[The following article was published in Global Dialogue 6 #1-2 (Winter/Spring), 1]

Conflict Within the Islamic Civilization:

The Challenge of Disentangling Culture from Religion
IMAD-AD-DEAN AHMAD
[Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad is President of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, a policy
research institute in Bethesda, Maryland, co-editor of Islam and the West: A Dialog, and
teaches an Honors seminar on Religion, Science and Freedom at the University of
Maryland.]
From the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, the Islamic civilization was the center of global
progress. In contrast, no one can seriously contest today that the Muslim world is in a
state that could only with kindness be called stagnation. It is militarily and economically
weak, scientifically comatose, technologically living off infusions from the West, and
politically plagued by tyrannies. Many in both the West and within the Muslim world
have come to ask whether Islam is compatible with modern ideas.
In this paper we shall examine the sources of the apparent conflict between Islam
and the rule of law, democracy, and the rights of women. We shall argue that there are
basic universal values shared by the modern West and the scriptural Islam and that the
perceived conflict of civilizations is due to the degree to which both most Westerners and
most Muslims have entangled evolved cultural notions with their basic values systems.
We shall propose that that the resolution of these issues requires an unflinching
commitment to the application of critical thought to questions of religion and global
policy in order to disentangle cultural notions from fundamentals. Finally, we shall
outline the ground rules consistent with both Islamic teachings and Western liberalism
under which the constructive interactions between the modern West and the Muslim East
may flourish allowing both to progress peacefully while maintaining their cultural
integrity. In addition to a dialog between civilizations, an honest dialogue within
civilizations is required.
Distinguishing Islam from Muslims
To the degree that religion is understood as a source of meaning in ones life and
a guidance for living, the scriptural sources of a religion, their rational interpretation, and
the impact it had on the way of life of its earliest adherents are a better source of
understanding the religion than the social customs, attitudes and prejudices of its presentday practitioners. The latter should not be completely dismissed, of course. The moral
and legal teachings of a religion and its pristine worldview have, no doubt, played a role
in the evolution of the culture that is manifested by the practices of present practitioners,
but so have a number other factors including the indigenous culture that greeted the
arrival of the religion and the subsequent history of the people, including foreign
elements that may have dominated the culture. Thus it is unsurprising that we find

Muslim culture to be so variegated from Morocco, to Bosnia, to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey,

to Malaysia and Indonesia.
In order to answer the questions as to whether an interpretation of Islam in the
light of democratic principles such as human equality, the rule of law, the right of the
people to select their leaders and the duty of a consultative government to its citizens can
co-exist with the idea of divine sovereignty, we must first separate cultural practices,
especially recent ones, from the fundamental principles enshrined in the defining
documents of Islam.
To begin with, I would propose that the only defining document of Islam is the
Quran, the revelation to mankind through the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
The role of the hadth (traditions originating with the Prophet or his companions) are not
defining, but explanatory. This distinction is essential because the significance of the
body of hadith lies in the fact it is our only window into the practice of the prophet, called
the sunnah. The role of the sunnah as a source of Islamic law is clearly defined in the
Quran as an example to the ummah (the community of Muslims). An example is
something to serve in the explication of a teaching, it does not constitute a command.
When a book on arithmetic suggests that 3 + 3 = 6 is an example of the process of
addition, it does not imply that the answer to every addition problem is 6, but rather
offers an illustration of how one particular problem may be solved using the general
principles of addition.
The student confronted on a final exam of solving the problem what is the sum of
5 and 8 should not answer 6, but contemplate how to apply the same principles that
lead one to the conclusion that 3+3 = 6 to the correct answer for the instant problem. In
the same way, the modern Muslim confronted with the problem of organizing a
government for the modern nation state may study the how the convention of community
leaders selected Abu Bakr as the first Caliph illustrates the application of Quranic
principles in the sixth century for a community of a couple of hundred thousand people
understanding that once those principles have been firmly grasped, their correct
application in the twenty-first century to a nation-state of many millions may be quite
different.
If the practice of the early Muslims provides an example that must be understood
as illustrations of the application of principles rather than blindly imitated, the practices
of recent Muslims are less illustrative of Quranic principles and even less worthy of
imitation. Consider the example of Ba`th socialism in Iraq. It is one thing to argue
whether the Quranic command to cut off the hand of the thief should be taken literally or
figuratively, and something else to make the thief the President of the country, to
appropriate all of its resources for the benefit of himself and his supporters.
Lest Westerners fault Islam for the failure of Muslims to live up to the highest
ideals of their religion, let them remember that fascism and communism were invented
not by Muslims, but by the West. In the 1930s and 40s much of the Western world was in
the grip of fascism or communism and not only Britain, but the United States had

