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

  God as Beloved: Sallie McFague, the Madhhab-i 'Ishq , and the Limits of the Kingly God Adis Duderija Many years ago, the theologian Sallie McFague proposed three alternatives to patriarchal and monarchical images of God: God as Mother, God as Lover, and God as Friend . In her influential book Models of God (1987), she invited believers to reconsider the metaphors through which they imagine the divine. Rather than envisioning God primarily as King, Lord, or Sovereign, McFague suggested that divine power might be better understood through nurture, love, and companionship. At first glance, this might seem merely an exercise in updating religious language. Yet McFague's proposal is more profound than that. It challenges one of the most enduring assumptions of classical theism: that divine perfection is best expressed through absolute sovereignty, unilateral power, and complete control. What is particularly striking is that McFague's vision finds an unexpected analogue in th...

  Can Traditional Islamic Theology Still Explain the World We Live In?   Adis Duderija     Many Muslims sense that something is no longer working. The problem is not Islam itself. The problem is that some of the theological frameworks through which Islam has been interpreted struggle to account for the world we actually inhabit. This has become increasingly apparent in discussions of religious diversity, divine providence, human freedom, and salvation. Few recent scholars have articulated these difficulties more clearly than Imran Aijaz , whose critique of traditional Islamic theism deserves serious attention, whether or not one ultimately accepts all of his conclusions. His arguments strike at the heart of some of the most deeply embedded assumptions in traditional Sunni theology. And they point toward the urgent need for a new Islamic ontology and theology grounded in process-relational thought. The Crisis of Plausibility Aijaz’s central claim...

  Hakimiyya or Human Responsibility? Why Muslims Need a New Vision of Divine Power   Adis Duderija   For more than a century, one idea has exercised a powerful influence on Muslim political thought: hakimiyya , the belief that legislative sovereignty belongs exclusively to God. Popularised in the modern period by Islamist thinkers such as Abul A'la Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb, but very much present in many forms of premodern Islam, the concept has become a cornerstone of many Islamist and fundamentalist visions of society. At first glance, the idea appears uncontroversial. Muslims affirm that God is the creator and sustainer of the universe. The Qur'an repeatedly reminds believers that ultimate authority belongs to God. So what is the problem? The problem begins when a theological truth is transformed into a political ideology. In many traditional and fundamentalist interpretations, hakimiyya is understood as God's unilateral and absolute control over reality. Human beings ...