Volume 18, No. 6, 2021
Dr. Fazlur Rahman’s Understanding Of Seerah In The Context Of Modernity
Dr. Ghulam Shabbir , Muhammad Akhtar , Dr. Farhana Mehmood , Dr. Abdul Qadir Abdul Wahid , Dr. Muhammad Imran , Dr. Sareer Khan
Abstract
The ultimate objective of the Quran and seerah is the establishment of a ‘just moral order’ founded on the principle of “One God, One Humanity” (3:64). The entire mission of Muhammad was geared to this final goal. All stages of the mission -- peaceful delivering of the message to passive resistance in Mecca, journey to Taif, migration to Abyssinia and Medina, armed resistance and aggressive politics in Medina, letters to the heads of Byzantine and Persian empires -- were milestones on the path. The paper explores factors behind failure of medieval-era scholars as well as orientalists to grasp this unique idea and finds Muslim scholars either failed to see it out of sheer ignorance or willful neglect committed in collusion with sultans and Sufis to camouflage this revolutionary idea with an apolitical and secular concept of religion that glorified pacifism and abhorred change and resistance to status quo; while orientalists’ rigged scholarship had rendered them incapable of perceiving universal import of this idea. On the other hand, most moderneducated scholars under colonial regimes adopted an apologetic attitude, rendering them incapable to bring out the original spirit of the religion, and rediscover the splendid idea of One God One Humanity. The paper explains Dr Fazlur Rahman’s understanding of seerah in contrast with ideas of his predecessors and peers, and his emphasis on politics and jihad as two pivots of Islam. He presents Quran and seerah as continuous and unbroken narrative galvanized towards its ultimate climax – the establishment of the global moral order. The paper concludes that time is ripe for Islam to unfold its programme provided Muslim community rids itself of its intoxication with past. Scholars can re-invoke 3:64 for the establishment of newer alliances with Chinese and other civilizations in a giant leap towards the realization of Islam’s ultimate goal of One God One Humanity.
Pages: 6724-6747
Keywords: Seerah, moral order, orientalist, epistemicide, hanif, modernity.