Gad Saad, interviews Imam Mohammad Tawhidi (Islamic reformer)
Gad Saad, the Canadian evolutionary behavioral scientist, conducts an interview with Imam Mohammad Tawhidi. (Islamic reformer)
His views or interpretations of Islam, are shared by a tiny minority of Muslims, but he has a message that desperately needs to be heard. While this interview may be rather long, you will find it well worth the investment of your time. It is an illuminating interview.
His controversial views should be protected. If he can not speak freely in the West, where can he? If he is silenced, we, all of us are disadvantaged. I get the distinct impression while listening to him of logical and reasoned thought.
Imam Tawhidi could be this generation's Mahmud Muhammad Taha, who was, maybe the best chance at a true or real reform within Islam itself in the last century. He was murdered by the nation of Sudan as an apostate. I'd like to wish Imam Tawhidi a long and rewarding life.
Taha’s Second Message of Islam The Second Message, where Taha’s puts forward his main vision, resulted from a prolonged time of religious seclusion. The Quran, according to Taha, contains two messages. He sees a contradiction between the Islamic message of religious freedom and equality between the sexes, as revealed in Mecca and the Medinan verses on the same issues. In trying to solve this problem Islamic jurists developed the principle of abrogation (naskh) whereby verses revealed in Medina abrogate the legal (not the moral) significance of the Meccan verses. Consequently, the Sharia has become based on the Medinan texts, which, according to Taha, violate the values of equality, religious freedom and human dignity. Taha argues that God’s earlier intentions were only suspended temporarily but not abrogated. Society in 7th century Arabia was not spiritually mature enough to live up to the ethically much higher Meccan code. To him the Sharia, as understood by Muslims today, represented temporary concessions only. His Second Message, therefore,is a call to reinstate the Meccan ideals of Islam. This would result in a society characterised by religious freedom, social justice and economic equality.
http://www.islaminstitut.de/uploads/media/IFIZ2003-1-Mahmud_Muhammad_Taha.pdf
He is little publicized, yet still an important figure.
The first critical work to examine fully the thought of Mahmud Muhammad Taha (1909-1985) who advanced one of the most radical intellectual projects for the reform of Islam and its reconciliation with modernity.
http://www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/fall-2006/quest-divinity.html
His family is still pushing his message, at great danger to themselves
On Friday January 18, 1985 Mahmud Muhammad Taha, the spiritual leader of the Republican Brothers, an Islamic reform movement, was publicly executed for apostasy (renouncing Islam) in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Taha had openly criticised Sharia law, introduced in Sudan in 1983. What is more, the movement had developed an understanding of Islam radically different from accepted norms. Although limited in numbers and confined mainly to Sudan, a study of the movement’s ideology is relevant for a number of reasons. First, it provides evidence about the existence of an Islamic group who openly and through their numerous publications dared to radically reinterpret Islamic theology, challenging orthodoxy at it’s core. Secondly, the level of persecution consequently suffered by the Republican Brothers makes it clear why so few feel free to reopen the ‘gate of investigation’ (bab al-ijtihad), i.e. the free interpretation of Islamic law.
http://www.iqri.org/en/articles/mahmud-muhammad-taha-muslim-reformer-who-dared-die-his-convictions
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Well, I see I still have some work to do, to get this to work right. How do I remove the advertising from the video?
Saad seems to have very impressive qualifications. Unfortunately I'm not able to open Youtube, Twitter, Facebook. Unfortunately, as well, there are too few and far between moderate Muslims like the one he interviewed - they seem to earn little more than fatwas or are declared apostates.
Unfortunately I'm not able to open Youtube,
Well that sucks, I seeded that as my first article cause you were Canadian, and thought you would find it interesting. Gad Saad does great interviews,