this is fun

Thinking about Renewal in Islam: Towards a History of Islamic Ideas on Modernization andSecularizationAuthor(s): Michel HoebinkSource: Arabica, T. 46, Fasc. 1 (1999), pp. 29-62Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4057249Accessed: 15/02/2009 19:54

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THINKING ABOUT RENEWAL IN ISLAM: TOWARDS A HISTORY OF ISLAMIC IDEAS ON

MODERNIZATION AND SECULARIZATION*

BY

MICHEL HOEBINK Utrecht University

ONE central theme running consistently through academic studies on classical as well as modern Islam is the question as to whether

Islam is compatible with modernization and renewal. Debates about this question have intensified with the rise of political Islam since the mid 1970s. In the last decade in particular, Western as well as Muslim academics have produced a sizeable body of literature in which they discuss whether the teachings of Islam can be reconciled with modernity or with related issues such as development, rationalism, humanism, secularization, democracy, and globalization. Such debates do not take place in an ideological void. Within the Muslim world they constitute part of a dispute about the intellectual and religious capital of Islam, whereas in the context of the relations between the formerly colonizing West and the formerly colonized Muslim world, they are part of a dispute about the intellectual capital of modernity, the so-called "orientalism- debate". Currently, the Western academic debate about Islam and modernity appears to be locked in a polarization between essentialist and reductionist approaches. Orientalists argue that the essential teachings of Islam are irreconcilable with modernization, secularization and democracy, whereas others, often from a perspective of social science, counter that Islam does not have an essence at all, that its teachings can be interpreted in countless different ways and that each interpretation is determined by its historical social and political context.

* A shortened and popularized version of this article has appeared in Dutch: H. Driessen (ed.), In het Huis van de Islam (Nijmegen, 1997), 199-217.

C Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1998 Arabica, tome XLVI

30 MICHEL HOEBINK

The present article is an attempt to develop an analytical framework for the description and explanation of Islamic thought concerning renewal, modernization and secularization. The central question underlying this attempt is how modern Islamic thought on these issues has been conditioned by classical Islamic thought and how it has been shaped by the experience of European domination since the 19th century. By placing modern and classical Islamic thought into one system- atic perspective, it will be tried to answer this question in a way that avoids both essentialism and reductionism. Rather than being a fixed and monolithic doctrine, Islamic thought on modernization and secularization is viewed here as a debate that has developed and changed throughout Islamic history and in which many different views have been taken, some favouring and others opposing renewal and modernization. On the other hand, however, contemporary Muslim attitudes towards modernization and secularization are not viewed as mere reflections of an underlying social and political reality. Such attitudes, it is contended here, can only be adequately understood if they are regarded as partly determined by the cultural vocabulary within which they have developed. Contrary to the implications of many anti- essentialists, this need not necessarily imply that such Muslim attitudes are unchanging and cannot develop, nor that Muslims are prisoners of some or other cultural essence.

Renewal, authorit_ and the Muslim moral communit_

The term "modernization" is usually understood as referring to certain social and cultural changes in Europe since the Enlightenment. In a more general theoretical sense, however, this term refers to cultural adaptation to social change-a process which occurs continuously and in all cultures.' To understand Islamic thought on such issues of cultural adaptation and renewal, it is helpful to view Islam as an effort to establish a moral community on a divinely revealed text. A moral community is a community based on an ethical ideal. The ethical ideal functions as a standard set of moral references on the basis of which individuals and different social and ethnic groups are able to commu- nicate effectively with one another and come to agreements in their conflicting interests. In the case of the Muslim community this ethical

l D. Lerner, "Modernization" in D.L. Sills (ed.), Int. Encycl. of the Social Sciences, Vol. 10 (NY, London, 1968), 386-94.

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 31

ideal is contained in a text: the text of the Koran. The Muslim moral community is founded on the assumption that the ultimate source of moral knowledge is God and that God has revealed His Will, for the last time, through the Prophet in the Koran.

However, such a moral community based on a text contains an inherent and inevitable dillemma that I will call here the dilemma of renewal and authority. In order to maintain its relevance for the community, the ethical ideal must, on the one hand, be flexible and open to continuous adaptation and interpretation in the changing and different conditions of time and place. On the other hand, however, the adaptation and interpretation of the ethical ideal carries with it the danger of monopolization by groups or individuals wishing to manipulate it to suit their own ends. Throughout the history of Islam this dilemma has inspired a fundamental debate on human moral autonomy and the legitimacy of the interpretation of the ethical ideal of the Koran. Schematically speaking, three ideal-type positions have been taken in this debate both in the classical and modern periods: modernism, fundamentalism and traditionalism.

1. Modernism, or renewalism, stands for a continuous re-interpretation of the ethical ideal. Modernists are often motivated by a desire to make the ethical ideal relevant in the changing conditions of their societies. But no less often modernism is inspired by the desire of political actors to mould the ethical ideal to justify their worldly ambitions. In their advocacy of interpretation, the modernists emphasize the "inner- worldliness" of the Koranic ethics as well as human moral autonomy and freedom. According to this view, the following of the commands and prescriptions of the Koran leads to advantage in this world in a way that humans can understand by using their own mental faculties.

2. Fundamentalism resists or even completely rejects the interpretation of the ethical ideal. The fundamentalists' opposition to interpretation is often motivated by a desire to safeguard the ethical ideal of Islam against corruption by rulers and other politicians seeking to manipulate it to legitimize their political aims. In this connection, fundamentalists tend to emphasize the transcendence of God as well as the limitations and subjectivity of human judgement. The ethical truth of the Koran is beyond human understanding; human efforts to understand it that go beyond the literal meaning of the text are necessarily inadequate and subjective and always reflect individual human worldly interests.

3. The third position, traditionalism, permits interpretation of the

32 MICHEL HOEBINK

ethical ideal, but on the condition that once this interpretation has taken place and is confirmed by the general agreement of the community, it can never be altered or rejected. Under this regime, the authoritative text of Islam continuously expands as each generation adds its own interpretations to those of earlier generations. Traditionalism can be viewed as a compromise between the extreme positions of fundamentalism and renewalism. By prohibiting re-interpretation and allow- ing interpretation only in novel cases, traditionalism tries to meet the demands for both stability and flexibility.

The above positions of must be regarded as ideal-types, theoretical reference-points that serve to determine the positions of existing movements and thinkers. Existing viewpoints are located in a continuum between these extremes and often are a blending of more than one of them. The relevant question in what follows is therefore not whether at all, but rather to what extent and relative to whom a particular movement is fundamentalist, renewalist or traditionalist.2

Renezval and author4y in classical Islam

Less than a century after the beginning of Muhammad's mission, the Arabs had conquered an enormous empire in which they encoun- tered ethical and legal problems which went far beyond the imagina- tive horizons of the society in which the Koran had been revealed. The early religious scholars who started to elaborate and interpret the ethical ideal of Islam in the concrete and specific circumstances prevailing in the various regions of the empire,3 may be considered the first renewalists of Islam. These "protagonists of reason" (ahl al-raO) drew

2 For reasons explained below (see note 16), the term "fundamentalism" has been defined in the context of Islam both as opposition to and as advocacy of renewal and interpretation. In what follows I will try to demonstrate that this term defined as opposition to interpretation is a useful category to describe the Islamic debates in question. Compare E. Geilner, Postmnodernism, Reason and Religon (London, 1992), vii, 2-6; A.S. Moussalli, "Two Tendencies in Modern Islamic Political Thought: Modernism and Fundamentalism," Hamdard Islamicus, 16, 2 (1993), 59-69; R. Peters, "Islamischer Funda- mentalismus: Glaube, Handeln, Fuhrung" in W. Schluchter (Hrsg.), Max Webers Sicht des Islams (Frankfurt, 1987), 220-4; id., "Idjtihad and Taqlid in 18th and 19th Century Islam," Die Welt des Islams, XX, 3-4 (1980), 131-3; W.E. Shepard, "Islam and Ideology: towards a Typology," IJMES, 19 (1987), 314-6; F. Steppat, "Die Politische Rolle des Islam" in F. Steppat (Hrsg.), Vortrage der XXI. Deutscher Orientahstentag (Wiesbaden, 1983), 24-5; J.O. Voll, "The Sudanese Mahdi: Frontier Fundamentalist," JJMES, 10, 2 May (1979), 145-52.

3 J. Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1964), 28ff.; NJ. Coulson, A Histogy of Islamic Law (Edinburgh, 1964), 36ff.

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 33

support from a group of rationalist theologians, the Mu'tazilites, who were inspired by the heritage of Greek philosophy. The Mu'tazilites saw themselves as the true defenders of the Islamic principle of monotheism (taw4id), which led them to argue that the Koran was created in time and had to be interpreted metaphorically. To understand it as literally applicable in all times and places amounted to idolatry (sirk), since Muslims would then be worshipping not God, but the Koran as a transcendent entity.4

Initially, the early renewalists of Islam managed to operate relatively independent from the political authorities, but soon their doctrines on the freedom of interpretation revealed their less liberal potential: as doctrines that enabled the political authorities to adapt the religious truth to their political ambitions. This paradox became particularly manifest during the period of the "Inquisition" (833-48) when the caliph al-Ma'miin declared the views of the Mu'tazilites to be state doctrine and started to persecute those who dissented. Such efforts of the rulers to monopolize legislation and interpretation met a stubborn fundamentalist opposition from a group of scholars led by Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855). In their resistance to the political manipulation of the Koran the followers of Ibn Hanbal declared themselves against any form of interpretation.5 The Hanbalites realized, however, that the Koran alone did not suffice as a legal code in the complicated society of the Islamic empire. Thus the alternative doctrine was developed that legislation should be based not on human interpretation but on a Tradition (4adt) of the Prophet, a reported action or saying of the Prophet aside from revelation. Although some of the Traditions that were collected by these early traditionalists (ahl al-hadit) may be authentic, Western historians now agree that most in fact concern interpretations of the early legists which were retrospectively ascribed to the Prophet. In this way interpretation was restricted while simultaneously the interpretations of the Prophet and of the early legists were added to the authoritative text of Islam. The protagonists of Tradition eventually prevailed and the acceptance of their doctrine by the political rulers led to the consolidation of Sunni Islam as we know it today.6

4 I. Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology & Law (Princeton, 1981), 88ff.; J.L. Esposito, Islam, the Strazght Pathi (Oxford, 1988), 71.

