I thank you for your insightful commentary. And I CERTAINLY have no problem with ethical oversight on research. Science does a very good job of saying what is possible, but not whether we should do it.

As for Reform Judaism (and I will attempt to explain this, taking a more favorable view of Reform and an admittedly biased view, although I am not a scholar of Judaic History), I do not expect you to approve of everything in it, but I think there may be more to it that you may find admirable than you may suspect.

It is important to understand that in the medieval ages, Judaism was split. Many rabbis were not only the religious but also the civil authority for their little villages. In this spirit, they would often issue opinions from the Torah. As a consequence of the poverty in which they dwelled, and the lack of other sources to verify opinions (no Sanhedrin, for example), a rabbi might make a decision based solely on his whimsy, and attribute it to the Torah. Additionally, many ideas that had no basis in the Torah, and only in tradition had cropped up, and varied widely from place to place. Many of these were peasant traditions (similar to the Easter that Christians celebrate, in that local traditions were incorporated into holidays — and some of these traditions were in wide variance to the actual religious texts). If you look at the Talmud, you will easily recognize a strong component of numerology — that the numbers inherent in hebrew words mean something important (which, as I will run ahead and say, to a Modernistic mind would seem silly). Additionally, there was the added effect of corruption — many rabbis were poor, and rich people in their communities would be able to buy positions of influence which were religiously based. In addition, there was the idea that you were a better Jew the more you studied torah. What this meant in practice was that women would be in charge of businesses, and the men would study. The richer the man, the more he could afford to spend his days studying torah. This sense of reference and prestige accorded to those who could study was, I feel, very important for what comes next.

I turn to 1800′s Germany, where the Reform movement started. It began partially as a result of more rigorous scholarship of the Torah — finding what were merely traditions, versus what was better derived from biblical verses. It also brought with it the concept that everyone should be able to do what was once the province of the rabbi and the rich — study the Torah. It soundly rejected the doctrine of the Decline of the Ages (that every generation is worse than earlier ones, and thus less qualified to criticise earlier opinions). Combine both of these, and you get the idea that everyone can have their own ideas on religion. (It’s important to note that Maimonides himself said that it was okay for someone who is Jewish to doubt God privately, so long as he continued the practice of Judaism, so this is less at variance than it might seem) — to go off on a tangent, would it be considered ideal for all Muslims to be scholars of their faith, capable of giving opinions on matters? But the Reform movement also came from Jews who were interacting as peers with gentiles, and were anxious to be seen as equals, and not backwater peasants. With the advent of more trade, the German Jews came in contact with the Polish Jews, who were still in a medieval setting. The German Jews wanted to distinguish themselves from their backwater brethren, and took the position that many traditions were not biblically based, and thus should be rejected.

In the 1800′s, Modernism was at it’s peak — the idea that morality was much more important than divine inspiration, and that science could even go so far as to modify religion. Classical Reform Judaism embodies that outlook as much as Thomas Jefferson (who famously ripped out of his Bible any passage attributing divinity to Jesus, and read his minimized copy) — there was an emphasis on finding the moral center to Judaism, and removing many of the rules and hedges to prevent people from transgressing the rules. Also, there was newfound understanding that the Jewish text, according to rational analysis, were not given to Moses at Mount Sinai, but were latter compilations, which also led to some of the newer understanding. Reform Judaism took the concept of a bar mitzvah — a ceremony when a male reaches the age to be able to read the Torah, the age of majority where he is expected to follow all the commandments — age 12, and looked at it from a very different perspective — in the 1800′s, a twelve year old was no longer considered at the age of majority. They changed the ceremony to a Confirmation ceremony, with basically the same function, that would occur at age 16.

Obviously Reform Judaism has changed a lot from back then. To a large degree, it has more reconciled itself with the traditionalists. Most Reform synagogues have both a bar mitzvah ceremony and a Confirmation. Reform Jews certainly still believe in the concept of personal autonomy, within the confines of a community (that is to say, you’re still part of a synagogue, you are still part of the Jewish community in general). Reform Traditionalists would say that the default position when it comes to halakha (religious laws) should be acceptance, rather than rejection, whereas Classical Reform Judaism would have more often preferred rejection. As both of these coexist within the Reform movement, along with more moderate views (that hold you should consider and reunderstand halakha within the context of law and ethical understanding).

