Fadlallah and Abuzeid Die Within Two Days

Within the past two days, two influential Arab figures died: Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah and Nasr Hamid Abuzeid. Fadlallah is a prominent Shi`i cleric whose influence stretched much farther than his Lebanese home and Abuzeid`s critical writings on literalism in Islam brought him a deluge of condemnation as an apostate. Their legacies are certainly divergent but they both adopted critical forms of thinking and broke with their respective establishment in various ways. Fadlallah broke with the wilayat al-faqih in Iran and Lebanon, and Abuzeid broke with various literalist approaches to interpreting the Qur`an in Egypt.

In the mainstream western press, particularly in the United States, Fadlallah will be remembered--if at all--through the narrow prism of the "war on terror" because of his earlier connection with Iran and Hizballah, a connection that was broken because of his rejection of the wilayat al-faqih. Abuzeid, often critiqued by the left and fellow secularists because he allowed himself to be tokenized in Europe by those who vilified Islam, will not be remembered for his courage in fighting a big portion of the religious establishment in Egypt. Here are some reports that appeared in the blogosphere and the press so far on Fadlallah (1, 2, 3) and Abizeid (1, 2 ,3). (For a bouquet of serious commentary, see pages 4-7 in Assafir`s obituary here).

I had the opportunity to interview both Fadlallah and Abuzeid in Lebanon and Holland respectively for a documentary on "terrorism." The interviews were moving, especially in the realm of self-criticism, where self here refers to one`s society and elements in it. Fadlallah appeared in episode 3 on "Terrorism and Resistance" while Abuzeid will appear in the third and last installment of the documentary project. If I can find the time, I`ll post excerpts. Below is Reuters` report:

Nasr Abu Zayd, Who Stirred Debate on Koran, Dies at 66

By REUTERS

CAIRO (Reuters) — Nasr Abu Zayd, an Egyptian scholar who was declared an apostate for challenging mainstream Muslim views on the Koran, died here on Monday. He was 66. The official Egyptian news agency, MENA, said he died at a hospital where he was being treated for an unidentified illness.

Dr. Abu Zayd’s liberal, critical approach to Islamic teachings angered some Muslim conservatives in Egypt in the 1990s, when President Hosni Mubarak’s government was combating an uprising by armed Islamic militants. Dr. Abu Zayd criticized the use of religion to exert political power. He argued that the Koran was both a literary and religious text, a view that clashes with the Islamic idea that the holy book is the final revelation of God.

Islam, Dr. Abu Zayd said, should be understood in terms of its historical, geographic and cultural background, adding that “pure Islam” did not exist and that the Koran was “a collection of discourses.”

In 1995, an Egyptian Shariah court declared Dr. Abu Zayd an apostate from Islam, annulled his marriage and effectively forced him and his wife into exile. The couple moved to the Netherlands after he received death threats, notably from the Islamic Jihad group led by Ayman al-Zawahri, who has since become deputy leader of Al Qaeda.

But Dr. Abu Zayd quietly returned to Egypt in recent years, first for lectures and later for health reasons.

In reviewing his book “Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam” (2004), many Western academics praised his scholarship.

“Nasr Abu Zayd is a heroic figure, a scholar who has risked everything to restore the traditions of intellectual inquiry and tolerance that for so long characterized Islamic culture,” wrote Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Abu Zayd compared Arab rulers unfavorably with leaders in Iran, Turkey and elsewhere in the Muslim world, where he said religious debate was comparatively free-flowing.

“Religion has been used, politicized, not only by groups but also the official institutions in every Arab country,” he told Reuters in 2008. The distinction between “the domain of religion and secular space,” he said, had been eroded.

“I’m sure that I’m a Muslim,” he said. “My worst fear is that people in Europe may consider and treat me as a critic of Islam. I’m not. I’m not a new Salman Rushdie and don’t want to be welcomed and treated as such. I’m a researcher.”