Inside The Gender Jihad Women's Reform in Islam by Amina Wadud

In 2005, Amina Wadud made international headlines when she helped to promote new traditions by leading the Muslim Friday prayer in New York City. In her provocative new book, Inside the Gender Jihad, she brings a wealth of experience from the trenches of the jihad to make a passionate argument for gender inclusiveness in the Muslim world. Knitting together scrupulous scholarship with lessons drawn from her own experiences as a woman, she explores the array of issues facing Muslim women today, including social status, education, sexuality, and leadership. A major contribution to the debate on women and Islam, Amina Wadud’s vision for changing the status of women within Islam is both revolutionary and urgent.

Dr Amina Wadud is a professor of Islamic Studies and a mother of five. She is the author of Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective.

"Seen as a pioneering feminist, her last book, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (2006) was partly an experiment in autobiography, and included details of the threats to her life in New York." Independent, The

“Readers of Inside the Gender Jihad will be taken on a truly thrilling journey - not just through the problems that confront Muslims today, or the many gender injustices that plague contemporary articulations of the Islamic faith, but also through the many forms of intolerable oppression, which have become interminable causes of human suffering in our world.”
Khaled Abou El Fadl – Professor of Islamic law and Jurisprudence, UCLA School of Law

Quran and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective by Amina Wadud

Read Online at

http://www.questia.com/library/book/quran-and-woman-rereading-the-sacred-text-from-a-womans-perspective-by-amina-wadud.jsp

A Gender Jihad For Islam's Future : Asra O Nomani

A Gender Jihad For Islam's Future

By Asra Q. Nomani
Sunday, November 6, 2005

BARCELONA

Several months ago, when a group of Spanish Muslims approached city officials here about sponsoring a conference on Islamic feminism, one responded, "Isn't that an oxymoron?" That's what many people believe. To conservative Muslims, the phrase is an insult to Islam. But to many moderate Muslims -- and I count myself among them -- an Islamic feminist movement fits with the religion's early teachings and offers one of our best hopes for countering extremism. Indeed, those of us who have joined the movement since it emerged in the 1990s have come to understand that Islam needs to go back to its progressive 7th-century roots if it is to move forward into the 21st century.

How difficult that is -- and how important -- became clear to me when I joined the first International Congress on Islamic Feminism, which was held in this Spanish city just over a week ago. When the floor was opened for questions during one session, a young Muslim man made the comment I've heard so often: "In Islam, there is no place for feminism. . . . " Sitting on the dais, where I had just chronicled our successful struggle to integrate some U.S. mosques, I took it in stride. I've become accustomed to belittling comments, even death threats. But what happened next stunned me.

From the middle of the audience of some 250 women and men, Amina Wadud, a Muslim scholar of Islamic studies who calls herself "a pro-faith feminist," stood up. "You are out of order," she said to the man. "What you are doing is exactly the kind of thing that we are here to be able to stop." The audience broke into cheers. Another Muslim man tried to protest. I interrupted him. "We're changing history today," I said. "We're not going to shut up."

What stunned me was not only the confidence with which we spoke but the willingness of the group to back us -- 12 Muslim women scholars and activists who had been invited to attend the conference by a small but ambitious group of largely Spanish Muslim converts, the moderate Catalan Islamic Board.

The force of our collective effort convinced me that we have the strength to challenge the men's club that defines most of the Muslim world. It was an affirmation of the commitment that had brought me and the 11 other participants here from as far away as Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and refugee camps in the disputed territory of Western Sahara to share stories from the trenches in the "gender jihad." We Muslim feminists view it as a struggle that taps Islamic theology, thinking and history to reclaim rights granted to women by Islam at its birth but erased by manmade rules and tribal traditions masquerading as divine law.

In the communities where we live, we have begun challenging customs that deny women rights from the mosque to the bedroom: gender segregation, mandatory veiling, forced early marriages, clitorectomies, polygamy, death for sex outside of marriage, domestic violence and strict domestic roles. We have many Muslim men on our side: The chief organizer of the conference was a man, Abdennur Prado, who hustled nonstop behind the scenes. And we are taking a lead from Christian and Jewish women who are generations ahead of us today in their efforts to challenge traditions that block them from the workplace, the political arena and the pulpit.

To many, we are the bad girls of Islam. But we are not anti-sharia (Islamic law) or anti-Islam. We use the fundamentals of Islamic thinking -- the Koran, the Sunnah, or traditions and sayings of the prophet Muhammad, and ijtihad , or independent reasoning -- to challenge the ways in which Islam has been distorted by sharia rulings issued mostly by ultraconservative men.

We are wrestling with laws created in the name of Islam by men, specifically eight men. The Muslim world of the 21st century is largely defined by eight madhhabs , or Islamic schools of jurisprudence, with narrow rulings on everything from criminal law to family law: the Shafi, Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali schools in the majority Sunni sect; the Jafari and Zaydi schools, for the minority Shiite sect; and the Ibadi and Thahiri schools among other Muslims. But the first centuries of Islam's 1,400-year history were quite different -- characterized by scores of schools of jurisprudence, many progressive and women-friendly. It is not Islam that requires women to wear a headscarf, but rather the scholars in the contemporary schools.

To many of the women I spoke with, their struggle to move Islam forward by reaching back to its past represents nothing short of a revolution. "This is a global struggle," says Valentine Moghadam, a native of Iran and the chief of the gender equality and development section of UNESCO in Paris. She sees the movement as an important response to "frustration with Islamic fundamentalism." And there is no doubt in my mind, either: The kind of ideology that willingly subjugates women can also foster hatred.

From the dais, activists dressed in everything from Parisian fashion to traditional African batik offered powerful stories of regional reform. From Malaysia, Zainah Anwar, executive director of the Sisters in Islam (dubbed "Satan in Islam" by conservatives), laid out a strategy for reforming Islamic family law in her country, by, for example, educating women about their right to refuse forced marriages. And like others, she is looking beyond her country's borders for support. The group's newsletter is being funded by the successful multinational cosmetics company the Body Shop. And the group is calling Moroccan legal experts to Malaysia next February to educate local leaders about the progressive family reforms that Morocco passed last year. This month, Anwar and other Sisters in Islam leaders will go to England to swap strategies with 10 Muslim women's groups.

In some local areas, groups like Anwar's have begun to see success. Peeking over her laptop and occasionally adjusting the flowing white head scarf she chooses to wear, Djingarey Maiga, the chief of a Mali-based group called Women and Human Rights, explained how she started a rural radio program in her country to promote women's rights. And BAOBAB, a Nigerian group founded in 1996, made headlines in 2003 when it helped win a victory for Amina Lawal, the mother sentenced to be stoned to death for having a baby outside of marriage. Mufuliat Fijabi, a senior program officer at BAOBAB, told us how a conservative sharia judge broke with tradition not long ago to oppose marital rape after going through training provided by his organization. One Nigerian imam, after hearing BAOBAB's message encouraging ijtihad surprised BAOBAB organizers by following up and encouraging Muslims to consider alternative schools of thought.

The challenge isn't just in poor villages in Nigeria or Mali. It's in the wealthy and supposedly well-educated West. In 2003, I set off a debate over the rights of Muslim women when I wrote in The Post's Outlook section about walking through the front door of my hometown mosque in Morgantown, W.Va., and praying in the main hall, thus defying an order that women enter through a back door and pray in a secluded balcony. Since then, I've been harassed in mosques from New York City to Seattle for refusing to accept separate quarters. After almost two years of public campaigning with other women, the country's major Muslim organizations, including the Islamic Society of North America, issued a 28-page report in July titled, "Women Friendly Mosques and Community Centers: Working Together to Reclaim Our Heritage," recommending reform, including an affirmative action program to get women on mosque boards.

Our movement also caused a stir earlier this year when Wadud led a congregation of about 125 women and men in a New York prayer service. As the chief organizer, I wondered what the impact of her action would be as I unfurled the massive roll of carpet I'd purchased from the ABC home furnishing store to serve as our prayer rug. Many clerics around the world attacked us at fiery Friday sermons for undermining our religion, and Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi claimed that our prayer "creates millions of bin Ladens" by challenging male authority. We're up against a formidable machinery of opposition, but we're convinced that now is the moment to coordinate the legal and policy reforms that Islamic feminism is promoting. Initially, I thought it was time for a new madhhab. But Islamic scholars have persuaded me that that would be too limiting. We need to focus instead on broad societal initiatives.

We see our struggle as part of a wider peace jihad. It was a national Islamic leader who oversees the Catalan Islamic Board, Mansur Escudero, who issued the first fatwa against Osama bin Laden, months before U.S. Muslim organizations issued their own. The organizers of the conference say they don't Vaccept support from Saudi Arabia, which has funded much of the spread of ultraconservative Islamic orthodoxy in the world.

At the Barcelona conference, I proposed a plan called "The Islamic Dream" -- an effort to connect our disparate efforts and develop a new approach for Islam in the 21st century. I would like to see us organize a summit of Islam's progressive thinkers to establish the terms of reform and define a 20-year plan to transform our world. That is where we are headed.

