The International Institute of
Qur'anic Studies was established in March of 2008 by H.
E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, Dr. A. Syafii
Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, and C.
Holland Taylor, in order to "lay the foundation for a
global renaissance of Islamic pluralism, tolerance and critical
Since its inception, the IIQS has attracted a world-class board
of advisors consisting of top Qur'anic scholars from the Middle
East, North Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe and North
America. Key advisors include: Dr. Muhammad Khalid
Masud, Chairman of the government of Pakistan's Council of
Islamic Ideology; Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini,
noted Iranian authority on Islamic law and women's rights; Dr.
Ali Mabrook, Professor of Islamic Philosophy at Cairo University;
noted Tunisian human rights activist; Dr.
Hmida Ennaifer, prominent Tunisian intellectual and activist;
Dr. Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, one
of the world's most important contemporary Shia clerics, and a
highly influential Iranian philosopher, theologian, author and
professor at Tehran University; and Dr. Abdulkarim
Soroush, prominent Iranian thinker, philosopher and reformer,
named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time Magazine
in 2005, and the world’s seventh most influential intellectual
by Prospect magazine in 2008.
Haji Abdurrahman Wahid (1940 - 2009)
first democratically-elected president of Indonesia and long-time
head of the world's largest Muslim organization (the 40 million
member Nahdlatul Ulama), H.E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid was
"the single most influential religious leader in the Muslim
world" (Wall Street Journal) and "the world’s
pre-eminent Islamic humanist" (Far Eastern Economic Review).
Abdurrahman Wahid's progressive mindset and immense spiritual
authority were instrumental in safeguarding
Indonesia's traditions of religious pluralism and tolerance in
the midst of intense political and social upheaval, and Wahhabi-inspired
attempts to radicalize Indonesian Islam. Custodian of one of the
world's great religious traditions, President Wahid was renowned
for his protection of ethnic and religious minorities—for which
he was given the 2003 Friends of the United Nations Global Tolerance
Award, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Medal of Valor in 2008.
President Wahid regarded the IIQS as a key component of his
legacy—established to help Muslims "embrace the universal
and cosmopolitan principles that characterized Islamic civilization
at its height, while adapting peacefully to the modern world."
"In its original Qur’anic sense, the word
shari’a refers to "the way," the path to God,
and not to formally codified Islamic law, which only emerged
in the centuries following Muhammad’s death. However, the historical
development and use of the term shari’a to refer to Islamic
law often leads those unfamiliar with this history to conflate
man-made law with its revelatory inspiration, and to thereby
elevate the products of human understanding—which are
necessarily conditioned by space and time—to the status
"Shari’a, properly understood,
expresses and embodies perennial values. Islamic law, on the
other hand, is the product of ijtihad (interpretation)
which depends on circumstances (al-hukm yadur ma‘a al-‘illah
wujudan wa ‘adaman) and needs to be continuously reviewed
in accordance with ever-changing circumstances, to prevent Islamic
law from becoming out of date, rigid and non-correlative – not
only with Muslims’ contemporary lives and conditions, but also
with the underlying perennial values of shari’a itself...
"Sanctions against freedom of religious
inquiry and expression act to halt the developmental process
of religious understanding dead in its tracks – conflating the
sanctioning authority’s current, limited grasp of the truth
with ultimate Truth itself, and thereby transforming religion
from a path to the Divine into a “divinized” goal, whose features
and confines are generally dictated by those with an all-too-human
agenda of earthly power and control."
~ H. E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, God
Needs No Defense
Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd (1943 - 2010)
Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd was a world-renowned Egyptian scholar and pioneer
in the field of Qur'anic hermeneutics, famous for his project to
create a humanistic and contextualized understanding of the Qur'anic
revelation, consistent with the great spiritual and intellectual
traditions of Islam. His goal, and that of the IIQS, was
to enable Muslims to build a bridge between their own tradition
and the modern world of freedom, equality, human rights, democracy
Dr. Abu-Zayd was widely regarded as a reformist
hero for his courage in opposing Islamist attempts to stifle freedom
of speech in his native Egypt. The
object of death threats issued by Ayman al-Zawahiri (Osama bin Laden’s
lieutenant), he fled to the Netherlands, where he occupied the Ibn
Rushd Chair of Humanism and Islam at the University of Humanistics
in Utrecht, while supervising MA and PhD students at the University
of Leiden, prior to joining LibForAll to establish the IIQS.
