The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

I have a new article in the Review of Faith and International Affairs about the Amman Message, an effort spearheaded by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, a nominally non-governmental institute that receives significant backing from Jordan's monarchy. The Amman Message seeks to address some of the most controversial topics within Islam today (including terrorism, women's rights, and freedom of religion), and tries to do so by forging a scholarly consensus among disparate Muslim jurisprudential schools. My article focuses on a consensus statement on takfir that was produced in 2005, and a document that is currently being developed about jihad and the Islamic law of war.

An excerpt:

The benefits of the two documents analyzed above are manifest. The takfir document, endorsed by a broad array of scholars with towering reputations, advances a number of relevant arguments designed to diminish the sectarian fighting that has gripped places like Iraq, and to undermine extremists’ claim that they have the power to declare takfir on other Muslims. The jihad document, which may ultimately garner a similarly impressive array of signatures, condemns many of the tactics employed by terrorist organizations, as well as the idea that Muslims are inherently at war with the non-Muslim world.

The documents’ shortcomings are also clear if one reads them critically. One failure is that they do not clarify some of the most controversial issues—for example, the jihad document’s lack of discussion about Iraq and Israel. Another shortcoming is that the documents frequently employ vague language that can give rise to many questions. This can be seen in the takfir document’s failure to specify what terms such as “real Tasawwuf” and “necessarily self-evident tenet of religion” mean, or in the jihad document’s silence about the claim there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian. These failures are likely inherent to the process of consensus-building that the Aal al-Bayt Institute has chosen. More ambitious statements, though they would surely be more welcome to Western ears, might not garner the kind consensus that the Amman Message seeks. What the documents might have accomplished, however, should not detract from the fact that they do make a contribution.

Surely, the Aal al-Bayt Institute has had its misfires in addition to its successes. Its penchant for attaching unprecedented historical significance to virtually all of its output can be off-putting. The very first sentence of True Islam’s introduction, penned by Prince bin Muhammad, reads: “Over the course of the two years 2005-2006 CE, 1426-1427 AH, there occurred a series of events of great historical importance to the worldwide Islamic nation (Ummah), events without parallel for fourteen centuries, ever since the time of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib." ....

These misfires aside, Aal al-Bayt has already succeeded in releasing one important document, and the jihad document will also be significant upon its release. Moreover, Aal al-Bayt has created an important mechanism for bringing together representatives of divergent Islamic theological schools.

To read the full article, click here.

TrackBack