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Islamic Modernism: Its Scope, Method and Alternatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Fazlur Rahman
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The classical Muslim modernists of the nineteenth century envisaged Islamic Reform as a comprehensive venture: it took in its purview law, society, politics and intellectual, moral and spiritual issues. It dealt with questions of the law of evidence, the status of women, modern education, constitutional reforms, the right of a Muslim to think for himself, God and the nature of the universe and man and man's freedom. A tremendous intellectual fervour and ferment were generated. The liberals and the conservatives battled; the intellectual innovators were opposed and supported, penalized and honored, exiled and enthusiastically followed. Although the modernist movement dealt with all the facets of life, nevertheless, in my view, what gave it point and significance was its basically intellectual élan and the specifically intellectual and spiritual issues with which it dealt. This awakening struck a new and powerful chord in the Muslim mind because intellectual issues had remained for centuries under a state of selfimposed dormancy and stagnation at the instance of conservative orthodoxy. The nineteenth century was also the great age of the battle of ideas in the West, ideas and battles whose strong injections into Muslim society found a ready response. The character of this movement was then primarily intellectual and spiritual.

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Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1970 , pp. 317 - 333
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

page 318 note 1 It is now admitted by many educated Muslims that this development was made possible because direct or effective rule had passed to alien Western powers. Muslim governments, whether new ‘democratic authoritarians’ or old despotic ones, feel that somehow they can ill–afford to create ‘frictions’ as a result of free discussion and debate. Many Pakistanis think that since their state is ‘ideological’, it can as little brook friction by free debate as, say, a Communist state. If this were true, all Muslim states would be, in fact, ideological even if not so constitutionally. Whereas, however, in the case of a Communist state, the people in charge of affairs have certain definite objectives and also methods of realizing those objectives, which they push through by the force of the state–machinery, this is obviously not the case with Muslim governments. In the case of the latter, it is their weakness vis–à–vis the conservative forces and, indeed, lack of an effective ideology, that compels them to avoid friction by free debate of socio–moral issues.

page 319 note 1 See Gunnar, Myrdal, Asian Drama (New York, 1968), vol. 3, pp. 1871 ff.Google Scholar

page 320 note 1 Politics in Pakistan and to some extent in other countries, notably in Indonesia (and, of course, pre–Kemalist Turkey) are exceptions to this. In these countries, strong political conservative and revivalist organizations have been very active. One cannot help commenting, however, that the Islamic constitutional stand of these groups has been concerned with form rather than substance.

page 320 note 2 It should be remembered that bureaucracies in all these countries are, by and large, secular and hence out of touch with the ethos of the masses. Since, however, they are drawn from the old middle class strata of society which are emotionally intensely Islamic, the bureaucrats act as an inhibitive force against reform because they do not want to appear to offend mass sentiments; see the last paragraph of this section.

page 321 note 1 Myrdal, , op. cit. vol. 2, p. 894—indeed, the whole of this and the following sections et passim his references to the ‘soft state’.Google Scholar

page 321 note 2 In Persia the government clashed in 1964 with the Mullahs over certain reforms; the Mullahs could not muster any large–scale mass support. This shows that in a determined reformist bid where the government's genuine stand can be made to be understood by the people, religious conservatism can be successfully isolated from the masses. Generally, however, the governments labor under the vague apprehension that ‘masses are behind the Mullahs’ and regard this proposition as a self–evident truth.

page 322 note 1 See note 2, p. 320 above.

page 323 note 1 A remarkable fact about the intellectuals is that they hardly include any scientists at all. Even more than in the West, scientists in these countries are only technologists; under the circumstances it is out of the question to expect any intellectual effort at formulating a scientific world–view. But the scientists do not even feel the need to discern the social implications or requisites of their technology. They live in an isolated world of their own—or, rather, they live as technologists in their laboratories or their field–work and as humans and perhaps even as Muslims in the society at large.

page 323 note 2 Gibb, H. A. R. in his Modern Trends in Islam, chap. IV, has brought out the inner strains from which many representatives of Muslim Modernism suffer.Google Scholar

page 324 note 1 Professor Nikkie, R. Keddie in her An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Jamāl al–Din ‘al–Afghani’ (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968) has also accused Jamâl al–Din al–Afghânî of this type of duplicity and sought to draw support therefrom for her (otherwise formidably documented thesis that he was a Persian) contention that al–Afghânî was a Shî'î. It is, however, clear that one does not have to be a Shî'î to practice duplicity. Like Shâh Walîy Allâh of Delhi and others, however, al–Afghânî may well have suffered from ‘double–mindedness’ in the sense noted above and acted on the principle ‘You should talk to people according to their level of understanding’. Duplicity is not easy to imagine on the part of a person who was capable of suffering exile from one country to another for the sake of what he preached.Google Scholar

page 325 note 1 Qur'ân, , IV, 3.Google Scholar

page 327 note 1 Manfred Halpern quotes from Majid Khaddurî's From Religious to National Law that al–Sanhûri, an eminent modern Arab legist ‘wisely abstained from discussing controversial issues that might have brought him into conflict with the ‘Ulamâ’ and interrupted his work’—and that al–Sanhûri proceeded ‘Without going into a theoretical discussion on how the Sharî'a generally should be modernized, or even trying to give a rationale to scheme.’ (Halpern, M.: The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, Princeton University Press, 1963, p. 126.) While Halpern himself apparently approves the salutary character of this procedure in general, he has certain reservations.Google Scholar

page 327 note 2 New York (1964), p. 126.

page 329 note 1 Qur'ân, , II, 282.Google Scholar

page 330 note 1 See my article: ‘The Concept of Hadd in Islamic Law’, in Islamic Studies, Journal of the Central Institute of Islamic Research, Karachi (now Islamabad), vol. 4, no. 3 (09, 1965), p. 247 n. 10.Google Scholar

page 332 note 1 Halpern, , op. cit. p. 126.Google Scholar