Challenges and Opportunities for the Progressive Muslim in North America

Challenges and Opportunities for the Progressive Muslim in North America
By Omid Safi

Bism Allah al-Rahman al-Rahim

In today’s political climate, it is a cliché to begin a discourse on Islam and Muslims with the talk of “crisis.” It is not my intention here to add to that unrelenting assault on Muslims. Instead, I intend to explore the profound challenges and precious opportunity confronting Muslims who self-identify as progressive.

Who are progressive Muslims?
Progressive Islam both continues and radically departs from the 150-year-old tradition of liberal Islam, that of figures like Abduh, Afghani, Rida, Shari’ati, and others. Unlike some earlier modernists, progressive Muslims are almost uniformly critical of colonialism, both in its nineteenth-century manifestation and in its current variety. Progressive Muslims develop a critical and nonapologetic “multiple critique” with respect to both Islam and modernity.
Also unlike their liberal Muslim forefathers, progressive Muslims represent a broad coalition of female and male Muslim activists and intellectuals. One of the distinguishing features of the progressive Muslim movement as the vanguard of Islamic (post)modernism has been the high level of female participation as well as the move to highlight women’s rights as part of a broader engagement with human rights.
Progressives measure their success not in developing new and beatific theologies but rather by the amount of change for good on the ground level that they can produce in Muslim and non-Muslim societies. This movement is noted by a number of themes: striving to realize a just and pluralistic society through critically engaging Islam, a relentless pursuit of social justice, an emphasis on gender equality as a foundation of human rights, a vision of religious and ethnic pluralism, and a methodology of nonviolent resistance.


The Progressive Movement in North America and Beyond
It is vital for us in the North American scene to realize that the majority of those who have engaged in the most meaningful Muslim struggles on behalf of social justice, liberation and gender equality have hitherto lived outside the boundaries of North America, and have in many cases never heard of the (English!) terms “Progressive Muslim,” “progressive Islam,” or the Progressive Muslim Union. There are many important movements in areas of in places like South Africa, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, and elsewhere. So I hope that we in the North American scene don’t suffer from our usual myopia of thinking that we stand at the center of the cosmos.

Having said that, I continue to believe that the Muslims in North America have a historic role to play in the articulation of Islam, and that ironically the very excesses of the American Empire and the public withdrawal of many Wahhabis form the public domain post-9/11 have created a fruitful space for progressive Muslims from a host of backgrounds to get together and debate ideas here.

There have already been some important victories, and one should not lose sight of them. One of them is in the area of gender justice. Making misogynist and patriarchal comments in public has become as much of an anathema for Muslims as making illdefined calls for jihad without specifying the methods whereby it is to be undertaken (or not), or against whom. Even in those cases where the mainstream Muslim organizations’ response to issues of gender equality has been insufficiently vague (such as the “Woman Friendly Mosque” guide ), it too is a sign of a move in the right direction. I think it is important to mark these victories, as indeed they benefit all Muslims in our community, regardless of how they self-identify.

And yet I will not be focusing on the successes of the progressive Muslim movement, but on what I feel are the very serious challenges facing us. I write here both as a supporter and a self-critic of this movement, adopting the Qur’anic mandate to stand up for justice in the sight of God first of all against one’s own self and one’s own community. It is some of these same shortcomings that led me to resign from my position as the chair and a co-founder of one such organization, but I remain optimistic that if these challenges are confronted with an open heart, inquiring intellect, and self-critical sincerity, that insha’Allah more good can be done to bring out the socially just and compassionate teachings that do come from the very heart of the Islamic tradition. But deal with the challenges we must.

Confronting the Challenges Facing the Progressive Movement in North America:

1) Transcending antagonistic attitudes towards mainstream Muslim communities
There is a substantial difference between being an alternative to the mainstream Muslim community (something I wholeheartedly support) and being consistently antagonistic to the mainstream Muslim community (which I do not).
I am very concerned about some of the statements from some of progressive Muslims that repeatedly characterize the mainstream community as Islamist, Salafi, or Wahhabi, etc. In today’s political climate, doing so is putting peoples’ lives, family, property, freedom, and reputation in grave danger. All too often those of us in the progressive community have felt that we must be unrelenting in our critique in order to be effective. Surely one can be capable of nuance without surrendering the mandate of being radical in the cause of justice and truth.
My own hope is that we in the progressive movement can be a light to the community, a voice of conscience, a mandate of justice, an example of compassion….some force that through the power of its moral calling will persuade many in our community to do that which is most just, most beautiful, and most compassionate.

