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Western Muslims and the Future of Islam

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Tariq Ramadan offers some practical advice for Muslims living in the West. He begins his discussion by explaining Islamic principles, shariah, and the desire for social justice and the common good. He explains how the old paradigms such as Darul-Islam (the abode of Islam) are no longer workable and states the need for contemporary Muslims to return to the authentic sources (the Qur'an and Hadeeth) in order to build practical models to meet today's environment, rather than to try to patch old, broken models developed by medieval scholars. He addresses many facets of daily life such as education, politics, and economics.

Ramadan's presentation offers Muslims some useful tools in order to begin this effort, but ultimately leaves concrete solutions for individuals and community leaders, leaving the door open to take into account the circumstances unique to each situation.

This is a worth-while read for the contemporary Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Islamic philosopher Tariq Ramadan asks a fundamental question. Is it possible for a devout Muslim living here to also be a responsible and loyal American? As a member of what Ramadan calls the Other, I find it disturbing it even needs to be asked. It isn't trivial and Ramadan doesn't ask it on behalf of Muslims. He asks it of Muslims because they ask it of themselves. We have people living among us who are unsure of the answer, millions of them apparently, some of them second and third generation Americans. More than a few have concluded the answer is no. Their devotion to Islam supersedes and is incompatible with any duty to their adopted country. The question cuts to the heart of what Americans have been asking since 9/11. What on earth are these people so angry about and what in heavens name does it have to do with us? In attempting to answer Ramadan directs his comments to those Muslims living in the West for whom religion is at the center of daily life, Muslims who are struggling with a very real identity crisis. Ramadan isn't proposing an interfaith dialogue, though he thinks one is important. He is proposing an intra-faith dialogue. He wants to reopen a debate that has been closed for a thousand years.
At issue is the long held Islamic view of a world divided into two parts, dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, the abode of submission and the abode of war. This view didn't originate in the Koran or with the Prophet. It was developed later by Islamic scholars to offer a code of conduct for Muslims living in or traveling through areas not subject to Islamic rule, places where any exercise of an alien religion was usually restricted and often prohibited. Muslims in these conditions were called not to compromise their faith, to remain apart, at all costs to avoid assimilating. Sometime around the 10th century it became pretty much accepted dogma throughout Islam. It still is. It is a view that has been noted with alarm by modern Western commentators. It is at the root of the attitude among many Muslims to reject as un-Islamic all things Western. Ramadan argues that the doctrine can and should be revised in light of changed circumstance. It is no longer an appropriate view of Europe or of North America because in the modern West the Muslim is free to practice his religion.
Ramadan draws an all-important distinction between faith and culture. Islam requires Muslims to dress modestly but exactly how that applies in different societies is open to interpretation. There is also a difference between what is required by law and what is permitted. That alcohol may be legal does not force one to drink. There may be occasions when civil law presses an individual to violate his conscience, to participate say in an unjust war, but those occasions are rare and there are ways for Muslims to deal with them short of outright rejection of the offending legal system. Islam has adapted to differing cultures before. Indonesians are very different from Pakistanis and they can both be authentically Islamic.
This all seems obvious to us, the Other. That it does not seem obvious to so many Muslims is incomprehensible. Americans are accustomed to immigrants. We expect them to become naturalized, take their citizenship seriously, participate fully in our society, make it their own, even take on leadership roles. Ramadan wants his fellow Muslims to do that too, and he believes they will. He certainly believes they can, and without compromising their religion.

I believe this is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It was the first time a scholar elaborates on what it really means to be both Western and Muslim. He tackles just about every issue facing Muslims in the West - and while obvously not everyone will agree with him - he is the first one to really discuss these issues as far as I know.

It is a must read for muslims living in western countries. The book deals with the issues of BELONGING(specially immigrant muslims), EXTREMELY IMPORTANT concept of Darul Harb and Darul Islam and a thorough discussion of what is required of a muslim living/working/studying in non-muslim lands in general.

