A Student's Notes and Comments on
The Place of Tolerance in Islam
Khaled Abou El Fadl
Boston: Beacon Press, 2002

Caveat

These are UNFINISHED notes taken (and comments occasionally added) by a student (albeit an aging one). I am not a scholar of this complex subject. But if you find these notes of use, feel free to browse.

Contents

• My Preliminary Commentary
• Initial Essay by El Fadl
  • El Fadl: Extremism in Islamic History
  • El Fadl: Puritanism and Modern Islam
  • El Fadl: The Theology of Intolerance
  • El Fadl: The Case for Tolerance in Islam
  • El Fadl: Final Thoughts
• Milton Viorst: Puritanism and Stagnation
• Sohail Hashmi: A Conservative Legacy
• Tariq Ali: Theological Distractions
• Abid Ullah Jan: The Limits of Tolerance
• Stanley Kurtz: Text and Context
• Amina Wadud: Beyond Interpretation
• Akeel Bilgrami: The Importance of Democracy
• Mashhood Rizvi: Intolerable Injustices
• John Esposito: Struggle in Islam
• Qamar-Ul Huda: Plural Traditions
• R. Scott Appleby: The Quandary of Leadership
• Some points from El Fadl: Reply
  • Note: a few of the Fadl Reply comments have been appended to the notes of the other essays above -- an additional few general comments from the reply are included at the end in these notes

My Preliminary Commentary

• Khaled Abou El Fadl is a Professor of Islamic Law at UCLA - he is a prominent critic of Islamic "puritanism"
• he leads off the debate by arguing that Islam is a deeply tolerant religion and than injunctions to violence against nonbelievers stem from misreadings of the Qur'an

Initial Essay by El Fadl

• says many Americans view the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as "symptomatic of a clash between Judeo-Christian civilization, with its values of individual freedom, pluralism, and secularism, and an amoral, un-Westernized, so-called 'authentic Islam'"
• but argues that we are merely projecting what we are not on the other (as we did with the Soviet Union) and that the extreme ideas of bin Laden, the Taliban, the Wahhabis, and the Jihad organization are "puritan" extremes not typical of Islam in general
• puritan Muslims consider "all lives lived outside the law . . . an offense against God that must be actively resisted and fought"

El Fadl: Extremism in Islamic History

• has had extremism in the past: the Khawarij (the secessionists) slaughtered a large number of Muslims and non-Muslims alike including the Caliph Ali - their descendants exist in Oman and Algeria today but have grown more moderate or even pacifist; similarly the Qaramites and Assassins earned unmitigated infamy in the writings of Muslim historians, theologians, and jurists but their descendants (small groups in North Africa and Iraq) have grown more moderate

El Fadl: Puritanism and Modern Islam

• but worrisome recent trend: "Traditionally, Islamic epistemology tolerated and even celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought. The guardians of the Islamic traditions were the jurists (fuqaha), whose legitimacy rested largely on their semi-independence from a decentralized political system, and their dual function of representing the interests of the state to the laity and the interests of the laity to the state. But in Muslim countries today, the state has grown extremely powerful . . . [and] "in the vast majority of Muslim countries, the state now controls the private religious endowments (awqaf) that once sustained the juristic class. Moreover, the state has co-opted the clergy, and transformed them into its salaried employees"
• hence "there is a state of virtual anarchy in modern Islam: it is not clear who speaks with authority on religious issues"
• points out that fanatic supremacist groups such as al-Qaeda or al-Jihad remain sociologically and intellectually marginal in Islam -- still, they are extreme manifestations of more prevalent intellectual and theological currents in modern Islam."
• "Fanatic groups derive their theological premises from the intolerant Puritanism of the Wahhabi and Salafi creeds"
  • "Wahhabism was founded by the 18th C evangelist Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab in the Arabian desert" - sought to rid Islam of the corruptions he believed had crept in - wanted strict literalism and was hostile to intellectualism, mysticism, and any sectarian divisions within Islam - in late 18th C the Al Sa'ud family united with the Wahhabi movement and rebelled against Ottoman rule in Arabia -- in 1818 Egyptian forces defeated the rebellion but the Wahhabi creed was resuscitated in early 20th C with the beginnings of what is now Saudi Arabia
  • but can't blame terrorist groups primariloy on Wahhabism since distinctly inward-looking -- primarily asserts power over other Muslims
• in contrast, "militant puritan groups ... are both introverted and extroverted -- they attempt to assert power against both Muslims and non-Muslims"
• "As populist movements, they are a reaction to the disempowerment most Muslims have suffered in the modern age at the hands of harshly despotic governments, and at the hands of interventionist foreign powers