2) Struggling against secular tendencies in the progressive movement
One of my ambitious hopes for the progressive movement in North America had been that it would mark a “big tent” space in which Muslims of various persuasions could gather to strive for common projects, some focusing on the interpretations of Islam in the modern world and others working on concrete and grounded social projects. While the openness of that proposal still appeals to me, I have also come to see that in practice it is awfully challenging to pull off this “big tent.” In particular, one is reminded here that just as there are shades and gradations of conservative Muslims, not all Muslims who self-identify as secular are the same. The secular criticism of Edward Said is not the same as the secularism of Marx, or that of modern Europe. For Said, part of this process of “secular criticism” was characterized as follows: “In its suspicion of totalizing concepts, in its discontent with reified objects, in its impatience with guilds, special interests, imperialized fiefdoms, and orthodox habits of mind, criticism is most itself, and if the paradox can be tolerated, most unlike itself at the moment it starts turning into organized dogma.” It is worth exploring whether the term progressive Islam can and has become a dogma in and by itself, and thus ironically unlike itself—as Said suggests. As a loving self-critique, I would suggest that many progressives have become every bit as rigid, authoritarian, and yes, dogmatic as the conservative movements they/we so readily criticize. This represents a moral and philosophical failure of the highest magnitude.
Among Muslims today, one also finds a variety of secular tendencies. Some come from a Muslim heritage but who are essentially agnostic in their outlook (often combined with the most anti-religious interpretations of Marxism), whereas others interpret secularism a call to keep the state powers out of the religious game. I have come to realize that in our desire to establish the widest possible ground for the “big tent” in some progressive Muslim organizations, we have left ourselves open to the problem of not having enough of a common ground. At the risk of overstating the obvious, a progressive Muslim movement has to start with at least a minimum commitment of commitment to a tawhidic perspective, the guidance of the Qur’an, and the earnest desire to emulate the Prophetic Sunna. While I will always support those who seek the check the state (whether the US, Israel, Iran, India, etc.) against favoring one religious community over others, I have come to realize that a Marxist interpretation of secularism with its hostility towards Islam as a source of inspiration presents one of the greatest sources of damage to the progressive Muslim movement. This damage is all the more pernicious as so many progressives readily identify with the Marxists’ devastating critique of socioeconomic class issues, colonialism, etc. Yet this potential ally is suffocating the spirit of progressive Islam.

3) Engagement with the multiple intellectual and spiritual traditions of Islam
It is not only to outside critics that progressives have too often seemed “insufficiently Muslim.” I think there has been an unfortunate and unnecessary hostility among some of us to take seriously the spiritual and intellectual heritage of Islam, and draw on the vast resources it offers us for living as meaningful deputies (khalifas, as in Qur’an 2:30) of God in the world today. In the Progressive Muslims volume, I had stated:

Progressive Muslims insist on a serious engagement with the full spectrum of Islamic thought and practices. There can be no progressive Muslim movement that does not engage the very “stuff” (textual and material sources) of the Islamic tradition, even if some of us would wish to debate what “stuff” that should be and how it ought to be interpreted. …
To state the obvious, a progressive Muslim agenda has to be both progressive and Islamic, in the sense of deriving its inspiration from the heart of the Islamic tradition. It cannot survive as a graft of Secular Humanism onto the tree of Islam, but must emerge from within that very entity. It can receive and surely has received inspiration from other spiritual and political movements, but it must ultimately grow in the soil of Islam.

My serious concern at this point is that some of the organizations that have adopted the name “progressive Muslims” today are dangerously close (if not already there) of falling into the trap of providing the “Islamic veneer” for many positions without seriously taking the challenge of engaging the traditions of Islam.

