Opinion: Manifesto for a modern Islam

Debate within the Muslim communities on reformation and modernity:

In a clearly formulated manifesto last week, four well-known Muslim intellectuals appealed to all Muslim political and religious leaders to stand up and support a democratic Islam. In their letter, they also laid out some concrete steps, among them a conference in France early next year that would “define the contours of a progressive interpretation of Islam firmly grounded in the 21st century.”

The four men behind this letter are Tariq Ramadan, professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford; Anwar Ibrahim, the head of Malaysia’s national opposition and chairman of the World Forum for Muslim Democrats; Ghaleb Bencheikh, the president of the World Conference for Religions for Peace; and Felix Marquardt, founder of the Abd al-Raḥman al-Kawakibi Foundation. They’re hard on their fellow Muslims and ask tough questions. In their letter, they call for a clear-eyed diagnosis of Islam’s current plight and want to develop a fundamental critique of Islamic culture and religion.

The authors rightly ask, for example: Why have the regular calls for “an Islamic Renaissance” largely gone unanswered? Why did the “uncompromising critical analysis of the Quran and the prophetic traditions,” launched at the beginning of the 20th century, not lead to a lasting Islamic path to modernity? Why are innovative reformers who are looking for a connection between modernity and Islamic norms and values often forced to stand on the edge of society, fighting a losing battle?

Opinion: Manifesto for a modern Islam | Europe | DW.DE | 22.02.2015.

And from the Manifesto:

We must take ISIS’s and Boko Haram’s claims to be practicing a rigorous Islam seriously: suggesting simply that terrorist acts committed in the name of Islam have nothing to do with Islam is not serious. The accusations brought against the ‘silent majority’ of Muslims as a result of the actions of these terrorist groups may be unjust, but they must be addressed. Once and for all, we must let the barbarous murderers who justify their crimes in the name of Islam know: when they attack anyone, they are attacking us Muslims, our faith and values, first and foremost.

Muslim opinion leaders must be aware of their crucial responsibility in this area. If we do not want Islam to be permanently hijacked, it is our duty to constantly advocate moderation and a reformist approach to issues of religious education, governance, the rule of law, freedom of expression and the protection of fundamental liberties while taking a clear stand on the interpretation of scriptural sources (ijtihâd).

Those who want to divide humanity use uneducated shortcuts to associate Islam and barbarism and imply that there is an intrinsic violence in our religion, a natural solidarity between Muslims and terrorists. They imply that Islam is intrinsically incompatible with democracy.

In reality the vast majority of Muslims reject violence. And when freedom and democracy suffer, they suffer too, just as Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians or Jews do. The enemy is not our neighbour who goes to the synagogue, the church, or the temple. The real peril lies elsewhere: it is in the withdrawal, the ignorance, and the stigmatisation of the other; it is in the prejudices that drive us apart when we should be joining together as humans.

The time has come to turn the tables on the hijackers and set a new course for Islam in the 21st century. Our future, as peace-loving Muslim democrats, is at stake.

Muslim Democrats of the World, Unite!