The Fight for the Soul of Islam

Part 1 The War from the East

• Session 1.1 Is This War?• Session 1.2 Islam – One of the Great

Monotheistic Religions• Session 1.3 The Fight for the Soul of Islam• Session 1.4 Dar al-Islam – The House of War• Session 1.5 The Global Caliphate• Session 1.6 Islam – Religion of Peace?• Session 1.7 The History of the Conflict• Session 1.8 Poverty in Islamic Nations

Outline

• Introduction

• Five Conflicting “Schools”

• Before and After Medina

• Tensions within the Quran

• Islam’s Golden Age

• The Battle for Islam

Introduction

“Titles”

• Moderates– Secularists– Reformers

• Faith & Reason

• Enter the future

• Reconstructionists

• Enlightened

• Extremists– Jihadists– “Islamists”

• Faith w/out reason

• Return to the past

• Restorationists

• Strident

A Set of Truisms

• Most Muslims are not fundamentalists.

• Most fundamentalist Muslims are not terrorists.

• Today, most terrorists are Muslims.

Five Conflicting “Schools”

The Five Elements

• The Pragmatists

• The Reformers

• The Secularists

• The Fundamentalists

• The Jihadists

The Pragmatists

• Revelation (without reason?)• The ‘silent’ majority• Just want to live their lives and raise their

families• “Go along to get along!”• Faith is for the private life, not the public arena• They have a vague understanding that Islam

and Modernity are not in conflict• Like many Evangelical Gnostic Christians

The Reformers

• Revelation and Reason

• See Islam as a progressive, rational and reforming faith

• Islam needs to be related to the real world (not necessarily accommodating Modernism)

• Followers of Mohammed in Mecca

• Perhaps a small minority of Muslims

• Natural allies of other reasoning monotheists – Jews and Christians

The Reformer

• Prof. Akbar Ahmed• Pakistani high

commissioner to Britain• Prof: Harvard, Princeton,

Cambridge• Chair of Islamic Studies at

American University

The Secularists

• Reason without Revelation• Operating consciously or unconsciously

from an atheistic set of assumptions• Muslims by birth, name and historic

background only• Reject Islam as a religion• Function from secular materialistic value

system• Corresponding to liberal Christians

The Secularist

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali

• Member of Dutch Parliament

• Author: The Infidel

• Intellectual Refugee

• Fellow American Enterprise Institute

The Fundamentalists

• Revelation (without reason?)• Thoughtfully faithful Muslims• Consider that the problems of Muslims

stem from too much modernization• Restorationists – return Islam and the

world to the glorious past• Most are not violent • Corresponding to fundamentalist

Christians

The Jihadists

• Revelation without Reason

• Restorationists – return Islam and the world to the glorious past

• A minority of fundamentalists

• Followers of Mohammed in Medina

• Faith is to relate to every area of life including social, economic and political institutions

The Jihadist

• Founder Al-Qaeda• Declared war on the

USA• Planned 9/11• Committed to the

restoration of a global Muslim Empire

Before and After Medina

Mecca to Medina

Tensions within the Quran

Reflect Mecca and Medina

Tensions in the Quran

• Mecca• Christians and Jews are

“people of the book”• Convert through

persuasion • Enlightened • Roots of the Reformers• Pluralism in society• Freedom

• Medina• Christians and Jews

are “infidels”

• Conquer or kill them

• Strident• Roots of the Jihadists• Uniformity in society• Tyranny

Ijtihad – Concept of Reasoning• Fundamentalist Muslims: “a narrow, legalistic notion of

it as a process of juristic reasoning….” – Reflects Medina– Legal Ijtihad

• Reformist Muslims: “freedom of thought, rational thinking and the quest for truth through an epistemology covering science, rationalism, human experience, critical thinking …”– Reflects Mecca– “independent thinking”– Led to the Golden Age of Islam

Reason and Revelation

REASON

NON-REASON

REVELATION NO REVELATION

− Jews

− Christians

− (moderate) Muslims -IJTIHAD

− Atheism

− Pagan humanism

− Muslims (Jihadists)-narrow view ijtihad

− Some Christians− Some traditional

religions

− Pagan Animism

− New Age

Islam’s Golden Age

Ijtihad

Ijtihad

• IJTIHAD: For Freedom of thought and independent thinking among Muslims everywhere

• http://www.ijtihad.org/

• Dr. Muqtedar Khan Associate Professor Political Science and International Relations University of Delaware

Caliphate of Cordoba Andalusia

Impact on Christianity• Ijtihad – “independent thinking” in

Andalusia brought Jewish and Christian scholars to “think together” with Muslims.

• Much of the dialog dealt with the relationship between faith (being people of the Book) and reason (the contribution of the Greek scholars).

• The work done by Arab scholars was translated into Hebrew and Latin to impact Judaism and Christianity.

Achievements of the Golden Age

• Architecture

• The Arts

• Literature

• Medicine

• Philosophy

• Mathematics

• Science and technology

Architecture

• Moorish architecture in Spain

• The Taj Mahal in India

The Arts

Literature

Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine

Mathematics

• Arabic numerals• Concept of “zero”• Algebra• Algorithms

Science

• Contributed to:– Experimental Physics– Optics– Experimental

psychology– Astronomy– Chemistry (Jabir ibn

Hayyan- “father of chemistry”)

Death of the Golden Age

• Ibn Taymiya from Syria

• 1263-1328 AD

• Sunni Islamic scholar

• Led movement to return to the fundamentalist understanding

• Ended the Golden Age

• The father of Islamic Fascism

Moderates vs. Jihadists

• Mecca• Christians and Jews are

“people of the book”• Ijtihad – Freedom of

thought• Persuade • Enlightened • Reformers• Pluralism in society• Freedom

• Medina• Christians and Jews are

“infidels”• “Ijtihad law”

• Conquer• Strident• Jihadists• Uniformity in society• Tyranny

The Battle for Islam