Islam without Ulama’s Fatwa

Yet, if Indonesia is consistent in emulating Saudi’s standpoint, there will be more prohibitions. The Shias may be exterminated since “according to official Saudi teachings, Shias are a Jewish conspiracy (p. 151). Furthermore, radical mass organizations would not be allowed to exist in Indonesia if Indonesia constantly copies Saudi and other Arab countries. Look at this paradox: in fact, Hizbut Tahrir that is anti-democracy and anti-nation state, can only exist and develop in democratic European countries and –don’t forget- in Indonesia!

You may think that Islam will be developed well within free and democratic western countries; therefore, Muslim communities in these countries will demonstrate the enlightened and civilized face of Islam. Before you think so, it is better for you to reconsider Irshad Manji’s proposals. Just exactly because she was concerned on the unhealthy development of Islam, she spoke up and wrote about ”The Trouble with Islam Today” in the form of an open letter.

From the sociological perspective, it is quite reasonable that in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, the violent Islam (Manji called it desert Islam) has been widespread due to its alliance with tribalism, although we should not always justify that. But how come it arrive in Europe and North America? And what about South East Asia?

In fact, Manji watched this astounding reality in Toronto, Canada. She was stunned: “I was nauseated. Whatever the culture in which Muslims lived, be it rural or digital, and whatever the generation, whether symbolized by a 1970s mosque for immigrants or by a media-connected city for the new millennium, Islam emerged as desperately tribal. Did we ever need a reformation.” (p. 30).

Manji was serious about the urgency of Islamic reform, since she was about to lose her own faith in Islam. Besides the necessity of ijtihad, reform also requires incessant criticism and self-introspection, instead of making excuses. “Reform isn’t about telling ordinary Muslims what not to think, but about giving Islam’s 1 billion devotees permission to think.” (p. 36). That is what she expected from the Muslim society today.

She was fortunate for having the luxury and privilege to criticize Islam since she lived in a country that supports freedom and openness. She refused to remain silent despite of receiving many terrors and intimidations from her Muslim fellows. She took silence as her enemy, particularly the silence of the moderate Muslims over the prevailing Islamic extremism.

Manji declared herself as a Muslim Refusenik, which refers to the Soviet Jews who championed religious and personal freedom under the communist Soviet Union’s regime. “I am a Muslim Refusenik. That doesn’t mean I refuse to be a Muslim; it simply means I refuse to join an army of automatons in the name of Allah.” (p. 30)

Manji’s talent of being a refusenik was apparent since her very young age, when she criticized the unfair and inhumane Islamic doctrines. She profoundly admired ijtihad, the Islamic freethinking ethos. Nevertheless, the gate of ijtihad has been closed -and that is exactly what the fundamentalists wanted- throughout determination of many onerous prerequisites that impedes the implementation of ijtihad.

Manji believed that ijtihad does not need many requirements. The only thing Muslim need is the sensibility for justice and humanitarian values. She asserted: “Look, we don’t have to be prize-winning intellectuals or ulamas to exude the spirit of ijtihad. We need to express our questions about Islam openly. And we’ve all got questions cached away in our consciences.” (p. 67).

The aptitude and proficiency of raising critical and radical inquiries about Islam becomes the magnet of this book. Manji will disappoint people who want to find instant answers or strict guides about Islam. She only led Muslims to employ the most neglected and abandoned gift from God, namely reason. Sometimes, even the Islamic explanation from the progressive Muslim figures would seem absurd and groundless before Manji’s critical questions.

One of them is Jamal Badawi, a renowned Quranic scholar. He confidently interpreted the Quranic verse “Women are your fields. Go, then, into your fields when you please”, as a defense of foreplay. This analysis sounds enlightened and progressive.

However, Manji investigated further the words “when you please”, doesn’t that qualifier give men undue power? Which paradigm does Allah advocate –Adam and Eve as equals, or women as land to be plowed on a whim? (p.35)

Manji raised many radical and brilliant questions in this book. Not answer, question only. Isn’t brilliant question (husnus su’âl) half of knowledge (nishful ‘ilm) just as being taught in pesantrens?

