Contrary to Western Understanding, Islam Is a Liberal Faith

No religion can be properly understood based on its most extreme proponents

Islam’s holy book, the Quran, in a mosque (Credit: Aisylu Ahmadieva, Shutterstock).

Dear Readers:

We are pleased to bring you the latest entry in our Liberalism & Religion series on Islam, a faith practiced by a quarter of the world’s inhabitants. It follows prior entries on Judaism, Protestant Christianity, Buddhism, Catholicism, and Hinduism. Of all faiths, Islam is seemingly hardest to reconcile with liberalism given the widespread perception that it is a religion of the sword that not only punishes heretics and apostates but also proselytizes with violence.

But this essay, co-authored by Hassan Abbas, Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University in Washington D.C., and his research assistant Zahra Hassan, argues that nothing could be further from the truth. Islam has a liberal core, they note, that the West fails to appreciate because it views the faith ahistorically in a snapshot in time and sees only extremism and repression. But if you read the Quran, examine the actual beliefs of the millions of Muslims living in liberal societies, and apply an appropriately wide historical lens, a very different picture emerges of a faith whose fundamental principles are open inquiry and the freedom of conscience. In other words, liberalism.

Anyone aspiring to an accurate understanding of this tradition—free of prejudice and bias—should read this learned and poignant essay from two people who truly understand the faith from the inside.

Berny Belvedere,
Senior Editor

“There is no compulsion in religion.” — Quran, 2:256

“For you is your religion, for me is mine.” — Quran, 109:6

In the West, Islam has the abiding misfortune of being regularly depicted—in news reports, in popular art—by its most extreme and misinformed adherents. If the idea that Islam and liberalism are compatible seems absurd, it is likely because in the Western imagination Islam is most closely associated with terrorists who cite Islamic ideas as the inspiration for their horrific acts and states who cite Islamic values as the inspiration behind their repressive laws. In its truest essence, though, Islam is a religion of choice—which is the very lifeblood of liberalism.

Islam ≠ Its Most Extreme Followers

As with any revealed religion (the belief systems that primarily take their shape from divine revelation), Islam is vulnerable to being interpreted in any number of ways. All too often, however, the interpretations serve the interests of the interpreters. If a religious individual behaves a certain way, that does not necessarily mean his religion is genuinely underwriting that behavior, even if that individual cites devotion to religious precepts as his guiding motivation. To say otherwise is to believe there is no such thing as a misinterpretation of scripture, or a misunderstanding of what the religion teaches. Similarly, if a religious society observes certain illiberal norms and enacts certain illiberal laws, that does not necessarily mean its religion is genuinely recommending those norms and laws, even if its leaders or inhabitants claim it is. To say otherwise, again, is to believe misinterpretations aren’t possible.

In fact, it is very possible, in these cases and others, that the individuals and societies have pre-religious inclinations (such as a cultural preference for patriarchal norms), and the religious tradition gets layered on top of their pre-set cultural proclivities—often backfilling them with authoritative justification, but not actually giving rise to them in the first place. We wouldn’t assume that a violent individual who becomes religious yet continues being violent is being violent on the basis of his religious adherence, but that’s the analysis often applied to Islam; in effect, people argue backwards from the behavior of terrorists and repressive regimes and maintain that because they explicitly cite their devotion to Allah it must mean they are carrying out authentically Muslim ideas.

There is a big difference between being able to say that individual Muslims or Muslim societies are illiberal and that the Muslim faith itself is inherently illiberal. Islam, at its core, is not just compatible with liberal values but is liberal, because there is no inherently controlling or imposing facet to Islam. On the contrary, in its basic orientation, it is open—to people, ideas, and dialogue. The reason this might seem so contrary to experience is because, again, particularly in the West, the very mention of Islam conjures in people’s minds Middle Eastern regimes that are authoritarian, or fundamentalist subcultures that are radical.

Muslims who are passionately eco-friendly and place a huge emphasis on respecting the physical world around us, because their devotion to upholding the fullness of Allah’s creation calls them to and because it is the right thing to do, aren’t the Muslims that typically come to mind. Neither do people immediately associate Islam with those Muslims who are staunchly anti-racist on the grounds that we all share a status as having been created by Allah—none of us less than that and none of us more than that. Caring about the sustainability and ongoing viability of the world, and being committed to a racially egalitarian ideal—these are very much in line with liberal principles.

