Overview

While Islam is a religion of peace, it is perceived as aggressive. How did this happen? Acts of terror do not help. Apart from the grief, they also cause Islamophobia. There must be zero tolerance of terrorism. We are assured that Islam has ""nothing to do with terrorism."" If by Islam we understand the teaching of the Book of Allah, we agree. But what if Islam also encompasses traditions and rulings of the ulama, for example the ruling that treated suicide bombings as ""martyrdom operations""? The umma used to be preeminent in the past. At present, it finds itself elsewhere upon the spectrum. Muslim nations host foreign military bases. Muslims at present are the protected people. Allah turned the tables on the umma. Why? What went wrong? The Book of Allah teaches that He never changes the condition of an umma until it changes what is inside itself (13:11). The umma used to follow the Book of Allah. However, in a bizarre turn of events, the umma turned from the Book of Allah to tradition, treating is as ""revelation,"" as a ""partner"" and even a ""part of"" the Book of Allah. The umma suffered setbacks because it relapsed from revelation to the traditions of the predecessors, recorded in the traditions. The turn from revelation to tradition was prompted by the quest of rulers for justification of practices prohibited in the Book of Allah, e.g. waging unlawful wars of aggression and the repression of political dissent. Traditions were recorded at the behest of rulers. No branch of research was protected from political pressure. Research was politicized, turning into political propaganda. Knowledge was politicized to further the aspirations of rulers for territorial expansion. Even al-Ghazali railed against the Shia Fatimids of Egypt at the request of Nizam al-Mulk. The transformation of the teaching of reconciliation into a religion of confrontation was enabled by recourse to problematic practices. These encompasses refraining from using reason in the exegesis of revelation. They also encompass the teaching of abrogation of the verses of reconciliation by the verse of the sword (9:5). These errors enabled hawkish clerics to treat unlawful wars of aggressions against non-Muslims as lawful. These errors also enabled embedding death penalties for adultery, blasphemy, and apostasy into penal law. These errors result in miscarriages of justice. The utilization of faulty methodology resulted in the corruption of the knowledge of revelation. The errors also paved the way for the emergence of authoritarianism and arbitrary rule. There was a requirement to do everything the way the forefathers did it. In this way, the umma became a prisoner of the past. To follow the work of ulama written a millennium or more ago is akin to be guided by a roadmap prepared a millennium earlier. Is a thousand year-old roadmap equipped to show the way to the expected destination, considering that much of the landscape changed significantly since? The subordination of reason to tradition was an expression of anti-rationalism. It assisted in the emergence of authoritarianism, and paved the way for the mass murder of rationalists by Musa al-Hadi in 786. This event foreshadowed the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France a millennium afterwards. Except in this case, the rationalists were the victims rather than the perpetrators. Renewal will require a return to revelation, the subordination of tradition to revelation, the rejection of the perception that tradition is revelation in the sense of tanzil, the perception that tradition ""judges"" revelation, as well as the teaching of abrogation. In different words, it will require the demilitarization of the methodology of the exegesis of revelation. The knowledge of Islam requires purification from the ethos of confrontation imparted to it by politicized ulama. This will require the reengagement of reason and the rehabilitation of the methodology of understanding revelation.

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