Manji analyzed that Islam plane is not directed toward the safety zone of tolerance and human rights. The plane was hijacked! Exactly like Mohamed Atta did it on 11 September 2001. Who hijack it? Manji implicitly said that petrodollars is campaigning the desert Islam among many Muslim countries.

The desert Islam is encroaching on Afghanistan, Sudan, and Pakistan. Manji was also concerned upon the invasion of desert Islam on Southeast Asia and said, “local cultures are now being ignored in places such as Indonesia and Malaysia because they are seen as insufficiently Islamic (meaning Arab)”. Quoting V.S. Naipaul, she affirmed: “…that no colonialization had been so thorough as the article of Arab faith that everything before (it) was wrong, misguided, heretical” (p. 141). We do think so!

Manji observed that, “those distant from the desert didn’t steer the general direction of Islam. Arabia did.” (p. 146). She might be inaccurate and exaggerating in this matter. However, let us regard it as a warning alarm. The results and victims were there. Pakistan is halfheartedly leaving the lion’s mouth as if crocodile is waiting to swallow it soon!

Therefore, it is relevant to question what did middle-class Muslims in every Muslim country do in facing the global virus of desert Islam. In Pakistan, “Most allowed themselves to go with the flow of brutal fundamentalism” (p 127). They rolled out the red carpet for extremism and threw away the tolerant Islam initiated by the founder of their country, Ali Jinnah.

For this reason, Manji suggested the urgency of asserting non-Arabian Islam in many Muslim countries. She wondered why non-Arab Muslims who were 87% in number must be inferior to the Arab Muslims who were only 13% out of the wideworld’s Muslim population. In Indonesia, this irony is reflected by the mind-set of Indonesian Ulama Council and many Islamic groups who submit upon the fatwa of Saudi and OIC countries in the matter of Ahmadiyah.

Yet, if Indonesia is consistent in emulating Saudi’s standpoint, there will be more prohibitions. The Shias may be exterminated since “according to official Saudi teachings, Shias are a Jewish conspiracy (p. 151). Furthermore, radical mass organizations would not be allowed to exist in Indonesia if Indonesia constantly copies Saudi and other Arab countries. Look at this paradox: in fact, Hizbut Tahrir that is anti-democracy and anti-nation state, can only exist and develop in democratic European countries and –don’t forget- in Indonesia!

Manji observed the similar hypocrisy among Muslim communities in Europe and United States, in which they demanded freedom to practice intolerance despite of the fact they breathed the air of freedom and tolerance. Considering Manji’s reasoning, Indonesian Muslim must assert toward our Muslim fellows in Arab: This is a democratic country, Seikh! Please stop telling us about “the right Islam”, furthermore guiding us on how to treat Ahmadiyah!

Along the rejection toward desert Islam, Manji suggested Muslims to strive for universal bright achievements of human civilization. According to Manji, “...Islam is potential of being an expedient and humanitarian religion. It is us, Muslim community, who must have the courage to change”. It is the support for Islam’s adaptation with the positive values, which is the core of Manji’s criticism in this book.

Manji “is not a self-hating Muslim waging a vendetta against Islam” (p. 234), as many has accused her. It is true that she had a bad experience about Islam. But it did not remove her faith in Islam, and all she wanted is simple: “If Islam is flexible, then it can adapt for good and not for ill, right?” (p. 22).

This book stimulates anyone who search for challenge in his or her faith. It calls Muslims to exercise their consciences based on direct communication with God, instead of practicing Islam as dictated by certain ulamas. The prologue of the book written by Khaleel Mohammed, Imam and Professor in San Diego State University, United States, described it well. “If Muslims listen to her (Manji), they will stop listening to people like me, an imam who spent years at a traditional Islamic university.”

I think, the kind of Islam that Manji has been yearning for is Islam without ulama’s fatwa. If many Muslims were as critical and brilliant as Manji, they would no longer need anymore fatwa from the ulama.