It is almost a matter of academic consensus that the Islamic world is in urgent need of five things:
Governments should take more account of the needs of their populations, restrict conspicuous consumption by elites, defend due judicial process, and allow the population a sense that the concerns of the poor are heard and are in fact being addressed.
Mainstream religious discourse must regain its credibility. To achieve this it is necessary for the religious leadership to be independent of government, and that the awqaf of the classical Islamic universities should be returned to their control. Historically the ulema represented the masses and their grievances to the state; they were not the state’s employees or representatives. Unless scholars can speak freely a growing number of citizens will ignore them, and turn to radical voices instead.
After the close of the colonial period most Muslim scholars believed that the classical Sunni heritage (four madhhabs, kalam theology, and Sufism), provided a rich and diverse basis for positively and successfully defeating the challenges of modernity. The intellectual depth of classical Islam ensured the evolution of ethical, jurisprudential, spiritual and philosophical responses to Islam’s inescapable encounter with the modern world. During the 1950s and 1960s many positive initiatives along these lines were inaugurated. However more recently the discourse has been narrowed and redirected in favour of fundamentalism. The Shari’a has been defined as an exercise in intensifying strictness in literal interpretation, kalam theology has been attacked and replaced with a vulnerable and simple fideism, and Sufism has been abolished, leaving a spiritual vacuum. One cause, as is generally accepted, has been the injection of immense wealth by certain national agencies in order to promote a rigid fundamentalism. In an age of science and rationality, Islam has been pushed in the direction of a hyper-strictness. The result inevitably became political, as the recipients of this largesse sought to impose the new Puritanism on diverse and rapidly-changing societies. Therefore resources should be directed to supporting mainstream Islam, and diverted away from the fundamentalists.
Sectarian tensions were rare a generation ago; now they are becoming normal. All Muslim agencies and governments should recognise the danger to the Muslim world of sectarian civil war, which is destroying country after country. The instability then generates extreme movements which proceed to threaten the donor countries themselves. Therefore financial and moral support for any group advocating sectarian hatred should be treated as a direct threat to regional stability. The 2003 Amman Message was signed by greatest Muslim scholars, and represents a platform for mutual respect and dialogue which all Muslim agencies should be expected to support.
The Founder of Islam was sent ‘as a mercy to the worlds’. In all ideas, transactions, institutions and political decisions, the primacy of mercy must be observed, for this is the surest sign of authenticity.
*Dr Tim Winter
Shaikh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies
Faculty of Divinity
University of Cambridge
16 November 2016
