Western Muslim Responses to Western Modernity: T. J. Winters (b.1960, U.K.)

"Despite its origins in 7th century Arabia, it [Islam] works everywhere, and this is itself a sign of its miraculous and divine origin [...] Islam, once we have become familiar with it, and settled into it comfortably, is the most suitable faith for the British. Its values are our values. Its moderate, undemonstrative style of piety, still waters running deep; its insistence on modesty and a certain reserve, and its insistence on common sense and on pragmatism, combine to furnish the most natural and easy religious option for our people [...] Islam is the true consanguinity of believers in the One True God, the common bond of those who seek to remain focussed on the divine Source of our being in this diffuse, ignorant and tragic age. But it is generous and inclusive. It allows us to celebrate our particularity, the genius of our heritage; within, rather than in tension with, the greater and more lasting fellowship of faith."

Dr. T. J. Winter, known now as Abdal-Hakim Murad, is a British convert to Islam. He received his masters degree from the Cambridge University at England and later studied at Al Azhar. He was a research fellow at the Oxford University. Currently, he is a lecturer of Theology at Cambridge University. Among his works is the translation of al Bayhaqi's "Seventy-Seven Branches of Faith" into English. He has also authored many articles about Islam and Muslims.

His 8-tape lecture series called Understanding Islam received much acclamation from both Muslims and non-Muslims. The lectures were given to a primarily non-Muslims audience and is considered unparalleled for its objectivity and research. It covers the following topics: The Five Pillars of Islam; Sunnah, Shariah, Sectarianism and Ijtihad; Scriptural Links Between Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Muslim-Christian Views of One Another; Muslim Theology and Islamic Mysticism; and The Muslim Influence on Europe and the West.

Balancing the Zahir and the Batin


Islam is a balance between the zahir and the batin, i.e., the form and the spirit, the external and the internal, the expressed and the hidden, the husk and the kernel, the body and the soul. It is such a balance that are meant to be manifested in a believer. When that happens, he or she is a beauty.

This essential quality of a believer is excellently elaborated by Winter in two of his best articles: Seeing With Both Eyes and The Sunna As Primordiality. He concludes one of these articles with the following soothing words that give us hope and re-assurance in a world that is seemingly full of evil and oppression:

"Those of us who have lived far from nature, and far from beauty, and far from the saints, often have anger, and darkness, and confusion in our hearts. But this is not the Sunna [the examples of Prophet Muhammad]. The sunna is about detachment, about the confidence that however seemingly black the situation of the world, however great the oppression, no leaf falls without the will of Allah. Ultimately, all is well. The cosmos, and history, are in good hands.

"That was the confidence of Rasulullah (s.w.s.) [the Prophet]. It has to be our confidence as well. There is too much depression among us, which leads either to demoralisation and immorality, or to panic, and meaningless, ugly forms of extremism, which have nothing to do with the serenity and beauty to which the Ka'ba summons us. But Islam commands wisdom, and balance. It is the middle way. And for us, whatever our situation, it is always available, and can always be put into practice. We are the fortunate umma in today's world. Fortunate, because unlike Westerners, we are still centred on beauty. In other words, we still know what we are, and what we are called to be. " Dr. T. J. Winter

Read more: http://www.welcome-back.org/profile/winter.shtml

On Modernity:



http://tv.muxlim.com/video/Wrc6Av15If4/Shaykh-Abdul-Hakim-Murad-TJ-Winter-Islam-and-Modernity/

On Sufsim/Tasawwuf  by T.J. Winters: http://baytunur.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-is-tasawwuf-or-sufism.html

Western Muslim Response to Western Modernity: Tariq Ramadan (b.1962, Switzerland)

Le thème de la modération dans la pratique traverse la littérature islamique depuis l’origine. Dans le Coran et dans les traditions prophétiques qui l’accompagnent, les musulmanes et les musulmans sont appelés à faire preuve de modération dans tous les domaines de la pratique. « Dieu veut pour vous la facilité et non la difficulté » rappelle le Coran et Muhammad (PBSL) affirme « Facilitez les choses, ne les rendez point difficiles » et il donnait lui-même l’exemple en choisissant les allégements (comme de ne pas jeûner le ramadan en voyage) pour que les fidèles ne tombent pas dans l’excès. C’est ainsi que, dès l’origine, la majorité des savants ont compris la formule coranique qualifiant les musulmans de « la communauté du juste milieu ». Très tôt, il est apparu deux tendances dans la nature de la pratique : ceux qui appliquaient les enseignements à la lettre sans tenir compte du contexte ou des allégements (ahl al-‘azîma) et ceux (ahl ar-rukhas) qui tenaient compte de ces derniers et de la flexibilité de la pratique selon le contexte social et l’époque et en situation de besoin (hâja) et/ou de nécessité (darûra). L’immense majorité des savants (ulamâ) et des musulmans à travers le monde ou en Occident (quelles que soient les traditions chiites ou sunnites et les écoles de droit) promeuvent et suivent la voie de la modération et de la flexibilité dans la pratique. Ils restent stricts sur les principes fondamentaux mais proposent des adaptations selon l’environnement et l’époque. Sans doute est-ce déjà à ce premier niveau qu’opère un premier malentendu sur la notion de modération. Dans les sociétés occidentales où la pratique et la visibilité quotidiennes de la religion sont quasiment absentes (même aux Etats-Unis où la référence religieuse est plus présente), le fait de parler de prière, de jeûne, d’obligations morales et vestimentaires liées à la religion semble déjà presque excessif. Les musulmans modérés seraient donc ceux qui ne manifestent pas de distinction vestimentaire, qui boivent de l’alcool ou qui pratiquent leur religion « comme nous la nôtre », c’est-à-dire plus vraiment ou en tout cas de façon invisible. Les histoires et les références ne sont pas les mêmes et la notion de modération est toujours à considérer de l’intérieur de chaque univers de référence.