abandoned classical liberal theory for a strong central government with a welfare state
and a military draft, what we Americans today call modern liberalism.
Shari`ah and the Rule of Law
Of all the misunderstandings of Islam, the most perplexing may be the claim that
it is somehow opposed to the rule of law. The rule of law is at the heart of Islamic
orthopraxy. It is the divine law rather than human law that is so situated, but this only
reinforces the fact that the Islamic government is fundamentally a nomocracy, i.e., a rule
of laws rather than rule of men. The placement of law above the ruler is something Islam
has in common with Jewish law. The Muslims society actually established a world
civilization built upon this premise. The very first Caliph asserted in his inauguration
address: Now it is beyond doubt that I have been elected your Amir, although I am not
better than you. Help me, if I am right; set me right if I am in the wrong; truth is a trust;
falsehood a treason.... Obey me as long as I obey Allah and His Prophet; when I disobey
Allah and His Prophet, then obey me not.1
The Islamic view that the law is something divinely ordained, inherent in the
nature of creation itself is implicit in the literal meaning of the name for it, shar`ah,
which means the path to the watering place. This may seem a strange word to use for
law, unless one understands that the Muslim view of the law that governs human actions
is similar to the Newtonian view of the laws of nature: they are God-given, something for
humans to discover, not to invent. The path to the well is something that human beings
discover and map, not something that they invent.
Such a view is not foreign to Western thought, but is very much in the Natural
Law tradition.2 Liberty cannot thrive in a society where law is easily changed at the whim
of human invention, whether by the majority or by an elite ruling class (whether priestly
or secular). This is a society ruled by men thinly disguised as a society of rule of law. The
danger to liberty in a nomocratic society is not the whims of men (as with majoritarian
and autocratic governments) but that such a law might be too inflexible, unable to adapt
to changing circumstances. That certainly has been the problem with Islamic law since at
least the sixteenth century. Yet it was not the case in the first several hundred years of
Islamic civilization. To understand the reasons for the change, one must make a
distinction between the Divine Law as God has decreed it (Shariah) and fiqh, the
jurisprudence that constitutes human attempts to understand and articulate the Divine
Law.
Historically, the process of understanding the Islamic law was the job, not of the
government, but of independent legal scholars. Just as modern physical scientists struggle
to understand the laws of nature, these scholars struggled to understand the Shariah. This
struggle was called ijtihd, a word derived from the same root as jihd, a word meaning
1

Amir Hasan Siddiqi, Islamic State: A Historical Survey (Karachi: Jamiyatul Falah, 1970), pp. 46-47.

See, e.g., F.A. Hayek, Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
1967).

