Half of the Muslims want me to shut up and take every single hadith (without considering its historical context) that they shove down my throat. And if a hadith can\u2019t be found, then they find a quote of one of those ancient scholars. Or a link to a modern scholar\u2019s website or youtube video who is regurgitating what an ancient scholar said. The other half of the Muslims hate scholars. They want women to lead prayer in the front row and they want all-gay mosques. They want to forego every defining feature of Islam and nominate Irshad Manji as Grand Mufti of America. e youth, the converts, the ummah\u2026 it has no idea what it wants or where it\u2019s going. It has no leadership. No answers. Just mass confusion, shouting matches, and endless social media debates. Personal opinions (which include our own unique list of \u201ccorrect\u201d scholars) take the place of God. We relish and cherish these opinions. We force our new \u201cgod\u201d down everyone\u2019s throat. Our newer coreligionists ask questions and get ten thousand different answers. We don\u2019t care. We still fire off the opinions of our respected (ahem\u2026 our OVERLY respected) scholars. We become fanatical for this sect or that, because *these* scholars are rightly guided. -Or we become fanatical in a more violent form. Or we throw it all out and just worship western liberalism. Because we are lost. Hurting. Intellectually exhausted and perplexed. And all because we took those ahadith about respecting scholars a little too literally\u2026 and a little too far\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think “scholars” are a relic of the pre-information age ummah (and i use the term ummah in a taxonomic sense only). The system was never intended to function in this distributed way. The better analogy woudl be martial arts (of which i know nothing, mind you) – you dont go off and start learning by creating your own technique or by saladbar approach from other styles. You pick a style, you pick a specific dojo, and you learn and train from a master (ie, your imam) and you immerse yourself in a tradition. In this analogy, fiqh is analogous to specific forms and motions. When issues of fiqh arise, its the dojo that forms consensus and then members of the dojo submit themselves to that consensus – or in case of dispute, the ruling of the Master (imam). The religion is called Islam – submit! but there is still room for choice – the dojo is not a prison, and you have every right to leave. Likewise the dojo has every right to bar you. This isnt a sectarian vision, mind you. <\/p>\n
Who starts a dojo? The answer will depend on sectarian preferences. But when faced with a hadith-thrower in an argument the response needs to be a challenge on their dojo rather than meeting them hadith for hadith. We need to delegitimize personal opinions on fiqh while providing outlet for personal choice on fiqh. A dojo neednt be a full institution like Zaytuna or a whole school of jurisprudence but can be as local as your local elementary school. We need to foster the infrastructure for creating these localized communities of faith. <\/p>\n
The mosque is not a synonym for dojo, either. A mosque might represent the common ground of multiple dojos. A dojo might be large enough to encompass multiple mosques. If dojos are the soul, the the mosque is the body; one is warp and the other is weft. <\/p>\n
Who leads a dojo? ask teh same question of a dojo, or a boy scout troop, or a nonprofit org. A dojo should exist to express a difference. That difference needs to attract like minds and have scholarly support, to be viable. Scholars have a role here to advise and ensure that the dojo doesn’t stray in matters of basic deen. There will be constraints on a dojo’s freedom of fiqh, based on its position within the sectarian divide, the classical school of jurisprudence, the cultural and ethnic makeup of its members (founder, especially), and its members’ histories. A dojo founded by an African American Muslim professional in Hyde Park will have very different fiqh priorities than one founded by a South Indian entrepreneur in Phoenix, just as a church in Compton will have a different social and spiritual agenda than one in Calabasas.<\/p>\n
The information age allows anyone to access everything. We are all scholars now. That is dangerous and requires us to find our way back to the essence of faith: submit. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m going to throw out some quick half-formed ideas in response to this article by Sufi Synik (via the indomitable Samar Kaukab): Half of the Muslims want me to shut up and take every single hadith (without considering its historical context) that they shove down my throat. And if a hadith can\u2019t be found, then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[24,33,182],"class_list":["post-2743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islamerica","tag-islam","tag-muslim-americans","tag-ummah"],"yoast_head":"\n
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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2745,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743\/revisions\/2745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n