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ISLAM IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
© www.ghazali.net
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CONTENT
About the Author ……………………………………………………….. 3
Introduction ……………………………………………………………… 4
Chapter I: Islam World Today ………………………………………… 11
Chapter II: Cultural Invasion …………………………………………. 22
Chapter III: Islam and the West ………………………………………. 43
Chapter IV: Islamic Resurgence ………………………………………. 71
Chapter V: Religious Fundamentalism ……………………………… 93
Chapter VI: Islam and Modernization – I ………………………….. 107
Chapter VII: Islam and Modernization – II ………………………... 126
Chapter VIII: Islam and Modernization – III ……………………… 144
Chapter IX: Islam and Modernization – IV ………………………... 160
Chapter X: Conclusion ………………………………………………... 178
Appendix I: Islam & Politics in Pakistan …………………………... 193
Appendix II: Islam in Europe ………………………………………... 217
Appendix III: Modernization and Islam …………………………… 221
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abdus Sattar Ghazali, born in 1938, is a professional journalist,
with Master's degree in Political Science from the Punjab
University. Started his journalistic career as a sub-editor in the
daily Bang-e-Haram, Peshawar, in 1960. Later worked in the daily
Anjam and the Tourist Weekly, Peshawar. Worked as a News
Editor in the Daily News, Kuwait from 1969 to 1976. Joined the
English News Department of Kuwait Television as a News Editor in
1976. Also worked as the correspondent of the Associated Press of
Pakistan and the daily Dawn, Karachi, in Kuwait. During the Iraqi
occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91, worked as an Assistant Editor in
the daily Dawn. Presently, he is working as the Editor-in-Chief of
the Kuwait TV English News.
This is his second book. His first book, Islamic Pakistan: Illusions
and Reality, was published in November 1996 and launched on the
Internet in June 1997.
Kuwait, July 16th, 1999
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INTRODUCTION
The Islamic states are part of the so-called Third World that is
dominated by the West. The Western dominance is of a multi -
dimensional nature, not just military or political hegemony.
Economic and intellectual forces are important components of the
dominant power that the West wields. The dominant countries of
the West have not only penetrated the Third World, particularly,
the Islamic or Arab countries in economic and political terms but
also in very significant cultural areas.
This hegemonic or dominant role is exercised by certain Western
countries because of the ascendant position they occupy in the
world market and the community of nation states buttressed by
military and technological superiority. According to Robert
Keohane, author of After Hegemony: "The theory of hegemony, as
applied to the world political economy, defines hegemony as
preponderance of material resources. Four sets of resources are
especially important. Hegemonic powers must have control over
raw materials, control over sources of capital, control over markets,
and competitive advantages in the production of highly valued
goods."
The global sweep of late capitalism has been seen by many cultural
critics to be wedded to the view that modernity and Westernization
are the best goals for all peoples, individually and corporately. So,
Western views of the world and the West's hegemonic structures
and processes are seen to work hand in hand, one supporting the
other in a vast co-optative system embracing everything from
production-consumption, pop culture, the exportation of human
rights and democracy, to the maintenance of "friendly" political
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regimes and the preservation of the status quo in power relations
between West and East and, more to the point: North and South. By
"viable" is meant hegemonic more often than not.
The dominant Western systems were created to enforce the rules of
an international economic order, the main purpose of which was to
promote the interests of the dominant powers. The international
economic system is heavily tilted in favor of the industrialized
West. This imposes severe restraints on the modernization and
development processes in the developing countries. In economic
terms, growth and modernization are key concerns of the so-called
liberal philosophy. But it is more concerned with increasing the
size of the cake than distributing it fairly and equitably.
Western policy, based on a single principle, i.e. self-interest, is
pursued brutally.
The Western policies towards the third world - that includes the
Islamic world - are primarily determined by the analysis of
economic and power interests, not by the evaluation of a religion.
These policies are single- mindedly pursued by Western self-
interest, at times brutally, with little regard for the lives of people
there. It is a question of power politics, of control.
In his top secret Policy Planning Study 23, Mr. George Kennan, in
1948 outlined the US policy: "...we have about 50% of the world's
wealth, but only 6.3% of its population....Our real task in the
coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will
permit us to maintain this position of disparity .... To do so, we will
have to dispense with all sentimentality...We should cease to talks
about vengeance and ...unreal objectives such as human rights, the
raising of living standards, and democratization." In its annual
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Human Development Report 1998, the UN says that gross
inequalities between rich and poor countries are worsening, with 20
per cent of the global population accounting for 86 per cent of
consumption. The 225 richest people in the world have a combined
wealth of more than $1 trillion -- equal to the annual income of the
poorest 47 per cent of the earth's population, some 2.5 billion. The
three richest individuals in the world possess more than the total
gross domestic products of the poorest 48 countries, the 15 richest
people have more than the total GDP of sub-Saharan Africa and the
32 richest more than that of South Asia.
Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries,
almost three-fifths lack basic sanitation, one-third have no safe
drinking water, one-quarter have inadequate housing, while one-
fifth are under-nourished and the same portion have no access to
modern health services. For $6 billion a year more, basic education
could become universal. This is half what Europe and the United
States spends on persumery. Satisfying everyone's basic food needs
would cost $13 billion. In comparison European and Americans
spend $17 billion a year on pet food.
The problem is the growing military power of many states in the
so-called Third World, who could escape Western dominance. The
problem is that a widening circle of states reserve the right to use
their power as they fit. This is a dreadful nightmare for the West.
The countries in question should, hence, behave in a manner that
the Western countries 'see fit' and not as they themselves 'see fit.'
Therefore, if any country's policies are found contrary to the
Western interest, it is dubbed as against the international law and
world peace.
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Western civilization - based on the Jewish- Christian ethos - is
promoted as "the universal civilization". The term civilization is
usually used in the singular to mean modern Western civilization
which since the eighteenth century has been in the West as the
civilization; one that has set about to destroy and obliterate
systematically all other civilizations including the Islamic. It is
being done in the name of a world order which is completely based
on the modern, Western ethos.
There is a tendency in the West to consider its own tradition alone
as rational and scientific and denigrate other traditions as mere
propaganda, religious obscurantism or superstition. Global cultural
development is often measured by comparison with the Western
culture. Consequently, modernity is not considered a characteristic
of Islamic societies. Instead, it is seen as an integral part of a
universal process of becoming civilized.
According to this scheme, the West is progressive, rational,
enlightened and secular. Islam is backward, fanatical, irrational
and fundamentalist. What is interesting is that it is not Islam and
Christianity that are contrasted, or the West and the East, but Islam
and the West, a religion and a geographical area. Furthermore, it is
clearly very important for the West to feel superior and to see
Western culture as the 'best' and 'most progressive.'
The view which the Christian and the post-Christian West had of
themselves in the past, as being endowed with a universal mission
of redemption, is in many respects the same. Whereas it was earlier
deemed necessary to 'win the world for Christ,' now
'modernization' - that is, adherence to the model of the West - is
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exported and preached with almost evangelical fervor as a sure
means of redemption.
The West concentrates on Islam as a religion which is made out to
be responsible for countless political, cultural and social
phenomena in Islamic countries. And it is clearly Islam as a religion
that generates such fear in Western culture, a fear of religion
that the West thought it had banished from its enlightened
societies. To quote Reinhardt Schulze: “The West appears to re-
enact, indeed to prove its own enlightenment and its own
independence from the power of religion by comparison with the
Orient. This is surely also because doubts have arisen about the
victory of the world over religion, or of reason over irrationality in
the West itself”. [R. Schulze, lecture in Cologne, September 1991]
The Islamic resurgence is complex and multifarious
The Islamic resurgence is a broad based, complex, multi -faceted
phenomenon which has embraced Muslim societies from the Sudan
to Sumatra. It is a manifold, multifarious occurrence that is
religious, socio-economic and political in character. It is impossible
for any single framework to capture it or provide a meaningful
comprehension. The phenomenon of Islamic resurgence has been
variously described as the 'fundamentalism,' 'renewal,' 'revival' or
'repoliticisation' of Islam, Islamic 'radicalism' and as 'militant
Islam.'
The way to understand the Islamic revival as a modern
phenomenon must be through an understanding of the modern
milieu in existing Muslim societies -- their economies, politics and
cultures in the broad senses of the term. The modern political
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religious movements are the outcome of the distorted process of
secularization to which Islamic societies were exposed, of the
economic crisis that capped their encounters with the Western-
dominated economic system, and of the crisis of identity
engendered by the cultural encounter with the so-called
modernism.
The point to be made here is that both the external factors, the
Western domination of global economic and political system, and
the internal factors, Islamic revival etc. have produced this
phenomenon.
Islamic resurgence in the modern Muslim world is a socio-religious
and political movement that represents social interests, perhaps
those of the 'alienated petty bourgeois mass and its proletarian
extension.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the Muslims feel that
because of the strategic location of the Middle and Near East, they
have been under siege for nearly two centuries. When faced with
such a continuing and often over- whelming force, they have taken
recourse to what is easily and immediately available. Because
adherence to the Islamic Shariah brought so much glory to seventh
century Islam, a number of Muslims feel that their present plight
can be explained largely because of their failure to practice and
follow certain clear and rigid principles and institutions of the
Quran and the Sunna.
However, one can discern several types of responses on the part of
Muslims to what they term Western dominance and imperialism. It
has given rise to a variety of voices and expressions, that have been
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unrelenting in pursuing their major goal, which is to alter or
supplant (some p of) the existing culture and society either through
legal peaceful means or revolutionary methods.
In every Muslim society in which Islam is followed by a substantial
proportion of the population different political or ideological
manifestations of Islam will be discernible. Three broad types of
Islamic orientation may be identified: radical, conservative and
moderate or secular. A moderate wishes to preserve Islamic culture
and norms, but without taking this to the political arena. He
believes in reforming the Islamic society on modern lines and
argues that religion should not to invoked in political, legal and
economic matters which should be conducted in the context of the
present-day world. Islamic revival or fundamentalism in its radical
aspect seeks to interpret Islam as a reform movement and is
opposed to modernistic interpretations of Islamic teachings which
are attempted by modernist and liberal-minded Muslims. A
conservative interprets Islam in legalistic-ritualistic terms that
helped the ruling elites to use Islam as a political instrument.
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CHAPTER I: THE ISLAMIC WORLD TODAY
The 20th century will be remembered in the collective Muslim
memory as a period of failure and humiliation. Today, towards the
end of the 20th century, there are more than a billion Muslims
living mostly in their independent states which are grossly under-
developed. With adherents spread all over the globe, Islam is the
world's second largest religion after Christianity. Muslims
constitute majorities in roughly 45 countries, from Asia to Africa to
the Middle East. Though Muslims constitute nearly 20% of the
world's population, they account for less than 5% of the globe's
gross economic product, despite owning 54% of the world oil
revenues which are worth almost US$11,500 billion. Economically
and politically weak, they are still dependent upon and followers of
the Western powers. Not one of the 50 Muslim states is capable of
standing on its own feet. None of the Muslim countries has now
any international importance, not even the status of a second-rate
power. Today the position is that Muslim countries without a single
exception are merely autonomous and are by no means the master
of their destiny. Nearly two thirds of the Muslim countries falls
into the category of the poorest nations, and nearly all the recent
famines have occurred in countries with largely Muslim
populations, among them the Sahel countries of Africa, as well as
Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia. Only a few countries, mostly with
small populations, (such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar,
Oman, Brunei) have income levels comparable to those of the
developed countries.
Due to the unequal distribution of population and resources, the
Muslim world is divided into two groups of nations -- the low
income economies like Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, and high
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income oil exporters like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya. The
low income Islamic economies constitute amongst themselves
nations with the lowest per capita income, lowest life expectancy,
lowest adult literacy and highest infant mortality rate. The high
income oil economies have higher life expectancy, higher per capita
income and all indicators relating to quality of life indicate better
standard of living. The marked difference between the two groups
of Islamic nations can be appreciated if one sees the per capita GNP
which averages $270 for the low-income Muslim world and $13,500
for the high income Muslim world. More than 600 million people
live below poverty line.
Mass poverty in Islamic countries is a result of exploitative and
oppressive global systems. This state of affairs is partly due to the
fact that a majority of the Muslim countries had been colonized and
exploited over the recent centuries, and their culture and economic
development neglected. Today the Muslim states like other
developing countries find themselves in a debt trap. More than
one-third of their gross national product (GNP) now equals their
external debt. The Muslims are excluded from the
advanced technological society which will shape the political future
of the world, condemned to be passive spectators rather than active
participants.
Equipped with knowledge and technology, the Europeans have
dominated the world for the last 400 years. The scientific revolution
formulated the new experimental mathematical method of
acquiring knowledge about the social, political, economic, cultural,
psychical, physical, biological, geographical and cosmic world. This
method is empirical and observational. This method acknowledges
no authority except empirically and experimentally proven facts
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and theories. Most of the knowledge we live by today has been
acquired through this method largely in the last 300 years. The non-
Western world, including the Muslim bloc, has contributed very
little to this knowledge. Even the very rich Muslim-ruled Arab
countries spend insignificant amounts on acquiring knowledge.
Though they are among the largest buyers of the products of latest
science and technology. Being mostly consumers and insignificant
producers of knowledge, the Third World poses no threat to the
dominance of the industrialized West. The Western world employs
over three million scientists and engineers, whose only job is to
create new knowledge and exploit the same for the development of
new goods, services and new weapons systems. They spend nearly
four hundred billion dollars on research and development. 1
The peculiar manner in which political development has taken
place in the Muslim countries has created elite groups which
control all the economic resources and sources of power and, in
their own interest, sustain dictatorships. They impose systems of
education, economy, social institutions and mores to perpetuate the
stranglehold they have established over the entire area of national
life.
Most of the Muslim countries are ruled by vicious 'friendly'
tyrants2, surrounded by a predatorial narrow elite group. All the
West has to do is to enter into private deals with tyrants; pamper
the elite groups and leave the rest to them. The latter would do
most of the exploiting and present wonderful profits on the platter
to the particular great power. Convergence of interests between the
First World's own gainers and the Third World dictators and elites
lead to collusive deals between the two that are facilitated by the
government of the developed nations which are ever ready to play
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power games.3 Muslim countries have the fewest democracies in
the world. In most of the Muslim countries, the head of government
rose to power through force -- his own or someone else's. The result
is instability and a great deal of internal coercion to control his own
people. Governments are largely un-representantive and mostly
unresponsive to public opinion which is easily manipulated. Ruling
cliques in league with vested interests exercise power without
accountability. Islam is used often as an instrument for preserving
and perpetuating status quo.
The West (and the USSR) have for generations helped repressive
and often incompetent regimes hang on to power. In this way,
instead of contributing to the resolution of problems they have
helped to aggravate and perpetuate them. Internal stagnation, the
failure of ruling elites and prolonged economic misery are
therefore, for a lot of people in the Middle East, closely connected
with the West's predominance in the region. This perception may
be exaggerated at times, and may also be dressed up as a
conspiracy theory, but it is essentially appropriate. It is hardly
surprising then that in the long term a considerable potential for
resistance would build up in the Middle East, which would be
directed not only against the dictators there but also against the
men behind them - the West.4 To what extent democratic conditions
prevail in Islamic countries has mostly been of precious little
concern to the West. Dictators such as Saddam Hussein or Hafez
Assad were, and in some cases still are, generously supported and
armed by the West and the former Soviet Union. Movements
wanting to democratize their societies are hardly mentioned in the
Western media.5
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In many Middle Eastern countries the ruling elites have long
promised economic development, independence and a solution to
the Palestinian problem, to mention but a few examples. Yet they
have increasingly proved themselves incapable of resolving even a
fraction of the problems of their countries, and instead have only
pursued the interests of power, and in the process not uncommonly
amply lined their own pockets. Western countries (and earlier to a
certain extent the Soviet Union) have played an important
contributory role in this. They have collaborated with the ruling
elites, and in some cases even helped them to hold on to power
artifically. Often, there has been a community of interests between
Western governments and Middle Eastern dictatorships (the region
being brutally free of democracy) against the people of Middle
Eastern countries.6
The modern Muslim society is living under semi-feudal, tribal,
rural and capitalist social formations. After its integration into the
world capitalist system it now stands polarize d into a small
minority of powerful elites and a vast majority of powerless and
poor masses. These ruling elites, in league with the Western
capitalists have been maintaining the exploitative systems of semi-
feudalism and neocolonialism. They block all social change, since
any change in favor of the poor masses will weaken and eliminate
the control of these elites on power and privilege, economics and
politics. The economic and political systems of the Muslim societies
in general cater to the needs of the elites. During the 1960s and
1970s the western capitalists themselves had initiated development
plans to create these elites in the Muslim societies. The
evolutionary method of brining change through political pluralism
and parliamentary democracy has also been monopolized and
distorted by the elites. They always capture power through
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alignment with different groups within these elites, and through
rigging elections and with all sorts of clever maneuvers. 7
Oliver Roy comments with great insight on the politics of the
Muslim states: "Their politics cannot be explained, as Seurat aptly
demonstrates, without reference to the concept of the asabiyya, to
segmentation and esprit de corps, which is to say to the
establishment of clientele networks more concerned with their own
prosperity than with that of the state. But these networks do not
represent the permanence of a tradition behind a mere facade of
modernity. The structures of the traditional asabiyya were
dismantled by urbanization, by the shuffling of society, by
ideologization: they rebuilt themselves along different lines
(political patronage and economic mafias), but they may also
disappear. The modern asabiyya are recompositions of the esprit de
corps based on the fact of the state and the globalization of
economic and financial networks; they are translations of a
traditional relationship of solidarity into the modern realm. The
modern asabiyya are not merely the permanence of tribalism or
religious communalism: they may be reconstituted on the basis of
modern sociological elements (the new intelligentsia versus the old
families), but they function as predators and perpetuate themselves
through matrimonial alliances. Their space is no longer the
grandfather's village but the modern city. The militia of Beirut may
function as old urban asabiyya -- the futuwwa, brotherhoods of bad
boys who ensure order and "protection" in the areas poorly
patrolled by the palace -- while political parties may function as
patronage networks around important notables.8 In Syria and Iraq,
power is held by asabiyya, solidarity groups founded on ethnicity,
clan and family. After the riots of October 1988 in Algeria, the sole
strategy of the power in power, the FLN (National Liberation
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Front), was to stay in power, which it did through multiple
manipulations of electoral law. In Pakistan, both the conservative
party (the Muslim League) and the Bhutto family's People's Party
were arms of large families with industrial and land holdings. 9
In the present era, the Islamic countries are witnessing the eruption
of great political fervor in the form of revolutionary and reformist
movements which call for the Islamization of state and society. At
the bottom of such an upsurge is the problem of harnessing the
development of society -- which has been in a state of flux ever
since the inertia was shed by the coming independence -- with an
appropriate bridle. In this expedition, the search for a cogent
ideology engages all competing social forces. This invariably
involves questions about democracy, modernization and socio-
economic reforms.10
Perhaps in every Muslim society in which Islam is followed by a
substantial proportion of the population different political or
ideological manifestations of Islam will be discernible. Three broad
types of Islamic orientation may be identified: radical, conservative
and moderate or secular. A moderate wishes to preserve Islamic
culture and norms, but without taking this to the political arena. He
believes in reforming the Islamic society on modern lines and
argues that religion should not be invoked in political, legal and
economic matters which should be conducted in the context of the
present-day world. Islamic revival or fundamentalism in its radical
aspect seeks to interpret Islam as a reform movement and is
opposed to modernistic interpretations of Islamic teachings which
are attempted by modernist and liberal-minded Muslims. A
conservative interprets Islam in legalistic-ritualistic terms that
helped the ruling elites to use Islam as a political instrument.