El Fadl: The Theology of Intolerance

• Islamic puritans frequently cite the Qur'anic verse Q.5:51:

  (Dawood): "Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends. They are friends with one another. Whoever of you seeks their friendship shall become one of their number. Allah does not guide the wrongdoers."

• Wahhabi and militan puritanism read this and similar verses "literally and ahistorically"
• another verse is Q.3:85:

  (Dawood): "He that chooses a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him and in the world to come he will be one of the lost."

• from which they argue that the theology and rituals of Islam are the exclusive path to salvation
• finally, as to interactions with non-Muslims, the puritan cite 8:39:

  (Dawood): "Make war on them [unbelievers] until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme."

• further supremacist view said to be justified by Q.9:29:

  (Dawood): "Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were given [Jews & Christians] as believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and His apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true faith, until they pay tribute out of hand [the poll tax of jizyab] and are utterly subdued."

• so argue that while Jews and Christians may be tolerated, they cannot be befriended

El Fadl: The Case for Tolerance in Islam

• says "The puritans construct their exclusionary and intolerant theology by reading Qur'anic verses in isolation, as if the meaning of the verses were transparent . . . In fact, however, it is impossible to analyze these and other verses except in light of the overall moral thrust of the Qur'anic message." [RJA comment: this no doubt is right but it does make the Qur'an an exceedingly perplexing document for the lay person to read -- which passage is to be taken literally and which interpreted by reference to other overriding passages? -- it does not seem to me the clearest way to present something]
• "The Qur'an itself refers to general moral imperatives such as mercy, justice, kindness, or goodness. The Qur'an does not clearly define any of these categories, but presumes a certain amount of moral probity on the part of the reader."
• argues that "it is imperative to analyze the historical circumstances in which specific Qur'anic ethical norms were negotiated. Many of the institutions referenced in the Qur'an -- such as the poll tax or the formation of alliances with non-Muslims -- can be understood only if the reader is aware of the historical practices surrounding the revelation of the text."
• "The Qur'anic discourse ... can readily support an ethic of diversity and tolerance. The Qur'an not only expects, but even accepts the reality of difference and diversity within human society." -- quotes Q.49:13:

  (Dawood): "Men, We have created you from a male and a female and divided you into nations and tribes that you might get to know one another."

• elsewhere the Qur'an asserts that diversity is part of the divine intent and purpose in creation -- quotes Q.11:118:

  (Dawood): "Had your Lord pleased, He would have united all mankind."

• [RJA comment: but the rest of this and the next verse can be variously interpreted depending on the particular translation -- I could perversely interpret this material as providing a test for the true believers to sort themselves out from the infidels]
• El Fadl then argues that the Qur'an does not fully explore the implications of this sanctioning of diversity and "the existence of diversity as a primary purpose of creation ... remained underdeveloped in Islamic theology"
• "Other than a general endorsement of human diversity, the Qur'an also accepted the more specific notion of a plurality of religious beliefs and laws. Although the Qur'an clearly claims that Islam is the divine truth, and demans belief in Muhammad as the final messenger in a long line of Abrahamic prophets, it does not completely exclude the possibility that there might be other paths to salvation. The Qur'an insists on God's unfettered discretion to accept in His mercy whomever He wishes." -- quotes Q.5:49:

  (Dawood): "We have ordained a law and assigned a path for each of you. Had Allah pleased, He could have made you one nation: but it is His wish to prove you by that which He has bestowed upon you. View with each other in good works, for to Allah you shall all return and He will declare to you what you have disagreed about."

