IN THE NAME OF ISLAM

August 2005
		The July 2005 suicide bombings in London's transit system and attacks in a resort town in Egypt have stoked the debate within the Muslim community about why so many perpetrators of terrorist attacks are Muslims and what ordinary believers in Islam can do to keep people from killing in the name of their religion. Four Muslim thinkers answer your questions.

Forum Introduction Does Islam ever justify the killing of innocents? Why don't Muslims who commit terrorist acts see that violence is counterproductive? Does U.S. foreign policy take the correct approach to influencing the rise of democracy in Muslim nations? Do most young Muslims in the U.S. feel they are integrated into U.S. society? On the NewsHour, did you read from the Quran or an interpretation? How can one foster dialogue with the broader religious community? How can we stop terrorism at its source? Why do militant young Muslims obey someone with no official clerical standing, like Osama bin Laden? What literature can I read to better understand the teachings of Islam? Is there a theological authority that is recognized by all or a great majority of Muslims? What's the difference between Islam and Muslim?	Robert Langford of Minneapolis, Minn. asks: Is there a theological authority that is recognized by all or a great majority of Muslims? If there is, what is the medium by which that authority could be heard? If not, is there really a "Name of Islam"? Imam Shaker Elsayed responds: Islam is not a hierarchical religion like Catholicism. Muslims do not have, therefore, a pope. Rather, we have Muslim scholars who teach Islam to their flocks. That said, there are some councils of jurisprudence that issues fatwa (religious edicts) in which an explanation or implementation of the text is provided as a service to the nation or the community in which the council exists. Individual scholars, however, sometimes garner some esteem and recognition, that their edicts may have an impact for their followers more than a council. Islam, therefore, is not what a scholar says it is, Islam is what is in the text of the Quran, or the authentic text of the prophetic traditions. Georgetown graduate student Shadi Hamid responds: That's part of the problem, Islam has no clergy or centralized authority as in Catholicism. There was once a recognized community of scholars who earned the respect of the Muslim masses and therefore had a certain level of moral authority. But in the age of nationalism during the 20th century, the scholars were co-opted by secular dictators intent on monopolizing and neutralizing the power of religion. Soon, when these autocratic regimes lost both popularity and legitimacy, the scholars increasingly began to be seen as appendages of the state, government stooges, sell-outs, etc. For example, the imams of Al-Azhar University (the most prestigious religious institution in the Muslim world) had to censor their statements and would change their rulings at the behest of the Egyptian government. Radical, extremist preachers filled the vacuum. Professor Salim Mansur responds: Yes and no. In some imperfect sense, Sunni Islam, which constitutes the main branch of Islam with more than 85 percent of Muslims being Sunni, is Protestantism written large within the Muslim world. In other words, there is no Vatican in Islam, no single authority that speaks for all Muslims, no single authority that can impose its legal and religious judgment on the Muslim world. To the extent that such an institution existed, the Caliphate, from the first century of Islam, the 7th century to the early 20th century in our calendar, was dismantled as a result of the First World War when modern Turkey, after losing the war and as a result its empire or what remained of it, emerged as a secular state under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal. The dismantling of the Caliphate has meant the Muslim world divided into nation-states has no single authority to defer to in the ultimate sense of religious guidance. In some peculiar and bigoted sense, the war Osama bin Laden and his network of supporters unleashed is driven by the goals of reconstituting the Caliphate. But, on the other hand, there are some traditional centers within Sunni Islam that seek to impose themselves as the authoritative voices in running the affairs of Muslims, one such center being the university of al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, the other being the ruling clerical circle supported by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based in Mecca. These centers remain opposed to reconciling through reforms the understanding of the Quran and the practice of Islam that are necessary if the Muslim world is to adapt itself to the requirements of the modern age of democracy and science. Shiite Islam, as in Iran and Iraq, do have a designated center that is authoritative. And ironically that is part of the conflict in Iraq since the holiest center of Shiism is Najaf (located in Iraq), while Qom (located in Iran) has usurped the traditional authority that Najaf and its clerics possessed since the Iranian revolution of 1979. The problem of speaking in the "Name of Islam" is that anyone can so speak, at least in Sunni Islam, provided the person can gather around himself a band of followers as Osama bin Laden has done. Author Asra Nomani responds: There is no Vatican recognized by all Muslims. Four schools of jurisprudence have survived into the modern day in the majority Sunni sect of Islam, from virtually hundreds through the history of Islam. Sunnis make up most of the world's population of Muslims. Shias, a minority sect, have various schools of jurisprudence that define them. This gives modern day Muslims both an opportunity and a burden. The opportunity is to open the doors of ijtihad, or critical thinking, to interpretations of jurisprudence that are ethical, just, compassionate and tolerant. The burden is that we have inherited centuries of interpretations that are dogmatic, sexist and intolerant. Islam is not a cookie cutter religion and, try as they might, no clerics can make the Muslim world monolithic.