Faith and Reason   9/26/2006 - Religious Social - Article Ref: DW0609-3118 Number of comments: 8 Opinion Summary: Agree:3  Disagree:2  Neutral:3 By: Irfan Husain Dawn* - I have a theory about riots: those out on the streets often don't have a clear idea what they're rioting about. And invariably, they have a lot of time on their hands. After all, how often do you find an employed person asking for leave to join the demo of the day? But when you have time to kill, you'll join any crowd that's out to protest, no matter what the cause. When Salman Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' inflamed the Muslim world, how many people demonstrating had actually read the book? I must confess that neither had I, but it wasn't for lack of trying: struggling manfully, I ploughed through the first hundred pages before admitting defeat. So I never actually read the passages that gave rise to the famous fatwa. But I doubt very much if the people who rioted even saw the book. The same is true for those up in arms about the Pope's address at the University of Regensburg. I have printed out the speech, and must confess that it's heavy going. The offending section is a tiny part of the paper, and it remains a mystery why Pope Benedict needed such an obscure quotation in his discussion of faith and reason. Having said that, he has addressed an issue that needs to be debated: how should believers reconcile their faith with the dictates of reason? According to him, modern Christianity has bridged the gap, while Islam hasn't. We can debate his conclusion, and criticize his choice of supporting material, but we can hardly deny his right to hold an opinion. When Muslims demonstrated their opposition to his views, many of them carried placards threatening the Pope with death. In fact, the London police are seeing if they can prosecute some demonstrators for inciting others to violence. It seems that our stock response to the slightest provocation consists of death threats and violent demonstrations. These undignified protests reinforce the worst prejudices others have about Muslims. After all, why should some cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper, or a papal address at an unknown German university, send hundreds of thousands pouring into streets around the world? When we were children, when somebody said anything offensive, we would chant: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me." As we grew older, we learned that some words are deadlier than any sticks or stones, festering long after bruises and wounds have healed. But we were also taught to be stoical, and not to complain. In a letter to the Guardian of September 20, San Cassimally of Edinburgh writes: "As a Muslim, I am much more saddened and shocked by the murder of the Somali nun than by what the Pope said in Regensburg... even if he knew exactly what he was doing." I would add that I am far more horrified by the endless Muslim-on-Muslim killing going on in Iraq than by anything the pontiff could possibly say. According to UN estimates, an average of a hundred Iraqis are being killed every day, almost invariably by other Iraqis. And all too often, many of the victims are tortured to death. When Israel killed a thousand Lebanese civilians in a month of senseless bombing, Muslims (and others with a conscience) around the world were rightly incensed. But approximately the same number of Muslims are being killed by other Muslims every 10 days in Iraq, and there are no protests anywhere. Before the invasion of Iraq, when Saddam Hussein tortured and gassed his own people with impunity, I do not recall any Muslims condemning him publicly. Applying these same double standards, when NATO forces accidentally kill Afghans, we are furious. But when the Taliban kill innocent Afghans in suicide bombings, and assassinate teachers for teaching girls, we look the other way. Similarly, when the Iranian authorities rig elections and suppress their own people, we are silent spectators. But when President Ahmedinejad is seen as standing up to the West, we applaud him loudly. This kind of moral inconsistency is reflected in the treatment non-Muslims generally get in Muslim countries. For instance, while the 300,000 Iraqi Christians were treated as equal citizens in Saddam's secular regime, two-thirds of them have fled the increasingly Islamic nature of the present government. In Pakistan, we are regularly and correctly pilloried by human rights organizations for the wretched social and legal status of our minorities. Saudi Arabia, while funding Wahabi mosques across the West, refuses to permit non-Muslims to build their places of worship on its soil. I am often asked why Muslims in Pakistan get so worked up about Bosnia, Chechnya and Palestine. I try and explain in terms of the ummah, and the feeling of connectedness between, say, Indonesian Muslims and Turkish Muslims. But I fear this is only a small part of the real answer. The truth is that the problems we face in much of the Muslim world are often so intractable that we escape reality