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“We should, in particular the Muslim liberal should speak the whole truth about the condition of Muslim society—for instance about the plight of women within it. And not flinch from tracing it back to its roots—the text, the laws, the ways of thinking. We should document the social practice of the Ulema and of the fundamentalist politicians.…We should document what the Ulema etc. have been saying and decreeing on religious issues themselves.…We must, in particular the Muslim liberal must, take the consistently secular position on every matter—that is the only way to confront the fundamentalists, it is the surest way to bring home the alternative viewpoint to the community.…Fatwas and the rest which impinge upon the civil rights of a person are manifestly a criminal infringement of law; we should show them up as such; and join others in demanding that anyone who seeks to trample upon the rights of others by using…fatwas should be brought to book under the law. Similarly, we must expose, and work to thwart concessions by our opportunist politicians which are meant to appease, and will in the end strengthen the grip of these reactionary elements.…But it is not going to be enough to counter the Ulema, and their networks, or to show up their syllabi. As we have seen, what they proclaim, and regurgitate, and enforce is what the Koran and Hadith prescribe. Therefore, to really break the vice, liberals, and liberal Muslims in particular must examine and exhume the millenarian claims of Islam: the claims that there is only one truth, that it has been finally revealed to only one man, that it is enshrined in only one Book, that that Book is very difficult to comprehend, that the select few alone know its inner meaning, that therefore it is everyone's duty to heed them just as it is the duty of the select to make sure that everyone heeds them. In a word, the basic texts themselves have to be opened to examination.” . Sharia versus freedom: The legacy of Islamic totalitarianism.) (en) |
