Issues In The Study Of Islam And Muslims Religion Essay

There are many issues in the survey of Islam and Muslims, such as, law, Hadith literature, Qur’an exegeses, Sunni schools of ideas, and Shi’a school of ideas. Other related issues are, for illustration, Muta’zalite school, Asahari School, Islamic jurisprudence, diehard ‘s ideas, modernness, Islamic revivalism, fundamentalism, Islamic menace, Islamic individuality, political relations, adult females ‘s rights, Islamic civilization, and so forth. Many of These issues have become the Centre of attending to bookmans and intellectuals in the recent old ages, hence, Islam and Muslims one time once more became under topographic point visible radiation and the involvement in this field have increased enormously among intellectuals and bookmans.

The essay will briefly discourse the historical background of Islam and Muslims and the creative activity of Muslim Ummah during the life of the Prophet Muhammad. It will besides discourse the events that took topographic point after the decease of the Prophet and the outgrowth of Shi’a Islam. The epoch of Muslim expansionism and the first contact with Greeks doctrine and scientific discipline will besides be discussed in this essay. There are several aims in which this essay would wish to carry through. Firstly, be able to philosophically discourse the Mutazalite and Ashaari School of ideas and comparison and contrast between these two schools. Second, be able to discourse Orientalism with mention to Edward said and his positions on Orientalism. The issue of modernness in its broader context and the reaction of some traditionists and modern-day bookmans towards modernness will besides be discussed. Finally, be able to discourse Islamic revivalism, its outgrowth, and its impact around the Earth.

It was in Medina when the Prophet Muhammad successfully managed to unify all the trusters under one umbrella of Islamic integrity which became to be known as Ummah or Muslims community. The tenet of the Ummah can be termed the root of all Islamic political constructs. The ummah contains of all those persons who are connected to one another by spiritual ties, and all persons in the Ummah are equal in their relationship to God. ( Metzger, 1994-1995, p. 699 ) . Kennedy states that all the trusters are described as ummah, a community apart from the environing heathen society, and they are to do war as one. ( Kennedy, 2004, p. 34 ) .

The wisdom of the Prophet in conveying all the trusters together as one solid community was political every bit good as spiritual responsibility to beef up the community. After the decease of the Prophet Muhammad, the Ummah encountered some challenges in taking the new leader who is capable to take the ummah forward and continue with the work that the Prophet had started. The difference over the leading of the ummah played an of import function in the division among the Muslims and its impact is clear till present clip. The Shi’a of Imam Ali or the followings of Imam Ali argued that Ali is the rightful chosen leader to take the Muslim Ummah after the Prophet, but the Sunnis, believe that the leading was made through democratic and just election ; hence, Abu-Baker was chosen as the first Caliph ( leader ) to take the Muslim community. The blackwash of Uthman, the 3rd Caliph left the Muslim in convulsion and opened a door for fitnnah or internal discord among the Muslims and its impact was about the first civil war to take topographic point between Muslims. The Caliph Uthman was assassinated in June 656 A.D./Dhi al-Hijja 35 A.H. , and that event led to four decennaries of upset. The Muslim rules were wracked by civil wars and rebellions of overzealous groups, yet the Umayyad calif managed to continue the unity of the province. ( Jandora, 1986, P. 112 ) .

To avoid such confrontation and blood shadiness among Muslims, both Imam Ali and Mu’awiya agreed to arbitration, non related to who should be caliph, but instead over the issues which divided him and Mu’awiya. Imam Ali ‘s place was weakened because of the arbitration understanding which caused a monolithic blow to his authorization and leading. He had been forced to cover with Mu’awiya on equal footings and abandoned his undisputed right to take the community. ( Kennedy, 2004, p. 79 ) . The blackwash of Imam Ali facilitated the route for Mu’awiya to set up the Umayyad dynasty and to go the Muslims ‘ Caliph.

