Posted on 06/12/2008 3:18:11 PM PDT by forkinsocket
It was billed as the first-ever "Muslim Heretics Conference."
Provocative? To be sure.
But when Sudanese-American scholar Abdullahi An-Naim organized it in Atlanta this April, what he really wanted to do was ignite some innovative thinking – brainstorm the predicament of traditional Islam in the modern world.
"I deliberately wanted to shock people into seeing `heresy' as a creative force," he laughs.
Naim may describe himself as a Muslim heretic (his conservative critics certainly do), but his peers in academia prefer the rather more admiring designation of public intellectual. Either way, the Emory University law professor has become famous throughout the Muslim world for championing the concept of secular Islam. The case he makes for it is simple but, given the political tenor of the times, paradigm-changing. To wit: Human rights are universal and trump religious dictates. The state must be secular because neutrality protects all religions. Faith belongs in the private, not the public, domain.
Perhaps even more contentiously, Naim calls for sharia, the Islamic code of laws for living, to be "renegotiated" and brought into the present: Regarding sharia as "an immutable body of principles universally binding on all Muslims would have been inconceivable," he says, "to those who created it in the 8th and 9th centuries."
Even as a boy in Sudan, Naim says he contested sharia because its rules, particularly relating to women, seemed manifestly unconnected to the true nature of Islam.
The son of an illiterate mother and self-educated father, he was a law student at the University of Khartoum in 1968 when he joined a reform movement called the Republican Brothers. It was led by Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, a Sufi reformer, regarded by many as a mystic, but by Naim as a mentor.
He was profoundly affected by Taha's belief that a balance must be struck between the individual's need for absolute freedom and the state's need for total social justice.
Taha recognized the state of Israel, says Naim, and inveighed against all violence, warning years before 9/11 that it had to be checked in certain Muslim societies. He argued that sharia rules were archaic and that the Qur'an must always be understood in its historical context.
Those views guaranteed trouble when a sharia-enforcing Islamist dictatorship took control in Sudan. In 1985, Taha was hanged, his books burned. Naim fled the country.
"But you can't kill an idea by killing the author," he says.
In 1989, he became head of the Africa bureau of Human Rights Watch and made his first foray into shark-infested waters with his book, Towards an Islamic Reformation. Since 1995, he's taught law at Emory in Atlanta ( a school he praises for having gone to court in the early `60s to end racial segregation).
As director of its Religion and Human Rights Program, he has overseen a global study on how sharia family law is applied in the non-monolithic, hugely diverse Islamic world – and was heartened by some of the results. In several states where sharia law is the public law, changes and adaptations are happening, he says: A man wishing to take a second wife, for example, now requires judicial approval.
That may not seem much to the Western eye, but to him, it's a critical start. He's convinced that modern communications will accelerate progress. Reform will come.
Naim's latest book, Islam and the Secular State (Harvard University Press) is the culmination of his life's work, he says. At 61, he's spent 40 years working through the seeds planted by Taha and reaching his own considered conclusions.
"Taha's great lesson was to be yourself, not a carbon copy of him. He would approve of the book because I am standing my own ground."
What criticisms Naim makes of religious tradition are made as a devout, observant Muslim, he stresses: "When I protest the inequality of women, I do it as a Muslim, as the fulfilment of Islam."
The book argues that sharia can become a relevant code for living if it is reworked to include modern democratic principles as well as Islamic values. And secularism, despite its bad press among Muslims, should be welcomed by them. It is not a refutation of true Islam, as many assume, but the reverse: a protection.
Easier said than understood, much less implemented. A recent Gallup global poll found that 80 to 90 per cent of Muslims want democracy, but similar majorities also want sharia to be a source, or the only source, of law in their countries.
Naim knows some Muslims who immigrate to the West cling to sharia because it is "the boundary of self-identity, the gatekeeper of communal autonomy and cultural self-determination." He also knows that Ontario, in 2004, almost stumbled into allowing sharia to be used to settle Muslim family disputes, sparking a furious debate on the role of religion within multiculturalism. Premier Dalton McGuinty's ultimate decision to ban religious law courts – saying all Canadians, regardless of origin, must be bound by the same laws – was abolutely the right call, Naim says.
"People immigrate for economic reasons but once in a place like Canada, they think they're getting the best of two worlds. Some conservatives exploit the liberal space of the society."
He sees the furor as just a pothole in Canada's multicultural path. "Regression is part of progression. Societies learn from experience just like people do. Setbacks are necessary so that everyone can get onto the same page." He pauses, then adds: "Cultural sensitivity is a challenge for Muslims."
Naim is aware that Canada is not officially secular. Most nations aren't, though he rattles off a few that have declared secularism: France, Germany, Senegal. He wishes it otherwise, but "tactically, it's not always possible for governments to do that."
Then, too, the nature of politics means that gains made can become gains lost: "Algeria had a progressive family court in 1985, then there was civil war, and it receded. Look at Iran. That selfish egotist (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, playing his game."
Dispiriting? "No. I'm a pragmatic optimist. My eyes are open, I'm wise to human power and greed. If I'm not optimistic, I'm giving in to the lowest part of human nature."
Naim's book is subtitled Negotiating the Future of Sharia. But should it have a future?
Not according to Tarek Fatah, author of Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State. He disagrees with Naim's evocation of true Islam in place of out-of-date sharia: "He's not looking in the right place for political answers. People don't want to hear about secularism." But Fatah describes Naim as that rare thing, "a scholar with a sense of humour. If he wasn't constrained by being in academia, he could be another Gandhi."
I really don't. As long as you aren't satisfied to worship quietly, but insist upon proselytizing by doing everything from issuing press releases to beheading infidels, you will have a war on your hands.
A muslime "intellectual!" HAHAHA! That's a lot like a "virgin prostitute" or "deydrated water." The terms are mutually exclusive.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. Many times, this kind of person is merely a Trojan horse trying to sell a “kinder and gentler” form of Islam to the west. Once they have the trust of the individual, they pull the rug from underneath them in order to enslave them. Don’t trust this guy at all. Nope.
*shrug* I don’t even care if they proselytize. Islam has as much right to spread by truth and reason as any other belief system.
IF, IF, it is truly a Great Religion, it should be able to compete on the field of ideas.
That it needs the threat of beheading to make headway says very strongly that it is an inferior, and arguably Satanic, belief system.
I don't think I'm speaking of "rights." We're not talking about civil rights. We're talking about a culture war.
or at least, I am.
Never read the entire quote, it’s excellent; thank you.
I'm with you on your entire comment - except for the 'arguably' part (so I gave you a helping hand)...
2 Corinthians 4
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
The god of this world (satan) entraps many of our friends and brethren and turns them into 'enemies' (causing us to forget that our real battle isn't against people we disagree with - but against 'principalities and powers').
Prayers that these people are able to shed the chains of darkness...
On Islam:
Real Prophets climb mountains to be closer to God.
They don't crawl into caves to listen to the hissings of The Serpent.
And your observation on Islam is dead-on:
On Islam:
Real Prophets climb mountains to be closer to God.
They don't crawl into caves to listen to the hissings of The Serpent.
I was.
OTOH, even Satanists have some rights...
I have a different take than everyone else. I think that this guy in confining islam to the private sphere—is trying to immitate the status quo in the usa.
however, this status quo is not a stable boundary. every year the sodomite polytheists push christians further into the periphery of american life.
what this guy doesn’t know is that the secular world is not secular. its profoundly religious.only the religion is profoundly pagan. his efforts unwittingly further enables the sodomite polytheists to control the public sphere.
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