any struggle in which one exerts himself to the utmost. The scholar qualified to engage in
this original critical thinking was called a mujtahid. There were a number of different
tools in the mujtahids toolbox. The explicit revelation of the Quran was, obviously, the
foremost. The Quran, however, contains very few rules an even fewer punishments. It is
a book of moral guidance. Thus it requires interpretation. The example set in the sunnah,
as related in the hadith, formed a second source of the law. Ijm, or consensus, is the
most widely accepted source of supplementary law. If the entire community (or at least
all of the mujtahids) agree that a rule is part of the law, then it is part of the law.
To qualify as a mujtahid one need not be a priest. In fact, Islam has abolished the
priesthood. The mujtahid is qualified by his scholarship. The model for qualification is
the same as that for a scientist or a medical doctor. Among the Shi`a, only a scholar who
has been certified to be qualified as a mujtahid by qualified scholars may engage in
ijtihad, just as in America only someone licensed by the American Medical Association
may practice medicine. Among the Sunnis the qualifications of a scholar less like the
medical model in the West and more like that of physical scientists. One needs a certain
level of professional skill which is usually demonstrated by graduation from an
accredited institution, but which may be acquired by self-study. However, the Sunnis for
centuries denied that anyone had met the requirements, a situation that has been called,
controversially, closing the door to ijtihad. For the most part Sunnis have demanded
that believers blindly follow one of the four traditional schools of thought without
inquiring into the legal reasoning behind their positions on various issues. This restriction
was applied not only to the ordinary believer, but to the judges who had to apply the law.
I have elsewhere made the argument that it was this replacement of critical thinking by
blind imitation that led to the decline of Muslim civilization.3 Since law was the premiere
science of Islamic civilization, it is only to be expected that once critical thinking was
abandoned there it would be abandoned in the other sciences as well.
This abandonment of both the rigor and flexibility of Islamic jurisprudence, in my
opinion, is sufficient to explain the divergence of modern Muslim practice from the
Islamic ideals. Add to it the circumstances that have affected Muslim culture since: the
passing of the torch of science and technology to the West, the era of colonization, and
the economic decline that accompanied the other elements of stagnation, and one cannot
be surprised by the state of the Muslim world. There has arisen in recent centuries a
desire to revive ijtihad. This movement has led to both progressive (such as Jamal alAfghani and Muhammad Abduh) and reactionary (like the Wahhabis) interpreters of the
original texts. That original thinkers about Islamic law can come to radically different
conclusions about the law is partly a reflection of human nature (look at how differently
the conservative and liberal wings of the U.S. Supreme Court differ in their
interpretations of the U.S. Constitution) and partly in the fact that the conservative
Muslims, despite their eagerness to sweep away the hundreds of years of jurisprudence
after the era of the righteous Caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali), are unwilling to
look critically at the hadith in the manner I discussed in the previous section. That is, they
3

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Signs in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomers Perspective on Religion and
Science (Beltsville: Writers Inc. Intl., 1992).

will not blindly imitate the founders of the four Sunni schools, but instead blindly imitate
the practices of a people that passed away 1400 years ago.
Common Ground
To say that both the Islamic and Western civilizations advocate a rule of Divine or
natural law does not specify to what degree those laws reflect common values. The
values embodied in the legal systems may be very different. In fact, however, the values
are largely the same. What Muslims proudly call Islamic values and Westerners boast of
as Western values are in reality universal values. Lets begin with the big three: life,
liberty, and property. Let us agree to compare apples with apples and oranges with
oranges, that is, we shall compare Western ideals to Islamic ideals and Western practice
to Muslim practice. In this section we shall look at the Islamic view of these ideals.
The Quran is clear that life is a fundamental value. ... [I]f anyone slew a person
unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land it would be as if he slew the
whole people: and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole
people (5:32).
Some have questioned whether liberty is a fundamental value to Muslims. They
have argued that the word for liberty in Arabic, hurriyyah, has only recently acquired the
connotation of political liberty visa-a-vis the state and that in the early Islamic literature
merely denoted a freeman as opposed to a slave. However, the same may be said of the
words usage in West until the rise of the modern nation-state. The pre-Islamic Arabs had
no central authority and, unless one was a slave, he had the equivalent of political liberty.
Islam itself, in teaching that there is only one God, is scripturally teaching that the status
of abd, worshipful servitude, is appropriate only with respect to the Creator. Thus, the
story of Moses standing up to Pharoah in the Quran has the same significance to
Muslims that it does to Westerners who see in it a story about the desire for political
liberty.
Nor is it a fair objection to the claim of common values between Islam and the
West to say that Islam does not embrace the atomic individualism of the West because of
Muslims deep regard for the relationships of family and tribe. The fact is that many, if
not most, Westerners also have a high regard for family values, or at least did until
recently. In its ideal Western culture has subordinated loyalty to ones ethnic group or
clan to loyalty to humanity, but in practice it has only subordinated it to loyalty to the
nation-state, while retaining its share of ethnic and racial conflict. The Quran
subordinated loyalty to the tribe to loyalty to God, though in practice Muslims have
adopted the Wests nationalist-style partisanship while retaining its own tribal prejudices
as well.
In the Muslim paradigm all relationships are contractual. The divine law is the
outer limit within which human beings create their own relationships and interactions. In
that space there is vast room for a variety of arrangements. It is for this reason that one
observes such differences in Muslims societies from those of the Berbers of Africa, the

