Just when I thought the thread was dead! Thanks for the extended response from your paper!
To me also, I find that navigating the modernist / political Islamist divide is difficult as both claim to represent Islam. As outsiders who have only scratched the surface of Islamic thought, it becomes very difficult for us to judge which one more accurately represents Islam. Add to this our non-desire to teach Muslims better Islam but rather to preach Christ crucified, and the whole situation becomes a mire.
Let me, too, share part of a paper I wrote after 9/11 for a class at Concordia Seminary (St. Louis) on missionary practice. It was eventually published in the Concordia Journal and can be found at the following link, if anyone is interested: http://www.csl.edu/CJJuly02.pdf (Note that it is from pages 270-290; the title is: "Bridging the Gap: Sharing the Gospel with Muslims"
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But here is a long excerpt from that paper encapsulating the way I approached the topic at the time. Some of my thinking has changed since the paper was published and I went to live in Africa, but I hope it may still hold some value.
Here is the excerpt (without the footnotes which add considerable documentation to my claims -- they can be found in the paper at the link above):Trends in Islam A great debate rages in Islam over the proper stance to take in relation to the changing face of a world greatly influenced by the phenomenon of globalization with it concomitant pressures toward capitalism, modernity and pluralism. There are many sides in this debate, and even within various camps there are disparate voices arguing in different ways. However, the most prominent divide is between the Modernist Muslims who take a more liberal and progressive stance toward the changing times advocating a more spiritualized Islam and the Islamist (Fundamentalist) Muslims who reject most of modernity in favor of a repristinized Islam ostensibly along its original lines. It would be too simplistic to say that only the Islamists seek a reformed Islam; rather, both seek to reform Islam but along different and often conflicting lines.
Both camps have roots in Islamic history. The particular phenomenon Modernist Muslims represent can be traced back to the mid-18th century, but the roots may go much deeper. During the time of the Abbassid Empire and even among the Ummayyids, there was an adab culture that advocated the pursuit of the arts, medicine, philosophy, science and toleration. The adabs helped to form one of the most advanced civilizations in the world at the time and oversaw great advances on many humanistic fronts.
However, since the current debate takes place in the face of Muslim cultural weakness and Western dominance, a better place to locate the start of the Modernist Muslim ethos is during the 19th century with leaders like Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan of India (1817-1898) and Muhammad Abduh of Egypt (1849-1905). Khan stressed that Islam is first of all a morality focused around taqwa – the proper attitude of a creature in the face of the awesome Creator. He saw true religion’s essence as that explicated by natural law and, therefore, available to all people. In practice, this meant that the West has something to teach. Reason is superior to revelation. Abduh taught along similar lines though emphasizing the primacy of revelation over reason while still claiming that morality is the most important aspect of human conduct. He was also a great advocate of education, both moral and intellectual. Like Khan, Abduh saw that the West had something to teach, but he thought that it should be evaluated critically and only the good aspects taken without the bad. Both thinkers have many similarities to Western moral philosophers like Kant when they speak of the primarily ethical dimensions of Islam. In Egypt, Abduh’s student, Rashid Rida (1865-1935), and he worked to eliminate the old conservatism that said the laws of Islam are unchangeable, but they ultimately had little to show for their efforts. Other important Modernist Muslims include Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1876-1938) and Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958), both from India.
Modernists have always had trouble making their presence felt in most of Muslim society because of their high intellectualism and difficulty packaging their message in an easily understandable form. Further, they have rarely been in power or had the financial backing to propagate their ideals. This is true even today as the petrodollars of Saudi Arabia and elsewhere flow to Islamist movements worldwide. In addition, they have frequently been seen as agents of Western culture as many Modernists are educated either in the West or along Western lines; there is something “un-Islamic” about them to many ordinary Muslims.
Like the Modernists, the Islamists carry a long heritage. Most obviously in this ideological line are the Kharijites who surfaced even during the time of the Pious Caliphs, the first 30 years after Muhammad’s death. The Wahhabi tradition in Saudi Arabia is also influential upon Islamists, and, oddly, Modernist Muslims like Abduh and Iqbal are also a part of the background of Islamist thinking. The two most influential Islamist ideologues are Sayyid Qutb of Egypt (1906-1966) and Maulana Abul ala Mawdudi of India / Pakistan (1903-1979). More than any others, these two thinkers have had profound effects on the mindset of many ordinary Muslims. Both thinkers advocated a type of Islamic state where the Qur’an and Sharia reign supreme and the domination of man over man (read democracy) is abolished. Both downplayed the role of reason in favor of revelation and advocated puritan ethics including the separation of sexes.
