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:

The struggle of progressive Islam in Indonesia: Sahal Mahfudz and Dawam Rahardjo

Sahal Mahfudz (1937-2014)

Two leading Muslim intellectuals have made headlines in Indonesia over the past week. On Friday, 24 January, Sahal Mahfudz passed away age 77. Since 1999, he had served as the General President of the world largest Muslim mass organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)'s consultative council, while doubling as the Chairman of the Indonesian Council of Muslim Scholars (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) from 2000 onwards.

Mbah Sahal or Kiai Sahal, as he was affectionately known, made a name as an innovatively thinking scholar, especially in the field of Islamic jurisprudence or fiqh. Advocating a contextual re-reading of the generally very text-based interpretations found in traditional Islamic learning, he became a mentor figure for younger generations of what Michael Feener calls the 'New Ulama' in his landmark book Muslim Legal Thought in Modern Indonesia. Sahal's writings, including his Nuansa Fiqih Sosial  ('Nuances of Social Jurisprudence', first published in 1994 ), inspired figures such as the current head of the NU's executive branch, Said Aqil Siradj (b. 1953), and Masdar F. Mas'udi (b. 1954) to rethink the relevance of the Islamic tradition.

In the mid-1990s, they began to redefine the role of Muslim scholars trained in the field of traditional Islamic learning in order to bring them in tune with the demands of the present-day Muslim world in order to help them respond more effectively to the challenges faced by their constituency of mainly rural-based Muslims from peasant backgrounds.They, in turn, groomed the next generation of NU cadres who have been making name as intellectuals in their own right since the regime change of 1998, which heralded the post-Suharto Reformasi era. This resulted in the somewhat unexpected situation where scholar-activists from the traditionalist Islamic milieu overtook their intellectual peers from the modernist camp in terms of progressive and innovative thinking about the role of religion in the contemporary world (for an article by a young NU member on occasion of Sahal Mahfudz's death, click here). These ideas continue to be pushed by NU-affiliated organizations such as The Wahid Institute, named after another former NU leader, and first democratically elected president of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid. Led by Ahmad Suaedy and Ahmad Rumadi, it focuses on the monitoring of human rights and religious freedom in Indonesia.

Funeral of NU leader K.H. Sahal Mahfudz

Unfortunately, as he progressed in age, it appears Kiai Sahal lost this forward-looking attitude. During his tenure as head of MUI, from the mid 2000s,  the council passed a number of controversial fatwas, which were intolerant of religious minority groups such as the Ahmadiyya and which also condemned notions such as secularism, pluralism and liberalism as 'un-Islamic' (for an analysis of this document, click here). This heralded a 'conservative turn' which has become increasingly pronounced in Indonesian Islamic discourse from 2005 onwards.

A happier event can be reported from the modernist side of the Muslim intellectual spectrum in Indonesia.  

M. Dawam Rahardjo

M. Dawam Rahardjo (b. 1943), a Muslim intellectual of a very different type was honoured for his contributions to the defence of human rights. Rahardjo trained as an economist and has been associated with a number of research institutes and think tanks involved in reconciling Islam with the exigencies of modernization. Aside from his academic work, he has also been instrumental to a variety of grassroots initiatives in development and education.

During his student years in Yogyakarta, he was a member of the 'Limited Group', a discussion forum convened by the later Minister of Religious Affairs, Abdul Mukti Ali, and one of the key figures in the 'Movement for the Renewal of Islamic Thinking' (Gerakan Pembaruan Pemikiran Islam). Started in the late 1960s by the then chairman of the largest Muslim student organization HMI, Nurcholish Madjid, it functioned as an incubator for a strand of innovative thinking that has few parallels anywhere else in the Muslim world. Over the years, Dawam Rahardjo became one of the leaders of the progressive wing in the Muhammadiyah, the most important modernist Muslim mass movement in Indonesia, eventually serving on the organization's Central Board, until 2005, when the conservative bloc swept to power (for more on the struggle of progressive modernist Muslims see also the post of 10 January 2013).

Dawam Rahardjo receiving Yap Thiam Hien Award 2014

This lurch to the right, together with the proclamation of regressive fatwas by MUI, stimulated Dawam Rahardjo to become an even more vocal advocate of religious toleration as an integral and essential part of the upholding of universal human rights standards (for an earlier article on his relentless defence of pluralism in Indonesia, click here). His activism and writings have also stimulated a new generation of progressive Muhammadiyah cadres, united in the Network of Young Muhammadiyah Intellectuals (Jaringan Intelektual Muda Muhammadiyah, JIMM), as well as individual scholars,  including Najib Burhani, Hilman Latief, Moch Nur Ichwan.

The Making of Progressive Islam in Indonesia

The Muhammadiyah Studies blog, maintained by Ahmad Najib Burhani, an Indonesian scholar and Muhammadiyah activist who is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of California at Santa Barbara, contains an announcement of the recent completion of a PhD Project on progressive Islam in Indonesia by Alexander Arifianto.

Alexander Arifianto

Arifianto, who now works as a visiting scholar of political science at the University of Miami, pursued his PhD studies at Arizona State University. The full title of his doctoral dissertation is Faith, Moral Authority and Politics: The Making of Progressive Islam in Indonesia. Part of the abstract reads:

 This study is a comparative historical analysis of two Indonesian Islamic groups: the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the Muhammadiyah. It finds that the NU was able to successfully change its theological positions due to the presence of a charismatic moral authority leader, the tolerant institutional culture within the organization, and the ability of the organization to ally with the Suharto regime, allowing the reform to be institutionalized with little intervention from the regime. On the other hand, theological reform within the Muhammadiyah was not successful due to the lack of a leader with moral authority status who could have led the reforms within the organization, as well as to the dominance of a revivalist institutional culture that does not tolerate any challenges to their interpretation of Islamic theology. The analysis makes theoretical contributions on the role of religious leadership within Islamic movements and the likelihood of Islamic groups to adopt liberal political norms such as democracy, religion-state separation, and tolerance toward religious minorities. It identifies the mechanisms in which theological change within Islamic group become possible.

 A full overview containing abstract and contents page can be found here. The author has also given a talk about the parallels between the development of progressive Islam in Indonesia and Turkey at the University of Chicago. To listen to this talk click here.

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