Ramadan Reflection

 Disclaimer: It's usually about a third of the way through Ramadan that I'm at my most tired and grouchy, and thus most at war with my own religion.

I was thinking this morning about the concept of the Gates of Ijtihad, which is a concept that appears in both the Sunni and Shia ends of the Islamic spectrum. The term is ijtihad essentially means something like independent reasoning; that is, carrying on an intellectual exploration, a scholarly and structured but also usually messy one, to sort out the deeper meanings of the complexity of, specifically, the Qur'an, but more generally the entire religious concepts of the faith. The belief is that the Gates of Ijtihad were closed around the year 1000 C.E. (at least that's the Sunni take, the Shia one is more fluid and believe the Gates are still open). Essentially, this means that the questions were answered and didn't need to be explored anymore. I have profound problems with this, as you might expect. We always have to struggle with what these concepts mean, and while we shouldn't simply weakly react and cave to a changing societal world, I think we have to take it into account. I don't think that all the questions were answered over a thousand years ago. Rather, I think the modes of oppression were in place over a thousand years ago, and the role of the religion - and the concomitant, support readings of its texts- in support of that oppression were in place. When we unquestioningly give in to interpretations that, mainly, reflect the societal age in which they were realized we do such a disservice to a religion that began as a revolutionary movement in support of the oppressed.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.