Ebrahim Moosa: A critical traditionalist against imperial political theologies

Over the last two decades, Ebrahim Moosa has developed into one of the most important Muslim thinkers and proponents of 'progressive Islam'.

Ebrahim Moosa

Originally from South-Africa, but since the late 1990s based in the United States, he forms part of a diaspora of Muslim intellectuals who are at the forefront of critical and innovative thinking about Islam and its place in the contemporary world. Moosa's intellectual genealogy also betrays a family resemblance with the so-called heritage thinkers from a older generation, such as Mohammed Arkoun, Hasan Hanafi, and Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri: intimate familiarity with the legacy of traditional Islamic learning and an equally solid acquaintance with the human sciences as they have evolved in the Western academe.

Born into South Africa's Muslim community of South Asian extraction, Ebrahim Moosa was educated at both traditional madrasas in India (graduating from the famous Darul ʿUlum Nadwatul ʿUlama in Lucknow) and universities in South Africa and the United Kingdom. After a career in journalism, Moosa then opted for an academic career which took him from the University of Cape Town to Stanford, Duke, and then on to Notre Dame University, where he is now Professor of Islamic Studies with appointments in the Department of History and the Kroc Institute for International Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs. At Notre Dame, he also co-directs the Contending Modernities Project.

His reputation as an original thinker drawing from great erudition was made with his first major monograph. Published in 2006 under the title, Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, it offers a radically new reading of the classical eleventh-century polymath. It also demonstrated Moosa's ability to straddle different intellectual traditions. In this award-winning book, Ebrahim Moosa introduces the notion of the Dihliz -- the 'in-between'. This liminality is reflective of the position occupied by scholar-intellectuals like Moosa himself; on the interstices of different intellectual traditions. It is from here that he contributes to the articulation of a new Islamic discourse that seeks to 'preserve from the old what is good, and take from the new what is better'.

In a recent interview, he self-identified as a 'critical traditionalist'; a Muslim scholar with an ability to challenge the way things are done at the centres of traditional Islam:

"the Madrasa used to be, once upon a time, a part of Islamdom's republic of letters, republic of knowledge, including cosmopolitan knowledge as well. But over time, in the Indian-subcontinent in particular, Madrasas have become more like institutions that are interested in identity formation, and also have become, what I call, a republic of piety. We have more piety, and less intellectual energy and the kinds of religious answers that deal with reality.”

The designation 'critical traditionalist' also colours how he interprets the idea of 'progressive Islam'. 

progressive Islam doesn't mean changing the Quran or changing Hadith, but is instead about having alternative methodological approaches that are going to allow us to find different kinds of answers from tradition, and answers that will be much more amenable to our experiences and our way of life, be much more equitable.

“The key thing about progressive or critical traditionalist approach in Islam, to me, is that we must see that all knowledge must substantiate and support the fulfilment of human dignity. Human dignity is at the core of all Islam's messages. And if knowledge does not deliver on human dignity, then that knowledge really is questionable. So those kinds of interpretations of the past that talked about non-Muslims in a particular way, that talked about women in a particular way, are no longer dignified. That has to change. You can only change it when you are prepared to ask questions, and are prepared to challenge the paradigm of interpretation that has been prevalent thus far.” 

In another recent occasion, he noted that this requires a reinvention of Islam or, what I consider a more accurate suggestion: a need for Muslims to reinvent themselves. According to Moosa this means shedding:

[the] imprint of what I would term imperial Islamic political theology. As a throwback to former times, this imperial political theology needs to be excised from the political and religious imagination through critical appraisal, questioning, [...]

Ebrahim Moosa breaks ground for a bold and robust engagement with the Islamic tradition, and his own writings testify of a daring rethinking of religion in postfoundationalist terms. He also demonstrated that in the Third Ibn Rushd Lecture of the Muslim Institute in London:

His ideas for a progressive reinterpretation of thinking about Islam were further unpacked in the discussion:

Depicting the Prophet Once More: Reactions to 'South Park' & 'Draw Muhammad Day'

It appears that those seeking gratuitous publicity cannot get enough from what they know fully well works like waving a red rag on a bull: depicting the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons. Once again the issue has generated widespread reactions on the internet and in the media.

