“Fiqa-e-America” in Evolution?
By Dr. Mohiuddin Waseem
Gulshan Iqbal
Karachi, Pakistan

Dr. Ameena Wadud, a lady scholar of Islamic studies has clearly shocked the Islamic world by leading a mixed congregational prayer in New York city. Like any arguments there are two sides in this battle too: one approving her actions as a new possibility and a step forward in Islam and the other seeing it as a “fitna” and innovation in Islam with the possibility of a western conspiracy behind the scene. The purpose of this letter is not to support one group and refute the other but rather to appeal to the intellectual masses to look sympathetically towards Dr. Wadud’s actions and try to understand the dynamics of her religious stirrings before delivering insensitive fatwas.
For the last two to three decades we have seen mass immigration, “exodus” of Muslims to the United States and Europe for purely economic reasons. The Jews earlier also faced unfamiliar customs and social norms of the new land wherever they settled. Instantly they became a minority losing the majority status which they enjoyed in their respective countries. Now under the microscope they are bombarded with many questions concerning their religion and customs and the most favorite of all the issues is women’s rights.
Again I am not going to write a lengthy discourse on this issue because logically up to now there have been only two options available, either to agree with the questioner that women are leading an oppressed life in Islamic countries and close ones eyes assuming that the storm has subsided or fight back sighting references of female contribution in the early days of Islam and finding none afterwards. Let me confess that I disagree with Dr. Wadud’s actions but I think she is honestly trying to answer this question in a new way that is upholding her Islamic identity and trying to prevent an onslaught on her religion by empowering herself and distancing from the established Islamic code of life by stating, “The issue of gender equality is a very important one in Islam, and Muslims have unfortunately used highly restrictive interpretations of history to move backward,” (reported by BBC) a rather bold confession suggesting that it is a matter of simply misunderstanding the religion.
Let me remind my readers that the four known schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence evolved centrifugally, that is away from Makkah, the birth place of Islam. The “Maliki” evolved in Madina, the “Shafai” in Egypt and “Hanbali” and “Hanafi” in Badgdad all at the time of zenith of those cities. Even the “Shiite” evolved in the territories of Iraq. Today the seat of learning and education has shifted to Europe and America and it is quite conceivable that many new ideologically provoking ideas will emerge from these new centers sheltering many Islamic scholars from all over the world. As the typical Islamic jurisprudence evolved some 1200 years ago in a Muslim-dominated environment assuming that Muslims will never become a minority, the Islamic scholarship of mainstream Islam today finds it difficult to answer these new social challenges and if I am successful in conveying what I intended to say, you can foresee that the future holds many new shocks and surprises. To understand this point further consider another social problem that is about to emerge in the West, and that is the religious rights of children born out of mix religious marriages. Which religion will they follow? One or the other or one with mixed flavoring.
Which Church or Mosque will they go to? Or will there be a universal place of worship for them? And who will lead their congregation? If the established jurisprudence does not answer these questions ahead of time then another radical solution will be sought in the future and it may be then that we will realize that evolution finds its way to express itself. Are we witnessing the birth of a new Fiqa in America? Only time will tell.

 

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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