• though perhaps the Q.5:49 translation (I don't know which it is) quoted by El Fadl is better:

  (El Fadl's quote): "To each of you God has prescribed a Law and a Way. If God would have willed, He would have made you a single people. But God's purpose is to test you in what he has given each of you, so strive in the pursuit of virtue, and know that you will all return to God [in the Hereafter], and He will resolve all the matters in which you disagree."

• El Fadl says "On this and other occasions the Qur'an goes on to state that it is possible for non-Muslims to attain the blessing of salvation. -- quotes: Q.5:69 and Q.2:62 (identical verses):

  (Dawood): "Believers, Jews, Sabaeans, or Christians -- whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does what is right -- shall have nothing to fear or to regret."

• El Fadl comments: "Significantly, this passage occurs in the same chapter that instructs Muslims not to take the Jews and Christians as allies. How can these difference verses be reconciled? -- he then presents an argument referring to the historical situation in Muhammad's Medina -- "sets out an expectation of reciprocity for Muslims while calling upon Muslims to support the Prophet of Islam against his Jewish and Christian detractors, it also recognizes the moral worth and rights of the non-Muslim 'other'."
• now turns to the issue of jihad -- Western media associated it with the idea of a holy war propoagated in the name of God against unbelievers -- and hence associated with the most vulgar images of religious intolerance
• El Fadl points out that the Qur'an prohibits any form of coerced conversion to Islam (2:256: "There shall be no compulsion in religion." -- 10:99: "Had the Lord pleased, all the people of the earth would have believed in Him. Would you then force faith upon men?" -- 18:29: "This is the truth from your Lord. Let him who will, believe in it, and him who will, deny it.")
• El Fadl continues: "Of course, ... even if forced conversions to Islam are prohibited, aggressive warfare to spread Islamic power over nonbelievers might still be allowed. Does the Qur'an condone such expansionist wars?"
  • "Interestingly, Islamic tradition does not have a notion of holy war." -- jihad simply means to struggle in pursuit of a just cause and the highest form is the struggle waged to cleanse oneself from the vices of the heart
  • Holy war is not an expression used by the Qur'anic text or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology, war is never holy; it is either justified or not, and if it is justified, those killed in battle are considered martyrs."
  • but were debates on this -- "Classical Muslim jurists debated whether unbelief is a sufficient justification for warfare, with a sizeable number of classical jurists arguing that non-Muslims may not be fought unless they pose a physical threat to Muslims."
  • "The Qur'an asserts that God does not prohibit Muslims from making peace with those who do not fight Muslims, but God does prohibit Muslims from making peace with those who have expelled Muslims from their homes and continue to persecute them."
  • next he discusses the poll tax -- points out that it was common inside and outside of Arabia to levy poll taxes against alien groups -- classical Muslim jurists then argued that the poll tax is money collected by the Islamic polity from non-Muslims in return for the protection of the Muslim state. If the Muslim state was incapable of extending such protection to non-Muslims, it was not supposed to levy a poll tax." -- and quotes and example where Umar (the 2nd Caliph) returned the poll tax to an Arab Christian tribe he was incpable of protecting from Byzantine aggression