He mentions the CORE characteristics that makes muslim ummah, THE BEST NATION i.e. Telling Mankind the real purpose of life and conveying the message of the prophets. When muslims live amongst non-muslims they automatically are calling non-muslims to Islam by the way they act, they work or do any thing else whether they actually call people to Islam or not.

Tariq Ramadhan gives the western muslims confidence and encourages them to stop being isolationist and engage fully in the society around them to make the situation better for themselves as a community and also to fulfill their obligation of transmitting the message of the prophets to their fellow citizens. Even if these concepts are not new to you as a muslim, it is a must to read and reflect upon what brother Tariq says. Our reading, reflecting and then actually DOING DAWAH can make a difference of us entering HELL or entering PARADISE in the hereafter. No matter how bad the situation becomes for muslims and how bad the non-muslims treat muslims, muslims can NEVER EVER forget their obligation to save themselves and the non-muslims from Hellfire and Tariq makes an excellent case for that.

You would for sure like reading this book. I don't agree with each and everything in the book but I pray for him for writing about the core issues we face as muslims. And don't even once look at the price, reading this book is far better then eating at your favorite restaurant.

As the issues indicate the book is primarily for muslims but would help non-muslims too specially the ones interested to find out about muslims in the west in particular and Islam in general. If you are a non-muslim then I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND "What Everyone Should Know About Islam and Muslims" by Suzanne Haneef apart from reading the FINAL REVELATION to mankind, THE HOLY QURAN.

Ramadan is a serious thinker, devoted to making a difference. He takes both his faith and his Western homeland seriously, and this for him is a single commitment to God and his neighbors. His concern is the quality of life in the future world order. And his vision for the potential contributions of Western Muslims is refreshing.

Where many Muslims assume that the practices of other cultures are ungodly unless proven otherwise, Ramadan turns such logic around. Like Imam Malik, he argues that all customs (urf) or institutions which "seek the good" (istislah) are valid, and should not be rejected unless they specifically violate a moral prohibition of the Quran and Sunna. In that case the challenge to Western Muslims is like that faced by the first Muslims in mainly non-Islamic Mecca, or by the biblical Joseph in Egypt - how to inspire better human relations, and improve care for society's needs.

Ramadan sees a special responsibility falling on Muslims in the West. Working within Western institutions yet maintaining real ties to the non-Western world, these believers have a chance to serve as a voice of conscience. In a world order of profound inequality, many Western Muslims have both the hope and the opportunity to make a difference. And to grasp that opportunity they must act as full-citizens, taking responsibility for building better institutions in cooperation with non-Muslims of goodwill. As Ramadan explores the possibilities for economic, political and cultural life, the future seems ever more interesting.

-author of Correcting Jesus

The book is a somewhat heavy read to the average reader (especially to those who are not entirely familiar with Islam or Islamic history/philosophy/science). However, Ramadan does give a detailed depiction of the Islamic Ethos in Part I of the book, which is accompanied with some diagrams to aid the reader. Coming from a Muslims background, I would highly recommend this book to Muslims and those studying Islam. However, those who may be just learning the basics of Islam may find this text a bit complicated to digest...I would recommend starting with Reza Aslan's "No God but God" for a detailed historical overview of Islamic history as the history is filled with complexities and numerous viewpoints/debates.

Overall, this is a great book to add to your library. I will be reading Ramadan's "Radical Reform" book next.

