Islam et modernité : comment être musulman au XXIème siècle.
Chief, or Emir. He was only a messenger of the word of God as clearly stated in Surat 88, verses 21 and 22: "[Prophet] you are only there to warn them. You have no authority to control them." The Prophet was obliged to respect individual liberty, and the Qur'an is very clear about this: "Say, "The truth has come from your Lord. Let those who wish to believe it do so and those who wish to reject it do so.'" (18:29).
These are examples, among numerous others, that show that the strictures of Islamic law that shock us today derive, in reality, from historical and not truly religious sources. One must distinguish between "human Islam," created by human action, and "divine Islam," the word of the Qur'an. And even if certain verses might shock us today, it is essential to consider them in their original context and reassess their meaning today.
Of course one could object that these explanations I offer are a personal interpretation, an artificial attempt to embellish the image of Islam in defense of Muslims. To this I would say, first, that I have cited Quranic verses that one could easily verify, and second, that my point of view is not unique but rather one that is supported by a long line of Muslim scholars who have been struggling for a century and a half to modernize Islamic thought.
Notable among these scholars is the Egyptian Rifa'at Tahtaoui who, from 1820, published a series of works in Cairo that called upon Muslims to open themselves to the West and to borrow modern Western institutions. Or Khereddine, Prime Minister of Tunisia in the 1870s, who likewise argued for the modernization of Islam and attempted to implement certain reforms to this end. At the beginning of the 20th century, another Egyptian, Kacem Amin, pleaded in his courageous works for the suppression of the veil and the liberation of women. At the same time, Abdelaziz Tha'albi agitated for the rights of women in Tunisia. In the 1930s, Tahar Haddad published a famous work in Tunis on the Muslim woman, in which he employed Quranic, historic, and rational arguments to suggest that a proper understanding of Islam should lead Muslims to abolish polygamy, the right of a man to repudiate his wife, and inequality in inheritance. Other prominent Muslim thinkers who have urged reform include Ben Badis in Algeria, Allal El Fassi in Morocco, and the contemporary Tunisian scholars Mohamed Talbi and Abdelmajid Charfi, among many others.
The common denominator among the members of this school of thought is that Islamic law — shari'ah — is the work of theologians, elaborated well after the death of the Prophet. These theologians found inspiration not only in the Qur'an and the Hadith (the words and deeds of the Prophet), but also in ancient local customs. They were undoubtedly responding to the social, economic, political, and cultural needs of their time — more than a thousand years ago. The time is now ripe to revise this legal system that has not adapted to modernity. In order to do this, one must reread the Qur'an and reinterpret it from the perspective of our current needs and in accordance with contemporary principles of democracy, human rights, and equality.
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U.S.–Muslim Engagement Project Report Published: “Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World” September 24, 2008, at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.
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