The Nation ran an article last month entitled: “American Muslims Reimagined.” It highlights what it perceives (and what apparently some Muslims have purported) to be “progressive” Muslims who have broken out of the traditional barriers that are supposedly placed on them because of Islam.

This is not directly stated but is implied both by the title “progressive” (which means forward-moving, changing — essentially someone who embraces secularization) and by the suggestion that their passions (one featured Muslim is a punk rocker and another a comic book author) are somehow beyond the scope of traditional Islam.

What bothers me is not that these young people are seeking to define themselves but rather the title that they’ve chosen. It would seem that they were never properly educated about Islam. They have obviously failed to realize that Islam in itself is dynamic. For centuries classical Islamic civilization flourished in arts, science, technological development, culture, etc.

It was only after European colonization and the subsequent oppression of one ruthless dictator after another that much of the so-called “Muslim world” became stagnant. As one scholar mentioned, their shahadah was altered from being “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God” to “There is no Islam but Islam, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Islam.”

They morphed Islam from a path to awareness and submission to God with many shades of the spectrum into nothing more than a set of unchanging, unquestionable laws, many of which were not derived from shari’ah but rather from the culture of the society in which people lived.

These progressives are mostly the product of those “third world” countries where their ancient cultures have taken dominance not only over their social and economic lives but also over their understanding of Islam. It is skewed by their own ignorance and cultural norms.

The progressive movement is actually a movement to break away from their cultural shackles, not the shackles imposed upon them by Islam itself. As such, they should call themselves progressive Indians or progressive Arabs. The fact that they are Muslim has little to do with their cultural taboos or their rebellion against them.

As someone who converted to Islam, I never struggled with the questions or problems they’ve experience, except when one of their uncles tried to impose their understanding of Islam on me, which I either promptly rejected or studied and refuted. And that is ultimately what this progressive movement is fighting: older generations who are set in their cultural ways. But don’t make it about Islam, forming a new sect simply because you want to play punk music. It is foolish and ultimately arrogant. Islam has room for both the old culturalized uncle and the young punk rocker. Just call yourselves Muslims.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 9:03 am and is filed under al-Islam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.