Expectations Related to This Approach
Although some Western authors seem to place a lot of hope in such Muslim writers and in such an approach to Islam,  the simple fact is that such an approach will probably never be accepted by the Muslim world as a whole. Oh notes, “Well-known American scholars, such as Abdullahi An-Na’im and Ann Mayer, have written extensively on human rights, but their influence is felt primarily in North American and Western European audiences.” She does not bother to explain why they have virtually no influence elsewhere. It is probably because the Muslim scholars and many of the Muslim masses can easily see that such presentations are seriously flawed. In fact, one often wonders exactly towards whom such writers are writing. One can reasonably ask as to whether they are simply writing for Western academia, which seems willing to accept any new theory about Islam.

There have been other attempts at a “synthesis” between Islam and non-Islam in the past and, for the most part, they met with failure. Noah Feldman, for example, can understand how this approach to develop a different style of Islam is reminiscent of previous failed attempts.


Feldman, commenting on Abou El Fadl’s work, stated,
Efforts such as Abou El Fadl's to synthesize Islam with democracy recall the medieval Islamic philosophers who sought to integrate Aristotle and Plato with an authentically Islamic worldview. Al-Farabi, Averroes, and Avicenna produced a rich philosophical literature,but their intellectual influence was greater in the Western world, and to a lesser extent the Persian-speaking one, than among the Arabs.

It cannot seriously be expected that the writings of such individuals in their professorship chairs in the West is truly going to have a strong influence on the ground in the Muslim world, especially not when their arguments are so flawed. They are simply tweaking Islam “too much” in order to achieve their “human rights results.”

The reason such writings may resonate with Western writers and not with Muslims is that many Westerners do not understand how different Islam is from Christianity or Judaism. Although, some in the West seem to be expecting some kind of Martin Luther-like reformation in the Muslim world but that will probably never resonate with the Muslims. The Mutazilah never became the dominant paradigm (even when they held power for a little) and the modernist movement of Abduh-Afghani has had its influence but it was quickly refuted and seen as faulty. Contemporary modernists may be very influential in the West and in some parts of the Muslim world but it is very difficult to expect that they will ever become the dominant paradigm. There is simply too much up against them. The situation is different in Islam than in Christianity in many ways. For example, there is no oppressing Church to revolt against. Similarly, science has not falsified the Quran in any way as many felt it did with respect to the Bible.

Before moving on, it is important to note that there are also some very troubling points related to the virtual pushing of a modernist theology upon the Muslim world. One should never forget the great deal of bloodshed that took place in Europe as a result of such movements—interacting with various political facts. One need only read Norman Housley’s Religious Warfare in Europe 1400-1536 and Richard Dunn’s The Age of Religious Wars 1559-1715 to realize that one is speaking about centuries of “religious wars” internally among Christians in Europe due to such reformations in the Church, which one could argue were needed in Christianity due to its own particular history. With the brute force of contemporary warfare and the fact that the world has become a “global village,” it is hard to imagine that one would want something of that nature to be unleashed in the Muslim world today. However, sadly, it is hard to expect that anything other than that will occur when people are forced to accept views of their own religion that they simply did not believe in or agree with. Without convincing the Muslims first, with sound Islamic arguments, that such changes are acceptable and needed from an Islamic perspective, violence is a most likely result. The contemporary modernists, in this author’s view, have failed to present any compelling Islamic arguments and, as such, forcing their views, in the name of “human rights” or any other platform, is most likely to lead to more harm than good.