Traditionalism and reformism polemic in Malay–Muslim religious literature

At the end of the twentieth century, the Muslim academic world has been faced with a polemic between traditionalism and reformism, to the extent that it has come to preoccupy most present-day scholars. Most modern studies on contemporary Islamic law have mainly concentrated on Muslim countries in the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent, but this study will look at Malaysia, which is a relatively new field of Islamic legal inquiry. The article will concentrate on historical events in Malaysia from 1900 until the 1940s and, on the basis of what these events revealed, will highlight the legal polemic initiated by Malayan Islamic reformism and traditionalism. The discussion will focus on three issues: first, the capacity of human reason to understanding Islamic teaching; second, the concepts of ijtihād and taqlīd; and third, attitudes towards classical Muslim fiqh.     

Al‐Dhimma: The non‐believers’ identity in Islam

The question as to the status of non‐Muslim minorities in Muslim states under an Islamic aegis has assumed importance once again in our times. The article argues that since dhimma status is secondary to the status of non‐believers, it is necessary that the theoretical basis of this latter relationship should be explored further. The article also points to the need of a fresh analytical understanding of the qur'anic term ‘the people of the Book’ and the possibilities of its wider application. The article reverts to the basic qur'anic distinction between din or faith and shir^ca and minhaj or code of conduct and way of life. The accommodative possibilities inherent in the distinction are briefly referred to.     

The image of Muhammad in The Message,the first and only feature film about the Prophet of Islam

In 1976 The Message, the first feature film about Muhammad, had its premiere. It was a very special film because as a result of the restrictions imposed by some prominent Muslim legal scholars, the Prophet was not depicted, nor his wives nor his cousin ^cAlī. After an analytical impression of the contents of the film, the article discusses the relationship between the image of Muhammad in The Message and the pictures of the Prophet delineated by Muslim tradition and modern biographies of him. It then considers some new declarations made by Muslim religious authorities in 2002 and 2004 about films dealing with the life of the Prophet. Finally attention is given to the consequences of the rules announced by Muslim religious scholars concerning the image of the Prophet and to the acceptance of such an image by non-Muslims.     

Understanding Islam in Ireland

The article describes the growth of the Muslim presence in Ireland, covering its origins and the rapid development of Islamic institutions and communities, both Sunni and Shi^ci, over the past fifteen years. It traces the stages in the development of schools and mosques, the involvement of the Muslim community in Irish public life and recent initiatives in interfaith dialogue, and proceeds to an assessment of the present situation in what has become the world's most globalized country. The history of Muslim communities in Northern Ireland is also briefly described.     

Major themes in the Arabic political literature of Islamic revivalism, 1970–1985: The Islamic system of government (al‐nizam al‐islami), shūra democracy and the implementation of the Sharica as opposed to secularism (cilmaniyya)

The analysis of the political literature of Islamic revivalism belongs to the pertinent issues of Muslim‐Christian dialogue. This article is an inquiry into the major themes of this literature published in Arabic. The historical context of the writings of political Islam is the failure of the secular nation‐state in the world of Islam to cope with the processes of modernization and development. The political Islamic response to this failure is the revival of the dream of reconstructing the Islamic state along the model of Medina on the eve of the rise of Islam. The analysis of the intellectual reconstruction of the early Islamic state as an expression of divine order, which ought to replace the secular state, reveals that this construction is imbued with projections of modern times into the Islamic past. Thus the alleged Islamic government of nizam islami/Islamic system as a modern issue is an outgrowth of political Islam. In this sense, the notion that Islam is a din wa‐dawla/ divine order of the state cannot be found in classical Islamic sources. Part one of this two‐part article comes to the conclusion that political Islam is a burden for modern Islam and an obstacle to the accommodation of the needs of the Muslim people to the modern age; it is not a promising future prospect in the present situation of crisis.     

Negotiating faith and identity in Muslim–Christian marriages in Britain

Marriage between Muslim men and Christian or Jewish women has been a recognized though controversial phenomenon through Islamic history. Qur'anic permission is given (Q 5:5) but the normative condition in Shari^ca is that Islam should predominate over another faith, particularly in the identification of children.

In Britain and other Western countries the prevailing cultural and legal context of autonomy in relationship formation and choice of marriage partner means that Muslim–Christian marriages may happen without conformity to religious rules or familial preference, for example in the case of Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men. Nevertheless, amongst those surveyed, Muslim identification remained strong even where marriages were deemed transgressive.

Amongst Christian partners, faith identification (of parents and children) was more likely to be treated as autonomous and personally negotiable in the context of marriage.

The experience of hybridity and liminality in these marriages may influence attitudes to faith itself and there was evidence of both ‘universalizing’ and ‘particularist’ faith responses amongst couples.     