El Fadl: Final Thoughts

• "Ultimately, the Qur'an, or any text, speaks through its reader. This ability of human beings to interprettexts is both a blessing and a burden. It is a blessing because it provides us with the flexibility to adapt texts to changing circumstances. It is a burden because the reader must take responsibility for the normative values he or she brings to the text. Any text, including those that are Islamic, provides possibilities for meaning, not inevitabilities. ... Consequently, the meaning of the text is often only as moral as its reader." [RJA comment: Of course, one can't disagree -- nonetheless, one can think of many texts that are far freer of apparent, puzzling inconsistencies than the Qur'an. It is hard to believe that the surface inconsistencies are essential -- though perhaps followers of Zen koans would argue that they are]
• "It would be disingenuous to deny that the Qur'an and other Islamic sources offer possibilities of intolerant interpretation. ... But the text does not command such intolerant readings."
• historically Islamic civilization displayed a remarkable ability for tolerance (e.g., in Anadalusia) -- but "Unfortunately, however, the modern puritans are dissipating and wasting this inspiring moral tradition. They are increasingly shutting off the possibilities for a tolerant interpretation of the Islamic tradition."

Milton Viorst: Puritanism and Stagnation

• Viorst is author of In the Shadow of the Prophet: The Struggle for the Soul of Islam
• generally agrees with El Fadl and feels he makes a persuasive theological case for a tolerant interpretation of Islam
• but whereas El Fadl focuses on the extreme interpretations of terrorists, Viorst believes that conventional interpretation is not far different (though short of condoning violence) -- he argues that this conventional interpretation has "transformed a culture whose brilliance once dazzled the world into a social backwater"
• points out that Islam's rejection of humanist values in favour of otherworldliness long predated the Saudis
  • points out that the Abbasids (Shi-ites who ruled from 750 to 1517) entertained a school of Islamic scholars called Mu'tazilites, who were profoundly influenced by ancient Greece
  • the Mu'tazilites urged Muslims "to transform the austere, legalistic fiath that had reached them from the desert into a humane religion based on reason
  • but the leading jurists (the ulama) prevailed not just over the Mu'tailites but over the caliphate itself -- says "it is an irony of this history that what the Muslims called 'Greek wisdom', the Mu'tazalite heritage, passed on to the West, where it gave birth to the Renaissance. Under this influence, the West humanized its values, while in Islam, scholars imbued with 'a sense of self-sufficient confidence' ... rejected 'diversity and cross-cultural intercourse'" -- [RJA comment: I'm a little confused on the history -- the Abbasids, of course, massacred the preceding Umayyads in 750 with only Abd al-Rahman escaping to set up the golden age of Andalusia in Spain as Menocal explains in her Ornament book -- but then, I gather there was ongoing scholarly communication between Abbasid Baghdad and al-Rahman's Cordoba -- and wasn't it much later (in the 12th Century) that we saw the 'closing of the gates of ijtihad' (see Ishtiaq Ahmed's article)? -- but I feel I really need to get a better grip on the sequence of desert literalism to Ibn Rushd rationalism to Ghazzali Sufistic revelation supremacy to Wahhabi return to literalism]
• so Viorst argues that "the open tolerant Islam that Abou El Fadl finds in the Qur'an never acquired a place in the hearts of believers"
• ends by concluding that El Fadl's work will be studied with interest in the outside world (where he lives) but is likely to be vilified within the Muslim world (where "the elites of Islamic society are harsh with those who raise doubts about the foundations of their power") -- and so concludes that "the problems that Muslim society faces today, whether the focus is on terrorism or economic stagnation, are largely broughbt on by Muslims themselves"