Dr. Abu-Zayd authored 14 books and scores of articles in his native
Arabic. His writings have been widely translated into Dutch, English,
French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Persian and Turkish and other
"One of the scholars [leading the intellectual
reform movement in the Islamic world] whom I particularly admire
is Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, an Egyptian Muslim who argues eloquently
that if the Koran is interpreted sensibly in context then it carries
a strong message of social justice and women’s rights.
"Dr. Abu Zayd’s own career underscores the
challenges that scholars face in the Muslim world. When he declared
that keeping slave girls and taxing non-Muslims were contrary
to Islam, he infuriated conservative judges. An Egyptian court
declared that he couldn’t be a real Muslim and thus divorced him
from his wife (who, as a Muslim woman, was not eligible to be
married to a non-Muslim). The couple fled to Europe, and Dr. Abu
Zayd is helping the LibForAll Foundation, which promotes moderate
interpretations throughout the Islamic world.
"If the Islamic world is going to enjoy
a revival, if fundamentalists are to be tamed, if women are to
be employed more productively, then moderate interpretations of
the Koran will have to gain ascendancy... [And i]f the great intellectual
fires are reawakening within Islam, after centuries of torpor,
then that will be the best weapon yet against extremism."
~ Nicholas D. Kristof, New
in his writing audacious intellectual criticism, deep understanding
of Islam... and a commitment to the Western-European contributions
to the emancipation of the human condition."
~ Mohammed Arkoun, Emeritus Professor of the History
of Islamic Thought, Sorbonne
“Nasr Abu Zaid is a
heroic figure, a scholar who has risked everything to restore
the traditions of intellectual inquiry and tolerance that for
so long characterized Islamic culture. Voice of an Exile
[Nasr's autobiography] describes the ongoing conflict to determine
the future shape of one of the world's great religions, a struggle
with vast consequences for politics as well as religion and scholarship.
The book is simply awe-inspiring.”
~ Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History
and Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University
"For a long time,
I flatly refused to read anything written by Muslim men. They'd
dominated the conversation for too long. But through the work
of scholars like An-Na'im and the Egyptian Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid,
I learned that some men could be as feminist as the best of us!"
~ Mona Eltawhay, Al-Arab/Jerusalem Post
Dr. Ahmad Syafii Maarif
Ahmad Syafii Maarif, a 2008 recipient of the
Ramon Magsaysay Award (often considered Asia's Nobel Prize)
in the category of Peace and International Understanding, is the
immediate past Chairman (1998-2005) of the Muhammadiyah – the
world’s second largest Muslim organization. Under his leadership,
the 30-million member Muhammadiyah demonstrated a strong commitment
to a pluralistic, tolerant and peaceful understanding of Islam,
and to the nation of Indonesia. A prolific author and speaker,
he is also the founder and chairman of the
Maarif Institute, a non-profit, non-governmental institution
promoting the values of Islam, humanity, and Indonesian culture.
As the citation for Dr. Maarif's Magsaysay
Award aptly states:
"In Islam, authority rests
in knowledge. In times of crisis and for guidance in day-to-day
life, Muslims turn to scholars. It is their role to apply the
truth of the Holy Qur'an and the lessons of the Prophet Muhammad
to human life in matters large and small. Yet, Islam's religious
scholars – who these days may be teachers or preachers
or public intellectuals, and are often all three – do
not always see eye-to-eye. Their debates over the centuries
have produced the heterogeneous world of Islam today, with its
various sects and schools of law. In such debates, the authority
of individual thinkers weighs heavily. And in countries like
Indonesia, with vast Muslim majorities, intellectuals such as
Ahmad Syafii Maarif can influence millions and shape the character
of national life.