The 'Draw Muhammad Day' initiative was triggered by the predictable threatening response of the radical Islamist website Revolution Muslim to the alleged representation of Muhammad in episode 200 of the hugely popular animated sitcom South Park. This was not intended as making a case for free speech. Rather, those hiding behind the initiative (so far they have not been willing to identity themselves) are fully aware their campaign will create a wildfire of reactions and easily snowball into a further antagonisation of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims -- and lest we forget, increasing tensions between Muslims of different persuasions.

A measured response was given by Hussein Rashid in a contribution to Religion Dispatches.

"Today is Draw Muhammad Day. Created in response to two idiots who reacted to a South Park episode, the event signifies that the right to do something should be seen as a license to do something. The South Park episode focused on the failure of censorship. Comedy Central, like the two buffoons from Revolution Muslim, missed the point and focused on the non-representation of Muhammad, causing the episode to be censored.

The response of the supporters of Draw Muhammad Day (DMD) is not to focus on the question of censorship, but on the depiction of Muhammad. In other words, they have chosen to support the two idiots of Revolution Muslim and talk about the depiction of Muhammad that did not actually appear in the episode. The result is that they have, as Shahed Amanullah points out in The Huffington Post, decided to actively insult the millions of Muslims who do not agree with Revolution Muslim and/or who actually understood the point of the South Park episode."

Taking on both sides, Hussein pointedly observes:

"Both RM and the folks behind DMD miss the depth of feeling many Muslims have for their religion and Prophet Muhammad. I think that Eboo Patel has it right in his article in Inside Higher Education; we need to do a better job about talking about religion on college campuses. I do not hold that any depiction of Muhammad is blasphemous, but to treat him as a political tool misses the point of what his life was about."

University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole, who achieved both fame and notoriety (depending on where you stand on the political spectrum in regards to US policy towards the Muslim world) with is Informed Comment blog  has also added his voice to the debate; widening the issue to other religious traditions by providing examples how other 'jerks' could find easy ways to hurt the sensitivities of Buddhist, Hindus, Christians and Jews, Cole rightly observed:

"The juvenile “draw Muhammad” day has generally been avoided by professional editorial cartoonists. One Islamophobic theme apparent in the writing on it is that Muslims are peculiar in their thin-skinned responses to such assaults on their religious sensibilities and that members of other religions never riot or protest. This assertion is not only bigoted but it is silly. So here are some other needlessly offensive cartoon-drawing days that could be adopted by the jerks bothering Muslims today, just to show that they are jerks toward other communities as well. All these subjects have produced vigorous protests or rioting and violence among members of other religious traditions. Me, I think when you know people have died in violence over some piece of thoughtlessness, it is the height of irresponsibility to repeat it for no good reason."

Another scholar, Professor Ebrahim Moosa of Duke University in North Carolina, made a more introspective observation on his facebook page:

"Start an Honor the Prophet Muhammad Facebook site. I am offended by blanket denouncements alleging Jews are behind this. Be a smart Muslim, not a dumb one. We have enough of the latter. Expose the offensive speech towards Muslims: strengthen your argument, don't raise your shrill voice. Religion, sex, color or sexualit...y does not foment bigotry, ignorance does. Don't we need a, Dumb Things Muslim Say page?"

The final word  goes to Hussein Rashid, who referred to the invocation of a well-known saying about Muhammad by another commentator (human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar) writing on the Muhammad cartoon issue: 'The Prophet forgave, he never angered, he did not meet kind with kind, but with kindness.'
Moreover, in the epigraph to his own website Islamicate, it says:

"islam doesn't speak, muslims do | "the ink of the scholar is worth more than the blood of the martyr" - Prophet Muhammad.