Source:Dawn.com
By Anwar Iqbal
suicide bombing justified? Can women lead prayers? Is there a feminist interpretation of Islam?
These are some of the questions Muslims living in the West often face. They attempt to answer these questions as best as they can. And in the process, they are often forced to reinterpret their faith, a process called ‘ijtihad’, although they are no ‘mujtahids’.
The concept of ijtihad allows Muslims to interpret their beliefs according to the time and place they live in. This concept, however, has not been used for centuries.
‘Ijtihad’ is an Islamic legal term that means “independent reasoning”, which is used for defining an issue in a way that does not contradict the teachings of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah.
Categories: Asia
Book Review: Islam Without Extremes by Mustafa Akyol
Any legislation needs interpretation. The law is interpreted by judges and jurists everyday. Similarly religious rules and regulations also require interpretation with changing time and context. All of the imam of Fiqh were “mujtahid”. They interpreted the religion of Islam according to their own needs and understanding. This is why there is difference in various interpretations. This happened two to three hundred years after the Prophet (saw). Unfortunately, “aqeedat” (extreme and blind respect, a form of shirk) took over since. The discussion was not what religion says, but it became what a certain imam says. This resulted in lot of blood shed and elimination of any progress and modernization of our religion.
Even today we tend to refer to the various imams of fiqh and no one has interpreted the religion according to the modern times. We still want to see what the imams said about women issues more than one thousand years ago, when they lived in a tribal, patriarchal society, where there was no education, no economic opportunity and no science. Yet we still insist and fight over their interpretations. The result is obvious and before us.
Unfortunately even those Muslim factions which claim to work for renaissance of Islam have fallen into the same trap. They refuse to interpret Islam differently. They are stuck to the fiqh of one thousand years ago.
So the only ray of hope is where newer generations of Muslims who are born and raised and educated in the West are standing against these relics. They are ignoring them and proceeding with their lives according to the needs of the modern society. And as happened in Christianity, Islam will also have to follow its followers.
The best picture of Islam is not being presented by the religious scholars of any Islamic faction, it is coming from the young Muslim university students. Another source of reform is Muslim faculty members of the schools of religions in the Western universities.
How fortunate are the members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who have their Khilafat! The Khalifa is the ultimate source of continuous interpretation.