Who can deny the critical times in which we contemporary Muslims live?  In the recent memory there has not been such a period of uncertainty about the future of the Ummah.  The Islamic revolution of Iran in 1978-79 under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini had generated enormous optimism for the revival of Islam and establishment of truly Islamic public order under our religious leaders.  Today that revolution is 24 years old.  As several of us, scholars of Islam and Iran, were invited to assess the achievements of the revolution there was almost an agreement on two issues.  On the one hand, we are witness to a momentous period in the history of all Muslims confronted with the grim prospects of a preemptive war to disarm Saddam Hussein; and, on the other, we are going through a creative period of dissent and dialogue about the Islam and its leadership in many parts of the Islamic world. 

              The prospects of a preemptive war against Iraq give rise to an important question about the actual target of the U.S. mission to disarm Saddam: is it really Saddam or is he being used simply as a pretext for attacking Islam and Muslims?  Such question arises naturally in the context of American policy of indifference in dealing with the atrocious treatment of Palestinian Arabs under Israeli occupation.  Why does not the U.S. government regard Israeli government an equally wicked system in the region?  My purpose in this short essay is not to engage into political analysis of the situation.  I simply want to offer a very brief assessment, the way I see it.  American politics today is not concerned about ethics.  It is merely pursuing its political ends, with no regard to critical moral questions that confront America as a powerful country that can make a difference in the world fraught with injustices.  In order to maintain credible leadership of the world today, American policy makers need to respond to the Palestinian question as honestly, and without any hesitation, as they insist in handling the Iraq problem of weapons of mass destruction.               

       But is this war against Islam or Muslims?  It is neither.  The problem with Muslims, throughout the history, has been to avoid facing the internal situation of the Umma with necessary openness and criticism.  There is a growing dissent of the pious and conscientious Muslim scholars around the world to protest lack of tolerance and recognition of necessary freedom of conscience.  The religion that came to deliver human spirit so that it can advance in its moral and spiritual perfection has become the victim of narrow-minded interpreters of the Holy Qur’an and the Prophet’s teachings.  The true spirit of Islamic humanism has been buried under the weight of false traditions that suffocate and stifle all positive attempts to speak to the world about Islam as it is.   

However, there has also emerged some signs of dialogue among traditional authorities in the seminaries (hawza `ilmiyya) and modernly educated scholars of Islam in the universities.  There are signs that we might witness a creative period of understanding between traditional and modern methods of analysis of Islamic history and belief system.  Some traditional scholars have taken positive steps in this direction.  For the first time, there is an acknowledgement that Muslim scholars in the university setting are not the enemies of Islam or Muslims.  They are engaged in negotiating an academic space, which Islam shares with other world religions.  Such negotiation has required the scholars to use an idiom that is academic - a language of research that endeavors to speak across religions to convey the special marks of Islam.  That academic language is, necessarily at variance with the language that scholars of the seminary use to articulate their research.  According to these seminarians it is important for the ulama to understand the academic expression with openness before judging the scholar’s academic production and his/her faith in the light of that production.  Clearly, this acknowledgement of an academic discourse and its peculiarity was overdue.  It still remains to be seen if major representatives of the religious establishment are willing to admit that the differences in the interpretation of the sources does not mean that the soul of Islam is in some untold danger, and that the ulama, as the sole custodians of Islamic learning, should engage in this battle to save Islam. 

To be sure, the battleground for the soul of Islam is in the universities and not in the seminaries.  In Islamic seminaries the language of faith is in control of the dissemination of information about Islam.  Enemies are not admitted among the believers who want to be left alone with their faith and its resources.  In the universities, whether in the West or in the Muslim world, the language of Islam takes up the challenge to speak to the world of non-believers or even disbelievers.  Muslim scholars have the responsibility of not only explaining Islam in relation to all other fields of research like history, political science and religious studies; they also have the challenge of making their information intellectually appreciable.  Hence, the relevance of the modern language that conveys Islam as a historical as well as living faith of Muslims.

It is this challenge that Muslims have a lot of difficulty in understanding.  Instead of learning about these difficult times for the academic study of Islam -  a newcomer in the arena of culture warfare – the community has closed its mind to the growing need to make Islam relevant in the world of plurality and secularity.  Although, Islam began as a minority religion and provided guidelines to live in harmony with other religions and their followers, today Muslims have forgotten the basics of plurality even within their own community.  To be a Sunni today is “not to be a Shia.”  And, to be a Shia is, likewise, “not to be a Sunni.”  The irony is that both claim to follow Islam – that is, the Prophet and the Qur’an.  The Prophet and the Qur’an constitute the “soul” of Islam.  The battle for the soul of Islam is actually the battle to make the Prophet and the Qur’an the two absolute sources for Muslim spirituality and morality.  The battle for the soul of Islam should be the struggle to make these two sources relevant to the future of Muslim community.  Such a struggle must essentially confront the Muslim narrow-mindedness and move it towards the dialogue – the only way to build bridges in the community as well as with other communities.  That is the Soul of Islam – Muslims living in peace with one another and with the world at large.