During Wadud's presentation on one of the last days of the conference, a Spanish American woman stood up and asked: "Would you lead us in prayer today?" Wadud assented. A group of about 30 Muslims gathered in a hotel conference room to pray behind her,men and women standing shoulder to shoulder -- grounds for banishment in mosques around the world. A Pakistani Canadian activist, Raheel Raza, ran to join the line, not far from a Pakistani American scholar, Asma Barlas, dubbed one of "the mothers of Islamic feminism." Together, we opened our hands as Wadud prayed, "We ask for Your protection."

Our prayer complete, we declared with one voice, "Ameen." "Please accept."

Author's e-mail:

asranomani@theislamicdream.com

Asra Nomani, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, is the author of the book "Standing Alone in Mecca" (HarperSanFrancisco).

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

The discredit of the official ulama

taken from http://abdennurprado.wordpress.com/

The discredit of the official ulama

January 28, 2010

[Chapter 3 of the book before Islam Islam (ed. Oozebap 2007)]

By "official ulama 'all those linked to institutions and government-related organizations, political movements, pressure groups or states: ulema councils, ministries of religious affairs, national muftis, imams and mosques of great presidents and other senior university Islamic. Speaking of his discredit, we find that many of the bodies or persons concerned have lost their authority over most of the Muslims, and how this loss of influence is growing. No doubt that in all bodies and institutions mentioned there are people of knowledge, whose teaching and service to the community deserves the utmost respect, but unfortunately, certain positions of some of these 'official' ulama 'connoting just to rest causing distrust of religious institutions in all Muslims. In this text, try to analyze the scope of this discredited, its causes and consequences. Before, it is necessary to understand what their position (which they should have) the ulema in Islamic tradition.

The word ulama is the plural of Alim : Wise, owner of 'ilm , science or knowledge. The transmission of knowledge is essential in a traditional society. If the basic practice of the pillars of Islam is transmitted in the family, a deeper understanding of the tradition should be achieved through a search that spans the entire life of the believer. Muhammad said: "Seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim and Muslim".This quote includes knowledge of the Qur'an, Sunnah and Fiqh, they need to live as a Muslim and Muslim. Throughout the life of a believer, new situations will lead us to question several themes: sexuality, abortion, usury, marital problems, dealing with our neighbors, how to respond to violence, as understanding religious pluralism. Traditional science has developed answers to the thousand and one situations which may arise, based on the teachings of Islam. As circumstances change constantly, it is also necessary to contextualize these responses. Although it would be ideal, it is clear that not all Muslims can devote the necessary time to the task of finding answers to all questions. Thus, we call those ulema who have dedicated their lives to the study of the Koran, the Sunna and the Sharia and are responsible for the transmission of this knowledge.

The ulema are an essential part of the umma to the extent that their knowledge is aimed at helping other believers. The ulema are there to dispel the doubts that are presented to the Muslims in their daily lives, to help them in their own search for the best. It is important to understand that the mullahs are not a hierarchy or are nominated by anyone. An alim is to possess the knowledge, which seeks to serve the community, and not have a university degree or be in charge of an institution. The very term 'official' ulama 'is shocking. You can not be learned by decree, ministerial appointment. If we look at history, we realize that many of the mullahs today accepted as benchmarks had problems with power. This is evident in the case of large Alfaquis as Imam Malik, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ibn Hazm, Ibn Rushd or Ibn Taymiyah.

Only taking into account this can be assessed the scope of the discrediting of the official ulema and destructuring effects that this has to discredit the Muslim communities. If we recognize that their role is so important, why Muslims turn their backs on the official ulema? Apart from other considerations (related to the advent of modernity and a break with the traditional model of transmission of knowledge), we must attribute the causes of this disgrace to their own ulema. We note two main reasons: intellectual poverty and collusion with power.

The intellectual poverty of the official ulema dyes acquires tragic when we talk about Alfaquis and muftis in the service of totalitarian regimes. We met with terrible judgments and legal considerations. Some of these cases are notorious: sentences for apostasy in Egypt, the death of homosexuals in Iran sentences women to death by stoning in Nigeria, cuts down to poor children for stealing an apple. Other lesser known cases are no less embarrassing, like the cases of rape in Pakistan, where the woman ends up being punished for the crime of fornication, not being able to bring together four eyewitnesses to the rape. Domestic violence against women is more acute in the Muslim-majority countries in Europe. The difference is that while Europe is fought from the institutions in the Islamic world can find a sentence such as the Supreme Court of United Arab Emirates, according to which the husband is entitled to beat his wife if he did not break a bone. Of course this is not the norm, but an anomaly, and it goes without saying that in most Muslim populated countries abuse is a crime severely punished. However, such a decision confronts us with the existence of judges whose vision of Islam can be regarded as obscurantist.

The examples are many and serious. This type of judicial decision, regardless of the injustice they represent, leading inexorably to the discredit of the sharia as a whole, both among non-Muslims and among Muslims themselves. There is in this respect a strong constraint on the part of this class of priests, consisting of Muslims to believe that such laws are part of the "law of God, when in reality they are legal constructions made by medieval jurists unlikely to find support in the Koran or the Prophet's example. However, with this evidence the official ulema respond with finger: all those who criticize its judgments are accused of being enemies of Islam and trying to dismantle the Sharia, the divine law, what has been prescribed by God as a duty inescapable. Personally, I have been called kafir ,^[[1]]heretic, infidel, unbeliever, etc., just for saying that stoning is not prescribed in the Koran, or that the crime of apostasy if it goes against the principle of freedom of conscience set in Quran and validated by the example of Muhammad, peace and the salat of Allah be upon him.

The speech which confuses the sharia (divine law) in fiqh (human development) helps to keep the Muslim-majority countries in the late, always invoking the name of Islam. Today, when talking about the presence of "Islamic law" in the Constitution of any country, the Muslims themselves we start to tremble. Rarely, this implies the prohibition of loans with interest, the establishment of freedom of conscience, social justice and gender equality, all guaranteed in the Koran. Generally, under 'Islamic law' can we expect the inclusion of family codes macho, some punishments and a retrograde and reactionary moralizing hypocrite. All this explains that the mullahs officers are viewed as a whole, with anger and even contempt for millions of believers.

The devastating effect of his speeches is evident in thousands of fatwas circulating on the Internet on many different topics. We have already noted the importance of transferring knowledge in the Islamic world has the fundamental role played by the ulema in shaping Muslim societies. What is the Koran, what is the Sunna, what God tells us through His Word, do you want from us? Many Muslims seek a single answer, a cookbook that will kick its problems, which discourage discord and remove their doubts. Who will answer our questions everyday when they affect the practice of Islam? The confusion among Muslims is huge, faced with an institutional apparatus unable to fulfill their mission of transmitting knowledge, and whose answers are not feasible Muslim's life (and especially Muslim) in the context of plural societies in the XXI century .

We mention some of the foolish, to clarify to what extent these mullahs have been disconnected from the lives of over a half billion Muslims in the world and how their only concern is maintaining itsstatus quo, . The most repeated points affecting the inferiority of women, rejection of other religions and the insistence on the literal application of the penalties established by the lawyers of the Abbasid period. Any attempt to contextualize the message of Islam in the XXI century is demonized as a deviation or innovation and in extreme cases it resulted in a takfir : declaration of Kufur or disbelief.

Many of the fatwas that can be found on the Internet show ordinary people seeking answers to everyday issues that they encounter a wall of rules impossible to apply without destroying their lives. For example, a Western Muslim write asking whether you can shake hands with men at work and get the warning that mix with men is haram ,^[[2]]more if they are not Muslims, you are advised to leave their work and that "migrating to an Islamic country "(presumably referred to Saudi Arabia, instead of the answer.)

In another case, a young Muslim asks if he is permitted to contribute to the purchase of a cake and preparations for the wedding of a couple of non-Muslims. The question now is strange in itself, but the response exceeded all expectations: there is nothing wrong in helping the wedding, but it is not advisable to contribute financially and it isharaam to waste money on promoting the haram . It is not convenient to attend the ceremony, as this kind of celebration usually be forbidden things: alcohol, scantily clad women, lewd dancing, men and women in the same room. At this end, our alim warns the unwary young you are not allowed to take a non-Muslim as a friend and it isharam to feel love towards non-Muslims.

In a third case, we have a young Palestinian taxi driver who emigrated to the United States, married with two children. Their concerns focus on the fact that often is forced to take drunken passengers. The answer: it is forbidden for a Muslim to carry alcohol, is forbidden to transport people or depraved sinners to fun places where they commit their sins. Doing so is considered cooperation with sin and will be a bad thing on the Day of Judgement. Thus, it is assumed that the young driver will have to refuse any passenger who had alcohol or going to a nightclub. At the end of his fatwa, and almost as a joke, if alim begs God to give the driver the best customers, so you can earn an honest living. We envision the new doubts about the young Palestinian, their distress at the time of taking passage ...

Alarmed by the above fatwa, one user asks: "I am a company driver and often my bosses ask me to take them to places where alcohol is served, what?". Answer: "If indeed you are a Muslim, you should not wear them. Fear Allah and the Last Day. " In the end, it seems clear that being a taxi driver and a Muslim is incompatible.

In another query at the same service on-line fatwas, a woman who works in the cleaning service of a hotel is concerned that often has to pick up where he has been drinking Drinking alcohol and clean rooms where he has committed fornication. The mufti replied that in that hotel if alcohol is sold or there is any sinful activity has to stop working there. We concluded that any work in the service sector is forbidden for Muslims. Conclusion powerful, since a large number of Muslim immigrants in the West working in this sector.

