The below is the transcript from an interview with boardering on belief you tube channel (that has not yet happended )
1. What is meant by Progressive Islam (PI) and where does it sit in the traditional–modernist spectrum?
Progressive Islam is best understood not as a fixed school of thought but as an evolving intellectual and ethical orientation toward the Islamic tradition. It is characterized by a commitment to ethical humanism, epistemological openness, and methodological pluralism.
On the traditional–modernist spectrum, PI does not simply occupy a midpoint; rather, it seeks to transcend the binary. It critically engages the pre-modern tradition without being bound by it, while also resisting uncritical adoption of modernity. Instead, it advocates a dynamic, process-oriented understanding of Islam that is historically conscious and ethically driven.
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2. Why do we need PI? What are the problems that a traditional view causes in today's world?
Traditionalist approaches often rely on static, decontextualized interpretations of scripture and law that were developed under very different socio-historical conditions. When these are applied uncritically today, they can produce ethical dissonance—particularly in areas such as gender justice, human rights, and pluralism.
We need PI because it offers a framework for reconciling fidelity to the Islamic tradition with the moral insights of contemporary life. It addresses the gap between inherited interpretations and lived realities, allowing Islam to function as a morally coherent and socially relevant worldview.
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3. What are the foundations of PI? How central is the text of the Quran in PI?
The foundations of Progressive Islam include a commitment to ethical objectivism, epistemological openness, and methodological pluralism. This means recognizing that knowledge—especially in matters of religion—is always partial, historically situated, and open to revision, and that multiple interpretive methods are both necessary and legitimate.
In addition, Progressive Islam is informed by a process-relational metaphysics or philosophy, which understands reality—including the Divine–human relationship—as dynamic, relational, and continuously unfolding. This stands in contrast to more static, substance-based metaphysical frameworks and allows for a more fluid and responsive engagement with revelation, ethics, and human experience.
Core ethical values such as justice (‘adl), compassion (rahma), and human dignity (karama) serve as orienting principles within this framework.
The Quran remains central, but not in a literalist or decontextualized sense. It is approached as a text that emerged within a particular historical and discursive context and must be interpreted accordingly. Its authority lies not merely in its textual form, but in its ethical vision, moral trajectories, and capacity to generate meaning in ever-changing contexts.
Thus, rather than functioning as a closed repository of fixed rules, the Quran in Progressive Islam is a catalyst for ongoing ethical reflection—engaged through diverse methodologies and informed by an openness to new knowledge and perspectives.
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4. How do you understand Sunnah?
The Sunnah should not be reduced to a fixed corpus of hadith reports, nor confined exclusively to the historical actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. In a Progressive Islam framework, it does not necessarily have to originate in the Prophet at all. Rather, Sunnah is best understood as any ethically sound practice within a given context—one that reflects and advances core moral values such as justice, compassion, and human dignity.
This reconceptualization shifts Sunnah from a source of imitation to a process of ethical actualization. It becomes an evolving, communal practice shaped by human experience, moral reasoning, and changing social realities. What qualifies as Sunnah, therefore, is not its historical pedigree but its ethical integrity.
Importantly, this understanding also brackets ritual and liturgical practices from the concept of Sunnah in this sense. While such practices may hold significance within the tradition, they do not constitute the ethical core that Sunnah, as a dynamic moral category, is meant to capture.
In this way, Sunnah becomes a living, adaptive ethical framework—one that empowers communities to embody the spirit of the tradition in ways that are contextually meaningful and morally responsible.
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5. Is there a role for authority/clergy in PI?
PI is generally skeptical of centralized, hierarchical religious authority. However, it does not reject expertise. Scholars have a role, but that role is dialogical rather than authoritarian.
Authority is dispersed and negotiated within interpretive communities. The emphasis is on intellectual humility, critical engagement, and inclusivity rather than top-down control.
6. How can we separate the historical from the universal in the Quran? And how do we escape cultural biases/presentism in doing so?
This is one of the most complex and hermeneutically demanding questions in Quranic interpretation. From a Progressive Islam perspective, the Quran must be approached contextually, intertextually, and as a complex set of discourses rather than a monolithic, self-contained text. It engages with, responds to, and reworks existing socio-religious ideas, which means that its meaning cannot be extracted apart from these broader discursive and historical frameworks.