The concept of jihad allows a convenient entry point to understand the differences between the Modernist and Islamist approaches to Islam. Technically meaning “struggle [in the way of God]” and not “Holy War,” jihad is interpreted vastly differently by the two groups. Modernist Muslims see jihad as obligatory on both an individual and communal level, but they make a distinction between the “Greater Jihad” and the “Lesser Jihad.” The Greater Jihad takes place during peacetime and can be an individual striving for ordering one’s entire life along the paths of God or it can be a communal striving for creating a good society. Along these lines, Modernists speak of an educational jihad, an economic jihad for the poor, or a social jihad to abolish class differences. As opposed to the Islamists, none of these “jihads” are explicitly connected with Sharia law as codified by the 13th century. The Lesser Jihad, that of Holy War, is only permissible in defense and never in offense.
The Islamists do not distinguish between Greater and Lesser Jihad. For them, all of life is striving in the way of God and can take place just as legitimately during wartime as during peacetime. The communal jihad is primarily understood as war in the way of God to spread the rule of God. It is incumbent on the Muslim to fight such a war if he is able and if there is a prospect of victory. The goal of this war is true peace; a peace based upon the rule of God rather than on the tyranny of man. Islamists see democracy with its founding principle that the people make the laws as being outright rebellion against God and the domination of man by his fellow man. It is an awful situation to be caught in, and the only solution to end such tyranny is to implement God’s law – the Sharia understood as that which has been promulgated since the 13th century. Wars must be fought even against so-called Muslim nations that are run based upon Western laws since the laws are tyrannical, and the leaders are apostate Muslims as evidenced by their refusal to implement Sharia law.
As can be seen, Modernist Islam has imbibed much of the Enlightenment, liberal spirit of the times while Islamist Islam critiques this spirit and is a reaction against it. Both ostensibly struggle to implement true peace, but what true peace looks like is conceived of quite differently. Modernists justify their approach to governance based upon their human responsibility to act as God’s khalifas, God’s co-workers in creating a just society. Islamists say that there is no justice in a society conceived along the lines of modernist Islam.
This divide helps to explain much of what happened following 9-11. In the U.S., most pious Muslims tend toward the Modernist side and emphasize the peaceful, progressive aspects of Islam. They were horrified and outraged at what happened to the World Trade Center and vigorously insist that what happened was un-Islamic and that Islam is a religion of peace. Many nominal Muslims were shocked to think that Islam was in any way connected to such an act and, if Islam does teach people to fly planes into buildings, they want nothing to do with it. From a Christian perspective, these Muslims would be receptive to the proclamation of the gospel of peace, but many probably went to Modernist Muslim leaders and were assured that Islam was not to blame for these attacks. The end result is that many nominal Muslims have become pious Modernist Muslims.
Even Islamist Muslims worldwide were alarmed by the attacks because they were carried out against civilians including women and children without any warning. Much of the anger at our attacks against Osama bin Laden is the result of the refusal of these Muslims to believe that such a “pious” Muslim as bin Laden is capable of such an attack since Islam forbids the killing of innocents and sneak attacks during times of peace. For them, a pious Muslim by definition could not carry out such an attack; therefore, bin Laden, a pious Muslim, did not do it.
Further, many Muslims feel that the attacks on the U.S. are understandable in light of past American policies. At the head of the list is the current American policy toward Israel where we give over $3 billion a year to the Israeli government. In the words of Sheikh Abdul Majeed Atta, a Palestinian member of Hamas:
[9-11] was an awful thing, a tragedy, and since we live a continuous tragedy, we felt like this touched us… but when we see something like this in Israel or the US, we feel a contradiction. We see it’s a tragedy, but we remember that these are the people behind our tragedy… Even small children know that Israel is nothing without America… and here America means F-16, M-16, Apache helicopters, the tools Israelis use to kill us and destroy our homes. In addition, the pride of many Muslims has been absolutely crushed following centuries of colonialism and the general backwardness of Muslim societies. War is rampant, Muslim governments dictatorial and repressive, and military defeat after military defeat is handed to Muslim countries by the West and Israel. A poem written by a Saudi ambassador, a member of one of the richest families in the world, nicely summarizes Muslim sentiment:
Children are dying, but no one makes a move.