5 Ira M. Lapidus, "The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society," IJMES, 6 (1975), 370-83; G.F. Hourani, Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (Cambridge, 1985), 60-1; Schacht, Introduction, 56.

6 Schacht, Introduction, 34; Coulson, Histo!y, 41-3; W.M. Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology (Edinburgh, 1962), 72-81.

34 MICHEL HOEBINK

The authoritative text of Sunni Islam now consisted of the Koran and the Sunna, the sum of the Prophetic Traditions. On the basis of this expanded text a new controversy soon sparked between advocates and opponents of interpretation. Two of the five legal schools that developed within Sunni Islam-the Hanbalites and the Zahirites-took a fundamentalist position. Such fundamentalists thought in a strict opposition between authentic practice (sunna) and innovation (bid'a). Claiming that all ethical knowledge was literally available in the text of Koran and Sunna, any form of human reasoning or interpretation in legislation was rejected as innovation.'

The main source of intellectual inspiration for the renewalist tendencies that developed in the following centuries was the thought of the philosophers and mystics of Islam. The protagonists of these schools took the view that the real "inner" (b&tin) meaning of revelation was often concealed behind its literal (zdhir) meaning, and could only be understood through allegorical interpretation (ta'wil). Though arguing on the premise of the revelation as a superior and infallible source of moral truth, both philosophers and mystics thus recognized a high degree of human moral autonomy. Muslim philosophers like Ibn Sind (d. 1037) and Ibn Rusd (d. 1198) believed that, as long as the correct philosophical method was used, the real intentions of God could be demonstrated, with objective certainty, by human reason.8

As early as the 9th century a compromise emerged between the extreme positions of fundamentalists and renewalists, with the rise of Sunni traditionalism. Adherents of the Malikite, Ijanafite and Safi'ite legal schools agreed that, in addition to the authoritative text of Koran and Sunna, also individual interpretation (igtih&d) had to be recognized as a source of ethical knowledge. It was emphasized, however, that individual interpretation merely led to probable knowledge (zann) and that its results could only become certain knowledge through the consensus (gmnd') of the community, which in the view of most of these traditionalists was represented by the consensus of the scholars. The concept of community consensus as a source of moral authority had already been put forward by the early scholars and was in itself not new. The traditionalists believed, however, that, once established, this

7 Schacht, Intoduction, 62; Coulson, History, 71; Goldziher, Introduction, 232ff. 8 I. Goldziher, Richtungen der Islamischen Koranauslegung (Leiden, 1952), 180ff.; id.,

Introduction, 138-9; G.F. Hourani, Averroes on the Harmony of Relign and Philosophy (London, 1976), 23.

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 35

consensus could not be re-interpreted any more and that it was binding for later generations. The essential doctrine of Sunni traditionalism was the duty to follow the decisions of earlier generations of scholars (taqlzd).9 Sunni traditionalism was systematically elaborated by al-Gazdl1 (d. 1111). Al-Gaza1i recognized the reason of the philosophers and especially the intuition or gnosis of the mystics as legitimate and indispensable sources of ethical knowledge, but he strongly rejected the claims of some philosophers and mystics that these human sources could yield certain and objective knowledge of God's Will. In al-Gazal!'s view, individual human effort merely resulted in subjective and probable knowledge, which could only be raised to the level of certain knowledge by the consensus of the believers.'"

From the tenth century onwards, traditionalism became the dominant trend in Sunni Islam. Although this doctrine recognized the necessity of interpretation in principle, it nevertheless exerted a stifling-influence on its practice. As time progressed, the duty to follow the consensus of earlier scholars led both to a progressive accumulation of jurisprudence (fiqh) and to a restriction of the domain of interpretation to increasingly detailed levels of moral and legal problems. The accumulating burden of jurisprudence came to weigh so heavily on the traditionalist scholars, that they gradually started to believe that one day mugahid-s, persons qualified to practise interpretation, might become extinct. Initially this was only considered to be a theoretical possibility, but by the 18th century many traditionalists believed that in their time mutahid-s had indeed disappeared and that, as they expressed it, "the gate of iWih&d had closed".11

9 Schacht, Introduction, 59; Coulson, Histoy, 78-80; G.F. Hourani, "The Basis of Authority of Consensus in Sunnite Islam," Studia Islamica, 21 (1964), 24.

0 Julius Obermann may have been too radical in arguing that al-Gaz51 was a subjectivist in the ontological sense that he denied the existence of an ethical truth outside the human mind. However, al-Gazali can nevertheless be regarded a subjectivist in the epistemological sense that he believed that all human understanding of an externally existing moral truth is necessarily fallible and subjective. Logically speaking, also community consensus is fallible, according to al-Gazali, but in the case of the Muslim community it is turned into infallible, objective knowledge by force of a divine miracle. See W.M. Watt, Muslim Intellectua4l A Study of al-Ghazali (Edinburgh, 1963), 58-68, 164-5; G.F. Hourani, "Authority of Consensus," 32; W.B. Hallaq, "Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?," MES, 16 (1984), 16-7; F. Shehadi, Ghazali's Unique Unknowable God (Leiden, 1964); J. Obermann, Der religidse und philosophische Subjectivismus Ghazzalis (Leipzig, 1921).

" Academic controversy concerning the issue of the "closure of the gate of itihaud" may largely be attributed to a misunderstanding of the position of Islamic traditionalism. Authors such as Schacht and Coulson point to the traditionalists' rejection of re- interpretation and conclude that they rejected ihW/d, whereupon Watt and Hallaq point

36 MICHEL HOEBINK

In spite of the dominance of traditionalism, there always remained an anti-traditionalist opposition, particularly among adherents of the Hanbali school. This Hanbalism, however, had meanwhile undergone a remarkable development. The original radical fundamentalist assumption that the text of Koran and Sunna provided a literal answer for every conceivable moral question had proved untenable in practice. From the 9th century onwards, IlanbaIl scholars reluctantly began to admit the inevitability of interpretation. Hanbali opposition to traditionalism was thus not directed against the use of interpretation as such, but against the doctrine that interpretations, once agreed upon, were binding for later generations. The more that traditionalist doctrine ossified and became an obstacle to fresh interpretations, the more the anti-traditionalists took the role of renewalists upon themselves. It was in this context that later Hanbalites came to believe that every century a renewer (mugaddid) of religion would appear.'2 The original Hanbalr insistence on the authentic practice (sunna) as opposed to innovation (bid'a) acquired a new meaning in the context of their opposition to traditionalism. It came to imply a dismissal of the debris of historical interpretations and a restoration of contact with the original sources, the Koran and the Sunna. Understood in this way, the demand for a return to the authentic practice no longer stood in opposition to renewal

(tagqdd) and interpretation (igtihdd).'3 The most important representative of this moderate Hanbalism is

the 14th century theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). In much the same way as al-Gaza1i, Ibn Taymiyya recognized the human mental faculties of reason and mystical intuition as sources of moral knowledge while rejecting the claims of certain philosophers and mystics that these sources were infallible and absolutely reliable, equal to the revelation. Unlike al-Gazal!, however, Ibn Taymiyya denied the duty to follow the consensus of previous generations (taqlid). The only consensus Ibn Taymiyya accepted as final was that of the Companions of the Prophet.'4

to their recognition of interpretation in novel cases and argue that they were in favor of igtihd. See Schacht, Introduction, 69-75; Coulson, Histooy, 80-4; W.M. Watt, "The Closing of the Door of I tihad," Orientalia Hispanica 1 (Leiden, 1974), 675-8; Hallaq, "Gate of Ijtihad Closed?"; M. Hoebink, "Two Halves of the Same Truth; Schacht, Hallaq and the Gate of Ijtihad," MERA Occasional Paper, 24, Dec. (1994).

12 Schacht, Introduction, 62-3; Coulson, Histogy, 72-3; Hallaq, "Gate of Ijtihad Closed?," 8-10, 27-30.

13 Vol, "The Sudanese Mahd," 147-52; Peters, "Idjtihad and Taqlid," 131-2; id., "Islamischer Fundamentalismus," 217; Goldziher, Introduction, 230-45.

14 F. Meier, "Das Sauberste uber die Vorbestimmung; Ein Stuck Ibn Taimiyya," Saeculum, XXXII, 1 (1981), 75-7; G. Makdisi, "Ibn Taymiyya: a Siift from the Qadiriyya

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 37

In the centuries after Ibn Taymiyya the anti-traditionalist opposition seems to become less and less vocal, but at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries an anti-traditionalist revival occurred. Different scholars such as Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-9awkdny (d. 1832), Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792) and Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Santisi (d. 1859) denied the supposed disappearance of mutahid-s and the closure of the gate of itihdd. Similar to Ibn Taymiyya, the opposition of these scholars was primarily directed against the traditionalist doctrine of binding consensus and taqlzd.15 What is important for our discussion is that the classical Islamic debate on renewal and interpretation was just going through a phase of resurgence when the impact of Europe began to be felt in the Muslim world.

Modem Islam: two debates

In the course of the 19th century the Muslim world increasingly came under the direct or indirect influence of European expansion and colonialism. Along with political and economic domination came the social and cultural impact of post-Enlightenment Europe. Western laws, systems of education and political institutions were introduced in most of the Muslim world and formed a parallel network that increasingly competed with the traditional religiously legitimated institutions such as sarf'a law, religious education and so forth. The single most dramatic event in these developments was the abolition of the Caliphate by the nationalist dominated Turkish National Assembly in 1924.

