Islamic Reformism Change Is the

Islamic Reformism Change is the only thing permanent in this world. Based on said premise, religions such as Islam have been redefining its doctrines and practices over the years. This redefinition is based on a myriad of factors that include the socio economic environment, political factors and the key personalities that continuously shape the religion's character and direction. In the 18th and 19th century western theorists have been for the most part, been preoccupied with the concern of strengthening and improving their communities.

Lee (1997) stated that Muslim thinkers have emphasized the concept of authenticity in the discourses of Islamic tradition and reform and this authenticity takes one of two forms. According to Lee, individual authenticity refers to the approach wherein individual Muslims should seek to perfect themselves while collective authenticity is an approach whereby Muslims must establish a community that lives up to the full potential ordained to it by God.

Lee argued that the quest of for authenticity is based on a belief that there is an ideal form of Islam that is embedded either literally or metaphorically in the Qur'an and in the life of the Prophet. This authentic Islam can be realized and is seen as the sole means of revitalize Islam and individual Muslims. Elias (1999) discusses the different categories and frameworks through which Islamic reform was manifested. These include the Traditionalists, Islamist and Modernist.

Elias described traditionalists as Muslims who wanted to preserve the continuity in Islamic thought and welfare emanating from the past. They prefer to see a return to the pre-European colonial period where authentic Islamic society is said to have embodied traditional Islamic educational and social institutions, systems of government and religious hierarchies. They reject technological advances including electricity, modern medicine and railroads. Traditionalist is largely a defunct ideology and is normally associated with aging religious scholars who see the modern world as undermining the privileges enjoyed by their profession.

(p.86) Elias on the other hand labeled Islamist as people who believe in the importance of instituting a society grounded on the principles of Islam and governed by their implicit understanding of Islamic laws and values. They adhere to the notion that by implementing Islamic law and enjoining the good and forbidding the evil, Islamists contend that they can convince the citizens to adopt authentic Islamic vales and practices, thereby creating an authentic Islamic society.

Elias viewed modernists as those who subscribe to a variety of ideologies, all of which are united in their acknowledgement of a new significance to the nature of human life, characterized by specific forms of rational thinking and by a belief that the processes leading up to the modern era involve a radical shift from traditional values, in which modern scientific and rational thinking replaces beliefs based on faith. Elias concludes that Islamist embrace technology; while modernist embrace the systems of values and thought that generate technology. (p.87).

Elias (1999) discussed in relation to Islamic reform as operationalized through the following key figures that include Afghani, Abduh, Raziq and Khomeini. Jamal Al-din Afghani rejected the European's innate superiority over the Muslims. Afghani accepted the validity of a scientific world view and stated that the Islamic religion is the closest of religions to science and knowledge and there is no incompatibility between the two. He added that Qur'an verses should be interpreted symbolically if they appeared obscure to modern eyes.

Muhammad Abduh distinguished between the essential and immutable doctrines of Islam. He argued that Islam's social and moral teachings should change as a response to social circumstances. These changes should however be premised within the principles of Qur'an restraints. He pioneered sweeping reforms in the Egyptian education specifically focusing on the schooling of women. (p.90) Ali Abdal Raziq discusses he authority of the caliphs and argued that Islam can never constitute the legitimate basis of a nation state. He was criticized for reducing Islam to a purely spiritual system.

Raziq stressed that an individual Muslim community were entitled to choose their own caliph if they wanted one. That meant that a decision by any authentic Islamic society was itself by definition Islamic. (p.91) Ayatollah Khomeini revealed that it was the duty of religious leaders to bring about an Islamic state and to assume legislative, executive and judicial positions within it.

This particular form of government was to be referred to as "Rule of the Jurisprudent." The highest authority was to be a religious scholar who held absolute executive power and who was qualified to hold office on the basis of his unrivaled knowledge of religious law. (p.95). Within the process of introspection, one would ask as to how receptive is Islam when it comes to change. Mernissi (1992) noted that the receptiveness of the west as seen in the practice of democracy is the key its success.

A demand for the ideals emerged in the slogans of the masses who marched in the streets of Algiers, Tunis and Rabat to protest the gulf War and bombing of Baghdad. When the masses shout their desire for democracy, fear enters the corridors of entrenched power. Those who have control over decision making will naturally try to transfer the ancestral fear of the West into the idea of democracy itself. (pp. 14-15). Another facet of Islamic reform deals with the role of civil society.

Rippin (2005) cited that the strengthening of civil society within the Muslim world is seen in the increasing emphasis on education, freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Muslim nations. Replacing in some context the word democracy, as the key goal to which Muslims should strive civil society is understood as that which lies underneath contemporary democratic principles. It suggests that there are parallel social institutions within.