Critical-Progressive Muslims: On Islamic hermeneutics, Gender and Interreligious Dialogue

REVIEW OF Zahra Ayubi. Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society .New York, NY: Columbia University Press, August 2019. 336 pages. $35.00. Paperback. ISBN 9780231191333. Unedited version .To appear in Reading Religion  By: Dr. Adis Duderija, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Islam and Society, Griffith University a.duderija@griffith.edu.au Over the last few decades a number of important scholarly discussions on the highly   gendered   ( in a patriarchal sense) nature of Islamic intellectual tradition   have been written but whose focus primarily has been on the Islamic legal tradition (fiqh) ( e.g. K.Ali,   A. Chaudhry, A.Mahellati )   and to a lesser extent Qur’anic commentary (tafsir) ( e.g. K. Bauer , A.Geissenger). Ayubi’s remarkably well written and comprehensively referenced book provides further evidence of the same dynamics at play in the context of exploring three most influential writers of the akh...

How to Defeat the Clash of Extremisms:    Civilisational Hybridity and Trust Building in the Multicultural West  Dr. Adis Duderija In my talk, I would like to highlight how the concept of civilisational hybridity and efforts aiming at building of trust along   religious lines as exemplified   by the event we are commemorating   this evening can help counter the harmful effects of   the two most prevalent and arguably   most pernicious, but unfortunately not only,   forms of extremism today   namely ethno-nationalism   associated with white supremacist groups   and religious associated with violent Islamic radicalism. I will do so from a historically informed perspective of examining the historical nature of the civilisational interactions between the Arabo-Islamic civilisation and that of the Latin Christian West. 1.      The Clash of Extremisms: In the 1990s in the the aftermath of the Cold War...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqjcQZJ4BHw&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR29Anx1JHrMa4_1zrSzuVB3HSnw9bv3JEuHDX9uROPjEMMyd3ydxTS8qI0

LINK TO RELIGIOUS PLURALISM CHAPTER FROM MY IMPERATIVES OF PROGRESSIVE ISLAM BOOK:

https://www.academia.edu/39398231/Bilal_Philips_as_a_Proponent_of_Neo-Traditional_Salafism_and_His_Significance_for_Understanding_Salafism_in_the_West

MY OP ED ON CHRISTCHURCH MASSACRE: One paragraph ( below) is missing and will be added : "Some want us to believe that white supremacism has been a reaction to and wouldn't exist if there was no Islamist terrorism. While there is a link between the two, we should not forget that white supremacism existed much earlier and that its victims both in the recent and not so recent past have been Jewish and African American communities". https://www.abc.net.au/religion/dismantling-supremacist-ideology-after-christchurch/10914352

the very exciting new issue of Tikkum Olam on "Beyond Patriarchy" is out ' ( with a contribution of my own on "Using Progressive Muslim Thought to Take Down Patriarchy" )....I highly recommend this magazine to all progressive minded people: https://newsstand.joomag.com/en/tikkun-winter-2019-341/0328395001551904165

slides for my forthcoming talk on Introduction to Islamic hermeneutics: https://www.academia.edu/38437303/Introduction_to_Islamic_hermeneutics.pptx

 The increase in volume and importance of Ḥadith in the theological and legal interpretation of the Qurʾān and Sunnah induced in the coming generations a frame-of mind in which it was expected that “ever new Ḥadith should continue to come into existence in new situations to face novel problems—social, moral, religious.” The champion and proponent of this Ḥadith-based Qurʾānico-Sunnahic hermeneutic was Shafiʾi. Shafiʾi’s insistence on Sunnah being only in a written form with an authentic isnād going (in most cases) back to the Prophet diminished the value of the ijtihād–ijmāʿ element inherent in the concept of ʿamal- and oral-based Sunnah, and its overall importance in evolution of legal hermeneutic development, and substituted it with that of Ḥadith-based one.126 Noticing this conceptual shift in Sunnah, Rahman asserts that: Whereas Sunnah was largely and primarily a practical phenomenon, geared as it was to behavioural norms, Ḥadith became the vehicle not only of l...

 We have previously briefly noted the reasons for increased ‘Ḥadithification’ of the concept of Sunnah. We refer to these as the forces of traditionalisation that were responsible for the paradigm shift in the way in which not only the concept of Sunnah came to be understood but also the entire subsequent Islamic thought. The process of traditionalisation is defined here as those social, political and jurisprudential mechanisms that throughout the second century of Hijrah contributed to:  1. the gradual shift in formulation, preservation and transmission of knowledge from the oral to the written mode in general and, as a corollary, the continued growth and proliferation of Ḥadith; 2. the increased perceived importance given to Ḥadith at the cost of the ethico-moral and ʿamal-based concept of Sunnah;  3. the absorption of practical and oral-based Sunnah into Ḥadith; 4. the increased application of Ḥadith in Qurʾānic and Sunnahic sciences such as tafsīr, ʿusū...

The previous discussion led us to conclude that most of the Companions and early Successors had died before the importance of ‘standardised Ḥadith’ came into being and that ʿamal and oral-based Sunnah still enjoyed more credence than Ḥadith. The end of the first and beginning of the second century saw a significant growth of Ḥadith as a result of the talab ul-ʿilm/rihla phenomenon so that Ḥadith acquired more currency. As argued elsewhere, two broad mechanisms were responsible for this development. Firstly, the general perception among some influential and reputable Successors that the expanding Muslim empire would become organically detached from the Qurʾānic and Sunnahic teachings was becoming widespread. Secondly, a change in political fortunes and subsequent rise of the Abbasid dynasty (132 AH), which used the argument of being custodians of the Prophet’s Sunnah through his uncle’s cousin Abbas to justify and legitimise their political power, along with partisan tensi...

With the death of the Prophet, Ḥadith attained a semi-formal status.69 The main purpose of Ḥadith, as mode of Sunnahic transmission, was, according to Rahman, for practical reasons “as something, which could be generated and be elaborated into the practice of the community”.70 Its random writing down marked the development of Ḥadith during this period of time in simple notebooks usually referred to as saḥ ̣īfa/suḥ ̣uf. 71 Nonetheless, judging by their own involvement in making decisions based upon them, the importance given to Ḥadith at the time of the Caliphs was not great. Juynboll asserts that:  It is safe to say that Abu Bakr, the first caliph, cannot be identified with Ḥadith in any extensive way. This may show that during his reign examples set by the prophet or his followers did not play a decisive role in Abu Bakr’s decision making. With regards to second Caliph’s [Umar] use of word Sunnah ‘the term is usually use to mean: the normative behaviour of a good Muslim...

The viability of the concept of Islamic feminism has an element of  contestedness in terms of its compatibility with the Islamic tradition and its fountainheads. One central component of the possibility of Islamic feminism pertains to the idea of whether or not Islam’s primary source of normative teachings, the Qur’an (or more precisely the nature of Qur’anic revelation) can be reconciled with the modern ideas and concepts that come under the umbrella of feminism/gender equality/ anti-patriarchy. In this section, we outline the most recent debates surrounding this question between what can be termed ‘radical’Muslim feminists and Muslim ‘feminists’.    A recent overview of the literature, on theorizing about Islamic feminism, written primarily by Muslim women in the non-Islamicate context, suggests that “a carefully articulated and tentative convergence of the two (i.e. Islam and feminism) intellectual traditions” is both possible and potentially beneficial because...