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Islamic resurgence, as a radical religio-political movement,
essentially means going back to the origin sources and roots of
Islam. It advocates adherence to the original beliefs of Islam in
their liberalist interpretations as fundamental and basic principles
thus transcending all social, economic, political and cultural
transformations which span a period of fourteen centuries. The
original sources of Islam are the Quran and Hadith which are
revolutionary in the sense that they give broad and universal
values, ideals and principles (of equality, brotherhood and
freedom) to change any iniquitous and unjust social system.
Muslims feel that because of the strategic location of the Middle
and Near East, they have been under siege for nearly two centuries.
When faced with such a continuing and often over-whelming force,
they have taken recourse to what is easily and immediately
available. Because adherence to the Islamic Sharia brought so much
glory to seventh century Islam, a number of Muslims feel that their
present plight can be explained largely because of their failure to
practice and follow certain clear and rigid principles and
institutions of the Quran and the Sunna.11
Though the Muslim countries share the poverty and backwardness
of the Third World as a whole, they differ from the rest of that
world by virtue of their dynamic faith, and a glorious history of
past accomplishments that inspires them. They have a deep-seated
sense of brotherhood, and of sensitivity to the fate and fortunes of
Muslims everywhere. The spark of the Islamic faith, and of the
vision of a revived Ummah, is there, and inspires a growing
number of Muslims all over the world.12
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The political, utopian goal of recreating the Muslim empire and the
return to a mystical golden age that holds the greatest attraction. It
is the dream of magically transforming their weak, impotent and
subordinate position in the world into one of domination. Although
no one has yet explained how this transformation would occur
simply by applying the Sharia. It is quite clear that the main
preoccupation and sole purpose of these modern Muslim mass
movements is instant utopian glory, unlimited worldly power in a
project which is designed to recreate a cherished past. 13
In the Middle East, high hopes were raised of a great Arab revival
at the turn of the century following the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire. Hopes of a great cultural and political awakening were
raised again following the discovery and exploitation of oil. But as
the century ends, the Arabs find themselves as weak and
dependent on outside powers as when it began, if not more so. At
the root of this is the gloomy fact of the Arab world's dismal
political and economic failure. The early hopes that oil revenues
would fuel an economic boom which would catapult the Arab
nations into the industrial era were quickly dashed as these
revenues tended to be squandered uselessly on arms or on
inefficient industrial projects which themselves became a burden
on the economy. Associated with economic failure is the political
failure. The Arab political order created by the colonial power has
remained virtually unchanged. This was a largely artificial order.
As a result nearly all Arab states exist today either by direct violent
repression of their people or by the threat thereof and few can
claim to rule by the consent of the populace. Quite apart from the
Arab states' internal political bankruptcy, the living proof of Arab
failure and impotence came with the establishment of the state of
20
Israel and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians across the Middle East.14
"The early Arab political response to the bewildering changes in the
world and in the region was the formulation of Arab nationalism.
This is a political creed which borrows heavily from Western
sources and mixes this with images taken from Arab history
yearning to recreate a mythical golden age based on the early
Islamic Empire of the 7th-9th centuries. The most elaborate of the
Arab nationalist sects is Ba'thism, which believes in a certain
glorious, mystical destiny for the Arabs in the contemporary world
and calls for the unity of all Arabs "from the Gulf to the Atlantic."
This Arab state would then become the third superpower (in a
world where there were still two). The man in the Arab street
responded with great fervor to the claims and promises of
nationalism, seemingly unaware that a modern superpower is more
than a large land mass and a sizable population. Nevertheless the
vision was powerful and captivating, for all fantastic nature of the
claims were either lost to them or subconsciously denied. The
outrageous claims of the Arab nationalists were completely
shattered in the 1967 Arab defeat by Israel. Far from attaining a
superpower capability, three Arab armies were roundly defeated by
the "Zionist entity" (the term used by the Arab media of the time), a
mere client state of the US. As a result, Nasser, the most prominent
Arab nationalist of the time, lost all credibility."15
21
Reference:
1 1 Dr. Anis Alam, Is fundamentalism a threat to West? - Frontier Post, Peshawar - 12.7.1992
2 The regimes, particularly those friendly to the United States, are not v ery strong politically and very often the United States has to prop them up, knowing full well that they are autocratic. Such regimes have been designated in a recent work as Friendly Tyrants. "The most important of all Friendly Tyrants for the United States is Mexico .... Washington would undoubtedly be prepared to do much more to keep a Friendly Power in power there than elsewhere if the alternative were viewed as being much worse from the perspective of US interests. Certainly it would be more willing to keep an unfriendly tyrant from taking power there than anywhere else in the world." When one considers that the Persian Gulf supplies nearly 60 to 70 percent of Japan's oil needs, over 50 percent of Europe's and above all, that the mounting debts of the United States are financed by the credit from Japan and Germany, one can see that perhaps the Gulf region and particularly Saudi Arabia is a close second, if not as vital, to the security of the United States as Mexico. [Khalid bin Sayeed, Western Dominance and Political Islam - Oxford University Press, Karachi, p-22]
3 M. B. Naqvi, Third World and realpolitik - Dawn 29.4.1996
4 Jochen Hippler, The Next Threat: Western Perceptions of Islam, p -123
5 Ibid. p-12
6 Ibid. p-122,3
7 Dr. Ziaul Haq, Islamic Fundamentalism - Dawn 14.2.1992
8 Oliver Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, p-18-19
9 Ibid. p-52
10 Ibid.
11 Khalif Bin Sayeed, op. cite., p-1
12 Dr. Maqbool Ahmad Bhatty - Muslim world and new global order - Dawn 8.4.1994
13 Dr. R. T. Abed, Islamic Fundamentalism: a new political mythology? Weekly Middle East International - London 4.3.1994
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
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CHAPTER II: CLASH OF CIVILIZATION OR
CLASH OF INTEREST?
Western Civilization
There is a tendency in the West to consider its own tradition alone
as rational and scientific and denigrate other traditions as mere
propaganda, religious obscurantism or superstition. Cultural
development is often measured by comparison with Western
culture. Consequently, modernity is not considered a characteristic
of Islamic societies. Instead, it is seen as an integral part of a
universal process of becoming civilized. According to this scheme,
the West is progressive, rational, enlightened and secular. Islam is
backward, fanatical, irrational and fundamentalist. What is
interesting is that it is not Islam and Christianity that are
contrasted, or the West and the East, but Islam and the West, a
religion and a geographical area. Even in the Age of Enlightenment
the European attitude to Islam remained unenlightened. In the
writings of illustrious European poets and playwrights - from
Dante and Shakespeare to Byron and Shelly - there were pejorative
references to the Quran and the Prophet, to Moors and Saracens.
They became part of the regular intellectual diet of many a
European student right down to the present. Voltaire himself wrote
a play entitled Fanaticism, or the Prophet Mohammed.
As Jochen Hippler has said: By caricaturing different cultures, by
arbitrarily and willfully misrepresenting Islamic societies we grant
ourselves absolution. Others are fanatical, we are not. Other are
irrational, we are not.1 Furthermore, it is clearly very important for
us in the West to feel superior and to see Western culture as the
'best' and 'most progressive.'2
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The term civilization is usually used in the singular to mean
Western civilization which since the eighteenth century has been in
the West as the civilization that has set about to destroy and
obliterate systematically all other civilizations including the
Islamic. It is being done in the name of a world order which is
completely based on the Judeo-Christian-based Western ethos. The
view which the Christian and the post-Christian West, in the
colonial era, have of themselves as being endowed with a universal
mission of redemption, is in many respects the same. Whereas it
was earlier deemed necessary to 'win the world for Christ,' now
'modernization' - that is, adherence to the model of the West - is
exported and preached with almost evangelical fervor as a sure
means of redemption.
However, the concept of Western modernization is highly political.
As Reinhardt Schulze asserts convincingly, it allows all attributes
of modernity to be defined as European, and Europe or the West to
be described as the creator of modernity. The non-European,
particularly the Islamic, world is simply cast in the role of the
sufferer who was infected by the West's modernity, and can now no
longer come to terms with it.3 ....This conviction is also represented
in the new western literature of Islamic studies and the social
sciences.4
It goes without saying that many people in the West no longer feel
connected to Christianity as a religion, but rather as a cultural
influence. Their culture is directly or indirectly shaped by it and
they do not feel there is anything unusual in this. But, Islam is
hardly ever seen as a cultural category, but as a religion, one which
is threatening.5 The West concentrates on Islam as a religion which
is made out to be responsible for countless political, cultural and
24
social phenomena in Islamic countries. And it is clearly Islam as a
religion that generates such fear in Western culture, a fear of
religion that the West thought it had banished from its enlightened
societies. To quote Reinhardt Schulze:
"The West appears to re-enact, indeed to prove its own
Enlightenment and its own independence from the power of
religion by comparison with the Orient. This is surely also because
doubts have arisen about the victory of the world over religion, or
of reason over irrationality in the West itself."6
Hippler got to the heart of the matter when he said: the perception
of the Islamic threat has virtually nothing to do with the Middle
East or Islam, but everything to do with the establishment of an
inter-Western identity. It is about reassuring ourselves, about
reassuring each other of how rational, enlightened and sensible we
Westerners are. The need for this has of course arisen from the
regrettable fact that standards of civilization in Europe are not
high, and are constantly being dragged down by explosive set -
backs. Fascism, Stalinism and other archaic phenomena such as the
wars in Balkans, the civil war in Northern Ireland, or racism in the
USA which exceeds even what is prevalent in Europe - to mention
but a few examples -- should urge us to be careful in our estimation
of Western civilization.7
West’s Self Interest
Over the past two centuries the Islamic world has come to be
penetrated and shaped by the West and much more so than ever
the West was affected by influences from its neighbour. Western
power has dictated the boundaries of Muslim countries and
25
fashioned the modern states. Western power, too, has integrated
Muslim economies into the new western-dominated world
economy.
The Western policies towards the Islamic world are primarily
determined by the analysis of economic and power interests, not by
the evaluation of a religion. These policies are single-mindedly
pursued by Western self-interest, at times brutally, with little
regard for the lives of people there. It is a question of power
politics, of control. The problem is the growing military power of
many states in the so-called Third World, who could escape
Western dominance. The problem is that a widening circle of states
reserve the right to use their power as they fit. This is a dreadful
nightmare for the West. The countries in question should, hence,
behave in a manner that the Western countries 'see fit' and not as
they themselves 'see fit.' Therefore, if any country's policies are
found contrary to the Western interest, it is dubbed as against the
international law and world peace.
Western Domination
The existing world order, in which the West has retained its
privileged economic position despite the end of the colonial system
that contributed to its prosperity, perpetuates the inequalities and
protects the vested interests derived from that system. The
international system functions now on a single criterion -- the
interests of the great powers. All else is irrelevant, and will remain
so unless the premises of unipolar absolutism are challenged by
those countries whose interests and sovereignty are most at stake.
26
The realpolitik of the rich and successful states in the West
necessarily involves manipulation of the 160 or more Third World
states (which include all the Muslim countries) in order to keep
them divided. It is actually a function of their power that has
necessarily to work for obtaining commercial and economic
advantages in the international marketplace. The precise
mechanism of international trade and economic relationships are
certainly characterized by the exploitation by the rich of the many
poor through two simple mechanisms: terms of trade and keeping
the many poor nations at one another's throat. This is why the poor
states cannot take any united action. Terms of trade mean that the
poor commodity producers have to sell cheap and are forced to buy
dearer industrial products, including technology. It has to be
conceded that such economic exploitation is an integral and
unavoidable part of the system. According to Robert Keohane, the
author of After Hegemony, "The theory of hegemony, as applied to
the world political economy, defines hegemony as preponderance
of material resources. Four sets of resources are especially
important. Hegemonic powers must have control over raw
materials, control over sources of capital, control over markets, and
competitive advantages in the production of highly valued
goods."8
According to German economist, Andre Gunder Frank, the
development of the industrialized countries from the fifteenth
century was a direct result of their economic, and later political,
dominance of today's underdeveloped countries, a huge majority of
which were colonies. The process sucked them into a long-term
structurally disadvantageous relationship which resulted in the
development of some countries and the current underdevelopment
of Latin America and by extension other Third World regions. This
27
is the foundation of Frank's argument: that the development of the
industrialized states was only made possible (and continues to be)
by the underdevelopment of the Third World.9
It is obvious from complicated web of open diplomacy, and the
covert moves being planned and executed by the powers of the day,
that the West would like the Islamic world to remain weak,
disunited and incapable of achieving its dues status as well as its
share of the world's resources. According to Dr. Haider Mehdi, "the
West wants to grab all the benefits of all the resources of the word,
to attain the highest living standard for its own peoples, and
impose its political will and cultural dominance, at whatever cost
to the rest of humanity."10 The west only acts in its self-interest, or
what it sees as its interest, irrespective of country or creed. The
capitalists of the West are afraid of the rapid development of the
Third World. This would mean that they would lose their money,
their affluent lifestyle and their way of life. These are the
permanent interests of the West and it is threat to them that they
oppose through every means moral, amoral or downright immoral.
The west is selfish and ruthless in its interests. Some western
experts, like Kelly in Arabia, the Gulf and the West (1980),
demanded outright invasion of Muslim countries, like those in the
Gulf, in order to capture their wealth, their oil wells and ports, to
make them safe for the West.
The Islamic states are part of the so-called Third World that is
dominated by the West. The Western dominance is of a multi -
dimensional nature, not just military or political hegemony.
Economic and intellectual forces are also important components of
the dominant power that the West wields. The dominant country or
countries of the West have not only penetrated the Third World,
28
particularly, the Islamic or Arab countries in economic and political
terms but also in very significant cultural areas.
The dominant Western systems were created to enforce the rules of
an international economic order the main purpose of which was to
promote the interests of the respective dominant power. The
international economic system is heavily tilted in favor of the
industrialized West. This imposes severe restraints on the
modernization and development processes in the developing
countries. In economic terms, growth and modernization are key
concerns of the so-called liberal philosophy. But it is more
concerned with increasing the size of the cake than distributing it
fairly and equitably.
The Clash of Civilizations?
The concept of a clash of civilizations, suggested by the Harvard
Professor Samuel Huntington, is based on the notion of the Western
domination of the world. In an article entitled "The Clash of
Civilizations?" Huntington predicts that future world politics will
be determined by conflicts between different civilizations/cultures.
He envisaged that future competition and conflict would be based
not on national perceptions and goals but on larger cultural
groupings "civilizations", of which he identified eight civilizations:
the Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox,
Latin American and possibly African. He took note of the fact that
the failure of western ideas of nationalism and socialism had
produced a return to the roots phenomenon among non-western
civilizations, such as Asianisation in Japan, Hinduisation in India,
"re-Islamization" in the Middle East, and Russianisation in Russia.
He further concluded that the most potent challenge to the West
29
would arise from the anti-western cooperation between Islamic and
Confucian states. He obviously had in mind the cordiality between
China and such Islamic countries as Pakistan and Iran.
Let us discuss briefly the salient features of Huntingon's thesis. The
four basic assumptions, around which the whole argument is built,
are: (1) The centuries old military interaction between the West and
Islam could become more virulent and that Islam has bloody
borders (2) Differences between China and the US are unlikely to
moderate. (3) A Confucian-Islamic military connection has come
into being, designed to promote acquisition by its members of
weapons and weapons technologies needed to counter the military
power of the West. (4) The cultural division of Europe between
Western Christianity, on one hand, and Orthodox, on the other, has
re-emerged after the end of the cold war. These assumptions have
been used by Huntington to build up his thesis and to conclude
that there would be clash of civilizations and there is need,
therefore, for the West to impose its will on the rest of the world.
He also notes with satisfaction that through IMF and other
international economic institutions, the West promotes its economic
interests and imposes on other nations the economic policies it
thinks appropriate. "In any poll of non-Western peoples, the IMF
undoubtedly would win the support of finance ministers and a few
others, but get an overwhelmingly unfavorable rating from just
about everyone else, who would agree with Georgy Arbatov's
characterization of IMF officials as "neo Bolsheviks who love
expropriating other people's money, imposing undemocratic and
alien rules of economic and political conduct and stifling economic
freedom."
30
Huntington, who is hostile to the Muslims and the Chinese,
suspicious of the Slav-Orthodox and indifferent to the Africans and
South Americans, is convinced that the West is all powerful and
can impose its will on the rest of the world. "The West is now at an
extraordinary peak of power in relation to other civilizations. Its
superpower opponent has disappeared from the map. Military
conflict among Western states is unthinkable, and Western military
power is unrivaled. Apart from Japan, the West faces no economic
challenge. It dominates international political and security
institutions and with Japan international economic institutions".
Huntington provides a graphic description of how the West
manipulates the world political and economic order. "Global
political and security issues are effectively settled by a directorate
of the United States, Britain and France, world economic issues by a
directorate of the United States, Germany and Japan, all of which
maintain extraordinarily close relations with each other to the
exclusion of lesser and largely non-Western countries. Decisions
made at the UN Security Council or in the International Monetary
Fund that reflect the interests of the West are presented to the
world as reflecting the desires of the world community. The very
phrase "the world community" has become the euphemistic
collective noun (replacing "the Free World") to give global
legitimacy to actions reflecting the interests of the United States
and other Western powers.
"Western domination of the UN Security Council and its decisions,
tempered only by occasional abstention by China, produced UN
legitimation of the West's use of force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait
and its elimination of Iraq's sophisticated weapons and capacity to
produce such weapons. It also produced the quite unprecedented
31
action by the United States, Britain and France in getting the
Security Council to demand that Libya hand over the Pan Am 103
bombing suspects and then to impose sanctions when Libya
refused. After defeating the largest Arab army, the West did not
hesitate to through its weight around in the Arab world".
Huntington also points out that the West has redefined the concept
of arms control. "During the Cold War the primary purpose of arms
control was to establish a stable military balance between the
United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. In
the post-Cold War world the primary objective of arms control is to
prevent the development by non-Western societies of military
capabilities that could threaten Western interests. The West
attempts to do this through international agreements, economic
pressure and controls on the transfer of arms and weapons
technologies."
The conclusion which Huntington draws from his analysis is that
"the West in effect is using international institutions, military
power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will
maintain Western predominance, protect Western interests and
promote Western political and economic values. That at least is the
way in which non Westerners see the new world, and there is a
significant element of truth in their view". Huntington argues that:
"A West (now) at the peak of its power confronts non-West that
increasingly have the desire, the will and the resources to shape the
world in non-Western ways." The conflicts of the future will be
between "the West and the rest," the West and the Muslims, the
West and an Islamic-Confucian alliance, or the West and a
collection of other civilizations, including Hindu, Japanese, Latin
American and Slav-Orthodox.
32
After explaining his argument, Huntington prescribes short and
long term measures to promote the Western interests:
"In the short term it is clearly in the interests of the West to
promote greater cooperation and unity within its own civilization,
particularly between its European and North American
components; to incorporate into the West societies in Eastern
Europe and Latin America whose cultures are close to those of the
West; to promote and maintain cooperative relations with Russia
and Japan; to prevent escalation of local inter-civilization conflicts
into major inter-civilization wars; to limit the expansion of the
military strength of Confucian and Islamic states; to moderate the
reduction of Western military capabilities and maintain military
superiority in East and Southwest Asia; to exploit differences and
conflicts among Confucian and Islamic states; to support in other
civilizations group sympathetic to Western values and interests; to
strengthen international institutions that reflect and legitimate
Western interests and values and to promote the involvement of
non-Western states in those institutions.
