The Function of Myths in the Justification of Muslim Extremism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Farid Alatas
Keyword(s):  
Muslim World ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Religious Orientations ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Islamic Tradition

This chapter argues that the prevalence of certain myths in Islamic tradition predispose some Muslims into adopting exclusivist ideas that define their religious orientations in a manner that can be viewed sociologically and even theologically as extremist. By taking the examples of the alleged genocide of the Bani Qurayza Jewish tribe by Prophet Muhammad and the alleged link between a Yemeni Jew to the founding of Shiite Islam, the chapter shows that these myths have led to justification of anti-Semitism, violence against non-Muslims, and sectarianism in the Muslim World. The chapter concludes by calling for a more critical reading of Islamic tradition.

scholarly journals MUHAMMAD AND THE JEWS ACCORDING TO IBN ISHAQ

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Joseph Spoerl
Keyword(s):  
Muslim World ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Islamic Tradition

This paper examines the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, shedding light on one component of the Islamic tradition, namely, the earliest extant biography of the Prophet Muhammad, the Sirat Rasul Allah, or The Life of the Prophet of God by Ibn Ishaq (d.767 CE.)

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.

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

Interrupting a History of Tolerance: Anti-Semitism and the Arabs

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-462
Author(s):  
Riaz Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Muslim World ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
History Of ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Semitic Rhetoric

AbstractThe anti-Semitic rhetoric of many Islamist groups is qualitatively different from the reflective jurisprudence associated with the treatises of classical Islam. There is little evidence of any deep rooted anti-Semitism in the classical Islamic world. Jews have lived under Islamic rule for 14 centuries and in many lands, they were never free from discrimination but were rarely subjected to persecution as in Christian Europe. Most of the characteristic features of European-Christian anti-Semitism were absent from the Jewish-Muslim relations. This paper examines the growth of anti-Semitism in Arab-Muslim world and identifies some of the historical events which have contributed to this development.

Anti-Semitism in the Muslim World: A Critical Review

2006 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gudrun Krämer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Review ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
European Origin ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Status ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
The Impact

AbstractCurrent debates on anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, or as it is often put, 'in Islam' focus on a number of issues: the status of Jews in Islam with regard to both theory and practice; the impact of the Arab-Israeli conflict over Palestine; the adoption and adaptation of anti-Semitic motifs and stereotypes of European origin in nationalist and Islamist discourses; and the politics of memory and commemoration. Here as elsewhere, contextualization is required if we are to understand the meanings and functions of anti-Semitic attitudes and activities among specific audiences. But contextualization must not be used for apologetic purposes.

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 ...

scholarly journals Transcending Institutionalized Islām, Approaching Diversity: ʿAbdelmağīd Šarfī’s Conception of a Qurʾānic Ethics of Liberation

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Tina Dransfeldt Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Professor Emeritus ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Difference

This article engages with the intellectual enterprise of Tunisian Professor Emeritus in Arab Civilization and Islamic Thought, ʿAbdelmağīd Šarfī. Šarfī is one among many Arab intellectuals who have engaged in a critical reading of the Qurʾān and the Islamic tradition in order to challenge the traditional Islamic disciplines and methodologies. Through his reading of the prophetic message as discourse rather than text, his interpretation of ‘the seal of the prophets’, and his conception of a Qurʾānic ethics of liberation, this article intend to discuss the difference between an engaged historical criticism, such as Šarfī’s, and the common conception of reformist Islam.

scholarly journals Decolonial Translation: Destabilizing Coloniality in Secular Translations of Islamic Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Lena Salaymeh (لينا سلايمة)
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Arabic Word ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
Secular Terms

Abstract Contemporary Islamic legal studies – both inside and outside the Muslim world – commonly relies upon a secular distortion of law. In this article, I use translation as a metonym for secular transformations and, accordingly, I will demonstrate how secular ideology translates the Islamic tradition. A secular translation converts the Islamic tradition into “religion” (the non-secular) and Islamic law into “sharia” – a term intended to represent the English mispronunciation of the Arabic word شريعة (sharīʿah). I explore the differences between historical Islamic terms and secular terms in order to demonstrate that coloniality generates religion and religious law; in turn, these two notions convert شريعة (sharīʿah) into “sharia” in both Arabic and non-Arabic languages. Consequently, the notion of “sharia” is part of a colonial system of meaning.

Liberal Islam

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-70
Author(s):  
Muhammad Mumtaz Ali
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Freedom Of Thought

In recent years, the focus of research and public perception has been on liberal, moderate, and modernist Islam. Liberal Islam advocates liberal solutions to the problems of religion and society, namely, interpretations of Islam that have a special concern for democracy, women’s rights and empowerment, freedom of thought, and other contemporary issues. Its adherents also forcefully assert that liberal Islam is authentic, not just merely a western creation, and therefore genuinely reflects the true Islamic tradition. In addition, they claim that the ummah (the Muslim world) should think and act in terms of adoption, reconciliation, and accommodation vis-à-vis the West to solve its problem of continuing undevelopment. I contend that the liberal perception and prescription are unrealistic and imaginative, that they contain inherent weaknesses, and that the liberal prescription is irrelevant to the ummah’s development.

scholarly journals Toleration, Tolerance, or Intolerance in the Works of the Young Martin Luther

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. p9
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Early Attempt ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
The Middle Ages

Martin Luther=s hateful and anti-Judaic sentiments have attracted much attention especially because they have often been identified as highly influential on modern anti-Semitism. But in his early years, Luther could harbor quite different attitudes. A critical reading of his treatise ADaß Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sei@ from 1523 will allow us to gain important insights into the delicate and yet impactful approach to toleration as it had developed throughout the Middle Ages. While Luther espoused a specific form of toleration, he cannot be identified as a defender of tolerance in the modern sense of the word. Tragically, however, despite his early attempt at reaching out to people of Jewish faith, the famous reformer quickly changed his mind and embraced a most aggressive strategy against Jews at large. This article will highlight the intricate and fragile nature of toleration as it was pursued by many medieval and early modern intellectuals and writers, and demonstrate that this ideal was highly appealing, but also subject to quick changes to the opposite.

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