Cheers,

So what is the future of the "Muslim personality" in the West? TR sets out to describe this. First we have to go back to the universals that are central to Islam everywhere. What does submission to God mean? TR argues there is no point in having a theology, as in Christianity, since there is no need for this. But then he initiates precisely that sort of approach primarily giving a vocabulary list of names or titles with their English equivalents. This reminds me of the old Alan Watts books on Eastern philosophies that seemed to spend most of the time describing the vocabulary as if grasping the vocabulary in the original language was achieving the an understanding of the point of the philosophy. With TR the difference is we have Arabic words as though learning that vocabulary enables an understanding of Islam. While it should be immediately obvious that learning Arabic would be the best way to understand the Qur'an, and the philosopher W. van O. Quine long ago convinces us that translation is a lie, learning about Islam for English speakers should be in English. What is needed is a theology. Here the suspicion I have is that "theology" is a rational analysis of how such words fit coherently together in a narrative. The vocabulary none the less fits well with theological concepts and it would be nice to see how this vocabulary would work out in practice. TR describes such with the section on "Six Tendencies" but describes all of these as essentially unable to conceive of followers living in Western Society. "Their reading of the Texts and the priority they give to the protection of strict traditional practice makes them uninterested in and even rejecting of any connection with the Western social milieu, in which they simply cannot conceive that they have any way of participating." P. 25 I suggest the reason for this comes from a confusion of religion and culture. But TR's description of the Liberal Reformist tendency seems on the surface to be one that would easily fit "Western society" (though by that I certainly would not mean a community described by Robert Putnam in his book "American Grace" that would be in the rural south of the US). Up to this point it certainly seems like TR's Islam is essentially no different than other major religions for those who study it sufficiently. The next section, however, discusses the Al Sharia - or "The Way" not to be confused with the Dao. A description of Sharia makes it obvious that what this is about is living a life that is commensurate with the desert nomadic life of a Bedouin community. How could this be transferred to a place like London or Paris? Why would anyone think that living in a modern Western city would be a proper locale for typical nomadic desert life? It is no wonder that the lower house of parliament in France passed a bill that would outlaw the full veil in public. It is not just not French, it is not Western except for Halloween! The argument that the Qur'an should override all legal instruments (p. 42) is to put things like the US Constitution directly in opposition to it. How would one then be a follower of "The Way" - i.e., how to live like a desert nomad - not a part of Islam! - but enforce those conditions on a place where they are physically inappropriate? That reminds me of the missionaries to Hawaii enforcing wool underwear and suits in October until they all got sick. (They are on display in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.) As TR continues to describe how a Muslim can live in the West where the social contracts were developed in the absence of Muslims he continues to confuse submission to God with the traditions of people living in the Middle East as if to be one required the other. This is obviously a cultural mistake (not the political confusion he describes later) and perhaps the one that causes the most problems both for Muslims living in advanced cultures and those living in primitive societies that are becoming more advanced. To submit to the will of God does not require a person to live life as a social primitive. This becomes all the more obvious when TR writes about preserving religion and culture (p. 104). (For a great discussion of why these two things are easily confused because of their interrelationships see Joseph Ratzinger's (Pope Benedict XVI) "Truth and Tolerance".) This explains why much of the obvious difficulty TR describes Muslims having is confusing the way primitive societies treat women as second class citizens (or worse) as though that is part of the religion. This also explains the dilemma of ethnic segregation TR discusses (p. 106) since even he as a philosophy professor seems to confuse these things here. While the context of the quote by "an American intellectual" is not given, the quotation is "I do not only want my difference to be respected by you. I want it to bother you." This would certainly make the most sense in terms of the need for self reflection on the part of someone that practices primitive traditions so that they see the reason why those cultural habits are poor by comparison to more enlightened and Godly cultural habits as practiced in advanced societies where God's will has enabled social dialogue to improve them. This confusion continues into the section on spirituality as well since TR conflates being Arabic with being a Muslim. Why should a person need to study Arabic in order to submit to the will of God? (The more obvious the answer seems the more clearly culture and religion are confused.) Compare: clearly God speaks Samoan! There might be less confusion if we said God speaks the language of mathematics. One may have hope. In TR's treatment of Islamic Feminism he says "we read the Qur'an with new eyes". (p. 141) This is clearly a sign that advanced societies can have an impact. Even better is the critique of petromonarchies. (p. 175) Books that serve as an interesting contrast to this are: Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Infidel" which suggests that the only way to go West is to escape from the cultural traditions associated with Islam. But might those be a confusion with the nature of Islam and cultural traditions that really have nothing to do with the religion? And Nadine Gordimer's "The Pickup" which as a fiction suggest this is a good counter to the idea that Islam necessarily means a harsh life for women.

