Islam Rediscovered
15. Preservation, Updating, Da‘wah
~ 272 ~
order of the day. Now it is the age of democracy,
which is another name for the politics of power
sharing.
Changed situations in every age demand that
efforts be made towards adaptation of the
injunctions of Islam to meet new exigencies. This is
the way that the Islamic
shariah
continues to be
updated. This task of updating is performed
through
ijtihad
, a process which, in any community,
requires creative thinking. And the essential
condition for creative thinking lies in people having
full freedom of expression, including that of
criticism. This is why Islam has accorded such
freedom to everyone, an atmosphere in which
everything and everyone is open to criticism that
creativity is developed. Creative minds alone can
perform the task of
ijtihad
at the highest level.
Where there is no such open intellectual
atmosphere, the process of mental development
will come to a halt and that of updating as well.
UPDATING: REAPPLICATION OF SHARIAH
According to the Qur’an, there are two major parts
of Islam—religion (
din
) and the law (
Shariah
).
Din
or
