Challenging Concepts of Authority in Islam from a Compassion-Based Approach

In this episode, Rose gets vulnerable about notions of authority in Islam and why it’s such a complex and touchy subject—drawing upon her years as a scholar of religious and Islamic studies and working with Muslim clients as a life coach. She looks at theoretical interpretations and teachings of Islamic law and notions of authority and explains why they need to be adjusted to spread love, not fear.

The way authority within Islam has been presented to many Muslims in a black-and-white manner can be harmful and inaccurate. Rose recommends that Muslim leaders, teachers, and scholars take a trauma-informed approach to teaching Islam to support rather than turn away those who feel marginalized by mainstream Muslim communities and their approach to interpreting Islam. 

Rose argues that Muslims must take a compassion/rahma-centric approach to religion and spirituality to represent Islam as the religion of compassion, justice, and love and encourage Muslims to reconnect with its core spirituality and the Divine.

Qur’anic verse references in episode: Surah 3, verse 7.

Note: In the episode, I said that the 49th imam currently leads the Dawoodi Bohra community; I was mistaken. As of 2016, the community is presently led by the 53rd Da’i al-Mutlaq.

Transcript

Dr. Rose Aslan: 0:20

I'm Dr Rose Aslan and I'm a transformational life coach, breathwork teacher and scholar of religion who supports helpers, rebels, misfits, marginalized and spiritual and spiritually curious folks. Welcome to with Rose , where I create a bold space of warmth, understanding and pluralism in a world that often feels chaotic, polarized and judgmental. You are not alone, and the stories I share here will reinforce this. Each episode will delve into inspiring stories, practical tips and thought-provoking and heartfelt conversations with thought leaders, healers, coaches, mental health professionals and other individuals who are part of the quiet revolution of women healing around the world. So join me on this podcast exploration, as we explore what happens when we allow compassion into our lives, one story at a time. Welcome.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 1:40

Today I felt like addressing a topic that comes up again and again. It's the notion of authority, and because there's so many different contexts I could speak about today, I'll focus on the Muslim context, just to make things more concrete. I think a lot about authority, I ponder it, I've experienced it, I've applied it, I've resisted against it.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 2:01

So, what is authority and why is it such a bone of contention, specifically in the Muslim context? Whereas in the Catholic context, for example, you have a very clear source of authority the Pope and the Vatican. Even in mainland Protestant organizations you have bodies of authority that consist of elders and people who've been elected to these boards and these councils who make decisions that the rest of the community often follow. Now, for Muslims, there are some communities that have stronger sources of authority, for example in the various Ismaili communities. Ismaili Nizaris, for example, they follow the Al-Qa'an, the Buhra's they follow the 49th Imam, and in various other Shia communities, for example, they follow their Marjah-e-Takli, depending on which one they choose to follow. So in some Muslim communities there are very clear sources of authority. Of course, no one's enforcing anything Directly, unless people live in certain countries where a certain interpretation of Islamic law is followed. So if you live in somewhere like Saudi Arabia or Iran, you are subject to the way that certain scholars who are high up in the hierarchy of the political system of these countries, how they interpret Islamic law and then how the ruler decides to carry it out in a play in their government. So we have those examples and it's funny because when the media talks about Islamic law, sharia law, and they give countries like Saudi Arabia, pakistan, iran examples and they call it Sharia, they always laugh because, of course, they're justifying and enforcing very specific interpretations that are often very harsh and very much influenced by patriarchal notions of authority. So I address this today as someone who spent so many years in academia and a lot of people who have more traditional Islamic training dismiss those of us who have training in secular Western institutions studying Islam and religion. They're right to do that. I'm not a traditional scholar of Islam. I'm not a Muslim philogen. I love training as an academic. My training enabled me to critically think and explore ways of understanding larger notions and how they affect specific movements and streams of thought within religion. So when I think about authority, I'm looking at a much more macro picture than a scholar of religion, a theologian, would do. Theologian, for example, when they think about authority, they think about their right and the right of others like them, with similar training, of interpreting the Quran and then making sure that others actually adhere to and recognize their authority.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 4:31