Throughout the Umayyad and subsequently the Abbasid dynasties, the Muslim bookmans were active in the field of divinity, scientific discipline and doctrine. Scholars and legal experts described Islam as a imperfect, dynamic and cosmopolitan faith. The Qur’an has besides been declared to be accessible to all Muslims non merely one or two privileged persons, and as such it is the responsibility of all Muslims to understand it and to deduce aid from it in affairs associating to their lives. ( Codd, 1999, p. 112 ) . The Caliph and the backing encouraged the bookmans to compose on Islamic divinity and take part in philosophically argument based on reason attacks to the capable affair. The encouragement resulted in the outgrowth of many Islamic schools of ideas particularly in the field of doctrine and scientific discipline.

Moslem intellectuals were fascinated with Greeks doctrine, scientific discipline, and logic and rational. Therefore, two chief schools of ideas that engaged in philosophical statement were the Ash’arites and Mu’tazilites. The statements were tense and covered different subjects of Islamic divinity. Issues, such as, unity of God ( tawhid ) , attributes of God ( sifat ) , and the Qur’an became the focal point of statements among the bookmans of these schools. On the issue of properties of God ( sifat ) , for illustration, the Mu’tazilites considered this early Islamic philosophy of properties to be the unorthodoxy of “ giving God an associate ” or tashrik and insisted upon tawhid or the denial of these properties. ( Fletcher, 1991, p. 115 ) . The Mu’tazilites statement is based on two elements. The First component is the metaphorical reading of the Qur’an. The Second component is the literalist reading. The Mu’tazilites as school of Islamic divinity took a steadfast place on the issue of God ‘s properties, and to permit its designation with the Godhead kernel. The school of Ash’arites argues that God posses these ( sifats ) or properties and they are existent entities, existing independently of the Godhead kernel. ( Belo, 2007, p. 119 ) .

It is necessary to compare and contrast between these two Islamic schools of divinity in order to understand their spiritual and philosophical ideas. One can reason that Mu’tazalites positions were based on reason and were anti-traditionalists. The Ash’arites positions were based on traditions, although, they were non to the full positivists, they on occasion relied on reason in the statements to work out theological issues.

Both schools had the same end and same aims to corroborate the unity and the integrity of God, but their rules and learning were wholly different. The Ash’arites favoured of the tenet of occasionalist in Islamic ideas, while the Mu’tazalites favoured an Islamic metaphysics influenced by Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. In their response to the Mu’tazalite philosophy, the Ash’arites set out first and foremost to destruct the philosophy of apprehensible moral kernel, in whose absence Bible would reign as the exclusive beginning of moral authorization. ( Jackson, 1999, p. 197 ) .

Both schools have different positions on morality and human actions, for illustration, the Mu’tazalites debated that there are some Acts of the Apostless which are merely good in themselves, even when there is no inquiry of eventual wages. For illustration, person who has no spiritual beliefs and no frights about the effects of his actions after decease may good reject to interrupt a contract even though under menace of executing for his refusal. For such a individual interrupting a contract is evil in itself and non simply in relation to the consequence of interrupting the contract. Ash’arite philosopher, Ghazali, argued on the reverse that the agent ‘s behaviour may be demonstrated either by the agent ‘s desire for congratulations for honestness, or by an association of thoughts whereby interrupting a contract is normally followed by harmful effects. ( Leaman, 1986, p. 420 ) . These types of arguments are intended to province that human action is merely good if it elevate human terminals, and God has created the wagess and penalties which accompany our actions and therefore qualify those terminals. ( Dallal, 2002, p. 787 ) .