"Through his family
and early schooling, Dr. Maarif was exposed to the teachings
of reform Islam as espoused by Muhammadiyah, one of two mass
organizations that dominate Muslim life in Indonesia. After
university, he shifted naturally into teaching and later earned
his doctorate in Islamic thought at the University of Chicago
under the eminent scholar of Islam, Fazlur Rahman. By the 1980s,
he was an intellectual of serious reputation and a rising leader
"The downfall of Suharto's
thirty-year-long dictatorship in 1998 brought a new era of openness,
reform, and democratizaton to Indonesia but also tumultuous
sectarian conflict. It was at exactly this time that Syafii
Maarif assumed leadership of Muhammadiyah and its thirty million
members and sympathizers.
"Syafii Maarif embraced
his country's fresh hopes for democracy and good governance
and, in the stormy seas ahead, became a force for calm and moderation.
When violence erupted between Indonesian Muslims and Christians,
he reminded Muslims that Islam teaches the equality of all people;
he took the lead in interfaith dialogues and warned against
provocateurs who fanned fear and hate. When activists revived
the call for an Islamic state and pressed urgently for implementation
of the Shari'a, he opposed them; the nonsectarian principles
of Panca Sila, he said, were the right ones for Indonesia's
plural society. And when the impact of 9/11 and the U.S. invasions
of Afghanistan and Iraq reached Indonesia, and when terrorism
struck home in Bali and Jakarta, he stressed that "Terrorism
is not the authentic face of Islam." In concert with other moderate
leaders, he denounced it as a "crime against humanity." He said
much the same about the new American wars but urged Indonesian
Muslims to reject spurious calls to Holy War and to make their
protests peacefully. He did so himself.
"As Muhammadiyah's president,
Syafii Maarif spurned the trappings of power and resisted the
call to politics. Today, at seventy-three and retired, he relishes
his role as an independent thinker and mentor to the young.
We must learn to look beyond our individual nations, he says,
and see the world from a global perspective – "from a
human perspective and from a justice perspective." Indeed, justice
is the key to "global wisdom." Without it, he says, "I think
the world will go astray forever."
"In electing Ahmad Syafii
Maarif to receive the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and
International Understanding, the board of trustees recognizes
his guiding Muslims to embrace tolerance and pluralism as the
basis for justice and harmony in Indonesia and in the world
~ CITATION for Ahmad Syafii Maarif, Ramon Magsaysay
Award Presentation Ceremonies, 31 August 2008, Manila, Philippines
"Faith is an
inner activity, the deepest, innermost endeavor of man, and
links us to that which is hidden and mysterious, the Unseen,
which is beyond the reach of the human intellect… that is, God."
~ Dr. A. Syafii Maarif in LibForAll's TV/Video
series Ocean of Revelations,
Episode 1, "Islam and Faith"
Her Excellency Ibu Hajjah Sinta Nuriyah
Sinta Nuriyah Wahid is the widow of former Indonesian president
Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, and the mother of their four daughters,
Alissa, Yenny, Anita and Inayah. Born into a prominent Nahdlatul
Ulama pesantren (Islamic boarding school) family, Mrs.
Wahid has been a tireless proponent of women’s rights her entire
The founder of Puan Amal Hayati—an Islamic
boarding school dedicated to empowering women—Ibu Sinta
is famous throughout Southeast Asia and beyond, for her pioneering
work in the field of Qur’anic studies, and gender equality.
A vocal opponent of polygamy, Ibu Sinta received
her Master’s degree at the University of Indonesia in the field
of women’s studies, and has been instrumental in changing the
perception of many traditional ulama regarding the proper
status and role of women in Muslim society.
