Taking Back Islam

Excerpted fromTaking Back Islam: American Muslims Reclaim Their Faithby Michael Wolfe, Beliefnet. Copyright 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction by Michael Wolfe Taking Back Islamrecords the latest chapter in a centuries-long conversation that non-Muslims may never have heard. For Islam is surprisingly undoctrinaire and open to discussion. And as doctrines go, Islam's is simplebroad enough that 1.5 billion people around the world can agree on it. Only three things are really required to be a Muslim: belief in God, knowledge of his message, and respect for the prophets from Abraham to Jesus to Muhammad. Beyond that, quite a lot is up for grabs. Muslims in general don't like the word "reform," with its various English connotations. Yet, as Salam Al-Marayati reminds us in "The Rising Voice of Moderate Muslims," a kindred word is found in the Qur'an. "In Arabic, it is called islah and is the root meaning of the word maslahah, which means 'the public interest.' Historically, Muslim intellectual leaders such as Farangi Mahall Wali Allah, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Muhammad Abduh . . . have used reason to create revivalist movements." Wali Allah of India helped to reaffirm the use of reason in legal interpretation and "condemned the blind imitation of tradition. Al-Afghani challenged Muslims to think of Islam as consistent with reason and science. Abduh believed in educational reforms throughout Muslim society." There is plenty of precedent, then, in Muslim thought for bringing Islam into close accord with people's present needs. Since September 11, however, a lot of American Muslims have begun to look beyond these classic independent thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to think and write on their own authority. September 11 forced a reckoning of sorts, and it has led us to be more self-reliant. When any religion is new to a place, as Islam is new to America, the tendency to take one's cues from the Motherland is strong, wherever that Motherland is perceived to be. And then there comes a moment to grow up. For many American Muslims, that moment arrived in the weeks following September 11, when a substantial number grew disenchanted with the habit of looking abroad for leadership. The near extinction of Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban, the abysmal state of education in Pakistan, the murderous mullahs of al-Qaeda misquoting the Qur'an on video, along with a host of other glaring moral failures, have led many American Muslims to suspect that Islam's "traditional lands" have less to teach us than they claim. Ten years from now, this period may mark the time when American Muslims found their real voice. Taking Back Islam is a book by progressive, mostly American, Muslimspeople who are in love with Islam, who are proud of Islam, and who are confident enough in its strength to believe that it can stand up to honest introspection. "Speak the truth," the Prophet Muhammad said, "even if it hurts you." A sometimes-painful struggle of a faith in search of its soul informs this book. There runs through its pages an anxiousness for the life of a faith we love. This anxiousness is creative, giving rise to new formulations and fresh answers, and to a strong desire to tap the best traditions of Islam. Many of the essays here are not about politics, and that in itself is significant. As their authors reflect on how to reclaim Islam, they often turn not to questions of power, but to matters of faith and practice and tradition. As Leila Dabbagh writes in "Muhammad's Legacy for Women," "My ancestors faithfully practiced the five pillars of Islam without losing sight of the fundamental requirements of everyday civil and compassionate living." Her words sound a theme we hear often in these pages, of "getting back to basics," of recovering the sweetness inherit in a religion that has been seriously injuredBeliefnet Staff is the author of 'Taking Back Islam', published 2004 under ISBN 9781579549886 and ISBN 1579549888.