by looking abroad. Matters like poverty, disease, political instability and institutional meltdown are too difficult to be tackled by the inefficient and corrupt elites much of the Muslim world is cursed with. To deflect blame, they fulminate against the West for its perceived anti-Islamic attitudes. It is this mindless, knee-jerk anti-West sentiment that sustains the extremist groups, and is now propelling us to a very real 'clash of civilizations'. As Islam becomes more heavily politicized, it is evoking a strong reaction in the West. More and more, the Muslims who have migrated to Europe and America, as well as their children, are being seen as a fifth column. The sight of perpetually angry Muslims from London to Lahore, marching with placards calling for the death of somebody or the other, is moving normally liberal people to anger. For me, the really worrying part of the Pope's address was his demand for the subordination of reason to theology: "Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought: to philosophy and theology." Sorry, but I'm not buying this, Your Holiness. This is precisely why I don't think faith and reason can ever be reconciled. [Irfan Husain writes for Dawn, an English daily newspaper from Pakistan] Islamic Humanism Response to Irfan Husain: Sorry Irfan, the problem you have truely descriped in your essay is because of the lack of reconciliation between reason and Islamic faith. they both are reconciliable and must be reconciled but not by submitting one to the other. any thing beyond the common reason can be trusted as faith otherwise any nonsense canbe assigned to the faith by saying that  faith and reason are not reconciliable. the problem that we have in current real Islam is the submittion of reason to faith. reason according to Islam comes from dialogue (shura) where there is no coercion. This look may ideal but one of the duties of a muslim is to struggle for the realization of this ideal like many ideals. therefore, the accommodation between faith and reason is a process (rathe than a given product) which needs to be achieved by stablishing autonomous spaces of dialogue. something that we muslims have be deneid for a long part of our history

26.9.06 23:37 Permalink / 3 Comments / comment

Does Secularism Secure Peace? fficeffice" />  In order to find the answer, one just needs to have quick look at the history of the most secular century, the 20th century. Fascism was based on social evolutionism. Marx dedicated his most famous book to ffice:smarttags" />Darwin and considered his ideology as science. USSR’s crimes, the massacres in Cambodia, Chinese government’s dictatorship, many slaughters by the so-called secular governments in Middle East, including Israel, and in Latin America have been shaped against humanity in the name of development, socialism, nationalism and promoted by racism, chauvinism. They have killed innocent people much more than what religions have done in the whole history. However, this does not mean that "religion secures peace". But it means that rejecting “religion" does not guarantee peace. Whether believing in any idea results in peace depends on how you interpret your religion or your secular ideology or your own historical identity in general. It is possible to establish a killing machine based on any religious teaching or secular ideology. Yesterday based on civilization of the whole world by the white men (during colonization era), and then rival Imperialism and State Socialism, and today based on Islamic teaching and who knows maybe tomorrow based on democracy itself. Woops! Sorry! Seems it has happened already. Isn’t Bush butchering civilians in Iraq in the name of democracy? He says they are casualties of war on terrorism. it means tens of thousands civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are just killed unintentionally and casually. So no apologies! My question to him; if a terrorist comes and takes your family as hostages in the white house will you bomb the terrorists and your family together and say your family was killed unintentionally? See the answer here. Anyway, my idea is that whatever you believe, whether a religion or a secular discourse, you really need to be clear about the basics of your faith on the issues like peace and human rights. Then expose them in public and get involve in communication with your fellow believers and non-believers. I think anybody who has studied the history of Islam will agree with me that we do not have one single "Islam" as a single historical phenomenon. Even for the events happened or not happened during Muhammad’s life, there are lots of disputes among Muslim scholars themselves. So we have "Islams". Anybody who talks about Islam must emphasize that she is talking about her own interpretation of Islam. So others can agree or not. My claims that “Islam = peace” is exactly comes from my interpretation of my identity as Muslim. Of course, there are some, like Mullahs and their followers, who may disagree and justify violence based on their interpretations. But I don’t