"In the long term other measures could be called for. Western
civilization is both Western and modern. Non-Western civilizations
have attempted to become modern without becoming Western. To
date only Japan has fully succeeded in this quest. Non-Western
civilizations will continue to attempt to acquire the wealth,
technology, skills, machines and weapons that are part of being
modern. They will also attempt to reconcile this modernity with
their traditional culture and values. Their economic and military
strength relative to the West will increase. Hence the West will
increasingly have to accommodate these non-Western modern
civilizations whose power approaches that of the West but whose
33
values and interests differ significantly from those of the west. This
will require the West to maintain the economic and military power
necessary to protect its interests in relation to these civilizations".
Huntington's entire argument about Islam and civilizations is full
of contradictions and superficialities. But this is of little
consequence, since it is only meant as a politically motivated sales
pitch to secure Western superiority in all areas. That is why Islam
must be dangerous and irreconcilable, and that is why the West
cannot afford to disarm itself excessively in the wake of the Cold
War. It must arm itself against the threat. This is the essence of
Huntington's thesis, and everything else, including the laws of
Aristotelian logic, are consistently subordinated to it. What is
significant, however, is that the rationales of his perceived threat is
not based on an analysis of the interests or policies of countries or
political powers in the Middle East, but on his contradictory
formulation of 'civilizing' basic categories. According to
Huntington, it is not the clash of interests that leads to conflict; the
simple fact is that differences between cultures engender war.
To borrow from Hippler: In a certain sense you could
call his argument 'culturally racist'. The Muslims (or Chinese)
are different from us and therefore dangerous. Unlike in
classic racism, this difference is not generically but culturally
based. There is such a gulf between their values and ways of
thinking and ours that understanding or cross-pollination is almost
unthinkable. Only military solutions can promise result.11
Hippler further elaborates this point very convincingly:
Huntington's image of Islam (or of other Asian cultures) is hardly
original. It follows the current stereotypes and clichés of popular
literature and some of the media. Yet he manages brilliantly to
34
embellish these repeated fears pseudo-scientifically and elevate
them ideologically. His success is in making the old clichés
acceptable in foreign policy debate. For Huntington, Islam is
ideologically hostile and anti-Western. It is also a military threat in
itself due to Chinese (Confucian) arms supplies. Islam is bloody,
with a long warring tradition against the West. (The fact that
Muslims have often been the victims rather than the perpetrators of
violence from Bosnia to India hardly troubles him.)12
What Edward Saeed has to say is illuminating as well: Huntington
is an intellectual serving the interests of the last superpower (he is
actually quite frank about this) who’s pre-eminence as a world
power he is set on serving and maintaining. The real subject of his
work therefore is not how to reduce the conflict of cultures, but
how to turn them to American advantage, as a way of conceding to
the United States the right to lead the whole world. Yet none of his
grandiose rhetoric can conceal the fact that this style of thought
derives from the same polluted source to be found in all cultures,
the notion that my way of life, my traditions, my way of thinking,
my religion or civilization can neither be shared with anyone nor
understood by anyone who does not have the same religion, color
of skin, etc. India, Pakistan, Bosnia, Ireland, South Africa, Lebanon
and of course Israel-Palestine bear the ravages of such a logic,
which in the end leads to more, not less narrowness,
misunderstanding, violence.13
Huntington and his associates are apparently trying to demoralize
the followers of the cultures of the East, especially the Islamic
culture. Their policy seems to be to demoralize and dominate! They
have the strength of their systems of trade, industry, science,
technology, education and democracy. They built these systems
35
through evolutionary process spreading over a period of many
centuries.
For Huntington, cultural difference is not one possible factor
among others which might contribute to conflicts: it is the potential
conflict. However, the major conflicts of the 20th century contradict
Huntington's assertion. Walter C. Clemens14 enumerates major
conflicts of the century to refute Huntington's "exaggeration":
"Cultural influences may distort our perception and aggravate our
feuds, but no major conflict of this century resulted from a clash of
civilizations. In 1914, Protestant Berlin aligned with Catholic
Vienna and Muslim Istanbul. Orthodox Russia allied with Catholic
France and largely Protestant Britain. Orthodox Serbia opposed
Catholic Austria but fought Orthodox Bulgaria. The aggressors in
World War Two (Italy, Germany, Japan, the USSR) cooperated
despite divergent heritages. Later, when Hitler attacked the USSR,
Churchill did not ask whether Stalin was Orthodox or even
communist. London immediately proposed to Moscow to combine
against a common foe.
"The subsequent cold war had little to do with rival cultures. It was
a struggle for hegemony - Soviet Russian imperialism against the
West. Moscow's camp at times included China and other non-
Orthodox countries, While Washington's partners included many
non-Western societies. Most wars since 1945 have been waged by
rivals from the same civilization - Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Somalia, Iraq and Kuwait.
"All this means that there is still hope for enlightened self-interest.
Rifts between civilizations play second or third fiddle to other
factors in world affairs -- individual vision and myopia,
36
bureaucratic rhythms and ruts, generosity and greed, resource
bounty and scarcity, United Nations clout and frailty. Now, as
before, states cooperate or clash based on perceived interest.
Increasingly, interdependence and technology make it possible and
useful to cooperate across cultural boundaries, even though
individuals and groups may not see these realities."
Jean Kirkpatrick15 corroborates Clemens' views by saying: "It is not
clear that over the centuries differences between civilizations have
led to the longest and most violent conflicts. At least in the
twentieth century, the most violence conflicts have occurred within
civilizations: Stalin's purges, Pol Pot's genocide, the Nazi holocaust
and World War Two. It could be argued that the war between the
United States and Japan involved a clash of civilizations, but those
differences had little role in that war. The Allied and Axis sides
included both Asian and European members. The liberation of
Kuwait was no more a clash between civilizations than World War
II or the Korean or Vietnamese wars. Like Korea and Vietnam, the
Persian Gulf War pitted one non-Western Muslim government
against another. Once aggression had occurred, the United States
and other Western governments became involved for geo-political
reasons that transcended cultural differences.
Kirkpatrick also points out that "Huntington knows that the great
question for non-Western societies is whether they can be modern
without being Western. He believes Japan has succeeded. He is
probably right that most societies will simultaneously seek the
benefits of modernization and of traditional relations. To the extent
that they and we are, successful in preserving our traditions while
accepting the endless changes of modernization, our differences
from one another will be preserved, and the need for not just a
37
pluralistic society but a pluralistic world will grow ever more
acute."
In order to illustrate the point further, it would be worth our while
to glance at what Akio Kawato16, has to say on the issue of values:
Perhaps the debate regarding value differences reflects the on-
going redistribution of political and economic interests in the post -
Cold War world, rather than the fact that values continue to differ.
However, it would be an inverted argument to say that unless the
current Western paradigm is used, economic expansion could not
occur, and that people should therefore switch immediately to the
Western model.
It is a matter of elementary truth that the opportunities that
allowed Western Europe to become what it is today, especially
through the proliferation of individualism, stem from the economic
development that occurred beginning in the 16th Century. Even
though the economic development of Western Europe since the
16th Century can be said to be largely self-made, it cannot be
denied that the coincidental development of the gun and the
sacrifices of the colonies played a large role. Furthermore, Western
civilization has developed to its present heights while continuing a
pattern of bloodshed through revolution and war.
Industrialized nations should realize how unwise their practice is
of pushing developing countries into rapidly adopting new
policies, how unwise it is to imply that to advance economically
they must adopt modern values and new social systems before they
embark on economic development. In Western Europe, it took more
than 300 years between the dawn of economic expansion in the 17th
Century to the granting of universal suffrage. In the United States,
38
civil rights issues were the cause of much debate until very
recently. A sudden change in values and social systems can
increase tensions within a society.
Reverting to Huntington's clash of cultures, what Kishore
Madhubani17 has to say is illuminating: "It is Ironic that the West
should increasingly fear Islam when daily the Muslims are
reminded of their weakness. "Islam has bloody borders,"
Huntington says. But in all conflicts between Muslims and pro-
Western forces, the Muslims are losing and losing badly, whether
they be Azeris, Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranians or Bosnian Muslims.
With so much disunity, the Islamic world is not about to coalesce
into a single force.
"The West protests the reversal democracy in Myanmar, Peru or
Nigeria, but not in Algeria. These double standards hurt. Bosnia
has wreaked incalculable damage. The dramatic passivity of
powerful European nations as genocide is committed on their
doorsteps has torn away the thin veil of moral authority that the
West had spun around itself as a legacy of its recent benign era.
Few can believe that the West would have remained equally
passive if Muslim artillery shell had been raining down on
Christian populations in Sarajevo or Srebrenica. Arms sales to
Saudi Arabia do not suggest a natural Christian-Islamic connection.
Neither should Chinese arms sales to Iran. Both are opportunistic
moves, based not on natural empathy or civilizational alliances.
"The failure to develop a viable strategy to deal with Islam or China
reveals a fatal flaw in the West: an inability to come to terms with
the shifts in relative weights of civilizations that Huntington well
documents. Two key sentences in Huntington's essay, when put
39
side by side, illustrate the nature of the problem: first, "In the
politics of civilizations, the peoples and governments of non-
Western civilization no longer remain the objects of history as
targets of Western colonization but join the West as movers and
shapers of history," and second "The West in effect is using
international institutions, military power and economic resources
to run the world in ways that will maintain Western predominance,
protect Western interests and promote Western political and
economic values." This combination is a prescription for disaster.
"Simple arithmetic demonstrates Western folly: The West has 800
million people; the rest make up almost 4.7 billion. In the national
arena, no Western society would accept a situation where 15 per
cent of its population legislated for the remaining 85 percent. But
this is what the West is trying to do globally," Madhubani
concludes.
Huntington's image of other cultures is not new and he is
resurrecting an old controversy. In his assessment of his thesis
Albert Weeks18 explains: "Sameul P. Huntington has resurrected an
old controversy in the study of international affairs: the
relationship between "microcosmic" and "macrocosmic" processes.
Partisans of the former single out the nation state as the basic unit,
or determining factor, in the yin and yang of world politics. The
"macros," on the other hand, view world affairs on the lofty level of
the civilizations to which nation states belong and by which their
behavior is allegedly largely determined.
"His methodology is not new. In arguing the macro case in the
1940s, Arnold Toynbee distinguished what he called primary,
secondary and tertiary civilizations by the time of their appearance
40
in history, contending that their attributes continued to influence
contemporary events. Quincy Wright, likewise applying a historical
method, classified civilizations as "bellicose" (including Syrian,
Japanese and Mexican), "moderate bellicose" (Germanic , Western,
Russian, Scandinavian, etc.) and "most peaceful" (such as Irish,
Indian and Chinese). Like Toynbeen and now Huntington, he
attributed contemporary significance to these factors. Huntington's
classification, while different in several respects from those of his
illustrious predecessors, also identifies determinants on a grand
scale by "civilizations."
"His endeavour, however, has its own fault lines. The lines are the
borders encompassing each distinct nation state and mercilessly
chopping the alleged civilizations into pieces. With the cultural and
religious glue of these "civilizations" thin and cracked, with the
nation states' political regime providing the principal bonds,
crisscross fracturing and cancellation of Huntington's own macro-
scale, somewhat anachronistic fault lines are inevitable.
The world remains fractured along political and possibly
geopolitical lines while cultural and historical determinants are a
great deal less vital and virulent. As Albert Weeks 19 astutely points
out: Politics, regimes and ideologies are culturally, historically and
"civilizationally" determined to an extent. But it is willful, day-to-
day, crisis-to-crisis, war-to-war political decision-making by
nation-state units that remains the single most identifiable
determinant of events in the international arena. How else can we
explain repeated nation-state "defection" from their collective
"civilizations" As Huntington himself points out, in the Persian
Gulf war "one Arab state invaded another and then fought a
coalition of Arab, Western and other states."
41
One may agree with Akito that in key Western capitals there is a
deep sense of unease about the future. The confidence that the West
would remain a dominant force in the 21st century, as it has for the
past four or five centuries, is giving way to a sense of foreboding
that forces like the emergence of fundamentalist Islam, the rise of
East Asia and the collapse of Russia and Eastern Europe could pose
real threats to the West. A siege mentality is developing. Within
these troubled walls, Samuel P. Huntington's essay "The Clash of
Civilizations?" is bound to resonate.
42
Reference:
1 Jochen Hippler, The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, p -147
2 Ibid. p-20,21
3 Ibid. p-57
4 Ibid. p-67
5 Ibid. p-11
6 Schulze, lecture in Colone, September 1991
7 Hippler op. cit. p-146
8 Cited by Khalid Bin Sayeed, Western Dominance and Political Islam, p -17
9 Jeff Haynes, Religion in the Third World Politics, p-24
10 Dr. Haider Mehdi, Behind the facts - Dawn 9.7.1993
11 Hippler, op. cit. p-149
12 Ibid. p-148-49
13 Edward Saeed, The uses of Culture, Dawn 24.2.1997
14 Walter C. Clemens Jr. - Interests clash but civilizations can cooperate, Dawn - 8.1.1997
15 Jean J. Kirkpatrick (Leavey Professor of Government at Georgetown University, Tradition and Change, Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. 1993
16 Akio Kawato, Former Deputy Director-General, Cultural Affairs Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Beyond the Myth of "Asian Values"
17 Kishore Mahbuba ni (Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Dean of th e Civil Service College, Singapore), The Dangers of Decadence, Foreign Affairs Sept./Oct.1993
18 Albert L. Weeks (Professor Emeritus of International Relations at New York University), Do Civlizations Hold? Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. 1993
19 Albert L. Weeks (Professor Emeritus of International Relations at New York University) Do Civlizations Hold? Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. 1993
43
CHAPTER III: ISLAM AND THE WEST
The West Search for a New Enemy
The demise of the Cold War involving the USA and the Soviet
Union at the beginning of the 1990s left military strategists in the
West searching for a new enemy. To borrow Richard Conder,
author of the Munchurian Candidate: "Now that the communists
have been put to sleep, we are going to have to invent another
terrible threat." Former US Secretary of Defense, McNamara, in his
1989 testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, stated that
defense spending could safely be cut in half over five
years. For the Pentagon it was a simple choice: either find new
enemies or cut defense spending. Topping the list of potential
bogeymen were the Yellow Peril, the alleged threat to US
economic security emanating from the East Asia, and the so-called
Green Peril (green representing Islam). The Pentagon selected
"Islamic fundamentalism" and "rogue states" as the new bogeymen.
According to Jochen Hippler: the West no longer has the Soviet
Union or communism to serve as enemies justifying expensive and
extensive military apparatuses. Now, given the loss of the old
military opponent, instead of reducing the military apparatus in the
West to a symbolic vestige or getting rid of it altogether and
thinking about 'security' completely afresh, new threats are being
invented to serve the old purpose. This is our main problem, not an
Islamic fundamentalist threat which, in any case, could only be
dealt with by political and economic means.1 It was in the mid-
1980s at the very latest that the search began for new enemies to
justify arms budgets and offensive military policies, at first as part
of the communist threat and then in its place. First the 'War on
44
Drugs', the somewhat absurd and naturally failed attempt to solve
New York's drug problem by naval exercise off the coast of South
America and military operations in Bolivia, then 'Terrorism', a term
applied to real terrorists as well as to various unpleasant freedom
movements in the Third World which (of course) demanded
military responses, were two such attempts during the 1980s.2 And
as with the 'Islamic (or fundamentalist) threat' today, then too there
were enough good reasons to be against drug dealers and terrorists.
Neither of these social evils was ever fought seriously at its roots.
Instead, they were exploited for other purposes. At that time the
aim was to legitimize the newly development doctrine of low-
intensity warfare; today it is to justify high military expenditure
when the traditional enemy has disappeared and we are objectively
no longer threatened by conventional war. Fundamentalism, then,
has not been invented by Western politicians but is being used by
them.3
What is new, following the end of the Cold War, is the tendency in
the West to build up Islam as the dangerous ideological successor
to Marxism-Leninism. In an article the New York Times Magazine,
Judith Miller points out with characteristic accuracy: "The west
tends to regard the growing political popularity of Islam as
dangerous, monolithic and novel ... The rise of militant Islam has
triggered a fierce debate about what, if anything, the West can or
should do about it. Some American officials and commentators
have already designated militant Islam as the west's new enemy, to
be 'contained' much the way communism was during the cold
war."4 John Esposito summaries this perception of Islam as a
threat: "According to many Western commentators, Islam and the
West are on a collision course. Islam is a triple threat: political,
demographic, and socio-religious ... Much as observers in the past
45
retreated to polemics and stereotypes of Arabs, Turks or Muslims
rather than addressing the specific causes of conflict and
confrontation, today we are witnessing the perpetuation or creation
of a new myth. The impending confrontation between Islam and
the West is presented as part of a historical pattern of Muslim
belligerency and aggression." 5
In short, having lost their chief enemy, the seasonal practitioners of
cold war have decided that the new global enemy is Islam. They
came up with the 'fundamentalist Muslims' of North Africa and the
Middle East; a contemporary version of the Crusades pitting
Christian knights against Muslim warriors in the new international
conflict. Director of the U.S. Foreign Policy Research Institute,
Daniel Pipes, in his article "Muslims are Coming," published in the
National Review (Nov. 19, 1990), writes "and so it is that American,
and Europeans as well, are turning in increasing number to a very
traditional bogeymen.: The Muslims. The weekly Time published a
cover story, "Who is afraid of Islam?" On the cover it showed a
Kalashinkov being raised higher than a minaret of a mosque. In
France, Jean Marie Le Pen, depicts Islam as a "religion of
intolerance: and fears, an "invasion of Europe by a Muslim
immigration." The Republicans in Germany share Le Pen's outlook
and program.
While covering Islam and Muslims, the western media applies most
negative images and chaterizations for Muslims. For example, at
the level of mass media coverage of Islam land Muslims, on
practically any day the alert reader or viewer can satiate her or
himself with images and characterizations of the most negative and
hurtful kind applied to Muslims. For example, "Islamic terrorists"
or "fundamentalists" did this or that; "Shi'ite extremists" shout
46
"Death to America"; the "militant Muslim cleric" Shaykh Omar
Abdel Rahman; "I like belonging to Islamic Jihad because it is
violent" (Boulder Daily Camera, July 16,1993);"Terrorism bas
become Sheik" (caption for Jim Hoagland column published in
Daily Times Call, Longmont, Colorado July 16, 1993); "950 million
Muslims occupy a world that seems, in the eyes of the West, alien
and frightening" (Life, July 1993); "Violence, the Islamic Curse",
title of an article in the Chicago Tribune, 1981); "The D ark Side of
Islam" (title of Joseph Kraft syndicated column about Mohmet Ali
Agca, serving a prison sentence for shooting the Pope; The
Washington Post, May I 9,1981; "Sudan Becoming a Way Station for
Islamic Militants" (San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 1993), and so
forth.
"Bombs in the name of Allah," "The dark side of Islam," "Global
network provides financing and havens," "A new strain of
terrorism" etc. These and the like are titles of articles flooding in
the western print media focusing on shallow and obsessive
references to Islam and slandering "Islamists" as well as the Muslim
political activists throughout Islamic world. In a map showing,
"base support" of the "International Islamic terrorism," carried out
by the Washington Post, in its August 3, 1993 edition, a reference
was made to Pakistan, among other Islamic countries, in these
words "Evidence points to links between activities here and
Manhattan bombing plotters." Terrorism is dealt with, in these
articles, as an exclusively Islamic phenomenon. Subversive
activities, no matter wherever they are launched, are abruptly
linked with Islamic activists.