As theologians, as Muslim scholars or jurists even jurists, meaning a legal scholar of Islam I don't do that. People often ask me for opinion. They say is this okay? Can I give, can I marry this person, can I give the cat to this person? And I tell them whose perspective are you looking for? I cannot give you a legal ruling, I'm not qualified. I can tell you what very progressive Muslim scholars would say and I can tell you what very conservative ones and the ones in the middle too. This is what I value in my own training is having this really broad spectrum of understanding different ways that Muslims across the spectrum understand, interpret and apply as law and I'm not a conservative Muslim in their society, in their communities, so I don't give fat to us. Sometimes people really hatch for fat to us on me and then now I don't give fat to us.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 5:18

But, most importantly, authority is so problematic at times. Why? Because a lot of people claim it and a lot of people claim to have the ultimate authority. Now we spoke a little bit of Shia Muslims and having some notion of central authorities, depending on where you live and how closely connected you are to a community and how closely adhered you are to your religious leader. And then for Sunni Muslims, there is no central source of authority, and then there's a lot of Muslims nowadays who don't identify with any specific Muslim or school of thought. They're just Muslim, and many of them just consider their relationship in Islam as just one of between them and God, them and Allah. That's all. They don't know that much about Islam. They don't care to know too much. They just know that they really believe in the unity and the model of theism that Islam teaches.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 6:07

So when we think of a notion of authority in Islam, there's a lot of different scholars out there who say I have the right interpretation of Islam. You need to follow me. You need to listen to me. If you follow me, you'll be saved. If you don't, who knows? I know what Islam is and this is Islam. Here's what I tell people who claim to know that Islam, what Islam is.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 6:29

You are presenting an interpretation based on your specific context where you live, your gender, your race, your class, so many other identities where you got trained, how much religious versus secular learning you have in your life, your family dynamics. All of that influences how you interpret the Quran, how you interpret the hadith, how you come up with ways to offer rulings to people asking for religious advice. Now, this might be hard to hear. I know a lot of religious scholars or theologians might fold them this directly. They would just push back and say, no, we're trying to get at the heart of Islam. They actually you're trying to get at your specific interpretation based on your specific context. We're just all humans trying our best and when you're a Muslim, we're trying our best to understand.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 7:19

How do we connect with God? How do we worship God? How do we serve God? What does that look like in our lives? How do we live good and ethical lives? Some of us can do that on our own. Ethics go beyond religion and religion also informs us. We get inspired by the Quran and other Muslim.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 7:35

Teachers and teachers from outside Islam to other people tend to need a community of teachers and scholars and authority to have a better sense of direction. Some people need a love-based approach to religion. Other people need a fair-based approach to religion and to be fair in between. A lot of people do tend to need some religious guidance and direction. That's why in so many places around the world, there's mosque and institutions of religious learning and people are going to attend classes trying to learn Arabic and the Quran and all the very Islamic scientists. People would like to have access to this knowledge on their own without having to go through an intermediary, through a scholar.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 8:16

Now, most people will never get to the same level as the main Muslim theologians we have, who are popular now it is. They've dedicated decades of their life to becoming deeply knowledgeable in Arabic language and grammar and the study of the Quran, its interpretation, tafsir, and the study of hadith and its science, the study of Islam, Sharia, and they've studied also the deem, the principles of religion, fundamentals of religion and all the other scientists that are connected to Islam. Most of us will never achieve that level of learning. Now, I've studied a lot of that as a scholar my master's, master's and the page chief program studying Islam but I would never claim to be able to convey that knowledge in terms of helping other Muslims find authority in their own lives. I don't offer that, but there's a lot of scholars who do and I deeply respect them.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 9:06

I especially deep respect the scholars out there who are trauma informed, who are aware of the harm that religion has caused people and are careful in the way they speak to people. They're careful in what they include in their teachings and their sermons and they're careful about what they decide to exclude. They're careful about the approach in which they present their teachings and learnings, their deep they love-based, god-centered. The problem is nowadays, so many scholars out there are the very opposite of trauma informed. They're almost trauma-centered, literally, and I'm talking about scholars and leaders and imams who are perhaps you can call them imam-centered in that they preach fire and brimstone.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 9:48