In all these cases we find Muslims little versed in Islam, who have normal lives in a pluralistic context, and work and friendships that bring them into daily relations with people of other religions and customs. Specific questions arise about the details of everyday life, which reveal a concern something unhealthy to live according to the principles of Islam. The answers are devastating: leave work and migrates rejects your friends, pave a decent life. We can not calculate the effect of these fatwas. This kind of chatter clerics seem unaware of their meaning words. The ease with which issue their judgments suggests that we seek the destruction of another. They seem blinded by the power that has been given the opportunity to affect people's lives. In any case, the ideological violence of these fatwas is incalculable, as is the damage they cause.

The alarmist language abounds, the threat of hell as a constant intended to coerce the Internet to obedience to the advice really hard to follow. The problem is exacerbated when these same messages are repeated by some imams of mosques to proliferate in the West, often formed in the same way of thinking, in the same idealized vision (essential) of Islam, which seeks to preserve the purity of communities to external contamination. All this tends to create a rarefied atmosphere. Young people who try to live honestly Islam are drawn into sectarian and surly attitudes. The more you increase your thirst for knowledge, more will this bolt-pervading thought. Such speeches may well understood among Muslim groups excluded from society, and whose hatred for everything Western predisposes them to accept anything that involves a break. The memory of colonization, Islamophobia and a lack of recognition of the rights of Muslims in the West favors the reactive attitudes. Faced with marginalization and hypocritical speeches about the virtues of democracy and the welfare society, many young people need to live Islam as contrary to everything that comes from the west, and these clerics and imams offered a model.

In most cases, these are fatwas issued from the reactionary feudal Arab thought. The ulema called upon to give answers know all of the contexts in which questions are asked. In particular, consultation with the Palestinian taxi driver from Qatar is answered by a mufti who lives in a country where alcohol is virtually absent (except for private parties of sheikhs) and where women are invisible (except for private parties the sheikhs!). The Mufti in question does not know or seem to care about which means to emigrate from Palestine to the United States, or how difficult it can be for this young man to find a stable job to support his family. Thus, the gap between these reactionary mullahs and believers consultants seem insurmountable.

This gap is most serious. It involves the dismantling of the "spiritual knowledge" as a service to the community, and introduces the "religious knowledge" as an instrument of ideological control. The reactionary mullahs remain anchored in an archaic Islam has nothing to do with this. A woman asked about the legality of contraception and get the following answer: coitus interruptus is permitted with his wife whenever she gives consent. With the slaves do not need your consent, neither for sex nor for coitus interruptus . This is the reply of Shaykh Abu 'Abdullaah ibn' Uthaymeen, professor at the Islamic University and Imam Muhammad ibn Sa'ud member until his death in 2001 of the Grand Ulema of Saudi Arabia.^[[3]]

The emphasis on the segregation of the sexes is a real obsession among these characters and situations conducive to creating truly violent. For many years director of the Council of Grand Ulema of Saudi Arabia was Shaykh 'Abdul-'Azeez Ibn' Abdullaah Ibn 'Abdur-Rahmaan Ibn Baaz, ^[[4]]taken as a reference for thousands of Muslims in the last decades of the twentieth century. When asked whether a university is allowed to return the greeting to their partners, offers the following response: You are not allowed to return the greeting, whenever done with decency, they are suitably dressed and mediate sufficient distance between you. But the fact of studying in the same college women is haram.

In other cases, the question of women's work, some alleged ulema as Mufti Ebrahim Desai ^[[5]]of South Africa cut to the chase and declare that, except in cases of extreme necessity, the woman is not allowed to work. It would be desirable to inform you that Muhammad himself was married 25 years with a working woman, which was employed. But the problem lies elsewhere: as mufti in a strange fatwa declaring that women suffer a degree of imbalance in nature, since it was created from a rib of Adam, peace and blessings. This imbalance is shown their ingratitude towards her husband and the lightness with which he curses those who hurt her feelings. According to the mufti, the husband must be patient and careful with it, for this imbalance in the nature of woman does not outcrop. He added: "This has been repeatedly confirmed by experience" .Thus, through its eccentric response, the mufti can not respond to the concerns of the client, but it gives us a sad picture of their marital relationships.

In another fatwa made a long tirade against oral sex, basing their ban in a hadith where the Prophet said: "Actually, your mouths are pathways for the Koran, so purify your mouths with siwaak (a kind of toothbrush) . Ebrahim Desai's argument is this: if the mouth is an instrument for the recitation of the Word of Allah, how can we use for sex?

A constant of this type of ulama of Puritanism is the end, really little in keeping with the example of the prophet Muhammad. Rashad Hassan Khalil El Sheikh, former dean of the Faculty of Shariah at the University of Al Azhar in 2006 sparked a sterile controversy by declaring that being completely naked during intercourse invalidates a marriage. This view was contested by the fatwa committee chairman of Al Azhar, Abd-Allah Megaw, whereby spouses can look when they are always naked, save the view of the sexual organs. Therefore I recommend to make love covered by a sheet. With this sort of mentality, it is understandable that Islam has evolved from being regarded as a religion prurient (this was a recurring charge from Christianity for centuries) to be considered Puritan (this is a widespread view today). Of course ordinary people can only laugh at such discussions.

On birth control, the Council of Grand Ulema of Saudi Arabia at the time determined it was illegal to take birth control pills, because the Muslim nation needs to grow in number to defend against plots against him throwing the enemies of Islam. What is not clear is that we can make the masses of hungry and vociferous Muslims against American military technology, or the strangeness of these enemies of Islam are allies and supporters of the Saudi regime itself, in which soil have military bases from which to prepare invasions predominantly Muslim countries.

Another constant in these fatwas is the rate of unbelievers, deviants, heretics, innovative or non-Muslims the followers of certain currents within Islam. A Muslim asks if it is permissible to marry a Shia. Answer: Sunnis and Shiites have different beliefs. The Shia are outside of Islam. It is forbidden to love and therefore you should stay as far away as possible from these people. A man explains that he made a funeral prayer without realizing that the imam was Qadiani (or Ahmadi ^[[6]].) The answer: you have to repeat the sentences, since these people arekuffar and out of Islam. This trend does not escape anyone. We have read fatwas declaring Kafur to virtually all the currents of contemporary Islam, from the most liberal to most conservative.

Very significant is the rejection of many of these so-called scholars of religious pluralism, which is very difficult to justify if one follows the message of the Koran, which says that God sent his messengers to all peoples, and that the Muslim has the obligation to believe in the Quranic revelation and all previous revelations, without distinction between the messengers of God, peace be upon them. ^[[7]]In spite of this, for our ulema all religions except Islam are kuffar, and all the followers of other faiths are unbelievers condemned to hell.

Sometimes the hostility and rejection of interreligious dialogue come to almost comical extremes. In a text of the aforementioned states ibn Baaz clear in stating that anyone who does not consider as infidels (orinfidels ) to the followers of other religions is himself an unbeliever, which is very serious, and that includes the Prophet Muhammad himself . There are many other things that, according to ibn Baaz, 'override a person's Islam'

This category includes those who believe that some criminal laws of Islam are not applicable in our time, such as cutting of hands for thieves or stoning adulterers. Also believe that one can refer to human laws for commercial transactions or business he makes one unbeliever.^[[8]]

This statement was endorsed in the 80s of XX century by the Standing Committee of Fatwas of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Later, the same Committee issued a fatwa prohibiting Muslims to read the holy books of other religions, except in the case of religious scholars (again, official ulema themselves), and these only to refute.^[[9]]

Among these reactionary mullahs, Judeophobia is not surprising. As an example of a brilliant analysis, we quote the response from Saudi Salah Al-Munajid to a question-Islamophobic complaint about the education received by children in Israel, a matter of deep concern. Answer: Muslims can teach their children to hate Jews without committing an injustice, because the Jews are hateful and enemies of God. But if the Jews teach their children to hate the Muslims are committing an injustice, because Islam is the only legitimate religion.

The intellectual poverty of these ulema contrasts with what we feel as we approach the example of the Prophet. All that Muhammad was a delicacy, sensitivity and service to his fellows, has turned to hatred and intolerance towards any difference. We can read over and over fatwas in recent years have given agencies like the Council of Grand Ulema of Saudi Arabia. There are notable exceptions, but generally the mercy absent. The only criterion taken into consideration is the rigid application of some provisions that have little to do with Islam, which have become the idols of a totalitarian religion.

A look from the outside tend to think that these mullahs must have some reason, they are valid representatives of Islam, and that we protest against them we are nothing but "modernists influenced by the West." That is clothed with robes and pompous titles, many of them are Arabs, they enter prestigious universities in history and holy places of Islam tends to favor this view. However, it should be absolutely clear that the views we have landfill have no basis in Islamic tradition, and that Wahhabism and Salafism are common modernist uneasily with traditional Islam, and have already been denounced as pernicious innovations themselves official ulama of the Ottoman caliphate. For my part, the rejection of these alleged scholars not based in an attempt to modernize Islam but to live Islam as fundamental tradition here and now. Only direct knowledge of the Quran gives us the keys to deal with this power structure, the Quraish ^[[10]]of our time.