believe that "any body has any exclusive rights in interpreting any religion, any historical event, any ideology or concept like democracy or human rights. I do not believe that if any specific interpretation of history/religion which has become popularized and dominant due to the supports from those who are in power in order to justify their governance based on manipulating history, is the truest version of that religion or ideology just because of its popularity. Popularity does not bring authenticity unless it is gained in a very free, open society where anybody without any fear is able to expose herself. Similarly, we do not have a single definition of "democracy". Neo-cons’ definition of democracy is in contradiction with Chomsky's definition and both may be at odds with Gandhi's, and Shirin Ebadi’s (the Muslim lady who won the Nobel peace prize). Therefore, we do not need to give up our interpretation of our religion or ideology or identity because there are so many other interpretations which might be at odds with or different from ours. What we need to do is to clarify our definitions and get involve in a free, equal and coercion-free sphere of dialogue with others. If we do not have such spheres, we need to build them; one way is such public online forums, or offline ones in our communities. If the disputers do not want to get involve or want to impose their ideas by censoring us or by ignoring or disempowering us, so we will struggle for our basic rights, and other people can see if we are right or not. If our interpretations are well equipped with evidences and reasons we are not afraid of any sentimentalist disputer, even of losing the struggle for our rights in short term. At least we have exposed ourselves and modified our knowledge in the course of action. Ideas are not just pre-established theories in our minds. They become refined and reformed through our practices. Through my practice to expose my preliminary interpretation of Islam I have become more articulated and more clear than before, but still need more and more experience.   So whatever we believe on; we just need to understand that the production of any knowledge/idea is not something exclusive. We need to acknowledge that the history of most religions has experience lots of hegemonic periods in which the free thinkers of those religions or ideologies have been disempowered/ excluded by those who were in power and their ideologues. We need to discover the voices which have been deprived of enough opportunity to have their says in history. We need to start understanding any faith objectively, fairly and without prejudice or hatred due to our daily experiences of the bad manners of its followers which are themselves victims of mass deceptions (mainly organized by their clergies). Please See, the statement about non-deliberative nature of Islam. (= my interpretation of Islam that I call it Islamic humanism in order to emphasize its humanistic, egalitarian and peaceful nature).   However, I do not care about anti-Islam or pro-Islam sentimentalists. They have right to expose themselves. They have implicitly helped me to be more sensitive about my ideas. I have seen many similarities between the anti-Islamism and Islamic extremism. Both endorse the exclusion of the "Other", in understanding the original message of Islam and its today's duties. What Quran says and what is the original message of Islam is the subject of collective understanding and not collective subordination.   Submission to truth (the literally meaning of Islam) is meaningless without contemplation. You can find many verses in Quran which ask people to think about the meanings. The authenticity of truth comes from itself and not from the speakers. We are not supposed to follow the messages of Quran or Muhammad merely because they are told by an unquestionable source. We are supposed (as Muslims) to contemplate them as an important historical experience, like any other historical experience. Quran itself is full of historical experiences and asks people to think about them (for example the stories of rise of fall of civilizations due to the withdrawal of morality, responsibility and accountability).   But what makes us specifically Muslims and not just simply historians? The answer is that, becoming a Muslim is not a product of a sudden decision. It’s a process. The more we contemplate, the more we understand and internalize its basics (as far as we find them useful and inspiring for our life). The more we internalize them we find ourselves in a common destiny with those who have done this before or those who have been the victims of a historical ignorance in doing this. I am not prescribing this for any body. It is possible to reflect on any other faith or ideology, but we don’t have time to study all ideas. As someone who has grown up in a so-called Islamic context, I have always felt the responsibility to contemplate and to reconsider my historical identity. "No body can and have right to stop me. I study, reflect, express and question, so I do exist".