You go to a mosque and you become fearful. You become fearful that if you commit small sin, you're going to hell. And then you start to engage in good actions, but because you're scared of those consequences, because the imam just scared you, that very thing you were doing, whatever it is, is this simple action. That's one way to do it. If you really want to have a congregation of people who are fearful of you and fearful of God, you can do that. They have given you the authority, they have passed on their respect to you. They look to you for guidance and as a source of knowledge and in return, you've given them fear, you've given them punishment, you've given them anxiety, perhaps even depression.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 10:28

I can't tell you how many clients and other people I've spoken to who have experienced extreme anxiety due to interacting with Muslim theologians and scholars or even just listening to their videos on YouTube or social media, even just listening to YouTube short. These people are not aware that what they are saying carries a lot of weight, a lot of importance for even Muslims who are seeking something more. There's not a lot out there, so they will go to these scholars who present themselves as traditional and learned, but they are traumatizing and they're hurting people. Not everyone is hurt. Some people really benefit from this approach, but I've spoken to many who are deeply hurting and feel like they're terrible people because of what they've heard from the mouths of these people.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 11:12

Think about that for a moment. If you're a Muslim scholar who claims to have a theory of Islam, is this the kind of environment you want to create for Muslims? Is this how you want the congregation to feel? Do you really want them to be suffering? So many of the people I speak to, they're not only suffering because they feel like they're terrible people, because they can't seem to do anything right according to Islam, rather than interpretation of Islam of scholars they've interacted with or found online, but they also feel impure and like their quote unquote bad Muslims, and it feels impossible for them to get back to being a Muslim. I'm not saying I'm good or bad, just being a neutral Muslim. They don't even feel like they deserve to be Muslim. They don't feel like they can pray because they're so impure that praying is not something they deserve. What they don't understand is that actually praying can help you get back to being just plain Muslim. It can help you get back to feeling that love, feeling that closeness to God, to Allah.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 12:08

But what's happening is that they encounter all these scholars online, and it's mainly online nowadays that people I speak to, but also in mosque settings, intertutial settings, people have been hurt and traumatized by many of these scholars. These scholars, yes, have deep knowledge of traditional Islam. They have deep knowledge of texts from the Prophet Muhammad, but then, primarily, they focus on texts written by male, elite, male scholars over the century interpreting Islam. It's all wonderful, all very useful. What these people don't have is a trauma-informed approach to teaching and to sharing their knowledge. They don't actually know how to interact with people. They know how to interact with text. There's a big difference between text and humans. There's a big difference between theory and application and what I'm finding nowadays and I'm sure it's been like this for a long time, but now that a lot of these scholars are online and people share a short clips and lectures they're so prevalent everywhere is that more people are accessing some of the same scholars and it's really hard for them.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 13:13

And there's not a lot of scholars who are saying something different. I could think of a few who, when you listen to them, you feel warm, you feel like you want to pray, you feel like you want to get closer to God because you're reminded of this great compassion of Allah, this great compassion that Allah offers to all human beings, including Muslims. But it's not enough. It is not enough. I'm just going to take a deep breath to sit with that for a moment. It's not enough. There's not enough people showing people means to love God and to experience the compassion of God.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 13:44

Why do all the scholars focus on the rigid rules and harsh punishments that come with disobeying God? But you've got to start with the love first and then explain why. Why do we need an ethical system of living? Why do we need to follow certain rules? How do they benefit us? Or just give people the rules? Tell them why, explain to them, show us the wisdom behind them, but don't just threaten us.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 14:06