The US Vice President Dan Quayle at a 1990 conference in
Washington listed Islam with Nazism and Communism as the
47
challenges the Western civilization must undertake to meet
collectively. Even more ominously, the NATO Secretary General, at
a meeting with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church on
February 24, 1992, voiced concern at the possibility of Islamic
fundamentalism engulfing the Muslim republics of Central Asia
now that the Soviet Union was gone. National interests draped in
the mantle of religion became a foreign policy concern. This
interpretation of the post-Cold War period is given credence by the
results of a Gallop Poll survey in Britain at the end of 1989 (i.e.
before the Gulf War), which found that 37 per cent of those
questioned thought an international conflict between Christians
and Muslims (i.e. between the North Atlantic region and the
Middle East) to be 'likely' in the 1990s.6
The image of Muslim societies in the West is presented as that of an
evil-looking, bearded figure in black robes. Edward Said, a
professor of comparative literature at Columbia University, argues
that the West cannot know the Orient (for him mainly the Muslim
Orient) except as irrational, depraved and infantile. This perception
is rooted in the power relationship between a dominating West and
a subjugated Orient. It is in the interest of the West, therefore, to
depict the Orient in negative stereotypes. The western attacks on
Muslim extremists -- the fundamentalists of the popular press --
easily convert and carry over to an attack on the entire body of
Muslims. Stereotyping Islam as aggressive fundamentalism "is part
of the West's ideology of domination and control," says Dr.
Chandra Muzaffar, director of Just World Trust, a non-government
organization based in Penang, Malaysia. The historical antagonism
to Islam is now being exploited by those who seek to demonize
Islam in order to justify repression of Muslim reformers and
militants by failed governments allied to the West.
48
Islam and Communism/Arab Nationalism
It goes without saying that the West has used Islam as a weapon
against communism. Islam was often considered a conservative
ideology that could be used to resist revolutionary communist
ideologies or even Arab nationalism.7 In the 1970s and 1980s, the
perception of Islam or Islamism as hostile was softened by the joint
opposition of the West and some Islamic countries towards the
Soviet Union and communism. Islamism was either a 'lesser evil' or
actually very useful. This has changed completely since the end of
the Cold War. Our perception of Islam can no longer be moderated
by the existence of an even worse ideological opponent. Neither
communism nor Arab nationalism poses a serious threat to Western
interests today. As a result, Is lam or Islamism is moving into the
filing line, and in fact often replacing the old enemy. In
conversation, a German lieutenant Colonel casually put it like this:
'Islam is the new communism.'8 As Hippler has said: In Washington
and London and to a lesser extent in Paris, they have repeatedly
tried to use Islam and even Islamic fundamentalism for their own
purposes, usually against the Soviet Union and communism. If you
wanted to fight Marxist-Leninist ideology, it was practical to
oppose it with another all-encompassing ideology. Just as
Protestant sects were used in the fight against Marxism and
liberation theology in Central America, wherever possible Islam
has been used to fight secular Arab nationalism/socialism and
communism.9
From the 1970s till well into the 1980s the Israeli government
fostered the Muslim Brotherhood (and its offshoot, Hamas) in the
occupied territories -- the same group that was later considered to
be especially dangerous. The American Magazine Newsweek
49
explained it thus: For years the Arab fundamentalists seemed like
dependable pawns in a series of high-states proxy battles. They
bitterly opposed the West's main enemies - communism and its
regional allies, left-wing Arab nationalists. Hostile to the Palestine
Liberation Organization, they seemed perforct for an Israeli divide-
and-conquer strategy. And they were theologically in tune with the
West's key Arab ally and oil supplier, Saudi Arabia ... In the 1970s,
[israel] began building up the Brotherhood as a counterbalance to
the PLO - and continued even after Israeli troops began battling
Shiite radical in Lebanon.10
The Afghan Connection
During the cold war religion was seen as a bulwark against
communism. Ecumenical movements to bring together the
followers of Christianity, Islam and Judaism were launched, as part
of the strategy to resist the ideological onslaught of Marxism. The
most recent such example is Afghanistan, where various groups of
Islamic-oriented Mujahideen put up the toughest resistance to the
Soviet occupation, and received generous support, mainly in the
forms of arms and ammunition. No objections were raised
when representatives of militant Islamic groups from other
countries joined the Afghan resistance groups in what was
perceived as their heroic resistance to the Soviet occupation forces.
At the end of 1979, shortly after the Soviet army rolled into
Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter and his advisers decided on a
working alliance with political Islam. Secret directives, later
amplified and expanded by the Reagan and Bush administrations
and a US Congress which in the 1980s appropriated a war chest of
billions of dollars, covered the recruiting, training and arming of
50
one of the largest mercenary armies in American military history.
The bulk of the recruits, including many Arab-Americans and some
Muslim afro-Americans, were devout if not fanatical Muslims.
Some were in for gain or adventure, but most utterly committed to
the Jihad, or holy war, against communism and Russians.
With the help and money from a motely coalition of Muslim and
Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia and then President Anwar Sadat's
enthusiastically pro-Western Egyptian government (an enthusiasm
which contributed to Mr. Sadat's murder by Egyptian "Afghanis"),
the CIA acted as manager. The Carter, Reagan and Bush
administrations all delegated to Pakistan's powerful military
intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, crucial controls
over the anti-Soviet jihad. These included which fighting groups
would get the cash, arms and preferred training.
The Mujahidin received approximately $3.5 billion in arms and
other aid from the CIA, regardless of their political orientation or
islamist zeal. In this way, the most radical Islamic group -
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party -- received two thirds of American
aid over two years. Yet for a long time, it did not seem to worry the
CþIA that Hekmatyar's party was openly not only anti-Soviet but
also anti-American, and that it was responsible for massacres,
torture and just about every conceivable human rights abuse,
quite apart from the fact that Hekmatyar was also trafficking in
heroin on the side. If there is such a thing as the classic
fundamentalist leader, straight out of Western stories, then it is
Hekmatyar. Despite this Washington had no reservations, but only
arms and money to offer. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my
friend. Of all the Afghan Mujahidin groups, his was the best
organised and militarily most powerful -- the natural partner for an
51
anti-Soviet campaign. It was only sometime after the USSR had
withdrawn from Afghanistan, in fact only when the USA and the
Soviet Union cooperated closely in the run-up to the Gulf War of
1990-1 that the USA distanced itself from Hekmatyar's party.11
Once the Soviet forces had withdrawn from Afghanistan, the
traditional Western attitude of suspicion and hostility towards
Islam reasserted itself. Indeed, a perception arose of Islam as being
the successor to communism as the principal threat to the Western
world.
At the end of the 1980s, when the Russian had withdrawn from
Afghanistan amid the crack-up of the Soviet Union, the volunteer
holy warriors did not go home to open bakeries of flower shops.
Determined to destroy their own governments and Western-
corrupted societies, as they saw them, they decided to attack and
destabilize these institutions. There were estimated 5,000 trained
Saudis, 3,000 Yemenis, 2,800 Algerians, 2,000 Egyptians and
perhaps 2,000 Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Iranians and
others. This gives credence to the argument that much of today's
Islamic fundamentalist activity is the work of groups funded for
years not by Iran but by the United States, which kept a number of
Islamic groups going throughout the Cold War era.
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Western policies towards Pakistan were similar. From 1977 to 1978
Pakistan was ruled by Ziaul Haq, an 'Islamist' general who had
come to power through a military coup. In the 1980s the USA gave
massive support and arms to this military ruler - they needed his
country as a base from which to support the Mujahidin against the
52
Soviet Union in the war in Afghanistan. The building of a Pakistani
atom bomb, the involvement of his dictatorship in heroin
smuggling to Europe and other activities were looked upon as mere
peccadilloes and generously ignored - to say nothing of the
repression of the Pakistani people and widespread human rights
abuse. On Zia's death the secular members of the Washington
government surpassed themselves in their eulogies. Reagan, in a
written statement issued from his ranch near Santa Barbara,
recalled his meetings with Zia, saying they had 'worked together
for peace and stability' ... The Pakistani leader, the statement said,
'also believed in freedom for Afghanistan'... Vice President Bush ...
told reporters that 'Pakistan and the United States have a very
special relationship, and the loss of General Zia is a great
tragedy.'12 The fact that dictator had followed an "islamist
fundamentalist" programme in order to widen his political base,
and had fostered Islamist parties on a massive scale, presented no
problem. The reason: the USA needed Pakistan as a base of
operations for the war in Afghanistan.13
Historical Antagonism with the West
The Islamic confrontation with the West is distinct from that
between the West and secular nationalists, Buddhist, Hindus or
Animists because there has been intermittent conflict between the
West and Islam for 1,200 years. This conflict has left in the minds of
most Westerners a psychological residue of fear, hatred and
antagonism towards Islam. Hence, the intellectual legacy of the
West in its attitude towards Islam bears the imprint of the
Crusades. These were originally a series of conflicts between
Christian and Muslim forces for the control of Jerusalem, and from
53
the 11th and 13th centuries, hardly any decade passed without
Kings and Barons leading expeditions from various parts of Europe
in order either to maintain or recover possession of the Holy Land.
Many names have come down through literature and legend,
notably those of King Richard or the "Lion Heart" and Saladin
(Salahuddin Ayyubi). After the 13th century, as the Ottoman Turks
conquered parts of Europe, the anti-Islam struggle assumed a
defensive character.
According to Akbar S. Ahmad, the ongoing and complex
confrontation between Islam and the West is marked by three
historical encounters. The first began with the rise of Islam, the
conquest of Spain and the appearance of Islamic armies in France
and Sicily. It reached its dramatic climax with the Crusades, and
ended in the seventeenth century when the Ottomans were halted
at Vienna. When the French general in 1920, preparing to partition
Arab lands, knocked on Salahuddin's tomb in Damascus and said,
"Awake Saladin, we have returned," he expressed the continuity of
the first encounter. The second encounter was brief but ferocious.
During it the entire Muslim world was in the grip of European
colonial imperialism. When this encounter concluded, after the
Second World War, it was assumed that a period of harmony and
friendship based on equality between Islamic and western nations
would follow. This was not to be. The hoped for symmetry was
destroyed as western civilization, driven by the USA and UK,
began to dominate the world, a process sharpened by the collapse
of Communism in the late 1980s. The present third encounter is,
perhaps, the most complex of all. The weapons used in this
encounter by the West are culture and media propaganda. TV and
the VCR penetrate most Muslim homes. If for Muslims the second
encounter, European colonialism, was a siege, the present
54
encounter is a blitzkrieg. Unlike the earlier encounters, it is neither
primarily religious, nor colonial nor racist -- but at certain points
reflect all three. It is marked by a bewildering fusion of media
images, scholarly opinions and atavistic cultural responses.
Muslims appear threatened and unable to cope with the cultural
onslaught of the West. Their response to the Satanic Verses sump
up this encounter; Muslim fury met western incomprehension
reflecting the complete lack of communication, the great cultural
gap. The study of Islam (by orientalists) and perception of Muslim
society are embedded in the socio-political context of these
encounters.14
West’s Double Standard
Muslims do not have any inherent animus against the west and yet
the mutual alienation is growing. One of the main cause of this
widening gulf is the perception among many in the Islamic world
that the West follows a double standard when it comes to Muslims.
Western governments that condemn repression and violations of
human rights elsewhere are seen as mute in the face of similar
practices by pro-western Muslim governments. "Saddam Hussein is
justifiably condemned but none of his neighbors, some of them no
less dictatorial, is so systematically scrutinized, " according to
Ghassan Salame, Middle East expert at the Institute of Political
Studies in Paris. Many Muslims also were angered that the United
States bombed Iraq for not complying with the UN resolutions that
ended the Gulf War, but it fails to take strong action against Israel
when that country ignores UN resolutions to leave Lebanon or take
back Palestinian Islamic activists it forcibly expelled.15
55
One example of pro-US or anti-Arab stance is the US bid to cover
up, down-play or condone by not condemning the brutal Israeli
massacre of Arab refugees in a UN compound in Qana in southern
Lebanon in April, 1996. There has been no forth right US
condemnation of the Israeli aggression. On the contrary, far from
objecting to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, in flagrant
violation of the UN charter, Washington has been justifying the
Israeli military presence on foreign soil on grounds of Israeli
compulsions of self-defense. This enunciates a dangerous principle
in that it permits stronger states to occupy part of their neighbor's
territory on the plea of self-defense, breaching the smaller state's
sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Israeli occupation of Arab lands, Israeli atrocities committed on
unarmed Arab men, women and even teenagers are normally
ignored by the West. Israeli defiance of the Security Council
resolutions have never been condemned. But in the case of Kuwait,
how is it that the world reaction was so quick and firm? Iraq
invaded Kuwait on 2nd August, and by 25 Aug, the Security
Council had passed five resolutions against Iraq -- on 3, 6, 9, 18 and
25 August. This was not the end. During September another four --
on 10, 16, 24 and 25 Sept. -- resolutions were adopted. October saw
only one, followed by two in November on the 28th and 29th. Thus
the total of twelve resolutions were passed with the last one on
29th Nov. "giving Iraq the last opportunity, until 15th Jan, 1991, to
comply with all previous resolutions, otherwise "nations allied with
Kuwait" were authorized to use all necessary means to force Iraq to
withdraw and honor all resolutions." What about other UN
resolutions. For example the resolution on plebiscite in Kashmir.
Death of hundreds of Kashmiris has not so far echoed in the
Security Council.
56
The United States government prepared vigorously to punish Iraq.
It shaped at the United Nations resolutions, their enforcement, and
member countries' support of them. Barring the one occasion in
1950 when the Security Council acting in the absence of the Soviet
delegate, approved US intervention in Korea, the UN had not
issued so open-ended a license to wage what Rudyard Kipling
might well have described as a "savage war of peace." Two hours
after the war began President Bush spoke from the Oval office,
vastly broadening the objectives of the war. They were, he said, "to
drive Saddam from Kuwait by force," "knock out Saddam's nuclear
bomb potential," "destroy his chemical weapons facilities" and
"much of Saddam's artillery and tanks." "And Iraq will eventually
comply with all relevant United Nations resolutions..." The last
requirement provides the framework for continued US military
presence in the Gulf, for the maintenance of harsh sanctions against
Iraq, and for intrusive UN inspections of its nuclear and military
facilities.
With the end of the cold war the American President George Bush
came out in early 1990 with a fresh call for a new world order.
Iraq's disastrous attack on Kuwait and the American-led Gulf war
were used as the harbingers of the alleged new order. It was
claimed that "no aggressor would in the future be allowed to go
unpunished," that "occupation by force would not be tolerated,"
that "international boundaries would not be allowed to be changed
arbitrarily," that "human rights would have to be respected by all,"
that "it would be ensured that any violation of human rights is
brought to an end," without constraint of national boundaries, and
that "the United Nations would play a new role as the peace-keeper
of the world." With the establishment of these principles, it was
suggested, the mankind is bound to enter into a new era of
57
democracy and security. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, to those who
had never thought there would be any other outcome, the chosen
instrument of enforcing the proposed New World Order, the UN
Security Council, under American leadership, revealed with
indecent haste, that selectivity in reacting to causes and threats of
instability and tension were still wholly subservient to its
considerations of where the remaining superpower deemed its
national interests to lie.
No one can believe that the American objective in unleashing a war
of attrition against Iraq was to make Kuwait safe for democracy or
safeguard the right of self-determination of its people, just as it was
not the concern of its Camp David diplomacy to arrive at a peace
settlement on the basis of recognition of Arab sovereignties in the
Middle East. What was transparently clear in the conference
diplomacy in 1979, and the military adventure a decade later, was
to provide a protective cover to Israel to grab Arab lands without
fear of retaliation. With the Soviet veto hanging over its heads, the
Camp David Accord was concluded outside the United Nations,
and now that the veto has been neutralized, and instrumentality of
the Security Council has been freely used to give American foreign
policy a semblance of international respectability. What America
proposes the Council cannot dispose. Never before in its history
had the United Nations been reduced to such imbecility and
impotence. The role of the United Nations under the NWO is
restructured by the western powers, particularly the US. The
Security Council dominated by the western NATO powers has
turned into an instrument of new colonialism under high sounding
objectives. The UN, which has in large served the interests of major
powers, once again will be used as a tool by these powers against
the integrity of small states.
58
Israel is above nuclear nonproliferation. Its nuclear program has
not been subject to scrutiny by the US Congress or pressure by the
US government. The US anti-proliferation laws have not been
invoked against it. The U.S. Congress has passed country-specific
legislation such as the Pressler and Solarz amendments which do
not apply to Israel. The full extent of its nuclear capability is not
known. What we do know is that Israel broke with impunity many
laws to acquire American technology, designs, and material for its
nuclear program. Its awesome nuclear arsenal now includes at least
300 high density nuclear devices, and a delivery system which
parallels in many areas those of the US, Russia and NATO. This
delivery system is provided largely by the United States. Israel is
also immune from the seven-power Missile Technology Control
Regime of 1987, which embargoes missiles technology, including
space launchers, to any nation that has missiles of over 300-km
range and more than 500-kg payload. Both Jericho and Shevit II as
well as Ofeq I fall under this category, but the West has no problem
with them. And as if it was not enough, Israel is developing the
Arrow anti-missile missile, under American-Israeli Strategic
Cooperation, funded mainly by the U.S. from its Star War
program.
Washington's determination to prevent any other country in the
region from becoming Israel's atomic equal is comprehensible as a
continuation of old policy. The only difference is that in the 1970s,
the US perceived and armed Israel as one of two or more polar stars
in its Middle Eastern constellation of clients. Now, it seeks to
assure Israel the status of the sole regional power. Israel is now a
publicly acclaimed "strategic ally"; This alliance enjoys consensus
in America; and it is assured the permanent support of a powerful
lobby. What it lacks still is legitimacy and formal acceptance by
59
countries in the region. Those Muslims and Arabs who subscribe to
a conspiracy theory of international affairs would argue that the
establishment of Israel in 1948 was deliberately designed by the
West so that the state might serve as the outpost of Western
hegemony.16 In the eyes of Muslim and Arab countries, the United
States, ever since the formation of the state of Israel has followed a
consistent policy of excessive cordiality and favoritism toward
Israel. They would argue that Arab oil has contributed heavily
toward the enrichment and growth of the Western economy, but
that oil has been used to help Israel in such a way that the
legitimate interests of the Arab and Muslim states have not only
been disregarded but adversely affected.17
Bosnia-Herzegovina
What happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina is another glaring example
of western policy of double standard in implementing the UN
resolutions. Western powers failed to convey an effective message
that aggression is to be punished. They gave the Serbian
aggressors, a free hand to perpetuate whatever atrocities they
wanted to inflict on the Muslims; aggrandize as much land as they
wanted; kill as many people they choose to massacre; 'cleanse' as
many areas they want to 'cleanse'. Those who stand for
international law, peace and security were not prepared to meet
force by force. They waited for the moment when the aggressor had
finished its job and then they used their influence to get an
agreement between the aggressor and the victim to legitimize what
had been acquired by force.
The UN had passed several resolutions condemning aggression and
genocide in Bosnia, a member state. These resolutions, and the
60
sanctions imposed on Serbia, were notably mild and indulgent by
comparison with the Iraq sanctions. And for an entire year the UN
had not taken effective measures to enforce them. Bosnian Foreign
Minister was murdered under UN escort. Women and children
were massacred in its custody. In October 1992, the UN declared a
No Fly Zone in Bosnia but, in contrast with the practice in Iraq, it
did not enforce the ban until late in spring of 1993. By December 15,
UN observers had reported 225 aerial infringements by the Serbian
air force which included bombing of Muslim villages and towns.
Serbs had repeatedly broken cease-fires and safe-passage
agreements.