Sohail Hashmi: A Conservative Legacy

• Hashmi is an Assoc Professor of International Relations at Holyoke College
• quotes a nice Qur'anic story of Abraham asking God for a particular explanation (which one could have said should be covered by faith) -- Hashmi concludes: "To me this verse [2:260] is one of the most powerful commandments for tolerance contained in the Qur'an, for if God can answer a prophet's troubled heart with such compassionate understanding, how much more likely is He to understand the doubts of ordinary humans? And if God understands, then how much more incumbent is it upon us human beings to do the same?"
• "The Qur'an is a deep well from which Muslims may draw plentiful supplies of tolerance, pluralism, respect for diversity -- even doubt."
• but disagrees with El Fadl that literalist readings are exclusively by puritan extremists -- "Narrow and illiberal readings of the Qur'an are not exclusively the province of fringe elements."
• "The historical record is clear that Islamic societies of the pre-modern period were generally as accommodating of diversity and religious freedom as their contemporaries in other parts of the world, and in many instances more so. The same cannot be said of modern Islamic states and societies, which lag behind international standards of equality, democracy, and human rights."
• "The Qur'an ... admonishes believers to be humble in the knowledge that no person or even any creed can claim to have the full truth. Yet repeatedly, the tradition of Qur'anic exegeisis strains to prove the opposite."
• discusses the interpretation of Q.2:62:

  (Dawood): "Believers, Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans -- whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does what is right shall be rewarded by their Lord; they have nothing to fear or to regret."

  (Yosuf Ali): "Those who believe [in the Qur'an], and those who follow the Jewish [scriptures], and the Christians and the Sabians, -- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."

• Hashmi comments that: "The verse seems clearly to be extending God's salvation to all humans who profess faith and do good deeds. Nevertheless, the majority of classical commentators found ways to limit its promise. One method was to argue for ... 'salvific stages': thus only Jews, Christians, and Sabians who had adhered to the 'pristine' faith -- which Islamic belief holds to be common to all prophets -- before the advent of Islam are promised God's favor in the afterlife. Once Muhammad brought the final revelation, only true Muslims should consider this verse as applying to them."
• "A second means of circumscribing the verse's universality ... is to argue that it has been abrogated by subsequent revelation, including Q.3:85:

  (Dawood): "He that chooses a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him and in the world to come he will be one of the lost."

  (Yosuf Ali): "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam [submission to Allah], never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost [All spiritual good]."

• Hashmi argues that "Instead of attempting to reconcile the verses by contextualizing them in time and in the full Qur'anic text, many exegetes have employed the principle of abrogation as a blunt instrument. Hundreds of verses could, in this manner, be labeled 'no longer relevant'. The fact that Q.2:62 is repeated almost verbatim in Q.5:69, a verse believed to have been revealed after Q.3:85, is conveniently forgotten."
• says that "Q.2:62's message of tolerance is indirect; Muslims have no monopoly in the life to come and thus can claim no exclusive righteousness in this life."
• then goes on to consider Q.5:48:

  (Dawood): "We have ordained a law and assigned a path for each of you. Had Allah pleased, He could have made you one nation: but it is His wish to prove you by that which He has bestowed upon you. View with each other in good works, for to Allah you shall all return and He will declare to you what you have disagreed about."

• Hashmi argues: "This verse is so arresting in its breadth, clarity, and self-confidence that it would seem to leave little room for controversy. Yet again, mainstream Qur'anic interpreters found ways to problematize the clearest verses, whose meaning is buttressed by the thrust of Qur'anic teaching, while upholding other verses of limited scope as authoritative. Thus ... [some suggest] the separate communities addressed in this verse are pre-Muhammadan communities, and that with the advent of the Muslim community, all other previously valid courses have been annulled by Islam."
• Hashmi concludes: "if modern Muslims are to build tolerant and pluralistic societies based on Qur'anic teachings, they must also be prepared to chart a new exegetical course."