Thing is as humans with free will. We were given intellect by our Creator, an intellect that's independent of others, and an intellect that we've used as humans to accomplish great endeavors and great projects and to create amazing inventions, and we've done so many fabulous things in our society over thousands of years, but we're not using our intellect very well. Lately. Shema Muslims have submitted their intellect, have let go their intellect, depending on imitation of scholars who are then imitating their predecessors, using their minds. Enough, the Quran tells us countless times do you not use your intellect? Do you not use your mind to be discerning? Use your intuition, be discerning what is at the heart of the matter. Is the heart of the matter a rule? Well, there's something deeper behind that. Now, there's the concept of surah-deen, like the fundamentals of religion, that go much deeper than just the rules.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 15:03

I thought why Humans need to know the, why we need to be able to make decisions on our own. It's important to receive teachings that help inspire us to make these decisions, because, as individuals, we can choose do we want to follow this ethical path, or do we want to follow another one, or do we not want to follow that ethical path? We have the freedom of choice to choose any of these options or none of them at all. If you are a Muslim in 2023 and you live outside a country that calls itself Islamic, then you are Muslim by choice. Usually, your family might have influenced you. If you live inside a country that calls itself Islamic, you have less of a choice.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 15:39

It's much harder, I would say, to grow up in a country like Iran or Saudi Arabia and to find beautiful things with Islam. So many young people I speak to in these countries have extreme hatred and fear of Islam. It's not Islam they're really scared of or they really don't like. It's because of what the government and the scholars have done, how they distorted their religion to the point unrecognizable to someone like myself who I'm privileged enough to have grown up in the United States and to live in a country where I can choose to follow Islam on my own. For those of us who live outside a country that calls itself Islamic, we have a bit more freedom to decide how we follow it, but many of us we don't use our full intellect and I want to ask you what does it look like to really engage with and use your intellect as a Muslim? Do you want to blindly follow scholars, even if you feel awful when you learn from them when you go to the mosque.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 16:36

I used to go to mosque in various countries, especially in the United States. Friday prayers, jama'at prayers so many of them gave me anxiety. They made me upset. I'd be venting and complaining afterwards, so I stopped going. In the United States, there was very seldom I could find a mosque with a person giving a Friday sermon. That inspired me. Luckily, we do have fake places like the Women's Mosque of America, where I gave a sermon many years ago in 2015. But it's still not enough. We need much more of this.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 17:05

This whole discussion reminds me of this verse I love going back to. I'll quote the verse in the show notes, but it goes like this it is God who revealed this book, the Quran, to you. Some of its verses are clear and definite meaning. They are the book's core. Others are ambiguous. Those with stubborn hearts follow the ambiguous verses, desired to create confusion and their own interpretation. Well, absolutely no one but God. Those are exact or full interpretation. Those who are grounded in knowledge say we believe in it. It is all from our Lord. No one will take this to heart, except those endowed with insight and understanding. I love this verse.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 17:47

When I was teaching about Islam and the university. I always showed this to my students when we looked at Quran, specifically chronic tefsir or interpretation. How do Muslim scholars understand? What is it they're doing in this interpretive, discursive process of understanding? What does the Quran mean? What does the Quran mean in terms of coming up with rulings and legal possibilities for Muslims? What does it mean for each individual Muslim who just try to live ethical life and find inspiration from the Quran as a Muslim?

Dr. Rose Aslan: 18:16

Now, what I love about this verse there's the two types of verses the Muqtah-Mak, the clear and definite verses, and the Moutish, the ambiguous verses. Now, the Muqtah-Mak are pretty clear. There's not much debate, it just says it like it is there is only one God. To be Muslim, you can't believe in many gods, for example. It just makes it very clear.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 18:36

There's a lot of other verses in the Quran that scholars have been debating for centuries and there's no resolution. In this verse it says that people who are stubborn or deviant. They follow these ambiguous verses and they try to create confusion among Muslims with their interpretation. The Quran is reminding us that only God knows exactly what these verses mean. Only God knows what they mean. My question is how many times are scholars interpreting these sorts of verses claiming that the Ulta meaning would actually none of us know their true meaning or complete meaning. Now it also says in this verse those who are grounded in the knowledge, the people who have studied, the people who are grounded in their bodies and knowledge.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 19:16

