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| Volume XII, Fall 2005, Number 3 |
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ABSTRACT
Deciphering Islam’s Multiple Voices: Intellectual Luxury or Strategic Necessity? |
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| Mohammed Ayoob |
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Dr. Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor of International Relations, James Madison College, Michigan State University.
The central argument of the article is that just as Islam is no monolith, there is no single set of spokespersons for Islam. This was true in the classical age of Islam because of the absence of a central religious authority a la Christianity. The problem became excerbated from the 19th century onward with the position of the ulama as authentic spokesmen for Islam being challenged by lay Muslims who, as a consequence of the print revolution, had access to the foundational texts of Islam and began to interpret them in multifarious ways. Moreover, the division of the Muslim world into nation-states has further fragmented the authority of the ulama. Many of the contemporary Islamists are heirs to the salafi thinkers who challenged the traditional interpretations by the ulama that were based on accumulated traditions and attempted to return to the original sources and the practices of the first generation of Muslims. But, event Islamist agendas are circumscribed nationally. The transnational extremists remain fringe elements in the Muslim world. While their highly dramatic actions, including acts of terror, have given them high visibility in the West, they do not speak for the vast majority of Muslims. There are, therefore, multiple groups and tendencies claiming to speak on behalf of Islam. It is essential that Western analysts and policy makers discriminate amongst these various claimants and do not accept the most extreme elements, who are a tiny and peripheral minority, as Islam's spokespersons.
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