Arabs of the Gulf, to the villagers of Indonesia. The cultures of these societies form the
basic patterns out of which particular relationships may be forged. In order that these
relationships be truly contractual, that is voluntary, there is always an assumption that
unless otherwise specified the host culture is the standard.
Legally, property has been sanctified in Islamic law. (See, e.g., the Quran 2:188,
and 6:152.) This is a right of both men and women, and envy is denounced (4:32): And
in no wise covet those things in which Allah hath bestowed his gifts more freely on some
of you than on others: to men is allotted what they earn and to women what they earn: but
ask Allah of His bounty: for Allah hath full knowledge of all things. In his Farewell
Pilgrimage, the Prophet declared: Your lives and your property shall be inviolate until
you meet your Lord. The safety of your lives and of your property shall be as inviolate as
this holy day and holy month.4
Morally, theft, fraud, and injustice have been prohibited by the Shariah. Islam
does not merely respect the right of contract in the abstract, but holds contracts to be of
such important that some specifics of Islamic contract law are found in the Quran itself.
Every Muslim is promised success in this life and the next. Success in this life depends
freedom of trade.5
Historically, Islam has been favorable to the merchant beginning with the Prophet
Muhammad and his wife Khadijah (may Allah be pleased with her), both of whom were
merchants. Even in discussing spiritual matters, the Quran favors metaphors from the
world of commerce, encouraging the believers to strike a profitable bargain with God
(e.g., 61:10, 9:111). Throughout most of its first eight hundred years Muslim society
flourished due to a respect for these principles. Although dynasties often violated market
principles, imposing excessive taxes and interfering in commerce, they would decline and
be replaced with other dynasties closer to the universal principles addressed here.
Universal brotherhood that transcended race, tribe and ethnicity was a value in
Islam from the beginning. For the Prophet there was no distinction between the African
Bilal or the Persian Salman-al-Farsi and his Arab followers. To the Meccans and the
Medinans, he commanded that every man from one group should embrace one from
another and declare themselves brothers. At his farewell pilgrimage he declared: Surely,
human beings from the time of Adam up to now are the same as the teeth of a comb are,
and there is no superiority for the Arab over non-Arab or for the red race over the black
race except for piety.6 The Quran itself declared: O mankind! We created you from a

Muhammad Haykal, Life of Muhammad, Ismail Al-Faruqi, trans. (Indianapolis: American Trust, 1976) p.
486.
5

See Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, An Islamic Perspective on the Wealth of Nations, in The Economics Of
Property Rights: Cultural, Historical, Legal, And Philosophical Issues, v. 1, S. Pejovich, ed. (Cheltenham,
UK: Edward Elgar, 2001) pp. 55-67.
6

Muhaddith Nouri, Mustadrak-ul -Wasa'il, vol.2 , p.340, quoted in "In the Presence of the Household: A
Bundle of Flowers from the Garden of Traditions of the Prophet and Ahl-al-Bayt (A.S.)," the Islamic