On peut en Occident décider que les musulmans modérés sont ceux qui sont invisibles, ou ceux qui nous ressemblent, ou encore ceux qui acceptent les termes de leur domination. De tels raisonnements et conclusions ne permettront pourtant pas de comprendre les dynamiques qui traversent les sociétés majoritairement musulmanes et les communautés établies en Occident. Or celles-ci sont multiples et complexes : il existe un débat strictement religieux (en terme de philosophie du droit islamique et de ses fondements) sur la notion de modération (wasatiyya) qu’il est important d’appréhender dans toute son envergure. Il permet de mieux comprendre les enjeux des débats intracommunautaires entre les différentes tendances et les dispositions exclusivistes et parfois dogmatiques au sein des courants apparemment les plus ouverts. Cette approche permet d’aborder les questions politiques avec moins de parti pris et/ou de naïveté. Une fois condamnés les groupes extrémistes violents qui tuent les civils et les innocents, il convient de contextualiser les positions politiques afin de ne pas simplifier la grille d’analyse avec des conclusions du type : les « modérés » sont ceux qui nous soutiennent ou nous ressemblent et les autres sont des fondamentalistes ou des islamistes extrémistes. Ces considérations sont idéologiques et entretiennent des confusions qui ne permettent pas d’appréhender la nature des enjeux d’abord essentiellement politiques et économiques. C’est bien ce que cache la rhétorique du « conflit des civilisations » qui oppose en termes religieux et culturels des entités construites qui ne traduisent en rien les aspirations de justice et de liberté qui s’expriment dans les deux univers de référence. C’est en ce sens que la voix de ceux qui défendent avec force la modération religieuse (qui représente nous l’avons dit l’immense majorité des musulmans) doit se faire entendre de façon plus « radicale » afin de traduire en des termes adéquats la similarité des valeurs éthiques mais aussi la nature des rapports de force politiques et économiques profondément dissymétriques. Il importe que ces voix se fassent entendre et expriment que la modération religieuse, d’une part, peut se marier avec la radicalité d’un discours politique, non violent et démocrate, opposé à la domination, à l’exploitation et à l’oppression sous toutes ses formes.

Qui sont les musulmans modérés ?

Read more: http://www.tariqramadan.com/spip.php?article11020

On the Swiss Minaret issue: http://baytunur.blogspot.com/2010/03/tariq-ramadan-swiss-minaret-issue.html

BIOGRAPHY: 

Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe published by OUP.

Ramadan has written more than 700 articles and some twenty books, including: To Be a European Muslim (2003); Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (2005); In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad (2007); and Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation (2008). In addition, he has recorded at least 170 lectures, many of which have become popular among Muslim youths in Europe and elsewhere. Ramadan serves as an adviser on religious issues for the European Union.

Ramadan's maternal grandfather was Hasan al-Banna, who in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood. Ramadan's father, Said Ramadan, led the Brotherhood throughout the 1950s and then was exiled from Egypt to Switzerland, where Tariq was born in September 1962.Tariq Ramadan grew up inGeneva, Switzerland. He was schooled in philosophy and French literature at the University of Geneva, and in Arabic and Islam at Al Azhar Islamic University in Cairo. 

Tariq Ramadan: The Swiss Minaret Issue & 'Symbols Through Which European Muslims are Targeted'

Prof. Tariq Ramadan

There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.

Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.

At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.

Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?

The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.

Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash.

They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/29/swiss-vote-ban-minarets-fear

Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe published by OUP.

Ramadan has written more than 700 articles and some twenty books, including: To Be a European Muslim (2003); Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (2005); In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad (2007); and Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation (2008). In addition, he has recorded at least 170 lectures, many of which have become popular among Muslim youths in Europe and elsewhere. Ramadan serves as an adviser on religious issues for the European Union.

Ramadan's maternal grandfather was Hasan al-Banna, who in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood. Ramadan's father, Said Ramadan, led the Brotherhood throughout the 1950s and then was exiled from Egypt to Switzerland, where Tariq was born in September 1962.Tariq Ramadan grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. He was schooled in philosophy and French literature at the University of Geneva, and in Arabic and Islam at Al Azhar Islamic University in Cairo.