‘Shariah is not a static entity, and the rules of shariah, humanlyinterpreted in the form of jurisprudence or fiqh, can change over time’, hesays. However, he laments, most Islamists and mullahs are ‘opposed to suchchange, as that would undermine their own authority’. Accusing them of‘wrongly equating the ‘divine shariah’ with ‘human interpretation’, heinsists that the demand that Muslims resolve their personal matters in shariahcourts, instead of state courts, is ‘wholly mischievous’. It would, heclaims, only further ‘fuel anti-Muslim passions and reinforce the image ofMuslims being anti-national and unwilling to live as normal citizens of asecular state’.
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nother Muslim who expresses his appreciation of my standis a certain Ghulam Faruki from New York. ‘Since, in all matters other thanPersonal Law, Muslims have rightly obeyed the laws of the land and acceptedgovernment appointed judges’, he writes, ‘and since the results of thisacquiescence have been satisfactory, extension of such a paradigm would beconsidered a natural next step’. Hence, he says, ‘attempts to set upseparate courts are bound to be frustrated as well as divisive, and probablyretrograde’. "It does appear", he goes on, "that the AIMPLB is out oftouch with reality and is unable or unwilling to consider the consequences ofits ill-advised pronouncements". He critiques the conservative mullahs of theAIMPLB for what he calls ‘their dogmatic orthodoxy’ and for misinterpretingIslam, which he describes as, in actual fact, a ‘liberating religion’.
Faruki calls for Muslims to seek to understand their religion on their own,denying the mullahs the power that he spies them as hankering after. After all,he argues, ‘Islam is supposed to be a religion of common sense, and thereforeequally accessible to lay as well as expert interpretations’. ‘If commonsense is applied to a simple and practical religion such as Islam’, he says,‘it diminishes the authority of the scholars and the experts, thereby reducingthe chances of someone leading us astray’. Bypassing the hidebound legalism ofthe mullahs, this ‘lay’ Islamic theology would, he suggests, ‘inspire usto seek equal rights for women, shed the ideology of violence, learn to respectother religions and other Islamic sects, and participate fully in the democraticand national activities of the countries we live in’.
In developing this new and more contextually relevant understanding of Islam,Faruki argues, the distinction between the spirit and the letter of the shariahneeds to be respected. This is crucial, for he rightly sees that shariah courtsthat the mullahs want to set up would inevitably apply archaic and, inparticular, misogynist, interpretations of the shariah. Speaking out against themullahs’ insistence that shariah laws ‘as they were practised a thousandyears ago’ be replicated in their totality today, he argues that ‘manyMuslims today would rather preserve the true spirit of such laws’ such as toensure justice. In support for his plea for a historically groundedunderstanding of Islam he quotes with approval a modernist Muslim intellectual,Reza Arslan, who argues that ‘The notion that historical context should playno role in the interpretation of the Koran—that what applied to Muhammad’scommunity applies to all Muslim communities for all time – is simply anuntenable position in every sense.''
Writing from Texas, America, a certain Mirza Faisal has also rushed to mydefence. The shariah court campaign, he says, ‘seems to be devoid of somebasic understandings’, the result perhaps of an absence of what he quaintlycalls ‘a reality check’. He insists that legally sanctioned shariah courtswould ‘kill Muslims politically and move them further into ghettos’.‘Religious counselling systems’, he says, are a more sensible option thanshariah courts. In a climate that is increasingly anti-Muslim, he writes,instead of raking up such ‘controversial issues’ which would not help them,Muslims must seek to ‘build bridges’ with other communities. ‘Thegoal’, he very sensibly suggests, ‘should be to make people better citizens,to motivate people to move up and have a human agenda rather than a Muslimagenda’. ‘The goal should be to take up leadership positions inadministration, politics, business, journalism, sciences etc and be uprightMuslims. That is what is required and not darul qazas’, he tells me.