single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that ye may
know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in
the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge
and is well acquainted (with all things) (49:13). Most Westerners today share this ideal
with Muslims.
Religious freedom also has a strong place in Islamic thought. The Quran does not
limit freedom of religion to tax-paying People of the Book (Jews, Christians, and others
who have been handed down an earlier revelation) but acknowledges freedom of religion
even for the rejecters of faith (Surah 109) willing to live as peaceful citizens of the
Islamic state. The Prophet applied this even to the polytheists of Mecca who had fought
against him, once they ceased their hostilities, by issuing a general amnesty upon the
bloodless taking of Mecca.
There have been some lapses in Muslim history in the observation of these ideals,
as in Western history there have been more serious and more frequent lapses. (I dont
really want to make comparisons, but for those who need a reminder: Muslims killed
thousands of innocents in the World Trade Center bombings, but Americans killed tens of
thousands of innocents at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Mutazilites had their mihna, but
the Roman Church had the Inquisition; Muslims killed other Muslims in the Iran-Iraq
War for almost a decade, but Christians have been killing Christians for over eighty years
in the troubles in Northern Ireland; it is reported that Saddam gassed thousands to
death, but it is reported that Hitler exterminated millions; at certain times in history some
Muslims have asserted that certain races or nationalities are by nature suited to slavery,
but for the southern states in America this was official government policy for American
blacks until after the Civil War; the Muslim conquerors of India engaged in barbarities,
yet India is still a majority Hindu nation today while the so-called Indians of America
are a tiny minority in their own land, those who have not been killed or assimilated living
on what remnants of their reservations have not been taken away from them in violation
of treaties; Muslim governments have unjustly taxed people throughout history, but
Europeans invented modern socialism, the idea that the state should not stop at taxing the
fruit of the peoples labor but take the means of production itself away from them
completely.) The point here is that in these principles we have a common ground upon
which to encourage one another not to betray our noble/pious ambitions.
Shura and Democracy
If Muslims have been more successful in establishing ethnic and racial harmony,
Westerners have undoubtedly been more successful in establishing democratic
institutions. In fact, the West has been more successful at establishing institutions
altogether. Making the corporation a fictitious person is a Western innovation. It has
required a higher level of standards of good governance than the more personalistic
approach in the Muslim world, in which every organization is deemed to have an owner
or owners. Each approach has its shortcomings. The Muslim model is liable to corruption
Maaref Foundation, (6/22/2002) http://www.maaref-foundation.com/english/prophet_and_ahl_albayt/general/presence.htm (accessed 2/12/2004).

while the Western model lends itself to the problems of bureaucracy. Of course, the
Muslim world also has its bureaucrats and the West its corruption, but there is no doubt
that corruption is more serious and widespread in the Muslim world, while in the West
the complexities of corporate governance gives an advantage to institutions with teams of
lawyers and accountants over individuals in both the marketplace and the courts.
Democracy is better established and more refined in the West than in Muslim
countries. In fact, the Arab world can scarcely claim to any functioning democracy at all.
The functioning democracies as have existed in the Muslim world have serious flaws
(e.g., Iran, where the clerical class has branches of the government appropriated to itself
that impede the implementation of the political will of the public) and/or serious
interruptions (e.g., Pakistan, where military dictators have repeatedly taken the reins of
power) and/or non-democratic agencies standing over the elected representatives of the
people (e.g., Turkey, where a National Security Agency dominated by the military puts
limits on democratic action). The Wests flaws (think Florida in the 2000 Presidential
election or the graveyard vote in Chicago)7 seem mild in comparison.
Is this discrepancy an example of an area in which Islam is hostile to a Western
value? Before jumping to that conclusion, let us first admit the fact that democracy is, in
reality, a multifaceted notion, and explore how each of its aspects squares with Islamic
notions of justice and legality. Four of the elements of modern republican government
that have somewhat carelessly been lumped under the heading of democracy are formal
equality under the rule of rule of law, election of public officials, popular participation in
the process of governance, and invention of a positive law either by the people or their
elected representatives.
I have already identified the Islamic view on equality under the rule of law, so I
shall now turn to the other three aspects of democracy identified above. Certainly the
election of a head of state is compatible with Islam, as the election of Abu Bakr
demonstrates. It is true that there was no universal suffrage and only community leaders
participated in the election of Abu Bakr. The same thing may said about the election of
the President of the United States by the vote of 435 people in the Electoral College.
Even the fact that not all factions participated in the convention electing Abu Bakr (the
supporters of Ali were notably absent) has its parallel in the fact that only the
Republicans and Democrats are present in the Electoral College. Notwithstanding these
parallels, there is nothing in Islam that prohibits the extension of suffrage to all Muslims.
On the contrary, the absolute equality of all persons under Islamic law should be, and I
believe would be, understood by most Muslims to imply that whatever mechanism of
election is accepted, it should not exclude segments of the population nor privilege some
voters over others. While some Muslims would disagree with this, and argue for the
7