4) Reviving the spiritual core of a reform movement:
One of my great hopes had been that this reform movement would be marked by a genuine spiritual core, something that would combine and yet go beyond the earlier rationalistic 20th century movements with Sufi etiquette and postmodern, post-colonial liberation stances. Yet for me the spiritual core has always been and remains at the center. As I see it, there is no way of transforming society without simultaneously transforming the hearts of human beings.

5) Recovering courtesy and spiritual manners
It is imperative for the lofty social ideals of progressive Muslims to be reflected in the adab and akhlaq of our interpersonal relations. I continue to hope that some of the Sufi ethics of dealing with fellow human beings would characterize our dealings with one another, to always recall and remember the reflection of Divine Presence and qualities in one another.
Some would call that romantic or idealistic. Maybe so. I for one continue to hold on firmly to the notion that without romance and idealism we have no hope of being and becoming fully human. Here, as in so many places, Gandhi had a keen observation: “As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion overriding morality.”
On far too many occasions, many of us progressives have lost the moral basis of interpersonal relations. What is particularly disappointing to me is that we have time and again risen to defend those whose points of view and practice have been hard to justify under any existing interpretation of Islam, but have been quick to demonize many who have done no more than simply present what has up until now been traditional and common Muslim attitudes towards issues that are now part of the culture wars (homosexuality, interpretations of scripture, etc.).
My hope is still that a smaller community marked by true love and devotion for one another would be capable of incredible transformations. That after all is Islam’s own legacy starting from the time of the each of the prophets, including our own beloved Messenger of God (S). What a beautiful example for each of us to emulate, as we all seek to establish small, humane communities around us. Large numbers of people who are being rude and uncivil to one another have no hope of transforming the world, much less themselves.
Love heals. Love transforms. That is why I have felt so strongly that progressive communities, indeed all human communities, should be permeated by that type of loving person-to-person relationships.

Conclusion:
I pray that the above comments, as hard as they have been perhaps to read, will inspire some to address some of the present shortcomings of progressive movement. Sadly, I am certain that some Muslim-haters such as Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer will interpret this as the imploding of the progressive movement. There have been some vicious attacks against many of us from sites on both the far right and the far left of the Muslim community, and I can anticipate their criticisms/rejoicing as well. So why bother? Simply because I believe that the ability of Muslims in America to contribute to the grand project of Islamic reform (or whatever one wishes to call it) is at stake.

I recently had a chance to spend a long day in conversation with some Christian activists who had worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. One of their insightful comments has stayed with me: What Martin said was the same as what Christian preachers had been saying for about one hundred years. What was new is that people had heard that message so many times that when the charismatic teacher came along, what he said simply resonated with that which had known to be true in the innermost chamber of their heart. Our task today is not to simply parody Martin, as much as some of us may idealize him. I believe that the best we can do at this moment in history is to work on projects on scales large and small to establish righteous communities and just/compassionate interpretations of Islam. When the time for the movement to emerge triumphantly will come, our struggle—indeed jihad—will have the benefit of letting the truths be self-evident to the innermost chamber of Muslim hearts.

Our struggle is both for ourselves and for our children. We have to be willing to live with the realization that none of us will get to live long enough to actually see the realization of a just world. But in the endeavor to bring that world around, our own lives will have achieved the dignity and meaning to which we are entitled. And we pray that our children may come to live in a world in which their dignity as Muslims, as citizens of this planet, and as human beings is engaged and acknowledged. Towards that day, starting today, we rise….

Amin….

Omid Safi



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Omid Safi is an associate professor of Islamic Studies at Colgate University, in Hamilton, NY. He specializes on Islamic mysticism, contemporary Islamic thought, and medieval Islamic history. He is the Chair for the Study of Islam at the American Academy of Religion, the largest international organization devoted to the academic study of religion. He was until recently a founder and the co-chair for the Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMUNA). Omid, along with the most of the Board of Directors, resigned from PMUNA in Summer 2005.

He is the editor of the volume Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003). His work The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam is forthcoming from UNC Press in early 2006. He has written over 30 articles and some 75 encyclopedia entries and book reviews. He has been featured a number of times on NPR, Associated Press, and other national and international media.

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