Islam Is Not a Museum Piece: Why Process Thought Matters for the Future of My Islamic Faith Adis Duderija I am often asked, by fellow Muslims and by curious outsiders alike, what “ progressive Islam “ actually means. Is it just liberal politics dressed up in Arabic vocabulary? A watered-down accommodation to modernity? I want to suggest something different: progressive Islam is best understood not as a fixed set of positions at all, but as a community of becoming — a community defined less by the doctrines it holds than by the orientation it takes toward growth, responsibility, and the ongoing work of moral discernment. That may sound abstract, so let me make it concrete. For centuries, much of Islamic theology has assumed, often without saying so out loud, that reality is made up of fixed, self-contained things: a fixed human nature, a fixed law, a fixed and unchanging relationship between God and the world. On this picture, the task of religion i...
Muslims Need a Fresh Imagination of God—and of Reality Adis Duderija If there is one idea that could fundamentally transform how Islam is lived and understood in the 21st century, it is this: reality itself is not static. It is relational, dynamic, and in constant becoming . And if that is true, then Islam—like everything else—cannot be reduced to a fixed system of doctrines or laws frozen in time. It must be recognised as an unfolding, participatory process. This is precisely where progressive Islam, at its most intellectually serious, makes its most important contribution. It is not simply advocating reform, nor merely updating old interpretations to suit modern sensibilities. It is grounded in a far deeper shift—a process-relational understanding of existence that recasts God, revelation, tradition, and ethics as dynamic rather than static realities. At stake here is not only theological nuance, but the future of Islam as a lived, mor...