My Essay for ALIM Winter Program

I wrote the following essay for my application to the ALIM Winter 2007 program. Insha'Allah I will be attending; the subjects and line up of teachers are very exciting.

The current generation of Muslims is beset by a technique of propagating the deen which is heavily influenced by modernity. This new type of dawah gravitates around slogans instead of substance and promises a utopian return to the past in exchange for political power. We are inundated by pamphlets about ‘Women’s Place in Islam’, ‘The Concept of God in Islam,’ and ‘Jesus in Islam’; none of these can do true justice to their subject because of the complexity of the theoretical and legal issues involved. For example, there is no one authoritative narrative concerning women in Islam; instead we have a variety of legal traditions each of which attempt to do justice to gender relations in the light of their own methodology.

I realize that for external Dawah, summaries are necessary; when it comes to the self-education of the Muslim, however, a more exhaustive study must be undertaken. This is not what is being done. Instead of an analysis of the historical experience of Muslims as reflected in their varied traditions of jurisprudence, we are given pep-talks about the need to return to kitab wa sunnah. Instead of a critical investigation into the formation of the accepted creeds of ahl-us-sunnah, we are reduced to the most extreme forms of bi-laa-kayfa evasion. If the ummah is to prosper as an independent civilization, its members must develop the critical faculties necessary to analyze its history and traditions. These traditions include the juridical systems developed by the Ottomans, the Mughals, the Soto Caliphate, and the Malikis of al-Andalus. Adherence to literalistic interpretations of as-sihah as-sittah can never replace a dynamic engagement with the systems of self-governance which this ummah has evolved over the past 1400 years. This engagement can only be achieved by undertaking a broad and comprehensive study of the development of Islamic thought.

Note: This should not be taken as an attack upon any particular ideological orientation within the Ummah; specifically, it is not an attack on my salafi brothers and sisters. There are salafi scholars who are engaged in just the sort of critical analysis which I recommend and there are 'traditionalist' movements which engage in the type of sloganeering which I condemn.