Wikipedia has the current Pittsburgh Platform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism_(North_America)) I’m not going to quote it here in it’s entirety.

An interesting note is that neither 19th Century Orthodox Jews NOR Reform Jews believed in Zionism, each for different reasons. The Reform position on the subject was modified only after Israel’s creation (before then, it was often believed that Reform Jews should not consider themselves as not part of the nation that they were in, and that praying to return to Israel was fairly unpatriotic.)

I think that you may find the idea of removing corruption and corrupt teachings to be something appealing (and to be learned from) and I hope that this commentary on “Why Reform?” may help explain why Reform Judaism is not Assimilationist Judaism (acting as others do, simply to be accepted).

As to why let them have Orthodox? Well, the word means to adhere to the traditional and generally accepted, which is what the Orthodox Movement does (there are divisions there too, but that’s well beyond my time here — if you’re interested I can look it up later). Reform literally means make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices. Which is a good description of what Reform Judaism proposed to do.

I think I might conceptualize Reform Judaism as a conversation between a person, G-d, and the community, drawing inspiration from our holy books, and striving to find the most meaningful way to follow G-d’s teachings. That’s just the way I put it, mind. ;-)

The only problem that usually arises in research ethics is when research is “outsourced” to third-world countries.

Thanks for your comments. Regarding science: as you may know, historically science has not been as big of a problem for pious Muslims as it has been for some pious Christians. In large measure, it would seem that many seeming contradictions between science and religious texts like the Qur’an result from people improperly basing interpretations of the Qur’an on current scientific theories, then when those theories change it becomes problematic — but the problem is not in the Qur’an but the problem was the people in the first place who twisted the Qur’an to fit their own science, or reason — this is what we should avoid. Unfortunately sometimes people who are really big on science (they worship it as the true meaning behind the universe) sometimes will use their own scientific understanding to alter basic moral principles proclaimed in a religious text as the Qur’an. This is a misuse of science.

I’ll stop there as I’ve already probably said too much but you are right to emphasize that the reason vs. revelation controversy is underlying much of what we are discussing here. Shaykh Yasir Qadhi is working on bringing more of the thinking of such outstanding Muslim theologians as Shaykh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah regarding these questions into the english language. Just as among medieval Jewish philosophers like Maimonides you will see a lot of religiously problematic thought on these issues by Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Rushd (Averroes) despite the fact that Ibn Rushd was a great scholar of Islamic sciences as well as a philosopher (as is true of Musa ibn Maymun — Maimonides). It is basically correct to say that true correct reason will not contradict authentic revelation but determining what is true correct reason and what is authentic revelation is where the action is in that game.

In terms of your perception of bias I welcome more information and thoughts from you, but I will say that it is unlikely that you will find much love for Reform Judaism, even if understood from the perspective of its proponents, here. The goal of most of us is to prevent Islam from going down the path that Reform Judaism chose to (and surely Islam will be preserved by Allaah and is not in need of our help, but actually what I mean is we are trying to prevent ourselves and other Muslims we care about from going down that path)….although it is clear that many many non-Muslims and a surprisingly small number of Muslims (at this point) would like to go down that path.

But one thing I do look for more insight on is understanding that Reform Jewish Scholars perceive themselves to be following an authentic if not the authentic Judaism, how did it come about they ceded the term Orthodox to the Orthodox.

I’m actually going to be participating in a Jewish-Muslim “text study” tonight where we’ll be discussing the concept of revelation as understood by Judaism and Islam…there will be a fairly prominent Modern Orthodox Rabbi there (who has also studied Islam at Oxford), so maybe I’ll get more insight from him on these questions, inshAllaah.

Peace.

