A critical analysis of the Modernists and the Hadeeth ... - Islam House

The following quote from one of the
'progressives' Muqtedar Khan
summarizes what the progressive
movement is about and its means in
achieving its goals:
"The second view (on Ijtihad)
often espoused by non-jurists and
particularly by those who advocate some form of
Islamic modernism and liberalism, envisions ijtihad
more broadly.
For modernist Muslims…Ijtihad is about freedom of
thought, rational thinking and the quest for truth
through an epistemology covering science, rationalism,
human experience, critical thinking and so on.
When modernist Muslims claim that the door of
ijtihad has been closed, they are lamenting the loss of the
spirit of inquiry that was so spectacularly demonstrated
by classical Islamic civilization at its peak. They are, in a
sense, nostalgic for Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd
(Averroes), for al-Farabi, al-Biruni and al-Haytham --
scientists, philosophers and jurists of Islam's 'Golden
Age'.
...As long as a majority of Muslims equate Islam with
sharee'ah, Islamic scholarship with fiqh (jurisprudence)
and real knowledge with juristic knowledge, ijtihad will
remain a limited jurisprudential tool and closed minds
will never open… Muslims must go back and read Ibn
Rushd (Fasl al-Maqaal, The Decisive Treatise), and
learn how he bridged science and religion, in order to
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