A significant doctrine that accompanied all these new institutions and ideas was called secularism: it advocated human moral autonomy and a retreat of the moral authority of religion-particularly that of religious institutions-from the public into the private sphere. Such a process of "secularization" was believed to have been an essential component of the modernization process in Europe and now it was viewed as a necessary precondition for the modernization of Muslim society.

In the context of our discussion of renewal this increasing Western influence can be viewed as a surge of social and cultural change that swept through the Muslim world. But there was something particular

Order," Amercan Journal of Arabic Studies, 1 (1973), 118-29; T. Michel, "Ibn Taymiyya's Sharh of the Futidh al-Ghayb of 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilant," Hamdard Islamicus, IV, 2 (1981), 3-12; Hallaq, "Gate of Ijtihad Closed?," 9-10; G.F. Hourani, "Authority of Consen- sus," 36.

'5 Hallaq, "Gate of Ijtihad Closed?," 31-2; Peters, "Idjtihad and Taqlfd."

38 MICHEL HOEBINK

about these changes: they were imposed on the Muslim world by a dominant imperialist power. Of course, the Muslim world had been exposed to alien cultural influences before, but those influences had mostly come from regions in which the Muslims held political power themselves. Also, the Islamic world had often been invaded by alien con- querors, but they had in most cases eventually converted to Islam. It was now for the first time, however, that the Muslim world was confronted with an alien power that tried to dominate the Muslims not only politically but also culturally and that, by propagating the doctrine of secularism, explicitly put to discussion the status of the Koran as the ultimate source of moral knowledge and legitimacy for social life.

This situation made the position of Muslim intellectuals very pre- carious and fundamentally different from that of both their classical predecessors and their Western contemporaries. The difference was that modern Muslims had to determine their position towards not only one but two cultural traditions: their own and that of the West. On the one hand many felt attracted not only to the technological innovations coming from the West but also to modern Western social institutions and ideas like democracy, human rights and the emancipation of women. On the other hand it was felt that if the Muslims were to forget their own tradition and start to think in the vocabulary of another culture they would marginalize themselves spiritually and condemn themselves to a secondary position in the global community. The question that confronted the modern Muslim was, in other words, whether it would be possible to modernize without having to westernize.

In order to grasp the complex ideological landscape that thus developed, I will describe it in terms of two interrelated but separate debates: the first concerning secularization and westernization, the second renewal and modernization. In the debate about secularization, islamists and secularists disagree as to whether an Islamic law and state are desirable at all. This debate is relatively new, since it is a response to a relatively novel situation brought about by Western colonial domination and the subsequent process of decolonization. The second debate on renewal and modernization is mainly conducted among the islamists and concerns the exact nature of an Islamic state and law. This debate is not new: it is a continuation of the classical Islamic debate between renewalists, fundamentalists and traditionalists about the adaptation and interpretation of the ethical ideal of the Koran.'6

16 The fact that many modern Islamic movements and thinkers have simultaneously

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 39

The debate about secularization

In order to understand what made the idea of secularism so con- troversial in the Muslim world we must begin with taking a closer look at its content. As indicated above, the term secularism refers to a doctrine that advocates human autonomy and freedom towards the moral authority of God and of religious doctrines. Sometimes, however, it is also used in a narrower sense to refer to a doctrine that seeks the separation of religious authority from political power, particularly the state- a doctrine that is in fact more accurately called laicism.'7 In the previous section it has been shown that both these aspects of secularism were in fact advocated in classical Islam, by renewalists and fundamentalists respectively. It is therefore important to keep in mind that, in the context of Islamic thought, the idea of secularism was a novelty only insofar as it propagated a complete break with religion as a source of legitimacy in worldly affairs.

From the moment of its introduction, the idea of secularism had its advocates in the Muslim world. Such thinkers understood secularism ('almanyya; worldliness) in both senses described above: as a quest for moral and intellectual freedom vis-a-vis religious doctrines, and as an insistence on a separation between religious authority and the power of the state. 'Ali 'Abd al-Raziq (d. 1966), who is generally viewed as the first and most important advocate of Muslim secularism, argued that neither the Koran nor the Sunna prescribe an Islamic government, and that therefore the business of politics and government must be regarded as belonging to the domain of human reason. Present-day Muslim secularists generally view themselves as the opponents of a theocracy in which the few impose their will on the many in the name

rejected secularization and demanded renewal and igtihdd, has created academic confusion about whether to view them as opponents or as advocates of modernization. This confusion, in turn, has led to contradictory definitions of fundamentalism (see note 2). Only recently, a number of Western authors have come to realize that Islamic anti- secularism cannot be understood within the classical modernization paradigm, in which modernization necessarily entails secularization. To my knowledge, Shepard was the first to describe modern Islam in terms of two separate debates on modernization and on secularization. See Shepard, "Islarn and Ideology"; M.H. Kerr, Islamic Reform, the Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad 'Abduh and Rashtd Rid& (Cambridge, 1966), 16; F. Burgat and W. Dowell, 7he Islamic Movement in North Africa (Austin, 1993); G. Kramer, "Islamische Reform und Erneuerung; Geschichte, Thesen, Kontroversen" Politischer Islam, Kursein- heit 1 (Hagen, 1994), 32-8.

'7 E.S. Waterhouse, "Secularism" inJ. Hastings (ed.), Encycl. of Reliogn and Ethics, Vol. XI (Edinburgh, NY, 1934), 347-8.

40 MICHEL HOEBINK

of religion. The only way to prevent this and to safeguard a democratic order is in their view to maintain a strict separation between religion and the state.18

On the other hand, the process of secularization and the idea of secularism were also outspokenly opposed from the very start, for instance by thinkers such as Namik Kemal (d. 1888), Oamrl al-Din al-AfMan! (d. 1897), Muhammad 'Abduih (d. 1905), Muhammad Ras'id Rida (d. 1935) and Muhammad Iqba1 (d. 1938). In what follows, these Islamic opponents of secularism will be called "islamists".'9 What exactly were the objections of these islamists to secularization and secularism?

To understand the islamist argument it is important to realize that it is built on what would in Western social science be called an "idealist" perspective. A basic premise of islamism is the idea that the source of strength of a society is primarily located, not in its economic or military power, but in its culture and in the consciousness of its members. This cultural analysis is further related by the islamists to an insistence on the importance of authenticity (asala). The basic idea here is that it is of vital importance for a society to remain loyal to its authentic cultural self. If it does not, it will lose its self-confidence which is the source of its power, and it is bound to fall prey to disintegration and decay. Departing from this perspective, the islamists have analysed the different problems and crises of the Muslim world-such as domination by the West, the strivings for national unity and independence and later problems of military defeat and underdevelopment-primarily in terms of loyalty to what they view as their authentic cultural identity.

18 (All 'Abd al-Raziq, Al-isldm wa usul al-h4um (Cairo, 1925). Cf. A. Hourani, Arabic 7hought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939 (Cambridge, 1962), 183-9; F. Zakaria, "Sakularisierung eine historische Notwendigkeit" in M. Luders (Hrsg.), Der Islam im Aujbruch? (Munchen, 1992), 228-45; $adiq 6al5l al-'Azm, "Wider den fundamentalistischen Ungeist" in Luders, Islam im AuJbruch? (1992), 246-60.

9 Instead of "fundamentalism," the term "islamism" is now increasingly used by Western academics to refer to Islamic anti-secularism. Francois Burgat, for instance, uses the term to describe a movement that seeks cultural differentiation from the West and reconnection with the pre-colonial symbolic universe. Burgat refers to Habib Boulares' definition of islamism as "the whole body of thought which seeks to invest society with Islam (...) which may be integrist, but may also be traditionalist, reform-minded or even revolutionary." This term is also used by Islamic anti-secularists to refer to themselves. Muhammad 'Amara thus uses it (Ar.: islMmiyyAn) referring to those who, opposing secularism and Western hegemony, are "committed to the Islamic colouring and the Islamic standard." See F. Burgat, Islamic Movement, 39-41, 67-71, 309; Habib Boulares, interview in Grand Maghreb, 30 April (1984); M. cArnara, "Al-hiwar bayna al-islamiyytn wa-l-'almaniyyin," Al-Hildl, Sept. (1990), 95.

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 41

Western imperialism was thus understood by the islamists in the first place as a cultural invasion (gazw taq&ft). In the idealist view of the islamists, society is held together not by material wealth but by moral solidarity, by loyalty to a generally agreed body of values and norms. The institutions of society-the law, the system of education and so on-are viewed as organically related to these cultural values. Efforts to replace such authentic, indigenous institutions by others based on alien, non-indigenous values would inevitably result in a separation between the outward institutional structure of society and the internal structure of the consciousness of its members, a mental cleavage that would lead to alienation and eventually to the disintegration of society. And that was exactly what the imperialists had in mind: the West was trying to subject Muslim society by weakening its cultural foundations.20

The doctrine of secularism came to appear very different within the premises of the discourse of authenticity. Secularism was understood by the islamists as one of the imperialists' shrewdest devices. It was under the pretext of this doctrine, with its deceitful promises of freedom and progress, that Western values, laws and institutions were forced upon the Muslim world, with the underlying aim of destroying the vital moral basis of the Muslim community and thus establishing Muslim depend- ency on the West.2'

All of this could only add up to one conclusion. The only way in which the Muslims could combat imperialism and regain their lost unity and independence was by building their lives on their own authentic values and principles; that is, by a return to Islamic roots.

Although a novel response to a novel situation, the islamist discourse of authenticity has its origins in classical Islam.22 It has developed out of the classical notion of a return to the authentic practice (sunna), particularly in the later anti-traditionalist sense of a rejection of the accumulated medieval jurisprudence and a restoration of contact with the original sources of inspiration. In modern Islam this notion acquired a

20 - R.P. Mitchell, The Societ of the Muslim Brothers (London, 1969), 222-37; A. Hourani, Arabic 7hought, 113-38; H. Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought (London, 1982), 78.

