This entry is a dedication to one of my instructor who taught me lots of things regarding Islam and life nowadays. His name is Professor Nur Amali Ibrahim. We argued a lot of times, intellectually, but soon after I came out with this paper, I realized that his trained of thoughts are somewhat correct. So, here is the paper sounds like, just for you my beloved Professor. xoxo
Muhammad
Fazuan Abdul Karim
Introduction
to Islam Final Paper
Islam
and Modernity
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| Everyone should know this I guess. Credit to Google |
Muslims all around the globe experienced the most dramatic
and tragic history of the falling of the Ottoman caliphate when the empire was
defeated by the European empire. At that point of time, there were advancements
in the technology in the European continental such as industrialization and the
steamship invention in which European have had the chance to conquer the Islamic
caliphate. After the conquest, there surfaced problems of misfit: a situation
where the religion fails to offer adequate explanation of proper conducts and
the question on how to practice faith properly in context of rapidly changing
world. But the situation that happens threatened almost the entire belief
systems because it is known that Islam is a religion that is relevant no matter
how rapid the changes are occurring. In that context, there was a need to
reform and reshape Islamic knowledge in the light of Western models, known as
Islamic modernism (Robinson 2008: 259 - 261). The core of the religion remains
undisturbed but the acts of worshipping and implementing the religion varies
from one generation to another generation. In this paper, just to be specific,
I would like to analyze how the shift from taqliq to ijtihad plays its roles in
designing the new patterns on the Islamic canvas. I would point out the most
prominent impacts that ijtihad has had in effect which took place in the highly
modernized Muslims community. It is also necessary for me to underscore the
relevancy of the religion that has transcended different times and nations from
four different scopes of discussion: emergence of new religious authority, the
idea of radicalism, Islamic banking system, and the notion of spiritual
economy.
The central argument when we discuss about Islam and
modernity is the changes of causality from Taqliq to Ijtihad. Taqlid is
basically following the traces that have been left by the ulamak's generations through
the Islamic education. The process always involves adhering to knowledge that
has been passed down from the previous generations that is attained from the
concept of isnad pradigm. Jonathan Berkey (1992) argued that Muslims tried
their best to get connected to the traditions of the Prophet via tracing down
all the chains of transmission that eventually lead to the practices of the
Prophet. On the other hand, ijtihad is an independent reasoning based on the
God’s revelations. It opens and gives more opportunities for ordinary Muslims
to read and interpret the religious texts by themselves. Individuals now are
not necessarily need to be intact to the ulamak or any traditional religious
authorities when they can freely understand and interpret the Islamic
scriptures for themselves. This happened because of the advancement in printing
press that facilitated the free access to the Divinity commandments.
First important impact that modernity has on Islam is the
emergence of new religious authorities. The idea about atypical Muslim scholars
that only can be found in the mosques or any Islamic community center has
changed dramatically, since most of them can now be seen in different fields
and prospective. These kind of religious authorities are way different from the
traditional religious authorities in many ways. They did not study the
religious texts from the ulamak, instead looking at the words of God as closely
as they could. In another words, there was an ending of the total authority of
the past scholars that previously known as the keys to the interpretations of
Islamic scriptures (Robinson 2008: 267). Previously, Muslims referred to mufti
or author – jurist to legalize their behaviors as legitimate and on track of
Islam, but now they can highly assess their own justification since there is an
easy access to the words of God. From article written by Berkey (1992), one
thing that worth ponding upon is the idea that traditional religious figures
gained their authorities and power through the never – break ties to the
fundamental existentialism that traced back to the life of the Prophet and
through years and years of tedious Islamic education, but the new religious
personnel get theirs through the rhetorical and communication skills. They may
not master everything about certain field of Islam, but they usually have
multiple domains of interests that they really cherished. That is how people
like Tariq Ramadhan and Omid Safi gained their power and respect; they managed
to get all their standing novation through the power of their speeches and
persuasive skills.
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| Tariq Ramadan credit to Google |
The new religious authorities called themselves progressive
Muslims in which they are very much concerned about the universal notion of
justice; every one of us has the same worth and no single community's
prosperity, righteousness, and dignity comes at the expense of another (Safi
2003: 3). They are among people who are loud and vocal in expressing their
trained of thoughts, and they are people who strive to thrive Islam back to its
original position. Some people argued that progressive Muslims are not suitable
for that purpose of lifting the values of Islam because they appeared to be
“not a good Muslim” characters, but they were the ones who struggle for the
social critics, especially for the people that have been mistreated and
oppressed. Robinson (2008) said that this newly authorities have something
in common with the humanist which is the idea about free will and personal
accountability. They truly believe that each of us has responsibility to choose
from and to decide what is right or wrong in our life. Since we make up our
mind for something and decided to do things on our own, the repercussions
remain on our own accords.