Managing Muslim–Christian Conflicts in Northern Nigeria: A Case Study of Kaduna State

This article sets out to identify the causes of Christian–Muslim conflicts in Northern Nigeria and suggest strategies for peaceful co-existence among the adherents of the two religions. It is based on in-depth interviews with the community and religious leaders and a survey of media coverage of the crises. The article examines the sudden upsurge of violent conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Northern Nigeria in general and Kaduna State in particular. Analysts posit that these conflicts arise from clashes of values and claims to scarce resources, power and status. The article examines how non-Muslims view the emirate system of administration with its Islamic origin, the Shari^ca system of law operating in the Northern States, and the effects of these on Christian–Muslim relations.     

Piety among Tablīghī women

Islamic piety in Muslim women has been on the rise in the last three decades around the world. Much of it involves formerly nominal Muslim women becoming observant of Islamic rules, rituals and practices and taking their faith seriously. For these women, it is a journey of spiritual elevation. It is a new endeavour of Islamic awakening and self discovery. All this is occurring in an era characterized by a modernity which claims, among other things, that religion is the basis for women’s oppression in society. Thus, western and western-educated scholars and feminist theorists have argued for the “unveiling” of Muslim women as part of the process of weakening the hold of Islam and allowing women to become free thinking, liberal and independent. This article is an attempt to explore the continuous growth of Islamic piety in Muslim women around the world. Using the Tablīgh Jamā‘at in Australia as a case study, the article seeks to understand the role of Islamic piety in Muslim women. The article argues that Islamic piety in Muslim women is an attempt by Muslim women to find a religious response to modernity.     

The traveling idea of Islamic Protestantism: a study of Iranian Luthers

This article examines some religious ideas of three prominent Iranian intellectuals: Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, Ali Sharī ^c ati, and Hashem Aghajari. They are considered Iranian Luthers for their deep appreciation of Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth-century in Europe, and their calls for Islamic Protestantism in Iran. However, this article is not intended to compare two religious reformations in Europe and Iran, but rather to study the traveling idea of Islamic Protestantism from al-Afghānī and Sharī ^c ati, to Aghajari in different situations and periods, and in response to different challenges. Edward Said's ‘traveling theory’ is used to analyze the dynamic historical movement of Islamic Protestantism ‘from person to person, from situation to situation, and from one period to another’. The traveling idea of Islamic Protestantism from al-Afghānī, Sharī ^c ati, to Aghajari, then creates the chain of intellectual transmission from the old generation to a newer one. As with ‘traveling theory reconsidered’, however, there is also the possibility that the idea of Islamic Protestantism will be reinterpreted and reinvigorated by a newer generation.     

Rethinking citizenship rights of non‐Muslims in an Islamic state: Rashid al‐Ghannūshi's contribution to the evolving debate

Of interest to Islamists of the twentieth century has been the question of minority rights in an Islamic state and of how non‐Muslim minorities should be treated: in particular, should they enjoy equal citizenship rights and responsibilities with Muslims? Traditional Islamic law did not accord equal rights to non‐Muslim protected minorities (ahl al‐dhimma), placing Muslims above them in several key areas. Notwithstanding the law, however, early Muslim rulers exercised some pragmatic discretion according to the imperatives of their day. With the Islamic revival of the twentieth century, the traditional view has been adopted by several Muslim thinkers and leaders, though the traditional view is at odds with the concept of the nation‐state. The nation‐state is built on a secular premise, with no single religious group favoured over another. Within this context, a number of Muslim thinkers have attempted to reinterpret the traditionally held view of ‘citizenship rights’. This article will focus on the contribution of one such thinker, the Tunisian Islamist Rashid al‐Ghannūshi, who espouses somewhat ‘liberal’ views on the issue and argues for rethinking on a number of related aspects. Commencing with some background to the problem, the article explores the issue of citizenship rights as espoused by Ghannūshi, and notes the key importance of the concept of justice as their basis, in his view. Specific rights examined are: freedom of belief, including for Muslims who wish to change their religion; the holding of public office by non‐Muslims; equal treatment for Muslims and non‐Muslims in terms of fiscal duties and benefits. Throughout his arguments, Ghannūshi emphasizes justice as central to the issue, and as the basis of interpreting and developing related rules and laws. Although Ghannūshi's views are not entirely new, he goes well beyond what has been acceptable in Islamic law, and his contribution should be considered important in the efforts at rethinking Islamic law in this area.     

