Islam Beyond the Violent Jihadis: An Optimistic Muslim Speaks

by Ziauddin Sardar

The meaning and message of Islam has been corrupted and perverted by a particularly virulent strain of Islam. Writer and critic Ziauddin Sardar tells the stories of different interpretations of Islam and argues for a critical version of a religion that has a long and distinguished history—but appears to have been swept aside by a fundamentalist interpretation. Ziauddin Sardar is the award-winning author of over fifty books, including Desperately Seeking Paradise and, more recently, The Sacred City . Editor of the quarterly Critical Muslim , he is an internationally renowned public intellectual.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion

192 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 2016

About the author

Ziauddin Sardar has written or edited 45 books over a period of 30 years, many with his long-time co-author Merryl Wyn Davies. Recent titles include Balti Britain: a Journey Through the British Asian Experience (Granta, 2008); and How Do You Know: Reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations (Pluto, 2006). The first volume of his memoirs is Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim (Granta, 2006). His recent television work includes a 90-minute documentary for the BBC in 2006 called 'Battle for Islam'. Sardar's online work includes a year-long blog on the Qur'an published in 2008 by The Guardian newspaper.
Sardar is a Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University London and is Editor of the forecasting and planning journal, Futures. He is also a member of the UK Commission on Equality and Human Rights. His journalism appears most often in The Guardian and The Observer, as well as the UK weekly magazine, New Statesman. In the 1980s, he was among the founders of Inquiry, a magazine of ideas and policy focusing on Muslim countries. His early career includes working as a science correspondent for Nature and New Scientist magazines and as a reporter for London Weekend Television.
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Reviews

[Graham Martin veale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Sardar is excellent as always

Mr Sardar is excellent as always. A wonderfully entertaining overview of the Islamic past and present. As always, Sardar is erudite, shrewd, opinionated and persuasive.

[Rose]

"...a society is free when no one acts out of fear of god or hell, or out of desire for reward in paradise, but for the love of god and humanity."

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Some may even accuse me of heresy. Which will put me in the good company of countless Muslim free-thinkers, classical and contemporary, who had to endure such accusations. But in my case the accusation has more meaning - what I am actually suggesting is that it is time for heresy to take centre stage and to dethrone orthodoxy." First Words, Page XVI.

This book is sort of like sushi, small, easy to consume, but filling and oddly satisfying. The book is a journalistic account of the state of the Muslim world today, how it came to be and where it is heading. And it is bleak, but as the title suggests... optimistic.

In the glossary the word Jihad is described as (striving. Any earnest striving in the way of God, involving personal, financial, intellectual or physical effort, for righteousness and against oppression and wrongdoing.)

Islam Beyond the Violent Jihadis is in a way a begginning to Sardar's intellectual jihad against ignorance and the many litteralists and extremists that have abducted the Islamic faith and taken from it the very things that make it original and special, which Sardar argues is its rich culture of natural phillosophy, humanism, spirituality, and most importantly critical thinking.

Sardar explores the history of Islam through the ages, from as early as the 6th century, to the formation of the Mutazilla (a school of Islamic philosophy based on reason and rational thought that flourished in Barsa and Baghdad in Iraq between the 8th and 10th century.) the great adabs of important and forgotten philosophers (An Adab being a concept that became a literary genre distinguished by its broad humanitarian concerns; it developed during the brilliant height of ʿAbbāsid culture in the 9th century and continued through the Muslim Middle Ages.) through to the decline of the Golden Age of the Abbasid.

He goes on further to speak of the formation of Wahabbism (a puritan, ultra-conservative sect in Sunni Islam, named after founder Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92) now the state ideology of Saudi Arabia) it is here that Sardar marks the beginning of the decline of Muslim thought and culture. This ideology is also shared by the violent extremists Al-Qaida, Taliban of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Boko Haram of Nigeria and Al-Shabab of Somalia and many others.

Another large problem that Sardar sees with the Islamic culture and religion is the Hadith (record of the traditions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, revered and received as a major source of religious law and moral guidance), and the Sharia (Islamic law) being taken as 'gospel'

The Hadith and Sharia are used by all Muslims in vastly different ways and are where a lot of extremists and literalists derive their moral excuses for acts such as torture, misogyny and beheading among many other atrocities.

Sardar argues that the Holy Qu'ran should be the only source of Islamic law and justice to be taken as the word of God, for the Sharia was written by men hundreds of years after the prophet Muhammad came and went, it has remained unchanged since then and acts as the Moral, Ethical and Legal code of Islam.
The Hadith spans numerous different prints and many different translations. Not all are as well researched as others and it is likely that none accurately contain the sayings and traditions of the prophet.

Sardar believes it is time for enlightened Muslims to reform the Sharia according to its ethical and social objectives, based on the needs of our time. It is also time, he argues, to mandate that all Madrassas and Islam Faith schools in Britain be inspected and made to teach critical thinking and questioning skills.
(Lest we have more people like Sheikh Salih bin Fawzan, Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fataawa member, who is quoted in the book to say "it behoves those who call for setting a minimum age for marriage to fear Allah and not contradict His Shariah, or to legislate things Allah did not permit. For laws are Allah's province; and legislation is his exclusive right, to be shared by none other.")
The above quote sells Sardar's point that the Shariah can be used to defend just about any injustice, in this case, paedophilia.

There is also a full section in the book that explores why the youth of England would be enticed to join extremist groups such as ISIS.

On a lighter note, there is a whole, pretty sizable section of this book dedicated to beards and how one can use a beard to rather accurately place a believer into a specific Muslim sect, this is something I never thought about and is fascinating.

All and all this book paints a picture of an, allegedly, once great religion that appears to be in its final, and most violent death throes, and it is bent on taking as many with it as possible. But there are a lot of people who want to return to the Golden Age of the Islam Adab era and although short, this book is a fantastic first step in that direction.
The book is exactly what it is said to be in the title, An Optimistic Muslim Speaks: Islam Beyond the Violent Jihadis.

[PolicemanPrawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the divide between the fundamental and moderate sides of Islam. It analyses the contemporary debates, provides a historical account, and gives suggestions of how we can reform Islam to be less extreme. It describes how the fanatical and literal side of Islam defeated the freethinkers a millennium ago – the result is the current situation of intolerance, tribalism, terrorism, sexism, and so on. The nature of the Quran and Hadith is such that a fundamental interpretation is difficult to avoid, though not necessarily impossible. This book provides a readable account of this aspect of Islam (fundamental/moderate) that isn’t well-known.

[Hanna ✨]

Dnf @ 33%

The writing style is so tedious, I can't continue to feign interest. I'll probably pick this up again some other time.