Besides that, progressive Muslims also have been criticizing
the single system of morality in which President of United States of America
has been questioned and critiqued for his stands of treating his actions as the
only morale and good. Progressive Muslims intend not only to revitalize the
idea of Islam on Muslims, but also to bring the righteous acts forward than
anything else even to the non - Muslims. Basically, they are not trying to
exert their new ideas by diminishing the previous ones, but instead to broaden
the spectrums of interpretations of Islamic texts and scriptures. The new
dimensions that they came to propose were very much relevant and useful in this
highly modernized realm. Somehow the author (Omid Safi 2003) in his edited
version of Progressive Muslims emphasized that Islam was not as described in
the pamphlet saying “Islam is simple and easy” because Islam is not an easy
religion. He argued if the religion by itself is simple, how can there be so
many disagreement and misunderstanding. Safi encouraged the readers to
participate by sharing, arguing, debating, joking, and presenting the ideas of
Islam with different people of the world (Safi 2003: 22 – 23).
Not only that, an array in interpretations of the scriptures
of Islam led to the problem of radicalism. Radicalism is a group of Muslims who
went too far beyond extreme in their understanding the religion that eventually
could advocate overly reactive and aggressive behaviors. Radicalism happened
due to the misinterpretations that occur in the small group of Muslims. They
were triggered by the concept of jihad movement that initially, was just the
idea of inner struggle against bad desires and the will to improve people on
daily basis (Safi: 8). But somehow, the inner struggling notions have been
redirected and indebted in globalization and modern communication techniques
led to take up arms and military movement. One of the most famous persons that were
associated to being a radical Muslim is Osama bin Laden, a legendary Al Qaeda's
leader which the group acts as a group of mujahideen (army of jihad fighters).
Osama bin Laden was a man born in a wealthy family of Saudi Arabia in which his
family took control of many important sectors in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden
studied business management, economics, and engineering in the King Abdul Aziz University
and he did all his studies of Islam by himself through reading and
contemplation of different Islamic thinkers. Recall the earlier point when I said
that usually newly revived religious authority acquired their Islamic knowledge
through self – study and analysis of different scholars’ views.
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| Osama Bin Laden credit to Google |
Bin Laden first step in the radicalism was when Professor
Azam went on jihadi mission following the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979. There, Bin Laden was trained and fought alongside those Afghans, and
there onwards that he founded Al – Qaeda as a group of mujahideen. After a very
long struggles and massive wars, Bin Laden and his people defeated Soviet Union
that emboldened the jihadis to continue their missions. At certain point, Bin
Laden was angry with the Saudi monarchy for allowing United States to launch
operation Desert Storm in 1991. He then fled to Sudan and built an empire of
commercial businesses to support and to conceal Al Qaeda growing networks. Moreover,
Bin Laden moved to Afghanistan and in 1996, he proposed a fatwa on “declaration
of war against the Americans occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” (Euben
and Zaman 2009: 437 - 439). And because of his influential speeches and
capabilities, therefore, more and more attacks were launched on United States:
Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and New York in 2001. Bin Laden was
good in delivering his polemics by recognizing the physical and structural
violence; he mentioned that jihadis are not introducing violence but simply
redirecting them elsewhere.
When Islamic revitalization and awareness has spread
throughout the globe, there was an urge to pursue an Islamic banking system
that obeys the principles of Islamic law. Surprisingly, in this modern world,
Islamic banking is not exclusively practiced by the Islamic related banks, but
also in major Western banks like ABN-MRO and Standard Chartered bank (Maurer
2001: 8 -9). And frankly speaking, I feel amused with the major transformation
of many banks throughout the world into Islamic banking system. The primary
concern of the Islamic banking system would be the prohibition of riba which
contested many different kinds of interpretations and ijtihad from different
Muslim scholars. Riba usually is associated with financial interest or
increment from the primary amount of money. One thing that caught my attention
is the Surat Ali Imran verses 128 – 132 that talks about the usury, doubled,
and multiplied from the debt of a borrower who was unable to pay back on
schedule. The doubling or multiplying involved both principle amounts of money
and interest that indirectly pushes defaulters into enslavement. Elimination
and prohibition of riba also meant to block socially harmful financial practices
that threatened certain groups of people. In the context of the banking system,
the central argument circulates around the concept of riba as profit for risk
or not. Islamic teaching prohibited getting money without putting any effort or
risk. One group of economists said that the investment that they made were
actually risky for both bank and depositors, which makes it legal for the
interest to be used by the depositors without any doubt. Another group of
Islamic economists argues that interest cannot be accepted simply because there
is no variable return in the business transactions. This means the depositors
will receive the same amount of returns each term, no matter when the business
grow or fall which marked some sorts of unjust actions.