21 A. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 241; Pursuing the same argument, a more recent critic of 'Ali 'Abd al-Riziq's Muslim secularism, Diya' al-Din al-Rayyis, has tried to demonstrate that al-Raziq's book Al-islam wa usurl al-hukn was in fact not written by al-Ra.ziq himself but by a British orientalist. See Diya' al-Din al-Rayyis, Al-islam wa-l-4ildfa ft al- 'asr al-hadtl: naqd kitdb al-islam wa usal al-hukm (Cairo, 1972). Cf. L. Binder, Islamic Liberalism. A Critique of Development Ideologies (Chicago, 1988), 150-2.

22 I disagree here with Aziz al-Azmeh who claims that the ideal of authenticity is basically alien to Islam. See Aziz al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities (London, 1993), 43-4.

42 MICHEL HOEBINK

new dimension: aside from its anti-traditionalist connotation it now also came to signify a rejection of Western cultural hegemony. Muslim sub- mission to Western hegemony was rejected, just like traditionalism, as imitation (taqhzd) and idolatry (sirk). The notion of tawhid in this context came to imply a rejection of cultural dualism.

It may be observed here that the islamist insistence on cultural authenticity as an indispensable ingredient of a strong and coherent society is remarkably un-religious, worldly and utilitarian. The assumption that the following of the moral directives of religion should lead to advantage in this world is in itself not new: it lies at the basis of all renewalist efforts to increase the relevance of Islamic teachings in the changing historical conditions. The novel challenge of European domination, however, provoked a new element in this "innerworldly" utilitarian approach. Since on this occasion not the specific teachings of religion, but the status of religion itself was brought under discussion, the argument was logically extended to apply to religion in general: religion as such was now put to the test of worldly utility. This new element in the utilitarian approach produced a paradox concerning the exclusive validity of Islam as a religion: the modern authenticity argument applied not only to Islam, but would in principle be valid for any other cultural or religious tradition as well. Fundamentalist islamists such as the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb have therefore come forward with a second, more religious argument emphasizing the exclusive superior- ity of Islam. According to Qutb, all humanly devised ideologies, such as Christianity, marxism, liberalism etc., are deficient because they over- emphasize one aspect of human existence at the expense of other aspects whereas only the divinely given "method" of Islam incorporates all aspects into a balanced whole.23

In one way or another, the notions of cultural authenticity, cultural unity and independence and cultural imperialism lay at the basis of the arguments of the great majority of islamists, from early pioneers like al-Afganr and 'Abduih to more recent thinkers like Sayyid Qutb,

23 Haddad argues that during the sixties the emphasis in Qutb's argument shifted from a perception of Islam as "one alternative among others" towards an exclusivist view of Islam as an absolute given, standing in judgement over all other ideologies. Qutb, however, did not exchange the one view for the other. In his later work, both views appear simultaneously. Compare, for instance, Sayyid Qutb, This Religion of Islam (Damascus, 1977), 21; id., Islam, the Religion of the Future (Delhi, 1974), 23; Y.Y. Haddad, "Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islamic Revival" in J.L. Esposito (ed.), Voices of Resurgent Islam (Oxford, 1983), 78-9.

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 43

Hasan Hanafi and Tariq al-BisrL.24 It was in this connection, that two other notions developed that gradually acquired a central place in the ideological programme of the islamists: firstly, the idea of Islam as an all-embracing ethical system and, secondly, the notion of the necessity of the application of Islamic law (sarz'a) and the establishment of an Islamic state.25

The Indian/Pakistani thinker Muhammad Iqbal was one of the first to emphasize the comprehensiveness of the Islamic world-view and the need for an Islamic state. Referring to the principle of divine unity (tawh4d), he claims that Islam demands the recognition of God as the spiritual basis of all aspects of life, among which are also the law and the state. According to Iqbal, the state must be viewed as an attempt to realize the spiritual ideal of Islam in a concrete human organization.26 The concept of an Islamic state was particularly elaborated by Muhammad Rasid Rida, a pupil of Muhammad 'Abdiih. For Rida, as for all later islamists, the establishment of an Islamic state meant in the first place the application of Islamic law.27

From the late 1920s onward, the demands for an Islamic state and the application of Islamic law were given political expression by movements such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949), and the Indian/Pakistani (ama'at-i-Islami, founded in 1941 by Abiu-l-A'la al-Mawdiidi (d. 1979). In the first de- cades of their existence, these organizations took part in the struggle for independence from European colonialism. After independence, however, political power in most Muslim countries passed to secular nationalists, such as the Nasserists in Egypt, the Ba'tists in Iraq and Muhammad 'AliJinnah's Muslim League in Pakistan. The opposition of the islamists

24 N. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism Political & Religious Writings of Sayyid jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Berkeley, 1968); M. Raild Rida, Ta'rt4 al-ustdd al-imam al-.Tayb Muhammad 'Abdz7h, 2nd ed. (Cairo, 1925-6), 97, 103, 157ff.; Qutb, Relion of the Future, 23; Ijasan Hanafi, "The Origin of Modem Conservatism and Islamic Fundamentalism" in E. Gellner (ed.), Islamic Dilemmas; Reformers Nationalists and Industrialization (Y, 1985), 96-7; Tariq al-Biurn, Introduction to the 2nd edition of Al-haraka al-siydsyyaAf misr 1945- 52 (Cairo, 1983), 1-68.

25 The contemporary demand for an Islamic state can thus be explained as a historical Muslim response to the encounter with Western expansion rather than viewing it as the inevitable expression of an ahistorical Islamic essence, as Lewis does. See B. Lewis, Islam and the [/Vest (NY, Oxford, 1993), 133-6; D.F. Eickelman, "Changing Interpretations of Islamic Movements" in W.R. Roff, Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 16-20.

26 M. Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore, 1951), 147-66. 27 M. Ragid Rida, Al-hildfa aw al-imama al-'uzmd (Cairo, 1922-3); Mitchell, Society, 234-5.

44 MICHEL HOEBINK

now shifted towards these "domestic imperialists"28 whose policies were viewed as a mere continuation of the westernization-policies of the for- mer alien rulers. The islamist reply, however, remained basically the same. Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), one of the main ideologues of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s, speaks of a conflict between the legislation that is imported from the West and the ethos of the masses on whom these laws are imposed. The people are alienated from these laws, which leads to anomie and will finally result in the disintegration of society. The Islamic answer to this problem lies, according to Qutb, in the principle of divine unity (taw4d), which demands that all spheres of life-including the law and the institutions of the state-be united under the ultimate sovereignty (4dkimyya) of God.29

From the mid 1970s onwards, the significance of islamism as a political alternative has grown dramatically throughout the Muslim world. Among the factors that contributed to this Islamic resurgence were the military defeat of the Arab armies by Israel, the failure of other ideologies to deliver their promises of economic development and the 1978-79 Islamic revolution in Iran. Military defeat and problems of underdevelopment took a central place in the writings of a new generation of islamists. The islamist analysis, however, remained basically unchanged.

According to the contemporary Egyptian thinker Hasan Hanafi, Western models and strategies of modernization and development, as well as Western secular ideologies such as liberalism, marxism and nationalism, have failed in the Islamic world because they failed to recognize the role of culture and consciousness. Underdevelopment, Hanafi argues, cannot be understood only in economic terms and solved by building factories and laboratories; it also has an important cultural component. Traditional societies like those of the Islamic world are dominated by a mythical consciousness. To ignore the contents of this "unscientific" way of thinking is itself unscientific. New developments can only succeed in the Islamic world if they present themselves in the language of tradition: rationalism, democracy and humanism will only be accepted by the Islamic masses if they appear as metamorphoses of indigenous beliefs. An indispensable condition for the "renaissance" of the Islamic world is therefore, according to Hanafi, the return to tra-

28 Mitchell, Societ_, 221. 2 Sayyid Qutb, "Islamic Approach to Social Justice" in Khurshid Ahmad (ed.), Islam,

its Meaning and Message (London, 1975), 117-25; Haddad, "Sayyid Qutb," 71.

RENEWAL IN ISLAM 45

dition. This brings him to demand the islamization of society and the integration of religion and state.30

In the foregoing it has been shown how the term secularism, from the moment of its introduction, acquired different, almost contradictory meanings for the islamists and for the Muslim secularists. To the Muslim secularists it implied modernization and liberation from both authori- tarian structures in society and from the shackles of religion. To the islamists, however, secularism came to mean westernization and the subjection of Muslim lands to the hegemony of Western imperialism. Much of the debate between the islamists and the Muslim secularists can therefore be characterized as a dialogue of the deaf. The islamists accuse the secularists of being agents of Western imperialism and the secularists in turn accuse the islamists of wanting to establish a dictatorship in the name of religion. The interesting question is now, of course, to what extent and how both parties do take one another's views into consideration?

Of particular interest in this regard is the thought of "postmodernist" thinkers such as Edward Said and Muhammad Arkoun who share some of the idealist analysis of the islamists, but strongly oppose their demand for an Islamic state. Both Arkoun and Said view human conduct as determined not only by material circumstances but also by the ideas that govern the understanding of these circumstances.3' As a conse- quence, an aspect of all competition over political power is a struggle on the level of language and ideas to gain hegemony over the consciousness of the other.

In his well-known book Orientalism Said exposes the presumably value free academic study of the Orient in the West as an ideological discourse that presents East and West as two essentially different static identities whereby the West is depicted as progressive, rational and democratic and the East as backward, irrational and despotic. This orientalist discourse, Said argues, serves to justify the Western expansion at home and to pacify the subjected Orient into the belief that Western domination is to its own benefit. Said thus recognizes the existence of cultural imperialism but he rejects the islamist reply to it as inadequate.

30 Hasan Hanafi, "Origin of Modern Conservatism," 96-7; M. van den Boom, "De Denker als Profeet: Hasan Hanaf-i" in: R. Peters & R. Meijer (eds.), Inspiratie en Kritiek, Mosli7se Intellectuekn over de Islam (Muiderberg, 1992), 27-31.

