The Great Theft:

Wrestling Islam from the Extremists

By Khaled Abou El Fadl

Harper San Francisco,

308 pages, $28.95

Today, there is a struggle for the soul of Islam, taking place between the loud extremists who have captured the headlines and Islam's silent, moderate majority. In the last few years, we have witnessed 9/11, Bali, Madrid, London and the orchestrated use of violence by a small group of Muslim radicals who seem to define Islam in entirely negative and reactionary terms.

Khaled Abou El Fadl is a professor of law at UCLA, trained in both Western and Islamic legal traditions. He is a believing Muslim. A graduate of Yale and Princeton, he is fluent in English, French, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Hebrew, Persian, Latin and Syriac. In The Great Theft, he attempts to inform Muslims of a grave threat to Islam's moral centre and to wrest control of the discourse on defining what being a Muslim is in the modern world away from the extremists.

To be sure, the term "moderate" Muslim may seem condescending, as no one appears to use the term to describe non-Muslims. But he states his case for its use in contradistinction to terms such as progressive, liberal or modernist. He retells the tradition of the Prophet Mohammed as a moderate man who avoided extremes.

Abou El Fadl traces the rise of Islamic extremism to the rise of the Wahhabi state, the precursor of modern Saudi Arabia. By now it has become something of a cliché, but here the author's original contribution is actually to explore the ideas of the sect's founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab through his writings, and the dislocations they produced. He calls Wahhabis "puritans" and demarcates their ethos and underlying world view from the moderate centre of Islam. Some critics may consider this to be too reductive. But one needs to ask: Has this interpretation of Islam influenced modern Muslim understanding of their faith, and if so, how?

In his teachings, ibn Abd al-Wahhab emphasized a puritanical, punitive and literalist interpretation of Islam. He argued that Muslims had gone astray from the one true Islam. He thus sought to rid Islam of those "corruptions" that had crept into it: mysticism, rationalism, Shiite theology and, essentially, all theological innovations other than those he preferred. In essence, he was waging war against Islamic tradition itself. His Islam is a closed, supremacist, metaphysical system.

Shiite theology was denounced by the Wahhabis as a heresy, and all Shiites and those that sheltered them were declared heretics. It bears pointing out that Abd al-Wahhab participated in the sacking of the sacred Shiite city of Karbala in Iraq (1801), in which thousands of Shiite Muslims were massacred. To be sure, there are contingent political and historical factors contributing to the Sunni-Shiite divide. But one major factor in sectarian violence is anti-Shiite bias within this puritan strain of Islam, and the growing influence of its intolerant interpretation. The latest example of this is the recent destruction of the Shiite shrine of Al-Askariya in the Iraqi city of Samarra at the height of the pilgrimage season.

Abou El Fadl asserts that Abd al-Wahhab was "rabidly hostile toward non-Muslims," and insistent that Muslims should not "imitate" or befriend them. However his real enemies weren't Christians or Jews, but Ottoman Turks -- Muslims he labelled a "heretical nation." In spite of Wahhabi loathing for the West, they co-operated with the British in fighting the Ottoman Turks. In a very real sense, the West helped give birth to the 20th-century incarnation of the Saudi state.

The ideas of Abd al-Wahhab were viewed as a fringe and heretical during his lifetime, and a blight on Islam. Suleiman, his brother, shared that criticism, complaining sharply of the many failings of his brother's understanding of Islam. Abou El Fadl notes that these once-well-disseminated critiques from within traditional Islam are nearly impossible to find in the Muslim world today.

The diffusion of Wahhabi ideology began aggressively in the 1970s, in the turmoil that followed the Iranian revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Then, it was considered to be "traditional" Islam fighting the Godless communists and radical Iranians (this is documented in a new study, Devil's Game, by Robert Dreyfuss).

Contemporary puritans use religious text to regulate life, and use literalist readings of the Koran and the Hadith (the sayings and customary practices of the Prophet) to shield themselves from criticism and as "whips to be exploited." The author calls contemporary puritan movements "orphans of modernity," for they are a product of and a reaction to it modernity. The new puritans feel disempowered by modernity and react militantly and violently to it. It also needs to be pointed out that many Muslim regimes are ruthlessly authoritarian, thereby contributing to the puritans' feeling of powerlessness.

The most acute differences between moderates and puritans are over democracy, human rights and women's rights -- in short, "modern" values. Moderate Muslims have no problem reconciling these modern values with their tradition. Abou El Fadl situates this within the idea that oppression (zulm) is a great offence against God. It is here that he makes a substantive contribution, in addition to daring to criticize the 800-pound gorilla in the room that most Muslims dare not criticize. He posits a more humane interpretation of Islam, one consonant with the modern world.

He doesn't suggest that every right within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is compatible with Islam, but that the two are broadly compatible, and he attempts to lay out an epistemological framework. He uses the Islamic concept of haqq, which combines the meanings "rights/legal entitlement" with truth, and thus ties together the requirements for justice with the basis of religious belief. Moreover, these rights are sacrosanct and cannot be voided by the state.

