Religious Freedom in Islam

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
Muslim Majority

Is Islam hospitable to religious freedom? The question is at the heart of a public controversy over Islam that has raged in the West over the past decade-and-a-half. Religious freedom is important because it promotes democracy and peace and reduces ills like civil war, terrorism, and violence. Religious freedom also is simply a matter of justice—not an exclusively Western principle but rather a universal human right rooted in human nature. The heart of the book confronts the question of Islam and religious freedom through an empirical examination of Muslim-majority countries. From a satellite view, looking at these countries in the aggregate, the book finds that the Muslim world is far less free than the rest of the world. Zooming in more closely on Muslim-majority countries, though, the picture looks more diverse. Some one-fourth of Muslim-majority countries are in fact religiously free. Among the unfree, 40% are repressive because they are governed by a hostile secularism imported from the West, and the other 60% are Islamist. The emergent picture is both honest and hopeful. Amplifying hope are two chapters that identify “seeds of freedom” in the Islamic tradition and that present the Catholic Church’s long road to religious freedom as a promising model for Islam. Another chapter looks at the Arab Uprisings of 2011, arguing that religious freedom explains much about both their broad failure and their isolated success. The book closes with lessons for expanding religious freedom in the Muslim world and the world at large.

Seven Seeds of Freedom

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-205
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Full Bloom ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Religion And State

This chapter looks at potentialities for freedom in the Islamic tradition, identifying these potentialities as “seeds of freedom,” which are concepts or practices that express religious freedom in a significant way but that fall short of a full human right of religious freedom that is articulated in its many dimensions, enshrined in law, protected in contemporary political orders, and broadly accepted by Muslims. Nurtured, these seeds might grow into religious freedom in full bloom. These include verses in the Qur’an and their interpretation; the life of the Prophet Muhammad; the history of Muslim toleration of non-Muslims; liberal Islam; contemporary Muslim advocates of religious freedom; freedom in law and institutions in Muslim-majority states; and the history of the separation of religion and state.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
Good Criterion ◽  
Social Goods

This chapter details the rationale behind the book’s central question: Is Islam hospitable to religious freedom? It offers three reasons why religious freedom is marshalled to assess Islam. First, religious freedom serves as a good criterion for adjudicating an intense public debate over the character of Islam that has been raging in the West at least as far back as the attacks of September 11, 2001. The chapter details the positions of “Islamoskeptics” and “Islamopluralists,” the two major positions in this debate, and explains why religious freedom captures what is at stake. Second, religious freedom is associated positively with social goods like democracy and peace and negatively with social ills like terrorism and civil war—goods that are disproportionately lacking and ills that are disproportionately present in the Muslim world. Finally, religious freedom is a matter of justice. It is a universal human right, not a parochial Western value.

Religiously Repressive States in the Muslim World

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-148
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Basic Features

This chapter continues the book’s analysis of religious freedom in Muslim-majority states by looking at the third of three categories of regimes that are each defined by their political theology. This category is religiously repressive states. It defines the basic features of religiously repressive states, portraying them through the concept of Islamism, a form of political ideology. It identifies Saudi Arabia and Iran as the standard-bearers of this category and focuses on other countries in this category around the world, which total 21. This chapter makes the case for “Islamoskepticism,” though it also argues that this view does not explain everything about this type of regime.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

scholarly journals PERDEBATAN PENGGUNAAN HERMENEUTIKA SEBAGAI METODE PENAFSIRAN AL-QUR'AN

ALQALAM ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
MASRUKHIN MUHSIN
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
New Method ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
To Come

The word hermeneutics derives from the Greek verb, hermeneuin. It means to interpret and to translate. Hermeneutics is divided into three kinds: the theory of hermeneutics, the philosophy hermeneutics, and the critical hermenmtics. Hasan Hanfi is known as the first scholar who introduces hermeneutics in the Islamic World through his work dealing with the new method of interpretation. Nashr Hamid Abu-Zaid is another figure who has much studied hermenmtics in the classical interpretation. Ali Harb is a figure who also much involved in discussing the critism of text even though he does not fully concern on literature or art, but on the thoughts. Muslim thinker who has similar view with Ali Harab in seeing that the backwardness of Arab-Islam from the West is caused by the system of thoguht used by Arah-Muslim not able to come out of obstinary and taqlid is Muhammad Syahmr. On the other side, ones who refuse hermeneutics argue that since its heginning, hermeneutics must be studied suspiciously because it is not derived from the Islamic tradition, but from the unbeliever scientific tradition, Jews and Chrtians in which they use it as a method to interpret the Bible. Practically, in interpreting the Qur'an, hermeneutics even strengthens something, namely the hegemony of scularism-liberalism in the Muslim World that Muslims must actually destroy. Keywords: Hermeneutics, Tafsir, al qur'an

In Defense of Religious Freedom

2019 ◽  
pp. 16-44
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Law ◽  
New Critics

This chapter makes the case for religious freedom as a universal human right. It argues that religion is a universal human phenomenon and a good that merits protection by the law. It argues against the “new critics,” who hold that there is no universal phenomenon called religion, that religion and religious freedom are inventions of the modern West and have deep Protestant roots, that the West has imposed religious freedom through its power in colonialist and imperialist fashion, particularly vis-à-vis Islam, and that religious freedom ought not to be exported through the foreign policies of Western states. To each of these assertions, the chapter offers counterarguments.

scholarly journals International Religious Freedom Promotion and US Foreign Policy

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Marsden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Right ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Background

