Legitimizing Modernity in Islam

Abstract

The question of Islam’s compatibility with modernity has primarily beenapproached from one of three methodological positions: First, Islam (asvariable) must adapt itself to modernity (as constant) by eliminating allbeliefs and practices that are incompatible with modernity; second,“Islamic modernity” rejects all modernist principles that are inconsistentwith Islamic teachings; and third, modernity and Islam are mutually compatibleand reconcilable when based on a particular (re)interpretation ofIslam. The author, who adheres to the third approach, thus questionswhether a society can be simultaneously Islamic and adhere to modernity’sgeneral criteria.His methodological approach consists of identifying specific categoriesin which to ground an intellectual reinterpretation of the Shari`ah.The five categories that he chooses are considered acceptable to jurists,and, as such, remain within the scope of Muslim jurisprudence: mandatory(wajib), recommended (mustahabb), indifferent (mubah), reprehensible(makruh), and prohibited (haram). Kassim uses these categories to framedebates over a range of issues in an attempt to find the intellectual spaceto accommodate modernity within Islam. His overarching argument is thatthe Islamic ethos can be interpreted as compatible with modernity’s fundamentalfeatures.Kassim begins by presenting modernity’s basic tenets: rationality anduniversalism. While universalism is a feature of both modernity and theShari`ah, rationality is not typically ascribed to Islamic thought. Kassimattempts to redress the neglect of rationality in Islamic thought by arguingthat a Muslim modus vivendi drawn from Mu`tazilite rationalism can find itsplace in modernity. He thus grounds his analysis in Mu`tazilism, a theologydeveloped in the eighth century CE that was eventually adopted by the ...