http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\02\16\story_16-2-2011_pg3_4
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
OMMENT: Politics of religious knowledge -Ahmad Ali Khalid
The bitter truth for the liberals to concede is that ijtihad has been
and can easily be used for conservative ends and conservative means. Thus,
there needs to be a systematic exposition of the liberals' vision of ijtihad to
counter any possible conservative assertions about it
In liberal circles of religious scholarship there is a contention that
'ijtihad' is the tool that will solve all our grapples and puzzles of
establishing a suitable religiosity for our time, which accepts human rights,
democracy, freedom and economic development.
Ijtihad is elevated from its formal place as a mere tool of legal
reasoning restricted in the classical tradition to books of law, to that of an
intellectual principle and a citadel of a rational religiosity. Ijtihad indeed
forms part of the rationalist tradition of Islam and as such is the natural
ally for reformists and liberals in the Muslim world. But ijtihad, which means
intellectual exertion and in a technical sense juridical adjudication to solve
legal problems, which have no precedent in the normative texts or in the
jurists' corpus is not naturally a tool for liberals.
Ijtihad can also be illiberal and can also be disastrous; one can argue
that the totally unprecedented phenomenon of violent extremism instigated by
demagogues and ideologues is indeed ijtihad gone tragically wrong. If ijtihad
is taken to mean that all Muslims can interpret their faith as they wish in
accordance to what they see as new socio-political circumstances and new
contexts, then we must be cautious. After all, conservatives and radicals can
forward absolutely shocking and regressive opinions as ijtihad as much as a
liberal can forward progressive and enlightened opinions as ijtihad. We need to
avoid this anarchism and try and elaborate sensible parameters.
The determination of these parameters in terms of dealing with violent
extremism will be easy as violent extremism and radicalism clearly are beyond
the pale of Islam and clash with the fundamentals of Islam. The real argument
is between the conservatives and liberals/reformists - a form of 'culture wars'.
The bitter truth for the liberals to concede is that ijtihad has been and
can easily be used for conservative ends and conservative means. Thus, there
needs to be a systematic exposition of the liberals' vision of ijtihad to
counter any possible conservative assertions about it.
The one who does ijtihad is a mujtahid. Hence the question still remains:
what ijtihad is, whose ijtihad is valid, who has the authority to carry it out,
what are the qualifications of it, how can we institutionalise it and do we
need to rethink the classical notions of ijtihad? Perhaps the most important
question is: who has the right to carry out ijtihad? We need to answer these
questions to reach a sensible consensus to distinguish between intellectual
anarchy and truly enlightened understanding of religion. How do we establish a
framework of determining whether a certain tendency of reasoning and
deliberation of the religious sources is acceptable? Or do we simply rely on
political convenience, and drag the religious discourse as the conservatives
have towards a crass utilitarianism? In short, who speaks for the legal
discourse in Islam, and how do classical notions of authority clash with the
liberals' call for a comprehensive ijtihad?
These are all pressing questions. Prominent reformist intellectual
Abdolkarim Soroush calls for an ijtihad on ijtihad itself. Many others say that
the classical notions of ijtihad that the clergy have constructed as a purely
legal notion to do with fiqh need to be abandoned. There needs to be a more
expansive ijtihad, and if this is the case then the liberals and reformists
have to quickly ground this new type of ijtihad on the normative texts of the
faith. There are many other Muslim reformists and liberals grappling with these
questions of modernity and reform. A discourse, which we can term as 'reformist
Islam', is dealing frankly with these questions of change, modernity and reform.
Though there is agreement among liberals and progressive scholars on
expanding the notion of ijtihad as a principle of intellectual change, the free
exchange of ideas and encompassing fields other than law such as philosophy,
theology and the social sciences. There can be an ijtihad in theology, Quranic
hermeneutics, religious interpretation, usual al-fiqh - in short there can be
total reconstruction of the Islamic tradition when put into critical
conversation with other traditions and phenomena.
Hence liberals conceive ijtihad almost as a tool of intellectual
liberation, freeing the believer from the shackles of retrograde traditionalism
whilst appropriating the fundamentals of the faith with parts of the tradition
that are deemed acceptable whilst putting the Islamic traditions in critical
conversation with modernity. Ijtihad has become from being a humble legal tool
to a way of thinking as a powerful idea for reform. Hence Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina,
the rationalism of the Mu'tazilites, to the powerful spirituality of Sufi poets
can all be deemed as that quest for knowledge on the path of ijtihad.
Furthermore, ijtihad is deemed as an evidence of Islam's inherent respect for
the robust workings of human reason.
However, conservatives and traditionalists regard ijtihad as something
far more mundane, a mere tool for solving unprecedented legal problems. Not
even legal problems that have been pronounced on can be reconsidered by some
traditionalists. Ijtihad is not a way of thinking; it is subsumed under a
conservative and traditionalist framework and as such is subservient and
thoroughly restricted by the parameters set up by the clergy and
traditionalists. Conservative ijtihad is trapped by limits and penalties.The
importance of ijtihad they can conceive is important. However, traditionalists
argue that liberals are merely using ijtihad as a guise for harmful innovation
(bid'ah). Hence the age-old debate in terms of distinguishing bid'ah from
ijtihad, creativity from heresy has been re-ignited. This is a delicate debate.
What is creativity and what is heresy? There has always been a fine line
between heresy and creativity in Islam and trying to determine that line now is
perhaps harder than ever.
Reconciling the issue of ijtihad is a much-needed resolution in the
current Pakistani encounter with modernity. Whilst the ulema have erected
socially constructed and restrictive parameters and contours on the question of
ijtihad to guard their sphere of religious exclusivity, the liberals and
progressives have never really come to grips with the issue of ijtihad in
relation to multiple traditions in law, ethics and political thought in Islam
and to that of modernity. When is ijtihad not valid and when is it heresy? When
is it regressive and when is it progressive? When does it adhere to the spirit
of Islam, and when does it violate it?
It is clear that the classical definition of ijtihad is too restrictive
and does not take into account advances in human knowledge in other domains.
Iqbal regarded ijtihad quite clearly as an intellectual attitude, calling it
the principle movement in the structure in Islam. Pakistan is today grappling
with extremism and needs progress on a political, economic and religious level.
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at
[email protected]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe : [email protected]
Unsubscribe : [email protected]
List owner : [email protected]
Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