Yet one can not help but ask: how can this radical transformation of Islam in a pseudo-religion that only seems to Islam Muhammad conveyed in its most external? What are these false ulema bases to justify all the provisions with which we are flooded? In a brilliant text, Asma Barlas has shown how the thinking of these reactionary mullahs (she calls them conservatives ). Extracting quote his speech:

Conservative Muslims have been entrenched behind the bulwark of tradition, passing directly from hermeneutics to historical issues. Thus, challenge in the name of tradition, new readings of the Koran, especially if they come from women. The tradition becomes more important than the words and, indeed, is used to invalidate it, since it shifts attention from the Koran to gender roles and traditional performance practices. But when someone disagrees with this construction of tradition and argues that the tradition also gives us the example of Umm Salama, the wife of the Prophet, who asked why the Qur'an was not addressing women when it was revealed, and Aysha, who narrated more hadith on the Prophet's life than anyone else, the Conservatives took refuge in reason and more specifically in the "public reason." Conservatives safeguard key Koran readings and their own interpretive authority from the text to tradition and reason (public) without paying attention to the criticism directed at them, without opening the text, tradition or reason to criticism .

This chain of elisions also acts precisely in the opposite direction and with the same results. Thus, if someone argues that public reason is socially constructed and reflects the power relations existing in a given society, or that women's interpretations can help reframe public reason and make it more inclusive, the Conservatives are hiding once more behind the tradition, specifically behind the artifice of public consensus (ijma) implied, but eternally binding, which dates back to early Islamic times, this time arguing that this consensus supports the legitimacy of male authority and interpretative readings Quran and it is not right to annul it. Now, tradition, reason and falsifies, again, conservatives can avoid facing feminine criticism of religious knowledge or his reading of the Koran.

When you can not help but comment on these readings, usually discredit conservatives accusing the authors do not use traditional methodologies. However, when somebody makes a critique of traditional methods or proposed new ones, the Conservatives returned to take refuge in the text, or more precisely in the immutability of the meaning of the text which, it claims, confirms once and for all the inferiority of women, making their criticism of the knowledge produced by men irrelevant. Thus closes the circle back to the place of departure, this time from the opposite direction.^[[11]]

This strategy is presented as an insurmountable wall, where the answers are not intended to seek the truth but to defend those privileges. Therefore not be entertained in analyzing the arguments, but see if the content is adapted or not previously established a vision. The interpretation advocated by these strategies are inevitably the most reactionary and repressive. Whenever the reactionary mullahs have to choose between two interpretive options, choose the one appropriate for your default view Islam as a patriarchal religion, legalistic and totalitarian.

It is remarkable to realize that there is no internal consistency in their approaches or respects a basic methodology. For example, although it should be clear that a verse of the Koran is above a saying of the Prophet, in many cases do not hesitate to reverse the preference. Take the case of the alleged crime of apostasy, which the reactionary mullahs claim to be punished with death. To justify this statement, citing a hadith narrated by Ibn Abbas, according to which the Prophet said: "It is permissible to spill the blood of someone who abandons his religion", and ignored all the Koranic verses that defend freedom of religion and consciousness: "And if thy Lord pleased, believe everyone on earth. Perhaps you can force individuals to be believers? " (Quran 10: 99-100), in addition to the numerous verses of the Quran which refers to the rebels than to prescribe any punishment. ^[[12]]If we put questioned the validity of the hadith in question, the reactionary mullahs refer to the legal tradition, which has accepted the hadith as authentic and has prescribed the death penalty for apostates. In this case, the tradition serves to nullify the revelation.

Something similar happens with the stoning for adultery. Although there is a sign that literally prescribes a punishment for adultery and even if another verse which prescribes forgiveness when repentance, the reactionary mullahs manage to sustain that stoning is the correct sentence. In this case, they cite a hadith of ibn al-Khattab Omar,^[[13]]according to which the verse that condemned to death by stoning adulterers was in the Koran, although it has now disappeared. The official ulema accept this, although in other contexts are not tired of repeating that the Koran is the Eternal Word of God, which has survived unchanged down to the smallest details, condemned as a heretic who claims otherwise.

We are facing a string of unrelated arguments presented as a wall. This wall has no texture, breaks down to a minimum analysis. Yet, mechanical repetition of slogans works as an exercise of hypnotism, blinding the hearts and minds. Only one person predisposed to blind obedience to swallow all this. Thus, it appears that the pillar the whole arrangement is the alleged duty of every Muslim to obey officers' ulama themselves, citing the danger of fragmentation that threatens the community of believers. And all this despite that the Messenger of God himself said: "Diversity of opinion is a mercy of Allah for the Ummah . "

As pointed out by Asma Barlas, the thought of the conservative clerics acting as ubiquitous as a cycle of oppression which is difficult to escape. One of the most commonly used tactics to justify the cancellation of the clearly established by God in the Koran is the doctrine of abrogation, whereby some parts of the Quran abrogate other. ^[[14]]On this basis, can afford some alleged Shaikh stated that one of most repeated verses of the Koran ("There is no imposition on religion", 2: 256) have been abrogated, and therefore Islam itself can be imposed. In cases like this, it becomes evident the totalitarianism of these alleged scholars, who placed themselves above God and whose interpretations collide dramatically with the Message of the Qur'an.

Dentro de las estrategias para justificar regulaciones no contenidas ni en el Corán ni en la Sunna, una de las más retorcidas es el principio de la prevención. Según esto, con el objeto de prevenir pecados, es posible justificar una ley que no tiene su base en el Corán ni en la Sunna. Este precepto se aplica para justificar la segregación de la mujer, incluyendo leyes discriminatorias ausentes en el Corán y en la Sunna y que de otro modo tendrían difícil explicación. Por ejemplo, la prohibición de conducir coches, vigente en Arabia Saudí, se justifica mediante el argumento de que para conducir hay que destaparse algo del rostro, lo cual es haram para nuestros alfaquíes. El mufti saudí Muhammad Kadwa declara: no hay nada que prohíba a la mujer el conducir conches; ahora bien, dado que el conducir implicaría la violación de los códigos de vestimenta impuestos por la sharia, hay que negarle este derecho (aquí, el código de vestimenta al que se alude es el niqab, que cubre todo el rostro). Y añade: todos conocemos las oportunidades de pecar que ofrecen los coches.

Dado que salir de casa puede conducir a la mujer a «cometer pecados», se la encierra. Para salir tendrá que hacerlo siempre con un acompañante masculino de su familia. A pesar de que el Corán afirma que hombres y mujeres son walis (protectores, allegados, íntimos) los unos de los otros, se ha instaurado la práctica de asignar una especie de guardián a las mujeres, llamado precisamente wali, quien debe velar por su castidad y su pureza, y sin cuyo consentimiento no pueden hacer nada. Aunque existe un hadiz que afirma: «No prohibáis a la mujer el acceso a la mezquita», se considera que es mejor prohibir el acceso de la mujer a la mezquita y mantenerla en casa para prevenir el pecado.^[[15]] Así, se establece una cadena de prohibiciones que no tienen fundamento en el Corán y que van claramente en contra del ejemplo de Muhámmad. Aquí, es el razonamiento deductivo el que anula el Corán y las tradiciones del Profeta. Mediante estos mecanismos, llega un momento en que nos damos cuenta de que el islam genuino que enseñó Muhámmad es literalmente destruido, sustituido por una religión que sólo se le parece en los ropajes, pero no en los contenidos.

La manipulación se extiende a los propios principios de la jurisprudencia, usul al-fiqh. El iÿtihâd (esfuerzo interpretativo, yihad del pensamiento) ha dejado de ser asociado a la libertad de conciencia, para convertirse en un derecho que ostentan en exclusiva los propios ulemas oficiales. Este es un elemento clave para la construcción del islam como religión controlada por el núcleo del pensamiento árabe reaccionario, y se encuentra incluso en pensadores tan avanzados como Tariq Ramadan, quien asume como suyas las restricciones establecidas por los ulemas reaccionarios.^[[16]] La táctica es siempre la misma: afirmar que «sólo tiene derecho a hacer iÿtihâd quien conozca el árabe a fondo, quien haya estudiado ciencias del islam, quien conozca las circunstancias de la revelación de cada aleya…» Es decir: solo los «expertos religiosos», que han sido preparados para ello en determinadas universidades islámicas. La «apertura de la puerta del iÿtihâd» reclamada por todos los movimientos reformistas de los siglos XIX y XX, lejos de constituirse en un elemento de progreso, ha sido transformada en un elemento represivo. La libertad de interpretación reclamada en exclusiva por los propios ulemas reaccionarios les permite dictar aquellas fatuas que sean del agrado de los gobernantes. De ahí el completo fracaso del llamado reformismo musulmán, asociado ya definitivamente a las corrientes más reaccionarias: wahabismo, salafismo, ijwan al-muslimin, yama’at tablig, yama’at-e-islam…

También el concepto de iÿma^[[17]] (consenso de la comunidad) ha pasado a designar el «consenso de los juristas del pasado». Lo que de entrada se presenta como un principio democrático, la búsqueda del consenso entre todos los miembros de una comunidad interpretativa, es transformado en un instrumento de control ideológico. Por ejemplo: en el rechazo al imamato femenino ante hombres y mujeres, el argumento más repetido es el del supuesto consenso de los juristas en su contra. En este caso, se desplaza el derecho de una comunidad determinada a establecer el imamato según el consenso entre los miembros de dicha comunidad. Al mismo tiempo, se ignora conscientemente el hecho de que destacados ulemas y alfaquíes del período clásico consideraron el imamato femenino como perfectamente lícito. En concreto, para un musulmán español es importante saber que dos de los más grandes pensadores de al-Andalus (ibn ‘Arabi e Ibn Rushd) consideraron válido el imamato femenino ante hombres y mujeres.^[[18]]

La manipulación operada por estos ulemas reaccionarios es tan evidente y de tal magnitud que difícilmente se puede reconocer el islam en la religión que propagan con sus fatuas. Todo parecido se mantiene en lo externo, las barbas y ropajes que se supone son los mismos que los de la Arabia de hace quince siglos. Sólo que ellos viven en palacios de lujo, usan coches caros fabricados en occidente e invierten el dinero del petróleo en corporaciones norteamericanas. Es fácil decirle (en nombre de Dios) a un joven emigrante que deje su trabajo y se gane la vida honradamente cuando se vive de lamerle los pies a un príncipe obeso, todo envuelto con fórmulas rituales que les confiere la apariencia de hombres piadosos.