Pakistan Federal Shariat Court's Collective Ijtihād on Gender Equality,Women's Rights and the Right to Family Life

This article argues on the basis of recent case law that the judges of the Pakistan Federal Shariat Court (FSC) have asserted their right to ijtihād and have indeed engaged in collective ijtihād. While in some areas, such as freedom of religion, Islamic law has been interpreted rigidly in a non-human-rights-friendly fashion in Pakistan, in some other areas, the flexibility and pluralism of Islamic law has been used to improve gender equality, women's rights and the right to family life. By using its constitutional powers, with its collective ijtihād, the FSC has been tackling the traditionally illiberal interpretation and application of Muslim laws in these areas. Regardless of the methodology and process of this ijtihādic endeavor, the output shows that the FSC has been either modifying the traditional ijtihāds or coming up with totally new ijtihāds to answer contemporary questions faced by Islamic law. The findings of the article once again challenge the views of scholars such as Schacht, Coulson and Chehata, who have argued that, by the fourth/tenth century, the essentials of Islamic legal doctrine were already fully formulated and that the doctrine remained fixed.     

Between daʿwa and Dialogue: Religious Engagement in Muslim-minority Environments

ABSTRACT

Muslim engagement in interfaith and intercultural dialogue began in earnest after the turn of the twenty-first century in response to the rise of global jihad. Both dialogue and jihad are outgrowths of da?wa, the call or mission of Islam, the principal mode of modern Islamic activism. The foundations were laid in the later part of the twentieth century by Muslim intellectual-activists living in non-Muslim environments, who played a special role in conceptualizing the new notion of dialogue and its relation to da?wa. This essay focuses on four pioneering figures, two from the indigenous context of India – the modernist Asghar Ali Engineer and the reformist ?ālim Wahiduddin Khan, and two from the diaspora milieu of the West – the Palestinian-American academic activist Ismail Raji al-Faruqi and the European Muslim spokesman Tariq Ramadan. Each represents a distinct religious orientation that also reflects a different phase in the evolution of modern Islamic discourse. Taken together, these intellectual-activists chart the trajectory of modern Islam from the early pre-Islamist liberal hopes to the present post- and neo-Islamist efforts to navigate between Western-dominated globalization and Islamist jihadism.     

Premise Acceptability and Message Effectiveness

Previous research shows inconsistent evidence in regard to gender differences in optimism for experiencing a happy marriage or avoiding divorce depending on whether optimism is measured as comparative optimism (thinking you are better off than your peers) or as personal optimism (estimating your own chances). Results from four samples of unmarried college students (N = 814) indicated that men exhibited greater comparative optimism than women for having a happy marriage but not for getting divorced. For having a happy marriage and avoiding divorce, men exhibited greater personal optimism relative to women. Experience (with parental divorce) moderated the gender difference in personal optimism and perceived control partially mediated the gender difference in comparative optimism (but only for having a happy marriage) and in personal optimism (for both having a happy marriage and avoiding divorce). Results are discussed as they relate to the existing literatures on risk perception and gender differences in romantic relationships.     

Towards an interreligious understanding of Hikma

In contemporary Islamic thought the dichotomy betweenrevelation andreason has emerged as a crucial issue, reinforced by cultural conflicts between East and West. Thus S. H. Nasr puts divinely inspired knowledge —sapientia orhikma — at the heart of Muslim culture, claiming God‐less rationality,scientia, to be characteristic of the Occident. This analogy is used as an established fact in some writings of apologetic nature. At the same time, the traditional concept of ‘wisdom’,hikma, is brought up to date in order to serve a new purpose in a world of increasingly specialized sciences. Whereas many Muslim writers recognize the need for an informed approach to ‘all branches of knowledge’, most of them insist on retaining a link between science and ethical values.Hikma is now launched as the authentic Islamic answer to ‘the confusion created by profane philosophies’. As the Islamic way of making science,hikma is seen as holistic and God‐centred in contrast to the Western type of science. Not all Muslim intellectuals, however, are satisfied with one single concept for the entirety of Islamic thought. Hasan Hanafi highlightshikma and Shari ^c a as ‘twin sisters, nursed at the same bosom'; Nasr proposes a hierarchy of knowledge with ‘Divine wisdom’ at the top. Related ideas can be found among some Christian theologians of religion, who have suggested that people of living faiths try to rediscover their shared heritage in ‘the universal economy ofhokhmah’, which may come to serve as a useful interreligious concept.     

Autonomy and equal right to divorce with specific reference to Shici fiqh and the Iranian legal system

In this article I argue for the equal right of both spouses to divorce, since moral autonomy as embodied in the right to self-determination calls for this. The powerful moral demand of the contemporary human rights discourse has left no choice for Western countries but to allow divorce to be granted when the parties consent. The same factor has pushed many Muslims, including Iranians, to reform their system in favour of women. The problem for Shi^cites, unlike Christians, was not the denial of the right to divorce to both parties, but rather the unilateral privilege of the husband. Their reform was thus to direct the system toward an egalitarian position rather than to establish permissibility. Yet, the compelling factor for both was the same, that is, the appeal to individual autonomy and the right to self-determination. We will see that moral reinterpretation of the Islamic sources can offer an egalitarian right to divorce without diluting fundamental qur'anic teachings. An essential prerequisite for such an achievement is a methodological shift from literalistic interpretation of the qur'anic teachings and authentic sunna to the moral spirit of the textual sources.     

