Muslim Reformation
Monday, 1st May at 8:00 p.m.
Channel 4
Dispatches: The Muslim Reformation
In this authored film, academic and Islamic reformer Tariq Ramadan examines what the future holds for Islam, one of the world’s most powerful and traditional religions. He presents the case that, despite the attacks on Madrid and London, European Muslims will ultimately determine how the religion survives in the next century.
Travelling across Europe, Prof. Tariq Ramadan examines the issues that are provoking intense debate within the Islamic world – identity, education, the position of women and the understanding of Islamic texts in today’s world.
To bring about any change in Muslim thinking Tariq Ramadan wants to revive an old Islamic concept called IJTIHAD. This means that Koranic text and other Muslim teachings can and should be examined in the context of today’s world.
In France he meets up with a group of young Muslims who are doing just that, reading the Koran and understanding it in a modern context. They look at one of the most controversial chapters in the Koran, verses which Muslim radical groups use to justify their violent attacks and find that these texts are being read out of context.
In Copenhagen, he discusses the explosive impact of the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed with one of the Muslim leaders who organised the demonstrations, Imam Ahmed Akkarri. Whilst in Britain, he visits Shahid Malik MP at his constituency in Dewsbury to see how the large Muslim population is interacting with the wider community and he talks to a group of young men and women about their ideas of identity and religion.
Key to the issue of identity is education and how Muslim children should be educated. In North London Ramadan visits a centre that provides complementary education very different from the traditional Madrassah or religious school, he talks to the parents who give their reasons as to why this system is provides a better religious education for their children.
The status of women within Islam is frequently criticised by the religion’s detractors. Ramadan meets the Muslim men and women who are beginning to make great changes to the traditionally-held views by returning to the Islamic sources and evoking new interpretations that deconstruct the ideas which discriminate against women.
In Germany he goes to meet a group of women who are also involved in this process of Ijtihad and are changing Muslim teachings.
In the last leg of his journey, Ramadan travels to Pakistan to see what impact these changes might bring to he Muslim world. He meets He also meets Ahmed Yar Khan who runs one of largest religious schools in the country, and Mawlana Thanvi leader of one of the most powerful religious political parties in the country.
He finds that the cartoon issue is being used by these parties to attack the government in power and that there is little desire for any change in Muslim thinking, a view which reinforces his opinion that the only place where an Islamic reformation can take place is in Europe and will be lead by European Muslims.
Central to the unhealthy debates and conflicts is the culture of the other. Religion, any religion, has been taken by the majority as a competitive issue. It is either we are right or not. Race, nationality, sex are not exempt either.
Islam explicitly allows for the difference such that the real jihad would be to eductae all in the discovery of truth . ijtihad should be our new jihad in the purpose of loving your opposite.
Salam aleykoum,
Watched it, liked it! Too short for the amount of things discussed, but I guess it’s a tradeoff imposed by tv. I hope it’ll open the door to a tv series.
Bravo!
Hello,
You can read my review of the programme at my blog. Just click here :
http://icarusredeemed.blogspot.com/2006/05/tariq-ramadan-muslim-reformation.html
nice programme, I like it and agree with it. Its time we muslim kick these extremists’ butt for hijacking our religion and take responsibility for our beliefs.
Assalamoalaikum,
anyone know any URL link where i can watch this TV programme..i missed it on the day!
Mohammad.
Our religion or the practice of our religion is not just negatively influenced by muslims not reading and understanding the quran, but by muslims not reading and understanding anything. A great intellect (supported by a warm heart) influences the understanding of the quran positively. The problem we face is that muslims who devellop themselves in a profane way, tend to turn their backs on islam (or at least have a more loose relationship with it), because they are disillusioned by the state of affairs in muslimcommunities. (I have experienced this disillusionment myself and was really doubting a lot of things, up to the point that I couldn’t even pray anymore.) People like Tariq Ramadan take a different road: acknowledging that things are messy, but sticking to islam and looking for ways to develeop things. I salute him for this. We need people at this level, deeply commited to islam, to get things moving.
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Regarding the issue of Islamic Reform that is noted on your site- I have a site devoted to exploring the religious ideas that are behind the violence that we see in religions like Islam (www.wendellkrossa.com). There is no more influential religious idea than the idea of violence in God- humanity’s highest ideal and authority. This ideal of violent deity (i.e. God using violence to solve problems) has long validated violence in human life and society.
I trace the descent of this idea over history and its immensely damaging impact on human consciousness (i.e. from Sumerian myth down into Zoroastrianism and Western religions, and then into secularized versions such as “revenge of Gaia”).
All three Western religions- Judaism, Christianity, Islam- share the same core template of ideas, that of apocalyptic mythology. This apocalyptic mythology is rooted in the foundational idea of violent, punitive, and vengeful deity.
Contemporary Islam continues to feed on the mother theology of Christianity to drive its violent apocalyptic movement (for detail see David Cook’s “Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature”). We do not solve the problem of violence thoroughly and for the long term until we fully humanize the core of all three faiths. Most critical is the humanization of the core ideal of deity.
We have the potent alternative to violent deity mythology- the “no conditions” reality of authentically humane existence. Again, see http://www.wendellkrossa.com
Regards, Wendell Krossa