16.7.05 10:15 Permalink / 8 Comments / comment

Islamic Humanism has two pillars in relation to humanity-society: Islamic Humanism has two pillars in relation to humanity-society:   Self autonomy (khalifattollahi) Alter accommodation fficeffice" />  Alter, here, means the ‘Other’, the other subject which can be nature, or other persons or other cultures   Human being are created and endowed with self autonomy to find the truth and to act in relation to each other. Such autonomy is comparable to God’s autonomy; human beings regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, social status, are the Caliphs of God on the earth. Any behaviour and action is merely valuable or condemnable regarding the level of autonomy. The more we have autonomy in conducting our actions the more we are responsible and accountable to ourselves and others. The more autonomy we have, the more we will be able to create values. The more we are determined by the willingness of others, the less our actions are valuable. So, since human beings are all created equally free and autonomous from the beginning to be able to maximize the values, they are supposed to maintain their autonomy in a way not to limit other people’s autonomy. So the best way to realize such a balance which can produce the maximum of autonomy for all members of society equally, they need to be alter accommodative. This means everybody needs not only to be sympathetic to other people’s interests and concerns, but also is required to deliberately organize the most reliable, honest and equal relations with others especially those who are disempowered. Therefore, human rights, democracy and justice must be all inclusive and nobody should be excluded due to political authority, economic inequality and social discriminations. Spirituality/morality cannot be gained completely in a society where there are groups, even if minority, who are experiencing exclusion, discrimination and injustice, violence etc. In such a situation, the only way left to enhance spirituality and morality is to struggle for the Self and the disempowered Other’s rights in the most peaceful and non-violent manner (Jihad). The most devastative and dangerous enemies of Islam, are those who do violence, injustice, and discrimination in the name of Islam. Struggling with religious dogmatism, extremism, and patriarchalism through increasing the consciousness of our fellow Muslims who are enchanted by many Mullahs and Clergies is the first priority for Progressive Muslims. There are Imams or Mullahs who might condemn terrorism and violence but their basic knowledge of Islam is corruptive and in contradiction with the abovementioned pillars. They consider for themselves exclusive right for interpreting the messages of Islam. Their knowledge is not discussed in free public spheres and carries lots of aggressive, violent elements that many of them might not be detected in the first place.

14.7.05 09:00 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

The General Knowledge Structure of Islamic Humanism fficeffice" />      Praxis:   What is to be done?How to fulfill ideals   in relation to the politics, economy, culture, society, and nature ffice:word" /> Motivating/ practical frame       Analytical knowledge:   What is going on and why it has happened in a given context?   Inferences, reasonings, explanations and interpretations of reality, the hypothetical structure of cognition         The conception of self in a particualr historical context   Who we are and who we are not?     Self-definition, self-thematization, and conceptualization of identity (individual and collective)     Normative knowledge:   What is right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, just or unjust in a given society?   Value-judgments, (de)legitimations, (de)moralizations, idealized society and self, rights (human and nature)              Diagnostic and prognostic (intellectual) frames for in-praxis theorization of context           Social ontological assumptions:   What is real in general?   Conception of humanity, reality, world, life, the existence, history, society     Social epistemological assumptions:   What is true in general? and how can it be realized?   Certainty, uncertainty, truth, skepticism, against relativism, essentialism, foundationalism, justification, and dejustification criteria, validity of knowledge and methodology       Social axiological, ethical and moral assumptions:   What is just and ideal in general?     Conception of emancipation, resistance, empowerment, participation, moral, justice and so on, against dualisms like Materialist/postmaterialist values, how to balance dualities in mind and practice   Underlying, basic (worldview) frames of in-praxis cognition (mainly implicit)

4.4.05 06:56 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

