Islam, the Crisis of Modernity and Islamic Hermeneutics: Lessons from Another Land for Northern Nigeria Islam
This article argues that 'detraditionalisation' as a response to the crisis of modernity can be successful if it is embarked upon interreligiously, within the Northern Nigerian context. Otherwise the process will be considered as another instance of 'Western/Christian' hegemony. There are already attempts made within the Islamic tradition in this regard. Abû Zayd, for example, argues that Islam can embrace modernity without much difficulty because the meaning of the Qur'an is not incompatible with the progress of the natural sciences. He argues that Islam is both a “culture of the text” and a “culture of interpretation”. Central to the dialogue between traditional Islam and modernism, however, is the rethinking of the privatisation of religion to give it a more communitarian flavour. In addition, deconstructing the embodiments of Political Islam (e.g. Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban, Wahhabism, Iranian theocracy, Boko Haram) is crucial if authentic religious discourse will not succumb to an apologetic and defensive approach when it serves to produce a lame traditionalist political institution in the name of preserving Muslim identity against an intruding foreign system. The unresolved conflict between Muslim identity and Modernity's ethos is captured in the question: is it possible to be 'good Muslims' and 'good citizens' of a modern nation-state? A convincing response has not been articulated because few Islamic scholars have taken Abû Zayd's route.
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