The fact that there are untold scores of Muslims all around the world who have no problem buying into a robustly liberal societal framework should puncture the idea that Islam and liberalism are incompatible. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. Muslims, for instance, believe their fellow Americans don’t see their Islamic faith as part of mainstream society. Yet U.S. Muslims are likelier than their fellow Americans to affirm liberal principles such as that the targeting or killing of civilians to further a political, social, or religious cause is wrong. Nearly nine out of 10 U.S. Muslims report being proud to be American, a stark contrast to the pervasive media depiction of Muslims being reflexively contemptuous of, and unwilling to assimilate into, liberal societies they’re a part of.

Though these examples show Muslims whose commitments are aligned with liberal priorities, we need more than the practices of believers to establish what a religion is and isn’t compatible with. And fortunately, in Islam, it’s not just practitioners of the faith who daily showcase its compatibility with liberalism—the faith’s historical record does too. However, to see it, we need to properly contextualize Islam in history.

Older Than Liberalism

The first thing to note is that Islam is a nearly 1,400-year-old tradition. For much of that history, Islamic societies were not liberal utopias—but neither were any other societies. If you go back far enough, “liberalism” becomes a mere anachronism in that no pre-modern society can claim genuine compatibility with liberal precepts. Any tradition that is sufficiently old is going to have a long period in which it cannot claim to have been a bastion of liberal values. But there are also limitations to what modern Islamic societies can tell us about Islam’s compatibility with liberalism since many Muslim nations today have only recently exited their colonialist phases—in the 1940s and 50s. And the vestiges of colonialism—with its inclination to subjugate and to aggressively expand—are not so easily replaced by liberal priorities the moment a nation enters its postcolonial era. For postcolonial Islam, the transition to the modern world is still taking place and molding religion’s place in society, so any examination of liberalism and Islam must factor this in. Colonialism within the broader Islamic world has left its mark, still impacting the way values and policies are thought out in these societies. Still, consider how postcolonial modernization has enabled the Muslim faith to be layered on top of novel ideological backdrops, as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Egypt’s (unsuccessful) stints with socialism show.

Muslims In The Modern Era

Practicing Muslims around the world feel no contradiction in living in advanced societies as fully committed liberals and citizens in good standing. This would not be possible if their faith commitments barred them from adopting and abiding by liberal values. The same is possible within Muslim-majority countries. Though Indonesia does not have a state religion, its religious makeup is nearly 90% Muslim. If Islam were truly incompatible with liberalism, one would expect Indonesia’s Muslims to find life under a democratic regime intolerable. Even Pakistan, a country founded on the basis of being a homeland for the disparaged Muslims of British India, and known today for its struggling democracy, has in its flag a white strip representing religious minorities and their integral place. Pakistan’s founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah, himself a member of a minority tradition (as a Shia Muslim), famously said, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste, or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state.” Sadly, Pakistan has failed so far to live up to the tolerance its founder called for—but hopefully someday it can aspire to the promise it was built upon. Pakistani politicians from all parties continue to quote the line, indicating the sentiment is still one acknowledged and respected. Jefferson’s “Declaration” wasn’t considered a farce just because “all men are created equal” wasn’t truly respected or implemented until hundreds of years after it was written.

Many Muslim states today are developing democracies—from Malaysia and Maldives to Tunisia and Uzbekistan. The liberal notions of tolerance, unity, and equality are not absent, but rather linger in the backdrop of the political systems, slipping in and out of their grasp; still in the backseat rather than in the driver’s seat. In many instances, the multi-generational durability of tribalism and dynastic politics still hamper the realization of liberal ideals. In countries such as Bangladesh, Turkey, and Pakistan, legacies of military dictatorships also obstruct paths to a fuller commitment to the rule of law. The point is that it’s not Islam per se that is blocking liberalism’s ascent in these places—but historical and cultural features of these societies that Islam has been layered on top of.

Islamic Values Are Liberal Values

Beyond the historical record, and the presence of Islam within liberal societies today, the Islamic religious tradition itself suggests important affinities between the Muslim faith and liberal values. First, Islam views itself as a continuation of the Abrahamic tradition. The Quran’s most mentioned figure is notably Moses, a whole chapter is dedicated in the scripture to a woman, Mary, mother of Jesus. The linchpins of each of the other two major Abrahamic traditions are given important consideration within Islam. From the word go, Islam has facilitated advocacy for the rights of minorities, as evidenced by one of the last sermons of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), where he famously asserted to his Ummah (community): “There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor for a non-Arab over an Arab. Neither is the white superior over the black, nor is the black superior over the white—except by piety.” On his deathbed, as he spoke to his spiritual successor, Ali ibn Abi Talib, he advised him to “Fear God as regards minorities.” Thus, Islam has not only always encouraged diversity, but more than that, it has required its adherents to fiercely defend the rights of minorities.

