Six Major Tendencies 1/2

The six major tendencies refer here to the different tendencies among those for whom Islam is the reference point for their thinking, their discourse, and their engagement. So-called sociological or cultural Muslims, even if we legitimately consider them Muslims, do not enter into this typology, for their reference to Islam, by their own reckoning, does not play a particular role in their reflections and actions.

Scholastic Traditionalism. Scholastic traditionalism refers to a tendency that has attracted followers in the West and is found in various regions of the Muslim world. Adherents of this line of thought have a distinctive way of referring to scriptural Texts, the Qur’an and the Sunna, characterized by a strict and sometimes even exclusive reference to one or other of the Schools of jurisprudence (the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali, Zaydi, Jafari, among others), thus allowing no criticism of the legal opinions established in the School in question. The Qur’an and the Sunna are references considered through the filter of the meaning and application stipulated by the recognized scholars of a given School. The scope for interpretation of Texts is very limited and does not realistically allow development. Many trends, in one way or another, come under this mediated and scholastic approach to reading source texts: whether we look at the Deobandis, the Barelwis, the Ahl al-Sunna, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the Tabligh-i Jamaat, we find a traditionalism that insists on the essential aspects of worship, on dress codes and on rules for applying Islam, that rely on the opinions of scholars that usually were codified between the eighth and eleventh centuries. There is no room here for ijtihad or for a rereading, which are taken to be baseless and unacceptable liberties and modernizations.

Scholastic traditionalism movements are present in the West, notably in the United States and Great Britain among Indo-Pakistani groups and in Germany among the Turks. Small communities of this type are also found scattered in other countries. They are concerned mostly with religious practice and in the West do not envisage social, civil, or political involvement. Their reading of the Texts and the priority they give to the protection of strict traditional practice makes them uninterested in and even rejecting of any connection with the Western social milieu, in which they simply cannot conceive that they have any way of participating. The discourse they propound and the education they provide are based on a religious foundation perceived through the prism of their traditional reading of the legal principles of a given or recognized school.

Salafi Literalism. Salafi literalism is often confused with the traditional one just described, although their differences are significant. In contrast with the scholastic traditionalists, the salafi literalists reject the mediation of the juridical Schools and their scholars when it comes to approaching and reading the Texts. They call themselves salafis because they are concerned to follow the salaf, which is the title given to the Companions of the Prophet and pious Muslims of the first three generations of Islam. The Qur’an and the Sunna are therefore interpreted in an immediate way, without scholarly conclaves. The literalist character of this approach gives this trend an equally traditionalist character that insists on reference to the Texts but forbids any interpretive reading. This school of thought is a direct descendant of those that very early on were called ahl al-hadith and that opposed interpretations based on the search for the objective (qasd) of an injunction or prescription, which is the attitude that characterized the ahl al-ray.

The salafis insist, in all circumstances, on the necessity of reference to and on the authenticity of the Texts quoted to justify a certain attitude or action, whether in the area of religious practice, dress code, or social behavior. Only the Text in its literal form has constraining force, and it cannot be subjected to interpretations that, by definition, must contain error or innovation (bida).³⁵ The doctrinal position of the salafi literalists and their groups in the West, which are in constant communication with scholars based primarily in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, or Syria (mostly through former students of their respective educational institutions), refuses any kind of involvement in a space that is considered non-Islamic. The concepts of dar al-kufr and dar al- are still operational and continue to explain the relationship of the salifis with the social environment, which is characterized primarily by isolation and by a literally applied religious practice protected from Western cultural influences.

Salafi Reformism. Salafi reformists share with salafi literalists a concern to bypass the boundaries marked out by the juridical Schools in order to rediscover the pristine energy of an unmediated reading of the Qur’an and the Sunna. They too, therefore, refer back to the salafs, the Muslims of the first generations, with the aim of avoiding the commentaries of the eighth-, ninth-, or tenth-century scholars who have been accorded sole authority to interpret the Texts. However, in contrast with the literalists, although the Texts remain for them unavoidable, their approach is to adopt a reading based on the purposes and intentions of the law and jurisprudence (fiqh). In this they are closer to alh al-ray, and they believe that the practice of ijtihad is an objective, necessary, and constant factor in the application of fiqh in every time and place.

Most groups within the salafi reformist trend that exists in the West grew out of the influence of reformist thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who found a wide audience in the Muslim world. These included the well-known names of al-Afghani, Abduh, Rida, alNursi, Iqbal, Ibn Badis, al-Banna, al-Fasi, Bennabi, Mawdudi, Qu†b, and Shariati, in addition to the many others whose influence was or is restricted to a national level. All these reformists held somewhat divergent ideas, and the extent to which they were reformists varied. It is impossible to set out here their sometimes significant divergences of opinion. But what does clearly unite them is a very dynamic relation to the scriptural sources and a constant desire to use reason in the treatment of the Texts in order to deal with the new challenges of their age and the social, economic, and political evolution of societies.

The arrival of salafi reformist intellectuals in the West followed repressive measures imposed after national independence, as in Egypt and Syria regarding the Muslim Brothers (in 1960 and 1966), or grew out of later political situations such as those in Tunisia vis-a`-vis the Nahda movement, in Morocco vis-a`-vis al-Adl wal-Ihsan, and in Algeria vis-a`-vis the Jazara rebels. These influences gave birth, as elsewhere in the Muslim world at large, to two different trends. The first, in the line of the legalist tradition of the most famous salafi reformists, pursued and adapted the application of reformism to the Western context. The original school of thought remained a reference point in that the methodology of approaching the Texts remained open to interpretation and necessarily applied ijtihad in response to contexts of social life. However, fidelity to reformist thought and methodology, while henceforth very broad, did not necessarily require adherence to any sort of structure; thinking had gone beyond the authority, as a frame of reference, of any group or organization. In the West, reflection has evolved extensively and it is, moreover, in this that it has remained faithful to the original reformist ideal. The aim is to protect the Muslim identity and religious practice, to recognize the Western constitutional structure, to become involved as a citizen at the social level and to live with true loyalty to the country to which one belongs. Salafi reformist thought is very widespread in the West, and a large number of associations are influenced by this way of reading the Texts, which they adopted and adapt in keeping with their needs and actions.