst the tedious succession of barbarities that can be found in that book, the prophet Mohammed (sbuh) comes out with this deranged nonsense in the chapter “Women” (chapter 4.34):

“Men are the managers of the affairs of women…Those you fear may be rebellious–admonish; banish them to their couches and beat them.”

And another gem:

“Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields whence you please.” (chapter 2:223).

This is only a small sample from the Koran. You will find, after you have taken the trouble to study the Koran, that the Hadiths would yield an even richer supply of Mohammed’s teachings about the worthlessness of women, except as breeding machines, to produce sons only, of course.

15

Well, I had thought you had left the Boards. Note to the moderators, the comment above was based on that thinking.

Very well, I presume your “study” of the Quran is of similar quality and depth as your “study” of education in the Islamic world and the baseless assertions made on that subject.

Regardless, the subject of women has been done here before. One can find equal enlightment in the Bible and related texts.

16

Collounsbury,

Your first paragraph was thought disordered and meaningless.

Your second paragraph was infantile.

Your third paragraph was irrelevant.

On balance, about your usual pathetic standard.

Oh well, look on the bright side. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

17

More important, Alan Owes Bess, is that not only was Collounsbury’s posting accurate, his comments on Islam are generally up to snuff–something which your posting about the teachings of the Quran prove you have no interest in emulating.

Absolute subjugation of women would deny the woman the right to have her dowry returned to her in the event of a divorce. You see (or maybe not, sadly), it only takes one instance of a counterproof to disprove a false assertion.

18

GENTLEPERSONS–

Thanks for your responses.

My OP began by stating that this thread is not about slamming anyone’s religious beliefs. Aldebaran, it’s VERY difficult to find language that makes clear what one is inquiring about without giving what might be taken as a taint of bias/prejudice. Still, it is for me to apologize for that taint. I know very well that most of my points could have started with something like “It is said that…”

I thought it was clearer than it evidently was that I am talking about certain practices that, having taken place within the context of self-proclaimed Islamic states, appear to be tolerated and endorsed by the dominant religious commentators and guides therein. I am not qualified to comment one way or the other on whether such practices are contrary to the Koran (though I’m interested in the answer). I am thinking about the mandatory wearing of the chador (in Khomeini’s Iran and the Taliban’s Afghanistan) and what I understood to be a great many restrictions upon females playing a public role in society; what is said to be the teaching in the “madrasas” that “jihad” requires not only a personal rejection of Euro-Western ways but an aggressive expulsion of such “ways” from society in general; praise for suicide bombers as martyrs to Islam, not just from “the street” but from the mullahs. I’m very willing to hear that this has more to do with mid-eastern ethnic politics than with Islam: that’s part of my question.

The other part is: Where are the mullahs who openly condemn such things? Do they have anything like a significant following in those parts of the world where Muslims constitute a majority of the population?

By my use of capitalization (eg, Reform Islam), I was trying to make clear the comparison of Islam to Judaism. I understand the point that, eg, the Taliban may regard itself as a “reform” movement. But I was speaking of those reform movements that parallel Reform Judaism and might be termed “liberal.”

I concur that the link provided by Calculus (though much appreciated) is somewhat beside the point. It is not so much about a school of Reform Islam as about the rejection of religion in government.

Collounsbury, I respect the info you bring to these boards. I do not agree with the premiss that posters are obligated to extensively research an issue before posting, as if the SDMB is only a “last resort.” Provocative questions on matters you regard as settled are not always intended to introduce opportunities to slam or flame; I reject that sort of response. The fact of my ignorance allows you to teach. (Your teaching might be easier to consider if it were kept far away from flamey characterizations like “tripe.”)

Alan Owes Bess, likewise viz. “preposterous,” “tedious,” “barbarities,” etc. I don’t know that the rest of us will learn much about the OP issue from flame/counterflame between you and Collounsbury.

I’m not polemicizing or advocating here. I’m asking questions.

19

Alan O.B.

Taking words, lines, and excerpts of a sura out of context is an old tactic used by those who are out on nothing else then making pointless remarks.
I’ve given up long ago to post and the whole verse, and the context and the tafsier to such people. Because the experience learns that they are not out on understanding, they are out on cultivating their own myths.

By the way: I wrote my thesis on Al Qur’an as text with focus on the Uthmanian redaction and the parallel editions. So yes, I think I know what I’m talking about.

I wrote in my post here that in one particular case I found something in Al Qur’an that much in shocking contradiction with the rest of the message that I’m inclined to think this was mistaken, deliberately or not.
Now let that be by accident the verse where is described how to react in case you are married and the partner is trying to undermine the relationship in ways that drives the other one crazy. We all know such situations do occur nowadays and we all should know this is of all times.

Yes, that is what that verse is about, not about “how to treat women in general” (and of course you come up with some cutted sentences, which is part of the common tactic.)
This particular passage is describing a way to try to restore peace by letting the partner alone, so that she can think things over, stretching this over a period of time in order to let things cool off. Which at the same time prevents a man from working out his anger on her (men are much more inclined to become physical in moments of rage or don’t you know that… It is in the nature of the beast).
And then comes the text which is all to eagerly translated as “and beat her”, as ultimate remedy if nothing you do helps to brings her to reason.