Separating the historical from the universal, therefore, is not a matter of simply identifying “timeless verses,” but of discerning the ethical trajectories and underlying value structures that the text is moving toward. This requires careful reconstruction of the socio-historical context of revelation alongside a sensitivity to the Quran’s internal plurality of voices, genres, and rhetorical strategies.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that interpretation is always situated. Escaping cultural bias or presentism entirely is neither possible nor desirable. What is required instead is a reflexive and self-critical hermeneutic—one that is transparent about its assumptions and open to revision through dialogue and interdisciplinary engagement.
Crucially, this process also presupposes a broader understanding of revelation. Revelation should not be seen as exhausted or confined by the textuality of the Quran alone, but as a more expansive, dynamic phenomenon that includes moral insight, human experience, and the unfolding of ethical consciousness across time. This expanded view allows interpreters to remain faithful to the spirit of the Quran while engaging constructively with new knowledge and evolving moral horizons.
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7. How can we use contextual/values-based/trajectory hermeneutics in applying Islam today?
A trajectory hermeneutic reads the Quran not as a static set of rules but as a movement toward higher ethical ideals. For example, rather than focusing on specific regulations, we ask: what direction was the Quran pushing society in?
A values-based approach prioritizes overarching ethical principles—justice, equality, compassion—and applies them to new contexts. This allows for continuity with the tradition while enabling meaningful reform.
8. What do you see as the universal message of the Quran and how can it impact on those who don't identify as Muslim?
The Quran’s universal message lies in its moral vision: the affirmation of human dignity, the pursuit of justice, and the cultivation of compassion and God-consciousness.
These values are not exclusive to Muslims. When articulated in inclusive terms, they can resonate across religious and secular boundaries. In this sense, the Quran can function as a source of ethical inspiration for humanity at large.
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9. How would you evaluate the success or otherwise of modernist/reformist attempts of the past? Why has Islam not had something similar to the Protestant Reformation or Reform Judaism?
Earlier modernist and reformist movements made important contributions, particularly in reopening the space for interpretation and challenging the closure of ijtihād. However, many of these efforts were either apologetic in nature or lacked a sufficiently robust and coherent hermeneutical framework.
A key issue, drawing on Khaled Abou El Fadl’s distinction, is the difference between authoritative and authoritarian approaches to religious interpretation. Authoritative interpretation is grounded in intellectual rigor, ethical responsibility, and interpretive humility—it invites engagement and remains open to critique. By contrast, authoritarian approaches claim a monopoly over truth, foreclose interpretive plurality, and often conflate divine will with particular historical interpretations.
Much of what passes for “tradition” today operates in an authoritarian mode, even when it claims fidelity to classical scholarship. This has significantly constrained the development of meaningful reform, as alternative voices are often delegitimized rather than engaged.
The absence of a “Protestant-style” reformation in Islam is therefore not simply a historical accident. Islam’s decentralized religious structure means there was no singular institutional authority to revolt against. However, political conditions—colonial disruption, postcolonial authoritarianism, and the instrumentalization of religion by the state—have often reinforced authoritarian modes of interpretation rather than fostering authoritative ones.
From a Progressive Islam perspective, the task is not to replicate the Protestant Reformation, but to cultivate conditions for authoritative, ethically grounded, and hermeneutically sophisticated engagement with the tradition. This involves reclaiming interpretive plurality while anchoring it in a robust moral vision.
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10. How do you deal with criticism from within the Muslim community on a personal level?
Criticism is an inevitable part of engaging in reformist thought. It must be approached with patience and intellectual integrity.
One must distinguish between constructive critique and reactionary resistance. The former should be engaged seriously; the latter often reflects deeper anxieties about change. Maintaining a sense of purpose and grounding one’s work in ethical commitments is essential.
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11. What nourishes your own connection with God?
Beyond intellectual engagement, a connection with God is nurtured through reflection, ethical action, and a cultivated sense of humility before the complexity of existence.
My own orientation is deeply shaped by a process-relational understanding of the Divine—one in which God is not conceived in static, absolutist terms, but as dynamically related to creation. This perspective emphasizes reciprocity, becoming, and an ongoing unfolding of the divine–human relationship, which I find both theologically compelling and spiritually nourishing.
I am also drawn to spiritual sensibilities associated with groups such as the Malāmatiyya and what is sometimes referred to as the madhhab al-‘ishq (the “school of love”). These traditions foreground inward sincerity, ethical self-effacement, and a love-centered approach to the Divine that resists performative piety and external validation. They remind us that the deepest forms of religiosity are often quiet, inward, and ethically transformative rather than publicly demonstrative.
Ultimately, what sustains this connection is an integration of thought and praxis: a commitment to knowledge, an ethic of compassion, and a continuous striving to align oneself with what one understands to be the moral and relational nature of the Divine.
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