A Call For Heresy – Why Dissent Is Vital to Islam and America – by Anouar Majid

“Imagining the wider gate.”

As professor and founding Chair of the Department of English at the University of New England, and the author of Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World, that was recommended as a book to understand the context of 9/11 by the American Association of University Professors, one might expect that A Call For Heresy may be a challenging, intellectual read. It was for this reader.

Although Majid states that “Sometimes all we need is a different perspective to untie knotty problems, loosen the climate of suspicion, and, if all works well, increase the possibilities for dialogue and thoughtful collective action. By looking at the fortunes of Muslim and American societies together, we may perhaps recognize the futility of armed conflict and consider solutions that address underlying causes, rather than exacerbate anger and confusion.” (Preface ix). Well, that’s a hope and a basis for inquiry that I’m willing to learn more about.

Majid’s insights on the role of religion as a component of the world’s challenges was expansive and deep. For example, “The supreme deity of the United States right now, the absolute and absolutist god that broaches no dissent, is not Jesus or his increasingly vociferous defenders, but capitalism. In fact, religious fundamentalism, as with all other forms of fundamentalism, doesn’t happen in a cultural vacuum, but emerges in response to a sense of threat to one’s being or core beliefs. Fundamentalism is often situational; it always expresses itself in relation to a contending force.”(p. 11).

Yet, beneath the blaring news blasts the clash between fundamentalists in a variety of cultures create, the voices and hearts of partisans who seek reconciliation, understanding and cooperation are drown out. In every society, this group of partisans is summarily marginalized by the mainstream ideologues and dogmatic believers. Majid’s suggestion? Encouraging freethinkers to speak up. “We need a healthy culture of freethinking, a tradition of heresy, or zandaqa, that would help the indoctrinated see past their convictions toward a future that opens the wider gate of the common good, not squeeze us through the tunnel of narrow interests and the end of life.” (p.49).

This book is a contemporary, intellectual treatise about hope. About the necessity to continue to think, speak and imagine an inquiry and dialog, that examines our respective traditions and reduces the “causes of conflict and violence and broaden the scope of tolerance and push it to include innovative thought without punishing humans for daring to imagine life-saving alternatives.”(p.49).

This book is a work of the heart of a freethinker, Anouar Majid, who is encouraging us to engage in the honorable, yet risky endeavor of creating the wider gate.

I was inspired, educated and enlightened by this book. I hope you will be too.