Liberalism comes with its own baggage. Most modern ideas identified as ‘liberal’ find their genesis in the Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was primarily a reaction in Europe against the Catholic Church, and Enlightenment thinkers worked to wrest political thought from the shackles placed on it by the Church. Following this trajectory, mainstream liberalism evolved to see itself as an antonym of religion. Religion was relegated to the private sphere and became just another facet of what an individual may choose to do or not do in his/her private time and space. This formulation, if universally accepted, could perhaps lead to a state of utopia where religious differences disappear from the public sphere. The problem however arises if its acceptance is less than complete. The proposition breaks down completely in the case of a religion like Islam which contains prescriptions for the conduct not just of rites catering to an individual’s spiritual needs but for all facets of public life. The simple, nay, simplistic resolution of this conflict has been to place liberalism and Islam in separate watertight compartments and see the two as opposed to one another. The more complicated and yet the only fair evaluation would be to see the ends that each seeks to serve and see if the trajectories are in fact divergent or eventually merge at common goals.
Practically every liberal philosopher worth their salt admits to the need for a set of rules for the maintenance of order within which the individual can grow and exercise his/her choices freely. Islam too involves a set of rules to imbue a degree of order and predictability in everyday life. The only question that needs to be answered then, for a comparison to be possible, is the extent of regulation versus the space for exercise of individual freedom in Islam. The earliest Islamic scholars identified Quran, Hadith, Ijma (consensus) and Qiyas (analogical reasoning) as the four sources of answers to questions of everyday life. The Quran, contrary to popular perception is a minimalist document that focuses mainly on the existence of one God and speaks of the characteristics of that God in great detail. The idea being that if one is to be judged, the greatest guidance can be drawn from understanding one’s judge. The Quran also lays down some guiding principles for human conduct, dealing primarily with situations that arose during the twenty years over which the Quran was revealed. The emphasis again is mainly on how a question is to be answered rather than the answers themselves. The Hadith is a far more complex web of accounts of the answers that the Prophet gave to questions that were brought before him for resolution. When authentic, Hadith is as good a source of answers as the Quran. However, the fundamental difference between the Quran and Hadith is that the Hadith have passed through human agents and involve the inevitable possibility of the narrator influencing his/her anecdote. In addition to this, both the Quran and the Hadith are expressed in a language alien to the vast majority of Muslims and employ an idiom alien now even to native users of that language. And so arises the need for translation and interpretation and with that arise questions of how the text is to be translated and who is to interpret it.
Consensus, by its very nature, is almost impossible to find. Even among scholars, there are always differences of opinion on how a particular verse or statement is to be interpreted. That brings us to the fourth cannon, which becomes critical in this context. And this is where Islam leaves significant room for individual autonomy. When faced with a situation suggesting no categorical answer, an individual in encouraged to employ a process of analogical reasoning to arrive at an answer. This is achieved by a process of reducing the answers already given into principles of how questions are to be answered and then applying those principles to the facts. Detractors question the very inclusion of Qiyas among permissible methods of resolution of everyday issues on the basis that it leads to multiplicity of practices, as there are likely to be as many answers as there are people applying deductive logic. However, this criticism suffers from the flaw that it assumes that multiple answers to a question are contrary to an understanding of Islam as a unifying religion. This criticism stems from a wildly flawed understanding of how much similarity it takes to instil a sense of kinship among two individuals or two sets of people. Belief in the same God and a common Prophet, converging to a common place of pilgrimage, shared forms of prayer and shared festivals are by themselves sufficient to engender a pan-Islamic identity. Beyond this, identity of behavioural patterns across contexts and cultural identities is certainly not a necessary ingredient for a sense of unity, whatever other ends it may serve.
In short, Islam allows for a bouquet of differences to exist under a common umbrella. Recognition of and respect for autonomy of individuals and cultural groups is inherent in the very grain of Islam. And yet, a handful of mullahs have appointed themselves guardians of the faith and presume to sit in judgement over close to two billion Muslims of all hues and colour. The name Al-Hakkam (meaning judge) and the authority to sit in judgement both belong to Allah and to Allah alone. The ninth century mystic Mansur-al-Hallaj was executed by zealots for blasphemy for declaring “An-al Haq” (literally, ‘I am the Truth’; Haq, meaning truth, also being one of the names of Allah, this therefore also translates into ‘I am God’). It is ironic that the same brand of jingoism that caused the execution of Mansur-al-Hallaj today assumes to itself the role of Allah in passing judgement on individuals and groups with views and practices different from its own. It is those who support and perpetuate this jingoism, who by word or deed say “I am the judge of your faith” who are thus guilty of blasphemy.
Mullahs over the years have inserted another cannon, Ijtihad or the considered opinion of a scholar, as a source of law and Islamic practice. The choice between Qiyas and Ijtihad is effectively a choice between the rule of a power elite and the right of each individual to govern himself/herself. And as is usual in such struggles, the multitude has been conditioned to be blind to its own power. So afraid are the mullahs of Qiyas that it has been said that the first to apply analogical reasoning was Iblis (Satan).
However, Qiyas is not a carte blanch. Far from it. The sine qua non for effective employment of analogical reasoning is knowledge. This is perhaps the one major difference between agnostic liberalism and the liberalism that exists within Islam. Modern liberal societies allow autonomy and freedom of choice without a corresponding obligation to inform oneself before making those choices. Islam requires an individual to gather knowledge of the tenets and then apply analogical reasoning so as to make choices that are compatible with Islam. And how is this obligation to be enforced and who is to be the judge? For those who believe in God and the Day of Judgement, this question does not arise.
Therefore, Muslims must earn for themselves the right to their individuality and freedom of choice by engaging with their faith and understanding its tenets. If Muslims choose to live in ignorance like sheep, they will deserve the wolves masquerading as sheepdogs that they encounter.
Occupy Jannat is an attempt to wrest control of Islam, its public face and voice from the regressive mullahs and to encourage liberals to study and engage with Islam. It is a small step towards creating an atmosphere where right thinking Muslims can take informed positions that can bring about the marriage of institutionalised religion and individualism that is so badly needed to resolve the growing conflict between Muslims and the rest of the world. Liberals must reclaim the discourse of Islam so that Muslims can stand up to the mullahs and say that “Paradise is my goal but you are not my judge”.