Both schools besides argued on the issue of the Qur’an and the inquiry they were inquiring if the Qur’an was created or ageless. It is of import to observe here that Qur’A?n is known as God ‘s voice in general term and non allowable to tie in it as a particular duologue with the Prophet. The Qur’A?n is the straight received unadulterated voice of God, Muhammad its receiver, and an angel of disclosure, finally identified as Gabriel, its intermediary agent. The Qur’A?n is and remains the pure word of God. It is literally God ‘s word, word for word. It holds nil radically new because it brings the oldest truth of all, the first announcement, unknown in the Arabic lingua prior to Muhammad: God is one, Godhead of this universe and justice in the universe to come. Though clearly revealed at a definite point in clip, basically the Qur’A?n is rooted in the infinity of God. ( Bowering, 2003, p. 348 ) .

The Ash’arites argued that Qur’A?n is ageless therefore sought to show the eternality of the Qur’an by seeking a footing for it in the Qur’A?n itself, in both general and peculiar ways and by using Qiyas. The Mu’tazalites argued that the Qur’an was created ; hence, they tended to reject the qualities as holding necessary relationship to the kernel. They assert that Allah is ageless and that infinity as the most curious description of His kernel. The Mu’tazalites philosophy that Qur’an had been created was merely a logical effect of their denying ageless qualities. ( Sharma, 1976, p. 273 ) . The ways in which the Ash’arite school was clearly different from the Mu’tazalite include: the Ash’arites ‘ believe that the Qur’an is uncreated, and as the consequence for this philosophy, the Ash’arites faced many battles in happening credence within Sunni Islam, both in their early formative period and once more in the 11th century. ( Metzger, 1994-1995, p. 697 ) .

These schools of ideas have left an impact on Muslim bookmans and intellectuals in modern epoch. The philosophical argument has created a sense of spiritual consciousness which resulted in the outgrowth of tenseness and accusal of theological biased and extremism. The Mu’tazalites, for illustration, have been accused of being misbelievers and the booster of Shi’a propaganda political orientations, hence, their divinities are false and unlogical. The Ash’arites, on the other manus, were from Sunni bulk Orthodox school of Islamic divinity besides have been accused of being biased and emphasis that tradition is the lone manner for redemption, where rational and logic become 2nd beginnings for philosophical statements. Ash’arism prevailed over Mu’talism, even though the Caliph al-Ma’mun sought to do these latter philosophies the official idea of the Muslim community as a manner of stoping the divisions in Islamic divinity. Subsequently, as Mu’tazilite positions became marginalized, particularly as a consequence of the work of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, it was left to Shi’ism to place more closely with the extremist rationalism inherent in their places. ( Akhavi, 2003, p. 548 ) .

The issue of Orientalism is another component of concern in the survey of Islam and Muslims. The term Orientalism by and large refers to the survey of the Eastern Civilization. Oriental studies was and ever remains associated with the European who really much interested in the survey of the Middle East, Islam, and the Arab World. Said defines Orientalism as, foremost, a manner of idea based on an ontological and epistemic differentiation between the “ Orient ” and the “ West ” ( normally encountered, he say, from Aeschylus to Karl Marx ) , and, 2nd, a discourse, a Western manner for ruling, curtailing, and holding authorization over the Orient. ( Knight, 1993, p. 617 ) . The Orientalist chief focal point of argument was based on issues related to Qur’an, Hadith, history of Islam and the political relations of Middle East. They criticized the Islam and the Muslims in a mode that provoked choler among Muslim intellectuals and bookmans. It is just to state that despite the rough unfavorable judgment by the Orientalists, they positively contributed towards the Islam and Muslim surveies. It can be asserted, at least, that Orientalists have certainly achieved much by doing oriental societies known to the West. It is really unusual to happen a scholar really much attracted to analyzing another civilization, larning its linguistic communication and giving himself in its literature, which derides, despises or even feels high quality over, those who constitute his chosen field of survey. Orientalists have non needfully participated in the imperialist outlook, which is itself complex and varied and non easy defined. This is because, frequently populating and working in universities, they have grown up and participated, foremost and first, in the general tradition of scholarship, a tradition which, inter alia, subjects its ain society to critical and appraising question. ( Dodd, 1979, p. 88 ) .