Let us say a little more about the Prophet Mohammad, the central figure in the Islamic tradition. While modern extremist groups and their twisted interpretations have come to serve as the face of Islam’s lack of respect for women, it doesn’t have to be this way. From the earliest days of the Prophet’s life, the place of women in Islamic society was one of respect and equity. To be sure, this historic conceptualization of “equity” is not the same as what a 21st-century American progressive might mean by the term; the idea then encompassed gendered differences. But part of our overarching point is that a lot of what we would want to move away from today in Islam, given our current understanding of liberal equality, is not required by the Quran or the Prophet Mohammad, but rather reflects the cultural norms and practices enmeshed within Muslim societies in those days. On his deathbed, the Prophet in his final moments three times repeated the instruction: “Take care of the women.” Uncharitably, this can be seen as paternalistic. But in fact it was a statement against the subjugation of women. The fact that later regimes restrict women from holding drivers’ licenses or wearing what they want doesn’t mean that a Muslim is required to endorse these policies. The Prophet’s instruction, and the overall view of women’s place in Islamic life, is compatible with seeing women as equal and active participants in society, whether as business owners (like the Prophet’s first wife, Khadijah), teachers, or anything else they want to be (with exceptions no different than what one would find in Judaism, Christianity, or many other religious traditions).

There is also much to be said about the intense emphasis placed on the pursuit of knowledge, the value of education, and the importance of scholarship in Islam. In contemporary times, censorship and rigid blasphemy laws are another tragic feature of extremisms’ spillover into law and society. Historically and doctrinally, though, Islam not only offers an open space but deeply encourages the usage of it for learning and expanding one’s mind. Philosophy was (and remains) a deeply popular and intensely studied subject by Muslim intellectuals. Medieval thinkers like Al Kindi, Ibn al Arabi, and Al Razi are prime examples of how rich this tradition has always been. It was these philosophers’ commitment to their faith that pushed the limits of their intellectual work, leaving a deep impact on the field to this day. Going even further back, the first recorded university in the world comes courtesy of a Muslim woman named Fatima al-Fihriya in Fez, Morocco.

Importantly, the Quran itself, as the ultimate holy text in Islam, at different points reveals Islam’s openness to a pluralistic perspective. 2:62 is very clear: “Indeed, the believers, Jews, Christians, and Sabians—whoever truly believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good will have their reward with their Lord. And there will be no fear for them, nor will they grieve.” Here, it is categorically relayed that regardless of one’s religious identity, on the Day of Judgement they will be equally compensated. This verse also debunks the harmful and untrue notion that only Muslims will be viewed favorably by God—it emphasizes that what matters most is not one’s identifying label but good deeds. This sense of balance demonstrates, in our view, a clear compatibility with liberal values—perhaps even more so than the other Abrahamic faiths which repeatedly emphasize their own traditions as the exclusive pathway to salvation and heavenly rewards. Elsewhere throughout the Quran, it is stressed that the ideas espoused by extremists are not only wholly incorrect, but the opposite of what Islam promotes. The diversity God has created is regularly referenced not as an instruction to hurt others but as a sign of God’s glory and mercy. Finally, the verse mentioned at the beginning of this essay speaks most to the Quran’s overarching liberal attitude: “There is no compulsion in religion.”

Ultimately, we cannot declare Islam and liberalism to be incompatible based on the fact that some Muslims have illiberal tendencies or that some Muslim countries have authoritarian regimes. Nor can we say that the historical record judges the two incompatible, since of course Islam predates liberalism itself. More recently, there have been structural impediments to the full flourishing of liberalism within Muslim-majority societies. Still, Islamic values gleaned from scripture and from the faith tradition, the examples of Muslims around the world today, and the liberal-friendly laws and institutions observed by some Muslim societies, show us that Islam and liberalism are not just compatible but inseparable—all it takes is a willingness to see and respect and implement the affinities that have existed between them all along.

© The UnPopulist, 2024