Islam and partial modernization: “There was no liberation from medieval elements”

Abstract

In his interview Taufik Ibrahim argues that the main problem for Muslims is that the traditional, medieval understanding of religion has not yet been overcome. This traditional understanding is connected with the loss of the initial creative impulse of early Islam, with the so-called closure of the gate of ijtihad. Both the fundamentalists and the reformist typically reference the early Islamic period. But the question is, why do they do so? Is it in order to find ready-made answers or to find the inner sense of this or that statement, to liberate them from historical limits and discover how to realize them in modern life? T. Ibrahim thinks that there is no clash of Western and Isalmic civilizations but there are clashes between traditional and modern values within civilizations. His view is that in Muslim countries the modernization of the society without religious reform, as took place in Turkey, is not able to protect society from setbacks as long as the traditional understanding of religion remains untouched. And such radical organizations as ISIS exploit this situation. In the reformation of Islam T. Ibrahim underlines the special role of the Islamic periphery, mostly Europe, and also including Russia.