31 R.D. Lee, Overcoming Tradition and Modernity; the Search for Islamic Authenticit (Oxford, 1997), 155.

46 MICHEL HOEBINK

Instead of deconstructing the thesis of orientalism, the islamists con- struct their own hegemonic discourse based on the same opposition of two static identities, but now in favour of the Orient: they reply to orientalism with occidentalism.32

Muhammad Arkoun argues similarly but with a greater emphasis on authenticity. According to Arkoun, Western secular reason was used in the Muslim World as a hegemonic discourse to gain control over the consciousness of the Muslim masses. In Arkoun's view, humanism, modernity and rationalism are universal mental attitudes that may develop within different cultural environments, also within a mythical- religious consciousness like that of the Muslim world. The Western hegemonic discourse of secular reason, however, defined all the attrib- utes of modernity, such as humanism, rationalism and development, as exclusive achievements of the secular West, leading the Muslims to believe that they had the choice between either their traditional religious identity or a secular Western modernity. The encounter with this discourse had such a profound impact on the consciousness of Muslim intellectuals that until today their replies to it have been conditioned on its very premises. The elites that took power after independence swore by the ideals of secular reason, not realizing that these ideals were responsible for the loss of identity in their societies and isolated them from the mythical-religious consciousness of the Muslim masses. Present-day islamists, on the other hand, oppose Western hegemony but only to replace it with the hegemony of an anti-modern traditionalist Lslam. Arkoun thus recognizes the danger of cultural imperialism but, like Said, he does not believe that cultural independence can be achieved by the establishment of an Islamic state. The islamist ideal of an Islamic state is undemocratic and a perpetuation of the privileged authority of the traditionalist scholars. Western cultural domination, like any hegemonic discourse, must be confronted and deconstructed by critical reason which can only take place in an atmosphere of democratic freedoms.33

The question remaining, then, is how the islamists reply to the secularist objections that their Islamic state is necessarily undemocratic and against modernization and human moral and intellectual freedom?

32 E. Said, Orientalism (London, 1978), 328; id., Culture and Imperialism (London, 1993), xi-xxx.

3 M. Arkoun, "'Westliche' Vernunft kontra 'islamische' Vernunft? Versuch einer kri- tischen Annaherung" in Luders, Islam im Aujbruch? (1992), 261-74; id., Rethinking Islam (Oxford, 1994), 24-6. See also note 54.

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Renewal and author4i in modern Islam

Thus far, the islamists have argued why the establishment of an Islamic state and the application of Islamic law are necessary, but they have not clarified what exactly they have in mind when they speak of Islamic law and an Islamic state. Where the islamists discuss these questions, a second essential component of islamist thought becomes visi- ble: apart from their rejection of European cultural hegemony, the islamists also strive to reform Muslim consciousness and society. This call for reform is usually expressed as a demand for a "return to the sources". In the previous section it has been shown how the islamists related the weakness of Muslim society in their time to the cultural invasion of the West and how this was to be remedied by a return to the authentic self. The deeper cause of the relative weakness of Muslim society, however, was felt to lie in the decadent state of the Muslim community itself which, so it was generally believed, had started already at an early stage, just after the first generations of Muslims. If the Muslim community wanted to regain its strength, it had to return to the authentic practice (sunna) of these excellent ancestors (al-salaf al-salih). The islamists strongly disagree, however, as to what exactly this practice was and who exactly these excellent early generations were. It is in this demand for reform that islamist views start to diverge and that islamist ideology links up with the classical Islamic controversy about religious renewal, human moral autonomy and the authority to interpret revelation.

A predominant theme in the modern discussions about renewal and interpretation is opposition to traditionalism. Continuing the argument of Ibn Taymiyya and the reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries, islamists have generally identified the decay of Muslim society with the doctrine of taqlid, the duty to follow the consensus of earlier generations of scholars. The return to the authentic practice of the ancients in this context signified a rejection of the accumulated jurisprudence of the medieval jurists and a restoration of contact with the original sources, the Koran and the Sunna.

According to Muhammad 'Abdiih and Ra'sd Rida, the doctrine of taqlid was a perversion that had distorted the original meaning of the Koran. The rejection of taqlfd for them implied a return to the notion of community consensus as it had been understood by the early legists. This meant that they still considered consensus a legitimate source of ethical knowledge, but it was not binding and could never be allowed to stop the process of living interpretation which was a duty that was

48 MICHEL HOEBINK

to be performed anew by each successive generation.34 In the context of this anti-traditionalism, later islamists have often distinguished between sari'a and fiqh. According to this view, S'ari'a is the infallible and fixed (tibit) expression of God's Will in the Koran and the Sunna, whereas

fiqh is the fallible human understanding of it which is continually changing (muta4ayyir) according to the historical conditions. The rejection of the eternal validity of medieval jurisprudence had far-reaching conse- quences for the islamists' conception of an Islamic state: it implied that the medieval institutions of the Caliphate were considered historical and not necessarily binding for the present.35 However, the rejection of traditionalism exposed a dilemma it had covered for centuries: the dispute among islamists is basically a dispute between modernists and fundamentalists about the interpretation of the revelation.

The first islamists, like Sayyid Ahmad Khan, (Tamal al-Din al-AfMani, Muhammad 'Abduih and Muhammad Iqbal, were essentially modernists. Aside from their attempts to defend the Islamic way of life against the inroads of cultural imperialism, they were primarily motivated by a desire to adapt Islamic teachings and make them relevant in the rapidly changing conditions of modern life. This brought them to emphasize human moral autonomy and the necessity of a radical re-interpretation of the Koran and the Sunna. In claiming all this, they referred to a great variety of classical predecessors like the rationalist Mu'tazilites and philosophers, and the Muslim mystics, but also to "enlightened" Hanbalites like Ibn Taymiyya and his followers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Beside that, there was also a certain influence from the rationalist thinkers of the European Enlightenment.36

It is within the theology of Muhammad 'Abduih that the position of these early modernists is explicated most systematically.37 In order to

34 A. Hourani, Arabic 7hought, 147, 234-5. 35 Iqbal, Reconstruction, 168; Al-Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al-sunna (1954), 17-24. Cf. Mitchell,

Society, 237-9; Sayyid Qutb, NJazwa mujtama' islamt (Beirut, 1975), 47ff. Cf. Haddad, "Sayyid Qutb," 71; Hasan al-Turabi, Tojdid al-fikr al-islamt (Jedda, 1987), 183-94; G. Kramer, "Kritik und Selbskritik: Reformistisches Denken im Islam" in Luders, Islam im Aufbruch? (1992), 219-22.

36 Although the early modernists were definitely exposed to European Enlightenment rationalism, authors such as A. Hourani and W.C. Smith may have over-emphasized its influence on Islamic modernist rationalism. See A. al-Shamlan, "Beyond Apologetics; towards a Relationist Approach to Islamist Movements," Democracy in the Middle East. Proceedings of the BRISMES conference, 8-10 July (1992), 532-40; A. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 139-44.

37 M. cAbduh, The 7heology of Unity (London, 1966); A. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 130- 60; Kerr, Islamic Reform, 103-53.

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mark the borderline between human moral autonomy and the ultimate sovereignty of God, 'Abduih makes use of two categories from the classical legal literature: the 'ibddat and the mu'dmaldt. The 'ibd&t are the rules in the Koran that pertain to the Hereafter and the relationship between human beings and their Creator; the muc&maldt are the Koranic rules that concern human life in this world and the relationships between fellow human-beings. Since humans simply do not have access to sufficient information to be able to judge what could lead to their benefit in the Hereafter, God has revealed the cibdddt in the Koran to the smallest detail. These detailed rules must be obeyed and accepted without asking why. The utility and relevance of the Koranic rules that deal with human life in this world, however, can be understood by human reason. According to 'Abduih, it is not only possible but even of vital importance that Muslims try to do this. Human society is in constant motion and continuously generates new moral problems. The mu'dmal&t were therefore revealed, at least for the most part, in the form of general moral principles which must continuously be re-applied in the changing conditions of life with the help of human reason. In 'Abduih's view, the decay of Muslim society was simply due to the fact that at a certain point Muslims had stopped to use their reason. To him, a return to the authentic practice of the ancients basically meant a return to the practice of rational interpretation of the early legists. The notion of monotheism (tawhfd) in such modernist thinking became a dynamic principle referring to a continuous human effort to re-unite the eternal ideal with the evolving reality.38

Muh.ammad 'Abdiih thus formulated the position of modernist islamism as it is still advocated today by thinkers such as Muhammad 'Amara and Ras'id al-Gannasi!. Modernist islamists seek to establish an Islamic state which in their view is basically synonymous with the application of Islamic law. The substance of this Islamic law, however, is largely for humans to determine, according to the circumstances in which they find themselves. Some of the later modernists have endowed humanity with such a large degree of moral and social autonomy, that one could ask oneself what the practical difference is between their Islamic state and the socio-political order advocated by the Muslim secularists.39

38 Iqbal, Reconstruction, 147; Turabi, Tagdid al-fikr, 188-9. 3 See for instance Muhammad 'Amara, Al-islam wa usiul al-hulmn li-'Ali 'Abd al-Raziq

(Beirut, 1972); Rasid al-Ganniigi, Al-humydt al-ammaft al-dawla al-isldmiya (Beirut, 1993); Turabi, Tag4dd al-fikr; Muhammad Salim al-'Awa, On the Political System of the Islamic State

50 MICHEL HOEBINK

In such cases, the remaining difference seems merely one of language: what is called secularist ('almdnf) by Muslim secularists is called "civil" (madanf) by modernist islamists; what secularists call human sovereignty, modernist islamists call human vicegerency (hilafa).

