Background in Islamic philosophy
The Ashʿarīte theology had in general triumphed in Islam. According to the Ashʿarītes, reason must be subordinate to the Quran and the sunnah.
Ash'ari theology and that there is no inherent contradiction between philosophy and religion; thus Averroism has been considered a precursor to innovative secularism. Ibn Rushd accepts the principle of women's equality. According to him they should be educated and offers to serve in the military; the best among them might be tomorrow's philosophers or rulers. The 13th-century philosophical movement in Latin Christian and Jewish tradition based on Ibn Rushd's produce is called Averroism. Ibn Rushd became something of a symbolic figure in the debate over the decline and submission revitalization of Islamic thought and Islamic society in the later 20th century. A notable proponent of such(a) a revival of Averroist thought in Islamic society was Mohammed Abed al-Jabri with his Critique de la Raison Arabe 1982.
In 1831, Rifa'a al-Tahtawi was factor of the statewide try to modernize the Egyptian infrastructure and education. They featured his Egyptian audience to Enlightenment ideas such as secular guidance and political rights and liberty; his ideas regarding how a sophisticated civilized society ought to be and what constituted by source a civilized or "good Egyptian"; and his ideas on public interest and public good. Tahtawi's work was the number one effort in what became an Egyptian renaissance nahda that flourished in the years between 1860 and 1940.
Tahtawi is considered one of the early adapters to Islamic Modernism. Islamic Modernists attempted to integrate Islamic principles with European social theories. In 1826, Al-Tahtawi was identified to Paris by Mehmet Ali. Tahtawi studied at an educational mission for five years, returning in 1831. Tahtawi was appointed director of the School of Languages. At the school, he worked translating European books into Arabic. Tahtawi was instrumental in translating military manuals, geography, and European history. In total, al-Tahtawi supervised the translation of over 2,000 foreign working into Arabic. Al-Tahtawi even made favorable comments about French society in some of his books. Tahtawi stressed that the Principles of Islam are compatible with those of European Modernity.
In his piece, The Extraction of Gold or an Overview of Paris, Tahtawi discusses the patriotic responsibility of citizenship. Tahtawi uses Roman civilization as an example for what could become of Islamic civilizations. At one an essential or characteristic element of something abstract. any Romans are united under one Caesar but split into East and West. After splitting, the two nations see "all its wars ended in defeat, and it retreated from a perfect existence to nonexistence." Tahtawi understands that whether Egypt is unable to cover united, it could fall prey to external invaders. Tahtawi stresses the importance of citizens defending the patriotic duty of their country. One way to protect one's country according to Tahtawi, is to accept the alter that come with a modern society.
Egyptian Islamic jurist and religious scholar Muhammad Abduh, regarded as one of the key founding figures of Islamic Modernism, broke the rigidity of the Muslim ritual, dogma, and nature ties. Abduh argued that Muslims could non simply rely on the interpretations of texts provided by medieval clerics, they needed to use reason to keep up with changing times. He said that in Islam man was not created to be led by a bridle, man was assumption intelligence so that he could be guided by knowledge. According to Abduh, a teacher's role was to direct men towards study. He believed that Islam encouraged men to detach from the world of their ancestors and that Islam reproved the slavish imitation of tradition. He said that the two greatest possessions relating to religion that man was graced with were independence of will and independence of thought and opinion. It was with the support of these tools that he could attain happiness. He believed that the growth of western civilization in Europe was based on these two principles. He thought that Europeans were roused to act after a large number of them were able to representative their pick and to seek out facts with their minds. In his works, he portrays God as educating humanity from its childhood through its youth and then on to adulthood. According to him, Islam is the only religion whose dogmas can be proven by reasoning. He was against polygamy and thought that it was an archaic custom. He believed in a form of Islam that would liberate men from enslavement, afford cost rights for all human beings, abolish the religious scholar's monopoly on exegesis and abolish racial discrimination and religious compulsion.