To buttress claims of constitutional democracy, he turns to the idea of shura (consultation) and ijma (consensus). Many moderates have made similar arguments, but Abou El Fadl addresses the sticky question of who is sovereign in the state. He sketches out arguments for why sovereignty should rest with the polity. However, the puritans insist that sovereignty rests with God and His interpreters on Earth (in effect, a theocracy, something that has never existed in Islamic history). Puritans look to an unsullied Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban for their vision of an Islamic utopia on Earth.

For Abou El Fadl, the sharpest demarcation that can be drawn between puritans and moderates is on jihad and women in Islam. He feels that the two are intimately connected. He cites the case of a school fire in Mecca that killed at least 14 Saudi school girls (the incident was covered in the Saudi press and prompted much soul searching). Schoolgirls attempted to flee the burning school but were physically beaten and turned back by the religious police and the school doors locked. The reason given was that the girls were not "properly covered." Firefighters and anguished parents watched as the girls were trapped inside.

Abou El Fadl considers this to be "morally abhorrent" and evidence of the Saudis' "aggressive form of patriarchy in which they respond to feelings of political and social defeatism by engage in symbolic displays of power that are systematically degrading to women." He provides a powerful critique of the puritan understanding, drawing upon notions of equality from the Koran and Islamic jurisprudence. There is much here for Muslim feminists to use in their struggle for equality.

The author is greatly concerned about the present moment. The moderate centre that would deflect the radicals has, in his estimation, all but collapsed. At one time, it was Islamic jurists who performed that function; their moral authority has greatly diminished, largely because they have become functionaries of the state. Abou El Fadl fears that the puritans will be able to redefine Islam.

As well, many in the Muslim world perceive the war on terror as a war on Islam. Islamic radicals pose as defenders of Islam from the infidel, and thus draw from the bitter wellspring of Islam-West conflict for nourishment. It is thus not a moment that lends itself to critical introspection or soul searching.

That Muslims have been outraged by the Danish cartoons is plain. But meanwhile, the Saudi state and its religious establishment have been silently and systematically destroying Islamic heritage, especially that associated with the Prophet Mohammed. An excellent new publication, Islamica magazine, has broken the silence by chronicling that destruction. The grave of Amina bin Wahb, the Prophet's mother, was bulldozed. Latrines have been built on the birthplace of the Prophet's first beloved wife, Khadija. It is said that the house where the Prophet was born will soon be levelled and turned into a car park. There have been no protests; no convening of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, not a peep from mainstream North American Muslim organizations.

Today, those who have used murderous violence lie in wait for the opportunity to target their opponents. One side uses violence while the other cowers in fear, and a few engage in dissimulation. Meanwhile, the world is further polarized, with each side viewing the other through a prism of fear.

What is one to do? The author suggests avoiding gross generalizations as a means of depriving puritans of ammunition. As well, he notes that authoritarian Muslim regimes routinely resort to torture, which he likens to a factory producing terrorists.

Abou El Fadl suggests that the moderate voice of Islam has few champions within the diasporic Muslim population of the West (though this is perceptibly changing) or in the Muslim heartland. The puritans are well funded and entrenched. He cites the case of the late Fazlur Rahman, a brilliant and deeply pious Muslim. Forced to leave Pakistan, Rahman taught at the University of Chicago, but his voice has been forgotten. Instead, the writings of Mawdudi, his fundamentalist contemporary and nemesis, are widely disseminated.

Abou El Fadl is a figure on the margins of the mainstream of today's North American Islam. He is studiously ignored but furtively studied. There is something profoundly prophetic about his writings. One senses the presence of a scholar who shares an ethos derived from a classical Islamic tradition, one who wishes that a more humane Islamic future would be congruent with its rich past.

It is a great pity that the more humane, cosmopolitan and open-minded face of Islam has been obscured by recent events. In the struggle for a resurgence of a more pluralistic, humanistic interpretation of Islam, Khaled Abou El Fadl has made a contribution that should be widely distributed and deeply reflected upon.

Emran Qureshi is a fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program of Harvard Law School.

Related Reading

Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad, by Lorenzo Vidino, Prometheus, 403 pages, $33.50

Vidino, a Washington-based expert on terrorism, looks at the history and development of Islamic terrorism in Europe, as both target and base of operations. Using documentation from a dozen countries, plus transcripts of intercepted al-Qaeda conversations, he shows how terrorists -- the majority of them European-born -- raise money, recruit new members, hide in plain sight and plan operations such as the Madrid and London bombings.

Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too, by Claire Berlinski, Crown Forum, 271 pages, $35.95

Novelist and journalist Berlinski lives in Paris and Istanbul, and travelled the continent for this book, talking to a wide range of people, from Musilm immigrant to German rockers to French gendarmes. What she finds is not simply the sorts of fear and intimidation occasioned by Islamic terrorism and Europe's failure to integrate millions of Muslims, but also the dangers posed by plummeting birth rates, ubiquitous anti-Americanism, the death of religious faith and the reappearance of old demons.

While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, by Bruce Bawer, Doubleday, 247 pages, $33.95

All three of these books are more about the struggle for the soul of Europe than that of Islam. Bawer, an American living in Europe, evokes Weimar Germany to alert readers to the similar danger posed by the Islamists within. He finds radical enclaves in such capitals as Paris, Berlin and Stockholm, in which women and homosexuals are oppressed, honour killing and female circumcision are maintained, and Jews and other "infidels" demonized. Meantime, he claims, Europe's reaction has been craven and submissive.