Critique of 'Liberal Islam'?

[AbdusSibtayn]

Assalamun alaykum,

I do not know if this is the correct forum for this thread, so if the mods think it would be better to move it to some other forum, I request them to do so.

The thing is, I want some books/articles in English which contain good, academic criticisms of 'liberal' or 'reformist' Islam, from a traditional Islamic perspective. Are there any which are available?

Apart from this, if the brothers/sisters wish to share their own view points, or some scholarly opinions, they are most welcome to do so. Any and every kind of feedback, given that it is reasonable and logically sound, is also welcome.

Thanks in advance. Stay blessed.

[Wholehearted Shi'a]

Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

If you mean by the style of liberalism and reformism from the western world I often think that when the topic of having a “Liberal Islam” comes up  it is always is said by westerners or secularists who have very little knowledge of Islam themselves. These same people who claim Islam can be on par with the western style secularism are just completely wrong. The fundamental beliefs of our religion is to follow the Quran, the example of the prophet and the Ahlulbayt therefore we can’t turn our backs on them for the sake of being perceived liberal especially by the west. I have heard some people who claim to be Muslim have talked about editing some parts of the Quran to fit in the “modern world”. Homosexuality and other grave sins have become so open in the west it disturbs me that these same people have a go at us for not being “liberal” at least in their definition of it which is essentially do whatever you want and act on any desires without question. There is a reason so many people from the west are converting to Islam. It is because religion has been pushed aside or at least has become hypocritical abandoning their teachings leaving many questioning what is the point of religion if you constantly change the wording and interpretation of scripture just so you can justify contradicting it. 

[AbdusSibtayn]

2 hours ago, Wholehearted Shi'a said:

Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

If you mean by the style of liberalism and reformism from the western world I often think that when the topic of having a “Liberal Islam” comes up  it is always is said by westerners or secularists who have very little knowledge of Islam themselves. These same people who claim Islam can be on par with the western style secularism are just completely wrong. The fundamental beliefs of our religion is to follow the Quran, the example of the prophet and the Ahlulbayt therefore we can’t turn our backs on them for the sake of being perceived liberal especially by the west. I have heard some people who claim to be Muslim have talked about editing some parts of the Quran to fit in the “modern world”. Homosexuality and other grave sins have become so open in the west it disturbs me that these same people have a go at us for not being “liberal” at least in their definition of it which is essentially do whatever you want and act on any desires without question. There is a reason so many people from the west are converting to Islam. It is because religion has been pushed aside or at least has become hypocritical abandoning their teachings leaving many questioning what is the point of religion if you constantly change the wording and interpretation of scripture just so you can justify contradicting it. 

Jazkallah khair brother! Well said!

Yes, I wanted to imply liberalism or reformism in the sense of making Islam compatible with the secular-liberal ethos. These secular-radical reformists are a wide array of people, some more radical than the others, with different agenda, but their basic aim is one - making Islam compatible with secular liberalism current in the West. There's a lot of criticism of traditional Islam from their side, but it seems that the traditionally-minded Muslims are not responding to/refuting their attacks at all, or at any rate not as vigorously as them. No doubt, these people have a messed up epistemology and world-view, and misplaced priorities, and their primary concern lies not with discovering what Islam actually teaches or stands for, but with somehow skewering and truncating Islam to fit the modernist or post-modernist liberal schema of things, by hook or crook.

What I am actually more interested in is the recent debate in the hawzas, notably the Qom hawza, between the traditional and reformist scholars, such as the late Sayyid Fadlullah, Shaikh Jannati, Shaikh Saanei and more recently, Sayyid Kamal al-Haydari- their case is different from that of those lay radicals, in that they maintain an Islamic epistemology and operate within the framework of the traditional Islamic worldview, even though their fiqh methodology and reasoning differs from the more traditional maraja in Najaf or Qom. This is to say that these scholars aren't calling for a rejection of the Sharia, or applying secular humanistic source-criticism, text-criticism, or hermeneutics to the Qur'an or Ahadith - they very much use the traditional tools of inference to arrive at their conclusions - tafsir, rijal, usul al-fiqh, matn criticism, logic etc etc. This is not to disrespect or run them down in any way; as mujtahids they are perfectly within their rights to disagree with the mainstream, but I was wondering if there's any criticism of their methodology from the more traditional ulama. 

I was looking for a comprehensive critique of both these steams of reformism - radical as well as traditional. Looks like none is available, at least not in English.