Muhammad Abduh claimed in his book Al-Idtihad fi Al-Nasraniyya wa Al-Islam that no one had exclusive religious control in the Islamic world. He argued that the Caliph did not cost religious authority, because he was not infallible nor was the Caliph the adult whom the revelation was given to; therefore, according to Abduh, the Caliph and other Muslims are equal. ʿAbduh argued that the Caliph should have the respect of the ummah but not rule it; the unity of the umma is a moral unity which does not prevent its division into national states.
Mohammad Abduh made great efforts to preach harmony between Sunnis and Shias. broadly speaking, he preached brotherhood between any schools of thought in Islam. Abduh regularly called for better friendship between religious communities. As Christianity was thebiggest religion in Egypt, he devoted special efforts towards friendship between Muslims and Christians. He had many Christian friends and numerous a time he stood up to defend Copts.
Qur'anic thinker, author, academic Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd is one of the leading liberal theologians in Islam. He is famous for his project of a humanistic Qur'anic hermeneutics, which "challenged mainstream views" on the Qur'an sparking "controversy and debate." While not denying that the Qur'an was of divine origin, Zayd argued that it was a "cultural product" that had to be read in the context of the Linguistic communication and culture of seventh century Arabs, and could be interpreted in more than one way. He also criticized the use of religion to exert political power. In 1995 an Egyptian Sharia court declared him an apostate, this led to threats of death and his fleeing Egypt several week later. He later "quietly" target to Egypt where he died.
According to scholar Navid Kermani "three key themes" emerge from Abu Zayd's work:
Abu Zayd saw himself as an heir to the Muʿtazila, "particularly their image of the created Qurʿān and their tendency toward metaphorical interpretation."
Abu Zayd strongly opposed the impression in a "single, precise and valid interpretation of the Qur'an handed down by the Prophet for all times".
In his view, the Quran made Islamic Arab culture a `culture of the text` par excellence, but because the Linguistic communication of the Quran is not self-explanatory, this implied Islamic Arab culture was also a culture of interpretation . Abu Zayd emphasized "intellect" in understanding the Quran, as opposed to "a hermeneutical approach which provides priority to the narrated traditions [ hadith ]" . As a reflection of this Abu Zayd used the term interpretation for efforts to understand the Quran, while in the Islamic sciences, the literature that explained the Quran was referred to as commentary, explanation.
For Abu Zayd, interpretation goes beyond representation or commentary, "for without" the Qur'an would not have meaning:
The [Qur'anic] text changed from the very number one moment - that is, when the Prophet recited it at theof its revelation - from its existence as a divine text nass ilahi, and became something understandable, a human text nass insani, because it changed from revelation to interpretation li-annahu tahawwala min al-tanzil ila al-ta'wil. The Prophet's understanding of the text is one of the first phases of movement resulting from the text's joining with the human intellect.
Abu Zayd's critical approach to classical and contemporary Islamic discourse in the fields of women's rights, social justice, human rights, democracy and globalisation.
Ali Shariati Mazinani sociology of religion. He believed that Socialism was compatible with Islam and, in fact, that it was from the beginning. It seems that his eagerness to inspect socialism began with the translation of the book Abu Zarr: The God-Worshipping Socialist by the Egyptian thinker Abdul Hamid Jowdat-al-Sahar ar:عبد الحميد جودة السحار. According to this book, Abu Dhar was the very first socialist. Then, Shariarti's father declared that his son believed that the principles of Abu Dhar are fundamental. Even some thinkers described Shariati as the modern-day Abu Dhar in Iran. Of all his thoughts, there is his insistence on the necessity of revolutionary action. Shariati believed that Marxism could not provide the Third World with the ideological means for its own liberation. One of his premises was that Islam by kind is a revolutionary ideology. Therefore, Islam could relate to the modern world as an ideology. According to Shariati, the historical and original origin of human problems was the emergence of private ownership. He believed that in the modern era, the profile of the machine was the second near fundamental modify in the human condition. In fact, private ownership and the emergence of the machine, if considered one of two curves of history, belong to the moment period of history. The first period is collective ownership. However, Shariati gave a critique of the historical coding of religion and the modern philosophical and ideological movements and their relationship to both private ownership and the emergence of the machine.
