Progressive Islam as a Community of Becoming: Ethical Imperatives, Hermeneutics, and Lived Experience Adis Duderija A productive way to conceptualise progressive Islam is not as a fixed doctrinal system or a clearly bounded theological school, but as what may be described as a community of becoming . This formulation shifts the analytical focus away from static categories of belief and toward a dynamic understanding of identity, one rooted in processes of ethical transformation, interpretive engagement, and historical responsiveness. Within this framework, progressive Islam is not defined primarily by adherence to a discrete set of creedal propositions or inherited legal structures. Rather, it is characterised by a shared orientation: a commitment to rethinking and rearticulating the Islamic tradition in light of evolving moral, social, and intellectual contexts. Such an approach entails a fundamental reconceptualisation of the nature of religious tradition itself. Islam, in thi...
Liberating Islam: A Call for Dynamic, Comparative Critique in an Age of Stereotypes Adis Duderija In an era where Islam is often reduced to headlines of conflict, extremism, and cultural clashes, the words of the late Algerian-French scholar Mohammed Arkoun resonate with urgent clarity. In his seminal work, Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers (translated and edited by Robert D. Lee, Boulder, 1994), Arkoun declares: "I have sought to liberate critical discourse on Islam and so-called Muslim from all these limitations and contradictions by systematically choosing a dynamic vision rather than a static presentation, a bundle of methods taught by the social sciences rather than one method privileged over all others, and a comparative approach rather than the ethnographic view taken by those who tend to enclose and marginalize Islam in 'specificity,' particularism, and singularities." (p.1) This statement isn't just academic jargon—it's a...