En este punto, no podemos sino recordar algunos de los hadices que nos hablan sobre la degeneración interna de la umma. El Profeta dijo:

Llegará para mi umma un tiempo de desgracias en el que los hombres acudirán a sus ulemas en busca de guía, pero los encontrarán como cerdos y monos.

(Kanzul Ammal)

Según un hadiz transmitido por Ali ibn Abu Talib (que Dios esté complacido con él), el Profeta dijo:

Pronto llegará un tiempo en el que del islam no quedará más que el simple nombre. Nada quedará del Corán salvo sus palabras. Las mezquitas estarán llenas de devotos, pero éstos quedarán privados de la orientación divina. Los ulemas de ese tiempo serán las peores criaturas bajo el cielo. La corrupción procederá de ellos, y a ellos volverá.

(Mishkat, Kitab al-Ilm)

Y todavía un tercer hadiz:

El santo profeta dijo: «Pronto desaparecerá del mundo la ciencia (‘ilm), hasta que ya no quede nadie que comprenda las palabras de sabiduría y la inteligencia (del Corán)». Sus seguidores le preguntaron como podía esto ocurrir, si el Corán estaba con ellos, y ellos lo entregarían a sus descendientes. El Profeta respondió: «¿Acaso los cristianos no tienen el Evangelio y la Torah? ¿Y qué provecho extraen de ellos?». (Asad-ul-Ghabah)

No conozco las fuentes originales ni las cadenas de transmisión de estos tres hadices.^[[19]] En todo caso, sean o no auténticos dichos de Muhámmad, la paz y la salat de Dios sean con él, me parecen descripciones apropiadas de los ulemas a los que hacemos referencia.

Para ser justos, y como ya hemos dicho al principio, debemos repetir que esta crítica no se dirige a la totalidad de los ‘ulemas oficiales’, sino más bien a un núcleo duro del pensamiento árabo-musulmán contemporáneo, cuya onda expansiva se origina en Arabia Saudí y amenaza con intoxicar a todas las comunidades. Desde esta perspectiva, se comprende que mientras más nos alejemos (ideológica y geográficamente) de este núcleo duro saudí, más recuperamos la confianza en el papel tradicional de los ulemas. Ejemplos notables de ulemas al servicio de las comunidades de base los encontramos en el África negra, en Malasia e Indonesia, donde se encuentran la mayoría de los verdaderos sabios del islam actualmente. Sabios que malviven rodeados de baraka^[[20]] en situaciones semi clandestinas, ocultos en los velos de la rahma de Dios. Mientas, los falsos ulemas legajistas se aposentan en las cátedras de la ignorancia, esperando el día en que Dios les abra las puertas del infierno.

Quien esto escribe es un musulmán español, llegado al islam desde el ateísmo. Yo mismo me considero (hasta cierto punto) un producto del descrédito de los ulemas oficiales. Uno de los motivos que me ha movido a escribir sobre el islam es la ausencia de respuestas convincentes entre los que se autoproclaman «guardianes de la tradición». Llega un momento en que no podemos seguir tomando como referentes a esta gente, abrimos nuestros ojos y nos orientamos hacia la Creación, donde Dios se manifiesta. Todo a nuestro alrededor nos habla del islam, del sometimiento de todo a un designio inescrutable. Tomamos el Corán en nuestras manos y todo significa. El Corán ha sido revelado para cada uno de nosotros, sin necesidad de intermediarios. Por ello, hace tiempo que he dejado de lamentarme por la miseria intelectual de los ulemas oficiales, y doy gracias a Al-lâh por haber dotado al ser humano de un corazón pensante, de un raciocinio capaz de someterse y ser guiado por las leyes de la Misericordia Creadora.

Desde el reconocimiento de mi más completa ignorancia, reivindico el derecho a ser guiado únicamente por Al-lâh. Soy consciente de que este camino está lleno de errores, debido a mi falta de capacidad y a las limitaciones que mi ego impone a la recepción de la Palabra revelada. Pero también soy consciente de que este es el único camino, que exige una entrega total a Al-lâh, la consciencia de que sin Su ayuda nunca superaremos nuestro estado de fragmentación y de ignorancia.

Pido perdón por todo aquello que diga, piense o haga no conforme a las enseñanzas genuinas del islam y al ejemplo del Profeta Muhámmad, una bendición para la humanidad, que la paz y la salat de Al-lâh sean sobre él y todos sus seguidores. Pido a Al-lâh que me ayude en la tarea de pensar el islam aquí y ahora, como una fuente viva y llena de sentido para aquellos que rechazan toda idolatría y se postran voluntariamente ante el Creador de los cielos y la tierra, in sha Al-lâh.

---

[1] Kafir, mal traducido como infiel. La palabra kafir viene de la raíz KFR, de donde el verbo kafara: enterrar, cubrir. André Chouraqui la traduce al francés como les effaceurs, algo así como «los borradores», ya que ellos borran los signos de Dios. En ningún caso esta palabra árabe hace referencia a la falta de «fe» de «creencia», con lo cual las traducciones «infiel» o «incrédulo» son inapropiadas. La palabra árabekafir ha dado palabras como el maltés kiefer (‘cruel’) o el francés cafard(‘traidor’, ‘hipócrita’). En castellano tenemos la palabra cafre: alguien zafio, bárbaro y cruel. Ninguna de estas palabras tiene connotaciones religiosas.

[2] Haram, prohibido, vedado. Literalmente es «aquello que excluye». De la raíz H-R-M (harama, yahrimu) «alejar, defender, excluir», provienen adjetivos como «inviolable, reservado».

[3] Véase: http://www.fatwa-online.com/scholarsbiographies/15thcentury/ibnuthaymeen.htm.

[4] Véase: http://www.fatwa-online.com/scholarsbiographies/15thcentury/ibnbaaz.htm

[5] Véase: http://www.islam.tc/ask-imam/mufti.shtml

[6] Seguidores de Mirza Ghulam Ahmad de Qadian (1835-1908), un erudito indio que se proclamó el Mehdi, Reformador definitivo del islam e igual a Krishna.

[7] Véase: http://www.islam.tc/ask-imam/mufti.shtml

[8] Sobre esto volveremos en el capítulo 5. Véase también nuestro texto: El pluralismo religioso en el Corán, http://www.webislam.com/?idt=1358

[9] Esta actitud contrasta con el texto del Corán y el ejemplo del profeta. En el Corán se dice que los creyentes son aquellos que creen en la revelación coránica y en todas las revelaciones anteriores. Y el profeta incluso aconsejó aprender hebreo para acceder a los textos de los judíos.

[10] El Quraysh es la tribu dominante en la Meka en el siglo VII, contra la que el profeta Muhámmad se vio enfrentado. Representa aquí los detentadores del poder, que utilizan las tradiciones para justificar sus privilegios.

[11] «Texto, Tradición y Razón: Hermenéutica coránica y política sexual», conferencia impartida en la Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, octubre 2004. Publicado en Webislam: http://www.webislam.com/?idt=1678

[12] Para un desarrollo de este tema, véase nuestro artículo «Libertad de conciencia y apostasía en el islam», publicado en Webislam: http://www.webislam.com/?idt=7675

[13] Segundo de los llamados califas ortodoxos. Sucedió a Abu Bakr y gobernó entre 634 y 644.

[14] Muhámmad Asad considera la teoría de la abrogación como absurda. Véase El Mensaje del Qur’án, ed. Junta Islámica, p. 23. Reproducido en Webislam: http://www.webislam.com/?idt=2712

[15] Sobre el acceso de la mujer a la mezquita, véase nuestro artículo en El islam en democracia, ed. Junta Islámica 2006, p. 189-192. También en Internet:http://abdennurprado.wordpress.com/2006/03/08/el-acceso-de-la-mujer-a-la-mezquita/

[16] Tariq Ramadan, El islam minoritario, ed. Bellaterra 2002, p. 133-134.

[17] Iÿma: consenso comunitario, decisión tomada en grupo (yama’a). Uno de los conceptos fundamentales de la tradición jurídica, reivindicado como un argumento en pos de la democratización de las sociedades musulmanas.

