Ziauddin Sardar has criticised the government-backed 'roadshow' of scholars that aimed to tackle extremism. In this week's New Statesman he says only 'traditionalists' and 'conservatives' were invited to speak rather than 'liberals' like himself:
As a result, differences between conservatives and liberals are much more pronounced. Conservatives such as the intellectual Tariq Ramadan and the American preacher Hamza Yusuf Hanson insist the only people with the right to interpret Islam are the ulema (religious scholars), who must seek solutions to contemporary problems within a largely ossified tradition. While Ramadan has called for the hudood laws, the problematic crime-and-punishment aspects of Islamic law, to be suspended, he is a strong supporter of the sharia. Hanson rejects the whole idea of religious reform and presents a romanticised notion of tradition where the sheikh or the teacher knows all.
What does any of this have to do with the price of cheese? Yet again Sardar is using the tragedies of 9/11 and 7/7 to forward this agenda of chucking the Qur'an out of the window. As if the Beeston bombers listened to mainstream "conservative" scholars stressing the importance of Islamic law, and from that decided to do their wicked deed. Even the most ardent critics of these imams would acknowledge they condemn terror, whatever their view on the importance of Qur'an and shariah.
More over at Blogistan.
Interesting comment regarding the liberals' agenda of 'chucking the Quran out of the window'.My initial thought was that the agenda is more about opening up the doors of ijtihaad to everyone and anyone who wants to try to interpret the Qur'an and Sunnah for themselves, regardless of the education, training or knowledge that they have.
Then I realised that it adds up to pretty much the same thing at the end of the day - because the more diluted the Qur'an becomes by people unqualified to interpret it, the more the principles contained in it will ultimately be lost.
Posted by: Yasmin | 08 July 2006 at 01:35 PM