The great powers had denied to Bosnians the means of their own
defense. By May 1992, 'ethnic cleansing' had emerged as a
systematic Serb goal. As Bosnians lost ground Serbia's rival Croatia
also began to grab Bosnian territories. Its extreme vulnerabili ty was
exposing Bosnia to assault from both its neighbors. Yet, the
Western powers insisted on maintaining the arms embargo on
Bosnia. Technically, the embargo applied equally to Serbia, Croatia
and Bosnia. But it hurt only the Bosnians. Serbia had inherited the
bulk of former Yugoslav army and its impressive arsenal. Croatia
got much of the remainder. Both have coastlines, neutral or friendly
frontiers, and plenty of suppliers. When the aggrieved sought for
arms and support to defend themselves, UN embargo came in the
way. If by any chance some sympathizers were able to cross these
'civilized' barriers they were called fanatics and fundamentalists.
Neither the Muslims in Bosnia were "fundamentalists" nor did they
wanted to establish an "authoritarian theocratic regime." They
made it clear that they wanted to establish a secular "civic" state.
Despite all of that they were subjected to the harshest crimes and
61
atrocities history has ever witnessed. Everyone saw what had been
done to them because they were looked upon as a Muslim nation,
and as such, were perceived to be a potential threat to Western
interest in Christian Europe. To the West, nationalism, in the case
of Muslims, is a synonym to Islamism. The case of Bosnian Muslims
is sufficient proof for West's total refusal to accept Muslims, even if
nominal, in the post-cold war era. One thing which needs to be
considered as well settled is that there isn't any difference between
the liberals, the moderates and the fundamentalists among Muslims
as far as the West is concerned. The "zealots," the "extremists," the
"fundamentalists," "moderates" and the "liberals" all fall in the same
category. The Islam other than the one approved by the West was
described as Islamic fundamentalism, extremism and radicalism.
Facts as opposed to fantasies, reveal the indulgence in double-
standards always present in the conduct of international affairs,
throughout the centuries, and this became the way of political life
on both sides of the Iron Curtain between the Soviet Union and the
West, during the near half-century of the Cold war, arising largely
from a need, at all costs, to avert a nuclear conflict. Under these
circumstances over, and over again, truth, reason and justice had to
be subordinated to expediency as interpreted by each contestant
superpower in order, (in seeking to prevent either side from
extending its own spheres of influence at the expense of the other,)
to do so without starting a third global conflict. Hence, when the
Soviet Union collapsed, and the danger of nuclear war had been
correspondingly reduced, we all surely had a right to believe that
there would be comparable reductions in our common addiction to
double standards, and a greater sense of faith, in practice as well as
theory, in the pursuit of justice in the settlement of international
disputes. Certainly there was a fleeting, probably never to be
62
repeated opportunity to abandon selectivity in making political
decisions in the field of international affairs, in favor of objectivity
and fair-mindedness.
The United States and Islam
The US, since the end of the cold war, has been reluctant to press
secular authoritarian and military regimes that it supported as
agents in the fight against communist forces to open their political
systems to include Islamic actors. Instead of pressing for political
reforms, the US is essentially offering to continue to prop up
repressive authoritarian regimes in return for assistance in fighting
in the Islamic radicals. In fact, in cases where democratic elections
have taken place, the US has proved reluctant to endorse the results
if Islamic political parties emerge victorious. The problem with this
approach is clearly demonstrated in the Algerian case. In 1991, an
election was held, in which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)
soundly defeated the governing party in the first round of
parliamentary elections. Rather than allow the Islamic party to
form a government, the military removed President Chadli
Benjedid in January, 1992, and canceled elections that would have
given the FIS control of parliament. The US and other Western
powers failed to put pressure on the generals to respect the results
of the election.
Pointing to contradictions in US definitions of democracy, experts
of Islamic politics say that the West is seeking to lay down one set
of standards for those it sees as friends and those regarded as
adversaries. Ironically, the United States becomes a champion of
Muslim values when it supports Saudi King Fahd's argument that
Western democratic norms are incompatible with Islam. The king,
63
in 1992, announced the formation of a Majlis (consultative council)
for the first time. US Assistant Undersecretary of State for the Near
East, Edward Djerejian, in a speech in July 1992 accepted the
manner and pace in which the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf are
seeking to open their feudal political systems: "The United States is
not trying to impose an American model on others. Each country
must work out, in accordance with its own tradition, history and
circumstances how and at what pace to broaden political
participation." But no such tolerance is shown towards Muslim
democracies like Algeria, where the Islamic Salvation Front was
denied its election victory by a military junta. Djerejian's argument
against Islamic revivalists seeking to win elections is that they were
using the democratic process to come to power only to destroy the
system in order to retain power. "While we believe in the principle
of one-person-one-vote, we do not support one-person-one-vote-
one-time," he argued.18
For many in the Muslim world, this smacks of certifying brands of
democracy on the basis of whether elections are conducted by
"good Muslims or bad Muslims." Besides Iran and Algeria, the
double standards become apparent in Afghanistan where a fragi le
guerrilla coalition announced elections in the war-ravaged nation.
The United States has made clear through its "moderate" friend in
the guerrilla coalition, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, that it does not
favor polls, arguing that the country is not yet ready. Interestingly,
it is the radical Islamic group of guerrilla chieftain Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar and pro-Iranian Hizbe Wahdat that wanted elections.
The Wahdat even favored giving women the right to vote.
According to western analysts, free elections -- as Algeria was well
on its way to proving -- do not necessarily produce open
governments, human rights or economic prosperity. In Asia, too,
64
the pattern seems to be prosperity first, democracy later. South
Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore all built up their
booming economies under regimes that tolerated little opposition.
Gerald Segal, a London-based Asia scholar, concludes that
"democracy, as conceived of in Western Europe and North America,
is not necessarily applicable to the rest of the world." 19
The Revival Concerned Only the Islamic World
Today the Islamic states may present a rhetorical threat to the West,
and may engage in individual acts of pressure, military or
economic, against it: but the strategic situation is quite different.
They are incapable of mounting a concerted challenge, let alone a
redrawing boundaries.20 Muslims do not constitute a threat to the
West. There is no indication or even a remote possibility of any
Muslim armed incursion into any Western country or even a threat
of sabotage of their political system. The irony, however, is that
this very Muslin world which has suffered at the hands of the West
in the past and which remains even today weak materially,
economically, technologically and militarily, is now being projected
as a threat to the West.
According to Fred Halliday, the contemporary challenge of "Islam"
is demagogy on both sides apart, not about inter-state relations at
all, but about how these Islamic societies and states will organize
themselves and what the implications of such an organization for
their relations with the outside world will be. The more recent rise
of Islamic politics in the states and popular movements of the
Muslim world poses little threat to the non-Muslim world without;
it is primarily a response to the perceived weakness and
subjugation of the Islamic world, and is concerned with an internal
65
regeneration. That this process is accompanied by much
denunciation of the outside world and the occasional act of
violence against it should not obscure the fact that the Islamic
revival concerns above all the Muslim world itself.21
The urge for self-assurance has increased manifold with Muslims
being at the receiving end, thanks to the Western uni-polar system.
Now a majority of the Muslims believe that if a strong Islamic
revival does not take place immediately, Muslim identity would be
crushed, particularly when there exists a trend in the West,
especially in the United States, which views Islam as a potential
threat to higher US national interests. For instance, Daniel Pipes,
Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, proclaimed that
"Islamic fundamentalists are a danger to their own people and to
the United States. The United States should block the progress of
this movement." However, majority of US scholars disagree with
Pipes and his assessment of what he calls "Islamic
fundamentalism." For example, S Nayang of Howard University,
stressed, “Fundamentalists are not going to disappear. No one can
wish them away. They must be dealt with." According to Michael
Hudson of Georgetown University, "Islamic fundamentalism has
some anti-Western characteristics, but the movement is not
inherently anti-American." Hudson called on the West and Muslim
world "to work for a greater understanding of each other. Both
societies should reject negative stereotyping and underscore shared
religious values." 22
66
Who Violates the International Law?
Recent instances -- in the Middle East, the Balkans, and South Asia
-- suggests that as during the century before the World War I,
perceived Western interests rather than the larger considerations of
peace and international security will be the chief determinants of
which aggression shall be punished, who will violate international
law, and who will not. For the last some years, almost total control
of protecting human rights all over the world has been taken over
by the west. The Western media has converted the concept of
human rights into an ideology which parallels any religion. From
this, the west has assumed the privilege to interfere in the internal
affairs of any country. On top of it, America can declare any state a
terrorist leading to punishment -- all in the name of human rights.
In which country human rights are being violated, this decision
also lies with America. So if America kills hundreds of innocent
citizens with aerial bombardment, it is considered a rightful action
with reference to human rights. On the other hand, thousands of
Muslims have been killed by the Serbs in Bosnia without disturbing
the American conscience because Bosnia happens to be a Muslim
country. Likewise, if Pakis tan extends moral help to Kashmir it is
threatened with dire consequences. But if India kills thousands of
Muslims, it is conveniently ignored.
Again, given the double standards applied by the west, one has to
ask what terrorism is and what exactly is the definition of a
terrorist state? In 1993 Pakistan, was persistently warned by the US
administration that, if it did not stop supporting the "Militants" in
Indian controlled Kashmir, the US would be obliged to declare it a
"terrorist state." Supporting Kashmiri freedom fighters, in their just
struggle for self-determination, against the Indian authorities is
67
terrorism, while the atrocities being committed by the Indian
authorities are something negligible. The UN Security Council
resolutions on the issue are no more of a substantial value. Why?
Because it is not in the interest of the West and the US that the
Muslim majority state of Kashmir accede to Pakistan. Pakistan's
support to Afghan mujahideen was laudable not because the
mujahideen were fighting a holy war -- a jihad -- against an atheist
occupation power but because they were efficiently contributing to
the containment of communism -- the most vital interest of the
West in the cold war era -- and finally to the collapse of the Soviet
led Eastern bloc. In explicable, Israel's continued unlawful
occupation of Arab lands and its oppression and persecution of
Palestinian people does not come under the purview of terrorism!
Permitting Serbs and Croats, in Bosnia, to go ahead unhindered
with their "ethnic cleansing" and genocide of defenseless Bosnian
Muslims is also not terrorism! On the contrary any attempt to
supply the armless victims of aggression -- the Muslims -- in Bosnia
with weaponry to enable them to defend themselves would fall
under the definition of terrorism because such attempts would
entail gross violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
What Hippler has said on the phenomenon of terrorism in the
Middle East is relevant here: It would be completely absurd to
believe that this terrorism had arisen from ideological or even
religious sources, as the German expert on terrorism Tophoven
would have us believe. It is far more plausible that it arose because
sections of society and civil movements (in Lebanon, for example)
saw no other possible way of exerting political influence. Without
the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the long occupation of South
Lebanon, without Israel's undisputed military and political
dominance there, it would not have been possible for Shiite
68
terrorism to emerge in the form it did. This fact does not justify
terrorist crimes, but helps us to understand connections. Without
the West's support of Israeli policy and without the Western
intervention in Lebanon in 1982-84 (with American, French, British
and Italian troops) so many Western citizens would hardly have
become victims of kidnapping and hostage taking. The Lebanese
Shiites had nothing else with which they could, politically and in a
narrower sense militarily, seriously oppose the occupying Israelis,
the Western troops or the power structure of their own country.
They would not have had a ghost of a chance in 'open battle'. Using
guerrilla tactics, raids, kidnappings and assassination attempts they
were able to deal very painful blows to their enemies despite their
own weakness. In fact using these methods they were able to drive
the American and West European troops from their country in a
relatively short space of time. The attacks on the American, French
and Israeli headquarters in Lebanon resulted in hundreds dead and
buildings completely destroyed - military attacks would not have
been possible using conventional means. Essentially, such
strategies have nothing to do with 'fanaticism', plainly something
to do with violent, unscrupulous, but ultimately achieve the
maximum effect using the limited means at one's disposal. This is
precisely what was achieved: the Western powers abandoned
Lebanon in a virtual panic, and Israel too had to withdraw. What
other tactics would have such a result? 23
The West is not only selective in its choice of enemies but also in
the UN resolutions it wishes to be implemented. The only principle
that the West strictly adheres to is "crusade for morality stops
where interest starts." Hence, there isn't any abstract principle for
declaring a group, a country or a regime as a terrorist. Rather it is
only one's position on Western interest which identifies his
69
character. Hence the US voices its concern about "terrorism" -- but
tends to pay little heed to the root-cause of terrorism, the
elimination of which alone can resolve conflicts. Apparently,
terrorism is used as a pretext to further dominate the world by the
use of force. And all this is done in the name of justice. To this end,
the West makes clever use of mass media, applying subtle methods
of persuasion -- the same principles as used in advertisements and
marketing. For instance, the holocaust suffered by the Jews is kept
alive by the media, to draw sympathy and legitimize e the existence
of Israel; but significantly, not the holocaust suffered by the
citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and not the holocaust suffered
by the Vietnamese in the American B-52 'milk-runs,' to state just
two examples.
70
Reference:
1 Jochen Hippler, The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, p -4
2 Ibid. p-4
3 Ibid. p-4
4 The New York Times Magazine, 31 May 1992
5 John Esposito, The Islamic Threat - Myth or Reality? New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p-175
6 Jeff Hynes, Religion in Third World Politics - p-3
7 Hippler, op. cite. p-127
8 Ibid. p-131
9 Ibid. p-130, 31
10 Newsweek, 15-2-1993, cited by Hippler
11 Hippler, op. cite, p-128,29
12 USIS 17.8.1988 cited by Hippler
13 Hippler, op. cite. p-130
14 Akbar S. Ahmed, Studying the roots of misperception - Orient vs Occident - Dawn 26.2.1993
15 Ibid.
16 Khalid Bin Sayeed, Western Dominance and Political Islam - p-7, 8
17 Ibid. p-23
18 The News, Rawalpindi 17.7.1992
19 Kenneth Auchincloss, The Limits of Democracy - Newsweek 27.1.1992
20 Fed Halliday, A Challenge to the West? - Dawn 11.6.1995
21 Ibid.
22 Dr. Jassim Taqui, Americans debate 'fundamentalism' - The Muslim 8-9-92
23 Hippler, op. cite., p-143-44
71
CHAPTER IV: ISLAMIC RESURGENCE
An Islamist is one who seeks to increase 'Islamization' of a Muslim
society by political means. The ways chosen to achieve such a goal
may be by either constitutional or non-constitutional means.1
The Islamic resurgence is a broad based, complex, multi -faceted
phenomenon which has embraced Muslim societies from Algeria to
Indonesia. It is a manifold, multifarious occurrence that is
religious, socio-economic and political in character. It has given
rise to a variety of voices and expressions, and has been
unrelenting in pursuing its major goal, which is to alter or supplant
at least some portion of the existing culture and society either
through legal peaceful means or revolutionary methods. The
phenomenon of Islamic resurgence has been variously described as
the 'fundamentalism,' 'renewal,' 'revival' or 'repoliticisation' of
Islam, Islamic 'radicalism' and as 'militant Islam.' However, it is
impossible for any single framework to capture it or provide a
meaningful comprehension.
The appellation, 'Islamic fundamentalism' is simplistic because
if 'fundamentalism' refers to the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy,
then all Muslims are fundamentalists as Quran deemed to be
literally the Word of God.2 It is also erroneous because there are
significant variations in both the aims and programs of the
different Islamic political groups lumped together as
'fundamentalist.' The term 'religious fundamentalism' is in fact
little more than a label of convenience used to describe and explain
religious-based developments often of quite different qualitative
forms. Fundamentalism, according to the dictionaries published in
America and England, means a belief in the old teachings of the
72
Christian Church as opposed to modern thought influenced by
scientific knowledge.
Originally fundamentalism arose in the USA and Great Britain as a
Protestant counter-movement to the Enlightenment and to
modernization in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its
supporters saw themselves as being overrun by social
developments such as the consequences of the American Civil War,
industrialization and modernization. As a result of the
Enlightenment, the words of Bible were subordinated to the rules
of reason; a critical interpretation of the Bible had developed. The
fundamentalists set their own interpretation against this, according
to which the Holy scriptures were infallibly true in their literal
meaning. The 20th century Chambers Dictionary defines
fundamentalism as "belief in the literal truth of the Bible, against
evolution etc.," while according to Oxford Advanced Learner's
Dictionary "fundamentalism is the belief that the Bible is literally
true and should form the basis of religious thought or practice."
James Veitch corroborates this view by saying: "It is not surprising
that label like 'fundamentalism' and fundamentalist' should be used
for Muslim activism, particularly in the political circles where
Christianity has been domesticated and where Christian
fundamentalism is respected in centre-right politics. However,
such terms belong to the theological vocabulary of Protestant
Christianity, and have a special meaning within this strand of
religion; fundamentalism can be understood only in relation to
particular times, places, events and figures.....Outside Protestant
Christianity, but still within Western societies these terms are
sometimes used loosely for those who appear to hold inflexible and
conservative doctrinaire positions in politics, economics and
73
education. But in such usage, there are always overtones of
stubbornness and an unwillingness born of stupidity, to face up to
the challenge of modernity and the secular, technological, scientific
world. When the word 'fundamentalism' is used in this context, it is
clearly disparaging. The use of 'fundamentalism' and
fundamentalist' in respect of Islam, or of Muslims who get
themselves on the centre of the world stage, has this pejorative
meaning. The word suggests that Muslims are backward and hold
defiantly to an archaic religious world view."3
In western media, as well as scholarly writing, the words
'fundamentalism' and 'fundamentalist' are susceptible to a
looseness which suggests pejorative overtones rather than an
authentic description of Muslim religious behaviour. In this sense,
what Andrea Lueg has to say is also very instructive: Instead of
knowledge or at least an unbiased examination of Islamic societies,
we have clichés and stereotypes, which apparently make it easier to
deal with the phenomenon of Islam. The Western image of Islam is
characterized by ideas of aggression and brutality, fanaticism,
irrationality, medieval backwardness and antipathy towards
women.4
Fundamentalism with reference to Christianity is understandable
because Christianity and the Bible have undergone a lot of changes.
As regards Islam, it is an article of Muslims' faith that the Quran
will never change. The basic beliefs of Islam are the same as were
told by Prophet Mohammed 14 centuries ago. No doubt there are
many sects in Islam but differences revolve around details and not
on the basic tenets of religion. In this way, Islam does not have the
kind of fundamentalism which Christianity has. We have used the
74
term Islamic fundamentalism as a label of convenience for Islamic
resurgence or revival.