But also the weaknesses of 'Abdulh's arguments have left their mark on the later discussions. Perhaps the most important weakness of 'Abdiih's argument is his blithe neglect of the fact that the Koran certainly does contain some very explicit and detailed rules for inter-human relations. Only two immediate examples are the Koranic rules for inheritance that grant men twice as big a share as women and the Koranic penal laws that prescribe detailed punishments (4udiud) for transgressions such as theft and adultery. In spite of their relatively small number, these explicit Koranic rules for social life confront the believer with an essential problem in the understanding of the revelation: are these rules to be taken as eternally valid truths that must be literally applied at all times and in all places, or are they to be understood as historically conditioned and therefore changeable expressions of an underlying eternal divine ethic? By refusing to come out with explicit statements on this subject, 'Abdiih left a crucial problem untouched: the problem of the historicity of the Koran.40 It was 'Abdiih's pupil Rasid Rida who made the choice that 'Abduih himself had tried to avoid: in Rida's view, the explicit prescriptions of the Koran, including those dealing with social relations, had to be understood and obeyed literally.4' The modernist Rasid Rida thus made the first move towards a fundamentalist turn in islamist thought.

Until the 1950s the islamists' primary adversary was a colonial power that tried to portray Islam as rigid and as a major obstacle to development and the achievement of modernity. The reply to this challenge had been the Islamic modernism of thinkers such as al-Afgani and 'Abdah who denied exclusive Western claims on rationality and modernity and tried to demonstrate that Islam, if properly understood, was flexible, rational and modern. After independence, however, the situation

(Indianapolis, 1980); Ijalid Muhammad Halid, Al-dawlafA al-isldm (Cairo, 1981). For an interesting example of a border-dispute between secularists and modernist islamists see N. Gallagher, "Islam v. Secularism in Cairo: An Account of the Dar al-Hikma Debate" MES, 25, 2 April (1989), 208-16.

40 The fact that a statement in favour of the Mu'tazilite thesis of the created Koran in the first edition of his Theology of Unit_ (Risa.lat al-tawzthd. Cairo, 1897) was removed in later editions, indicates 'Abdiuh's evasiveness. See A. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 142.

41 M. Ralid Rida, Muhdwarat al-musih wa-l-muqallid (Cairo, 1906-7), 126. Cf. A. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 233.

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was different. Now the islamists found themselves opposing secular nationalists, fellow Muslims who soon started to repress them more vio- lently than the colonial rulers had ever done. In practice, the "secularism" of these nationalists often implied less a separation of religion and politics than an effort to gain government control over religion. Notwith- standing their avowed secularism, most of these regimes kept legit- imizing their legislation and policies with religion.42 The modernism of Afgani and 'Abdiih now revealed its autocratic face: it proved a useful doctrine which offered the new rulers the flexibility they needed to adapt Islamic teachings to their political demands. However, similar to the period of the "Inquisition" by al-Ma'muin in the ninth century, these efforts of the rulers to gain control over the process of interpretation provoked a fundamentalist reaction.

The most important spokesman of this new fundamentalist trend among the islamists was the Egyptian Muslim Brother Sayyid Qutb, who was strongly influenced by the Pakistani thinker and politician Abiu-l-Acla al-Mawdtidi (d. 1979).43 Qutb shocked the religious establishment by declaring that all the Muslim regimes of his day had to be considered un-Islamic: not only the secularist regimes, which openly negated their relationships with religion, but also those which paid respect to Islam with their mouths but in practice had completely aban- doned it. Such regimes, writes Qutb, make whatever laws they please and then say: "This is the s'arfia of God." But "God's religion," warns Qutb, "is not a maze, nor is its way of life a fluid thing!""

The writings of both Mawdtidi and Qutb are pervaded with a characteristic fundamentalist emphasis on the limitations and subjectivity of human judgement. By themselves, humans are unable to develop a world-view that does justice to the endless complexity of reality. Their "rational" judgement is always fragmentary, emphasizing certain aspects of reality at the expense of other aspects. In all its limitations, human judgement is furthermore strongly dominated by all kinds of passions

42 D. Crecelius, "The Course of Secularization in Modem Egypt" in J.L. Esposito (ed.), Islam and Development (Syracuse, 1980), 49-70; EJ. Zurcher, Turkey: a Modern Histogy (London, 1993).

43 This account is based on Abu!-l-A'la al-Mawdiidi, The Islamic Law and Constitution (Lahore, 1980); id., "Political Theory of Islam" in A. Khurshid (ed.), Islam, its Meaning and Message (London, 1975), 147-71; Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Beirut, 1978); id., This Religion; id., "SocialJustice"; CJ. Adams, "Mawdudi and the Islamic State" in Esposito, Voices (1983), 99-131; W.E. Shepard, "Islam as a 'System' in the Later Writings of Sayyid Qutb," MES, 25, 1 Jan. (1989), 31-50; Haddad, "Sayyid Qutb."

44 Qutb, Milestones, 154-7.

52 MICHEL HOEBINK

and worldly interests, particularly by the desire to rule over others. It is for these reasons, according to Mawdidl and Qutb, that every human- made system of values or laws inevitably reflects the interests of some at the expense of those of others. As long as some legislate for others, some will therefore dominate others and there will be no equality or justice among humanity.

This condition of injustice and slavery Mawdtsdi and Qutb call gahiliyya (ignorance), a term until then only used in a historical sense, to refer to pre-Islamic Arab society. The opposite of gahilya is h&kim'yya, a term referring to the exclusive sovereignty of God. The only way to escape ignorance and to gain freedom and equality is to surrender all sovereignty to God and to recognize God's revelation as the only real authority in all legal and moral questions. The concepts of hdki4myya and gdhilyya are echoes of the classical Islamic notions of tawh4d and sirk, monotheism and idolatry. In Qutb's words, gahil culture is the ele- vation of human thought to the status of God, whereas the Islamic principle of tawh4d means to assert that there is no ruler save God and from Him alone is received all guidance and legislation.45

Because of his sharp juxtaposition of gahiliyya and h4kimoyya and his claim that even those rulers in the Islamic world who considered themselves Muslims were in fact unbelievers, Qutb's work strongly suggests that God's revelation enables the believer to distinguish, sharply and beyond any doubt, between good and bad conduct, true and false belief, without having to resort to fallible human interpretations. It is this radical fundamentalist assumption of a sharp and obvious dividing line between belief and unbelief which often lies at the basis of the tendencies towards separation and violence of extremist islamist groups. In Egypt, for instance, such a radical fundamentalist reading of Qutb's writings inspired a number of extremist groups since the 1970s to declare the whole society to be unbelievers (takftr), to physically separate themselves from the kdfir society and use violence against it.46 The radical fundamentalism of such groups is reminiscent of that of the early Hanbalites and especially the Harigites, who also assumed an obvious distinction between People of Paradise and Hell, and often considered it legitimate to kill the latter. This similarity is noticed by a number of more moderate islamist authors who have criticized it as such. The

45 Qutb, Milestones, 207-8, 248; Haddad, "Sayyid Qutb," 77. 46 G. Kepel, The Prophet and the Pharaoh. Muslim Extremism in Egypt (London, 1985);

E. Sivan, Radical Islam, Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (London, 1985).

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Egyptian Muslim Brother Hasan Hudaybi, for instance, argues that, contrary to what the notion of h4kimyya implies, God has endowed humans with a certain autonomy to interpret the sari'a in the various circumstances of their lives, and that because such human interpretations are fallible, they can never be the basis of a declaration of unbelief.47

However important such debates may be, they do no justice to the writings of Sayyid Qutb, whose thought is in reality much more ambigu- ous than both his extremist admirers and his moderate critics seem to believe. Although the dominant theme in the writings of Mawdfidr and Qutb is a fundamentalist emphasis on the fallibility and subjectivity of human judgement, both authors in fact do recognize the inevitability of interpretation. This becomes clear where they use the notion of human vicegerency (bilfa) as complementary to God's exclusive sovereignty (4dkim'yya).48 Despite their rejection of human legislation, both Mawdiidi and Qutb admit that the revelation does not provide a literal and unambiguous answer for every situation in life. In such cases humans, as the vicegerents of God on earth, can rely on their own fallible and subjective interpretations of the divine Will. But, however moderate their fundamentalism, both authors hasten to emphasize the restrictions on the scope of this human jurisdiction. Just like Rasid Rida, Mawdfidi and Qutb argue that the detailed and specific prescriptions of the Koran, also when they concern social life, are eternally valid and must be applied literally. Whenever there is an explicit text (nass), there is no room for interpretation.49

7The historcic4 of the Koran

With both modemists and moderate fundamentalists accepting degrees of interpretation, what remains as the focus of the contemporary debates is the issue of the historicity of the literal prescriptions of the Koran regarding social affairs, as opposed to their literal applicability. Sharply contrasting with the clarity of the fundamentalists, the majority of modernists have, ever since Muhammad 'Abdiih remained vague and evasive on this issue.

Several modernists have tried to work out what could be termed a middle position. One example of such a positon are the views on the

47 Hasan Hudaybi, Du'dt, Id qu.dat (Cairo, 1969). 48 Qutb, Milestones, 210; Adams, "Mawdudi," 116. 49 Qutb, Milestones, 157; MawdOdi, Islamic Law, 85.

54 MICHEL HOEBINK

Koranic hudad punishments for theft and adultery expressed by the Sudanese author al-Sadiq al-Mahdi. These punishments, argues al- Mahdi, are meant to be applied only in a perfect Islamic society where everybody is free of material needs and where marriage is accessible to all. As long as this ideal situation is not achieved, the hudiud are not to be applied. And even if such an ideal situation occurs, the conditions for the application of the hrudid are still so difficult to meet that they will hardly ever be applied in practice. Similar views have been expressed by some Egyptian Muslim Brothers in the 1950s and by many contemporary Egyptian modernists.50

A historical understanding of the Koran, as a text conditioned by the historical conditions in which it appeared, has proven a highly volatile issue. Although the Egyptian author TahaI Husayn (d. 1973) pioneered this view already in the 1920s,5' only a handful of modernist authors today clearly commit themselves to such a historical approach; among them are Nasr Hamid Abui Zayd, Ilasan Hanafi, Muhammad Arkoun and Fazlur Rahman. Such authors argue very much the opposite of those advocating a middle position: instead of arguing that the hudud can only be applied in a perfect Islamic society, they maintain that society has developed since the time of the Prophet and for that reason the hudiud, as well as other social prescriptions in the Koran, have become obsolete in their literal wording.

