Below is an article by me on the PMU that ran today in alt.muslim.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n In it, I try to lay out my longstanding concerns about PMU in a balanced manner.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n \nThe Progressive Muslim Union is going through a rough patch.\u00a0 A series of defections of prominent supporters that started in July (Muqtedar Khan<\/a>, Michael Knight<\/a>, Laury Silvers<\/a>, and others) culminated in August with the collective resignation<\/a> \u2013 accompanied by some acrimonious public exchanges within PMU\u2019s board \u2013 of Omid Safi, Hussein Ibish, and Sara Eltantawi, three of the PMU\u2019s four founders (only MuslimWakeUp!<\/a> editor Ahmed Nassef remains).\u00a0 And a new (rival?) website, ProgressiveIslam.org<\/a>, featuring former PMU stalwarts has been launched.\u00a0 The Progressive Muslim movement seems to be splintering, if not crumbling before our eyes.<\/p>\n \nAs someone who sympathizes with many of the organization\u2019s stated goals and as someone who\u2019s sometimes has occasionally found himself defending the work of Progressive Muslims \u2013 not every charge lobbed at them is fair and there are some very good, sincere Muslims involved \u2013 I\u2019ve observed PMU\u2019s recent travails with great sadness.\u00a0 I have to admit, though, that this sadness isn\u2019t really for PMU per se, but rather for the activists and causes that will have to deal with the fallout from the latest twist in the increasingly unseemly saga of Progressive Islam in North America (which Sheila Musaji has summarized admirably in her hard-hitting recent article \"MWU and PMU: Progressive Voices?<\/a>\" in The American Muslim<\/a>).\u00a0 <\/p>\n \nPMU\u2019s protean and seemingly relativistic approach towards Islam and its unwillingness to unambiguously affirm transcendent values in Islam and the normative authority of Quran and Sunnah have always distressed me as a Muslim and prevented me from identifying with the organization, even when it was alone in tackling problems and issues that I felt strongly about.\u00a0 <\/p>\n \nI\u2019ve never believed in \"Progressive Islam\", either.\u00a0 Not because \"progressive\" is a dirty word, but because its principles are already at the core of Islam.\u00a0 Contrary to all the historically and philosophically illiterate rubbish one hears about the sinister implications of the term, there is nothing inherently secular or anti-Islamic about progressivism<\/a>.\u00a0 To the contrary, many of the most laudable advances in American politics and society that Muslims view as in keeping with Islamic values (e.g., civil rights, economic justice, the welfare safety net, child labor laws, women\u2019s rights, environmentalism) are the result of the dreaded Progressive political tradition.\u00a0 While it\u2019s true that this tradition is not consciously grounded in religious faith, its objectives of alleviating suffering and bringing about equality are ones that any Muslim should applaud.\u00a0 (Besides, who doesn\u2019t believe in some kind of \"progress\", and why is it so hard for some people to consider the possibility that a Muslim \"progressive\" might consider the pinnacle of progress to be nothing more than living up to Allah\u2019s message and doing good?)<\/p>\n \nMy biggest frustration is how PMU\u2019s monopolization of the discussion of Islamic reform and its horrendous PR missteps have not only made the word \"progressive\" radioactive in the Muslim community, but have put activists and reformers on the defensive.\u00a0 I mourn the fact that activists now have to devote so much energy to explaining what they\u2019re not rather than making a cause for much needed reform.<\/p>\n \nThe activists I know would sooner admit to being ax murderers than \"Progressive Muslims\".\u00a0 How did this happen?\u00a0 How did the Progressive Muslim movement lose credibility with so many Muslims who would\u2019ve normally been predisposed to enthusiastically support them?<\/p>\n \nThere was a time where I certainly had high hopes for this nascent movement.\u00a0 In the beginning, MuslimWakeUp.com was an innovative and promising venture, a truly exciting voice for reform and Muslim debate that was leveraging technology to create a virtual community and communication channel for liberals and reformers around the globe.\u00a0 By the time I got the chance to contribute an article to MWU in August 2004, I had already begun to feel grave misgivings about MWU\u2019s direction due to the advent of the \"Sex and the Umma<\/a>\" column, but I hoped this was an aberration.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case, and PMU\/MWU became increasingly fringe, confrontational and seemingly out of touch with its community, reveling in vulgarity and puerility, passing off lazy secularist slogans as Islamic reform, and gratuitously offending normal Muslim sensibilities.\u00a0 Soon thereafter in 2004, I gave up on PMU as a credible voice for Islamic reform, even if I sympathized with some its efforts.\u00a0 <\/p>\n \nI don\u2019t think it was PMU\u2019s string of PR missteps or the influence of any one individual \u2013 considerable criticism has been leveled many of those resigning at the outspoken leftist activist Tarek Fatah \u2013 that did it in, but something far more fundamental, its trying to be, if you\u2019ll forgive the expression, \"all things to all men\".\u00a0 In its effort to forge a grand uber-coalition of leftists and activists, PMU refused to apply even the most minimal doctrinal litmus tests to its leaders and representatives.\u00a0 \u00a0As a result, PMU (here I use the term loosely to refer to more than its board of directors) runs the gamut from hard-line secularists to fuzzy New Agers to normal Muslims who just want reform in the community.\u00a0 To some, this diversity is undoubtedly PMU\u2019s crowning glory, but to me it a sign of an organization lacking substance or vision.\u00a0 <\/p>\n \nOn the one hand, I want to make some allowances for PMU in this regard, as I realize that they are trying to do something extraordinarily difficult, namely updating the Muslim community\u2019s norms of tolerance to address thorny contemporary realities.\u00a0 For example, in our era of fragmented globalized identities, postmodernism, and widespread secularism, the idealistic assumptions about a Muslim\u2019s identity and practice found in Islamic tradition do not always correspond to the reality of contemporary Muslims.\u00a0 Historians might debate whether the Ummah is more doctrinally diverse or less practicing today than in the past, but it\u2019s safe to say that modern Muslims must face unheard of pluralism when dealing with their fellow Muslims.\u00a0 The days when most Muslims lived in a community in which a single madhab, culture, language, race, or even denomination predominate and block out other competing Islamic paradigms are long gone.\u00a0 Also, however one views or explains this phenomenon (i.e., secularization, decadence, modernism, materialism, etc.), it is a sociological fact that a significant segment of contemporary Muslim populations is made up of \"cultural Muslims\".\u00a0 There are, unfortunately, large numbers of Muslims today who do not accept the need to practice Islam as laid out in Islamic tradition and fiqh. From a traditional perspective, they are not normal Muslims, but it is no less problematic to categorize them as non-Muslims, as they have not renounced Islam and they clearly are part of modern Islamic civilization in some meaningful sense. <\/p>\n \nTo PMU\u2019s credit \u2013 and unlike many mainstream Muslim organizations \u2013 it has tried to grapple with this conundrum and create a space where Muslims who do not conform to mainstream expectations (however legitimate most such expectations may be) or who are struggling with their faith can participate without fear of knee-jerk takfir or harassment by self-righteous vigilantes.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nLessons Learned From The PMU Experiment
<\/span>By Svend White,\u00a0 September 26, 2005<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/pre>\n