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Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook

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The title "Liberal" appeals to the Western audience who may be curious enough to buy this book. Though the multifarious writers in this collection are not often liberal in the occidental sense of the word, they are surely progressive. Many are heterodox, many are key in intellectual and social revolutions, and overall, this is a wonderfully diverse and important sampling of a variety of Muslim thinkers. This book shows well the diversity and upheavel occuring in the rethinking of Islam in these times.

If you believe Islam to be a backward, anti-progressive religion, this book will shatter your mistaken stereotype.

This is a fabulous book! It illustrates the views of millions of Muslims that are never covered in the media or even by academicians. The "Orientalist" view of Islam has been promoted with tiresome frequency in the media and in scholarship as though it represents all of Islam -- it doesn't. This book gives a modern interpretation of Islam (that has nothing to do with terrorism) in a series of a short essays by Muslims and non-Muslims. These are scholarly essays -- not just the unreasoned opinions of journalists who have been cashing in on 9/11 to spin out their own books as fast as they can -- but liberal interpretations of Islam based on original Islamic texts, by renowned academicians. The interpretations of Islam in this book, though prevalent throughout the Islamic world, are usually neglected in the spotlight, eclipsed by juicier portrayals of extremists as representative of all Islam. Thanks to Kurzman, these interpretations receive attention here, and show us that Islam is a modern, equitable religion -- one advocating religious tolerance, women's rights, and democracy --and practiced peacefully by millions.

This book was a dream come true. A thought put into words. A confusion clarified. A definite must read. Dear Muslims; look a little deeper into what your duties are as a Muslim, for Islam. You might find that most of what you do is "tradition" and not "religion". This book will help you dig even deeper into the controversies that arise in your mind and other Muslims. You will discover a "brand new religion:" Islam. The way it should be.

"Liberal Islam" is a collection of writings by real or perceived Muslim reformers who argue that Islam is compatible with democracy, secularism, universal human rights and women's emancipation. With the exception of Benazir Bhutto, none of the authors in the collection are widely known in the Western world.

The book contains writings from almost all parts of the Muslim world: North Africa, West Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. There is also a contribution from Bosnia, and a text written by an African-American Muslim.

The most interesting texts are the ones dealing with women's rights, especially Muslim feminist Fatima Mernissi's attempt to deconstruct a popular anti-woman hadith (saying of the Prophet). Benazir Bhutto's arguments for a progressive interpretation of Islam are also interesting. Bhutto, of course, was the prime minister of Pakistan for two terms, becoming the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state. (Unless you count Aisha!) Another interesting contribution is Ali Bulac's analysis of the Medina Constitution.

A problem with "Liberal Islam" is that the editor's introductions to each text are very short. This makes the volume difficult to use for people unacquainted with the various authors. For instance, one wishes to learn more about the writer from Bosnia, who quotes both Plato and René Guenon, and sometimes sounds like Leo Strauss! One also wonders have much influence the respective writers really have. For instance, how important is "the reform group" in the Philippines?

But the biggest problem is the content of the texts themselves. For the most part, they are extremely unconvincing. Of course, that's not the fault of the editor! The Muslim prophet Muhammad was a political revolutionary, and he also wanted economic reforms of a broadly "socialist" character. However, he was not anti-patriarchal or abolitionist, and the state he founded wasn't secular. This inevitably creates problems for modern Muslim reformers.

The argument that Islam is compatible with democracy, indeed that democracy is somehow mandatory, is quite strong. Muhammad did indeed introduce a kind of democracy within the Muslim community after overthrowing the pagan aristocrats. However, on most other points the reformers have great difficulty arguing their case. The Medina Constitution (which guaranteed equal rights for Muslims, Jews and pagans) isn't mentioned in the Quran. Instead, the Quran decrees the forced conversion of the pagans and the dhimmi status of the Jews, presumably a later policy by Muhammad. One of the contributors attempt to prove that Hinduism is a monotheist religion, hence exempting it from the traditional Muslim prohibition against polytheism. It's difficult to take such a proposal seriously. Most forms of Hinduism are obviously polytheist, certainly by Muslim standards! It's also difficult to see how "the reform group" can argue for Christian-Muslim democracy based on the Quran? Since the Quran allows slavery and in effect sex slavery as well, and contains various patriarchal rulings, Islam as traditionally conceived cannot be equated with universal human rights either.

What one can do, is to argue that Muhammad was progressive for his time and place (7th century Arabia), and that going in his footsteps today requires extending his revolutionary program even further. Indeed, this is what the liberal Muslims are really arguing for. But if so, one wonders in what sense the Quran was a unique divine revelation? This approach is compatible with pure secular humanism, which sees the Quran as a time-bound document written by one man, without any divine guidance.

I'm not saying that modernist or secularist Islam is bad. On the contrary, I prefer it to traditionalist or fundamentalist Islam. But as a concrete ideology, I find "liberal Islam" to be singularly unconvincing.

This book was a dream come true. A thought put into words. A confusion clarified. A definite must read. Dear Muslims; look a little deeper into what your duties are as a Muslim, for Islam. You might find that most of what you do is "tradition" and not "religion". This book will help you dig even deeper into the controversies that arise in your mind and other Muslims. You will discover a "brand new religion:" Islam. The way it should be.

Liberal Islam? The editor pre-empts the skepticism in his very first sentence, noting that this "may sound like a contradiction in terms." But, he goes on knowledgeably to show, such a phenomenon does actually exist, even if it is, in his terms, a "neglected tradition" whose power peaked before 1920 and whose exponents have since then been disproportionately the victims of violence. The first selections in this anthology date from the 1920s but the great majority (20 out of 32) of selections date since 1980. Kurzman does an exemplary job of selection-the excerpts are both interesting and important-and of finding writings from across the Muslim world, not just the Middle East. Authors include both those who are the household names of Islamic thinkers (Fazlur Rahman, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha) and others who are deeply obscure (Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, Ali Bulaç).

By "liberal Islam," Kurzman means a strain of thought that takes Islam seriously and generally subscribes to the following six views: "opposition to theocracy, support for democracy, guarantees of the rights of women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, defense of freedom of thought, and belief in the potential for human progress." (The sourcebook then presents readings under these six rubrics.) The categories are certainly sensible, but some of the writers Kurzman chooses to include do give pause: Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of the Tunisian Islamists and a man excluded from the United States for his role in fomenting violence against the government of his home country? 'Ali Shari'ati, the theorist of the Islamic revolution in Iran? Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Islamist who told an audience in Kansas City in 1989, "On the hour of judgment, Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them" and whose book, The Permitted and the Prohibited in Islam, was banned in France? The editor should have both brought a greater dose of skepticism to his readings and looked beyond the formal texts to see what else his authors were doing and saying.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1999