According to the Pakistani thinker Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988) the decay of the Muslim world had set in from the moment that the Muslim scholars lost sight of the rational coherence and the historical charac- ter of the Koran and started to approach the Koranic verses in isola- tion from one another and from their historical context. This atomistic and ahistorical approach has continued in modern Islam. To overcome this methodological deadlock, Rahman pleads for a theory of interpretation that involves a double movement: first from the historically specific to the general and then back to the specific. First the historical situations in which the different Koranic verses were revealed must be studied, so that the eternal and transcendent ethical laws on which the

50 Al-Sayyid al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, Al-'uqubdt al-sar'iya wa mawqi'uhd min al-niz&-m al- gtimd't al-isldmt (Cairo, 1987), 18, 34-7; Mitchell, Societ, 240-1.

" Taha Husayn applied the method of historical criticism to pre-Islamic poetry, thereby implying that this could also be done with the religious texts. See Taha Husayn, Fi al-si'r al-ghill (Cairo, 1928); A. Hourani, Arabic 7hought, 327.

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historical verses are based can be deduced; then these general and transcendent laws must be re-applied in the specific situations of the present time. Throughout this process, Islamic authenticity is safeguarded by the rational coherence of the Koran and the Sunna. In Fazlur Rahman's view, a doctrine or institution is "truly Islamic" to the extent that it flows from the total teaching of Koran and Sunna.52

The Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abiu Zayd elucidates the potential of a rational and historical approach of the Koran with a telling example. In light of the social conditions prevailing in pre-Islamic times, the Koranic injunction that granted a woman half the share of inheritance of a man was a step forward, since before that she was entitled to nothing at all. If the underlying intention of this historically conditioned injunction is re-applied in the present, it tells us to assume the total equality of man and woman before the law.53

The French Algerian thinker Muhammad Arkoun argues for an Islamic humanism based on a historical approach to the Koran. According to Arkoun, such an Islamic humanism developed in the first centuries of Islam in the thought of the Mu'tazilites and the Muslim philosophers. By arguing the createdness of the Koran, the Mu'tazilites viewed the Koran as historical and liable to critical human examination, but without denying its divine origin. However, when the traditionalist scholars established their hegemony and replaced the doctrine of the created Koran by an insistence on the literal and ahistorical truth of the Koran and of their own interpretations, this Islamic humanism fell into decay. In the 19th century, this condition made the Muslims an easy prey for the European hegemonic discourse of secular reason, which led Muslims to believe that they had to choose between being either traditional and religious or modern and secular. As a result, Muslim intellect was locked in a polarization between two hegemonic discourses: that of Western secular reason and that of traditionalist Islam. According to Arkoun, present-day islamists have not managed to think beyond the premises of traditionalist Islam. In spite of their rejection of taqlzd, they stick to the ahistorical, literalist understanding of the Koran, which inevitably sustains the monopoly of the scholars. Arkoun believes that Muslim consciousness can liberate itself from this polarization by a re- evaluation of the Islamic humanism of the Mu'tazilites. A new way of

52 F. Rahman, Islam & Moderni_ (Chicago and London, 1982). 53 Nasr Hamid Aba Zayd, interview in NRC-Handelsblad, 9 Dec. (1995).

56 MICHEL HOEBINK

thinking should be developed in which mythical and rational consciousness do not exclude each other and in which the Koran can be understood historically without denying its divine origin.54

One remaining point of disagreement among the advocates of a historical interpretation of the Koran concerns the fallibility and objectivity of such efforts. Fazlur Rahman counts himself here to the "objectivity school", disagreeing with Hans Georg Gadamer's thesis that there is "no question of any objective understanding of anything at all."55 Thinkers such as Muhammad Arkoun and the Egyptian philosopher Hasan Hanafi, on the other hand, seem to believe that the liberation of Muslim consciousness from human institutions claiming divine authority can only be achieved by a recognition of the total subjectivity of all human understanding and knowledge. The subjectivism of Hanafr and Arkoun is located at a junction of different currents in both Western and Islamic thought. It represents, for a start, a departure from the ethical positivism of the Mu'tazilites and the Muslim philosophers. As such, it further represents a convergence of the Islamic fundamentalist criticism of modernist reason (i*tihdd) with the Western postmodernist criticism of Enlightenment reason. However, whereas for the fundamentalists the subjectivity of human judgement always implied hegemony and domination, only to be avoided by taking refuge in the literal text of the Koran, in the thought of these "postmodernists" -it has evolved into an essential characteristic of human freedom, from which there is no refuge.

Hanafi takes the more extreme position. The central theme in Hanafi's writings is the subjective nature of all meaning and truth. Islam in the 20th century should be renewed through replacing the belief in absolute truth and a transcendent God by a subjectivist concept of truth, the belief in an immanent God and a strictly historical and anthropocen- tric reading of the Koran. Following Heidegger and Gadamer, IHanafi holds that meaning is not inherent in texts; it is produced in the

54 Also Nasr Hamid Abhi Zayd is careful to emphasize that studying the revelation as conditioned by its historical context does not necessarily deny its divine origin. See Nasr Hamid Abii Zayd, Vernieuwing in het Islamitisch Denken (Amsterdam, 1996), 74; M. Arkoun, Pour une Critique de la Raison Islamique (Paris, 1984); id., Europa en de Islam, guest-lectures University of Amsterdam, Jan.-June 1992 (Amsterdam, 1993), 63-73; id., Rethinking Islam; id., "Westliche Vernunft," 261-74; R. Haleber, Islam en Humanisme; de Wereld van Mohammed Arkoun (Amsterdam, 1992); L. Binder, Islamic Liberalism, 161-6; Lee, Overcoming Tradition and Modernity, 143-74.

55 Rahman, Islam and Modernity, 8-9.

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encounter between texts and human beings in their particular social and political contexts. HanafiVs radical subjectivism leads him to reduce all knowledge to power and all truth to ideology. For Hanaff, the only remaining criterion to know the true meaning of the Koran is his con- viction that the original aim of monotheism is the liberation of human consciousness from tyrannical powers. Following Marx, he locates "true consciousness" in the proletariat, which leads him to support the islamism of Mawdadi, Qutb and Khomeini as a manifestation of popular solidarity. in the struggle for freedom, social justice and brotherhood.56

On the spectrum between objectivism and subjectivism, Muhammad Arkoun represents a middle position. On the one hand Arkoun empha- sizes that the historical text analysis he proposes does not deny that the Koran contains an essential, divine meaning. On the other hand, however, he asserts that every human understanding or expression of this transcendent truth, even the Koran itself, is historical and subjective. Understood in this way, the recognition of human subjectivity does not imply that one should give up the effort to be objective altogether. Unlike Hanafi, Arkoun refuses to let go the distinction between scientific truth and ideology or, as he calls it, between critical and hegemonic reason. Although complete objectivity is beyond its reach, critical reason can reduce error to a minimum by a relentless effort to turn criticism back upon itself. The impossibility of complete objectivity does not deny the possibility to be more and less objective.57

Although Arkoun rejects the islamist ideal of an Islamic state, it may well be argued that, with his Islamic humanism, he brings the modernist islamist project as initiated by Afghan! and 'Abduih to its radical conclusion: that a religious order does not necessarily rule out a secular order; that it is possible to possess a particular identity and at the same time participate in a universal modernity, to guard Islamic authenticity without locking oneself up in a static Islamic essence. It is on this

56 Hanaf, "Origin of Modern Conservatism"; M. van den Boom, Bevrijding van de Mens in Islamitisch Perspectief; M.'A. Lahbdbf and H. Hanafi (Amsterdam, 1984); R.C. Martin, M.R. Woodward and D.S. Atmaja, Defenders of Reason in Islamn; Mu'tazilisrm from Medieval School to Modern Symbol (Oxford, 1997), 21 1.

57 It is tempting to compare Arkoun's position in this respect with that of al-Gaz&1i, who coupled epistemological subjectivism with a belief in a divine truth existing outside the human mind (see note 10). Interesting in this regard is al-Gazdl!'s doctrine that the impossibility to reach union with God did not deny the possibility to achieve various degrees of proximity (qurb) to Him. See Arkoun, Critique, 150; id., "Westliche Vernunft," 268; Lee, Overcoming Tradition and Modemiy, 152-3; Haleber, Islam et Humanisme, 182.; M. Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden, 1991), 196-7.