Thanks again to Mr. Ramadan for keeping the door and the dialoge open on a very pressing and important issue for many of us "Western" Muslims. As a new Muslim woman from Latin America living in the USA I find each day many of the issues presented by Mr Ramadan, thanks to his inside, I am able to better undertand my role in this society while living and embracing the "true" Islamic identity and tradition. Thanks also for the great lessons learned with "In the Footsteps of the Prophet". Thanks for the loving and unsugared portrait of the Prophet you presented in this excellent book , it did touch my heart.

This book is divided into two parts:

It is in Part A, entitled "A Universe of Reference" that the book really shines. Ramadan uses Islamic sources, the Quran, authentic hadiths, as well as tools of Islamic jurisprudence such as Maslaha (the common good) and ijtihad (independent reasoning) to set aside meaningless historical concepts such as "Dar al Harb" [abode of war] and "Dar al Islam" [abode of Islam] and come up with the simple, rather obvious, but revolutionary concept: Western countries are "Dar al-Shahada" or, area of testimony. Basically, the task of Muslims in the West is to express the Shahada, the creed that "There is no God but God, and Muhammad (s) is His Messenger" not only in word, but in deed (no easy task, as Ramadan makes clear.) Such an attitude requires becoming intimately involved in Western society, understanding the Western mindset, and actively participating in civic engagement. We can not sit around and depend on fatwas being given from the Islamic world by some scholar who has never lived in the West, and therefore has no idea of Western concepts and thinking. To truly bear witness to the One God in one's society, one has to be BOTH fully a Westerner AND a Muslim- not choose between one or another. I give this part of the book 5 stars.

In the second part of the book, part B, "The Meaning of Engagement," Ramadan tries to lay out how Muslims should engage themselves in the West, keeping in mind their primary task of bearing witness to the One God by acts and deeds. He explores Muslim engagement in topics such as "Spirituality and Emotions", Islamic Education, "Social Commitment and Political Participation", "Economic Resistance", and "Interreligious Dialogue." Defining the proper Islamic engagement in each of these areas, much less all of them, is a huge undertaking, and as Ramadan repeatedly stresses, can only be done properly by taking into account one's context. Thus, appropriate Islamic Education, or political participation, or interreligious dialog will wary from America to Europe, and from region to region, and from town to town. However, because of these limitations, Ramadan is limited to offering interesting insights, but not much in the way of solutions or guidelines. For example, I wholeheartedly agree with the need for Muslims to resist and offer REAL alternatives to the murderous and unjust economic order, and the need for Muslims to be educated BOTH in Islam and in Western civic engagement (including lessons in Western history, philosophy, etc). Ramadan rightly claims that many solutions that have so far been promoted (Islamic banking, Islamic schools, etc) are superficial solutions, which may help Muslims feel that they have followed 'the letter of Islamic law' but do nothing to actually improve our societies. However, Ramadam himself is not able to offer much in the way of solutions or guidelines as to how to achieve aims such as a just economic order, or proper education. Ultimately, this section feels incomplete, with the reader wanting more. I give this part of the book 3 stars.

As a former Muslim, I see that Westernizing Islam is like putting a "patch" ruq3ah on a worn down outfit in the hope that it would be usable once again. Westernized Islam sounds good in theory, but theory is one thing and practical application is another. How can we overlook the spirit of Islam that is embedded in the text of the Quran that is perceived as non-negotiable by humans if Allah and His Messenger has prescribed a statute of some kind?! A Muslim can't easily chop out the ninth chapter of the Quran in order to Westernize Islam and thus come up with a dandy version of Islam. That is wishful thinking. That is why I abandoned Islam.