Allah (God) in Islam                                fficeffice" />  Neither Immanency nor Transcendency Usually people think that Islam, like Christianity, is monotheist and therefore transcendentalist in its worldview. I dispute this here. Transcendentalism “is the belief that God stands outside and independent of the universe of which He is the Creator. It is normally contrasted with the idea of immanence – the belief that God dwells in the world. The doctrine of immanence is common in pantheism, in which human beings and Nature are thought to be aspects of an all-inclusive divinity ("God is All" and "All is God"). Monotheism is normally transcendentalist" (A Dictionary of Sociology, Gordon Marshall, Oxford University Press, 1998). Transcendentalism is adopted by Western formal religions like Judaism and Christianity and the idea of immanence is commonly accepted among the formal Eastern religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and an Easternized interpretation of Islam known as Sufism (everything is a reflection of God). Many Clergies and therefore many Islamic commentators and scholars believe that Islam is transcendentalist in this sense. Clergism itself is not originally Islamic. Rather, Islam, like other original Abrahamian movements, came to put an end on any mediation between Human beings and Allah by democratizing religion. Clergy system itself was imported into Islam from Christianity and was developed by the support of oppressive Islamic Empires. Thereby, Islam was institutionalized as Islamic scholasticism. What we are witnessing today is not Islam in its original manner as a historical movement, rather it is an institution which is partially catholicized and partially Easternized (through the propagation of Sufistic ideas among Islamic scholars). The dominant Clergy systems have appreciated and reinforced the idea of transcendentalism in order to justify their systemic position as the mediator and the only eligible source of interpreting Quran and Sunnah. Therefore, considering a God (Allah) as someone standing apart at the top of the world as a master, who is spying people to find their mistakes and to punish them, has become a common idea among ordinary Muslims like in Christendom. This theological idea resembles the structure of Clergy system which is based on hierarchy and supervising people as the sheep of God. The knowledge of Islam is an esoteric knowledge which is not possible to be understood publicly and confined in within certain disciplines taught in Islamic schools to clergies. World is divided between those who are exclusive providers of this knowledge and those who are simple dummy receivers. However, the funny thing about this knowledge is that Quran has a minimum contribution in it, since Quran is marginalized in these schools. The structure of Quran shows it is a set ideas strongly constructed on the daily experiences, events and revelations of the Muhammad and his movement. What Quran says about the relation between Allah and the human being is in contradiction to this attributed feature. Quran's answer is summarized in Verse 35 Chapter Al-Noor: Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth; a likeness of the light is as a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, (and) the glass is as it were a brightly shining star, lit from a blessed olive-tree, neither Eastern nor Western, the oil whereof almost gives light though fire touch it not-- light upon light-- Allah guides to the light whom pleases, and Allah sets forth parables for men, and Allah is Cognizant of all things. Here the concept of Allah is simply described through a concrete example as a kind of metaphor. Light is an exemplar for Allah. This light is said to consist of a lamp and niche to become realizable. As I interpret, this Verse is about the relation between Allah (the light), the Human Being (the lamp in the glass) and the Mother Nature/universe (the niche). While the light cannot be reduced to its lamp and niche, it gains discloses itself out of them. One can analytically abstract them from one another in this example but they are ontologically inseparable. Humanity located in the niche gives strength to the light through its deeds.  The whole complex of the light is self-sustained and self-fueled. It is neither Eastern (i.e. based on the identity of God and the human being and the nature) nor Western (i.e. based on the complete separation of God and the humanity and the nature). This means that Quran’s worldview is neither realist (equating real and ideal) nor idealist (transcending ideal beyond the real). Islam considers the dialectical relation between reality and ideal, subject and object. The relation between Allah and Humanity is not like the relation between a master and slave or between a father and a son. It is not also based on the complete inclusion of human in an all-inclusive divinity.   Therefore, the term "mono-theism" is not attributable to Islam. Considering above dialectical relation between Allah and universe-humanity, Allah is not a single entity or even plural (light is not countable). Allah is not countable. Something countable is a materialized entity. Allah is neither reducible to material nor spiritual. Even this duality is imported into Islam and is not original. In Quran Material and Spiritual are inseparable and it does not recognize any single separable soul for any single body. This version of Islam is much more compatible with theories like biological evolution. Although it is not the duty of Islam to explain the scientific mechanisms of the creation of Human beings, but it must not be in odd with any scientific theory like the evolution theory. The story of Adam in Quran is a story of the emergence of autonomy; responsibility and the possibility of self-realization for a creature (see Chapter 2- Bagharah). Not the story of biological creation of Human beings!

