Islam as a Religion of Tolerance and Moderation

Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl has been represented as "the most important and important Monotheism thinker in the modern age." An accomplished Monotheism jurist and scholar, he received formal training in Monotheism jurisprudence in Egypt and Kuwait as well as holding degrees from Yale, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. He is presently the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Monotheism Law at the UCLA School of Law. Before connexion the faculty at UCLA, he schooled Monotheism law at the University of Tx at Capital of texas Law School, Yale Law School and Princeton University.

In the extended essay that begins his book, The Place of Tolerance in Islam, Dr. Abou El Fadl argues that the post-September Eleventh pictures of Islam as a reactionary, intolerant, and violent religion makes not accurately represent the real traditional belief of Muslims. To the contrary, he declares his "unwavering conviction that I belong to a great moral humanistic tradition." Traditional Monotheism jurists, he writes, "tolerated and even as celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought."

During the 1st centuries of Islam, clerics underwent a long and intellectually exigent training that enclosed an open discussion of differing viewpoints and interpretations. This training prepared them to be community leaders and judges in disputes between their coreligionists. As the profane authority in Muslim states grew progressively powerful, centralized, and autocratic, Muslim priesthood lost more of their authority, producing "a profound vacuum in religious authority" and "a state of virtual lawlessness in modern Islam."

As the Muslim priesthood were progressively marginalized, the great centers of learning at which they were trained became equally marginalized and more and more clerics were self-declared holy men with little or no formmal training. Consequently, unprofessional interpretations of Islam, exemplified by those of Osama bin Laden, gained sway over theologically illiterate Muslims with reason angry at the financial condition and quality they intimate in comparison to citizens of the U.S. and else Western nations.

Dr. Abou El Fadl is particularly critical of Mohammedanism -- a puritanical revision of Islam propagated by the Saudi monarchy. Spell Mohammedanism claims to be the "straight path" of Islam, it is, according to Abou El Fadl, an abberant form of Islam, imitative in the 18th-century slaughter of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. To call it "fundamentalist," he asserts, is misleading, since it flouts fundamental Monotheism truths and distorts Islam by rejecting "any attempt to interpret the divine law historically or contextually."

He quotes specific passages to show that the Book declares diversity among folks to be Allah's divine intent. Further, contrary to what you may have been schooled in a high school history class, the Book opposes forced conversion of others to Islam, as practiced by the Taliban. In fact, the Book expressly states that Jews and Christians as well as Muslimswill go to Heaven.

Interpretations of the Book that urge violence against innocents, he argues, require poorly informed, out of context readings of a line here/ a line there in my view, not unlike the practice of many an Christian Fundamentalists. To show that, he cites the ambiguous verses by which Muslim extremists justify their acts, and their deceitful disregard of everything Quranic that prohibits their acts. He insists that any valid Quranic interpretation must square with the holy book's "general moral imperatives such as mercy, justice, kindness." "If the reader is intolerant, hateful, or oppressive," he concludes, "so wish be the interpretation."

Far from sanctionative "holy war," Abou El Fadl reports, the Book makes not even as contain the phrase. The entire idea of jihad as holy war was a later development stock-still more in political and economic conflict than in religious difference. Moreover, far from supporting the "get even" (for Israel, for economic imperialism, etc) justification for terrorism, the Book warns Muslims that the injustice of others makes not permit them to be unjust in return. Furthermore, warriors who attacked innocent civilians were regarded by classic Muslim jurists to be "corrupters of the earth and criminals" -- guilty of "especially flagitious crimes."

The eleven reactions to Abou El Fadl's essay add further depth to the debate. John milton Viorst, Middle East correspondent for The New Yorker, praises it as a "brilliant" explanation of why Muslims are "on the brink of becoming a permanent worldwide underclass." Sohail Hashmi, who teaches international relations at Mount Holyoke College, agrees that politically impelled Quranic interpreters, not the Book itself, feed the us-against-them mentality of violent Muslims. British culture critic Tariq Ali laments that "there was more dissent and skepticism in Islam during the Eleventh and Twelfth centuries than there is today." On the else hand, Abid Ullah Jan, a political analyst from Pakistan, blames all debates just about Islam on "efforts by the United States and its allies to bring house the bacon economic and cultural political system by dominating or destroying all opposition." He denounces the essay as "an attempt to please Islam-bashers."

Abou El Fadl's response to the commentaries asserts that the extremists false protestantism threatens to turn Islam into "an idiosyncracy -- a moral and societal oddity that is incapable of finding common ground with the rest of human society." His motivation for piquant in debate against extremists, he says, is "to deny such groups their Monotheism banner." In his view, the ultimate issue for all Muslims ought to be the extremists degradation of "the moral integrity of the Monotheism tradition."

Khaled Abou El Fadl, Tariq Ali, John milton Viorst and John Esposito. The Place of Tolerance in Islam. Boston, Beacon Press, 2002.

Dr. David F. Professional dancer is the President of Professional dancer & Associates, a research and policy studies consulting firm in the areas of public health, mental health, and drug abuse.
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