Tariq Ali: Theological Distractions

• Ali is an editor at New Left Review and author of The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads, and Modernity
• Ali seems to argue that theological issues are irrelevant to understanding 9/11 and current crises but that rather one must look at political issues
• "The real question is why bin Laden and his gang turned against their former patrons. The answer has very little to do with religion, but a great deal to do with history and politics. Because the causes are political, not religious, the solution has to be political, not military or civilizational."
• "The basic fact is that radical Islam was brought into being by the needs of the Cold War. The irony is that the Wahhabi state in Saudi Arabia, the most conservative social formation in the Islamic world, became the conduit for funding and arming radical Islamists all over the world with full approval from Washington."
• "To search for a post-modern identity politics using the resources of Islam is a futile exercise. The Islamic world needs a reformation to develop ideas on every level ... This reformation will require a rigid separation of state and mosque; thoroughgoing democratization of the Islamic world including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt."
• "Above all, intellectuals in the Muslim world must assert their rights to interpret texts that are the collective property of Islamic culture as a whole. Islam's traditions of intellectual inquiry tragically atrophied after its first few centuries. There was more dissent and skepticism in Islam during the eleventh and twelfth centuries than there is today. [RJA comment: the 'closing of the gates of ijtihad'] In reality millions of skeptics, agnostics, and atheists currently live in the Islamic world. They dare not speak in public for fear of the response, but they will not keep silent forever."
• talks about popular dissent in Iran -- "In other words the story is not yet over. We need to move beyond discussing whether or not the Qur'an promotes tolerance and grapple with the urgent social and political problems that affect the Muslim world."
• "The flow of recruits to al-Qaeda will be stemmed neither by advancing a different view of Islam through Qur'anic interpretation nor by the so-called 'War on Terror'. The latter actually only aggravates widespread despair and will produce future violence. The situation demands political solutions.... It is urgent that the 'international community' address their anxieties, which are based on real problems. Theology in this regard is useless."
• [RJA comment: Of course, Ali is right that political solutions are needed and that discussing theology does not in itself cure injustices that Western imperialism has created. But, on the other hand, Al Fadl was surely not setting out to come up with political solutions (though of course these are urgently needed) but to address the question as to whether there was something inherently intolerant in Islam (as some Westerners seem to think). Finally, it seems to me to be a little despairing to refer to theology as a distraction -- as if religion were irrelevant in the modern world. Surely, religious dialogue can be a force for assisting political solutions -- see Paul Knitter's arguments about "A Correlational and Globally Responsible Model for Dialogue"]