The politics in the Muslim world during the last two decades or so
has been transformed by a general Islamic resurgence while
practically all other political creeds have been in decline. By the
1980s, Islam was the chief vehicle of political opposition in North
Africa and the Middle East, regardless of official state ideology,
political system or leadership. Whether in communist Afghanistan,
socialist Algeria, revolutionary Libya, secular Tunisia, pro-Western
Egypt, divided Lebanon or puritanical Saudi Arabia, the
generalization holds true. Elsewhere, in states as diverse as Turkey,
India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Trinidad, Islamic groups strained
the relationship between governments and governed. In addition,
Islam was the leitmotif of rebellions in Burma, Chad, Ethiopia,
Thailand and the Philippines.5
Islam was the banner of numerous opposition movements
throughout the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere where
Muslims were substantive groups. The socio-political conditions
that were necessary for the emergence of political Islam were by
and large the same. They included the experience of one-party or
dictatorial regimes which disallowed political opposition; the
underpinning cultural effects of Islam; long-term, close ties with
either the capitalist West or communist East; political and economic
corruption of elites; attempts to develop religion as a tool of the
state; and, finally, disenchantment with secular ideologies,
including capitalism, socialism, communism and, on occasions,
state-centric nationalism.6 Popular Islamism in the modern era
always contains an element of challenge to ruling elites, who may
be led by monarchs, secular leaders or military absolutists.7
75
The Islamic resurgence may be traced to several interrelated
conditions. Islamic resurgence is a worldwide phenomenon. It has
to be understood in its historic context. Perhaps the way to
understand the Islamic resurgence as a modern phenomenon will
be through an understanding of the modern milieu in existing
Muslim societies -- their economies, politics and cultures. Jochen
Hippler asserts convincingly that the modern political -religious
movements are the outcome of the distorted process of
secularisation to which Islamic societies were exposed, of the
economic crisis that capped their encounters with international
capitalism, and of the crisis of identity engendered by the cultural
encounter with modernism.8 John Voll, on the other hand, provides
a more general thesis on the origins of Islamic resurgence: "Islamic
fundamentalism is ..a distinctive mode of response to major social
and cultural change introduced either by exogenous or indigenous
forces and perceived a s threatening to dilute or dissolve the clear
lines of Islamic identity, or to overwhelm that identity in a
synthesis of many different elements."9
It may also be argued that the nature of the West itself as a
capitalist system has a direct bearing on the emergence of
resurgence initially, at least, as the movement of the oppressed. To
borrow from Samir Amin: It seems realistic to start from the old
observation that capitalist development and imperialist conquests
have created the situation [of Islamic resurgence] we are
experiencing. Like it or not, the problems facing us are those
engendered by this development.10 The continuous, steady and
relentless taking over the lands of the peoples of one religion by the
governments of another religion, starting from 1800, was an
extraordinary historical phenomenon, which brought crushing
political pressure to bear on Islam from Christian Europe. Islam's
76
political counterpunch to the challenge of Western colonial
domination has been wholly successful and for Muslims wholly
gratifying, for most of the battles in that struggle were fought
under the banner of Islam.
Jansen, poses a question, Could there have been an Afro-Asian
movement without Islam? and then provides a detailed description
of the role of Islam in anti-colonialism: This may seem a surprising
question because the assumption is that the nationalist movements
that rolled up the imperial carpet in Afro-Asia in twenty swift
years after 1947 were 'modern' and therefore secular. So they may
have been in such leading Afro-Asian countries as Indonesia, India,
Egypt and Ghana, but the secular nationalist inheritors came late to
the political scene. The foundations as well as much of the new
national superstructure were laid down and erected during the
preceding 150 years by Muslim forces and Muslim leaders. Without
politically militant Islam freedom would have taken decades
longer, that is if militant Islam and the freedom struggle had not
been one and the same thing earlier on in Indonesia, Afghanistan,
the Sudan, Somaliland, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and West-central
Africa - in addition to the very large infusion of Islam in the
national movement of Iran and some in that of Egypt.11
In his assessment of Islam's role in the struggle against colonialism,
Jansen also explains why, in many diverse Muslim countries,
should Islam and the freedom movement have been so close
together as to be in action one and the same thing? ... There was no
nationalism, structured or unstructured; that came later and was
the product not the cause of the national movements which for
many decades were simply movements of revulsion against the
Western presence. Not until the 1920s did the secular nationalist
77
political parties appear, and then only in a few Afro-Asian
countries the usual leadership groups, the princely rulers
aristocrats or landlord class, usually sided with the foreign ruler.
But the village sheikh, being that much closer to the people,
partook of their nationalist feelings and could not but become the
local leader. After all the struggle was against Westerners who
were Christians, and Christian missionaries were waging war
against Islam. De Lesseps (the builder of the Suez Canal), speaking
in an Algerian context, expressed this intertwining very concisely
when he said: What nonsense has been written about the intractable
fanaticism of the Algerian Arabs ... Fanaticism had not nearly so
much to do with the resistance of the Arabs as patriotism. Religion
was the only flag around which they could rally.12
Some political analysts maintain that poverty and ill iteracy are the
social bases of fundamentalism in the Muslim world. As Jochen
Hippler has said: The sometimes catastrophic economic and social
conditions -- partly determined by the West -- in which people
there must live are another major reason for the enormous success
of Islamist groups. Whoever wishes to weaken them would be well
advised to think first about how to solve the real problems of the
region.13 According to Mary Jane of American University, "Islamic
fundamentalism is very closely tied to the economic problems of
the Islamic states face."14 Islamic activists looking for new recruits
find fertile ground among unemployed university graduates in the
metropolitan centers of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Pakistan and
Bangladesh. They offer their converts a home and a dream. Their
leaders are often middle-class professionals such as doctors,
engineers and teachers who believe that Islam offers the only
realistic option. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and leader of
Hamas, grew up in the congested streets of Gaza City and worked
78
for many years as a teacher of Arabic and Islamic studies at a local
school. His second-in command, Mahmoud Zahar, is a doctor at the
Islamic University of Gaza.15
However, if economic problems were the only cause of Islamic
revival then Pakistan should be the first stronghold of
fundamentalism since it is near the bottom of the list among
Muslim countries in the socio-economic benchmarks, just above
Sudan and Afghanistan. But Iran, where fundamentalism continues
to thrive, has a per capita income of US $ 2,160 and a literacy rate of
48 per cent in 1977 -- that is, on the eve of the Iranian revolution --
compared to US $ 200 per capita income and a literacy rate of 24
per cent for Pakistan for the same year. Per capita income of
Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Indonesia range
between 720 dollar (Egypt) to almost 1700 dollars (Jordan). Literacy
rates in these countries are from 40 to 64 per cent. Only Sudan and
Afghanistan come near Pakistan, with respective per capita
incomes of US $370 and US $168 and literacy rates of 20 and 10 per
cent. It is clear that fundamentalism does not attract the poor and
uneducated alone. It also appeals to the educated youth, who are
drawn towards it as an alternative political system in post -colonial
societies ruled by corrupt and inefficient political elites. Most of
the Muslim countries suffered under colonial rule and the masses
expected a better dispensation after liberation from the foreign
yoke. But disillusionment grew as the people continued to suffer
under unscrupulous and corrupt generals, bureaucrats and
politicians.
In this respect what John L Esposito comments is very instructive:
"In the nineties Islamic revivalism has ceased to be restricted to
small, marginal organizations on the periphery of society and
79
instead has become part of mainstream Muslim society, producing
a new class of modern-educated but Islamically oriented elites who
work alongside, and at times in coalition with, their secular
counterparts."16
Islamic Radicalism: A Homegrown Problem
Islamic radicalism is perhaps a home-grown problem -- an
expression of revolt against repressive, and often corrupt,
governments that are failing to attack poverty. Its adherents speak
out against the developed world's policies in their countries that
contribute to the preservation of inequality.17 The negligence of
masses provided more than enough fodder for fundamentalism,
which led to a simultaneous condemnation of capitalism,
nationalism and socialism. The puritanical lifestyle of many
fundamentalist leaders, along with their stress on honesty and
other worldliness, has sometimes led people to think that they
would be able to end the corruption and dishonesty if they were in
power.
In addition to the indigenous causes, analysts cite several factors --
in which Western policies have played a part -- that have helped to
create a climate conducive to Islamic militancy. These include the
psychological and political repercussions on the Islamic movement
of the 1991 Gulf war, a perception by Islamic militants that the
West has a double standard when it comes to enforcing UN
resolutions, and the "message" sent to Islamic militants by Algeria's
military crackdown, with Western acceptance, on its radicals in
1992. "First Islamic fundamentalists have concluded that the West is
ready to fight on behalf of rich Muslims against the poorer ones,
and that the West is now more willing to engage in military
80
operations in the Muslim world than it was during the Cold War,"
according to Ghassan Salame, Middle East expert at the Institute of
Political Studies in Paris. In addition, "Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War
has also given Islamist groups strong arguments that nationalized,
secular-oriented regimes are no match for the West," Salame says. 18
Trans-National Consciousness
Besides the internal and external factors that prompt contemporary
Islamic militant politics, there is the factor of trans-national
consciousness among Muslims. It figures especially in relation to
issues involving injustice against Muslims. It is a powerful
phenomenon which both defines and strengthens Islamic activism.
Today's Islamic militancy draws its inspiration from no single
reformist or revivalist ideologue. Its militancy comes from the lived
experience of its followers. Its ideology is electric -- a mixed bag
from Ibn Tammiya, Syed Qutub, Maududi and Khomeni's writings.
Within the anguished environment of the Muslim World, especially
the Middle East, Muslim political activists opting mainly for
Islamic revivalism, not moderate, reformist thinkers were able to
capture the imagination of the Muslim masses.
The Islamic revival in all its forms is also viewed as a reaction of
the Muslims against the advancing process of secularization in
which religion is retreating from many areas of modern society
and economy, giving way to science and industry and scientific
methodology for understanding social, natural and historical
phenomenon. The world social transformation which has been,
since the sixteenth century, gradually changing the agrarian-feudal
society into an industrial society. This profound socio-economic
change is essentially embedded in the fast-developing capitalist
81
world economy leading to the integration of Muslim society into
the western-dominated global economy.19
Radical and Conservative Fundamentalism
The polarized and fragmented social conditions of the Muslim
societies and division of society into rich elites and poor masses has
divided the Islamic resurgence into two broad and general forms,
namely the radical/revolutionary and the conservative/reactionary
fundamentalism. These two conceptions, forms and categories of
Islamic fundamentalism can now be clearly identified in the
Muslim societies. Islamic fundamentalists are therefore working at
two different polarized and diametrically opposed planes, finding
themselves in the throes of self-contradiction. These two
opposite tendencies, radical and conservative, in modern Islamic
thought and practice thus tend to disrupt the Muslim society. This
confuses the social problems and their solutions and dissipates the
society's energy, resources, powers and talents.20
The so-called revolutionary fundamentalism gives a literal
interpretation of Islam in order to radically change the semi-feudal
and neo-colonial social structure of Muslim societies. It spurns all
extraneous accretions, superimposed on Islam's essential beliefs. It
is opposed to the effete and corrupt elites of their societies who, the
revolutionary fundamentalists believe, are spineless and
subservient to the foreign capitalist and capitalist culture and
civilization. Interpreting Islam as a religion of social reform,
equality and freedom, the radical form of Islamic fundamentalism
seeks to change the existing social structures and institutions
through the radical method of "liberation theology". This would
make Jihad, the holy war, struggle for the liberation of oppressed
82
masses.21 Hence Islamic revival has become a genuine theology of
liberation for the Muslim masses -- and often a threat to existing
political orders -- wherever it is preached.
At the socio-economic plane, revolutionary fundamentalists aim at
radical social change in the semi-feudal and neocolonial social
structures of the Muslim societies from elitist status-quo to an
egalitarian social order which would dissolve the dangerous social
polarization between privileged elites and poor masses, and would
liberate them from the slavery and oppression of these elites who
are seen subserviently aligned with the foreign elites of developed
countries. What happened in Algeria in January 1992 is a
resounding lesson to the radicals. The local and foreign elites
collaborated to suppress the masses.22 The followers of this
fundamentalism are militant and aggressive since they are
convinced that the state, classes or bureaucratic elites of the
Muslim societies are incapable of bringing any radical change, and
reforms in the unequal social, economic and political systems of
their retarded economies and corrupt political orders.23
In its reactionary and conservative form, the Islamic
fundamentalism is pleaded by some conservative religio-political
parties and groups of Muslim societies who have themselves
become privileged elites. They are politically allied to the political,
economic, feudal and military elites and ipso facto maneuver to
maintain the status-quo of semi-feudalism. In reality, they
constitute a religious elite and share all the traits of other ruling
elites. They interpret Islam in legalistic-ritualistic term, as a
political instrument to suppress and exploit the poor masses. The
conservatives use Jihad for their parochial, sectarian and
materialistic ends and not for emancipating the poor masses from
83
the slavery of ruling elites. The political scheme of Islamisation of
the Pakistani society and economy from 1977 to 1988 undertaken by
the Martial Law regime was aided and spearheaded by the
conservative religio-political parties of Pakistan. The reactionary
fundamentalists of these parties tended to strengthen the ruling
elites against the masses of Pakistan.
As these two radical and conservative forms of Islamic
fundamentalism necessarily relate to the actual situation of the
developing Muslim societies in the capitalist world-economy they
acquire different traits and characteristics in different Muslim
countries. The semi-feudal agrarian economies of these societies,
inspite of the strategies of development in the 1950's and 1960's
have not been transformed into industrial economies. The ruling
feudal, political, bureaucratic and economic elites desperately try
to maintain the status-quo. The growing chasm and deep
polarization between these rich elites and the poor, illiterate
masses, now threaten the present political and economic systems of
these societies.24
Official Islam
The reactionary fundamentalism is used by a state itself to
legitimize and consolidate its position. Here there exists a
spectrum, from the very token invocation of Islamic identity by
what are in effect secular rulers (Nasser's Egypt, Morocco, the FLN
in Algeria, the Baath in Syria and Iraq) through to the use of Islam
as a more central part of the state's authority and power. Ibrahim
Nugus, a former Communist leader of Sudan says: "The fact that
the fundamentalists are dominant is not because they use terrorism.
It's because all the other opposition forces are decimated. "Arab
84
governments, who feared leftist parties in the post-colonial period,
often used Islamic groups to counter them in order to buttress their
own power." In the Cold War atmosphere, the fundamentalist
movement was used in a ferocious way as one of the most
influential weapons against communism, and other leftist forces,"
Nugus complains. King Hussein of Jordan, for example, gave
protection to the Muslim Brotherhood at the same time he
dissolved all opposition political parties. The Jordanian
government argues opposition figure, Labib Kamhawi, "has
systematically worked to discredit all leftist ideologies. The only
ideology it did not attack, because it could not, was Islam. So the
only option for people was to join the religious forces." Thus many
regimes that now feel threatened by Islamists were themselves the
first to legitimize Islam as a political force.
The observation of Halim Barakat is relevant here: The inability of
nationalist and socialist regimes or movements to provide either a
satisfactory ideology or concrete solutions to contemporary
problems has left a vacuum, and the distortions introduced by
peculiar nature of modernization in the area call out for redress
through the contributions to society that religion can make. We
have noticed, too, the pervasive state of anomie generated by the
transitional nature of Arab society and culture, and the overall
need for coherence in an acute period of turmoil ... The return of
individual and society at large to religion and authenticity seems to
provide a compelling alternative sense of coherence, unity,
certainty, and inner strength.25
Wealthy religious individuals in the Gulf, some with close ties to
their governments, have long financed such groups as the FIS in
Algeria, Hamas, in the Israeli-occupied territories, and the Gamaa
85
Islamiya and Islamic Jihad in Egypt. The money has been used
shrewdly. The Islamists have invested infinitely more in social
projects offering the poor inexpensive health care, subsidized food,
or low cost housing than they have in guns and ammunition, and
the political impact has been great. The Islamists also have
effectively espoused the most popular causes. In Egypt, "the
Islamists influence sectors of society that are deprived and feel
insecure, and they move amongst them much more effectively than
do secular groups to convince them that they can solve their
problems," says Salama Ahmed Salama, editor of Egypt's semi-
official Al Ahram daily.26
Algeria represents one example of the typical form of Arab political
organization since the Second World War, one of secularism, social
ism and one-party. Following a bloody civil war against the French
colonizers the dominant anti-colonial group, the National
Liberation Front (FLN), took power in 1962. When the FLN
emerged triumphant from the war, organized Islam was seen by the
new leaders as a subservient part of the state structure. It was seen
as a means to mobilize support for the new state structure. It was
seen as a means to mobilize support for the new state and to
reinforce the national identity which had been forged during the
nationalist struggle. Unlike Saudi Arabia, although Islam was the
state religion the Sharia was not made an integral part of the state
legal system nor were the ulema allowed to play an independent
role in legislative matters at the national level. Instead, a minister
of Religious Affairs was appointed, ostensibly to safeguard and
promote the interests of Islam. In reality his role was to co-opt
Islamic leaders, to ensure Muslims' subservience to the secularized
state.27
86
By the mid-1970s, a state-led attempt to secularize and modernize
Algerian life -- in the name a Cultural Revolution -- had an
unwanted consequence: the founding of Islamic revivalist
movements. Following the death of the powerful state president,
Boumedienne, in 1978, and the triumph of the Islamic revolution in
Iran a year later, an autonomous Islamic movement, Ahl Al-Dawa,
emerged as a leading opposition voice. Elections in 1990 and 1991
confirmed Islam's position as the chief ideology of opposition, yet a
military coup in early 1992 deprived the Islamists of electoral
victory in a negation of democracy that ensured the continuation of
Algeria's discredited socialist regime.28
If the sharp division between privileged elites and impoverished
masses of the Muslim societies is continued for maintaining the
present status-quo and no land reforms and radical social changes
are introduced to bridge these social cleavages, and these societies
are not re-constructed on scientific, rational and egalitarian basis,
Islamic fundamentalism, particularly in its radical form, will
acquire revolutionary overtones because, since the demise of
socialist model as an alternative to the capitalism, there does not
exist for the time being any other economic model for a viable
change in Muslim societies except that of radical Islamic
fundamentalism; and large masses of population in Muslim
societies can no longer be denied basic necessities of life by the rich
elites. There are limits to human patience and suffering.
No Islamic International
Despite their ideological proximity, the Islamic movements never
coalesced into an Islamist International. As the Muslim societies are
at different stages of development, Islamic fundamentalism does
87
not comprise a single monolithic structure and edifice of principles,
ideologies and strategies. To brand all movements of Islamic
renaissance, reform and social change, as a single category of
"terrorism" would be a gross misunderstanding of the whole
phenomenon. It must be analyzed and understood in the actual
context of the given society, and in its relations with foreign
capitals, and with elites of the more developed societies of the
Western countries.
Islamic extremist movements that we see in various countries today
are sporadic local phenomena with local grievances and local
objectives. All that they have in common is Islamic nomenclature,
symbolism and rhetoric. But the occurrence of these developments
is random and these are scarcely inter-related. There is no common
thread which weaves them into one big way or the other by
individuals, groups and organizations who articulate their
unfulfilled demands in the religious idiom. Thus these signs of
Islamic revivalism can hardly assume the character of a monolithic
threat either to the West or to international stability. However,
despite this, the green scare is spreading in the West and looks to
become a phobia before long. The American Vice President Dan
Quayle, reflected the same flawed tendency when, on one occasion
in 1990, he bracketed radical Islamic fundamentalism with
Communism and Nazism.
A corollary of the tendency of Western analysts to make sweeping
generalizations about signs of Islamic resurgence has been that the
acts of militant Islamic organizations are taken to be the
representative of the true character of Muslims across the world.
Frequently, the actions of these extremist Islamic organizations
whose members kill and destroy in the name of Allah are projected
88
as symptoms of a disorder inherent to the disposition of every
Muslim. It is for this reason that small militant organizations with
extremely limited following like the Party of God, Tafkir wal Hejra,
Salvation from Hell, the Army of God etc. dominate western debate
on the so-called Islamic threat. But the countless moderate Muslims
who constitute the actual Islamic world never find mention in such
discussions.
Daniel Pipes, Director of the U.S. Foreign Policy Research
Institute admits that "Muslims are not fanatical by nature but are
frustrated by their current predicament. For one thing, not all
Muslims hate the West. Survey research and elections suggest that
Muslims who do hate the West - dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalists
-- constitute no more than 10 per cent of the Muslim
population."29 By definition, the activists are a small minority. In
Egypt and Algeria, for instance, the hard core can be counted in
their hundreds. In the absence of violence, Islam remains a
powerful and unifying ideology for much of the Muslim world.
Many Egyptians abhor the militants' methods but support their
goal of Islamic rule.
