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Islamic Reformer Khaled Abou El Fadl

Really good piece about Khaled Abou ElFadl, an Islamic reformer who is equally a product of traditional Islamic learning and the Ivy League. In 2003 he was the only Muslim on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a body charged with monitoring the status of “freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief” outside the United States and to provide the president, secretary of state and Congress with independent policy recommendations.

Yet he believes he was “deadwood” on the commission. “This commission that is supposed to be an example of religious freedom became an example of exactly what is wrong with our world today [in terms of] the degree of religious bigotry and prejudice... Most of those who are appointed to the commission — not all, but most — are fanatic extremist Christians or Jews. I attempted to have a discourse with them, but it was impossible. They are convinced that the Copts are oppressed in Egypt. At the same time, you come to say, ‘Are Muslim Israeli citizens oppressed in Israel? How about Muslims in the Philippines? How about Chechnya?’ and they refuse to discuss it,” he says.

He also says "Those who make religion anything other than humanism, those who make religion about rituals, in effect, they secularize religion because they marginalize it and make it unimportant to what actually matters for human beings,” he asserts.

On Islamic governments, he says: "If they understand that they do not represent Allah, but are charged with the obligation of creating conditions of justice and liberty so people are free to pursue Allah if they wish, then we can have an Islamic government.”

posted by anguishedmuslim @ 5/14/2006 04:19:00 PM