Islam is experiencing a crisis of credibility and authority that stems directly from the nature of Islam itself. This makes it difficult to come up with solutions of any sort because few Muslims will be willing to alter the structure of their religion.

In the Winter 2002 Wilson Quarterly, Richard W. Bulliet writes:

Today’s crisis grows in part out of the structure of Islam itself — a faith without denominations, hierarchies, and centralized institutions. The absence of such structures has been a source of strength that has permitted the faith to adapt to local conditions and win converts around the world. But it is also a weakness that makes it difficult for Muslims to come together and speak with one voice on important issues — to say what is and what is not true Islam.

Bulliet assumes here that there is something called a “true Islam” which is the essence of the religion. Bulliet assumes that there are actions which are not “true Islam” and which are deviations from that essence. These are assumptions are incorrect: Islam is what Muslims do. Some beliefs and actions are more common than others, but that doesn’t make them a “true Islam” which transcends culture and time.

Moreover, when was the last time that Christians have spoken with one voice on important issues? Christians disagree on gay marriage, abortion, war, terrorism, taxation, divorce... pretty much everything. Christians didn’t even speak with one voice during its earliest days — if they did, Paul wouldn’t have had to write so many letters criticizing what other Christians were doing.

That said, Bulliet does have a point about the impact that the absence of a professional clergy. The ability of Islam to adapt is good, but the lack of authoritative “managers” can make the development of extremism that much easier.

The crisis has three related historical causes: the marginalization of traditional Muslim authorities over the past century and a half; the rise of new authorities with inferior credentials but greater skill in using print and, more recently, electronic media; and the spread of mass literacy in the Muslim world, which made the challengers’ writings accessible to vast new audiences.

Traditional religious authorities were marginalized by governments over the past couple of centuries. The absence of any tradition of separating religious from political authority in Islam made it easier for political authorities to take over mosques, financial endowments, and religious education — something that would have been very difficult to achieve in Europe. The diminished status of clerics created a power vacuum which the state hoped to fill, but they failed because political failures led to a loss of credibility in religious matters (a pattern which is being repeated in Iran today).

All of this caused the rise of religious figures who didn’t have strong credentials from religious institutions. They had credibility because they had clearly not been co-opted by the state or their clerical puppets. They were engineers, doctors, lawyers, and other technically educated men — they were the beginnings of radical Islamism in the Arab world. Instead of spending years immersed in legal traditions that had developed over centuries (and which tend to have a moderating influence), they focused (almost) solely on the Qur’an, seeking quick and easy answers to all their political, social, and religious problems.

There are strong parallels here with fundamentalist Christian groups: by ditching centuries of tradition and exegesis, they start fresh with the Bible and rely on literalist interpretations that create radical policies, doctrines, and politics. Tradition usually isn’t radical, thus any religious group which abandons tradition entirely can become very problematic.

 

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