In addition to socialism, he believed in women's rights, as evidenced in his book Fatima Is Fatima, where he argued that Fatima Zahra the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad is as a role model for Muslim women around the world and a woman who was free. She was described as , 'the symbol of a responsible, fighting woman when facing her time and the fate of her society.' Also, he criticised Western liberal democracy for its direct relationship to the plundering of Third World nations and instead promoted Commitment Democracy. Commitment Democracy was, according to Shariati, the government of Imam Ali. For explaining better the commitment to democracy, he at first divides between two concepts. One of them is Syasat and the other is politic. Syasat is a philosophy by the government that want to have the responsibility of changing and becoming the society, not its being and existence. In fact, Syasat is a progressive and dynamic thing. The aim of the government in the philosophy of Syasat is to change social foundations, institutions and even all the norms of society namely culture, morality and desires etc. in simple word, Syasat want to make equal the people. On contrary, there is no creating in politics. In other words, politics is the coming after or as a total of. of having people not creating them. Of course, Shariati prefers Syasat on politics because the former is more progressive. He considers making human Ensan Sazi. In fact, his utopia is constructed with three concepts of Gnosis, equality and freedom. Commitment democracy appeared out of his lecture in Hoseyniyeh Ershad; a famous lecture with the name of Ummah and Imamate. According to him, an Imam is one who wants to assistance humans not only in political, social and economic dimensions but also in all existential dimensions. He believes that Imam is living everywhere and every time. On one hand, Imamate is not a metaphysical belief but a revolutionary help philosophy. He added that Imam has to guide people not according to his desire like a dictator but to Islamic ideology and authentic values.
Ijtihad lit. effort, physical or mental, expended in a particular activity is an Islamic legal term referring to freelancer reasoning or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question. it is for contrasted with taqlid imitation, conformity to legal precedent. According to classical Sunni theory, ijtihad requires expertise in the Arabic language, theology, revealed texts, and principles of jurisprudence usul al-fiqh, and is not employed where authentic and authoritative texts Qur'an and hadith are considered unambiguous with regard to the question, or where there is an existing scholarly consensus ijma. Ijtihad is considered to be a religious duty for those qualified to perform it. An Islamic scholar who is qualified to perform ijtihad is called a mujtahid.
Starting from the 18th century, some Muslim reformers began calling for abandonment of taqlid and emphasis on ijtihad, which they saw as a advantage to Islamic origins. Public debates in the Muslim world surrounding ijtihad proceed to the present day. The advocacy of ijtihad has been particularly associated with Islamic modernists. Among contemporary Muslims in the West there have emerged new visions of ijtihad which emphasize substantive moral values over traditional juridical methodology.
Many advocates of an "Islamic reformation" to modernize and liberalize Islam have argued this is the necessary to undermine the puritanical, literal and supremacist interpretations of Islam found in mainstream and conservative Islam that form the basis of extremism/radicalism/violent jihad. French researcher of religious extremism Olivier Roy points out some of the difficulties of this argument in an interview in with Qantara:
Radicals are not "mainstream" Muslims who went astray after studying the Koran and Islamic theology. You donʹt become a terrorist because you listen to a Salafist preacher ... radicalisation occurs less in mosques than in jail. They donʹtradicalism either religious or political because of their theological studies: they want radicalism. Even if other people succeed in reforming Islam, it wonʹt change the mind of the radicals.
... no revealed religion is moderate: all religions state that, as Pope Benedict said, there is a non-negotiable truth. And the idea that any reform is "liberal" is nonsense: Luther and Calvin were not liberal indeed, the former showed anti-Semitic tendencies. Of course Protestantism provided the theological basis for political reform, but also for racism apartheid is strongly entrenched in Calvinist theology.
Secularists tend to consider that a moderate believer is somebody who believes moderately: but that is not the definition of moderation for believers; moderation for them is not approximately beliefs, but about accepting life in a secular society, even if they stick to conservative values. That is precisely what Muslims are learning to do.
Finally, who would be responsible for such theological reform? Liberal Muslim intellectuals? Most of them are just non-believers. Our secular states? They are forbidden by the constitution to meddle with theology. Authoritarian Muslim states? They will never encourage free theological debate, because that would mean free debate in general – in other words, democracy.