Ulama have long justified the subordination
of women by citing traditional commentaries on the Qur’an and
Sunnah (the example of the Prophet Muhammad). According to Ibu
Sinta, many of these commentaries deviate from the actual spirit
and teachings of the Qur’an, by subordinating women to men, as
in a classic text which states, “In the household, a wife is like
the prisoner of the master (husband).” This and many other degrading
statements about women, contained in these traditional Qur’anic
commentaries, led Ibu Sinta to wonder, “Does Islam really teach
Ibu Sinta conducted a thorough review of several
prominent commentaries, and incorporated her findings into a book
entitled “Youth Marriage and Reproductive Health.” Her book concluded
that anyone who thinks polygamy is permissible in Islam, needs
to restudy the Qur’an. Specifically, she advises Muslims to penetrate
beyond the literal text to examine the contextual circumstances
of the revelation, and its purpose for humanity.
Muslim polygamists often justify their position
by citing the Qur’anic verse which reads, "marry such women
as seem good to you, two and three and four” (fa inkihû
mâ tâba lakum min al-nisâ’ mathnâ wa thulâth
wa rubâ’). According to Ibu Sinta, Muslim scholars
err in citing just that phrase of the verse, which concludes,
“…but if you fear that you will not do justice (between them),
then (marry) only one or what your right hands possess; this is
more proper, that you may not deviate from the right course” (fain
khiftum allâ ta’dilû fawâhidah aw ma malakat
aymanukum, zalik adna ala ta'olou) (Qs. 4: 3).
Ibu Sinta adds that Muslim scholars frequently
misinterpret even the complete verse, for “justice” is often in
the eye of the beholder, and depends upon whose perspective is
consulted. To a woman emotionally suffering from polygamy, superficially
“equal” treatment of wives may not appear just at all.
In addition, the term “just”—as it appears
in this Qur’anic verse—has at least two levels of meaning.
The first refers to material/financial justice in the treatment
of wives. The second transcends material considerations, to encompass
love, kindness, and physical, emotional and psychological nurturing.
Ibu Sinta maintains that the more important aspect of justice,
in regard to this polygamy verse from the Qur’an, is the subtle,
immaterial aspect of justice, which she maintains can never be
achieved through polygamy. As proof of her assertion, Ibu Sinta
quotes another verse of the Qur’an, from the same chapter: “And
you will never be able to do perfect justice between wives even
if it is your ardent desire.” (Wa lan tastatî’u ‘an
ta’dilû baina al-nisâ’ walau haratstum.) (Qs.
From her study of the Qur’an, Ibu Sinta concluded
that Islam’s holy scripture does not encourage polygamy. She also
cites the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who rejected his son-in-law
Ali’s request to take another wife, in addition to the Prophet’s
daughter Fatima. The fact that ulama often claim that
polygamy is in accord with the Sunnah, or example of the Prophet
himself, does not hold water, according to Ibu Sinta, who affirms
that God sent Muhammad to free women from the shackle of male
domination. During Muhammad’s lifetime, women experienced a dramatic
increase in their social status and protections. Yet with his
death, the innate tendency of men to oppress women resurfaced,
and continues to this day.
Deputy Director of Academics, International
Institute of Qur'anic Studies (IIQS) and head of its public
policy division, the Center for Contemporary Islam (CCI): Dr.
Mabrook is a professor of Islamic Philosophy at Cairo University,
noted expert in the field of Qur'anic Studies and regular columnist
for al-Ahram, one of the oldest and most widely-read
newspapers in the Arab world. A former student of the renowned
Egyptian scholar Dr. Hassan Hanafi and colleague of IIQS co-founder
Dr. Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd for nearly 30 years, Dr. Mabrook is
deeply involved in Egyptian and pan-Arab discourse concerning
the nature and role of shari‘a in public policy, and
the future of democracy in the Middle East.
Based in Cairo, Egypt, Dr. Mabrook is fluent
in Arabic and English.
"State-sanctioned dogma inevitably degrades human
beings, by positioning them as mere tools to verify, and conform
to, the dogma in question. Dogma gives rise to a state in which
people are compelled to serve a 'transcendental' power, whether
God (i.e., those who claim to speak in His name); the supreme
hero; a political party; class; tribe; sect or any other power
that seeks to diminish human beings’ freedom and autonomy...