[18] Véase nuestro artículo: http://abdennurprado.wordpress.com/2005/05/02/polemica-sobre-el-imamato-femenino/

[19] Tomados del libro de Ayatol-lâh Hübsch Las profecías del Islam, ed.Tikal, pp. 91-93.

[20] Baraka: bendiciones. Es la magia de algunos lugares, de algunas personas, de algunos objetos; una magia benéfica que aprovecha al que la recibe.

Islam and anti-globalization movement

taken from http://abdennurprado.wordpress.com/

Islam and anti-globalization movement

February 4, 2010

Genealogy of reactionary Islam

The need for an Islamic theology of liberation appears to many as a logical conclusion the result of the vicissitudes suffered by Muslim communities in the last century and the international geopolitical situation in the early twenty-first century. To understand this need, we must go back to the Cold War era, when Western powers sided with the conservative currents of the Islamic world to prevent the meeting between the Islamist movements and the international left. An alliance that still acts as a suffocating on Muslim populations.

Everything leads us to the key issue of corporate globalization and the role they play in it from OPEC countries. We attended the collaboration reactionary sectors of the Islamic world with corporate globalization, to the point that today they are one of the pillars of it. Tariq Ramadan has referred to this alliance as follows:

"The entire Islamic world is under the tutelage of the market economy. The apparently Islamic countries from the standpoint of law and government, following the example of Saudi Arabia or petromonarquías, are more integrated economically neo-liberal system founded on speculation and submerged in transactions with interest (in reference to usury). " [1]

Already two decades ago, the economist Susan George highlighted the role that OPEC has played since the 70s of last century in the growing inequalities between North and South. Susan George says:

"The oil producing countries behaved like true capitalists, hoping to make lots of money to rely on professionals from New York or London. In this way, they lost an historic occasion and opened the door to tremendous coup concocted by countries that were already rich. The debt created by Western governments, banks and their agents, such as the IMF, has further weakened the South (comprising the member countries of OPEC), have been placed in a situation worse than before the great age of the loans, and opened the door to a real re-colonization ". [2]

Some countries have large external debts, including some of the self-proclaimed as "Islamic states", supposedly governed by Sharia law. Saudi Arabia (47.390 U.S. $ 2.006 billion), Pakistan (42.380 2006), Sudan (2006 est. 29.690.), And Iran (14,800 2006 est.).. Someone should remind the ulama , Grand Mufti and other government scientists that usury is forbidden in Islam ... Why Saudi Arabia, one of the major oil producers, has external debt, when thousands of Saud family members are assigned a monthly annuity only because the family? Most of this debt has been spent on weapons, bought from their owners. Make no mistake: these countries are only "Islamic" in those aspects which concern the State, especially in all matters relating to social control.

The obsession with religion understood as an extreme moral, a stifling puritanism obsessed with honor and sexuality, is a means to alienate Muslim populations, acts as a veil that prevents analyze the real causes of social injustices they suffer, and presents the perpetrators of these injustices as guarantors of national identity and honor. We are witnessing an extreme form of darkness, the hand of the reactionary mullahs, who occupy prominent places for their significance in the history of Islam, such as the University of al-Azhar or Meka Mosques and Medina. Obscurantist vision of Islam that is thwarting any possibility of critical thinking among believers, condemning their companies to remain in backwardness and ignorance. If religion is reduced to this, we could certainly subscribe to Marx's phrase, according to which religion is the opium of the people . Fortunately, religion is much more than this, or is it something else, a potential that can be put at the service of human liberation, insha Allah.

At this point you have to place the anti-communist discourse promoted by certain Muslim institutions from the Arab world to Southeast Asia. We are in the era of cold war, when communism is the absolute evil that now represents Islam. A good example of the relationship between Islam, anti-communism, secular dictatorships and Western interests occurs at the time of the call infitah (opening) promoted by Sadat in Egypt in the 70s of last century, in order to liberalize the economy (after the stage of "Arab socialism," declared overcome). Left trade unions and oppose the privatization policies and openness to foreign investment, but they are supported by the ulema of al-Azhar and the Muslim Brotherhood. Sadat supports the jamaat (assemblies) Islamic universities, to weaken left-wing student organizations, one of the main focuses of the opposition. It is in this context that we situate the emergence of anti-communism of the official ulama. Return to religion and liberalism go together. The successive shaykhs of al-Azhar fatwa issued anti-communist. Shaykh Muhammad Fahham launches a diatribe against students demonstrating against the government, called wicked and compel them to behave religiously. Abel Halim Mahmud Shaykh says that "Zionism is the mother of communism." Shaltut The imam said that "communism is Kafur. The Communist shells rosary does not say 'Al-lahu Akbar' but 'Marx is great'. "Hasanayan Muhammad Majluf, Mufti of the Republic, suggested that the Communists are regarded as apostates from Islam, in an era in which this could cause serious prejudice[3].

In Indonesia, the two largest Islamic organizations in the country (Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiya, with several million members) are involved in a decisive way in the anti-communist. During the years 1965-1966, Suharto unleashed a wave of killings that took the lives of over a million communists. As Noam Chomsky has reported, U.S. officials gave lists of communist sympathizers or local authorities, who were conducting a merciless manhunt, with the support. The Muhammadiya declare the jihad against the Gestapu (the Communist Party of Indonesia). It is sad to see the involvement of the two largest Islamic organizations in the country in one of the most tragic events of the twentieth century, which led to the deaths of more than one million people by the mere fact of being a communist militants.

But this alliance is not a thing of the past. Currently, some Muslim populated countries in the top positions in terms of income per capita in the world: Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Brunei, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia, countries develop their economies under U.S. military protection. But this privileged position not only manifests in the form of development cooperation from other Muslim countries. We must remember the many situations in which Muslims live in a dramatic situation. Hundreds of thousands of them crammed into refugee camps: Sahrawi in the Algerian desert, Sudanese in Darfur, Rohingya in Bangladesh and Thailand. Other situations are less dramatic, such as Chechnya, Somalia or Ethiopia. These situations of extreme poverty exist side by side with waste. In contrast, pharaonic projects include (in the sense of the word Koran) carried out by the petro-millionaire dynasties of the Persian Gulf, such as construction projects in Dubai ultra luxurious grand hotels gaining ground to the sea, in which you can even find ski slopes.

There is (that we know) a genuine development aid from rich Muslim countries organized by the third world. There is large-scale humanitarian aid, and hundreds of organizations working to alleviate immediate needs, but not a global project to help poor communities to generate their own coping mechanisms in the future. At this point one could deplore the way in which Saudi oil money wasted by financing major universities and hundreds of madrasas through which foreign populations are indoctrinated, creating a fracture in all Muslim countries between traditional Islam and Wahhabism. The only concern of Saudi Arabia in all human tragedies mentioned is to infiltrate and use them to impose their conception of Islam stickler destroying local traditions all in the name of religious purity, always at the service of imperialism. Saudi Arabia has earned hatred of the vast majority of Muslims in the world, both for its policy of dissemination of Wahhabism, for their support for U.S. domination, and by the contempt shown towards the plight of Muslims throughout the planet.

Wahhabism is not an orthodox interpretation of Islam but a reform movement, born in Saudi XVII century AD Later, the word reform has taken the sense of abandonment of an organic conception of the community in terms of power structures created with the industrialization. A state like Saudi Arabia represents the abandonment of tradition by economic interests, and was chosen by the British because it fit the plans for exploitation of natural resources designed for the Middle East. His appearance gives them an Islamic appearance, while the Modernist's work makes it easier to govern like their masters. Through the "open door ijtihad (interpretive effort in jurisprudence), the ulema in the service of the State are allowed to launch fatwas to justify everything that the government has an interest: the presence of American bases in Saudi, or the legality of political assassination, drug trafficking. In terms of international politics, Wahhabism is passing Islam as a piece of the market economy, working in particular with the International Monetary Fund.

Saudi Arabia: a country that trades in arms but it calls itself Islamicshort hand because the child who steals an apple, where the rulers live surrounded by an extravagant luxury while foreign debt reaches astronomical figures ... But the Prophet Muhammad (saws .) said: "He who racked with what has, that's who Al-Allah provides, and one that accounts for goods and accumulates to that is to whom Allah cursed and Al-away on your side" . What they have done in the cities of Medina Meka and leaves no room for doubt. Where a few years ago were the tombs of the companions of the Prophet (pbuh) now crowd the Mercedes dealership or Chrysler. In places associated with the prophetic mission of Muhammad (saws) there are now five-star hotels run by foreign companies. The destruction of heritage, collective memory of Muslims, is part of the policy of the Bani Saud since its inception. It's the same dislocation that is occurring on a large scale, operating from within Islam, from its very geographic center.