25.5.04 02:48 Permalink / 2 Comments / comment

Reconstructing Islam as an Emancipatory Movement in the Era of Globalization                                                                        World social Forum in Mumbai 2004   Islam did not emerge just to introduce the concept of God (Allah) and to add some new forms of religious liturgies and rites! These had been developed by the pre-established religious institutions. Islam defined its goals as fighting against three targets: "oppression, exploitation and deception” (on that time realized by the Arabic aristocracy and global superpowers like Persian and Roman Empires). These three targets of struggle have their own agents and altogether are realized by political-economic-cultural regimes (known in Quran as Taghouts). The Agents of Oppression are called Mala' (the Chiefs) in Quran, the agents of Exploitation are called Mutrif (Capitalist class, people who live in ease without feeling social responsibility and accountability) and the agents of Mass Deception are called Ahbaar and Ruhbaan (the Clerics who make money by preaching people and also the hegemonic mass Media). Many verses in Quran show the main orientations of Islam towards these agents of evil. Here I just collected a few of related verses. Allah [the essence of vitality, truth and the end of life] bears witness that there is no god but He, and (so do) the angels [the processes of life and the rules of Nature] and those possessed of knowledge, maintaining His creation with justice; there is no god but He, the Mighty, the Wise. (Ale-Emran 19) And certainly, we have raised in every nation a messenger [a revolutionizer] saying: Serve Allah and shun the Taghout [the regimes of oppression, exploitation and deception]. So there were some of them whom Allah guided and there were others against whom error was due; therefore travel in the land, then see what the end of the rejecters was [those who served Taghouts]. (Al-Nahl 37) Certainly we sent our warners with clear arguments, and sent down with them the Book [consciousness] and the means of justice that men may conduct themselves with equity; (Alhadid 26) O you who believe! Be upright for Allah, bearers of witness with justice, and let not hatred of a people incite you not to act equitably; act equitably, that is nearer to piety, and he careful of (your duty to) Allah; surely Allah is Aware of what you do. (Ma'idah 9) O you who believe! be maintainers of justice, bearers of witness of Allah's sake, though it may be against your own selves or (your) parents or near relatives; if he be rich or poor, Allah is nearer to them both in compassion; therefore do not follow (your) low desires, lest you deviate; and if you swerve or turn aside, then surely Allah is aware of what you do. (Al-Nesa 136) And the Mala' (chiefs) of those who disbelieved from among his people [in rejecting the Prophet] said: He is nothing but a mortal like yourselves who desires that he may have superiority over you, and if Allah had pleased, He could certainly have sent down angels. We have not heard of this among our fathers of yore: (Mo'menoon 25) And We never sent a warner to a town but Mutrifs who live in ease in it said: We are surely disbelievers in what you are sent with. (ffice:smarttags" />Saba' 35) O you who believe! most surely many of the Ahbaar and Ruhbaan (formal agents of religious/cultural institutions) eat away the property of men falsely, and turn (them) from Allah's way; and (as for) those who hoard up gold and silver and do not spend it in Allah's way [i.e. emancipating societies from Taghout], announce to them a painful chastisement, (Al-Tobah 34) These three axes of evil have been changing their faces during the History, but unfortunately, the consciousness of many Muslims has not caught up with the changes. Even many Taghout regimes have exploited the language of Islam (and any other emancipatory languages like democracy) to justify themselves. Therefore I believe that Islam has no other choice except to be reconstructed based on his original goals or to be defeated as a set of customs irrelevant to this era of inequality and injustice. But How?fficeffice" /> We need to start with understanding our time, the problems that human beings are suffering from. We need to participate actively in struggles against the sources of power that aim to subjugate our dignities; the sources of power which aim to demolish our powers to realize our own destinies. For this, Muslims need to become more active in cooperation in the global discourses for justice and liberty. Then, we will find many questions that are related to our identity. How, we as Muslim can contribute in these global projects against the global hegemony. What sources of knowledge do we have? If we believe that we have been oppressed throughout our history, then we need to acknowledge that our sources of knowledge, all what we know about our identity, our culture, has been contaminated by the subjugating ideologies to justify their domination. This is why we need to start our journey into the dark space of our history with de-constructing our culture, especially Islam, in order to find out the elements of Taghout, to find out how interpretations of Islamic meanings and symbols have served power. In order to do this we need to be extremely critical, i.e. what the first part of the famous motto Islam implies: Say there is no god... (but Allah). By starting with the position of criticizing many principles of your beliefs, by starting with a radical doubt in the basics of your identity, you free yourself from the subjugating forces of traditions. You question what has been considered as given phenomena. But you do not want to stay there, do you? You want to say something and to do something to solve the major problems of your time. Time for reconstruction begins. You have right to rebuilt your knowledge, your culture. No body can abandon you. Quran has acknowledged this right, many times in its text you can find its invitation for critically scrutinizing the text. Quran has used a metaphoric-symbolic language to communicate. Why? Just to leave a space for your own cooperation in reconstructing the text in accordance to your needs and your time.   