TARTU, Estonia, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Supporters of what some call "liberal Islam" are using the Internet to spread their ideas, even though the meaning and use of this term by various groups in the Russian Federation and elsewhere remains a matter of intense dispute.
A Russian-language religious information portal, Credo.ru, has tried to introduce some clarity on the issue by offering what it calls "a 'working' definition of liberal Islam" and then discussing the most important websites where this idea is discussed. (http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/print.php?act=netnav&id=81)
"'Liberal Islam'," Credo.ru's Valeriy Yemel'yanov writes, "is a reading of the dogmatics and social-political doctrines of this religion which strives to adapt it to the realities of the contemporary world and above all to the achievements of Western civilization such as freedom of the personality, economic freedom, democracy and human rights."
As such, it would be more appropriate to describe this as "a liberal approach to Islam." But Yemel'yanov says
that what people typically call "liberal Islam" is characterized by "openness, tolerance and acceptance of changes taking place in the contemporary world." Moreover, it is neither aggressive nor insistent that Islam is the only true faith.
Most of the supporters of "liberal-Islamic ideas," the Credo.ru writer says, live in the United States, the countries of Western Europe, and in the non-Arab countries of south Asia. But there are a growing number elsewhere, including in the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan and the countries of Central Asia.
Yemel'yanov argues that Euro-Islam, which is actively supported by some religious and political activists in
Tatarstan and Switzerland, is related to "liberal Islam" but that it is not the same thing.
On the one hand, the Credo.ru analysts suggests, Euro-Islam is more often a geographic category with obvious political connotations than a distinctive religious point of view. And on the other, at least some of the supporters of Euro-Islam do not take liberal positions on many issues.
One advocate of Euro-Islam who does support "liberal Islam," Yemel'yanov writes, is Tatarstan's Rafael Khakimov, the director of the Kazan Institute of History and a senior advisor to Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiev.
Long an advocate of promoting among Tatars a moderate to liberal form of Islam, Khakimov has written widely on the subject, most notably in his book "Where is Our Mecca? A Manifesto of Euro-Islam." (This and many of his other works on this topic are available at http://www.kazanfed.ru/authors/khakimov/ ).
Khakimov's ideas, Yemel'yanov suggests, are based on the proposition that Islam's central text, the Koran, should not be accepted in its entirety but rather that
today's Muslims must carefully distinguish between that part of its content which is universally and eternally
true and that part which was directed to a specific people in a particular place and time -- namely, 7th century Arabia.
Not surprisingly, Khakimov's ideas have attracted some supporters and many opponents. The former see them as the basis for squaring Islam with modernity, while the latter accuse him of seeking to replace genuine Islam with what one writer has called an overly-permissive, even "drunken" Islam.
Not surprisingly, most Muslim leaders inside the Russian Federation have treated Khakimov's "liberal" Islamic project with great caution. But at least a few of them now are willing to consider his views seriously.
One of these, Ali-Vyacheslav Polosin, the advisor to the chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia who created the Russian-language Islam-Info site (http://www.islam-info.ru/ ), told Credo-.ru his site is open to the ideas of liberal Islam because Islam-Info focuses on "the social-political aspect of Islam in the context of human rights."
Another is a site maintained by the Azerbaijani Islamic scholar Aydyn Ali-zade (http://www.aboutislam.ws). And
still a third site -- although one not mentioned by Yemel'yanov -- where liberal Islamic ideas are frequently found is the one maintained by the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of Ukraine, www.islamyat.ua .
In his article, Yemel'yanov pints to other sites to
which those interested in "liberal Islam" can turn: in
Europe (http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_softlink.php/_c-365/i.html,
in the United States (http://www.muslimwakeup.com/index.php), in Indonesia (http://islamlib.com/en/page.php), and in Bangladesh (http://www.liberalislam.net).
There are other more specialized sites as well about "liberal Islam", and the Credo.ru writer urges using the hypertext links at the site of Charles Kurtzman, the American author of a 1998 volume on the subject (http://www.unc.edu/~kurzman/LiberalIslamLinks.htm)
By publishing this review of "liberal Islam" sites, Yemel'yanov clearly wants to do more than just provide an academic guide to this field. Instead, he clearly hopes that ever more Muslims in Russia and abroad will consider the ideas of the "liberal Islam" project even if in the end they do not accept them in their entirety.
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