This is the entrance of Islam in the society of the spectacle: Wahhabism represents the Westernization of Islam, the abandonment of tradition to find its resemblance to the culture of representation and image. Image culture: the acceptance of images of different traditions, but not its contents. We are in a world where tradition says the idea of being reduced to folklore. This is what gives Wahhabism: not Islam but only its appearance, not truth but a stereotype. In this culture of the image are determined to "representatives of God on earth" of all religions, such as advertising, economists of the New World Order, news makers. Saudi Arabia as the birthplace of Islam, plays the perfect role for the policy of Western powers, a policy that can only end with the sacrifice of the image they have created themselves. The concise definition of Tariq Ramadan reflects a majority opinion:

"Saudi Arabia: the crossroads of all the lies and hypocrisy. First, from the West, where governments, although they know the horror of the dictatorship of the reactionary slavery and corruption, are silent for economic reasons. Then from the East and too many Muslims, who, because of financial manna, respond with silence more apparent betrayal and more odious to the principles of Islam. "[4]

Today we witness new episodes of this collaboration, never revoked. The reverse land reform carried out in 1999 by Mubarak, which involved the recovery of agriculture by capital leases, was backed by the Islamic Jamaat and the Muslim Brotherhood in the name of Sharia law and the right to property. You can still find on the website of Yusuf Qaradawi, an Egyptian also a fatwa in which he said that it is incompatible to be a communist and Muslim (the fatwa in response to a woman who asks her if she can marry "a Muslim communist" : the answer is no it is haram to marry a Communist, because the Communists are nothing short of evil who do not believe in anything ... even though the woman's question makes clear that the man in question is a Muslim). Qaradawi himself sitting to the right of the Emir of Qatar as U.S. troops prepare to invade Iraq from bases huge loan from the emirate, a country in which the Egyptian immigrants (among others) living in semi-slavery ... This certainly justifies the rejection of the left when working with Islamist movements, and highlights the close relationship between religious fundamentalism and neoliberalism. Quoting Samir Amin:

"In the realm of real social issues, political Islam is aligned in the field of dependent capitalism and imperialism dominant. It defends the principle of the sanctity of property and legitimizes inequality and the requirements of capitalist reproduction. The support from the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian parliament to recent reactionary laws that strengthen the rights of the owners at the expense of tenant farmers (most of the small peasantry) is but one case among hundreds. There is no example of even a single reactionary law promotion in any Muslim state to which Islamist movements have opposed ... It's easy to understand, therefore, that political Islam has always had in its ranks with the ruling class of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan . The local comprador bourgeoisie, the new rich, beneficiaries of the current imperialist globalization, generously support political Islam. And it has forgone an anti-imperialist perspective and replaced by a stance "anti-Western" (almost "anti-Christian") that obviously leads only to the companies concerned to a dead end and does not therefore constitute an obstacle to the deployment of imperialist control over the global system. The history of the Muslim Brotherhood is well known. The Brotherhood was created by the British and the monarchy in the 1920s to close the passage to the Wafd, secular and democratic. Their mass return of Saudi refuge after Nasser's death, organized by the CIA and Sadat, is also well known. We are all familiar with the history of the Taliban, trained by the CIA in Pakistan to fight the "communists" who had opened schools for all boys and girls. He is also well known that Israel supported Hamas in the beginning as a way of weakening the secular and democratic currents of the Palestinian Resistance. Political Islam would have been much more difficult to move beyond the borders of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan without the strong support for continued and determined United States. Saudi Arabian society had not even begun to move beyond its traditional boundaries when it was discovered oil in the ground. It was concluded between the two sides an alliance between imperialism and the traditional ruling class, sealed immediately, which gave a new lease of life to the Wahhabi political Islam ... It is easy therefore to understand the initiative taken by the United States to break the united front of Asian and African states established in Bandung (1955), creating an "Islamic Conference" immediately promoted (since 1957) by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Political Islam entered the region by these means. The minimal conclusion to be drawn is that political Islam is not the spontaneous result of the assertion of authentic religious convictions by the peoples concerned. Political Islam was erected the systematic action of imperialism, supported, of course, by obscurantist reactionary forces and subordinate comprador classes. " [5]

In short, Islam is being used in power, in many cases to justify privilege and oppression, and fight the Left. This use by the State is often linked to the imposition of a reactionary view of Islam, focusing on forms and in the imposition of a morality of the herd. Corporate globalization and religious fundamentalism feed on each other, are two sides of the same phenomenon. Structural measures promoted by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank create the conditions that make it possible (even inevitable) the resurgence of fundamentalism, and ultimately, this fundamentalism justifies the intervention of the Western States. All this explains the Western support for reactionary vision of Islam.

But we must say that the analysis of Samir Amin is in excess maximalist: while it is clear that the dominant political Islam (especially the current Wahhabi / Salafi promoted from Saudi Arabia) appears as an ally of imperialism, it can not be inferred that all political Islam should be encased in that category. There is growing awareness of this problem within the Muslim movements, a problem whose resolution goes to build a new global alliance with the left and the global justice movement, as soon defend. There is no other choice but to work in this direction. It would be a blunder by the anti-capitalist movements in Muslim countries to raise their fight outside of Islam, Islam being the axis around which life in these societies. Fighting Islam and capitalism at the same time does not seem reasonable, and less if we realize that Islam is today one of the few living alternatives to neoliberal globalization.

Islamic theology of liberation

At this point we understand the importance of Islamic theology may charge release (TIL) in the context of the struggle of peoples against corporate globalization and the new imperialism and against the hegemony of alienating ways of understanding Islam that appear related to them. That is, to break the alliance between corporate globalization and religious fundamentalism.

TIL mean by a speech and a social practice that foregrounds the Quranic mandate to build a just and egalitarian society, in which the human being's spiritual dimension is taken into account, as opposed both to the reactionary views of Islam and neoliberalism. Facing drift towards Islamist movements ultra-conservative positions in the political and moral, the TIL recovery arises from the revolutionary message released by the Prophet Muhammad fourteen centuries ago, against the oligarchy of the time.

The TIL gains new strength in the post-11-S, with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the situation of Muslims in Burma and the continuing Palestinian Genocide. But above all, the TIL comes as awareness of the social impact of corporate globalization. The rise of neoliberalism and free market philosophy poses a threat to equality and social justice, as both conceived as a market society that reduces human beings to the extent of producer-consumer. A liberalized market economy, which has no regard for social affairs, or by indigenous cultures or by environmental concerns, can not promote overall economic and social welfare, not ensure sustainable development. Neoliberalism increasingly threatens civil rights, particularly the right to education, paid employment, and health.

Faced with this situation, the TIL proposes a radical reform of Sharia, which serves the disadvantaged. Proposes reform of Muslim family codes, in order to achieve full equality of women and men. It also proposes to incorporate the issue of economic justice in contemporary discourses based on Sharia, and concentrate on horizontal issues, themu'amalat or social transactions rather than on aspects of 'ibada or acts of worship. This reform is inspired by the notion of the sovereignty of Allah, that only Allah is our Lord, and therefore no one can be master or lord of his fellows. This understanding of Islam leads to question the ritualistic understandings and / or alienating religion. In applying these principles, it is necessary to create unions inspired TIL capable of vindicating the rights of workers in contexts where Islam is the religion of state, and where everything revolves around Islam.

The TIL supports the involvement of Islam in politics. If all components are removed ethical (religious) policy, medicine, economics ... what are we left? The post-Western civilization: a system of widespread depredation of the planet earth, which serves no rational or ethical criterion ... In western countries this system receives the counterbalance of civil society, mainly through the struggle of the communists and the anarchists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the civil rights movement emerged after the Second World War. But the counterweight is not strong enough today worldwide, and even less in the so-called third world, where large corporations embark on a policy of natural resource depletion, plundering villages and destroying their cultures, enthroned compliant dictators their interests and funding wars in those places where companies come together to address them. The TIL is presented as a challenge so-called "liberal Islam", which advocates a strict separation between religion and politics, a speech compliant with the new requirements for establishment . There is a policy of infiltration by think tanks Western, which promote anti-fundamentalist Islamic discourse and defense of the compatibility between Islam and democracy, human rights, etc., but is not critical of the policies promoted by the IMF International, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. It's called "moderate Islam", promoted by British and American governments, as an offensive parallel to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The TIL has a prominent representative in the Sudanese Mahmoud Taha, who in his famous work The second message of the Koranidentified the ideal society proposed by the Prophet Muhammad with a "democratic socialism" (although the proper term to define their proposals would rather Communism .) According to Taha, the achievement of this ideal of community is necessary for human fulfillment. In a society ruled by selfishness and exacerbation of passions, human beings can not activate their full potential or live as a creature capable of Allah. At the same time, he believes that socialism can not be done without taking into account the spiritual dimension of human beings. Hence the failure of historical materialism and the Soviet regime, whose materialist conception of man was no different in substance from the proposal by capitalist society. Taha includes the perspective of democracy, gender equality, ecological values ...

The TIL does not deny its links to Muslim and even reformist Islamist movements, and can cite Shariarti Ali Sayed Qutb or to support their positions. Roots in the reformist movement before it was phagocytosed by Saudi Arabia and was set to serve the interests of corporate globalization and conservative policies. This return to the revolutionary origins of Islamist movements is the proposal of Shabbir Akhtar, in The Final Imperative: An Islamic Theology of Liberation . This is a British intellectual who disciple of Sayed Qutb recognized. The TIL could be linked with Islam, which recognized the totalitarian excesses committed and promote an openness to gender equality, ecological and democratic values. The Egyptian-born Swiss thinker Tariq Ramadan is presented as a bridge figure, which explains why media violence with which it is treated in the West.