If Mullahs, the Ahbaar and Ruhbaan, can define their rights to reinterpret the text to justify sources of subjugation, and to disempower people, why not us to empower people? Who has given them such exclusive right? Neither Quran nor Mohammad has excluded anybody from the space of dialogue and dispute in interpreting the text. This is the exact meaning of Ijtihaad in Islam; the free strive to understand our ideational sources, the inclusive right to contribute in producing and liberating knowledge out of our traditions, to modernize our history. This is exactly an acknowledgement of plurality within Islam. Plurality of interpretations does not entail to chaotic polemic. Why? Because one of the principles of Ijtihad is free dialogue aimed at consensus (Ejmaa اجماع ) . The only sources of bias are rooted in contributors' inclinations for domination. Therefore we need to strive to build free equal spaces of dialogue. We need to institutionalized communities, even in underground, where people can participate in such dialogues. We need to induce our societies that the only authentic and reliable sources of interpretation are those ideas which have come from these free spheres, not those who claim exclusive rights of introducing Islam. People have right to participate and support what they recognize as the most effective knowledge. Today, Internet can help as much as they are accessible evenly for all, especially those who are more oppressed. Therefore we need to pressure governments to open these spaces and distribute them evenly. In Sum, the sustainability of Islam today totally relies on our strives to extend the borders of civil society in our countries, even if underground like in the Enlightenment era in Europe. But, as some may concern, how about the unity of Umma: I ask in response what we mean by unity? Does it mean that all Muslims should think same?! If by unity we mean the unification of thoughts and deeds, this is totally impossible and implausible.    Is the Umma really united and coherent today? Where is this so-called united Umma? I cannot find it. Or some are suggesting that Umma must be united? Actually, there are lots of sects and fractions in Islam; you know them Shi’a, Sunny (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafei...), modern-liberal Muslims, traditionists, Fundamentalists, Leftists, Suffies, and so on.   Hajj the first sense of World Social Forum against global  injustice in the hisotory of humanity, now is nothing but a  religious rite! or marketing, or achieving prestige. can its meaning be revitalized again for Muslims? If we concern about the unity, we should try to find the causes of actual disunities. I can introduce one of the most important causes: The lack of free speech and dialogue at the public level. Just please think! There is just one God and one Quran but why so many different interpretations and why Islamic societies are weak and why they are being exploited from within and without. Has the current plurality worked in favour of solidarity among Muslims? Of course no. Why is it paralyzing? Why, in many Muslim societies, are women being discriminated dreadfully by the so-called "sharia law”? Why are there so many lacks of human rights, why stoning people?[i] Are these really Islamic? (These are the Questions we need to start with in the process of deconstructing Islam. Should we be silent about these cruelties, which are done in the name of us (i.e. Islam and Muslims)? Just for the sake of the Unity of Umma, which itself has been devastated by these cruelties? What are demolishing the Umma are not the demands for freeing the understanding of Islam; it is the actions of those who have seized political power, religious authority and economic sources in Islamic countries. Why is Umma so disunited in resisting the internal and external sources of coercion? What agents have disempowered it? Are they totally from without? The answer is not difficult to find; the pedagogical processes of understanding and learning Islam have become exclusive and contaminated with the interests of POWER. I agree with those who say that Umma must be united but I believe that the best and the most effective way to realize this aim is to open the minds to different interpretations in a free and equal situation (the Clear argument as God says). Then people can freely choose the best and they will become united based on the bests. If we have some facilities and opportunities for communications, we can help these processes. Censoring those interpretations that differ from ours does not help uniting Umma, but rather interlinking different current ideas can help to raise mutual understandings. For this, we Muslims really need "open Spaces" for freely exchanging our interpretations. Building a progressive identity is possible only through this way. Otherwise we will deserve to be recognized as the regressive and dogmatic forces by the world.  Here, I should emphasize that our actions are not totally assessable based on our intentions and our intentions are not just known by Allah. Quran asks us to appraise the outputs of our actions and our intentions.  