IT IS EASY to believe that the Muslim world has only bad news to offer. But easy doesn’t mean accurate; in truth, there’s much good news to report.
First, allow me to confess the obvious: we Muslims play the role of villain quite well, thanks. Last month, a group of terrorists — evidently Islamist militants — blew commuter trains to shards in India. The next day, Hezbollah kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers, touching off the latest round of bombs and bullets.
But I expect the worst from religious extremists; moderate Muslims disappoint me more. We call for a “proportionate response” from Israel. Yet when we diminish or ignore Hezbollah’s crimes, we engage in a disproportionate response of our own. It has attacked Israel from southern Lebanon and Gaza, the very areas that the Jewish state had unilaterally evacuated. If Islam is another word for peace, what is unIslamic about opposing such bald aggression?
Moreover, Hezbollah deliberately endangers the lives of Muslim and Christian civilians. Its fighters set up shop in the middle of busy residential districts, so that any retaliation against them must involve hitting innocents. What makes Muslims moderate when we wink at this cruel calculus?
So given our hostility-turned-hypocrisy, how can I say there is good news? Brace yourselves: during the week that India and Israel were reminded of Islamist brutality, liberal Muslims made progress in reclaiming our faith, both in the East and in the West.
Let’s start in the East. For almost three decades, Pakistan has followed a set of laws called Hudood, after hudd or penalties prescribed by God, that determine punishment in cases of rape and adultery. Under these laws, more than 4,600 Pakistani women have been thrown in prison for offences that include adultery. By contrast, virtually all men accused of rape go free.
The Hudood ordinances are being seriously challenged at last. Thanks to a vocal, but religiously respectful, campaign by civil society groups, the influential Council for Islamic Ideology recently recommended reform. That move allowed President Musharraf to begin releasing some of the 1,300 women who were in jail awaiting trial.
Even Muslim clerics in Pakistan now hint that the Hudood laws are not divinely created. The politics behind them tells us so. In 1977, a US-backed coup installed General Zia al-Haq as president. To cement his grip, the strongman surrounded himself with sycophantic mullahs who referred to him as “Commander of the Faithful”, a term reserved for the successors of Prophet Muhammad. To curry favour among village leaders, Zia mixed a selective reading of the Koran with tribal customs. Stoning became a legal punishment for adultery, while a rape had to be witnessed by four men before an offender could be charged.But suppose a rape doesn’t have the benefit of so many male eyes or male voices willing to testify? Then the woman involved would be accused of adultery and she could be jailed, lashed or stoned. The injustices that followed have slandered not only women, but Islam itself.
As more and more Muslims in Pakistan recognise that these laws emanate from human beings, they acknowledge that the duty to rethink them also rests in their hands, not God’s. Muslims believe that Allah is perfect. We are learning to appreciate that Allah’s interpreters are not.
The liberal reformation of Islam picked up more speed in Denmark, the country that sparked worldwide riots after one of its newspapers published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. In Copenhagen I joined other “Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow” to debate how Islam and the West can enrich each other. Allow me to divulge some of their more shocking statements:
Man from the Netherlands: “We, as Muslims, need to look in the mirror instead of blaming everybody else!”
Woman from Germany: “I don’t have an identity crisis. I’m Western and Muslim and grateful to be both.”
Imam from Britain: “The minute a woman becomes a mufti [Islamic judge], I will be the first to study at her feet.”
One delegate tested the young clerics by asking: “Is Islam the only way to salvation?” A Danish imam gripped the microphone: “The short answer,” he said, “is no.” A British imam disputed that response and an Italian took the middle road. Remarkably, they never accused each other of being evil or insincere. For the first time in my life, I heard the message that in Islam, unity does not have to mean uniformity.
The conference organisers were emboldened to do something utterly unthinkable: welcome Flemming Rose, the editor of Jyllands-Posten and publisher of the reviled cartoons. Rose confided that the reception we gave him was more civil than anything he had experienced from secular groups.
A liberal reformation of Islam will involve at least two features: the empowerment of women in the Islamic world, and the willingness of Muslims in the West to exercise their freedom of conscience. In one week, both got a promising boost. We will need to remember that as God’s soldiers continue to grab the spotlight.
Irshad Manji is author of The Trouble with Islam Today: A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change
