Muslims embrace label as heretics | ajc.com
Muslims embrace label as heretics
By CHRISTOPHER QUINN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/29/08Muslims gathering in Atlanta this weekend call themselves heretics half-seriously.
Remember, said Emory professor Abdullahi An-Na’im, opponents of Muhammad and Jesus called them heretics. So-called heresy can accomplish great changes, he said.
Corky Gallo/Emory Law School
Emory professor Abdullahi An-Na’im hopes the meeting sparks positive change and openness.
About 75 Muslim bloggers, writers and free thinkers from the United States and abroad are expected this weekend at the Muslim Heretics Conference, where they will talk about democracy, women’s issues and critical thinking. They hope their discussions will spark positive changes and open conversations that will echo around the world.
“We want to rehabilitate the notion of heresy as a creative force,” said An-Na’im, who wrote “Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a,” which is a defense of secular governments for Muslims.
It has been published in six languages. An-Na’im has lectured on the issue around the world, including in his native Sudan, where a mentor from his early life was killed by the Islamist government.
He said new communication technologies such as the Internet are opening the Muslim world to new ideas, and repressive governments can no longer control the flow of information. So there is a great deal of ferment going on in the world of thought among the planet’s 1 billion-plus Muslims.
Iranian-born Fereydoun Taslimi of Atlanta, who also helped organize the conference, said, “We plan to do it every year, a gathering of people who like to discuss issues and keep the momentum and networking of Muslims going.”
The organizers have been talking about such a conference for months, he said. In January, they decided to put the word out and see how many people would show. Registration for the conference is closed.
Some Muslims have criticized them for using the title Muslim Heretics Conference, Taslimi said.
“But we decided to stick with it, in that we feel we are against the kind of actions that are being committed in the name of Islam,” such as violence and repression, he said.
Taslimi said some of the same critics a few years back complained about the use of the words “Islamic reform,” but have adopted the phrase when discussing issues where their religion and the modern world intersect.
Jill Carroll, an author and the director of the Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance at Rice University in Houston, said such conversations are happening with increasing frequency and are important.
“Every religion has to confront the social and political realities of the time,” she said.
“There is a growing conversation of, what is our role in the 21st century. We have to interpret our faith newly.”