[Ibn al-Hussain]

  

There are tons of critiques on the general epistemology of some of these scholars and even critiques written directly against some of the opinions or works of any given individual. However, most of them happen to be in Persian and some in Arabic - most of these discussions, as far as the Shi'as are concerned, are taking place within Iran. Iran is the battle-ground for the liberal/reformist vs. traditionalist scholars. They are generally referred to as reformists. You have to first know their issues, in order to really understand the critiques against them properly as well (that is how I found the traditional critique to be very weak and inconsistent). I can highlight at least 4 points that immediately come to my mind - although just know that not everyone necessarily accepts every idea, or even if they do, each scholar may have a different interpretation for it or a different way of explaining it.

1. Ethical Propositions are Prior to Religious Propositions

This is one of their most fundamental premises - whether they are Hawzah trained scholars or just university-trained intellectuals and philosophers. They argue, within Shi'i thought we believed Husn (good) and Qubh (bad) to be prior to religious propositions as we deemed them to be rationally perceived. In fact, we cannot prove anything without this basic ethical perception, from step 1 concerning the necessity of investigating into religion, to any argument that dictates what God should have done (i.e. He makes Wise decisions, He must send Prophets, He must protect the Qur'an etc.). They argue, if ethics is prior to religion in the realm of permanence (thubut - reality as it is), then it should also remain prior in the realm of affirmation (ithbat - the worldly realm we are in right now, which is limited and we do not have a complete sense of reality). As such, our legal propositions (i.e. the Shari'ah) needs to be derived while taking ethical principles into consideration. 

Although, there are some who maintain this premise and yet critique moral rationality regardless. They try to establish the priority of ethics over religious propositions to other means, but the general idea is the same. Some of them have made the claim that the greatest tragedy for Shi'i theology has been the fact that it was completely built on moral rationality (taken from the Mu'tazlis) and that moment this becomes shaky your whole theology falls apart. 

1a) The division between ethics and law: one question that needs to be addressed is whether there is really any difference between ethics and law. Some have begun arguing that this division is essentially wrong and in fact one of the greatest blunders that took place in the early centuries of Islam. They blame the Sunnis and their governance for emphasizing this division that it became part and parcel of life. Today, you can have a law that is perfectly 'halal' to do, yet the collective intellects or a society will unanimously condemn it as being immoral. They argue that the religious texts (Qur'an and Hadith) do not emphasize such a division, and in fact if religious texts say you can be punished for adultery, then the same religious texts also say you can be punished in hell for being conceited ('ujb). How the former can be 'haram', but the latter only 'immoral' and not have a legal consequence for it is a question that needs to be answered. In other words, your law has the potential of being unethical.

Though it doesn't seem like most reformists believe ethics and law to be one and the same. They still maintain they are different but try to give ethics a much greater role within law. 

2. Comprehensiveness of Shari'ah (Shumuliyyah al-Din)

Once again, not every reformist scholar may question this premise, but most do (in fact even some traditional scholars question it). The differences amongst scholars of this camp are generally with regards to how comprehensive it is - given that we know it isn't comprehensive. Growing up as a Muslim, we are always told that Islam has a solution for "everything", or a ruling for "everything" - it is extremely difficult to even think of a life where religion is not comprehensive. Our religious interpretations of Qur'an and Hadith are based on this presumption (whether we are consciously aware of it or not) and dozens of other premises that we apply in our day to day life are based on this presumption. Our whole legal theory (Usul al-Fiqh) is based on this presumption and subsequently so is our Fiqh.

These set of scholars question this premise and have offered other alternatives. Some of the arguments are extremely well thought out, for example, Shaykh Haider Hobbollah's discussion on it is excellent, extremely precise and exhaustive and he takes more of a middle approach to the topic. He just had his final lesson on it today in Qom and his book on it should be published over the summer (in Arabic).

3. Historicity of Law

Law in a very general sense is divided into ritualistic (acts of worship: Salat, Sawm etc.) and non-ritualistic acts (marriage, divorce, inheritance, interest, hijab, prohibiting the wrong and enjoining good etc.). This camp argues that at the very least, non-ritualistic acts need to be historically contextualized to the best extent possible so their essential values are understood and then determined whether implementing these laws the way they were implemented centuries ago ensure the presence of those essential values and greater goals of the Shari'ah or not. In other words, laws are subject to time and place and any significant change in these two factors will alter the applicability of these laws as well (since they were originally legislated by God with the condition of a certain time and place - i.e. context). It thus only makes sense that once the context changes, the law (or the nature of its applicability) also alters.