58 MICHEL HOEBINK

point that more radical secularists such as Aziz al-Azmeh and Sadiq (}alal al-'Azm distinguish themselves from the advocates of a historical interpretation of the Koran, who, in their view, are trying to reconcile things that are essentially irreconcilable. For such thinkers the whole notion of authenticity, not only its historical expression of islamism, is by its nature essentialist and antithetical to a universal modernity. Aziz al-Azmeh thus argues that the discourse of authenticity is ultimately an exclusivist and essentialist discourse, much like the reverse it finds in orientalism. The Syrian philosopher Sadiq Galal al-'Azm maintains that although throughout most of its history Islam has reconciled itself with a secular state of affairs, dogmatically Islam does not accept secularization. Al-'Azm asks himself what is wrong with contemporary postmodernist thought in Europe which plays so carelessly into the hands of the islamists. For Sadiq al-'Azm the discourse of authenticity is an essentiallist discourse and as such it is "orientalism in reverse". To call for Islamic authenticity means to replace the ideas of universal objective truth and development by those of cultural subjectivity, a static Islam and a return to a medieval theocracy.58

Democracy

So far it has been shown that although the islamists demand an Islamic state and the application of Islamic law, they recognize different degrees of human autonomy in the determination of this law and the institutions of the Islamic state. The question that now presses itself to the foreground is how the islamists believe that this human sovereignty is to be distributed among the people. This brings us to the question of democracy. The discussions among the islamists about democracy are very complicated and cannot be treated exhaustively here. However, this article cannot be concluded without at least a sketchy treatment of this issue. First of all it should be noted that an analysis of islamist views on democracy is hindered by the fact that the vocabulary of democracy, just like that of secularism, is associated by the islamists

58 The claim of these authors that the notion of authenticity is essentialist appears to me as a circular argument based on their own essentialist premise that authenticity and modernity are incompatible. See Aziz al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities, 39-59; $adiq (a1h. al-'Azm, "Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse," IKiamsin, 8 (London, 1981), 5-26; id., Kritiek op Godsdienst en Wetenschap; vjf Essays over Islamitische Cultuur (Amsterdam, 1996), 38-48; id., "Wider den fundamentalistischen Ungeist," 246-60.

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with Western hegemony and domination. Fundamentalist islamists in particular have thus tended to forcefully reject democracy as being a Western decadence. Similar to the case of secularism, it is therefore useful to look beyond this anti-democratic rhetoric and examine the substance of islamist views on political participation.

A good starting point for such an investigation are the objections of the secularists who claim that an Islamic state is by necessity theocratic and irreconcilable with democracy. In this secularist view, the islamists are merely aiming to establish a dictatorship in the name of religion. Islamist replies to such allegations are diverse. Some islamists indeed argue that the process of igtih/d and legislation should be conducted by a small group of learned persons. However, the standard islamist reply is that theocracy, in the sense of religious rule by either one person or a clergy, is contrary to the Islamic notion of monotheism (tawhkd). Such views are expressed by modernists as well as fundamentalists. Various islamists such as 'Abdiih, Rida, Iqbal, Mawduidi, Qutb and 'Amara argue that Islam does not recognize a religious authority aside from the revelation and that all believers have an equal right to consult and interpret the sources without intermediaries. The monopoly on inter- preting the sources is not the prerogative of a few but lies in the hands of the whole community of believers.59

Some modernists have related their ideas about popular participation to the notion of community consensus (zp'nd') as it was understood by the early religious scholars. In the view of Muhammad Iqbdl, for instance, the notion of consensus refers to nothing less than the ultimate Islamic ideal of spiritual democracy. In the course of history, this original ideal had decayed and consensus became restricted to the agreement of the scholars which was then regarded binding for later generations. But now the time had come, according to Iqbal, to revive the original notion of consensus and transfer the power of igtihad to a modern legislative assembly.60

The central notion in the modern discussion about popular participation, however,, is not zgnd' but the Koranic injunction of s'u-ra, or mutual consultation between the ruler and the believers. In the modern

59 cAmnra, Al-is'lm, 32-5 (on cAbdfih and himself); M. IqbM, "Islam as a Moral and Political Idea" in S.A. Vahid (ed.), 7houghts and Reflections of Iqbal (Lahore, 1973), 51-3; Rida, Al-bilafa, 124-5; Mawdfidi, "Political Theory" 160-1; A.S. Moussalli, Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: the Ideological and Political I)iscourse of Sayyid Qutb (Beirut, 1992), 156-68.

' Iqbal, Reconstruction, 168, 173-80.

60 MICHEL HOEBINK

discussions about s'ura opinions diverge particularly about the questions as to who is entitled to participate in this consultation and whether its results are binding or only advisory.6' A fundamentalist author like, for instance, 'Abd al-Hamid Mutawalli maintains that surd must be understood as non-binding advice to the ruler of a select group of qualified persons. On the other hand, modernist thinkers such as Muhammad 'Abduh, Muhammad al-Gazali and Halid Muhammad Hliid claim that the command of s'urd refers to the rulers' obligation to consult the totality of believers, directly or through their elected rep- resentatives, and that the ruler can be deposed if he does not act in accordance with the popular will as it has been established by this process of consultation.62

Yet even if the power of legislation is thus granted to the community, one important question remains unanswered by the islamists: the question as to who exactly should belong to this community. Of particular concern in this respect are the positions of women and non-Muslims in the Islamic state. One important focus of the Muslim secularists' criticism of the notion of an Islamic state is that they believe it to be irreconcilable with an equal citizenship of non-Muslims and women. Although some modernists have gone as far as arguing for the right of women and non-Muslims to vote and to hold important positions in the Islamic state, very few of their designs have indeed met the require- ments of a modern secular constitution, for example by granting non- Muslims the right to be elected as the head of state.63 One problem with modernist efforts to guarantee women and non-Muslims an equal position with Muslim men as citizens of an Islamic state is that the Koran in a number of places explicitly prescribes an inferior status for them-for instance by demanding non-Muslims to pay a special tax

6 F. Rahman, "A Recent Controversy over the Interpretation of Shura," Histogy of Religions, 20, 4 May (1981), 292-3.

62 Rahman, "Shura," 292-300 (on Mutawalli and al-Gazdlji; M. 'Amara, Al-isldm, 32-5 (on 'AbduTh and himself); Hjalid Muhammad Halid, Al-dawlaft al-islam; M. Salim al-'Awa, Political System, 86-97; Ilasan al-Turabi, "Al-siira wa-l-dimuqrtiyya: askalat al-mustalah wa-l-mafhfim" in: Al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabf, 75 (1985), 12-3; id., Tagdid al-fikr, 27-31, 87-90.

63 See for instance Muhammad Salim al-'Awa, "Al-nizam al-islami wa wad' gayr al- muslimin" in Turabi and al-'Awa (eds.), Min ma'dlim al-nizdm al-isldmt (Khartoum, 1987), 1-18; Pj. Vatikiotis, "Non-Muslims in Muslim Society: A Preliminary Consideration of the Problem on the Basis of Recent Published Works by Muslim Authors," in Mj. Esman and I. Rabinovich (eds.), Ethniity, Pluralism and the State in the Middle East (London, 1988), 54-70.

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(giZzya, Koran 9:29) and by stating that the testimony of a woman has only half the validity of that of a man (Koran 2:282). Some have therefore argued that the recognition of the historicity of the social prescriptions in the Koran is the only way to guarantee non-Muslims and women the same rights as Muslim men within an Islamic state. It is here that the dividing-line emerges again between radical modernists such as Nasr Hamid Abui Zayd and secularists such as Ghassan Ascha and Sadiq Oal'1 al-cAzm, who simply do not believe that Islam can be convincingly reformed in such a way. As long as Islam is used as a source of legitimacy for social life and politics, such radical secularists *argue, women and non-Muslims will be in danger of being discrimi-

64 nated against.

Conclusions

In the above article, I have suggested a framework for the description and analysis of the history of Islamic ideas concerning renewal, modernization and secularization. Avoiding both essentialism and reductionism, I have tried to demonstrate how modern Islamic thought on these issues has developed out of classical Islamic thought, and how it has been shaped by a modernity that is strongly associated with Western domination.

The development of the classical Islamic debate about renewal and modernization has been described within a continuum of three ideal- type positions. Modernists stand for a belief in human moral autonomy and for the freedom of interpretation of the moral ideal of Islam in the changing conditions of life. Fundamentalists emphasize the subjectivity of human moral judgements and resist interpretation of the moral ideal for fear of its manipulation by worldly powers. Traditionalism allows interpretation only in novel cases but forbids it in cases that have already been interpreted by earlier generations. Historically, Islamic traditionalism emerged as a compromise between the demands of the advocates and opponents of interpretation. In the long run, however, this compromise did not hold because, as some sort of unintended side- effect, the doctrine of traditionalism produced an accumulating body

64 As long as the Koran is used as a source of legitimacy for social life, Ascha argues, the fundamentalists will always have the better arguments; modernists, on the other hand, are often apologists who try to reconcile things that are essentially irreconcilable. See Ghassan Ascha, Du Statut Inferieur de la Femme en Islam (Paris, 1987).

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of jurisprudence that gradually suffocated its flexibility and capacity for new interpretations. An inevitable reaction to traditionalism stirred already in the 18th century and then fully developed in response to the rapid social changes that accompanied Western expansion since the 19th century.

Modem ideological and political thought in Islam, it has been argued, can most consistently be described in terms of two separate but interrelated debates, one about secularism and westernization; the other about religious renewal and modernization. The first debate is relatively new as it developed in response to the novel challenge of West- ern expansion. Influenced by European thought of the time, Muslim secularists argued that a complete break with religion as a source of legitimacy for social and political life was a precondition for human autonomy and freedom and for the modernization of society. Their opponents, the islamists, rejected secularism as a form of Western domination and, therefore, as an obstacle to Muslim freedom and development. The islamist demand for an Islamic order must primarily be viewed, not as a rejection of modernization, but as a rejection of the cultural hegemony of the West and of westernized elites in the Muslim world. The issue of modernization is discussed among the islamists in a second debate which, conditioned on the premise of the Koran as the ultimate source of social legitimacy, takes the shape of a debate on religious renewal, reform and interpretation. This second debate is not new: it is a continuation of the classical Islamic debate concerning human moral autonomy and the authority to interpret the ethical ideal of the Koran.

With the receding importance of traditionalism among the islamists, the old contradiction between fundamentalists and modernists re-emerged to the surface. However, the fundamentalists and modernists that were now facing one another were more moderate than their predecessors. Fundamentalists had learnt in the course of time to admit the inevitability of interpretation while modernists were more ready than they were before to recognize the limitations and subjectivity of human moral judgements and interpretations of the Koran. For the moment, however, Muslim secularists, modernists and fundamentalists remain divided by one central issue: the recognition of the historicity of the literal text of the Koranic revelation and its potential to reconcile the demands for authenticity with those of an emerging global modernity.

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