Q-NEWS

MAR 2003 –MUHARRAM 1425 – No.354

Who Are “Moderate” Muslims?

By

Kamran A. Bokhari 

In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been an upsurge in the global discourse involving moderate Muslims and moderate Islam. This issue is further problematized by the fact that not only the West led by the United States is trying to seek out the moderates in the Islamic world, but also there are a diverse set of quarters in Muslim states as well, who claim to be the upholders of moderate Islam, and hence claim to be moderate Muslims. What is interesting in all of this is not the western demand for moderation but the Muslim supply of moderation.

This article seeks to examine the global discourse on this subject in an effort to understanding just what is it that we mean by the term ‘moderate’ when used in the context of Muslims and Islam. It will try to answer the question of what is it that makes one Muslim a moderate, and the lack of which, renders others as immoderate, extremist, fanatic, or radical. Hopefully, this can be achieved by trying to make sense of the sundry types of Muslim individuals and groups that are rushing to claim the space of moderate Islam.

Bi-Level Relativity

The word ‘moderate’ is relative in two respects. First, when one refers to an individual, group, or state as being moderate, it means that it is moderate in relation to other individuals, groups, or states from the common cultural background. The Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab Middle East is considered a moderate Islamist group compared to al-Qaeda. Iran’s Islamic republic is moderate when compared to Afghanistan under the Taliban Emirate. Second, the use of the term ‘moderate’ pre-supposes a benchmark, based on which an individual, group, or state is being gauged for its deviation from or conformity with. This begs the question of what is that criterion by which individuals, groups, and states can be classified as moderate. The search for an answer to this question, I believe, must commence with a consideration of the various grammatical usages of this expression.

A Dose of Lexicography

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word moderate can be used in three grammatical forms, i.e., as an adjective, a verb, and as a noun. When used as a noun, it refers to the one who bears moderate views or who is affiliated to a group pursuing a moderate approach or agenda. In terms of being a verb, to moderate means to lower the concentration or excessiveness of something. It could also mean to become less aggressive, harsh, or intense. Finally, as an adjective, moderate represents shunning extreme behavior or expression. In other words, it symbolizes the qualities of the one who observes equitable limits. To be a moderate in this sense could also be understood as tending toward the center as opposed to the periphery. Moderate has also been used to typify political or social beliefs that are not of a radical nature.

Navigating through the Bayou

Having established the lexical boundaries of the term moderate, let us now take a look at the genre of those in the Muslim world who claim to be moderates. It has actually become somewhat fashionable among Muslims these days to refer to oneself or one’s ilk as being a moderate. There are at least four different types of Muslims, who advance themselves as the adherents of moderate Islam. Among this medley of those who claim to be the champions of moderate Islam are moderate Islamists, traditional Muslims, liberal Muslims, and certain regimes in the Muslim world.

Moderate Islamists claim the mantle of moderate Islam in a bid to distinguish themselves from the radical and militant types. Traditional Muslims who are different from the moderate Islamists in that they do not advance a particular political ideology based on Islam are quick to point that historically they have always constituted the majority of Muslims. They emphasize that their status as the historical mainstream of Islam is because they have refrained from adopting any immoderate tendencies to advance their cause. Most practicing Muslims who are (a great many of who perhaps identify with the Sufist strand of Islam) fall in this category. Liberal Muslims represents the third group consists of those who might adhere to a certain minimalist degree of personal religious commitment, but for the most part, have embraced secularity in the public realm. This category owing to its privileged status as being equipped with western education seeks to claim exclusive leadership over moderate Islam, for the purposes of securing its rather elitist standing in the Muslim countries.

The above three categories are as far as non-state actors are concerned, but states are also quite active in this quest to appear moderate. It is interesting to note that a generation ago, some of these states strongly promoted Islam as a means to legitimizing their raison d’être. In fact, in this process such regimes allied themselves to certain radical tendencies, which back then, were confined to the fringes of society.  Patronage from states had a huge strengthening effect on these marginal entities. It is quite ironic that, today certain regimes, which were hitherto nurturing militant Islamists to consolidate their hold on power, are now threatened by their own protégés. Some of these regimes in the Muslim world, who in the wake of September 11, 2001 have issued a clarion call for moderation, constitute the fourth category of Muslims advancing themselves as the torchbearers of moderate Islam. These include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, etc.