Many traditionalist scholars accept the role of time and place, but in a very limited way. However, the premise has garnered a lot of attention ever since Imam Khomeini made it a big deal (especially with the way he passed his edict on the permissibility of chess and more importantly the way he brought time & place into discussions of political law). However, some within the reformist camp argue that his ideas were not given a chance to be further expanded on after the Revolution, especially since many scholars who shared similar ideas were either all killed (your Mutahharis, Beheshtis etc.) or were simply cast-aside. 

4. Epistemology

All that I wrote above is part of one's epistemology, but with this, I want to highlight something specific. These scholars have certain premises within their epistemologies that necessarily lead them to different directions. For example, from amongst the group of Hawzawi-trained scholars, you will find that their legal school of thought (Fiqhi Maktab) is very Qur'an-centric. We have had dozens of schools of thought within Shi'i jurists (I am actually typing up a series of posts on this series which I will eventually put up on my blog Insha-Allah). One of these Maktabs is the Qur'an-centric school and they have many ideas that are not agreed upon by other scholars. Discussions such as can a speculative solitary report condition or restrict a verse of the Qur'an or not; whether a speculative solitary report is even binding or not. Some may reject the probative-force of speculation altogether and believe that God cannot grant it any binding-force. Others may say we have no way to attain certainty today so all speculation is valid, including speculative judgments by the intellect.

Amongst the non-Hawzawi group of scholars, you may have some who believe in the relativity of most knowledge - especially knowledge by acquisition, as opposed to knowledge by presence - and this creates a notion of "reading of a religion" (qira'at-e deeni). I could have mentioned names of scholars who hold these ideas and the different opinions regarding these premises, but that would have gotten too long. As for critiques, as I said most of them are in Persian. If you can read it, you just need to do a simple search on naqd-e roshanfikri-ye deeni and tons of material will pop up. Muassasah Imam Khomeini of Ayatullah Misbah Yazdi in Qom, for example, have a lot of works against them. Agha Khosropanah has written some articles as well and many others.

Wasalam

Edited May 8, 2018 by Ibn al-Hussain

[AbdusSibtayn]

On 5/8/2018 at 3:03 PM, Ibn al-Hussain said:

  

There are tons of critiques on the general epistemology of some of these scholars and even critiques written directly against some of the opinions or works of any given individual. However, most of them happen to be in Persian and some in Arabic - most of these discussions, as far as the Shi'as are concerned, are taking place within Iran. Iran is the battle-ground for the liberal/reformist vs. traditionalist scholars. They are generally referred to as reformists. You have to first know their issues, in order to really understand the critiques against them properly as well (that is how I found the traditional critique to be very weak and inconsistent). I can highlight at least 4 points that immediately come to my mind - although just know that not everyone necessarily accepts every idea, or even if they do, each scholar may have a different interpretation for it or a different way of explaining it.

1. Ethical Propositions are Prior to Religious Propositions

This is one of their most fundamental premises - whether they are Hawzah trained scholars or just university-trained intellectuals and philosophers. They argue, within Shi'i thought we believed Husn (good) and Qubh (bad) to be prior to religious propositions as we deemed them to be rationally perceived. In fact, we cannot prove anything without this basic ethical perception, from step 1 concerning the necessity of investigating into religion, to any argument that dictates what God should have done (i.e. He makes Wise decisions, He must send Prophets, He must protect the Qur'an etc.). They argue, if ethics is prior to religion in the realm of permanence (thubut - reality as it is), then it should also remain prior in the realm of affirmation (ithbat - the worldly realm we are in right now, which is limited and we do not have a complete sense of reality). As such, our legal propositions (i.e. the Shari'ah) needs to be derived while taking ethical principles into consideration. 

Although, there are some who maintain this premise and yet critique moral rationality regardless. They try to establish the priority of ethics over religious propositions to other means, but the general idea is the same. Some of them have made the claim that the greatest tragedy for Shi'i theology has been the fact that it was completely built on moral rationality (taken from the Mu'tazlis) and that moment this becomes shaky your whole theology falls apart. 

1a) The division between ethics and law: one question that needs to be addressed is whether there is really any difference between ethics and law. Some have begun arguing that this division is essentially wrong and in fact one of the greatest blunders that took place in the early centuries of Islam. They blame the Sunnis and their governance for emphasizing this division that it became part and parcel of life. Today, you can have a law that is perfectly 'halal' to do, yet the collective intellects or a society will unanimously condemn it as being immoral. They argue that the religious texts (Qur'an and Hadith) do not emphasize such a division, and in fact if religious texts say you can be punished for adultery, then the same religious texts also say you can be punished in hell for being conceited ('ujb). How the former can be 'haram', but the latter only 'immoral' and not have a legal consequence for it is a question that needs to be answered. In other words, your law has the potential of being unethical.

