Status Updates From Why, as a Muslim, I Defend ...

In reality, liberalism is a political philosophy, not a lifestyle. So it would defend a Western-looking lifestyle in the East, as well as an Eastern-looking lifestyle in the West. It would defend freedom of religion, as well as freedom from religion. It is not a religion, metaphysical worldview, or lifestyle in itself. It is rather a framework that allows different religions, to coexist, without oppressing each other

In reality, liberalism is a political philosophy, not a life style. So it would defend a Western-looking lifestyle in the East, as well as an Eastern-looking lifestyle in the West.

we can well say that rather than advancing liberalism in the Muslim world, Western powers in fact often hindered its advance—sometimes unintentionally by exporting their own illiberal ideas, sometimes even intentionally by blocking liberal steps.

New Ottomans saw Islam as “a set of abstract principles,” instead of “a set of concrete practices”. even before them, some Ottoman reformers had begun seeing the Sharia not merely as fiqh (jurisprudence), but as an ethical reference against “bribery, nepotism, laziness, apathy, lust for power, oppression.” That ethical understanding of the Sharia plus openness to the outside world gave birth to Islamic liberalism.

Namik Kemal (1840-188) introduced into Islam the same transition that John Locke had introduced to Christendom: there are God-given “rights,” not to rulers to rule without question, but to each and every individual to live in freedom. “Being created free by God, man is naturally obliged to benefit from this divine gift".

While it is true that our forefathers heard liberal concepts initially from colonial Europe, some of them—the first Muslim liberals—used the same concepts to stand up against the same colonial Europe (just like America’s Founders, who inherited liberalism from the British).
The same Muslim liberals wanted to advance liberty within their own societies, only because they saw it as the secret behind Western success.

This is mainly because liberalism and colonialism largely coincided in Western history in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although not all liberal thinkers supported colonialism, some did, whereas others criticized it (e.g. Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, and Johann Gottfried Herder)

In the late 20th century, another dead end emerged in the Muslim world: “Islamic economics”—an ideological construct that assumed Islam had an “economic system” of its own, with its self-styled rules and institutions. The centerpiece of this new ideology was an ancient notion: riba (increase), a term for a financial practice that the Qur’an condemns quite severely, without clearly defining it.

Islamic capitalism had its zenith between the 7th and 13th centuries, later to be gradually eclipsed by Western capitalism.

There is little doubt that the economic system of medieval Islam was capitalism—a “pre-industrial, commercial capitalism ... The West should not have a monopoly over this term.” It was a system, in his words, that “favors merchants, respects property rights and free trade, applies the principles of market economy and market wage rate, and treats interference in the markets as transgression.”
-Murat Çizakça

When prices were high in Madinah in the time of Allah’s Messenger, the people said, “O Allah’s Messenger, prices have become high, so fix them for us.” Allah’s Messenger replied: “Allah is the One Who fixes prices, Who withholds, gives lavishly and provides. And I hope that when I meet Allah, the Most High, none of you will have any claim on me for an injustice regarding blood or property.”

the Prophet kept the Medina market free from not only tax but also price control.

Studying this interesting Qur’anic language more than a century ago, American scholar Charles C. Torrey mapped some 370 verses with “commercial-theological terms.”

Before the beginning of his Prophetic mission at the late age of 40, the young Muhammad spent much of his life in commerce, which was the most prominent occupation in his city, Mecca. As we know from his Muslim biographers, first under his uncle Abu Talib, then with his first wife Khadija, Muhammad rode in trade caravans to other cities, some as far away as Syria.

Political liberalism is often incomplete, and fragile, how ever, without economic liberalism—an economic order based on private property, free markets, and limited government.

A less famous but no less significant institution from the same early Abbasid Caliphate was the Majlis al-Munazara (Salon of Debate). It took place in the caliph’s court, where intellectual rivals such as Christian theologians were hosted in order to have free debates where every side could speak without fear.

This Graeco-Arabic translation movement movement had its zenith during the early Abbasid Caliphate—750 to 847—whose marvelous capital, Baghdad, hosted the famous Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), an institute where Muslims, Christians, and Jews worked together on ancient texts. One of its fellows was al-Kindi, who would go down in history as the Father of Arab Philosophy.

Thanks to this easy “solution"[shutting atheists up!], so I realized, most Muslim believers never felt the need to defend their faith with reason. Consequently, they didn’t produce much that is intellectually significant. In contrast,Western believers, who were living in free societies,had to counter atheist arguments with reason.Thanks to this intellectual hallenge,they had become intellectually more sophisticated.

Just like the Qur’anic verses about the Prophet’s wives that ceased to be applicable in a generation, Verse 4:59 isn’t applicable today. It was a temporary commandment to the first Muslims in Medina who were directly guided by the Prophet who delegated his authority to specific people for specific military missions. But it was not a transmissible authority that could be passed on to whomever claims it.

One of champions of Tanzimat era under Ottoman Empire was Namık Kemal, who had boldly argued that the Ottoman sultan, who also happened to be a caliph, was not the “owner of kingship” (malik al-mulk), but only “charged with kingship” (sahib al-mulk). So the sultan had to “govern on the basis of the will of the people and the principles of freedom.”

In infancy he [Muslim man] is under the discipline of his parents; when grown up, and in the prime of life, under the restraint of the teacher and professor; and when a mature man, under the restraint of the ruler, unable to dispense with his reform. When will this person free himself from the restraint of men?
- Ibn Aqil, the 11th-century Baghdadi scholar

Because the Qur’an commands obedience to “those in authority among you”[4:59] but does not specify who those people are, virtually every Islamic regime or group defines those authorities as their own leader. All of them, one can say, fill in the blank in unmistakably self-serving ways.

After Muhammad, Muslims tolerated most non-Muslims, but only under a hegemonic hierarchy based on Muslim supremacy—as detailed in the so-called Pact of Umar, which seems to be a later invention reflecting the Byzantine and Sassanian laws of the time.That is why the Treaty of Medina faded from Islamic memory. Throughout Muslim history,it was not “given the prominence appropriate to an authentic document of this sort.”

In early Medina, the very first state of Muslims, Muhammad was not an absolute ruler, but a cofounder. The state itself was not Islamic, but civil & the founding principle was not conquest and domination, but a
voluntary contract. This 7th-cen contract wasn’t identical to the modern political contract theory. It was constituted between tribes and clans, not individuals.But that was the nature of society at that time.

"All that the Constitution[treaty with the tribes of Medina] explicitly states is that disputes are to be referred to Muhammad. In addition the phrase “Muhammad the prophet” occurs in the preamble. . . . He is very far, however, from being autocratic ruler of Medina. He is merely one among a number of important men."
-Montgomery Watt (d. 2006)