The Islamic movement in essence endeavors to revive the Islamic
identity and culture of the Muslims and order their lives in
compliance with Islamic values and perceptions. If the West thinks
that it is quite legitimate and natural for Western peoples to retain
their culture and values, why should Muslims be deprived of the
same? The Islamic revival involves the assertion that, in the face of
secular, modern, and European ideas, Islamic values should play a
dominant role in political and social life and should define the
identity of the Muslims. If there is one common thread running
through the multiple movements characterized as "fundamentalist,
89
it has nothing to do with their interpretation of the Islamic
'foundations,' i.e. the Quran but rather their claim to be able to
determine a politics for Muslim peoples. The central concern of
Islamist movements is to obtain and maintain control of the state.
In this perspective the rise of Islamist movements in the 1970s and
1980s bears comparisons with that of tendencies elsewhere that
deploy religious ideology in pursuit of other nationalist and
populist political goals -- in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism,
Buddhism. We have discussed this at length in Religious
Fundamentalism.
One may agree with Veitch's observation: The revival of Isla m has
been gradual and dramatic since the second half of the 1970's, and
is in striking contrast to the fate of the Church in the Western
world. Islam stands out when it is on the move and is involved in
trying to influence and shape the political process and in
stimulating social transformation.30 In Hisham Sharabi's view, the
main distinguishing fact about Islamism is its modern character
and the fact that it was born in dialectical reaction to imperialism:
"The movement of Islamic radicalization, accompanied the process
of 'modernization' and was dialectically linked to it. Islamic
fundamentalism, like Westernization and 'modernization,' was a
psycho social reaction to it. But militant Islam (fundamentalism)
ought to be interpreted not simply as a rejection of foreign values
and ideas but rather as an attempt to give a new Islamic content to
the meaning of self and society by reformulating a redemptive
Islamic dogma."31
What the West often and indiscriminately labels 'fundamentalism'
is a reform movement whose message is not conservative and
reactionary but radical, revolutionary and modern. It is motivated
90
by a deep desire to free Muslim states from Western dominance.
Khurshid Ahmad believes "the Islamic resurgence is primarily an
internal, indigenous, positive and ideological movement within the
Muslim society... It is "neither pro- nor anti-Western ... [nor]
primarily an exercise in political confirmation. If we can
acknowledge and accept that this world is ... pluralistic, that
Western culture can co-exist with other cultures and civilizations
without expecting to dominate them ... then there is a genuine
possibility that we can learn to live with our differences."32
During the past two centuries the onslaught of the West has
destroyed much but not all of Islamic civilization while the religion
of Islam which created this civilization, one of the greatest ever
known in human history, has fortunately remained strong and now
seeks to reassert at least to some extent its primacy in the domain
of culture and civilization where it was somewhat marginalized
during the recent period of Muslim history. Although Islam as a
religious community has not disintegrated totally in the wake of
the collapse of the Ottoman state, Muslim culture and institutions,
especially under the impact of hegemonic and aggressive
Westernization, have been challenged to the core. Reacting to
Westernization and its various cultural and political forms and
expression, the Islamic Movement aimed, from its very inception at
finding an "Islamic solution" to the problem of alienation,
education, economic organisation, and social justice in society.
91
Reference:
1 Jeff Hynes, Religion In Third World Politics - p-16
2 Orientalists claim that Muslims cannot change so long as they are enclosed in the belief that the Koran is in its totality the very word of God and that Muhammad is the perfect human being. So long as those beliefs remain unchanged (for most Muslims it is blasphemous even to suggest the possibility of change) there is no scope, no 'give', for those modification that alone can make Islam spiritually contemporaneous with the modern world. G. H. Jansen, Militant Islam, p-95
3 James Veitch, Muslim Activism, Islamization or Fundamentalism: Exploring the issues, Islamic Journal - Islamabad Vol. 32, No. 3, Autumn 1993
4 Jochen Hippler/Andrea Lueg, The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, Pluto Press, London, 1995 p-7
5 Jeff Hynes, op. cit. p-64
6 Ibid. p-79
7 Ibid. p-149
8 Ibid. p-107
9 John Voll, Fundamentalism i n the Sunni Arab World: Egypt and the Sudan - Chicago, 1992 - p-347 cited by Hippler op. cit.
10 Samir Amin, Is there a Political Economy of Islamic Fundamentalism? Delinking (London, 1990) p-183
11 G. H. Jansen, Militant Islam, Pan Books, London 1979, p-95,96
12 Ibid. p-96,97
13 Jochen Hippler, op. cit. p-14
14 Dr. Jassim Taqui, Americans debate "fundamentalism" - The Muslim, Islamabad - 8.9.1992
15 Shyam Bhatia, West fails to see the real face of Islam - Dawn 29.1.1993
16 John L Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? New York, 1992, p-23
17 17.Lucy Johnson, Poverty, not plotting, fuels fundamentalism - The News Rawalpindi - 26.5.1993
18 Caryle Murphy, How West fuels Islamic militancy - Dawn - 21.2.1992
19 Dr. Ziaul Haq, Defining Islamic Fundamentalism-II - Dawn - 15.4.1995
20 Dr. Ziaul Haq, Defining Islamic Fundamentalism-I - Dawn - 14.4.1995
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Dr. Ziaul Haq, Islamic Fundamentalism - Dawn - 14.2.1992
24 Dr. Ziaul Haq, op. cit.
25 Halim Barakat, The Arab World: Society, Culture, and Change, Berkeley, 1993, p-143-144
26 Peter Ford, Islam runs right through life, politics - Kuwait Times - 7.6.1993
92
27 Jeff Haynes, op. cit. p-80
28 Ibid.
29 Humayun Akhtar, Who is afraid of Muslims? - The Muslim, Islamabad - 19.8.1992
30 Veitch, op. cit.
31 Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1988, p-64
32 Cited by James Veitch, op. cit.
33 Anthony Hyman, Muslim Fundamentalism (Conflict Studies) - p-1
93
CHAPTER V: RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM
It is hard to dispute the fact that over the past decade or so militant
Islam has been on the rise in various Muslim countries of the
world. However, it would be quite wrong to imagine the spread of
the so-called fundamentalist ideas as being uniquely Muslim.
Fundamentalist religious views are in fact flourishing openly in
many different societies, with religion and politics intertwined for,
among others, Zionists in Israel, Sikhs in India and 'born-again'
Christians in the USA. In the USA a vigorous Christian
fundamentalist revival is going, ranging from the New Right
Christian Churches to Creationism, the rejection of Darwinism in
favor of a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation. A
revivalist crusade in the 1980s, against the 'permissive society' and
current liberal or humanistic ideas, has been launched -- not by
Muslims but by Christian preachers in the USA.1
Christianity, long regarded in the West as non-political or
apolitical, became a vehicle for political ideas from the 1960s. There
are an estimated 60 million fundamentalist or 'born-again'
conservative Christians in the USA, i.e. more than a fifth of the
population. They provided the core support for the arch-
conservative 'televangelist' Pat Robertson's unsuccessful 1988
presidential campaign, and for Pat Buchanan's in 1992. The growth
of fundamentalist Christianity was also clearly manifested in Latin
America, where an estimated nine or ten thousand Catholics each
day make the switch to conservative forms of Protestantism.
Growth in conservative Protestantism in not confined to the
Americas.2
94
The growing role of religion in politics, a trend that took root in the
1980s, has now become a global phenomenon affecting most major
faiths and dozens of otherwise disparate governments. Here are
examples of how the role of religion in politics is growing and
affecting most major faiths and many governments:
Algeria: The army moves to halt a certain victory of the Islamic
Salvation Front (FIS) in parliamentary elections in 1992.
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Religion becomes defining force in
conflict between Christian Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis in
these former Soviet Republics.
Brazil: Activist Roman Catholic Church endorses strikes, factory
takeovers in protest over failed government anti-poverty programs.
India: Militant Hindu movement becomes leading opposition party
--Bhartia Janta Party (BJP) -- in 1991 general elections and emerges
as the largest single political group in 1996 and 1998 polls.
Israel: Religious right with hard line on Mideast peace enjoys
unprecedented political power.
Mongolia: Even the long-dead and dormant Buddhism is now
asserting its presence in Mongolia after the collapse of the Soviet
system.
The West is not concerned about the religious movements gaining
ground in other than Islamic countries like theocratic Israel, where
the Jewish right-wing leadership now enjoys a n unprecedented
political power, or secular and democratic India where the BJP,
spear-heading a militant Hindu movement, took over power in the
1998 elections. The alarm bells do not ring in the Western capitals
on these events. The reason that only Islam is seen having
95
"fundamentalists" worth getting alarmed over is best understood in
its political context. Essentially "fundamentalism" of any kind
means a return to the fundamentals of a particular ideology. It is a
profound revolt against the control of ideas by foreign intellectuals
and actors. That is why Christianity and Judaism do not have
"fundamentalists" in the traditional sense of the world. A return to
Christian or Jewish fundamentals would not involve a revolt
against Western civilization in any way. Hindu "fundamentalists"
do not threaten the economics and politics of the West and are
therefore not recognized as "fundamentalists." Only Islamic
"fundamentalists" have the power to take a vital commodity from
the West and place it under non-Western jurisdiction. Therefore,
only Islam has the type of "fundamentalists" that the western world
deems threatening. Today, Islam happens to sit on top of vast oil
reserves and its resistance to Western cultural imperialism is
perceived as a threat to the smooth functioning of the world
economy.
Political extremism is a phenomenon which obtains in the Muslims
as well as other countries of the world. Every region in the world,
including Western Europe and North America, has seen its own
extremist tendencies in one form or another. Whereas political
struggles elsewhere in the world are seen in their proper
perspective, i.e. Tamil separatists, Irish Republicans, Serb rebels,
Hindu extremists, Catholic terrorists and Greek orthodox
separatists respectively, similar extremist movements involving
Muslims are invariably distorted in description and given a
religious bias such as the struggle in Chechnya, Bosnia, Kashmir or
occupied West Bank. As all militant movements have a need to
underpin themselves in some ideology, a proportion of these
movements adopt religion as their sheet anchor. In the 1980's, the
96
Roman Catholic church got increasingly involved with the rebel
forces in Central and South America in what was, at the time,
called, liberation theology. Extremism is not a cause but a symptom
of political instability in certain Muslim countries and remedy
therefore lies not in denigrating Islam but helping these countries
achieve a stable political system.
Whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, religious fundamentalism
has become a force in the balance of the international power,
according to a US study. Religious fundamentalism is on the
upsurge around the globe -- but exactly what the term signifies is
less clear. It is applied to movements that are distinguished as
much by their difference as by their similarities. "For most
Westerners accustomed to a separation of church and state -- the
concept of religion as a political engine that drives the balance of
global power is a big revelation," says Caludia Hamston Dlay,
executive producer for the US public radio segments of "The Glory
and the Power." It is plain that the return to religious roots, and
the mobilization of religious faith to reform a corrupt or decadent
society, are far from being limited to Third World countries, let
alone to Muslims. Its manifestation and symbolism vary from
religion to religion and culture to culture, but despite the
difference, there are some intriguing parallels in the organization of
fundamentalist groups, and in the methods used by activists to
arouse popular response.3
Religious Zeal and Modernization
The western view, which acquired strength in the 19th century, was
that the industrial revolution and modern science had eroded the
importance of religious faith in general including Islam. This did
97
not prove a correct assessment. "Eighteenth century philosophers
had a very simple explanation for the general weakening of beliefs.
Religious zeal, they said, was bound to die down as enlightenment
and freedom spread. It is tiresome that the facts do not fit this
theory at all." The view which de Tocqueville associated with
philosophers of an earlier age generally remains conventional
wisdom: as societies industrialize, urbanize and are led by secular
leaders, religion will increasingly appear as an anachronism, as a
remnant from the past, doomed to privatization and even,
ultimately disappearance. Most analysts of the Third World
political developments took such premises for granted until very
recently. Unquestionably the position of religion in politics
globally has been of much greater salience, variety, and longevity
than originally thought 30 or even 20 years ago. Confidence that the
growth and spread of urbanization, education, economic
development, scientific rationality and social mobility would
combine to diminish significantly the socio-political position of
religion in the Third World in particular has not been well
founded.4
Contrary to early conventional wisdom of political analysis, it
would be incorrect to see the secularization of a society as an
inevitable end-result of modernization, given the way that some
modernized, increasingly industrialized societies (e.g. Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Brazil) are also highly religious. This is to argue that in
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and elsewhere a process of ideological
secularization has been revered: the basic values and belief systems
used to evaluate the political realm and to give it meaning have
become couched in religious terms.5 The conventional wisdom used
to be that seven decades of atheistic propaganda had effectively
undermined the strong religious traditions of the societies of the
98
former Central Asian republics. Wrong. One estimate now is that 10
new mosques are opened daily somewhere in the five new Muslim
states.
What perhaps stands out most clearly is the widespread apparent
absence of faith in secular alternatives to religion as facilitators of
aspirations. This is not only the case in Muslim countries, but also
among Christian communities in the Third World. It is as though at
the current historical juncture neither vanquished communism nor
victorious capitalism (as its political vehicle, liberal democracy) has
the ability to appeal politically. Why is this the case? The simple
answer is that neither of the previously hegemonic secular
ideologies has been seen to 'deliver the developmental goods' in the
Third World. Governments in secular and capitalist Nigeria and
Indonesia have been as unsuccessful as regimes in secular and
socialist-oriented India in satisfying popular socio-economic
aspirations. A result has been that each country experienced
religio-political resurgence, which obviously encompassed
differing religions (i.e. Islam, Christianity, Hinduism) but had in
common a serious dissatisfaction with the political status quo. 6
In the context of failed modernization and inadequate government
people are highly susceptible to radical alternatives which hold out
the promise of transforming this world. Such a process is
universalized because while many people in developing countries
have become materially poorer over the past 20 years, they have
acquired access to different religious ideologies and teachings.7
Most of the 'fundamentalist' religious groups seek social and
political change in order to improve the lot of adherents: they wish
to tie the undesirability of Western-derived political and social
99
changes (such as democracy and sexual equality) to the words of
their holy books.8
Religion in Third World societies often serves as a vehicle of
political opposition. This is especially the case when rulers are
unwilling to open up the political debate to those outside their
circle, much less to give up political power through competitive
elections. Religion as a vehicle of political opposition has grown in
importance over the past 20 years. This has been because of two
factors: the failure of state-promoted development plans and
programs and the inability of secular ideologies generally to serve
as galvanizers or repositories of popular aspirations.
Three Categories of Religious Renaissance
According to Jeff Haynes, there are three categories of movements
and ideas within the global religious renaissance:
The first type, religio-political, includes those, not exclusively in the
Islamic world, whose leaders utilize religious ideologies, often
invoking God's 'pure' doctrine, to attack the socio-political
legitimacy and economic performance of incumbent governments.
Thus militant Islamist movements, such as the Islamic Republican
Party in Iran (that was later disbanded by Khomeini), Algeria's
Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Nahda in Tunisia and others in Jordan,
Egypt, Afghanistan, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere, fall into
this category.
The second type of religious orientation is religious revivalism.
Followers are dedicated to society's moral re-awakening and at
times have a national political dimension. Such groups include
100
conservative Protestant sects and churches which seek to form and
produce 'new' Christians. Sects of this type, often labeled
'fundamentalists' by their adherents, are to be found in Europe,
North and Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific Rim.
The aim is not to establish a Christian state, but rather to establish
communities of right-minded people to do God's will on earth. This
is not to say that they wish to stay out of politics. Fundamentalist
Christians made a big impact upon politics in the USA in the 1980s
and 1990s with their campaigns about religious teachings in
schools, while 'born again' Christians became rulers of El Salvador
and Honduras in the 1980s. Throughout South America as a whole
Protestantism spread quickly in the 1980s, posing a challenge to the
ascendancy of the Catholic Church. In addition, United States
foreign policy aims dovetailed nearly with such leaders' anti -
Communism. In Nigeria growing numbers of self- proclaimed
Christian fundamentalists became of political salience in the
context of serious clashes with Islamists.9
The third types, syncretic hybrids, are amalgams of Christian or
Islamic religious beliefs and traditional practices. Examples are to
be found in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific
Rim. Such groups may have a nationalist orientation which
questions the whole concept of, for example, 'Christian civilization'
as progress, and seeks to highlight the pre-Christian belief
structure. Such groups may or may not be politicized. The crucial
factors are the legitimacy, authority and economic performance of
incumbent governments.10
101
US Foreign Policy in Central America
It is the case that the USA's foreign policy in parts of Central
America in the 1980s under President Reagan gave succor to some
particularly unsavory right-wing regimes. This was, in part,
defended in the idea that they were Christian, anti-Communist
regimes, and thereby worthy of support. This understanding was
generally shared by the often politically right-wing evangelical
missionaries who flocked to the region, and were a factor in its
growing protestanization. The goals they shared were: containment
of communism and the gaining of power of so-called 'strong' (i.e.
perhaps military, certainly authoritarian), free-market oriented
governments. As with an earlier era, when it was believed that
'what was good for General Motors (and by extension other
transnational corporations) was good for America'; in the 1980s and
1990s what was good for right-wing Protestantism was, apparently,
equally salutary for the USA's foreign policy goals.11
On occasions, as in Central America, there is a shared focus of
interest in political conservatism: US conservative Protestant
missionaries frequently share a goal, that of the ensconcement of
conservative political regimes, with local pentecostalists and
frequently the US State Department and the Central Intelligence
Agency as well.12 Officials of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin
America see the spread of Protestantism as a new form of 'Yankee
imperialism.'13 It would not be going too far to say that the
conservative Protestant movement represented a new, partially
invisible strand of US foreign policy under the guise of religious
dissemination. Vociferously anti-Communist, its representatives
worked to convert Third World masses to conservative faith and to
promote US national interests, as they saw them.14
102
Hence there are clear links between conservative religious
movements in the USA and those in Central America based on the
nature of shared goals: anti-communism and American values.
There are also potentially very significant forms of modern linkage
across other state boundaries; for example, involving some of the
American Christian-conservatives and Zionist politico-religious
militants in Israel.15 The development of the evangelical and
Pentecostal Christianity in South Korea was facilitated by US
politico-religious involvement, partially 'expressed through a close
working relationship between the US and Korean Central
Intelligence Agencies.16
During the broad period of Cold War (i.e. later 1940s to late 1980s),
the superpowers' view of Third World religio-political issues was
limited by their salience to the USA's and the USSR's strategic aims.
Even though they attempted to use religious groups for their own
ends, they found -- as with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan or the
liberation theologists among the Sandinistas in Nicaragua -- that
they were beyond their control, even if supplied with both weapons
and financial support. What the superpowers failed to take fully
into account was that the rise of reformist or revolutionary Islamist
and Christian movements reflected specific combinations
of political, social, economic -- and sometimes ethnic -- factors
unique to each country which experienced such movements.17
In the Cold War era, religion was seen as a bulwark against
communism. Ecumenical movements to bring together the
followers of Christianity, Islam and Judaism were launched, as part
of the strategy to resist the ideological onslaught of Marxism. The
most recent such example is Afghanistan, where various groups of
Islamic-oriented Mujahideen put up the stoutest resistance to the
103
Soviet occupation, and received generous support, mainly in the
forms of arms and ammunition. No objections were raised when
representatives of militant Islamic groups from other countries
joined the Afghan resistance groups in what was perceived as their
heroic resistance to the Soviet occupation forces. At the end of 1979,
shortly after the Soviet army rolled into Afghanistan to impose
communism, President Jimmy Carter and his advisers decided on a
working alliance with political Islam. Secret directives later
amplified and expanded by the Reagan and Bush administrations
and the US Congress which in the 1980s appropriated a war chest
of billions of dollars, covered the recruiting, training and arming of
one of the largest mercenary armies in American military history.