The freedom to practice one’s religious belief is a fundamental human right and yet, for millions of people around the world, this right is denied. Yearly reports produced by the US State Department, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Open Doors International, Aid to the Church in Need and Release International reveal a disturbing picture of increased religious persecution across much of the world conducted at individual, community and state level conducted by secular, religious, terrorist and state actors. While religious actors both contribute to persecution of those of other faiths and beliefs and are involved in peace and reconciliation initiatives, the acceptance of the freedom to practice one’s faith, to disseminate that faith and to change one’s faith and belief is fundamental to considerations of the intersection of peace, politics and religion. In this article, I examine the political background of the United States’ promotion of international religious freedom, and current progress on advancing this under the Trump administration. International Religious Freedom (IRF) is contentious, and seen by many as the advancement of US national interests by other means. This article argues that through an examination of the accomplishments and various critiques of the IRF programme it is possible, and desirable, to discover what works, and where further progress needs to be made, in order to enable people around the world to enjoy freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

scholarly journals Some Remarks on the Islamic and the Secular Paradigms of Knowledge

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-544
Author(s):  
Taha J. Al Alwani
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Similar Degree ◽  
The West ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

By the time secularist thought had succeeded, at an intellectuallevel, in challenging the authority of the Church, its roots had alreadytaken firm hold in western soil. Later, when western political and economicsystems began to prevail throughout the world, it was only naturalthat secularism, as the driving force behind these systems, shouldgain ascendency worldwide. In time, and with varying degrees of success,the paradigm of positivism gradually displaced traditional andreligious modes of thinking, with the result that generations of thirdworld thinkers grew up convinced that the only way to “progress” andreform their societies was the way of the secular West. Moreover, sincethe experience of the West was that it began to progress politically,economically, and intellectually only after the influence of the Churchhad been marginalized, people in the colonies believed that they wouldhave to marginalize the influence of their particular religions in orderto achieve a similar degree of progress. Under the terms of the newparadigm, turning to religion for solutions to contemporary issues is anabsurdity, for religion is viewed as something from humanity’s formativeyears, from a “dark” age of superstition and myth whose time hasnow passed. As such, religion has no relevance to the present, and allattempts to revive it are doomed to failure and are a waste of time.Many have supposed that it is possible to accept the westernmodel of a secular paradigm while maintaining religious practices andbeliefs. They reason that such an acceptance has no negative impactupon their daily lives so long as it does not destroy their places ofworship or curtail their right to religious freedom. Thus, there remainshardly a contemporary community that has not fallen under the swayof this paradigm. Moreover, it is this paradigm that has had the greatestinfluence on the way different peoples perceive life, the universe,and the role of humanity as well as providing them with an alternativeset of beliefs (if needed) and suggesting answers to the ultimate questions ...

scholarly journals Freedom of Expression: A Comparative Study of Ideological Conflict between Islam And the West

2019 ◽  
Vol IV (III) ◽  
pp. 20-27
Author(s):  
Tasaddaq Hussain ◽  
Muhammad Aslam Pervez ◽  
Shahid Minhas
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Western Concept ◽  
Universal Definition ◽  
Definition Of

(FOE) is a basic human right, unanimously accepted all over the world; however it has no universal definition. The Islam condemns the Blasphemy strongly, whereas the West takes it as an offshoot of FOE and a symbol of democracy. This paper is an attempt to investigate, to what extent the Islamic concept of FOE is consistent with the Western concept? Its main objective is to point out the real cause of the rift and to discover recipe which could be used in curing the bleeding sore of humanity. Methodologically, qualitative research technique is used; analytical approach is adopted. Principal books, Scholarly articles, and academic writings are especially consulted. It is concluded that all the basic human rights have limits; therefore FOE must also be aligned. In this way, a common socio-religious definition of FOE is suggested for a peaceful and tolerant democratic global society.

scholarly journals Taking Back Islam

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 203-205
Author(s):  
Jay Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
Muslim World ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Many ◽  
Moral Discourses ◽  
Opening Section ◽  
Made In ◽  
Number Of Authors

This book is divided into nine sections: an opening section with intro ductoryessays, followed by eight chapters that discuss the writers' viewson certain issues. Each section contains several essays of anywhere frombetween three to six pages. Given the number of authors, I will mentiononly some of the points made in each section.In his introduction, Michael Wolfe lays out the book's generalpremise: Maybe it is time to stop looking to the "motherland" for ourunderstandings of Islam and Islamic tradition. Maybe it is time to growup. This call is sure to find a resonance among the many Muslims whoare tired of imported imams and imported books that are so far removedfrom our own reality in the West. Farid Esack brings up an interestingpoint: Historically, Muslims have known only two paradigms: oppression(Makkah) and governing (Madinah). However, given current realities,they must adopt a third kind: peaceful coexistence in a state of equality,as done by those Muslims who emigrated to Abyssinia.In "Violence," Khaled Abou El Fadl notes that Islam is concernedwith building and creating, and that ruining and destroying life is "an ultimateact of blasphemy against God." He writes that war is defensive anda last resort, that trade and technology are preferred, and that political discourseshave displaced moral discourses. Aasma Khan discusses hersmall group (Muslims against Terrorism), which was set up in the daysfollowing 9/11 to educate people "about the incompatibility oflslam withterrorist activities, hatred, and violence."In "Democracy," Karen Armstrong reminds us of several importantfacts: modernity/democracy is a process; that in the Muslim world, modernitywas imposed from above and has close ties with colonial subjugation/dependence, instead of independence; and that is imitation and not inno­vation. Religion, she asserts, can help people through the transition tomodernity. Alex Kronemer states that "the greatest obstacle to democracyin the Muslim world is not 'Islam,' it is poverty, the lack of education, andcorrupt and repressive regimes, many of which - and this is the importantpoint - are supported by the democracies of the West." This raises thequestion of whether the West really wants democracy in the Muslim world ...

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