The graveyard vote in Chicago is a perennial issue of votes being counted cast by voters who had
actually died between the time they registered and the time of an election. This and other questionable
practices peaked under Mayor Richard Daley who, it is widely believed, swung the state of Illinois to John
Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential election. This is common knowledge in the United States, but for the
benefit of European readers, here is a web citation: David Greenberg, "Was Nixon Robbed? The legend of
the stolen 1960 presidential election," MSN Slate (10/16/2000)
http://slate.msn.com/id/91350/#ContinueArticle (accessed 2/12/2004).

exclusion of women, or reducing the influence of their vote, I do not think they would
prevail. Their arguments (for reasons that shall be discussed in the section on women
below) do not stand up under Islamic law. The popularity of such arguments in the Gulf
states, should not mislead non-Muslims into thinking they are popular among Muslims
generally. The willingness of Muslims throughout most of the Muslim world to allow
women to not only vote and run for office, but to actually elect women to the position of
head of state speaks for itself.
Beyond the election of leaders under laws that are fair and just, democratic
government calls for the people to take an active part every level of the in the political
process. Not only is this popular participation Islamic, but Islam offers a unique word
for it, shra. Shura is concept taken from the Quran and it means consult with the people
in their affairs. There is flexibility in how this consultation is to be done. It may mean
Citizens Advisory Committees, or it may mean election of the people who make the
decisions. Some have argued that there should be panels of experts appointed to guide the
decisions or that Shura means freedom of speech. The lawmaker should be open to
hearing from the citizens and listening to their opinions at any point in the process. All of
these interpretations are consistent with the basic concept of Shura, regardless of whether
they were practiced in the medieval Islamic era or not.
The one definition of democracy that does not sit well with the Islamic framework
is the concept of positive law, that human beings should invent the law rather than
discover and/or interpret it. This is not to say that Islam opposes any positive law only
that lawmakers may not contradict the divine law. They may interpret that law and
perhaps even supplement it. They cannot make the forbidden permitted and the permitted
forbidden.
Insofar as democracy is understood to mean majority rule, it cannot be advanced
as a moral absolute among Muslims, but rather as an effective means of reducing political
violence. There are Westerners also who would share this view, notably Henry David
Thoreau, who, in his famous essay on Civil Disobedience, bluntly observed that the
practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are
permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be
in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically
the strongest.
Equity and Equality
The success of Islam in establishing an equality of races and ethnic groups is
overshadowed by the aspects of Islamic law alleged to discriminate against women. Is it
tradition or the essence of Islamic law that accounts for the undeniably problematical
status of women in the Muslim world?
Let us begin by admitting that the status of women throughout the world is
inexcusable. Then let us acknowledge that a comparison of the relative status of women
between the West and Islam depends on the era in which one makes the comparison and