Though it doesn't seem like most reformists believe ethics and law to be one and the same. They still maintain they are different but try to give ethics a much greater role within law. 

2. Comprehensiveness of Shari'ah (Shumuliyyah al-Din)

Once again, not every reformist scholar may question this premise, but most do (in fact even some traditional scholars question it). The differences amongst scholars of this camp are generally with regards to how comprehensive it is - given that we know it isn't comprehensive. Growing up as a Muslim, we are always told that Islam has a solution for "everything", or a ruling for "everything" - it is extremely difficult to even think of a life where religion is not comprehensive. Our religious interpretations of Qur'an and Hadith are based on this presumption (whether we are consciously aware of it or not) and dozens of other premises that we apply in our day to day life are based on this presumption. Our whole legal theory (Usul al-Fiqh) is based on this presumption and subsequently so is our Fiqh.

These set of scholars question this premise and have offered other alternatives. Some of the arguments are extremely well thought out, for example, Shaykh Haider Hobbollah's discussion on it is excellent, extremely precise and exhaustive and he takes more of a middle approach to the topic. He just had his final lesson on it today in Qom and his book on it should be published over the summer (in Arabic).

3. Historicity of Law

Law in a very general sense is divided into ritualistic (acts of worship: Salat, Sawm etc.) and non-ritualistic acts (marriage, divorce, inheritance, interest, hijab, prohibiting the wrong and enjoining good etc.). This camp argues that at the very least, non-ritualistic acts need to be historically contextualized to the best extent possible so their essential values are understood and then determined whether implementing these laws the way they were implemented centuries ago ensure the presence of those essential values and greater goals of the Shari'ah or not. In other words, laws are subject to time and place and any significant change in these two factors will alter the applicability of these laws as well (since they were originally legislated by God with the condition of a certain time and place - i.e. context). It thus only makes sense that once the context changes, the law (or the nature of its applicability) also alters.

Many traditionalist scholars accept the role of time and place, but in a very limited way. However, the premise has garnered a lot of attention ever since Imam Khomeini made it a big deal (especially with the way he passed his edict on the permissibility of chess and more importantly the way he brought time & place into discussions of political law). However, some within the reformist camp argue that his ideas were not given a chance to be further expanded on after the Revolution, especially since many scholars who shared similar ideas were either all killed (your Mutahharis, Beheshtis etc.) or were simply cast-aside. 

4. Epistemology

All that I wrote above is part of one's epistemology, but with this, I want to highlight something specific. These scholars have certain premises within their epistemologies that necessarily lead them to different directions. For example, from amongst the group of Hawzawi-trained scholars, you will find that their legal school of thought (Fiqhi Maktab) is very Qur'an-centric. We have had dozens of schools of thought within Shi'i jurists (I am actually typing up a series of posts on this series which I will eventually put up on my blog Insha-Allah). One of these Maktabs is the Qur'an-centric school and they have many ideas that are not agreed upon by other scholars. Discussions such as can a speculative solitary report condition or restrict a verse of the Qur'an or not; whether a speculative solitary report is even binding or not. Some may reject the probative-force of speculation altogether and believe that God cannot grant it any binding-force. Others may say we have no way to attain certainty today so all speculation is valid, including speculative judgments by the intellect.

Amongst the non-Hawzawi group of scholars, you may have some who believe in the relativity of most knowledge - especially knowledge by acquisition, as opposed to knowledge by presence - and this creates a notion of "reading of a religion" (qira'at-e deeni). I could have mentioned names of scholars who hold these ideas and the different opinions regarding these premises, but that would have gotten too long. As for critiques, as I said most of them are in Persian. If you can read it, you just need to do a simple search on naqd-e roshanfikri-ye deeni and tons of material will pop up. Muassasah Imam Khomeini of Ayatullah Misbah Yazdi in Qom, for example, have a lot of works against them. Agha Khosropanah has written some articles as well and many others.

Wasalam

Sorry for the delayed response, brother!
Firstly, many, many thanks for your comprehensive and highly informative reply; I actually had a gut feeling that you were going to respond to this question.  

A lot for me to read and digest! Thanks once again!!