Progressive Islam remains immature: Scholar

Progressive Islam remains immature: Scholar

Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Islamic progressive movements need to drop their superficial,
segregated attitudes and instead put their energy into pluralism,
equality and democracy, according to one Muslim scholar.

Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of Islamic studies from Duke
University in the United States, said that the Islamic
progressive movements have been too simplistic in emphasizing
their campaign against extremism.

"Progressive Islam is still at a very, very early stage, and
is often very simplistic. Nouveau clerics and young scholars
sipping lattes at Starbucks, or writing op-ed pieces for the New
York Times," Moosa bemoaned during a discussion held by the
International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP) on Thursday.

While there is nothing wrong with those things per se, the
South African-born scholar said that religion should be
understood in the wider social context.

He said it was an issue of interpretation, for which Islamic
teachings need to be scrutinized so as to be contextual. Clerics
have lost contact with original Islamic values that emphasize
human values rather than ceremonial rituals.

"The big task is critical questioning. Progressive Islam is
more about methodological interrogation, with concerns about
pluralism, equality and democracy. Progressive Islam must have a
strong antenna on political oppression," said Moosa, a prolific
writer on Islam, who used to be a lecturer at prestigious
Stanford University before moving to equally prestigious Duke.

He said that modernist Islam was facing a problem with a very
superficial understanding of modernity.

"The modernists in Islam tend to refer to the European model
of rationality, that is, if they want to modernize Islam, it has
to be through a European model. Whereas that cannot work in every
country," explained Moosa.

He pointed to filmmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch Muslim woman
whose film Submission sent shockwaves throughout extremist
communities as it depicts Koranic verses written on the body of a
nude Muslim woman's body, and on the body of another woman
scarred from beatings by her husband.

The film's director, Theo van Gogh, was later brutally
murdered last year on a street in Amsterdam by a Muslim
extremist.

Moosa condemned Hirsi Ali as a mere exhibitionist without a
political mission to fight authoritarianism. "Islamo-phobia in
Europe is much more serious than the rednecks in the U.S.," he
said, using the derogatory term for farmers, which generally
means an ignorant, white person.

What Hirsi Ali did was different from the much-controversial
work of Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia
Commonwealth University, who led an Islamic prayer service for
men and women in March.

It was a breakthrough in the fight for gender equity, but
unfortunately, Moosa said, it was done without proper strategy.

"There was so much hype about the event that it caused a
negative image abroad, as if it was the American government's way
to change Islam. Whereas, Amina herself, is against the Bush
administration," Moosa explained.

He said there was still much more work to do to push for an
Islamic intellectual renaissance.

However, it would take a sweeping cultural transformation
since the social context is different in each country. In South
Africa, for instance, there are questions about wealth
distribution and the HIV/AIDS crisis.

"If you want to play the role in the Islamic society, there's
a rule in it. If you don't obey it, it won't buy you credibility.
I can't use the term of Islamic progressive to my grandmother
because she won't understand," Moosa said.

He asserted that progressive Muslims must not stray away from
traditionalists, saying that despite their different
interpretations, the traditionalists have some kind of
authenticity and continuity with old Islamic teachings.

Progressive Muslims also need to push for real interfaith
dialogs, which so far, according to Moosa, are akin to "band-aid
diplomacy" with no significant impact in creating understanding
on pluralism.

"Interfaith dialog should be a critical dialog where everybody
says what they feel about each other, but in a respectful way.
That actually can be done."