I read with some amount of worry people talking about having absolute faith in anything written before the modern era, as written and unmodified by our current knowledge. In Judaism, we have both the Written Law (the Torah, as given by Moses) and the Oral Law (the interpretations and traditions that people have derived from the original source). [interestingly enough, I know that both Christian and Jewish pre-modern sages said that the bible should not be taken literally if it contradicts (to use Aquinas' term) the Book of Nature. That is to say, the sun does not revolve around the earth simply because one passage of the bible says that G-d stopped the sun. I do not know as much about Islam as I would like -- that's why I'm here! Does anyone have any comments on this, from a more Muslim perspective?] It would appear that Islam is also a religion with a considerable amount of flexibility inherent in it.

osman is absolutely incorrect. Although some Orthodox would consider Reform Jews to be doing Judaism incorrectly, it would be nearly impossible to find a Conservative who would say that Reform Judaism isn’t Judaism. I attended a very conservative shul, and that was certainly not the case there. In Judaism, people who are not Reform have a tendency to look down their noses and grade people based on how close to Orthodoxy their synagogue is! As you’ve said, divisions are not helpful, and grading people based on exactly how well they follow things is not likely to encourage them to go your way.

I should follow up with some notes on the divisions of Judaism, as it would seem like you’re getting a bit of bias (not that I’m free of that! but it’s important to see all sides…).

In conjunction with reading his work, I highly recommend people also read the article by Amer Haleem, “Children of a Mixed Message: How the Generational Dynamics have Weakened the Muslim Community in America and made it Harder to Raise our Families” This was a cover story in AlJumu’ah Magazine a few months back, and is now available on the web in a slightly different but substantively the same form. Amer Haleem (hafithuAllaah) does an excellent job of taking a big picture look at the evolution of the Muslims in America over the decades and pointedly problematizes the fetishization of American Muslim culture that characterizes some of Dr. Umar’s supporters.

Shaykh Abu Aaliyah, several years ago I told a Reform Rabbi who was very intelligent and well read as well as articulate that I really wanted to learn as much as possible about the history of Jewish thought in the “West” because they had been going through a lot of the same issues for hundreds of years that Muslims are addressing now. (Of course as your series shows, Muslims in Muslim lands had addressed similar issues during the same period, but living in a Muslim land during the era of colonialism frames the questions in a completely different way than living as a minority in the “secular” “democratic” “west.”)

This is of course not to say that we are going to just follow their example, nor is it possible to do that since they differed amongst themselves on what direction to take and took different approaches. This is exactly where the benefit lies, since we can learn from their experiences. Indeed we should study history in general and especially intellectual history if we want to meaningfully engage with our societies and be able to chart a course for our future, as you mention in your series. I personally was guided to Islam through studying Blackamerican history, and feel I have become much more confident in who I am as a person and stronger in my Islam through my study of Irish history, especially Irish republicanism. Being aware of influences on ourselves and the environment around us will always be helpful in charting an intelligent course for the future. How much more so, when we are studying the history of people who faced similar challenges to those lying immediately before us.

Most of us as Muslims (and I include myself although I have made efforts to educate myself) are shockingly ignorant of the actual intellectual and religious histories and traditions of the societies in which we live. (Of course most of the people around us are not necessarily more aware of it but that is not the point). One thing we are not at all ignorant of is the popular culture of the society around us, and we are constantly creating our own hybrid American Muslim or British Muslim or whatever else subcultures. This is why I find the call to create culture as the imperative somewhat confusing. Then again, I understand that everyone has to deal with culture while not necessarily everyone has to deal with the intellectual complexities of the elites of the societies in which we live. But certainly there has to be enough of us who are aware of that intellectual history and that do not became enamored of it or an adopter of it, but become informed and confident critics of that history. In that sense, although I do not know enough about him to say I agree with his program or even to understand what his program is, I certainly admire someone like Tariq Ramadan and we need more figures like him in some sense.

In conjunction with reading his work, I highly recommend people also read the article by Amer Haleem, “Children of a Mixed Message: How the Generational Dynamics have Weakened the Muslim Community in America and made it Harder to Raise our Families” This was a cover story in AlJumu’ah Magazine a few months back, and is now available on the web in a slightly different but substantively the same form. Amer Haleem (hafithuAllaah) does an excellent job of taking a big picture look at the evolution of the Muslims in America over the decades and pointedly problematizes the fetishization of American Muslim culture that characterizes some of Dr. Umar’s supporters.

Shaykh Abu Aaliyah, several years ago I told a Reform Rabbi who was very intelligent and well read as well as articulate that I really wanted to learn as much as possible about the history of Jewish thought in the “West” because they had been going through a lot of the same issues for hundreds of years that Muslims are addressing now. (Of course as your series shows, Muslims in Muslim lands had addressed similar issues during the same period, but living in a Muslim land during the era of colonialism frames the questions in a completely different way than living as a minority in the “secular” “democratic” “west.”)