Houses are demolished, but no one makes a move.
Holy places are desecrated, but no one makes a move…
I am fed up with life in the world of mortals.
Find me a hole near you. For a life of dignity is in those holes. This type of despair and wounded pride fuels anger and disenchantment with everything Western and a desire to do anything to restore lost dignity.
It is into such a context of despair, resurgent Islam and inter-Muslim conflicts that the gospel is preached. It is a message tainted by long association with the West and its oppressive, arrogant stance towards the rest of the world. This is particularly true of the lone superpower who bestrides the world as a colossus, unchallenged and seemingly invincible. To speak of humility, sacrifice, love and forgiveness in the name of Christ seems to be the height of hypocrisy for a rich Western person to do. Christian converts from Islam are seen as people who betray their culture, their religion, and their pride; each convert is one more slap in the face to people who already feel dominated and humiliated through no fault of their own.
If Muslims want to seek rapprochement with Western dominance and thought patterns, Modernist Islam provides a way to do so and remain Muslim. For Muslims who want nothing to do with the West, Islamist Islam provides them an alternative and a vision for all aspects of society that relies solely upon seemingly “Islamic” resources such as the Sharia and classical interpretations of a puritanical Islam; it is the way of no compromise and the way of pride.
Paradoxically, 9-11 has served to increase the effectiveness of Islamic da’wah (mission) for both Islamists and Modernists. One Muslim cleric from New York said that he has seen the number of converts to Islam quadruple in the weeks following 9-11 as more and more people sought to learn more about the religion of the hijackers to understand their reasoning. Modernist Muslims push their agendas of a liberal Islam that preaches peace and progressive ideas that look like much of contemporary American society – help for poor people, better education, building a better society. Islamist Muslims reap in a harvest of disaffected Muslims worldwide who see Muslims asserting their power over against the supposedly invincible America. The courage and vision of the 19 hijackers to destroy an icon of Americana, kill thousands and cause over $300 billion in damage to American infrastructure is seen as an example of what determined Muslims can do and a source of pride. Both sides of Islam have benefited from 9-11.
Christians have also unwittingly contributed to the increase in conversions to Islam by their salutary attempts to portray Islam as seen by the Modernist Muslims – a religion of peace and justice – and ignoring that the Islamist Muslims also have a legitimate position in their interpretation of Islam. Even the seminars that Christians have put on to help people understand Islam better are double-edged – they are needed to help Christians better witness to Muslims and to increase the safety of Muslims by reducing Christian fear of Muslims, but they also serve as platforms for the preaching of the message of Islam. Any action undertaken by Christians to educate people about Islam needs to remember both the benefits and the dangers of such education.
All is not dark, though. Acts of Christian charity and love have yielded fruit for Christ. Christian action to protect and love Muslims even in the face of the 9-11 attacks has caused many Muslims to want to learn more about Christianity. There is a story told by an ELCA Palestinian pastor who held a joint prayer service with Muslims and, after the service, was asked by the leader of the mosque to have a private Bible study because the imam could not understand why Christians reacted in love toward Muslims rather than anger. While joint prayer services should be avoided (who, exactly, is being prayed to?), patient and long-suffering love can and does overcome the barriers Muslims put up against Christians. Most crucial is that opportunities for Christians and Muslims to come into contact with one another are created in order to make it possible for the gospel to be proclaimed with love and tact.
Christians must affirm that God is at work in the world and uses all things to bring people to Himself through Christ. The events of 9-11 must be seen in this light – as events that somehow God will turn to good, a good defined by the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins, especially to Muslims. We stand at a crossroads in Christian-Muslim relations; because of 9-11, there are many opportunities and many dangers. We can either increase our outreach with the word of the gospel in love or we can watch Muslims become strengthened in their faith – whether that is the liberal faith of Modernist Islam or the strident faith of Islamist Islam. More than ever it is clear that the time for Christian outreach to Muslims is now, and we dare not miss the opportunity for the alternative is too grim to consider.