There's also ways to interpret Raas-i-Chun those who are grounded in knowledge. They say we believe in it, it's all from God, they believe in the Quran, but it also warns us saying no one will take this to heart. No one will believe this except those who have insight, intuition and understanding. So, basically, what this is saying, the Quran and when it was revealed to us by God is warning us that some verses are really clear. Some are ambiguous. Some people are going to take the ambiguous one, the confused people with presenting their opinion as the truth as warning us that most people won't take this issue seriously, only those who have insight, intuition and understanding. Now, who that is in 2023? That's a great question. I can't answer that question. I think it's up to us to decide who we trust, who we want to view as a source of authority, or even a source of someone who is offering interpretation that we respect, that we view as having an interesting opinion that we might take to heart as part of our practice as Muslims.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 20:19

I have my own way of doing it and I encourage everyone who I speak to who is Muslim, who's trying to find their way back to God, their way to becoming closer to God.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 20:30

Use your intellect, use your mind, use your sense of discernment your intuition, both your mind and your bodily knowledge, in how you discern who to trust, how to discern when someone's presenting Islam but really they're presenting their interpretation of Islam. How to be careful to not fall under just worshiping scholars. Or in the US and West we have celebrities who go in these circuits and people give them so much authority. Some of them have hardly any qualifications. In fact, many Imams I've seen around the United States, especially ones from other countries who have been imported. I've looked up their qualifications and their degrees. Quite a few of them have degrees, including PhDs, from diplomats. So people are going to these mosques saving knowledge from people who have fake PhDs, who have fake degrees, and their master's degrees are fake. This is a huge epidemic in the Muslim community that people are giving over submitting to believing the teachings of people who are not qualified and who are not even aware that they're not qualified, because they're so full of competence for themselves and also they're not able to present their view as one of many. They present their view as the one and only, and whenever someone presents their view as the one and only, I have a difficulty to engage with them. I really appreciate people who are more humble, people who can recognize that, yes, I have an approach, but there's other ones out there and those also might have some validity too. Just the idea that you're Sunni. It's also important to respect Shia Muslims, ibadim Muslims or other background. You might not be Shia and you might not agree with their perspective, but engaging in Tad Fier, engaging in Qandana Nam the Muslims or infidels that's not just harsh but that's just wrong. I'm sorry, and this is so common and people wonder why people are leaving Islam or disaffected by Islam.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 22:26

I can say here in the list, all of them. I won't, because really, the people I'm speaking to are those who feel disengaged, who feel disaffected, who feel they've been traumatized by Muslim scholars, ideologians. I want you to know you're not alone and the things you're feeling are valid, the emotions you're feeling are valid, the fear you're feeling is valid. There's other ways to go about this and in this podcast I explore this issue with the people I interview, with the topics I engage with on my own here, and there's other resources I'll share as time goes by about how do you find peace with being the Muslim you've decided to be, how do you find peace with being who you are, even if it's different than the main street. When you're different, when you're swimming upstream instead of downstream, you get cold, you get a little bit lonely, as I mentioned before in previous episodes, but it feels good to you, it feels ethical to you. Keep on going.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 23:23

If your goal is to worship God, to believe in God, to be close to God, keep on doing that thing. It helps you do that and be discerning and skeptical of anyone who makes claims that don't make sense to you, of anyone who induces anxiety or fear within you For yourself. How do you feel in your body? Perhaps the problem's in you. Perhaps the problem is this person's approach and their pedagogical, their teaching methods don't work for you.

Dr. Rose Aslan: 23:49

Take a breath With that. I leave you to ponder this topic. If anything came up for you, I invite you to share with me social media through email. Also notice what thoughts were racing through your mind as I was speaking. What's the sensation that came up in your body throughout this podcast episode? How do you feel for you? Thank you for listening. Are you looking for help bringing more compassion into your life and letting yourself out of the box and into the real you? I'd love to support you on your journey. Check out my one-in-one and group coaching offers and sign up for my mailing list to receive updates about my offers. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook under Dr Rosa Slan coaching or visit my website, compassionflowcom.