This is of course not to say that we are going to just follow their example, nor is it possible to do that since they differed amongst themselves on what direction to take and took different approaches. This is exactly where the benefit lies, since we can learn from their experiences. Indeed we should study history in general and especially intellectual history if we want to meaningfully engage with our societies and be able to chart a course for our future, as you mention in your series.

Most of us as Muslims (and I include myself although I have made efforts to educate myself) are shockingly ignorant of the actual intellectual and religious histories and traditions of the societies in which we live. (Of course most of the people around us are not necessarily more aware of it but that is not the point). One thing we are not at all ignorant of is the popular culture of the society around us, and we are constantly creating our own hybrid American Muslim or British Muslim or whatever else subcultures. This is why I find the call to create culture as the imperative somewhat confusing. Then again, I understand that everyone has to deal with culture while not necessarily everyone has to deal with the intellectual complexities of the elites of the societies in which we live. But certainly there has to be enough of us who are aware of that intellectual history and that do not became enamored of it or an adopter of it, but become informed and confident critics of that history. In that sense, although I do not know enough about him to say I agree with his program or even to understand what his program is, I certainly admire someone like Tariq Ramadan and we need more figures like him in some sense.

Jazakumullahu khayran to you all for your comments and observations.

Sh Yasir: You’re absolutely correct, the tripartite division indeed has many shades in between. It was, as I mentioned, a gross over simplification to help sketch the contours of the issue. How useful the division actually is, I’m not sure myself. More work/thought/discussion does indeed need to happen here. It would seem to me that the differences present even in the ‘nuanced’ category need to be accommodated, provided the commitment to the Book, Sunnah, ijma’ and qiyas is honoured. It’s something I intended to explore in the third and concluding part of the blog. Jzk.k for your point about the progressives and modernists. The second part of the blog may remedy some of the blur. Lastly, it would be interesting to get something from you in writing on the subject, since I consider you more capable on the topic. ‘Trained specialists’: definitely the need of the hour.

The Housotnian: I do share your concern; these terms can be so politicised. Normally I try to avoid using such labels. I certainly shun using them on specific individuals (unless they profess a label for themselves). My usage of them here was, as I said above, to help flesh out the saga. Allah knows best its usefulness.

Abu Noor: Mashallah! I need to reread your comment and follow up the link. I’ve said for many years now that there is so much we can learn from the Jewish communities here in the West, and how they have attempted to square the circle. This, despite clear theological and historical differences between the two faiths: Islam and Judaism.

h.ahmed: Dr Umar’s articles are extremely beneficial. I certainly do encourage that they be read. Please do provide the relevant links to his works.

Amad: If MM got more of me and less of you all – you’d have to swap :) for this :( …. ;-) As for the second part of taqlid; it needs to progress!

Darthvaider: I touch upon the role and responsibilities of the Muslim masses in the second part of the blog. May the blog be with you!

Sis: Subhanallah! “One thought I have is that we can’t really keep the tree from growing but what we CAN do is to keep watering it and keeping it closely aligned with its roots.” What more needs saying. Jzk.k.

a fantastic warning:

It is sad to see, then, many enthusiastic lay folk now being taught that their faith obliges them to ‘evaluate’ and ‘weigh-up’ the evidences, and to then follow the ‘strongest’ view as per the proofs. Their unqualified dabbling in the fine art of ijtihad – for that is what they are attempting – has not only led to chaos, bitter conflict and social mayhem, it has also served to weaken the juristic tradition which has so lent itself to Islam’s durability. This is not suggesting such people have ‘sided with the enemy’; they have, nonetheless, become unwitting pawns in the attempted dismantling of Islam’s legal tradition. Having strayed this far, others will drift further still.

and i agree with Omar’s regard for the Eaton quote. i confess that i have never read any of Eaton’s work, but i intend to now, inshaAllah — so jazak Allah khayr for the endnotes!

An increase in life expectancy is, obviously, a good thing, but it is worthless if these additional years do not lead to an increasing awareness of the divine Reality which we are soon to meet.