May 15 2010

Can there be an Islamic Reformation?

Category: Islamharmonicminer @ 8:42 am

Muslim women find an ally for more rights: the Koran

Indonesia’s Siti Musdah Mulia is a name to remember. That’s because she is showing Muslim women how to break out of bondage by using the words of the Koran.
Dr. Mulia was raised in a traditional Indonesian Muslim home and an Islamic boarding school. She was barred from contact with men. She was not allowed to laugh out loud. If she socialized with a non-Muslim, she was made to shower afterward.

Growing up, she traveled to other Muslim countries and found ways to understand Islam other than the rigid orthodoxy of her upbringing. Having earned a PhD in Islamic political thought, she has become a significant force in Indonesia and elsewhere for Muslim women’s rights. In 2007 she received the International Women of Courage award from then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Mulia is one of several courageous Muslim feminists who are challenging conservative male interpretations of Islam. As Isobel Coleman, a leading American authority on Islamic feminism and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me: “Half of those men have never read the Koran in their own language.”

Mulia is one of several Muslim women in Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries profiled in a new book by Dr. Coleman, “Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East.”

Instead of blatantly waving the banner of democracy, certain to raise charges of being tools of Western cultural imperialism, these women are quietly working within the culture, rather than against it, citing progressive interpretations of Islam itself as justification for women’s empowerment, particularly in education and the workplace.

Coleman applauds the work of a global women’s movement, musawah (“equality” in Arabic), in researching how the laws of Islam elevated women’s rights in Arabia upon the faith’s 7th-century arrival there. Islamic laws prohibited the killing of girl babies, upheld the right of women to own property, the right to choose their own husbands and impose conditions on the marriage, and to divorce their husbands. They entitled women to an education, to dignity and respect, and the right to think for themselves.

As the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia has experienced its surge of Islamic fundamentalism, as has the neighboring Muslim country of Malaysia. But both are non-Arab countries. Both are democracies that have avoided the religious extremism of the Arab world. In many respects, Indonesia today is a showplace of how nations prosper when they advance the cause of women in education and the workplace.

Could its example cause a transformation in the Arab world, where in some countries half the female population is illiterate and denied the benefits of education? Coleman says that when she floats this thesis in the Arab Muslim countries, the answer is: “But they [Indonesians] are not really Arabs.” True enough, but they are Muslims, and a common faith must surely have some influence.

In the world of politics, Indonesia has exerted substantial influence in Southeast Asia. However, successive leaders since President Sukarno have been careful to assert its non-aligned status vis-à-vis the major powers. US diplomacy has skillfully taken account of this, offering help and aid when welcome (as was the case when a giant tsunami crashed across Indonesia’s shores in 2004) but avoiding too public an embrace.

The present government of President Yudhoyono has, however, given some cautious indications that Muslim Indonesia might be able to help ease tensions between the Muslim Arab world and Israel.

In religious development, women in Indonesia are finding common cause with Muslim women elsewhere as they recapture the original meaning of the Koranic texts. Perhaps, as Coleman suggests, this quiet revolution “has the potential to be as transformative in this century as the Christian Reformation was in the 16th century.”

There are a few, oh pitifully few Muslims and Muslim organizations who are trying to reform Islam from the inside.  One is linked here.  We need to support these people in every way that we can.  I think there are probably many who would like to work towards such reform, but are simply afraid.

It is an open question whether or not Islam has the resources to BE reformed.  What powered the Protestant Reformation (and eventually the Counter-Reformation) was a return to foundational teachings, and a stripping away of some of the accretions of tradition in favor of the roots of Christianity.

It is not clear to me that a return to the roots of Islam is really a great idea.  A reformation of Islam probably needs to reflect a different approach, some kind of willingness to interpret Islamic texts not in an originalist way, but in a “post-modern” way.

So, the paradox:  I am in favor of “originalist” interpretations of the Bible, but I hope that Muslims will discover “post-modern” interpretations of the Koran that will allow them to resist the call to violence issued by Muslim fundamentalists.

And, being a Christian, I cannot fail but to hope, profoundly, that many Muslims will find Christ, as they begin to question the roots of Islam.

One Response to “Can there be an Islamic Reformation?”

  1. Noelle Luna says:

    Ultimately Christ is their only hope for true reform. Otherwise, it will only be external. Christianity was able to reform back to the way the Bible teaches and countering the heresies that had crept into the Catholic church, including those in the church who profited on the blind faith of their congregants. The reformation was only successful because at its roots was a desire to repent from the former way of doing things that was not in line with Scripture, but with God’s help, help others learn for themselves what the Bible actually said, coining the Solas terms: Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura, Solus Cristus, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria…that’s the only reason it was successful. It was a movement based on the truth of God’s Word, and that will stand because He is more than able to make it stand.

    Unfortunately, the Islamic religion will never truly be reformed, as it is man’s attempt to pacify God according to their own desires. It is a violent religion at its core, and very oppressive to women. I think it would be misguided and futile to argue for Muslims to become more worldly about their own religion. We have to point them to Christ, the only One who has power over sin. Otherwise, we focus them on the wrong thing, instead of the main thing, who is Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of sins. Plus, we can forget about them making peace with Israel. According to the Bible, it’s always going to be war between those two groups. The only way to change that is to point them to Christ, and pray for their salvation. Besides, the Bible has a very healthy view of women. We are co-heirs with Christ, and in the union of marriage show the unity of the Trinity.

    I know I’m not imparting any new information. =) We would want to hasten the day of Christ’s return by seeing people from every tongue, tribe and nation come as true changed men and women, as those who have been freed from the bondage of sin and brought into the newness of life through Christ. We want to aid in their salvation, not in their condemnation, which they will surely face without Christ’s blood to cover their sin.

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