Voices from the margins: Islam,queer identity,and female agency in Rayda Jacobs’s Confessions of a Gambler

This article foregrounds the intersection between queer Islamic masculinity and Islamic female identity in Rayda Jacobs’s Confessions of a Gambler, and shows how these two identity categories are subjugated in light of dominant expressions of Islamic masculinity. The novel’s action takes place within a traditional Cape Muslim community and employs, among other literary strategies, the main protagonist’s vice of gambling and her son’s sexuality as tools to illuminate the interstitial and perilous social space occupied by women and gay men in South African Muslim society. The research dissects the poignant picture that Jacobs paints of marginal identities as they exist at the intersection of religion, gender identity and sexual identity, and ultimately exhibits that homophobia and gender inequalities are not necessarily intrinsic to Islam. The article adopts a cultural studies style literary analysis. In light of this theoretical approach, this article evaluates Jacobs’s novel in a manner that goes beyond its literariness and shows how it also acts as a form of social commentary. This article also shows how the novel problematises hegemonic representations of gender and sexuality within Islam by giving voice to women and gay men: identity categories which remain largely voiceless in the dominant representations of Islam.     

Women and the Tablighi Jamacat

Little has been written on theTablighi Jamacat (TJ), probably the largest Islamic movement in the world today and within the existing limited corpus of writings on the TJ, almost no mention has been made of the involvement of women in it. This paper begins with a brief background of the emergence of Islamic reformist efforts in South Asia from the nineteenth century onwards that saw Muslim women as playing an important role in the ‘protection’ and ‘preservation’ of Islam in the wake of Muslim political decline in the region. The particular efforts in this regard of Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, founder of the TJ, are noted. The paper then goes on to discuss the TJ's programme for women's involvement in the work of the movement. This is followed by a discussion of notions of ideal Muslim femininity as spelled out in tracts and books written bytablighi elders. In concluding, we look at what implications the efforts of TJ activity might have for the status of Muslim women generally.     

Measuring Religiosity in a Majority Muslim Context: Gender,Religious Salience,and Religious Experience Among Kuwaiti College Students—A Research Note

The meaning of traditional and alternative measures of religiosity in a majority Muslim context is examined using the Islamic Social Attitudes Survey (ISAS). Specifically, this article reports a test of whether traditional religiosity measures are useful in a majority Muslim context. Differences between men and women are explored as well as the extent to which demographics, schools of thought, and religious socialization are significantly correlated to religious salience and religious experience. Results suggest the need to use alternative measures of Islamic religiosity and to take gender difference into account. Islamist political affiliation and religious socialization are positively associated with religious salience and experience for women, while more traditional measures such as mosque attendance and Qur’anic reading are associated with religious salience and experience for men, even after controlling for religious sect.     

Europe,the New Abyssinia: On the Role of the First Hijra in the Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt al-Muslima Discourse

Since the mid-1980s, Muslim jurists and theologians have discussed the permissibility of mass-scale Muslim permanent voluntary settlement in majority non-Muslim countries and the unique challenges Muslim minorities face in secularizing Christian societies. Their efforts constitute a new field in Islamic jurisprudence, fiqh al-aqalliyyāt al-Muslima (the religious law of Muslim minorities). A number of participants in this field have introduced analogies between present realities and the first hijra – the migration to Christian Abyssinia (Ethiopia) with the blessing of the Prophet Muhammad. The objectives of this article are twofold: (a) to point to the roles of these analogies in fiqh al-aqalliyyāt al-Muslima discourse and (b) to demonstrate how Islamic jurists and theologians interpret similar or almost similar mythical narratives to support conflicting arguments. The article draws on a qualitative reading of several dozen religious decisions, treatises and sermons by jurists and theologians collected from mosques, Islamic centres and libraries in Europe, as well as from online resources.     

Yemeni debates on the status of non‐Muslims in Islamic law

This essay examines Yemeni legal debates, in the period between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, regarding the status of and relations with non‐Muslims inside and outside the Islamic state. The legal works considered in this paper are written by Zaydi scholars, but they are informed by all other Muslim legal traditions. Studies of the Islamic law of nations and of the dhimma system have traditionally fluctuated between either wholesale condemnation or unqualified apologetic defence. And yet, as the works examined in this essay illustrate, the Islamic legal position on each of the controversial aspects of the laws of non‐Muslims is diverse, and it does not lend itself to essentialist classifications. Moreover, this diversity demonstrates the internal flexibility of the law and its inherent potential for reforming itself.