The book of Edward Said Orientalism, published in 1978, is a manifestation of his influential thoughts on the Western survey of Eastern civilizations. In his book, he argued that Orientalist scholarship was and remains to be attached to colonisation and imperialism. The book advanced a comprehensive review of Western, peculiarly English, Gallic and American, composing on the Middle East, runing from the 18th century to the present twenty-four hours, and embracing literature, history, political and other scientific disciplines. Under the influence of Said ‘s review a scope of work has been produced, knocking academic and other composing on the part as, in assorted footings, Eurocentric, imperialist, racialist, essentialist, and so forth. ( Halliday, 1993, p. 148 ) . The Orient is an built-in portion of European stuff civilisation and civilization. Oriental studies expresses and represents that portion culturally and even ideologically as a manner of discourse with back uping establishments, vocabulary, scholarship, imagination, philosophy, even colonial bureaucratisms and colonial manners. ( Said, 1978, p. 2 ) .

The Middle East become and remains the focal point of many of Oriental persons writes where they smartly describe, examine, and knock the history, civilization, and Muslims civilisation. In response to this irrational unfavorable judgment, Said intellectually challenged these authors explicating that Muslims and most of the Arab World are victims of the Western states through colonisation and Western domination. The Western foreign policy particularly Britain in the Middle East was the chief force behind the creative activity of the province of Israel in Palestine.

In 1971, the British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, wrote a missive to Baron Rothschild saying that the British authorities “ positions with favour the constitution in Palestine of a national place for the Judaic people ” . British policy shapers felt a Judaic Palestine would procure Britain ‘s postwar place in the Arab universe and therefore protect the line of life to India. ( Hudson, 1997, p. 116 ) . During the First World War, what was to go a major United States policy involvement in Zionism and the colonisation of Palestine played an first-class function in acquiring the United States into the war, British treatment prior to and after the Balfour Declaration reflect the earnestness with which the declaration was taken by the United States. During and after the Second World War, the escalation in United States involvement in the Middle East was singular. Cairo, Tehran, and North Africa were of import spheres of war, and in that scene, with the development of its oil, strategic and human resources pioneered by Britain and France, the United States prepared for its new post-war imperial function. ( Said, 1978, p. 295 ) .

Said ‘s Hagiographas on Orientalism and to tie in the orientalist intellectuals as advocator of imperialism has resulted in the outgrowth of terrible unfavorable judgment against him. Some argued that Said was every bit cognizant that the inquiry of Orientalism raises more general issues about the representation of the other, he is unable to theoretically to land this. As a consequence, Said ‘s reading on Orientalism as an act of force is limited. For him, the force of Orientalism comes from the power it exercises over Islam that is force is political and non philosophical. In this version, Orientalism remains a dianoetic possibility of imperialism. ( Sayyid, 2003, p. 32 ) . Clifford suggests that Said ‘s Orientalism, a critical survey of Western cognition about the alien, occupies this undetermined historical context. It could be seen excessively every bit simply the personal protest of a Palestinian, deprived of his fatherland by a “ unambiguously penalizing fate, ” oppressed by “ an about consentaneous consensus that politically he does non be ” . ( Clifford, 1980, p. 205 ) .

Modernity is another component of concern in the survey of Islam and Muslims which become the Centre of attending in modern epoch. The earlier Muslim responses to the exposure to modernness were fundamentally defensive-cultural. The rejection of the West by the modern-day Islamists is based in nil less than a thrust toward a sweeping de-Westernization. Islam has a rich history of opening itself to others and of establishing its ain accomplishments on larning from other civilizations and civilisation. ( Tibi, 2008, p. 79 ) . There are two chief schools in the field of modernness which dominate the country of treatment. On one manus, there is the traditionist school which stresses that Islam and Muslim should return to the Qur’an and Hadith as the chief beginnings for all facets of life. The tarditionist cull modernness because it is associated with imperialism and colonisation. They besides argue that some Muslims swayers are corrupt and imitate Western political orientation and civilization. On the other manus, there is the positivist school which suggests that modernness is good thing and all Muslim should profit from this because it is a procedure of advancement and to catch up with engineering.

