i think all things are traditional.

progressives need to be clear that their critique isn’t towards ‘tradition’ as such – since being socially-just is part of the islamic tradition – but IS applicable towards today’s ‘islamic traditionalists’ who bring in a lot of iniquity into our lives.

I see, Ali. But, is justice from the tradition, i.e. it was the custom of early Muslims or could any Muslim in total isolation with no tradition to draw on derive the same desire for justice just by reading the Quran?

- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.

ah, i see what you’re getting at:

you know, one of the saddest things about recent islamic education is that it doesn’t emphasize the possibility of any knowledge outside of the quran. in other words, we are told to think that if we can’t locate it in the text of the quran, or in the practice of the salaf and tabi’een, then it must be immoral. yet the prophet himself acknowledged that there was morality prior to the quran i.e. when he declared abu dharr a hanif. do you recall that story? the prophet told abu dharr about salat and abu dharr said he had been praying like that all his life. what to make of that? abu dharr didn’t have the quran yet he was just.

but dont even go to abu dharr. the prophet was ‘amin’ and just for the first 40 years of his life and he had no quran.

don’t you find it troubling that there has been such an attempt to render the prophet’s childhood miraculous and unique so that we can’t ever argue that one can be moral WITHOUT the quran. the story i was always told was that the prophet had his heart washed as a 8 year old and that’s why prior to the revelation of the quran he was moral. ok, but if so, what about khadija? after all, prior to when the prophet turned 40, she neither knew the quran, nor had her heart washed at any time. what about her uncle who actually confirms the prophecy? was he an unjust man simply b/c he existed prior to the revelation of the quran? rendering all of ‘jahiliyya’ a period of ignorance, marred by TOTAL immorality and TOTAL impiety is one of the biggest snow jobs in islamic history. the bedouins weren’t all oligarchs. they weren’t all hedonists. they weren’t all savages. if you read the seven odes (written prior to the birth of the prophet) you find a great deal of love, honor, and longing. i encourage you to explore the pre-islamic period with the possibility that it could and did contain people of humanity. you might then realize that we do not derive our spirituality, piety, morality or equity from the quran, but from our souls. The Quran merely tells us how to order that morality and equity and how to re-affirm it.

Well, I’ve long thought that morality was akin to common sense. There’s something innate to the human mind that encourages altruism and a sense of right and wrong. That brings me back to my original assertion: if we accept it is simply part of being human, why do I need previous human traditions to be moral? Nevertheless, don’t get me wrong: I enjoy reading old books, both to understand former modes of life and even for inspiration, I do so at my leisure and not as a method to build a society. Tradition, by its very nature is the culture of previous peoples in other circumstances.

Anyway, what is your definition of tradition, and how do you use it?

- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.

Not all tradition is bad. Not all tradition is good. But
it is not enough to say as such. It is not enough to point to
traditions to justify actions. Traditioned itself must be
rationalized and reasoned with to be followed. Every
generation must define, redefine and relearn the past
for it’s own continued survival and growth. There is a
reason that people look at tradition with longing and
nostalgia. If for no reason than the fact that they have
survived this far and as far as Islamic history is
concerned, a 1000 years of (relative) peace, prosperity
and success makes it next to near impossible to argue against
“traditions”. But when societies are faced with catastrophy
only then do they start to reawaken from their lethargy. Is
it any surprise that all changes in human history and civilization are preceeded by violence and anarchy?

I do not necessarily speak against tradition. As I said
that every genration must reaffirm tradition with reason
and logic to make it viable with their own times. However,
even if traditions cannot be rationalized, that itself does
not make it wrong. Conversely, one must use logic and reason
against a traditional practice to make it baseless and thus
inviable for further use. Just saying so, to go back to my
original statement, does not make a tradition right or wrong.

Niether do I, Hassan. Yet, my problems with tradition are mostly due to the default mode among Muslims: Adhere to the traditions in order to be a “Good” Muslim. For example, I see no reason to be compelled to follow any post-Prophetic methods, ideas or practices, ya know.

- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.

The tradtition/modernity duality is a bit misleading. All reasoning takes place from a 'tradition'. These traditions adapt or become subsumed by other traditions which answer questions in a better fashion. They may merge with other traditions. Talal Asad and Alisdair MacIntyre discuss this in detail; Asad applies the idea directly to Islam.

Salaams Thabet and thanks. So, what you’re saying is that in my case, for example, the liberal Western tradition has merged with the Islamic tradition to produce my state of mind, my personal culture? I can see alot of sense in that. But, this seems more like a social science description of things and hopefully not, in my opinion, a normative declaration. I’m still trying to wrap my head around why post-Prophetic items and interpretations should even be a part of the Islamic Tradition; I think they more properly belong to “Muslim Culture” and not necessarily “Islamic Tradition”. By labeling such things Islamic instead of Muslim, we give it the air of divine legitmiacy, if indeed we define tradition as the sum of human interpretations and actions based on Islamic texts. So, what exactly is the Islamic Tradition: hadith, Rumi, the four schools, Sayed Qutb or what?

- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.