"For when some people insist on attributing
human actions to God, we should realize that their attributions
are merely metaphorical. In reality, they are attributing [the
revolution’s success] to those who hide themselves behind God,
and claim to speak in His name. Attributing the fall of Mubarak's
regime to God thus reveals the attempts of certain religious groups
to steal the Egyptian revolution, so that they may dominate post-revolutionary
Egypt in the name of God."
~ Dr. Ali Mabrook, "The
Civil State and its Totalitarian Opponents," Al-Ahram
Director for Southeast Asia: Dr. Ratno
Ratno Lukito is Director of LibForAll’s International Institute
of Qur’anic Studies (IIQS) in Southeast Asia. In this capacity,
he is responsible for setting the direction of Institute activities
within Indonesia; developing the IIQS network and coordinating
ongoing relationships with associates, institute faculty and alumni;
and organizing all institute activities, including various courses
and special programs.
Dr. Lukito has extensive experience in developing
and assessing academic programs, and currently teaches Islamic
Law at the prestigious Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University
(UIN), Yogyakarta. At the Muhammadiyah University, Yogyakarta,
Dr. Lukito was responsible for developing a doctoral program in
Islamic Studies, and serves as the secretary of this program.
At the Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Dr. Lukito is a member
of the teaching staff in the American Studies postgraduate school
where he lectures Masters students in religion and state in America
and the American legal system. He has held positions of national
trainer and central committee secretary on basic education projects
sponsored by the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs and
the Asian Development Bank. He serves as an assessor for the Indonesian
National Board of University Accreditation and is a member of
the International Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism.
Dr. Lukito is the author of 9 books and over
30 articles on Islamic Law, especially as it relates to the Indonesian
context. His 2008 book on conflicts between religious and secular
law, and their resolution in the Indonesian context, was distributed
by the Supreme Court of Indonesia to judges throughout the country.
Born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Dr. Lukito holds
a BA from the State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia,
and both an MA in Islamic Studies and a Ph.D. in Civil Law (DCL)
from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He is fluent in Javanese,
Indonesian/Melayu, English, Arabic and French.
Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush
Abdolkarim Soroush, prominent Iranian thinker, philosopher
and reformer, was named one of the world's 100 most influential
people by Time Magazine in 2005, and the world’s seventh most
influential intellectual by Prospect magazine in 2008. Doctor
Soroush, a well-known figure in the religious intellectual movement
in Iran, is currently a visiting scholar at Georgetown University's
Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs in Washington,
D.C. He has also served as a visiting professor and scholar in
residence at several prestigious institutions, including Harvard,
Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.
A Rumi scholar, Dr. Soroush previously taught at the University
"For more than two decades,
Abdolkarim Soroush has been Iran’s leading public intellectual.
Deeply versed in Islamic theology and mysticism, he was chosen
by Ayatollah Khomeini to “Islamicize” Iran’s universities, only
to eventually turn against the theocratic state. He paid a price
for his dissidence. Vigilantes and other government-supported
elements disrupted his widely attended lectures in Iran, beat
him and reportedly nearly assassinated him. In a country where
intellectuals are often treated like rock stars, Soroush has
been venerated and reviled for his outspoken support of religious
pluralism and democracy. Now he has taken one crucial step further.
Shuttling from university to university in Europe and the U.S.,
Soroush is sending shock waves through Iran’s clerical establishment...
"Soroush has been described
as a Muslim Luther, but unlike the Protestant reformer, he is
no literalist about holy books. His work more closely resembles
that of the 19th-century German scholars who tried to understand
the Bible in its original context...
"In Iran today, many
opponents of the government advocate the creation of a secular
state. Soroush himself supports the separation of mosque and
state, but for the sake of religion. He seeks freedom of religion,
not freedom from religion. Thus he speaks for a different —
and potentially more effective — agenda. The medieval Islamic
mystic Rumi once wrote that “an old love may only be dissolved
by a new one.” In a deeply religious society, whose leaders
have justified their hold on power as a divine duty, it may
take a religious counterargument to push the society toward
pluralism and democracy. Soroush challenges those who claim
to speak for Islam, and does so on their own terms."
~ Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabar, "Who Wrote
"If what is meant
by an Islamic state is that faqihs [Islamic jurists/clerics]
should rule, then I think that it would be the most immoral
form of government in the world, because a government of faqihs
would consider it not only a right to be dictatorial, but a
duty. And this is the most dangerous and brutal form of dictatorship.
Ibn Khaldun, too, was opposed to a government of faqihs.
"Unfortunately, we’ve put things the wrong
way round in Iran. The misfortune in our country was that they
viewed Islam through the porthole of fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence]
and they viewed fiqh through the porthole of penal laws.
In other words, two upside down notions came to rule over us.
Whereas, first, Islam isn’t limited to fiqh. And, secondly,
fiqh isn’t limited to penal laws. You can’t find a better
example of putting things the wrong way round than this: We
say we want to have an Islamic state; then, we make fiqh
rule over us; and, then, we start cutting off people’s hands
and legs, stoning people and so on. This is what happened in
Iran. This is how the Taliban interpreted an Islamic state too.
And this is the impression that the world has been left with.
"But if what we mean by a religious state
is that people should be left free to have their religious experiences,
i.e., that there should be a pleasing environment in which I
can have religious experiences and establish a free and pleasing
link with God and lead an autonomous, moral life, I consider
this to be the best environment. And I believe that a religious
state must, in the first instance, bring about an environment
of this kind for believers, not to cut off hands and legs and
gouge people’s eyes out and to view this as the state’s purpose."
~ Dr. Abdulkarim Soroush, "Some of our
Clerics are no Better than the Taliban"
Dr. Hmida Ennaifer
Hmida Ennaifer (Ph.D., Sorbonne) teaches dogma and theology at
the Faculty of Muslim Theology, Zitouna University, Tunis, Tunisia.
His interests also focus on modern Islamic thought and Islamo-Christian
dialogue, and he is President of the Groupe de Recherche Islamo-Chrétien
(Islamo-Christian Research Group).
"One of the show-stoppers of the congress
was a presentation by Prof. Hmida Ennaifer, a professor of Dogmatic
Islamic Theology at the University of Tunis, on the Image of Christ
in the Koran entitled “La Figura Emblematica Di Cristo Nel Corano”.
In his presentation, Prof. Ennaifer spoke on the importance of
Jesus and Mary in Islam and the commonalities that are to be found
in both religions."
~ The Face of the Faces of Christ, Report
on the Seventh Annual “Volto di Volti”
Congress in Rome
Jourchi, President of the Al-Jahez Foundation and Vice-President
of the Tunisian League of Human Rights, is a noted Tunisian human
rights and democracy activist, writer and expert in Islamic affairs.
"Circles close to the al-Qaeda organisation
put forth a justification for this violence [terrorist attacks]
happening in Western nations, and perhaps the most important
change brought about by Ayman Zawahiri – al-Qaeda's second
in command – and others in Islamist strategies is moving the
battle from its local and regional level to the international
level, their conviction being that changing American and European
policies comes through directing painful blows at these nations
on their own soil. But while this thinking led to a state of
confusion and created difficulties for these nations, it also
brought very painful and dangerous outcomes on the Arab and
Islamic levels. What has been most harmed by this nihilistic
strategy is Islam as a religion, culture and humanitarian vision."
~ Slaheddine Jourchi
Dr. Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, one of the world's most important
contemporary Shia clerics, is a highly influential Iranian philosopher,
theologian, author and professor at Tehran University, where he
teaches comparative religion and theology, and regularly organizes
international conferences on the theme of Christian-Muslim dialogue.
Trained at a seminary in Qom for seventeen years – followed
by eight years as director of the Shiite Islamic Center in the
Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg, Germany – he served as a member of
the first parliament of Iran after the revolution, but distanced
himself from politics thereafter.
