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proclaimed by Muhammad. There are some who view Islam as a faith that
supersedes the two earlier monotheistic religions. But I think its more
useful to understand Islam as a religion that is self-conscious about its
relationship to Judaism and Christianity and explicitly takes account of their
scriptures and traditions. Almost all the prophets of the Quran will be
familiar to those who know the Bible, and the Quran explicitly refers to
parables, ideas and stories from the Bible.
The common roots and inheritances of the three faiths make it
useful for us to think seriously in terms of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic
civilization and heritage that we all share. The development of philosophy in
Islam also shows a common tradition of rationality. Anyone with a basic
understanding of the categories of Aristotles thought employed by Christian
and Jewish thinkers would find many of the arguments of Islamic
philosophers and theologians familiar. The great Islamic philosopher
Avicenna (10th-11th century) developed a metaphysical notion of God that
had a tremendous impact on the Latin west: the idea that God is the
necessary being required to explain the existence of every contingent being.
G.G.: But even given these deep similarities, doesnt Islam claim that
the other two faiths are, if not entirely false, still not the full truth that Islam
is?
S.R.: Ultimately, the Islamic reflection on the other two faiths
considers them to be earlier versions and revelations of the same truth even
if the long history from their sacral origins might have diluted their
understanding. The Quran itself engages in a polemic with some of those
communities often precisely because of the exclusive claims that they made
about salvation. The Quran tends to insist upon Gods final decision (to
which we, of course, are not privy) against the presumptions of theologians.
The fundamental distinctions in the scripture are between monotheistic
believers, imperfect monotheists and others: Jewish and Christian
communities were considered often to be in the second category. Some
dissent. One of the main differences that has always struck me concerns how
orthodoxy was shaped and implemented. On the whole the Muslim world
did not have the same mechanisms of central control councils, creeds and
inquisitions to enforce matters. They sometimes tried to set up such
mechanisms, but always failed. When people raise the problem of a crisis of
authority in the Muslim world, they forget that this is not just a situation
that arose in modernity. What is interesting, however, is that each of the two
faiths has significant internal divisions on matters of political theology.
G.G.: What about the division we hear so much about in the news,
between Shias and Sunnis. Could you say a bit about that?
S.R.: Shia Islam is a religious tradition in which it is precisely the
presence of the divine through the Imam the successor to Muhammad in
his bloodline that provides not only the foundations for authority and
sovereignty in human communities of belief, but also the path to salvation.
The everlasting and indeed ever-revealing countenance of the divine
mentioned in the Quran (28:88, for example) is glossed in the tradition as
the person of the Imam. The Imam is not the defender of the Law; he is the
Law he is not the exegete of scripture, he is revelation itself. Through the
person of the Imam, the transcendent divine, the origin and the true King, is
manifest; and believers follow the path to salvation through their devotion
and obedience to the Imam. In fact, from early on, Islam seems to have held
that believers afterlife depends on their allegiance to their community. In
this sense, Shia is a normative political theology, concerned with the relation
of political authority and salvation. The comparison with Christ Pantocrator
and the person of the emperor in Eastern Orthodox Christianity is rather
striking.
G.G.: How does this compare with the Sunni traditions?
S.R.: In contrast to the Sunni, the Shia traditions in Islam have a more
absolute notion of the political-theological significance of both sacred
history and the beliefs that one holds and the rituals that one practices. Shia
political theology speaks of a messianic 12th Imam who will come as a
redeemer and avenger in the last days, though this theme is routinized and
deferred. Sunni traditions tend to be more pragmatic about politics, even
though there is a rather atavistic nostalgia about the caliphate as a
paradigmatic institution of early Islam, a nostalgia for a golden age that
never was. It has always been the normativity of the community and its
consensus that is binding which lead to a greater stress on conformity of
practice but also leaves space for condemnation of views outside of the
consensus as heresy.
But what is essential to remember is that each theological strand and
community within Islam claims the true and proper interpretation and
practice of the faith for themselves. Therefore, discussing the Shia merely as
heretics or those on the margins or outside the mainstream community
misses the simple point that they consider themselves to be bearers of the
original message and the real community of believers who define Islam for
themselves and for others.
G.G.: Many people are puzzled at the violent conflicts between Shias
and Sunnis. They think that Europe has pretty much gotten past this stage
since the Enlightenment, and they wonder why the same thing hasnt
happened in Muslim countries.
S.R.: I think we forget that sectarian violence is often forged in the
crucible of political conflicts and uncertainty. While there are theological
accounts that back the discourses of condemnation in the modern world, the
impetus often comes from the scramble for political and economic
resources. The basic stability of Europe in opposition to what is happening
in Syria and Iraq is the differentiating factor and even then in times of
crisis, as we saw in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, sectarian
entrepreneurs could be relied upon to manipulate emotions for political
gain. There is, of course, the sense that religious feelings even within faiths
are strongly held and this is clear even in Europe and North America. But
if one has the rule of law and political stability, that negativity to the other
may manifest itself in hate speech but rarely in violence.
G.G.: Youve presented what many of our readers may see as a quite
moderate and enlightened version of Islam. But arent you ignoring
fundamentalist versions of the religion that today are very powerful and
directly opposed to liberal values? Im thinking, for example, of their
treatment of women, their demand for Islamic states, and their use of
violence to achieve religious goals. Do you think there is a need for a
reformed Islam that will decisively reject such fundamentalist views?
S.R.: In many ways we live in an age of fundamentalisms and this is
true not just of religious communities. That, coupled with the weakness of
traditional scholarly institutions in many Muslim communities, has led to
uncertainty about who speaks for the faith and whether anyone can speak
definitively for the faith. I have a problem with applying to Islam the
standard European account of progress as a process in which conflict with
secular thought leads to reform, intellectual enlightenment, and finally the
redefinition of faith in terms of beliefs divorced from any communal
expression.
What I would argue for is not necessarily reform I have serious
reservations about most reformist agendas as well as forms of neotraditionalism but rather for a more open debate about the simple acts of
reading texts in multiple ways. We need to understand how we might read
traditional texts in ways that make sense of our faith for the contexts in
which we now live. This is not radical reform, but it is an attempt to keep the
dialogue within traditions alive and dynamic across space and time. It is a
particular strength of Islam that its intellectual traditions of philosophical
theology and spirituality emphasize such dialogue.
G.G.: How do you, as a Muslim, respond to the atheistic claim that, in