Authority and representation in North America: the ijtihad criteria and the construction of new religious authority

Abstract

Debates over who has the right to interpret Islam and who represents the Muslim communities in North America are among the most pertinent and lively within and outside the Muslim population of the continent. What these debates often overlook is the intersection of traditional criteria of authority with modern and North American ones, where new types of religious authority compete with old. What is also absent is a nuanced discussion of myriad types of authorities and representations that skirts the often blunt use of these concepts and proceeds to problematize them when needed. This article studies the notions of representation and authority as expressed in the classical qualifications of ijtihad and the emergence of new types of religious authority inspired by North American sensibilities. It uses the work of Max Weber and Hanna Pitkin for conceptual and sociological analysis and applies it to the reflections of Amina Wadud and Sherman Jackson on the status of Muslim authority in America.

Keywords:

• ijtihad
• authority
• representation
• American Islam
• reform
• African American Muslims
• immigration

Notes

¹Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence (The Islamic Text Society, Cambridge, 2008) 468.

²Weber recognized power in voluntary settings (constellations of interests, discussed below) as well as power from established authority. But in discussing domination (or imperative control), he excluded the former from the discussion, and power became synonymous with authority; Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (University of California Press, Berkley and Los Angeles, CA 1977) 290.

³Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (trans AM Henderson and Talcott Parsons, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1947) 153.

⁴Bendix (n 2) 292.

⁵Ibid. 298.

⁶Ibid. 88–90.

⁷Weber (n 3) 264.

⁸If thought of as a continuum, charisma would be the most personal of authorities and rational–legal the least. Traditional authority, between the two, tempers the intensity of charisma with its focus on proper succession and the decorum of tradition.

⁹Bendix (n 2) 294–301; Weber (n 3) 328–62; Talcott Parsons, ‘Introduction’ in Max Weber, The Theory of Economic and Social Organization (trans AM Henderson and Talcott Parsons, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1947) 57–76.

¹⁰Max Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology (Citadel, New York, NY, 1962) 72.

¹¹Ibid. 81; Weber (n 3) 130.

¹²Weber (n 10) 75–6.

¹³Bendix (n 2) 286.

¹⁴Ibid. 288; Weber (n 10) 91–2.

¹⁵HP Secher, ‘Introduction’ in Max Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology (Citadel, New York, NY, 1962) 15.

¹⁶Bendix (n 2) 288; Weber (n 10) 91–2.

¹⁷Secher (n 15). Weber noted that the difference between the communal and associative relationships was “reminiscent” of the difference between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft; Weber (n 10) 91.

¹⁸Bendix (n 2) 289. Religious officials can also form constellations of interests.

¹⁹Ibid. 85–7; Weber (n 3) 348–9.

²⁰Hana Fenichel Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA 1967) 2.

²¹Ibid. 3.

²²It is perhaps important to note the difference between representation as a general concept and popular representation. The latter, where humans stand for other humans, is the relatively novel type of representation Pitkin refers to, linked to notions of popular sovereignty and individual rights. Representation in this sense is an act of delegation and agency. Representation as an older general concept is more along the lines of the embodiment of the abstract, sometimes mystical or metaphysical, or of being present again after an absence. In the case of kings and ambassadors, the embodiment is of the idea of the state and the people, not representation of individuals; ibid. 241–3.

²³Ibid. 38–59.

²⁴Ibid. 145.

²⁵Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i, Al-Risalah (eds Abdul-Latif al-Hamim and Mahir Yasin Fahl, Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, Beirut, 2009) 417–31.

²⁶Kamali (n 1) 502.

²⁷Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun, Al-Muqaddimah (ed Abd al-Salam al-Shaddadi, Bayt al-Funun wa al-‘Ulum wa al-Adab, Al-Dar al-Bayda’, Morocco, 2005) 3:18–19.

²⁸Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, Al-Mustasfa (ed Hamza ibn Zuhayr Hafiz Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarrah, 1992) 4:147.

²⁹Ibid. 4:148.

³⁰Ibid. 4:6–17.

³¹Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2002) 38–59.

³²The point here is not that charisma did not play a role in traditional scholarship, but that when it did it was tempered with the constraints of an inherited tradition. If charisma did not adhere to tradition “sufficiently,” it risked the label of heterodoxy. Charisma in the age of modernity and challenge of tradition has greater success in escaping traditional boundaries.

³³Note that not all calls for reform in the Muslim world and the re-practice of ijtihad originated because of the European encounter. Scholars such as Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762 CE) and al-Shawkani (d. 1834 CE) are examples of reform and ijtihad proponents who were reacting to more “indigenous” challenges.

³⁴Charles Kurzman, Modernist Islam 1840–1940: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2002) 9–14.

³⁵The ambiguity and analytical difficulties of the terms “immigrant” and “indigenous” Islam/Muslims notwithstanding, I reproduce them here simply to mirror the sentiments and ideas behind their use.

³⁶Amina Wadud, ‘American Muslim Identity: Race and Ethnicity in Progressive Islam’ in Omid Safi (ed) Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (Oneworld, Oxford, 2003) 271.

³⁷Ibid. 272.

³⁸Note that the children and grandchildren of converts have to contend with the same “cultural transference,” thus complicating the issue of who exactly has “earned” their Islam and who is simply “coasting.”

³⁹Ibid.

⁴⁰Ibid. 271.

⁴¹Ibid. 273. One possible reason for the “disproportional” visibility of immigrant Muslims on the national scene, especially the media, is the assumptions of the greater society about Islam and Muslims. If Muslims are imagined as the alien “other,” then media and politicians will seek the embodiments of that other: the clichés of the darker color, accent, and “Muslim attire” that point to a foreign origin. This, in turn, works to reassure that these local Muslims represent the ones “over there,” the ones everyone is so worried about. African American Muslims, whose loyalty as citizens is not in question, do not reflect the geopolitical concerns of US foreign policy.

⁴²Ibid. 279.

⁴³In some cases and circles, political/media recognition is a sign of “selling out.” National Muslim organizations, however, do not seem yet to have embraced a suspicious distance from politics and media; in fact, the opposite is true.

⁴⁴Amina Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (Oneworld, Oxford, 2006) 183.

⁴⁵Sherman Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection (Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2005) 5.

⁴⁶Ibid. 94.

⁴⁷Ibid. 156–9.

⁴⁸Ibid. 56.

⁴⁹Ibid. 90.

⁵⁰Jackson chooses to use the terms “modernized” and “modern” for the specialized and non-specialized approaches, respectively. Contrary to “modern” Islam, “modernized” Islam is the most aptly portable understanding of Islam because of its appreciation of how local cultures and customs inform the lived reality of Muslims and interpretations of Islam. Modern Islam simply assumes the normatively of a single, distant Arab model. The distinction between the two, however, is not easy to maintain, evidenced by the same person Jackson picks to showcase the flexibility of “modernized” Islam, shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi easily bridges the divide between the two interpretations: his “modernized” Islam is attentive to the challenges and particularities of Muslim minority life in the West, while as an Islamist and a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Jackson identifies as one of the pillars of “modern” Islam, Qaradawi is undeniably concerned with Muslim political power and its acquisition. As the Qaradawi example illustrates, it is important to revisit assumptions about the neat separation between traditional and modern understandings of Islam, which may prove to be, at times, more theoretical.