“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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