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

  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 ...

  The Religious Genius: The Creative Transformation of Religious Consciousness     Adis Duderija What makes certain individuals transformative within the history of religion? Why do some people merely preserve a tradition while others renew it, deepen it, and reveal possibilities within it that had previously remained unrealized? These questions stand at the center of the concept of the "religious genius." Drawing on Alon Goshen-Gottstein's formulation, a religious genius is not simply an exceptionally intelligent person, a saintly individual, or an accomplished scholar. Rather, a religious genius is someone who, through a rare integration of intuition, intellect, imagination, and character, generates new understanding of reality that addresses fundamental religious concerns and leads to enduring transformation within a tradition. The religious genius offers not merely information but insight; not merely interpretation but reconfiguration; not merely knowledge...

  Why the Highly Gendered Nature of Classical Islamic Law Demands Critical Reassessment Adis Duderija One of the most common claims made in contemporary discussions of Islam and gender is that men and women are "equal but different." According to this view, the distinctions made within classical Islamic law do not reflect male superiority or female inferiority but simply different roles, responsibilities, and social functions. Yet a close examination of the classical legal tradition suggests otherwise. The issue is not merely that men and women are treated differently. Rather, the legal system itself was constructed upon a set of assumptions about masculinity and femininity that consistently privileged men while limiting the autonomy, authority, and agency of women.  The highly gendered character of classical Islamic law becomes apparent when one considers the sheer breadth of legal distinctions between men and women. These differences extended far beyond marriage and family ...

  On the Concept of a   (Woman)   Saint     Adis Duderija   What comes to mind when we hear the phrase woman saint? For many, the image is almost predetermined: a figure of purity, obedience, humility, and self-sacrifice. She is patient under suffering, submissive to authority, and detached from worldly ambition. Such qualities may indeed characterize some women recognized as saints. Yet, as Robert Ellsberg perceptively observes, these conventional portraits often tell us as much about the expectations of those who wrote the stories as they do about the women themselves.   The history of sainthood has largely been written by men, shaped by institutions dominated by male religious authorities. As a result, women saints have frequently been celebrated for embodying virtues deemed appropriately feminine while other traits have been minimized or ignored. Courage becomes obedience. Leadership becomes service. Intellectual brilliance becomes pi...

 The Poverty of a Worldview Without Imagination Adis Duderija One of the clearest signs that a worldview has become spiritually, aesthetically, and ethically deficient is its inability to make room for imagination, creativity, and genuine novelty. Such a worldview may appear strong, certain, and orderly. It may promise stability and protection from ambiguity. Yet beneath its surface lies a deep poverty of spirit. It reduces the richness of human existence to repetition, conformity, and control. In doing so, it undermines some of the very qualities that make human life meaningful and flourishing. Imagination is often misunderstood as a form of escapism, a retreat from reality into fantasy. In fact, imagination is one of the most profound ways humans engage reality. It allows us to envision possibilities that do not yet exist, to empathize with lives different from our own, and to perceive dimensions of the world that routine habits obscure. Every social reform, scientific breakthrou...