Reports

Living Islam with Purpose

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This paper offers an operational framework for establishing an authentic expression of indigenous Muslim culture. This framework consists of five operational principles, which are discussed at length and illustrated with examples: trusting reason, respecting dissent, stressing societal obligations, setting priorities, and embracing maxims.

These five principles are central to the Islamic tradition and embody the practical wisdom and consummate sensibility of the Prophetic teaching. The paper emphasizes the need for Muslim communities as a whole to become directly involved in their self-definition and the construction of their future as individuals and communities. This task cannot be left to others or to chance; the five operational principles provide an invaluable resource for determining the way forward. While the paper focuses on the American Muslim community, the framework is relevant to Muslims everywhere, especially those in the West.

Islam-West Dialogue: A Critical Analysis of the Davos Report

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A summary and critical analysis of the document Islam and the West: Annual Report on the State of Dialogue, January 2008, its core issues and recommendations for Muslim leaders and scholars of Islamic Sacred Law (Shari‘ah).

The 2008 Islam and the West report, commissioned by the World Economic Forum and Georgetown University, is a global reference on the state of the Muslim-West dialogue for leaders across multiple sectors, including government, media, education, civil society, and faith communities. Overall, it highlights the activities of approximately 90 organizations and describes more than 80 events around five issue areas: International Politics; Citizenship and Integration; Religion, Ethics, and Ideology; Education and Intercultural Understanding; and Economic and Social Development. It also draws on the Gallup Muslim-West Dialogue Index and media content analysis carried out by Media Tenor International to discuss public perceptions of the dialogue and the tone of media coverage both in Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Very few perspectives from within the community of scholars of Shari‘ah are offered in the report.

This brief introduces the report, discusses its main findings, and offers suggestions on how Muslim scholars and opinion leaders can contribute to the dialogue in a meaningful way. This report is an opportunity for Muslim scholars to build on the discussion already in progress, share best practices on how to further promote dialogue, and become better equipped to answer the needs of diverse Muslim communities.

 

News

Musa Furber attended: Where Religion, Policy, and Bioethics Meet

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On April 10–11, 2011, Musa Furber (Research Associate), attended “Where Religion, Policy, and Bioethics Meet,” a conference on Islamic bioethics held at the University of Michigan. This conference was the first if its kind to be held in North America. Although Islamic bioethics has been a topic of interest to Muslim scholars since the 1970s, it has only recently become a topic of interest in Western and English literature. Islamic bioethics in the West is dominated by medical practitioners and social scientists who are not themselves versed in Islamic law and oftentimes antagonistic towards Islamic scholarship. This conference broke new ground by including a number of Muslim jurists amongst its speakers. The conference was attended by over 150 attendees, mostly from the medical community.

Among the conference’s topics were: the relationship of culture and society to bioethical values; the status of bioethics amongst Muslim physicians and in the Muslim world; bioethics within the healthcare system; and Islamic bioethics according to Islamic scholarship. Furber had the honor of being invited to present how traditional jurisconsults respond to bioethical dilemmas and the role of juridical councils. Furber had received many questions about bioethical issues when he was at Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, so the invitation provided an opportunity for him to work with classical and contemporary jurisprudence – theoretical and applied. But more importantly: it was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the Shari‘ah’s positive concern for the sanctity of life and human dignity.

Furber covered in his presentation the relationships between jurisprudence and medicine, the methodology jurists use when researching bioethical issues, the prerequisites for the individual carrying out Islamic legal research, the large number of contemporary bioethical issues that jurists have already addressed, the need for collaborative research for interdisciplinary issues such as bioethics, and the status of opinions issued by individual jurists and juridical councils. His presentation also touched on the need to seek legal rulings from qualified jurisprudence, and the shortcomings of generalizing the highly-contextualized fatawa found in newspapers and online. At the end of his presentation, he recommended that future discourse on Islamic bioethics in North America needs to include qualified jurisconsults.

Later during the conference, several Muslim physicians mentioned their surprise at learning about the range of bioethical issues that had already been covered by jurisconsults. Many attendees indicated their interest that jurisconsults and qualified Muslim scholars take an active role in future discussions. Several non-Muslim professors stressed the need for greater participation from representatives of normative Islamic scholarship as that is the Muslim voice that interests them.

In sha Allah, this is just the beginning of Tabah Foundation’s participation in Islamic bioethics, both abroad and locally. Many regional physicians have expressed their interest in learning about Islamic bioethics, for their own practice and to better serve the needs of their patients.

Engaging topics of applied ethics is one of Tabah’s research initiatives towards the renewal of contemporary Islamic discourse to fit the needs of humanity