LIBERALISM

Islamic liberalism may be defined as a movement to reconcile Islamic faith with liberal values such as democracy, rights, equality, and progress. Islamic liberalism forms one strand of Islamic modernism, which also encompasses modern values that are not associated with the liberal tradition, such as state-building and scientific authority.

Islamic liberalism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as a response to the hypocrisy of European liberalism, which was introduced to the Islamic world by the highly illiberal means of imperial conquest. Since that time, conservatives have consistently accused Islamic liberalism of being overly enthralled with European traditions. Yet Islamic liberalism's self-understanding centers on Islamic traditions, including the sacred sources that require or allow liberal practices and the precedents in Islamic history for tolerance and peaceful coexistence. In the late twentieth century, a new form of Islamic liberalism added the argument that human interpretation of revelation is inherently fallible and pluralistic. In this view, the repression of Islamic liberalism is an illegitimate exercise in hubris, because no mortal can presume to know the meaning of divine revelation with any certainty. Islamic liberalism has generally been a minority position in the Islamic world. Its representatives have sometimes fared well when elections are free and fair, though more frequently liberalism has been stymied by hostile responses of traditionalists, revivalists, and secularists.

See alsoModern Thought .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Binder, Leonard. Islamic Liberalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Kurzman, Charles, ed. Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Charles Kurzman