Pakistan, the 'Ulama on the 'Net and Averroes

In Pakistan, Islamist groups attempted several times to assassinate the then-president, Pervez Musharraf, suggesting that more violent disagreements exist there and, of course, Benazir Bhutto was recently murdered. Freedom of non-Muslim speech has been severely limited there. The situation there remains volatile and dangerous.

I would have written more on Pakistan as I mentioned I was going to write a Pakistan post but I haven't done sufficient research yet. Instead I will briefly comment on the state of Islam today, generally, as I see it and as it often appears to be expressed in places like Pakistan and on the internet.

There is arguably a certain lack of synthesis in Islamic scholarship as a whole that lends support to the irrationality and ahistoricism/atavism by which it is reasonably often marked; a certain inability or unwillingness to see the forest of principles for the trees of specific pronouncements. The proliferation of fatawa sites on the net attests to the kind of narrow interpretation from both the questioner and the giver of the fatwa/ruling that so often occurs in the hazy area for Islam of what constitutes Mubah behaviour – not specifically either not recommended, forbidden, recommended or obligatory. Averroes, on the other hand, was concerned to stress the importance of finding guiding principles. How far we have come since 12th century Spain and Marrakesh!