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Islam and Diversity: Alternative Voices within Contemporary Islam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Simonetta Calderini
Simonetta Calderini*
Affiliation:
Roehampton University, London SW15
*
Email: s.calderini@roehampton.ac.uk
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Abstract

Islam contains a greater plurality of theology than is often realised. Here two “alternative voices” are chosen as examples of how cultural accretions can be questioned to what is taken to be the original, pure voice of Islam. Amina Wadud has led a mixed congregation in prayer in New York and has demonstrated, not without opposition, that women can be imams. There follows a discussion of the historical debate about women as imams and reactions to Wadud's actions. The second voice is Hasan Askari, an Indian Muslim who has written widely on inter-faith dialogue. He maintains that to reduce differences between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, differences should be interpreted symbolically rather than literally. He questions all claims to finality in any religion and he believes that historical Islam has yet to be transformed to “universal Islam”. Religious differences can only be finally transcended at a level of mystical experience.

Keywords

Islamdiversityalternative voicesAmina WadudHasan Askari
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 89 , Issue 1021 , May 2008 , pp. 324 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © The author 2008. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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References

1 ‘American Muslim identity: Race and Ethnicity in Progressive Islam” in Safi, O., (ed) Progressive Muslims, Oxford: Oneworld, 2003, pp. 270–85Google Scholar; and on gender her monographs Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999Google Scholar and Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam, Oxford: Oneworld, 2006Google Scholar.

2 From http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503549588&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaEAskTheScholar, see also al-Qaradawi's Arabic homepage http://www.qaradawi.net.

3 http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503549588&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaEAskTheScholar. See also Ibn Sa'ad Muhammad, The Women of Madina, TaHa, London, 1995, transl. by A Bewley, according to whom the Prophet “commanded her to act as an imam for the people of her household (dar)” and Ibn Rushd, The Distinguished Jurist's Primer, Vol 1, Garnet, Reading, 1994, p.161: “he ordered her to lead the members of her household in prayer”.

4 http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503549588&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaEAskTheScholar,

5 http://www.maroc.nl/nieuws/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=133617

6 There have been public and media reports in Britain, for example, about some mosques not allowing women to enter their premises to perform salat. This issue is being addressed by Muslim leaders in Britain as specified in the 2007 Draft Constitution of MINAB (Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board), Article 2, objective c) Advice on improved access and involvement of women and youth to mosques, p. 2.

7 See Wadud's Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam, p. 172. For the text of her Cape Town sermon and her considerations on the New York event see ch.5.

8 A. Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, p. 3.

9 Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, p. 4.

10 Cf Qur'an 11.90; 85.14

11 See in particular Mernissi, F., Women and Islam: an Historical and Theological Enquiry, translated by Lakeland, Mary Jo, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991, 2004Google Scholar; and Barlas, A., Believing Women: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an, University of Texas Press, Austin, 2002Google Scholar.

12 Askari, H., Society and State in Islam: an Introduction, Islam and the Modern Age Society, Har-Anand, New Dehli, 1978Google Scholar reprinted in 1997.

13 Askari, H. Spiritual Quest: an Inter-religious Dimension, Seven Mirrors, Pudsey, 1991Google Scholar.

14 Askari, H., “Within and Beyond the Experience of Religious Diversity” in Hick, J. and Askari, H. (eds), The Experience of Religious Diversity, Gower, Aldershot and Brookfield (USA), 1985, pp. 191–218Google Scholar.

15 Ibid, p. 206.

16 Ibid, p. 199.

17 Spiritual Quest, p. 111.

18 Ibid, p. 127.

19 Ibid, p. 127.

20 Ibid, p. 138.

21 Esack, F., Qur'an, Liberation and Pluralism: an Islamic Perspective of Inter-religious Solidarity against Oppression, Oneworld, Oxford, 1997Google Scholar.

22 N. Madjid, “In Search of Islamic Roots for Modern Pluralism: the Indonesian Experience” in Woodward, M. R., Toward a New Paradigm: Recent Developments in Indonesian Islamic Thought, Arizona State University, Temple, 1996, pp. 89–116Google Scholar.

23 Ramadan, T., To Be a European Muslim; Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, The Islamic Foundation, Leicester, 1999Google Scholar.

24 See the banners and posters featured in the 2007 film by Elli Safari, The Noble Struggle of Amina Wadud, The Netherlands, distributed by Women Make Movies (http://www.wmm.com)