Sherman Jackson on tradition as a process

For me tradition is not an event, it is a process. And, I think that the one thing that militates against the essentializing of tradition is that the facts on the ground in tradition simply defy that. And so, for me, what is important is the process, that puts us all in a position to argue our perspective and then at the end of the day to be able to agree on multiple authenticities. That is the value of tradition to me, not to go back to the past and try the biases, perspectives, and specific socially and culturally informed notions of the ancients and superimpose them onto modern Muslim society. That's not the point of tradition.

Sherman A. Jackson
Islam(s) East and West: Clash of Imaginations? (audio)
Harvard Divinity School: Center for the Study of World Religions
March 12, 2007