What was the position of religious institutions regarding this development, and what were the positions of modernist thinkers and civilians? The modernists began to talk about liberation from «religious heritage» to be able to move into modernity. Therefore, even before religious violence emerged, they already felt that religious institutions were either weak or complicit, and in any case, they had failed in their work of managing religion and should be radically reformed or dispensed with.
The religious institutions had not settled the matter of Islam being a religion and a state. This statement has had its dissidents among ideologue revivalists among non-traditional scholars. Therefore, they did not protest much to that statement advanced by the groups defending gradual change, and joined them reluctantly and uncomfortably, calling for the codification of Sharia and then application. But these institutions seemed very concerned about the «religious violence» that began to spread in the 1970s in social milieus, and sided with the authorities of national states that confronted the violence directed against it, without reconsidering the founding statement of that violence. This was the case until the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, when «Islamic terrorism» became a global problem. What violent extremists put forward was the idea of two camps: the camp of faithful believers and that of the non-believers, or kuffar. Since then, and for the first time, confronting violence in the name of Islam has become the priority for these institutions, replacing their constant preoccupation debating the secularists. Later the issue of excessive politicization of religion was back resurfaced when ISIS extremists announced the establishment of the Islamic State caliphate. For the first time, religious institutions deemed politicization to be harmful for religion, and that the religion-state dichotomy made religion vulnerable to the conflicts and divisions around it, rather than being a factor for unity, harmony and peacefulness.
Today, extremism, according to scholars of religious institutions, involves takfir of the other, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, the state becoming one of the pillars of religion, and its legitimacy hinging on it or on asserting it, as its dogmatic nature may lead to violence towards states, societies and the world. It is therefore necessary to combat it and its manifestations, whether violent or isolationist.
When we talk of religious institutions in the Arab world, we are referring to Al-Azhar in Egypt, the Saudi religious establishment and the Moroccan religious establishment. These were followed by the Jordanian religious establishment. They been active over the last ten years in several internal and external directions, at times in cooperation between them. They have held conferences and workshops; worked to rectify distorted concepts, such as religions, sharia and jihad, the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice, and the relationships between religion and state; established centers and institutions for the training of imams and teachers; worked to change educational programs; and worked on openness to religious institutions in the modern world. It has three main objectives: combatting the phenomena of extremism and violence in order to prevent the emergence of new generations; restoring peacefulness and continuity in societies; and changing the image of Islam in the world, which has led to exacerbating Islamophobia phenomena.
Of course, all these activities require internal structural reforms in these institutions, as they have been feeble, lagging in terms of knowledge and organization, and subjected to pressures and constraints from the political authorities in the past decades. The necessary reforms can be described in two terms: qualification and rehabilitation. Qualification refers to the reconstruction of knowledge and organization. When it comes to knowledge building, institutional scholars were caught unawares by the phenomena of extremism and violence, which they had not foreseen and had no answers to. Therefore, they have set out today to learn about societies using scientific approaches, and, more intensively, to send missions to specialize in social sciences, in the philosophy of religion, in learning about other religions and their experiences with modernity, in the training on dialogue and new educational means and access to the world of communication. Al-Azhar has established a large observatory to monitor the movement of the world and the Muslim world in particular. Rehabilitation involves training in communication with the public and with students and young people, setting up specialized or research institutes in traditional religious sciences colleges, and cooperating with similar institutes around the world.
There are few extremists and terrorists among the ranks of those educated in religious institutes and universities. The extremists have actually been fashioned by the different religious schools of those groups. But the issue remains to be the ability to influence young men and women, which requires new knowledge, new methods and new dispositions.
Just as the institutions still lack much to rebuild and renew the discourse and make it more effective, they also lack cooperation with intellectuals and media professionals. The two groups are still very averse to religious institutions, given their conservatism and rigidity. This is a negative phenomenon that must be overcome and staved off, because the challenges are huge, and there is a strong need for cooperation, solidarity and exchange of experiences, in order to confront threats to religion and the state.
At a conference against extremism organized by Al-Azhar and the Muslim World League, three goals were put forward that should be pursued by everyone working together: restoring peacefulness in religion, rescuing the national state and amending relations with the world.
Much work has already been done over the past decade. But the challenges of the religious turmoil, which menace countries and societies, are still there. Hence the duty to continue the fight against extremism and terrorism, which would help people regain trust in their religion and themselves in the Arab countries, and the countries of the West and East. Peacefulness remains a key term in this regard. It is the clearest explanation of what moderate Islam means. Achieving peacefulness among sensitive people and local communities requires a new discourse that tackles several things (according to Al-Azhar declarations): prohibiting takfir and violence, promoting brotherhood among people, condemning politicization of Islam by all means possible and working with people to establish good governance.