Now that is my problem. Because the verb daraba used there has a variety of connotations among which
“ to shoot” (and I heard once a boy in Pakistan who shot his widowed mother on the command of the village elderly, - who’s patriarchal thinking was shocked because she left her home to go to work - declare that this was a command of Al Qur’an)
“to strike”,
“hit”,
"separate”,
“part”,
“to impose”
and when adding “an”: to turn away from, leave, forsake, abandon, avoid, or shun some one/something.

To name some.

To take this verb in this particular context as if was meant “ to beat” is shocking because this is in contradiction with the whole message of Al Qur’an, turns it upside down and in addition is in contradiction with the lifelong struggle of Muhammed himself to educate the men of his and the other tribes about the rights of women.
I have a dilemma with this since I first learned the verse and had it explained this way and I feel a kind of helpless anger every time this particular verb is in this context interpreted as “to beat”. I don’t believe a word of it that this is a possible meaning. Of course there are hadieth describing that Muhammed himself had much difficulties with it and so on… Which serve in fact for the defenders of the “and beat her” connotation as proof that it was indeed part of the original message.

But the reliability of hadieth and the interpretation thereof is a tricky business to be occupied with in the first place, and that counts for all of them. And in addition one must take in mind that the hadieth weren’t transmitted orally and later written down with the intention to serve as historical source for the history of Islam, the history of Al Qur’an, the history of political events etc…. They are merely testimonies of religious people who gave testimony of and their faith and their admiration for the Prophet, from a purely religious point of view.

We use them as historical sources because they are in fact the only ones available to give an insight in matters where no other persons but the Muslims themselves kept record.
Historians approach them however with the same caution as we do with every other available source and with in addition keeping in mind that they were transmitted by people who weren’t exactly uninvolved and independent witnesses. They were only interested to bring forward examples of how the Prophet lived and was, this with the purpose to serve as an example about how to be the best Muslim possible.
It is utterly naive to take for granted that there wasn’t here and there some colourful painting of the stories, caused by the admiration for the Prophet among his followers. Yet there is among Arabists and Orientalists no doubt that the hadith bring indeed a very lively and very direct picture of the events they describe. It is the task of the researcher to develop the ability to distinct eventual exaggeration from the underlying truth.

Now you can imagine that someone not familiar with the whole matter, and especially someone who isn’t Muslim, has no idea how to approach or take these stories. Who themselves are not great help at all, since many are in contradiction with others and others give yet an other version of the same event.

Whenever someone discusses the hadieth, especially when it comes to Muslims, I always repeat that there is one golden rule one should keep in mind above all, and even before starting a research on the Isnad (= the chain of transmitters and its reliability and the whole science developed on that matter):
If a hadieth contradicts or is in opposition with what one can deduct as message, commands and guidelines in Al Qur’an, it has to be dismissed as fabricated. The same can for a certain amount be said (and certainly this counts for believing Muslims) when the hadieth is in contradiction with what is known about the personality, ideas, lifestyle, teachings and example of Muhammed.

Salaam. A

20

Scott D,

The practices in certain societies are based on the interpretation of in particular surat an-nur (24); 31.
Yet it has nothing to do with even commanding women to cover their hair, but my opinion on this although shared by many others is in opposition with even more others. One can talk endlessly about it and don’t reach consensus at all.
Further are those practices also based on hadieth who in this case have a very weak Isnad to begin with.

So my stand on this is that contrary to what many Muslims believe there is no command or obligation whatsoever for women to cover their hair or whatever variations possible, let be to be covered from top to toe with even restrictions on showing their faces.
The command is to be dressed and to behave modestly, which counts for both sexes equally.
There is also no ground for restricting women in any way. This also has its foundation in cultural, tribal, feudal traditions and practices and is in clear contradiction with the teachings of equality among genders and people.

Yet you mustn’t believe that every woman you see walk around covered is forced to do so. Not in these particular societies and not outside them.
Just look around you in the West, where in fact there are among immigrants - and lately especially among young women - many who choose to wear hijab and to cover themselves in a way that only hands and face are visible. Many manage to do that even while following the latest Western fashion styles. This expression of modesty is a combination of showing their religious convictions and holding on to their Muslim roots. Further it is a way to distinct themselves from the Western society which, how adapted one may be and even born into it, contains for several devoted Muslim always a sort of “alien” habits and codes. I don’t know if I explain this clearly enough; if not I’ll try to clarify further.

It has nothing to do with Islam, as I explained in my first answer.

The Sheikh of the Al-Azhar of Cairo, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, who is considered to be the highest authority in Sunni Islam, just declared at an international conference for Islamic scholars that extremist Islamic groups use the Islamic term Jihad and Islam for their own goals. Further he said that Islamic countries should be open for dialogue with the Western ones.
He also underlined that suicide attacks can’t be justified (nowhere… he made it clear that he also meant : in Israel).
There is a publication on this is done by the BBC… For referring to the English languaged media.

I’m not familiar enough with Judaism and certainly not with its reformist movements to comment on this.
I thus don’t know what you exactly means with the term “liberal” ( And in addition: the word has a very different meaning in Europe then in the USA and I’m not even sure what it means exactly in the US. So in completely in the dark)

That website isn’t set up by Muslims at all. There is no Muslim around far or nearby. It is a website with the goal to discredit Islam and I’m not interested at all to find out which group or organisation is behind it. It is only one of the many similar one can find.
My only comment is that everyone is entitled to have a hobby. And seen the fact that this particular website is very well structured and organized, I think many people have found there theirs.

Salaam. A.