Ayatollah Shabestari's most significant contribution to Shiite
theology may be his authoritative commentary on the essentially
limited nature of religious knowledge and rules, and thus the
necessity of complementing it with extra-religious sources.
Dr. Shabestari argues that distinguishing the eternal (values),
from the changeable (instances and applications) in religion needs
a kind of knowledge that is not, itself, contained in the rules
developed in Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh). He laments the
lack of such a body of knowledge in Islamic society: In the same
vein, he underscores the limited nature of religious knowledge
in general, and religious jurisprudence, in particular. In Dr.
Shabestari's view, what is essential and eternal is the general
values of Islam not particular forms of their realization in any
particular historic time, (including the time of the prophet).
Dr. Shabestari suggests that there has been a divine providence
for a separation of religious values and secular realities: In
his book, Naghdi Bar Ghera'at e Rasmi az Din (A Critique
of the Official Reading of Religion, December, 2000) Dr. Shabestari
pursues his critique of religious absolutism as hermeneutically
naive and realistically unworkable. Also, he launches a major
defense of modern concepts of individualism, democracy, and human
rights, although they have not been articulated as such in Islamic
In Dr. Shabestari’s view, human rights and democracy are products
of human reason that have developed during the course of time
and continue to evolve. As such, they are not already prescribed
in the Koran and Sunna.
Indeed, the Koran remains mute with regard to our modern understanding
of human rights, and yet these do not in any way contradict the
divine truth contained in the Koran. Drawing on modern hermeneutics,
Shabestari dismisses any claim that man could ever come into direct
possession of God’s absolute truth.
"A historical-critical approach to the
sources, one that deals with the Koran and Sunnah in an academic
way, does not harm faith. Unfortunately, in the course of Islamic
history, a negative, injurious and distorting influence on the
Islamic faith has, I believe, been exercised for political reasons.
During the time of the Prophet, faith alone was important, the
belief in God, life with God, the praise of God, those were
the important things. These are of course the main elements
of religion. The other things such as how women should veil
themselves – well, of course, there is no mention of wearing
of veils in the Koran. There is an expression in the Koran that
says that one should keep a dignified appearance.
"That refers to a way of life for a particular
society and the Prophet's precepts were intended to be appropriate
for that society at that time. But that does not mean that these
precepts with regard to ritual or the other points mentioned
belong to the core of the faith. Over time, for political reasons,
especially during the Abbasid period, a clear distortion occurred.
The idea of faith as a way of life declined and it was the formal
rules that began to be seen as the essential core of Islam.
The Abbasid dynasty encouraged this as a way of legitimising
their rule. This legitimisation process depended on laws, which
for them became an indispensable part of the religion."
~ Dr. Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari
Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini
Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an Iranian legal anthropologist specializing
in Islamic law and women’s rights, is a well known and highly
sought-after scholar of Islamic Feminism. Presently associated
with the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law at the School
of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, Dr.
Mir-Hosseini is a prolific author, having written extensively
on the topic of women’s rights and family law in Iran. Her
publications include Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic
Family Law in Iran and Morocco; Islam and Gender: The
Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran; Feminism and the
Islamic Republic: Dialogues with the Ulema; and Islam
and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform
(with Richard Tapper). Dr. Mir-Hosseini challenges stereotypes
about Muslim women, builds bridges between cultures by addressing
universal human concerns, and has established a dialogue with
Islamic scholars on the issue of human rights.
Dr. Mir-Hosseini has also co-directed two award-winning and thought-provoking
feature-length documentary films on contemporary issues in Iran:
Divorce Iranian Style (1998) and Runaway (2001).
Dr. Mir-Hosseini has held a number of research fellowships and
visiting professorships, including Hauser Global Law visiting
professor at New York University School of Law, and a fellowship
at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. She is a member of Council
of Women Living under Muslim Laws, based in the UK, Senegal
and Pakistan, and a founding member of Musawah
Global Movement for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family,
based in Malaysia.
