Painting with a Thin, Precise Brush

by Liberty and Power

Pick up any newspaper today and you get a sweeping characterization of ALL Muslims as angry extremists waiting to strap on explosives and exterminate Westerns for the Jihad - whatever that means. However I have long suspected, and continue to believe, that most Muslims just want to be left alone and make a few bucks. Which makes this week's election results in Malaysia so important to consider. When given the choice of a moderate, pro-markets Islamic candidates voters said yes. Let's set aside our stereotypes shall we?

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Jason Pappas - 3/24/2004

It's interesting that you pick two figures living in the West. The other day on C-Span, David Frum proposed that if reforms can not be undertaken within Islamic countries, "we" would have to create a school of moderate Islam here in the US. I have doubts about such ventures.

However, you are right. It's hard to know when a backwards oppressive culture might crumble. If Michael Ledeen is right, it's going to happen in Iran. If the "Islamic Berlin Wall" falls in Iran, that could demoralize the fundamentalist movement - especially if it falls by its own weight.

I've seen Manji talk. I wish her luck - she has a reasonable manner which lends itself to a sincere dialog. I'm sure she'll speak to other Muslims who are wondering what to do given the pressures they face.

Jonathan Dresner - 3/24/2004

The first names which come to mind are Tariq Muhammad of France and Irshad Manji of Canada. The former is more famous for his attacks on Jewish intellectuals than for his moderate modernizing, and the latter probably more marginal as a lesbian than mainstream. But you never know where the cracks will form. Look at Malcolm X....

It's foolish, of course, to look for exact analogies, but I'd also like to suggest the Jewish path of slow assimilative division, as opposed to the Christian holy warfare, as a possibility, but that will probably only work in Western societies where Muslims are a minority, whereas the Wars of Reformation model is more likely in the Muslim majority nations.

OK, I'm a modernist, but I can't believe that a tradition as thoroughly anti-modernist as Wahhabi and other extreme traditionalisms can really endure as the dominant model. But then, if the Catholic Church hadn't been hypocritical about its finances, maybe Luther wouldn't have....

Jason Pappas - 3/23/2004

Do tell us more. Are you speaking historically about Islam or are you looking at current reformers that are hopeful theologians of a reformed Islam going forward?

Any names and links? I'd be much obliged.

Jonathan Dresner - 3/23/2004

Of course there is moderate Islam, in the same sense that pre-Reformation Catholicism had a wide variety of expressions and modes including a huge number of people who, when given the theological and institutional opportunity, turned out to be Protestants. There are Islamic writers who are humanists, Muslims who may fill the role of Erasmus.

There was a Catholic Revival, too, which actually got going before the Reformation through the Office of the Inquisition. Perhaps we really are looking at the stirrings of a Muslim Reformation.

Jason Pappas - 3/23/2004

When you talk about the demographic group, Muslims, I think you are right: "most Muslims just want to be left alone and make a few bucks." However, most Muslims aren't interest in practicing the religion except in some perfunctory way.

The problem is with those who are serious about the religion. Since Islam is a political religion with rules about ever facet of life, being serious about religion leads to an illiberal society with few freedoms.

What we call "fundamentalist Islam" is known as the "Islamic revival" in Muslim countries. There is really no moderate Islam in the sense that there are different kinds of Christianity from Catholic to Liberation Theology to Quakers, etc. There is no moderate theologian who created a literature of moderate Islam.

Moderate Islam really means less Islam or lapsed Islam. Let's hope for more moderate ... alot more moderate ... complete moderate ... i.e. a secular rational society.