Ziauddin Sardar is a notable Pakistani London based writer and cultural critic who has been writing for thirty years. Rethinking Islam is the first chapter of his 2004 collection of essays, Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures. The author addresses issues in this essay that hold significant relevance for our Pakistani condition. This informative essay is reproduced in three installments.
Serious rethinking within Islam is long overdue. Muslims have been comfortably relying, or rather falling back, on age-old interpretations for much too long. This is why we feel so painful in the contemporary world, so uncomfortable with modernity. Scholars and thinkers have been suggesting for well over a century that we need to make a serious attempt at ijtihad, at reasoned struggle and rethinking, to reform Islam. At the beginning of the last century, Jamaluddin Afghani and Muhammad Abduh led the call for a new ijtihad; and along the way many notable intellectuals, academics and sages have added to this plea – not least Muhammad Iqbal, Malik bin Nabbi and Abdul Qadir Audah. Yet, ijtihad is one thing Muslim societies have singularly failed to undertake. Why?
The ‘why’ has acquired an added urgency after 11 September. Continue reading →