Фазулур Рахман: Жизнь и взгляды исламского модерниста.

Modernist scholar of Islam

Fazlur Rahman Malik (; September 21, 1919 – July 26, 1988), commonly known as Fazlur Rahman, was a modernist scholar and Islamic philosopher from today's Pakistan. Fazlur Rahman is renowned as a prominent liberal reformer of Islam, who devoted himself to educational reform and the revival of independent reasoning (ijtihad). He was protested by more than a thousand clerics, faqihs, muftis, and teachers in his own country and banished. This was quickly exploited by opponents of his political patron, General Ayub Khan, and led to his eventual exile in the United States. He left Pakistan in 1968 for the United States where he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Chicago.

Fazlur Rahman was born in the Hazara District of the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) of British India (now Pakistan). His father, Maulana Shihab al Din, was a well known scholar of the time who had studied at Deoband and had achieved the rank of alim, through his studies of Islamic law, prophetic narrations, Quran'ic commentaries, logic, philosophy and other subjects. Although Fazlur Rahman may not have himself attended a Darul uloom (traditional seat of Islamic knowledge), his father acquainted him with the traditional Islamic sciences, and he eventually memorized the entire Qur'an at the age of ten. Fazlur Rahman studied Arabic at Punjab University, and went on to Oxford University, where he wrote a dissertation on Ibn Sina. Afterwards, he began a teaching career, first at Durham University, where he taught Persian and Islamic philosophy, and then at McGill University, where he taught Islamic studies until 1961. In that year, he returned to Pakistan at the behest of President Ayub Khan to head up the Central Institute of Islamic Research in Karachi which was set up by the Pakistani government in order to implement Islam into the daily dealings of the nation. However, due to the political situation in Pakistan, Fazlur Rahman was hindered from making any progress in this endeavour. Orthodox ulema opposed his modernist interpretations and after Ayub Khan's power weakened, they denounced Fazlur Rahman as an apostate and called for his death as a wajib ul qatl. He resigned from the post in September 1968 and left for the United States. In the US he returned to teaching, and taught at UCLA as a visiting professor for a year. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1969 and established himself there becoming the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Thought. At Chicago he was instrumental for building a strong Near Eastern Studies program that continues to be among the best in the world. Fazlur Rahman also became a proponent for a reform of the Islamic polity and was an advisor to the State Department. Fazlur Rahman died in Chicago, Illinois July 26, 1988 at the University of Chicago Medical Center from complications of coronary bypass surgery. A resident of suburban Naperville, Illinois, at his death, he is buried in Arlington Cemetery, Elmhurst, Illinois. Since Fazlur Rahman's death his writings have continued to be popular among scholars of Islam and the Near East in many countries (including Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and in the Arab region).

He argued that the basis of Islamic revival was the return to the intellectual dynamism that was the hallmark of the Islamic scholarly tradition (these ideas are outlined in Revival and Reform in Islam: A Study of Islamic Fundamentalism and his magnum opus, Islam). He sought to give philosophy free rein, and was keen on Muslims appreciating how the modern nation state understood law, as opposed to ethics; his view being that the shari'ah was a mixture of both ethics and law. He was critical of historical Muslim theologies and philosophies for failing to create a moral and ethical worldview based on the values derived from the Qur'an: 'moral values', unlike socioeconomic values, 'are not exhausted at any point in history' but require constant interpretation. He also believed that the modern conservatism of Islamic world is a defensive and temporary posture against the perceived political and economic setbacks of the Muslim world. Adding to this was stagnation in Islamic education begun in the early Middle Ages, which led to the inadequate understanding of Qur'anic teachings.

Fazlur Rahman criticizes Islamic tradition for failing to develop a systematic Quran based ethical theory, rather than merely a judicial code. He considers the theocracy and monarchy (imamate and caliphate) to be understandable attempts at creating a just society in historical times, and stresses the Quranic concept of shura (mutual consultation) for modern governance. He believes in extending the principle of shura to all of society, not only the elite, and in collaboration between religious and secular experts.</blockquote>Fazlur Rahman himself wrote that "the initial interest itself was not usurious and was, therefore, not considered riba. What made it riba was the increase that raised the principal several fold by continued redoubling." This contradicted the contention of famous Islamist author Maulana Maududi that there was no initial interest—that money lenders made initial loans "granted free of interest"—which was doubtful on the grounds that professional moneylenders would ever make loans for free. Fazlur Rahman concluded that the Quran banned "extreme usury and so by extension injustice but not interest." The contextual approach when examining the Qur’an means to understand that the Qur’an was created in a specific time; therefore, it is context specific to the time it was created. Amina Wadud and Sa'diyyah Shaikh claim to be inspired by Fazlur Rahman's ideas such as his contextual approach to the Qur'an.

Fazlur Rahman did not call himself a feminist when he was alive, and people don’t usually outright label him as a feminist. However, some feminists, such as Amina Wadud and Sa’diyyah Shaikh, have claimed to have inspired or influenced by Fazlur Rahman’s ideas. By combining Fazlur Rahman and Ricoeur’s ideas, Jeenah argues that an Islamic Feminist Hermeneutic approach should be used to interpret the Qur’an. Fazlur Rahman’s ideas are represented in the word feminist in the Islamic Feminist Hermeneutic approach since Fazlur Rahman’s ideas of equal rights can be seen as feminist. Raja Bahlul emphasizes Fazlur Rahman's contextual approach to interpreting legal proceedings from the Qur’an. Bahlul argues that a legal procedure in the Qur’an may become irrelevant, due to drastic social changes compared to the time of the creation of the Qur’an. Rahman argues that two female witnesses are equivalent to one male witness, because they are not used to being witnesses and may need each other to remember details. Thus, Bahlul uses Fazlur Rahman to show that its possible to have feminist ideas within Islamic ideas without choosing one over the other. Tamara Sonn looks at Fazlur Rahman’s ideas on Islamic reform and how he influenced Azizah al Hibri, to show Fazlur Rahman's contribution to Islamic feminism. Fazlur Rahman argues that the reader must keep in mind the context the Qur’an was made in to be able to interpret specific rules to general rules that can be applied to modern situations. Al Hibri agrees with Fazlur Rahman that specific rules are not up for interpretation, such as worship practices, and general rules must be interpreted. Fazlur Rahman saw polygyny in the Qur’an as something that occurred under specific circumstances, such as the Prophets, polygyny was becoming less common and monogamy becoming the norm.