The universe is invariably traveling: adult male seems to be submiting farther every twenty-four hours to greater liberty, as he besides sets out to a greater freedom. Scientific advancement and technological finds have made of rationalisation and efficiency the two emblems of our clip. So much so that one really frequently confuses the fact of modernness with what appears to be, by deformation, the political orientation of modernism. It remains that the thought of modernisation has today one of the most positive intensions. ( Ramadan, 2001, p. 1 ) .

Muslim swayers in the Ottoman epoch, Iran and Egypt looked to the West to develop military, economic, and political modernisation plans based upon European acquisition and engineering. They sought to emulate the strength of the West, to develop a modern trained and equipped military and bureaucratism, and to allow the scientific discipline that provided modern scientific discipline. ( Esposito, 1992, p. 54 ) . The classical Muslim modernists of 19th century envisaged Islamic Reforms as a comprehensive venture: it took in its horizon jurisprudence, society, political and rational, moral and religious issues. It dealt with inquiries of the jurisprudence of grounds, the position of adult females, modern instruction, constitutional reforms, the right of a Muslim to believe for himself, God and the nature of the existence and adult male and adult male ‘s freedom. A huge rational ardor and exhilaration were generated. The progressives and the conservativists battled ; the rational pioneers were opposed and supported, penalized and honored, exiled and enthusiastically followed. ( Rahman, 1970, p. 317 ) . The Hagiographas of Qutb, Abduh, and al-Afghani, inspired many people and attracted enormous figure of followings either to dispute or to apologize with the governments particularly the Muslim authoritiess. Violence erupted in many Islamic metropoliss demanding the over through of a corrupt authorities and the creative activity of echt Islamic province. The Persian revolution, for illustration, observed Shah of Iran as an oppressor and encompassing Western political orientation and civilization.

Decision

This essay has loosely discussed some issues in the survey of Islam and Muslims, but the chief focal point was on historical background, the creative activity of the Ummah, the philosophical argument between the Ash’arites and Mu’tazalites school of divinity, the Orientalism and modernness. These issues become the nucleus topics of argument among Muslims and non Muslims bookmans and rule the country of surveies in many universities and academia constitution. The creative activity of the Ummah in Medina by the Prophet facilitated the integrity of the Muslims as one entity and as guardian of the religion.

During the Umayyad and subsequently the Abbasid imperiums, Muslim scholars travelled far and broad seeking cognition and actively prosecuting in philosophical argument particularly they were influenced by the Grecian philosophers. Their argument based on tradition and rational that involved many facets of life, universe, Qur’an and divinity. Because of these arguments, two major schools of divinity emerged to take part in het statements which lasted for centuries and its impact still vivid in modern epoch.

The issue of Orientalists and their Hagiographas on Islam and Muslims caused some tenseness between Muslims and the West. The respond towards the Orientalists was expressed by the authorship of Edward Said ‘s book “ Orientalism ” which critically assert that Orientalists are associated with colonisation and imperialism ands their authorship are no more than a direct onslaught on Islam, Muslims, and the Middle East.

Modernity and Modernization became the conflict land between the traditionists and positivist, progressives and conservativists and immense rational excitement and agitation were created in the arena argument. The traditionists asserted that Islam should return to the original philosophy and back to Qur’an and Sunnah and through this, Islam will recover its glorification and accomplish justness for all. They besides argued that Western has penetrated the Muslims universe ; hence, it is all Muslims responsibility to reject and contend by any manner of agencies. The positivists argued that engineering and scientific discipline could profit the Islam and Muslims. The colonial experience energized the Muslim bookmans that enabled them to travel frontward and actively prosecute in duologue with Western bookmans and civilization.