Islam does not believe that we are some Puppets unaware of our real intentions and actions, otherwise punishing puppets in the afterlife is meaningless! [The concepts of Allah, Afterlife and Punishment must be reinterpreted but I used them here just as they are popularized] Mohammad said: "appraise yourselves before being appraised".  قبل أن تحاسبوا وزنوها قبل أن توزنوا  حاسبوا أنفسكم This means a radical accountability for anyone at any social position. Mohammad, addressing people, said: “ANY of you is [supposed to be] a shepherd [responsible for directomg the society] and ANY of you is [supposed to be] accountable”. کلکم را ع و کلکم مسئول عن رعیه What does this mean? This means definitely the most radical democratic sentence that human being ever heard. Isn’t it? Demanding the participation of each individual in directing the common affairs means breaking the enclosures. However, responsibility must be accompanied by accountability. Rights and Obligations are mutually and equally interdependent.  This is a valuable, valid claim not because it is said by Mohammad. He never assigned any authenticity for his own personality. He considered himself as the messenger of Allah, and in Quran, Allah warned him of any failure in revealing the truth or expressing the messages wrongly. Rather, this idea is valuable because it implies the most relevant way for liberalization. Muhammad is respected because he conveyed this inherently valuable idea in the best possible way through both his very expressions and deeds. He proved the possiblity of achieving the goals like justice and freedom even in a tribal society. The idea is what we can hear from many social radical democratic movements today against corporate capitalist powers. Of course, we should not expect that Mohammad was able to build a radical direct democracy in his tribal society. Even in 21st century we have not established such a sane society. But he was able to articulate its ideological foundation in our belief. He launched consultation councils (Shura). He demolished social hierarchies. He transformed the position of women as the possessions of men to the position of possessing private goods, from being inherited to gain heritages. He established a lifestyle based on the sustainable use of natural resources. Quran says that all men and women and all people of colour are from a same essence. Islam grounded these fascinating ideas not on the UN statements, or in the loosely agreed social contracts but on an internalizable interpretation of life-world (faith); as a kind of worldview which is in accordance with "the Existence" (= Allah, nature, human qualities). But what happened to these basic ideas? Why have we failed to reconstruct and continue these ideas today in the era in which human beings and especially we need them more than ever? In the era when women, for instance, have no choice except being commodified in the cultural mechanisms of capitalism like Consumerism or being domestic slaves of their so-called Islamic families? Why Muslims today are so depressed under brutal Taghouts (regimes)? Why Muslims have failed to offer any innovation to human civilization? Why Muslims are so vulnerable to the threats of corporate globalization, US militarism and corporate media propagandas? Why has their face been identified with terror and violence? What is to be done today? Standing and blaming the history or the Western societies? This is nothing but evasion. We must start from ourselves. We must apprise ourselves. We must criticize ourselves to find the right way of constructing our future, our people's sovereignty and to revitalize our glorious civilization in peace. No body can do this for us except ourselves. Nobody must be able to stop us; whether those who define exclusive rights for themselves to represent Islam or those who define exclusive rights for themselves to reject Islam. We should stop the exclusive misrepresentations. If not now, when? If not we, who? I just end with some other verses of Quran: Those who listen to the word then follow the best of it; those are they whom Allah has guided, and those it is who are the men of understanding. (Zomar 19) And if Allah had pleased He would surely have made them a single Umma, but He makes whom pleases enter into His mercy, and the unjust it is that shall have no guardian or helper. (Al-shura 9) And if Allah please, He would certainly make you a single nation, but He causes to err whom pleases and guides whom pleases; and most certainly you will be questioned as to what you did. (Annahl 94) [We are not being questioned just based on our intentions but also based on what we did] (All) people are have a single origin; so Allah raised prophets as bearers of good news and as warners, and He revealed with them the Book with truth, that it might judge between people in that in which they differed; and none but the very people who were given it differed about it after clear arguments had come to them, revolting among themselves; so Allah has guided by His will those who believe to the truth about which they differed and Allah guides whom pleases to the right path. Al-Bagharah 214 The last verse shows that there are always some people who make dispute but the most important thing is our strive to find a satisfactory level of truth and to present it to people through clear arguments. We should try to be pleased to be guided by Allah towards truth via and out of what people argue. Therefore, the solution for disputes is not to ignore them but participating very constructively in dialogues with others based on Allah's words, our experiences, our knowledge of time and our incentives to demolish repression. Malcolm X   [i] I was astonished when I failed to find any verse in Quran about stoning and any case during Mohammad's time. did you know that?

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