On Definition and Terminology

Academic research in the humanities has been interested in processes of reform in Muslim societies for some time, often assuming that movements of reform reflect structural social, political and economic changes in Muslim societies that are linked to the process of enlightenment or secularisation in Europe. Approaches of this kind express the hope that Muslim societies will sooner or later be able to liberate themselves from the chains of tradition and open up to Western modernity. Apart from the fact that European or Western debates on movements of reform in Muslim societies usually depart from Western and not from Muslim imaginaries (Haj 2009: 1ff), etic approaches often use the term ‘reform’ in indiscriminate ways. The term ‘reform’ has thus come to describe a large array of different processes of change.

In order to understand reform, we thus have to ask a whole set of questions on the very nature of processes of reform and their structural features before being able to apply the term, at least as a working definition, to Muslim contexts: how is reform presented; who supports a movement of reform; how do reformers address audiences; what are the specific characteristics of a movement of reform in a specific period of time; are there patterns of agency, of development and success (or failure) of movements of reform (even of different orientations) in different regional settings and in different times; are similarities between movements of reform accidental or part of larger social processes that lead to similar results in other contexts and at different times; why do movements of reform acquire social relevance (Wirkmächtigkeit) in some specific historical contexts and not in others; what are the historical chances of a movement of reform; how strongly are movements of reform influenced by other movements of reform and adopt aspects of such reform movements; and how are internal religious dynamics of movements of reform informed by such trans-religious interfaces?