Umm Zaid has a great entry on Progressive Islam.
Since I was contemplating what reformist movements mean to traditional Islam, I was fascinated by this movement early on. This group has had their fair share of attention on NPR.
Omid Safi, author of “Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism“, is one of the proponents of this new philosophy.
After hearing him, I realize why this movement has not been as successful as they desire. I really don’t think ‘Progressive Muslims’ know who they are.
Mr Safi’s book seems to be a collection of essays from people who may not agree with one another at all. The very founding of this movement is based off of pluralism. Pluralism can be taken to different extents, but by it’s very nature impairs the ability to convey a focused message. It’s difficult to rally people behind your cause, when your core belief is to simply accept -everything-!
The only comparison I can make to this movement is that of the reformist Jews who turned Judaism from faith into a racial identity. ?Progressive Muslims? are removing any meaning behind being ?Muslim?, and simply replacing it with a cultural identity (specifically the identity of second/third generation Muslims in America).
I?m waiting for this progressive Islamic movement to grow up and acknowledge that there are aspects to Islam which -are- inflexible. The Qu?ran is a timeless book, its pages are not changing, and its importance or relevance is not fading. If you can?t even believe that, then why cling to the title of Muslim? It?s not so popular to be one anyway.
May 4th, 2004 - 4:50 pm
As salaamu ‘alaykum,
Good assessment.
I don’t know if any of these people really know what they want or they just choose to stick to what unites them (their criticism of traditional or orthodox Islaam) and not discuss what divides them.
As I mentioned over at Umm Zaid’s blog, I think there is certainly a real potential problem that something called progressive Islam might seek to solve in a more authentic and sincere way. Islamic values are different from modern secular humanist values. Cultural values of Muslim lands are different from both. A real progressive Islam could seek to emphasize authentic Islamic values and principles and apply them to the modern world in a dynamic convincing way. We can all agree that there are some values/practices in the cultures of Muslim lands that are not ‘Islamic’ and that don’t need to be imported here to this country. It is important to have as many sincere approaches as possible to keep people attached to Islam because there is a great danger of assimilation and total loss of emaan in these societies in these times.
I know that there is a revival amongst more conservative religious trends and this needs to continue and accelerate. But I don’t leave out the possibility that something of a little different approach could appeal to some people that are not being reached through other approaches.
But simply dressing up the values, practices, and lifestyle of secular humanism and calling it progressive Islam because it is being done by people with Muslim names is not an approach which will be successful, although as Umm Zaid points out beautifully in her post it may appeal to non-Muslims as what they wish Muslims would do.
In the end, those who are sincere will run to the real thing, and those with diseases in their hearts will stop bothering to call themselves Muslims.
In any event, I wonder if they would agree with the comparison to Reform Judaism. I also wonder how the people who started Reform Judaism when they talked about what they were doing if they were honest in admitting that they were taking Judaism to a cultural rather than believing relgious identity or whether they had a more complex justification/intention when they started out and this is what the movement became.
I also know there is the conservative movement between the orthodox and the reform and I wonder what they are all about.
I guess I should read up on that.
Salaam,
Abu-Noor