Dr. Mir-Hosseini received a B.A. in sociology from Tehran University
and her Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge.
“In 1995, I heard a recording of a lecture given
by the leading religious intellectual Abdolkarim
Soroush to Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat, [Iran's] main student
organization, on the theme of the emergence of rights-based
as opposed to duty-based approaches to religion. In response
to a question about the disregard for human rights in Iranian
society, Soroush said something that stayed with me, to the
effect that, ‘Until we recognize rights (haqq) as just as important
as sexual honor (namus), we cannot speak of respect for human
“The analogy between the defense of rights
and honor is intriguing. It captures the Islamic Republic’s
obsession with sexuality and the control of women, as well as
the intimate link between democracy and sexuality...”
Taboos in Post-Election Iran
Dr. Muhammad Khalid Masud
Muhammad Khalid Masud is the current Chairman of the Pakistan
Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body responsible
for giving legal advice on Islamic issues to the Pakistan government
A renowned scholar and academician, Dr. Masud previously held
the position of Academic Director at the International Institute
for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden, the
Netherlands. He has held numerous research fellowships and visiting
professorships including: distinguished visiting professor, Faculty
of Law, International Islamic University, Kuala Lumpur, Malyasia;
senior lecturer, Center for Islamic Legal Studies, Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, Nigeria; visiting lecturer, École des
Haute Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France; visiting
professor, College de France, Paris; sessional lecturer and Ph.D.
thesis supervisor, Quaid-i Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan;
tutor, M.Phil. and Ph.D. thesis supervisor, Allama Iqbal University;
and researcher, Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic
Dr. Masud has written extensively on Islamic law and social
change. His publications include: Shatibi’s Philosophy of
Law; Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Ijtihad; Islamic
Legal Interpretation: The Muftis and their Fatwas (with B.
Messick and D. Powers); the edited volume Travellers in Faith:
Studies of the Tablîghî Jamâ’at as a Transnational Islamic Movement
for Faith Renewal; and Islam and Modernity: Key Issues
and Debates (with A. Salvatore, and M. van Bruinessen). He
is also past editor of the journal Islamic Studies and has authored
over ninety-five research articles, chapters and encyclopedia
articles published in international journals.
Dr. Masud is a member of: Middle Eastern Studies Association,
New York; Joint Committee on the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies,
Social Science Research Council, New York; Editorial Board, Islamic
Law and Society, Brill, Leiden, the Netherlands; Advisory
Board, Philanthropy for Islamic Social Justice, Jakarta, Indonesia;
and Editorial Board, Rights at Home Project, ISIM, Leiden.
Dr. Masud is also the founder and author of MARUF (MAss-communication
and Religious Understanding Forum) on the web at www.maruf.org.
The website is a forum for an understanding of norms and rights
from the perspectives of social construction, communicativity
and self consciousness.
Dr. Masud obtained his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at McGill University,
Canada. He is fluent in Urdu, English and French, and reads Persian,
Arabic, German and Spanish.
"During the huge public discourse, especially
in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 , Muslim mind-set toward
modernity frequently came into question. A whole theology has
come into being on the question whether Islam and modernity
are compatible to each other. Neither the question nor the arguments
are new. Similar debates arose in the nineteenth century when
the Western nations colonized Muslim lands. Unfortunately, the
terror and violence that accompanied modernization distorted
the image of modernity. Today also, the debate on modernity
is deflected by the political events that are marred by violence,
terror and destruction. The focus of debate shifts the emphasis
from the quest of modernity to political concerns. It is in
the wake of such concerns that modernity is defined in universalistic
and essentialist terms and Islam and Muslims are characterized
as incompatible to modernity.
"I find it more fateful that some Muslims
have this thesis with religious zeal and reject modernity as
a Western ideology. To me, modernity is an historical process
and an outcome of a cumulative contribution by all human cultures
towards the present stage of development in human history."
~ Dr. Muhammad Khalid Masud
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