Abid Ullah Jan: The Limits of Tolerance

• Jan is a political analyst and exec director of the Independent Centre for Strategic Studies in Peshawar, Pakistan
• Jan argues that El Fadl is off base and that the real problem is "U.S. efforts to impose its way of life on others ... and ... toachieve economic and cultural hegemony by dominating or destroying all opposition"
• Jan argues that "As far as the limits of tolerance are concerned, the frustration of Muslims around the world is not a consequence of faulty interpretations of Islam but of an inability to tolerate continued Western double standards and the treatment of Muslims as second-class citizens of the planet."
• "The supposed problem of Islamic 'intolerance' is in fact principled resistance demonstrated by the Muslims who stand up for justice even against their own self-interests."
• "Why didn't the analysts speculate about intolerance in Christianity when 300,000 Muslims were butchered in Bosnia? And why not now, as Muslims face the wrath of Russians in Chchnya? Why are the lectures on tolerance directed at Islam alone? Simply because the victim of September 11 was the United States."
• Jan quotes the argument of Q.5:69 being abrogated by Q.3:85 -- [RJA comment: this specific claim of abrogation has already been argued against by Hashmi -- see above]
• Jan continues: "The clear injunction to fight an oppressor is always going to be considered an 'intolerant interpretation' by an oppressor. And those who educate and motivate people to stand up and face oppression will always be seen by oppressors as 'puritans and supremacists'. Applications of the Qur'an to real life situations will continue to be condemned as intolerant when they make life harder for intolerant oppressors"
• refers to "the vengeful war against the Taliban -- despite the absence of any shred of evidence about their involvement in the attacks of September 11"
• Jan concludes: "sermons about tolerance should not be used to help the West treat Muslims as second-rate people forever."
• RJA overall comment: I have a lot of sympathy for Jan's position -- which is also supported by books like "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" and "9-11" both by Noam Chomsky (who argues that the United States is the most fundamentalist country in the world) and by Chalmers Johnson's "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic". No doubt the Nazi occupiers of France viewed the French underground freedom-fighters as 'terrorists'. But having said all that, it is surely a worthwhile task to analyze tolerant and intolerant strands within Islamic thinking, as El Fadl has set out to do.]
• El Fadl's reply:
  • agrees that "Internally, nearly all Muslim countries are governed by authoritarian regimes that stultify serious possibilities for free, vigorous discourse, Externally, Muslims are among the most powerless, dominated, and abused people in the world. This makes the question of tolerance particularly troublesome.... As Mashhood Rizvi and Abid Ullah Jan intimate, when it comes to Muslims, doesn't any discussion of tolerance translate into an acceptance of non-Muslim oppression and hegemony?"
  • but, he says, "the issue is not simply whether Muslims are able to resist foreigh oppression. The point is the moral integrity of the Islamic tradition itself. My outrage about the terrorism of Septermber 11 is not so much about supporting or protecting non-Muslims as such, as it is about defending the moral status and structure of the Islamic message."
  • "Jan resents the fact that I speak about tolerance in Islam in the wake of September 11 and accuses me of opportunism and support for Islam-bashing. But tolerance is not a value invented by liberal Muslims in oter to appease the West. Tolerance, known in Arabic as tasamuh, is a well-established Islamic value that has been debated at length for over a thousand years.... If we follow Jan's logic, al-Ghazali, as well as any modern Muslim scholar who rekindels the norm of tolerance in Islam, was simply being an opportunist and trying to please the West."
  • disagrees with Jan's points about abrogation -- says abrogation itself is a hotly debated topic -- and concludes with: "It is unfortunate, in my view, that some classical jurists were willing to declare all qur'anic verses that advocated tolerance, peace, or forgiveness to be abrogated by verses that prompted Muslims to fight the unbelievers. These jurists assumed a largely opportunistic logic in the construction of the qur'an. Advocacy of tolerance and peace, according to these jurists, reflected the weakness of Muslims in the earliest phases of Islam. after Muslims became strong, tolerance or peaceful co-existence were no longer needed. This position verged on the absurd when some jrists declared that a single Qur'anic verse, which advocated fighting the unbelievers, abrogated 124 verses which called for tolerance and peace."

Stanley Kurtz: Text and Context

• Kurtz is a research fellow at Standford University and has taught at Harvard and the U of Chicago
• argues that "in matters religious, the contents of sacred texts are frequently less important than the social and historical settings in which those texts are interpreted" -- then adds: "That sort of approach may be popular at liberal divinity schools and departments of religion at American universities, but I wonder how much appeal it will hold for Middle Eastern Muslims."
• says "Abou El Fadl argues that the essential lesson taught by Islamic history is that extremist groups are eventually ejected from mainstream Islam, and tamed in the process. It might be more accurate to say that Islam is characterized by the continual reappearance of such extremist groups in times of social stress (whatever their eventual fate)" -- and says this tradition drawn to a degree from the Qur'an itself
• argues that fundamentalism arises out of country peoples with their strong ties of kinship being thrust into an urban setting
• "the reformation of Islam will not be brought about by innovative textual interpretation so much as it will depend upon fundamental social change" -- [RJA comment: but this seems to me to be saying that religion is an effect not a cause -- just a minor trapping that comes along as a result of important social changes -- isn't this a sort of despairing view of the relevance of religion?]

Amina Wadud: Beyond Interpretation

• Wadud is a professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Qu'ran and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective
• ponts out that extremist interpretaions are not just destructive of non-Muslims (as in the 9/11 attack) but internally in the Muslim world as well (principally women) -- her research on Qur'anic interpretation "focuses on gender and the ways that exclusionary textual readings marginalize women's full human agency within society"
• says "what is needed ... is not simply an intellectual interpretive enterprise ... but a depply forged cooperation between intellectuals and lay Muslims -- who ... have been scrambling to reclaim the integrity of Islam from the acts committed by extremists"