the particulars that one chooses to compare. Before we ask whether the fact that in most
cases women in Islam inherit half the portion of a man, let us make sure we remember
that only a few decades ago married women in some southern U.S. states had no right to
property at all. With that context in mind, let us address the allegations of discrimination
against women.
Although women and men have spiritual equality in the Quran (see, e.g., 33:35),
there are yet some specific inequalities between men and women in Muslim practice. It is
my considered opinion that while most of these inequalities are discriminatory practices
rooted in un-Islamic cultural traditions that need to be challenged on religious grounds,
some are rather intentional distinctions intended to insure equity between two genders
that are biologically, psychologically, and socially different. Distinguishing between
these two cases and then struggling to eliminate the invidious discrimination rooted in
cultural prejudices will require an unflinching commitment to the application of critical
thought to these questions in order to disentangle cultural notions from fundamentals.
The subject deserves more space than can be devoted to it here, but I shall give a few
examples by way of illustration.
I have already alluded to one example of discrimination that is clearly cultural, the
reluctance of Muslims in the Gulf states to grant the vote to women. There is no
scriptural basis for this position. Women in the Prophets community included jurists
whose contributions to the formulation of the body of hadith was enormous. The Quran
is absolutely clear on the issue that the believers men and women are protectors one of
another: they enjoin what is just and forbid what is evil... (9:71). This is not a statement
of mere spiritual equality, but a mandate for social action. Women cannot fulfill this
mandate if they are excluded from the legal and political realm.
The recent re-establishment of womens right to divorce in Egypt demonstrates
the degree to which cultural innovations have abridged womens rights and the degree to
which an appeal to Muslim historical practice8 as well as Islamic scripture (the Quranic
assertion that women have rights similar to men occurs in the context of the discussion
of divorce) is playing a role in the movement for womens rights.
Despite the fact that most of the discrimination against women today is not
justifiable by Islamic law, it also cannot be asserted that the roles of men and women are
identical in the Islamic view. For economys sake I shall limit myself to two examples of
specific inequalities that have as their object equity.
The first example I wish to use is in the matter of circumcision. This is a
requirement for men but is prohibited for women.9 This distinction is biologically
8

See Amira El-Azhary Sonbol, The New Mamluks: Egyptian Society and Modern Feudalism (Syracuse
NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), pp. 186-187 and Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, In Search of Islamic
Feminism: One Womans Global Journey (New York: Doubleday, 1998).
9

See Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Female Genital Mutilation: An Islamic Perspective, Minaret of Freedom
Institute Pamphlet Series #1 (Bethesda, MD: Minaret of Freedom Institute).

justified. Circumcision in men has hygienic advantages as well as a symbolic

significance. For women it is a barbaric denial of the sexual pleasure that is their right
under Islamic law. Pressed about a woman who performed female circumcisions, the
Prophet would only consent to a token circumcision. No equality here.
One incontrovertible distinction between the rights of men and women in the
Quran is the difference in the womens share of their parents estate: God (thus) directs
you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male a portion equal to that of two
females... (4:11). This is an inequality intended to establish equity by offsetting a
countervailing inequality, that male heirs are required to use part of their inheritance to
pay for family expenses, a burden not put on the female heirs. The Quran explains the
distinction: Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because God has given
the one more (strength) than the other and because they support them from their means
(4:34). Taken together the verses call for equity. God gives men more wealth but requires
them to share the wealth with women in a way women are not required to share with
men.
This conception of equity as preferable to equality is predicated on biological,
social and psychological differences between men and women. Some would challenge
that such differences exist. Let those who deny the differences deny them. However, let
them not forcibly impose their views on those women who believe that Islam provides a
more realistic and comfortable means for the defense of their rights and dignity as
women.
Call for Intra-Civilizational Dialogue
Inter-civilizational dialogue is not sufficient. There must be a dialogue within
civilizations. One of the common values between the modern West and scriptural Islam is
what Westerners call individual liberty and Muslims think of is the contractual basis of
human relationships. Westerners who believe in individual liberty must confront those in
the West who are dedicated to an imperial vision of modern Western society. Similarly,
those in the Muslim world who truly believe that every individual is directly responsible
to the Divinity must confront those who would substitute their own interpretation of
Islamic law for the judgment for the individual Muslim.
I maintain that the Western notion of liberty and the Muslim notion of tawhd are closely
related. Both are reflected in the notion Let there be no compulsion in religion (2:256).
If one views, as a Muslim is supposed to, all of life as the domain of religion, then this
rule is tantamount to the nonaggression principle, that no one has the right to initiate
force or fraud against others to attain their values. I propose we adopt this as the ground
rule consistent with both Islamic teachings and Western liberalism under which the
constructive interactions between the modern West and the Muslim East may flourish
allowing both to progress peacefully while maintaining their cultural integrity. I see this
as a more promising vision than the imperialism of the Neoconservatives or the violent
hirba (War against society) of terrorists.
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