In Search of Authenticity

Contemporary Islamic resurgence whose can be traced back to the late 19^th century is a movement in search for a modern but Islamically authentic response to the dominance of the western civilization. From this tendency emerged the ideology of Islamism, which eventually became hyper-factionalized. The quest for authenticity became an intra-Islamist affair as much as it was an intra-Muslim debate. Today as it stands, Islamists to varying degrees view moderation as a function of secularism. As far as Islamists are concerned, there seems to be a direct correlation between calls for moderation and secularism. Islamists fear that any attempts towards the development of a moderate discourse on Islam will lead to the secularization and hence dilution of Islam.

Most fascinating is the intra-Islamist debate where different types of Islamists in an effort to claim authenticity for their particular discourse refer to their rival trends as being secular. If one begins from the jihadists, they claim that all other types of Islamists (including their non-jihadic neo-salafist co-ideologues) exhibit secularist inclinations. Moving away from this extreme, we will find the Hizb al-Tahrir types arguing that they too condemn such Islamists who have fallen prey to secularism, but that they are not as such. From the point of view of Hizb al-Tahrir, al-Muhajiroun, Tanzeem-i-Islami, etc, the Muslim Brotherhood types are Islamists gone secular. However, the Muslim Brotherhood will also refute such allegations, and point to the non-Islamist Muslims as being the true secularists in the Muslim world. There is an interesting pattern as we move along the Islamist political spectrum from the extreme of the jihadists to the Muslim Brotherhood types, in that there is a decreasing tendency towards literal interpretation of the texts.

At the heart of all of this is the desire of Islamists for authenticity and legitimacy. Generally, speaking, Islamists do not like labels such as moderate, radical, and militant as identification markers because they see this as an attempt by the West to create dissension among the ranks of the ummah, to dilute Islam, and target Muslims for the purposes of political persecution. While some or even all of this may be true to some degree, the problem is one having to do with the confusion between normative principles and empirical realities among many Islamists. There is a need to appreciate the difference between Islamic principles and their operationalization in real life. In other words, there are Muslims who adopt moderate, radical, and militant means to promote Islam.

Epilogue

There is lot of external ideological pressure on the Muslim world to reform Islamic thought, ever since a group of militant Islamists ploughed passenger planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. This in turn has generated intense internal competition as regards the actual locus of moderate Muslims and the race to define moderate Islam. Variant types of Muslims are scrambling to appropriate this new space known as moderate Islam. Regardless of how one defines moderate Islam, there is a need to recognize the upper and lower limits of this space.

It is essential that the lower limit be strictly defined and the upper limit loosely. Put differently, there is an acute need to underscore that moderate Islam is about respecting the plurality of ijtihad, and rejecting violence as a means to capturing the political center-stage in the Muslim world. The shunning of the use of force to promote a particularistic political agenda should be the minimum requirement to qualify as a moderate Muslim. Here, this does not mean abandoning the right to self-defense and just war, but this right must be exercised at least in accordance to one fundamental principle. Muslim groups MUST NOT target non-combatants and their civilian property, for this is the very essence of terrorism.

What is intriguing in this regard is that those who would otherwise argue for a literalist interpretation of the texts engage in twisted logic when they wish to justify their use of violence. Normally one would see such groups tirelessly elevating revelation over reason, but succumb to the temptation of reason (albeit circular) to legitimize their modus operandi. As for the threshold of moderate Islam, it should be left sufficiently wide and open so as to allow for healthy exchange of ideas and free intellectual competition. This, I humbly submit, should be the criteria to identify moderate Muslims, lest this phrase ends up being yet another exclusivist label. 

 [Kamran A. Bokhari is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Howard University, Washington D.C. He is also the General Secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), and a Fellow with the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID)]