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| I love the motto of Standard Chartered Islamic Banking |
Not just that, extrapolating from the concept of non –
interest banking is the notion of derivatives which caused even more
controversial debates and arguments. Derivative is an asset whose value depends
on other assets that do not exist in the same moment of time as derivatives.
For example, the options and future which exemplifies the contract to buy
something at a specified future date on a specific price. The goods can be sold
to another party before the date arrives. On the other hand, it involved
trading something that appears to be abstract and obscure which is somehow
arguable in Islamic teaching. The economists were divided into either to agree
with the derivative which was based on khiyar al – shart or disagree that
taking into consideration of concept of haram. Again, ijtihad is very much
important in this argument. Economists who supported the derivatives came out
with khiyar al – shart which is the sale agreement where “one or both parties
has the right to rescind an otherwise binding contract within a specified
period of time from its commencement” (Maurer 2001: 10). For another group who
is going against emphasized that we should not imitate western financial
arguments since derivative is similar to gambling and exploitative practices.
This group of economists thought that bank should be focusing on instruments
that are beneficial to the Muslims community rather than profit maximizing. Again,
no matter how huge the debate could be, Islamic banking aimed to increase the
welfare of the people in accordance to the Islamic law.
In order to prepare Muslims of highly modernized world for
neoliberalism, there is an ideology of spiritual economies: insertion of piety
as a fuel of increasing the employees’ productivity. The idea of neoliberalism
can be termed as an economic condition that includes free trade, free market,
privatization of certain sectors, private properties ownerships, in addition to
the reduction of the government intervention on economic landscape. The setting
of this economy took place in Krakatau Steel factory in Indonesia in which 97%
of the 6000 employees are Muslim. For very long period of time, Krakatau Steel
factory has been under the state's project, but due to the change in the
political economic landscape everything changed dramatically. From the article
Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia
(Rudnyckyj 2009: 104 - 113) argued that economic recession that happened in
1998 forced Indonesia government to make loans from the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) with the exception of less intervention that the state has on the
economy. From that point of time, the factory would not receive any
subsidization or initiative from the government in order to prepare the
employees for privatization of the factory. At the same time, the
competitiveness of that factory dropped tremendously causing more problems
since there was an increase in competitiveness transnationally including China
that was known as one of the most efficient steel producer. In other words,
something needs to be done in order to bust the productivity of the employees.
| Man behind a great Ijtihad. Ary Ginanjar credit to Google |
Ary Ginanjar, came out with the proposal of spiritual reform
to solve the problem of the factory workers. He named it as 'spiritual' rather
than any Indonesian or Arabic term simply because he does not want people to
think that his ideology is stuck to religious practices only, but rather he
wants it to be universal and meaningful. “This emphasis on spirituality,
however, was not a rejection of science in favor of mysticism. Rather, Ary
Ginanjar saw his efforts to develop spirituality as commensurable with the
latest developments in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience (Rudnyckyj
2009: 121). Now the program that is known as Emotional and Spiritual Quotient
(ESQ) has been accepted globally by many countries including European and some
of the Western countries. One significant idea that he tried to bring upon is
believing that piety should not be restricted to only worship; principles of
conducive to modern business that are found in Islam and the Quran. The main
objective of ESQ is to activate the God’s spot that is essentially important to
increase personal accountability as a mean to obliterate corruption in
workplace. Ary Ginanjar was the man behind such a great program in which the
program serves as an Islamic version of corporate training and life coaching
program. After quite some times, the ESQ program proved to be one of the
important ijtihad to not only increase piety among Muslims but also to gear up
employees to face the challenge of neoliberalism.
In a nut shell, Islam has changed its forms and shapes in
favor of the modernity without taxing the primary core of the religion. The
change of causality that has pushed the notion of taqliq to a more independent
reasoning of ijtihad makes the religion rolls on until now. Due to the
different interpretations drawn from the Quran and hadith, there created lots
and lots of different practices and manifestations that make Islam looked
diverse and rich. But it is important for us to know that the interpretations
could either alluded positive practices or negative ones, depending on the
context of the interpreters. Islamic banking, spiritual economies, and
progressive Muslims might be considered positive outcomes of ijtihad, but
radicalism signed the negative practice. Throughout this paper, I have
presented 4 different angles of arguments that somehow going against or going
for the idea of being highly modernized in which Islam continue to flourish.
For some reasons, Islam changed as the Muslims evolved and the religion will
continue to be relevant even though the time and generation change.
Well, there is always different understanding and belief when it comes to the above discussion. I'm taking and putting all the arguments in the authors' terms, and choose to judge their background. As it mention in the paper, different ideas are not replacing the old ones, but rather to provide an array of interpretations. Hope it helps to broaden our knowledge about Islam and life in general.
Thanks,
firdausfazuan
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