From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Enlightened moderation

Anti-extremist Islamic school of thought, created by Pervez Musharraf

Enlightened moderation is a term coined by a former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf; it applies to practicing a moderate Islam, as opposed to the interpretations of fundamentalist Islam.

To think properly as to rationalise thoughts, to be on the positive side of life and to prefer optimism, the theory goes, is to be against extremism.

The strategy of enlightened moderation was unveiled by Musharraf during the 2002 OIC Summit Conference in Malaysia.

Musharraf explained his position in an opinion piece that was published in various newspapers in 2004. His plan for enlightened moderation has two sides. It calls "for the Muslim world to shun militancy and extremism and adopt the path of socioeconomic uplift" and "for the West, and the United States in particular, to seek to resolve all political disputes with justice and to aid in the socioeconomic betterment of the deprived Muslim world".

Musharraf pointed out that moderation and enlightenment have been the traits of the Islamic world since the times of Muhammad.

Musharraf wrote:

I say to my brother Muslims: The time for renaissance has come. The way forward is through enlightenment. We must concentrate on human resource development through the alleviation of poverty and through education, health care and social justice. If this is our direction, it cannot be achieved through confrontation. We must adopt a path of moderation and a conciliatory approach to fight the common belief that Islam is a religion of militancy in conflict with modernisation, democracy and secularism. All this must be done with a realisation that, in the world we live in, fairness does not always rule.

Criticism

Fundamentalist Islamic organisations have criticised Musharraf's vision of enlightened moderation. The Jamaat-e-Islami condemns it as a neologism for Westernisation and American imperialism. Islam is innately a religion of enlightened moderation, they argue, and needs no Westernised amendments. Masooda Bano says that the US is not likely to "suddenly metamorphose into a benevolent entity, which will 'resolve all political disputes with justice.'"

References and notes

References

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5081-2004May31.html "A Plea for Enlightened Moderation"], by Pervez Musharraf, June 1, 2004, ''[[The Washington Post]]''
[http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=952 Ayman Al-Zawahiri's Interview to Al-Sahab (Part II): Osama Bin Laden Still Commands the Jihad, but the Jihad Is Larger than Individuals. Mujahideen Should Attack Oil Infrastructure in the Middle East]
[https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA437501.pdf], p. 63
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5081-2004May31.html A Plea for Enlightened Moderation]
[http://www.jamaat.org/Isharat/ish0704.html Jamaat-e-Islami ""Enlightened Moderation" or the new US 'Religious Order'"] {{Webarchive. link. (2008-07-04 , by prof. Khurshid Ahmad, accessed 12 February 2005.)
Masooda Bano, "Unraveling 'Enlightened Moderation'", ''[[Al-Ahram]]'', 17–23 June 2004 ,Issue No. 695

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

liberalism-in-pakistan pervez-musharraf political-terminology-in-pakistan liberal-and-progressive-movements-within-islam pakistan-studies enlightenment-philosophy pakistan-movement

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Enlightened moderation — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report