Can Islam be reformed? A reply to Ajmal Masroor

In his Facebook letter of 9 May titled “To Reform or to Deform?” Ajmal Masroor voiced his disapproval of Ijtihad: Feminism and Reform, a film by Nancy Graham Holm that interviews progressive Muslims such as Reza Aslan, Mona Eltahawy and Tehmina Kazi. His response followed a recent screening at London’s SOAS which took place on 1 May. The main problem with Masroor’s response is that he assumes that the version of Islam that he champions is the one that is free from “seriously distorted and disjointed ideas about Islam”, which is exactly what needs to be proved.

It may well be that the Muslim community (if indeed any such homogeneous “community” exists) is accustomed to internal debates, led, as he says, “by scholars and experts”. In his letter Masroor opposed this category of qualified leaders to the Ijtihad nine who, by contrast, ”possess very little knowledge of Islam”. This characterisation of his Muslim opponents is not entirely fair, given their impressive credentials. But more importantly, it begs the central question, which is whether his “scholars and experts” uniquely possess a correct interpretation of Islam, while the Ijtihad nine are mere “deformers”. It appears that the bludgeon of theological elitism is being wielded to silence those Muslims who are most critical of the “personal and social parameters” that his select cultural gatekeepers wish to defend. This suggests that the intellectual debates and discussions with which he claims to be familiar are not as “vital and dynamic” as he makes them out to be.

His claim that some from the mainstream media and the establishment love to be in bed with such people and champion their agenda is rich coming from a man who only a day prior to writing his critique was interviewed by Radio 4’s Today Programme, no doubt because he is seen by the establishment media as a chief spokesman for London’s Muslim community. That being the case, there is no need to resent the small publicity afforded to this group whose message, as he himself admits, is “not even causing a small ripple”, unless his true objective is to avert a genuine debate about Islam, i.e. one that isn’t just among an exclusive group of “scholars and experts” who fundamentally agree with one another on Islam’s personal and social parameters, and who apparently hold a monopoly on “the real Islamic intellectual arena”.

Masroor accuses the Ijtihad nine of corrupting the sacred features of Islam with values and practices antithetical to it. But the assumption that his version of Islam is sacred and that theirs represents “corruption” is precisely what the Ijtihad reformers wish to interrogate.

Masroor conflates personal and social moral parameters as if there were no distinction between the two, again begging one of the central questions raised by the nine reformers depicted in the film. In his estimation, personal parameters are defined theologically and so all personal matters are subsumed under the social moral code. In spelling out why individuals cannot exercise critical reasoning about Islam in the way suggested by the reformers, Masroor implies that a heart that is harmful to societies’ collective interest, or neglects a set of universal values, is “selfish” and detrimental to harmonious existence or peace. Whether individual liberty and freedom of religion (including freedom within the religion of Islam) are socially destructive has yet to be seen.

Social conservatives say very similar things about the relationship between individuals and society, so we can draw some parallels between the two ideologies. Social stability, security and order are prized over and above individual liberty, since the established institutions and traditions are supposed to represent what is best for everyone collectively. On this view, social hierarchies are not a means by which one group dominates the others and controls the public agenda so that it serves their own interests. Rather, nature has ordained that there are natural leaders, and the very fact that they are in charge proves that they should be in charge. A dash of social Darwinism is added to bolster the impression that all social hierarchies are inevitable outcomes of natural selection and survival of the fittest, never mind that the theological institutions and arguments (not nature) are the real firmament that supports the (heterosexual male) social pillars and holds people in their assigned “roles” (“God” being the alleged creator of these “natural” laws). As he says in his letter, “These values cannot be whimsical or self-serving. They should emanate from a source that is unbiased and pure.” This means that the theocratic values endorsed by the all-male elite are unbiased and infallible, and that obedience to them, in outward behaviour, is the best way of manifesting faith and a clean heart. This is little more than a recipe for theocracy, which is at odds with his somewhat equivocal invocation to “embrace modernity”.

After listing how the Quran’s instillation of values encompasses every aspect of human life (the “private sphere” of modern liberalism being utterly demolished), Masroor goes on to the subject of punishment in Islam. Its purpose, in the context of so-called “justice”, is to deter crime and instill fear of the consequences. In addition, he says punishment is designed to counteract something harmful or undesirable from society.

Fear of the consequences does not appeal to purity of heart; it appeals to self-interested prudence. It is not based on persuasion or religious conviction but on coercion. Furthermore, whether or not some behaviour is socially “undesirable” depends upon whether society (in the inclusive sense of that word) actually does not desire it. It does not depend upon what a paternalistic sub-set of self-appointed imams proclaim is “desirable” for society as a whole. As it stands, Islamic justice means that people who disagree about what is “desirable” are punished or stigmatised, as the Ijtihad nine are finding out. When he explains the strict conditions under which the Islamic penal code must be implemented, Masroor explicitly states that society must be free and not ruled by illegitimate governments, dictators and despots. Would he also include the ulema? Or shall we assume that they can never be illegitimate, dictatorial or despotic? Why should we accept the belief that they alone are immune from corruption, fallibility, and despotism?

Masroor is advocating a religious authority that comes “from above” and as such cannot be questioned. As he says, “if you want to be a Muslim you must be prepared to submit to Quran and the teachings of the blessed Prophet.” The only alternative is to leave Islam. The Ijtihad nine would argue that individual imams and believers choose whether or not to give the Quran its authority over their lives, and that the authority of the “scholars and experts” likewise comes from their own free decision to invest their fundamentalist reading of the Quran with special authority and political power. They have decided not only that Islam is the correct religion to follow, but which of its holy books and teachings is to be used for guidance, and exactly how these are to be interpreted. There is nothing about these human decisions that makes them infallible. All persons, unless they have been indoctrinated into a belief system, possess the same freedom to give authority to books and teachings of their choice. There is no legitimate reason on earth why some minority should have the exclusive privilege of choosing on behalf of others the religious doctrines and teachings that govern how they must live.

We are all fallible human beings. To assume otherwise is to lay claim to authority that we do not possess. It is relative to his own beliefs about what are the “right principles for living” that Masroor (or any other expert) can possibly judge that fundamentalist Islam’s moral code is right. As Akmal Safwat remarked in his own response to Masroor:

Early Muslim scholars did their best to interpret the Qur’an and Sunna through consensus, analogy and ijtihad. They presented their results to us as Islamic fikh and shari’a laws. But history matters. In a world that was and is continually changing, this process should have continued.[1]

Ultimately human reason is the test of whether anyone should follow divine directives, since human beings decide which ones are indeed “divine”, “good”, “just” or “holy”. To abdicate responsibility for this, by pretending that Allah appointed some sub-set of men to represent Him on earth, is a formula for autocracy, not religion.