A book to consider is Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire of Iran Hamid Dabashi. The criticism of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not lead him to embrace Western modernity as a panacea, but quite the opposite. Dabashi believes that the Islamic ideology has ceased to be the main factor of resistance against "colonial modernity." Militant Islam emerged certain conditions and remains a prisoner of them. Not able to meet the needs of the present or the challenges of corporate globalization. To renew the aspirations of the Muslims is necessary to review the concept of "Islamic ideology" in the sense of providing a local response and therefore limited to what is presented as a global challenge. No ideology of otherness to awaken the energies and create the necessary synergies to deal with predation global centers operated from corporate globalization. Neither this globalization is the "West" or Bin Laden "Islam." Most notably, they must overcome the legal views of Islam, leading to a multiple split between Islam and the West, Islam and human rights, Islam and feminism ... A series of fractures that are exploited by the empire to undermine and discredit the Muslim resistance.

The only way to save these fractures is to think of an Islamic ideology of liberation in convergence with other similar movements throughout the world. Muslims are not alone in the struggle. They can not keep thinking about his struggle with his back to the rest of the world, neither in terms of Islamic supremacism. An ideology that divides the world between Islam and West or between believers and nonbelievers have nothing positive to contribute. The contemporary situation we are dedicated to syncretism and the acceptance of universal values. Believes that Islam must rearticulated in relation to global capital. As a result of the globalization process, the massive migration of workers have dismantled the dichotomy "center-periphery" or "islam-west", which might have its raison d'etre during the colonial era. Dabashi defends multiculturalism and explores the similarities and differences with Christian theology of liberation, called an understanding. The revolutionary potential of Islam should be put at the service of humanity, not to serve the cause of Islam. Think in terms of diversity and syncretism, and not in terms supremacists.

Rather than a theology, we should speak of a theodicy, natural theology and rational universalist court, which seeks its foundation within the human being. Theodicy Dabashi defines this as "a form of liberation theology that not only realizes the existence of their moral and normative shadows, but, in fact, embraces " [6]. In the view of Dabashi, this theodicy achieved Islam itself free of its ghosts, its atavistic and forms of idolatry generated over the centuries. It is not only to rethink Islam in terms liberators, but to think from an Islam free of itself.

Islam and anti-globalization movement

The statement "liberation theology" refers immediately to the struggles of Christians in South America and the Third World, to overcome the alienating vision of Christianity and recover as a message of individual and collective liberation ... So, speaking of a "Islamic theology of liberation" we are getting from the first game when converging forces on a global scale, moving towards a joint response of the various religions to the challenges of globalization.

But this alliance is not only between religions. We affirm that Muslims struggle for social justice is in line with the global justice movement, against the alliance of religious fundamentalism (which actually has nothing Islamic ) and corporate globalization. You can not separate our analysis on the current situation of Islam in the state of the world in the global era. The global dominance of financial corporations leads to the disintegration of countries and the hunger of millions. The effect of the prohibition of usury or other principles of Islamic economics in Muslim countries would fail to change the new world order. The major Western financial companies would easily find ways of penetration. This means that in the context of globalization, there is the slightest possibility of a local Islamic society. Everything points to the increasing participation of Muslims in the global justice movement , as a key to the future.

We are in the beginning of construction of a global civil society, civil society no longer finds its way to political participation through the framework of nation states, but through a new emerging global ethic, based on solidarity and love to the plurality, in the struggle of peoples for their survival. We are placed in the field of values: democracy, freedom of religion and conscience, ecological values, distributive justice and gender equality. At the same time implies a resistance to the savage capitalism that threatens entire populations to hunger and uprooted from their ancestral cultures and worldviews. This struggle to be done from the defense of diversity and against the Euro-centric paradigm, so linked to racism and colonialism.

While there is hunger in the world, everything else is secondary. In the early twenty-first century, 950 million people living in situations of chronic hunger, 30 million people die each year because of poor distribution of food, 11 million of them children under 5 years. These figures surpass us and embarrass us, we sink into despair and force us to rethink our way of being in the world. We can not keep thinking back to this reality that we are accused, which shows the darker face of modernity. In this field, every action must be preceded by a serious study of the real causes of hunger.

The causes us back to economic, political, social, global. The local can not be thought without reference to global and vice versa. The world is one, mankind is one. We can not think breaking up, nesting, as if the wealth of the West would be independent of third world poverty, as if the earth is not one, as if Indonesia might not lead to fields to feed livestock feed in Canada, if prices howto from seeds that a farmer has to plant in Korea is not decided in Chicago, as if the drugs that can save children from a village in Zambia, but they do not have money to buy, were not patented in Lausanne.

From the awareness that we are all one, we must say it clear that hunger is not an accident or an accident of nature. There are situations of natural disasters causing famine, chronic hunger but of whole populations we are talking about is not an accident but the result of certain economic structures, relations with criteria established international criminals. We are governed by criminals, mass murderers who wear silk ties and smiling in the media to the masses. We know that the present food production could feed twice the world population, population growth is not a direct cause of hunger, and that many of the countries that have suffered terrible famines are actually exporting food. We know that in Europe and North America each year are wasted or thrown away tons of food to keep prices set by large companies, prices unaffordable for the less disadvantaged. We have seen entire countries move from situations of prosperity to poverty in a few years, because of economic policies promoted by the World Trade Organization. We have seen how social services are deteriorating in countries rich in raw materials. We have seen how the debt contracted by dictatorial governments to buy arms choking the life of the peasants, double victims of an irrational international economic policy, which has lost all ethical and humanitarian approach.

It is a system based not on meeting the basic needs of the individual and the search for balance, but in the exacerbation of passions and creating artificial needs that enslave the individual, keeping in a constant state of dissatisfaction. From an Islamic point of view, it is clear that this system is reprehensible and must be combated. I do not intend to fall into anti-capitalist rhetoric hollow and outdated. The Islam is on the side of the trade. The ability to create wealth and technological development are essential tools for the eradication of poverty, an achievement of humanity. For the first time in history we are in a situation of overproduction, in which the human being is capable of producing food to meet or exceed the basic needs of the world population. From this knowledge, it is necessary to make a lucid review on the aims of this wealth creation and the development of production, which can not be to the mere accumulation of capital beyond the needs of the people.

All who have studied the problem of hunger in the world know about the difficulties faced by these attempts. From the institutions the situation seems blocked. International institutions responsible for poverty reduction are strongly influenced by the persons concerned in perpetuating inequalities. United Nations departments are both the International Monetary Fund and the FAO. The contradiction between measures that promote the body either can not be more confusing.

Faced with this situation, the civil society on the planet should be put in motion, and Muslims can not be outside of this search for global solutions to global problems. Several years ago we saw the emergence of a transnational social movement that aims to address the challenges of globalization, which has brought together around the World Social Forum. Social movements are at the forefront, and that means looking ahead, beyond the present political situation. This means placed against the dominant economic and political system. In this area, there are many measures already taken at which Muslims could (should) join:

• To join initiatives and campaigns that promote the reform of the United Nations, towards a participatory democracy that enables the achievement of its founding objectives.

• Work with the World Social Forum.

• Support the campaigns that promote debt forgiveness.

• Support these campaigns to ensure access to drinking water of every human being.

• Support the campaign for the implementation of the Tobin Tax.

• Report the business of war, and demand that our elected representatives to fight the arms trade.

• Report situations of collusion of religion with economic and political power designed to perpetuate situations of injustice

• Moderate your needs and make efforts to eradicate consumerism.

• Ensure that the investments we make are ethical, and not in contradiction with a culture of peace.

• Ensure that companies adopt codes of ethics, to respect fair trade criteria.

• To join the campaigns that promote the elimination of tax havens.

• Work towards the reduction of polluting energy sources and encourage the use of alternative energies.

However, the participation of Muslims in the global justice movement today faces significant challenges. One is the Islamophobia and stereotyping, as well as traditional religious militant anti-Western left fixed, unable to overcome the Eurocentrism in which Westerners are indoctrinated. The collaboration of religious traditions and social movements is difficult at a time which is imposed as a dogma of faith the idea of separation between religion and politics. This is to relegate religion to a strange "private sphere", denying the right to demand justice from our conviction. Therefore, from the religious traditions we must clarify what is our motivation in the project of building a global civil society. We must banish every shadow of doubt hanging over our traditions, to dispel the doubts raised by this collaboration. Fortunately, we are no longer in the era of dogmatic Marxism-Leninism and anti-religious. On the contrary, there are many elements of spirituality within social movements.

The other impediment is internal to Islam: the difficulties of many Muslims to renounce the idea of a state based on the supremacy of Islam. Islam, at the moment which is reduced to a political identity, draw a border with non-Muslims, preventing their participation in the global justice movement. Islam has much to contribute in the fight against global injustice, if we are able to overcome a supremacist view and / or exclusive of our religion. We must break down the conceptual barriers separating Islam from other traditions or proposals and work on the basis of shared goals. The struggle against inequality, oppression and hunger, is the struggle for the dignity of every human being, and it is quite feasible to think this fight regardless of religion as the vehicle that gives meaning to most the inhabitants of the earth,insha Allah Al-.

Notes

[1] Globalisation. Muslim Resistance (ed. Tawhid 2002), including translation into Castilian.

[2] Jusqu'au cou, enquête sur la dette du tiers monde (ed. La Découverte, 1988, pp. 68-71)

[3]We take these references Zeghal Malika, Guardians of Islam , pp.140-144

[4] Minority Islam , ed. Bellaterra, p.333

[5]Samir Amin, Political Islam in the service of imperialism

[6] Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire , p. 18