The bulk of the recruits, including many Arab-Americans and some
Muslim Afro-Americans, were devout if not fanatical Muslims.
Some were in for gain or adventure, but most utterly committed to
the Jihad, or holy War, against communism.
With the hope and money from a motley coalition of Muslim and
Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia and then President Anwar Sadat's
enthusiastically pro-Western Egyptian government (an enthusiasm
which contributed to Mr. Sadat's murder by Egyptian "Afghanis"),
the CIA acted as manager. The Carter, Reagan and Bush
administrations all delegated to Pakistan's powerful military
intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, crucial controls
over the anti-Soviet jihad. These included which fighting groups
would get the cash, arms and preferred training. Courses included
everything from how to strangle silently an enemy sentry to
making a huge truck bomb.
At the end of the 1980s, when the Russian had withdrawn from
Afghanistan amid the crack-up of the Soviet Union, the volunteer
104
holy Warriors did not go home to open bakeries or flower shops.
Determined to destroy their own governments and Western-
corrupted societies, as they saw them, they decided to attack and
de stabilize these institutions. There are estimated 5,000 trained
Saudis, 3,000 Yemenis, 2,800 Algerians, 2,000 Egyptians and
perhaps 2,000 Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Iranians and
others. Ironically, much of today's Islamic extremist activity is the
work of groups funded for years not by Iran but by the United
States, which kept a number of Islamic groups going throughout
the Cold War era.
Religion has always been 'political'. Within the context of the
global imperialism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
Christianity especially became an integral part of the rulers' tools
for legitimacy and authority.18 To many Europeans the spreading
of Christianity was an important element of the extending of
'western civilization' to supposedly godless, benighted native
population.19 The most recent wave of external political
domination -- that of Western European powers in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries -- had the effect of converting
millions of people to Christianity.20
The 500-year anniversary in 1992 of the 'discovery' of the Americas
by Christopher Columbus focused human rights group and local
Indians' anger and resentment at the duplicity of the Roman
Catholic Church, which had come to Latin America with a cross in
one hand and a sword in the other. Indian leaders in Ecuador,
Mexico, Peru and elsewhere saw the Catholic Church as part of the
ideological domination of the Europeans, in the forefront of a
cultural racism which had lasted until the current time. Such
people, often at the bottom of the socio-economic structure, found
105
in the Pentecostal sects, with their cures and exorcism sessions, a
welcome response to the poor population's desperate desire for
welfare and medical treatment. At the same time, however, the
Protestant fundamentalist sects led by North American
missionaries in the field in Latin America were also regarded by the
same Indian leaders as representative of the European invasion of
their lands.21
106
Reference:
1 Anthony Hyman, Muslim Fundamentalism (Conflict Studies) - p-1
2 Jeff Hynes, Religion in Third World Polics - p-95
3 Hayman, op. cit. p-1
4 Haynes, op. cit. p-145
5 Ibid. p-31
6 Ibid. p-149-150
7 Ibid. p-10
8 Ibid. p-37
9 Ibid. p-13
10 Ibid. p-13-14
11 Ibid. p-127
12 Ibid. p-35
13 Ibid. p-115
14 Ibid. p-117
15 Ibid. p-143
16 Ibid. p-142
17 Ibid. p-138
18 Ibid. p-15
19 Ibid. p-20
20 Ibid. p-26
21 Ibid. p-120
107
CHAPTER VI: ISLAM AND MODERNIZATION –
Part I
The eighteenth century, which is generally viewed as a lean period
of Islamic history with reference to the political disintegration and
socio-moral decline, happened to be the seed bed of the Islamic
revivalism. During this century, various movements started in
different parts of the Muslim world to regenerate the society. This
continued during the nineteenth century. To arrest the decadence
and infuse new vitality in a society in which they were convinced
that religion must remain the focal point, the reformers advocated a
return to the movements and masters of Islamic theology and
philosophy. The essential diagnosis arrived at by the leaders of
these reform movements was that Muslims reached this stage
because they ceased to be "pure" Muslims since the purity of
pristine Islam has been compromised with un-Islamic accretions
both in doctrine and practice.
The eighteenth century revivalism attempted to rehabilitate the
theory and practice of Islam by insuring its authenticity and
workability in changing situations. The revivalists slashed much of
law and theology and rejected Sufism in its popular and
speculative form. It was an attempt to ensure that the new
orientation of the Muslim world view in the limits set by Hadith
studies and Neo-sufism would not only maintain the continuity
and Islamic authenticity but would be a meaningful answer in the
changing situation in terms of socio-moral reconstruction.
The revivalist efforts have gone a long way to liberate Islam
from the numbing medieval influences. Their influence has
been certainly salutary in activating creative forces and in
this connection the term "Ijtihad" (independent judgment) has
108
once again assumed great importance, at least in theory.
The spirit of socio-moral reconstruction reached its zenith in the
movement of Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (1703-1792), in the
Arabian peninsula, who stressed that Islam was not static but a
dynamic religion which in itself contained forces that would enable
the Muslims to seek scientific and technical knowledge to put them
on a level with the advancing nations of the world. He condemned
Sufism and saint-worship. He denied all acts implying
polytheism and advocated a return to the original teachings of
Islam as incorporated in the Quran and Hadith, with condemnation
of all innovations (bid'ah). His rejection of medieval authorities left
enough room for right of independent analysis of the fundamentals
of faith. Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahab's theology and
jurisprudence is based on the reaching of Ibn Taymiyah and on the
legal school of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
In India, Shah Walihullah, [1703-1762] a contemporary of Abdul
Wahab, was of the view that Islamic code of life was meant for all
ages and for all peoples could prove true only if it had enough
elasticity to provide an answer to the growing needs of a
progressive civilization and the new problems which humanity
would have to face from time to time. The Muslim jurists in every
age would therefore necessarily be called upon to exercise their
judgment in re-interpreting and making new provisions in law, of
course within the framework of the fundamentals of Shariah. He
believed that it was the duty of Muslim scholars and Ulema of
every age to exercise ijtihad and laments that the simple-minded
people of his time were too ignorant to attach due importance to it.
109
Since the nineteenth century, the Muslim world has felt the impact
of the West—first political and then cultural. Therefore, the main
intellectual concern regarding the direction of the Muslim world,
during the past two centuries, has been with the demands of
modernity placed upon traditional societies. The main thrust of
modernism was the search for an acceptable formula to reconcile
Islam with the secularized West. In this effort, modernists begin
with internal criticism of the existing state of Muslims in history.
They sought a return to the first principles of Islam to unburden it
of all the unnecessary dogmas accumulated over the centuries, and
face the challenge of the new world by being favourably disposed
toward it.
The modernist perspective was shaped in the milieu of colonial
imperial expansion of European powers into the Muslim world,
and at the peak of Europe's confidence of itself as the most highly
evolved civilization. The reality of the 19th century Europe
favorably influenced a great many Muslim intellectuals of the
period. The situation of Muslims in general was now the reverse of
the one they occupied in the pre-Renaissance period, when Europe
borrowed from the Islamic Arab Persian civilization. The most
distressing reality for modernists was the state of decay of the
Muslim world when compared to the dynamism of the European.
The primary concern for the first generation of modernist thinkers
was the need to reorient the direction of Muslim history, to
reinterpret Islam in the context of modern science and learning, to
put a brake on further decay of the Mulish world.
The intellectual challenge for modernists was to convince Muslims
that the demands of both Islam and the West "were not
incompatible with each other.'' The five most prominent modernists
110
during the latter half of the 19th century were: Sayed Ahmad Khan
and Sayed Amir Ali in India, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani in Iran,
Namik Kemal in Turkey and Muhammad Abduh in Egypt. They
insisted on returning to the undiluted first principles of Islam
through a new reading of the Quran which would show that the
new science based on the principles of observation and
experimentation was Quranic in its impulse. They recommended
the revitalization of ijtihad (independent reasoning) in Muslim
thinking and practice, and called for the rejection of taqlid
(imitation), the submission to the authority of classical jurists in
interpreting the Quran and the Sunnah.
Technological modernity intrinsic to western civilization, it is said,
allows ultimately no alternative to Muslims or anyone clinging to
pretechnical values. According to Daniel Pipes, "worldly success
requires modernization; modernization requires Westernization;
westernization requires secularism; secularism must be preceded
by a willingness to emulate the West." The development gap made
continuously wider by technological modernity places Muslims on
the lower side of the gap, and presents them with the most difficult
of all historical questions: can a traditional society achieve
industrial development by importing technology which undermines
its cultural heritage, opens a breach in its tradition and undermines
its world view? However, very few Muslims believe that the
appropriation of modern technology would necessitate a change in
ideological commitment.
111
JAMAL AL-DIN AL-AFGHANI (1839-1897)
The idea that science and Islam are compatible is put forward in
one form or another in the construction of all Muslim ideologues of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
(1839-1897), the pioneer of pan-Islamism, was convinced that
nothing but science and technology could eliminate economic and
cultural backwardness. Afghani objected to dividing science into
European and Muslim. He said modern science as universal,
transcending nations, cultures and religion. Afghani criticised the
Muslim scholars for not seeing it that way by saying: "The strangest
thing of all is that our ulema these days have divided science into
two parts. One they call Muslim science, and one European science.
Because of this they forbid others to teach some of the useful
sciences."
Afghani was indignant that natural science was left out of the
curriculum of Muslim educational establishments. He said: 'Those
who imagine that they are saving religion by imposing a ban on
some sciences and knowledge are enemies of religion.' In an article,
'The Benefits of Study and Education", Afghani said that the misery
in the Eastern countries was due to their ignoring "the noble and
important role of the scientists". Afghani himself set a very high
value on the public mission of the scientist. In December 1870,
speaking at a conference on the progress of science and the crafts
held in the New Istanbul University, Dar ul-Funun, he described
the scientist's work as missionary. He compared the scientist with a
prophet, saying that prophecy is a craft (sanat) like medicine,
philosophy, mathematics, and so on. The sole difference was that
the prophet's verity was the fruit of inspiration, whereas scientific
verity was the fruit of reason.
112
Whilst expounding the virtues and indispensability of science,
Afghani was also at pains to stress that science needed another
"science" which is more comprehensive which would enable man to
know how to apply each field in its proper place. This field of
knowledge is falsafa (philosophy) or hikam (wisdom) and only it
can show man the human prerequisites (values such as what is
more important, fairer, more just etc.) Afghani says: "It is
philosophy that shows the man the proper road and makes man
understandable to man."
To Afghani, Islam is a scientific religion and by this he did not
mean to circumscribe Islam within mere science either. He says:
"Since it is known that religion is unquestionably the source of
man's welfare, therefore if it is placed on firm foundations and
sound bases, that religion will naturally become the complete
source of total happiness and perfect tranquility. Above all it will
be the cause of material and moral progress. It will elevate the
banner of civilization among its followers. It will cause those who
are religious to attain all intellectual and spiritual perfection and to
achieve good fortune in this world and the next."
He did not advocate a merely negative Islamic reaction against the
West. He believed that the Muslim belief is a powerful political
force. He called for a revitalization of Islam which would permit
the Muslim world to absorb modern science. Afghani continued the
cosmopolitan tradition of Islamic intellectuals in the course of a
migrant life which took him from his native Iran to India,
Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, France Russia and elsewhere.
In the late nineteenth century, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan from India
and Sheikh Muhammad Abduh from Egypt recommended
113
reformation of Islamic society along similar lines though from
slightly different perspectives. Syed Ahmad Khan was in favor of
showing that modern science and technology were in conformity
with the articles of Islamic faith. Muhammad Abduh' rulings as the
Chief Mufti of Egypt, were influenced by the principle of public
interest (maslaha). He observed: "If a ruling has become the cause
of harm which it did not cause before, then we must change it
according to the prevailing conditions."
SHEIKH MOHAMMAD ABDUH (1849-1905)
Traditional Islam, Sheikh Mohammad Abduh argued, faced serious
challenge by the modern, rational and scientific thought. But he did
not believe that the faith of Islam in its pure and permanent core of
norms clashed with science. Instead he asserted that the faith and
scientific reason operate at different levels. The real Islam, he
maintained: "had simple doctrinal structure: it consisted of certain
beliefs about the greatest questions of human life, and certain
general principles of human conduct. To enable us to reach these
beliefs and embody them in our lives both reason and revelation
are essential. They neither possess separate spheres nor conflict
with each other in the same sphere…"1
Sheikh Mohammad Abduh's aim was to interpret the Islamic law in
such a way as to free it from the traditional interpretations and
prove that Islam and modern Western civilization were compatible.
Abd uh was convinced of the supremacy of human reason. Religion
merely supplements and aids reason. Reason sits in judgment on
religion. Islam is, above all, the religion of reason and all its
doctrines can be logically and rationally demonstrated.
114
Sheikh Abduh was thus the chief exponent of what has been termed
as the "Two-Book" school of thought which, though it basically
holds the unity of God inseparable from the unity of truth,
recognizes two open ways to it: the way of revelation and that of
natural science. He contended that since God's purpose in marking
His revelation was to promote human welfare, a true interpretation
of the Quran and the Sunnah should essentially be the one which
best fulfills this purpose. He himself took the lead in this direction.
As the Chief Mufti of Egypt, he issued fatwas ranging from the
questions of law to those of social morality and employed the same
measure of innovation and rationality in his interpretations,
assessments and judgments. In matters of Islamic law, which
governed Muslim family relationships, ritual duties, and personal
conduct, Abduh tried to break through the rigidities of scholastic
interpretation and to promote considerations of equity, welfare,
and common sense, even if this occasionally meant disregarding
the literal texts of the Quran.
Abduh's, rationalism is directed against inert traditional thinking
and blind observance of the medieval interpretation of Islam. Also
it is designed to vindicate and defend religion, to adapt it to the
new times, and to reconcile it with science. It would be a mistake to
think, however, that Abduh and other Muslim reformers confine
themselves exclusively to justifying and modernizing religion.
Despite the narrowness of their concepts they are sincerely
interested in eliminating the obstacles to the development of
science and technology essential for the revival of the Muslim
peoples and for economic and cultural progress. What they want,
however, is to use scientific achievements without heed of the
world outlook implicit in science.
115
Abdu deplored the blind acceptance of traditional doctrines and
customs and asserted that a return to the pristine faith of the
earliest age of Islam not only would restore the Muslims' spiritual
vitality but would provide an enlightened criterion for the
assimilation of modern scientific culture.
SIR SAYYED AHMAD KHAN (1817-1898)
The pioneer of Indian Muslim reform, Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan,
basically subscribed to the same ideas of Islamic reform as Sheikh
Abduh. Both agreed to the point of necessity to harmonize Islam
with modern science and rationalism. Sir Sayyed, however, viewed
revelation by the criterion of its conformity to Nature. To him,
Islam was the religion of most akin to Nature. Reason and
'conformity to Nature' according to Sir Sayyed was the essence of
Islam.
His main argument was that the Quran was the word of God and
the nature was the work of God; a disparity between the two was
unthinkable. According to him, Wahy (revelation) and reason are
identical. The latter operates in man's scientific investigations as
much as in his concept of deity, his distinction between good and
evil, his views on divine judgment and retribution, and his belief in
life after death. For him reason alone is the right instrument of
judging truth. Although Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan accepts the term
Wahy but does not attach to it any special significance; it is mere
inspiration in a most highly developed state: prophethood, in other
words, was a natural faculty, and not a gift through the grace of
God as the orthodox Muslims believes. As a corollary he puts
forward the view that revelation was not something external
116
brought to a prophet by an angel, as was generally believed, but a
natural phenomenon like other human faculties.
Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan rejects the Fiqh totally. He says that in the
past religiously mined scholars thought that, as far as possible,
everything should be done with the support of some religious
authority. Therefore, when any problem arose, they searched for
some religious sanction and with the help of far-fetched arguments
and interpretations; they placed it under some religious ruling or
subjected it to some general principle laid down by themselves. The
sayings and arguments of those religious scholars began to be
collected and assumed the shape of Fiqh and books relating to the
principles of Fiqh.
Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan lays stress on the fact that every age
should have a living Mujtahid whom all the problems should be
referred to. He says that it is a great error on the part of the Ahlus
Sunah Wal Jama'aah to hold the opinion that Ijtihad has come to an
end and Mujtahids have become non-existent. This doctrine has
done immense harm to the Muslims and should now be abandoned.
We should develop a spirit of enquiry and research. Life in every
age brings new problems and new needs. If we do not have living
Mujtahids, how can we ask the dead Mujtahids about needs and
problems which had no existence in their times.
Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan goes on to stress that worldly affairs
should not be dragged into the province of religion, because what
is religious is unchangeable, while worldly matters keep on
changing. The Quran, he adds, contains less than five hundred
verses bearing on worldly affairs. In any case, the fact that the
117
Quran mentions a few worldly matters constitutes no argument
that worldly affairs are included in the religion.
Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan had sought to show that Islam was no
barrier to scientific inquiry and social progress. He was the first
thinker, after the 1857 Muslim revolt against the British colonialists,
to realize this pathetic condition of the Muslims. He attributed this
condition to three causes: (1) the superstitious beliefs and practices
that had entered Indian Islam (2) lack of emphasis on the
assimilative and universal character of Islam and (3) the aversion of
the Muslims to Western education. Against the opposition of the
Ulama, who declared him as a heretic, Sayyed Ahmad Khan
established the Anglo-Muhammadan College at Aligarh, the
nucleus of the Muslim University of Aligarh, which created a new
Muslim generation who believed in Islam and also favored modern
trends. In his series of articles published in the "Tahzibul Akhlaq"
and public speeches, he boldly spoke against the general and
indiscriminate practice of polygamy, for modification of the
doctrine of riba (interest) and against some punishments like
stoning to death and cutting off of hands. He also explained the
phenomenon of revelation and restricted Quran and Sunnah to
devotional matters. In his opinion religious injunctions relating to
social, economic and cultural matters were applicable to primitive
societies.
RASHID RIDA (1865-1935)
Rashid Rida, a Syrian scholar and the disciple of Mohammad
Abduh, also argues in favour of reasoning when he says that the
Quran taught its followers to ask for arguments and our virtuous
ancestors followed the same course. Rashid Rida emphasizes the
118
need for going back to the spirit of Islamic laws and for a
knowledge of the principles on which they are founded. He says
that many people know what is lawful and what is unlawful but
they do not know why a particular act has been declared unlawful.
To act on laws it is necessary to understand the reasons lying
behind them and to know what purposes or general interests, they
serve. Today people know Ahkam (injunctions) without knowing
the Hikmah (wisdom) behind them. Yet it was essentially the
knowledge of Hikmah behind the laws which enabled the
companions of the prophet to rule over large territories and
administer them in the best interests of the people.2
Rashid Rida pleads for Ijtihad by stressing that Islam as a religion
is based on reason and the Islamic Sharia is founded on the basis of
Ijtihad. Without Ijtihad, it is difficult to claim that Islam is an
eternal religion. Therefore, if any person stands in the way of
Ijtihad or tries to prevent it, he is really undermining the basis of
Islam and its Sharia and destroying its distinctiveness from other
religions. "What a heinous crime is being committed, then, by these
ignorant persons who call themselves the Ulema of Islam." 3
Rashid Rida says that Islam had given us perfect liberty to order
the affairs of our life. Barring a few restrictions laid down in the
Quran and the Sunnah, the entire field of human affairs was left
open, only it was stipulated that matters would be decided through
shura or consultations. But we put ourselves under unnecessary
restrictions which were not sanctioned by religion and it was
thought in later ages, that in defending these artificial restrictions,
we are defending our religion. This circumscribed our freedom of
action and disabled us from marching with times or borrowing
useful institutions and laws from other nations.4
119
He believed that the backwardness of the Muslim countries
resulted from a neglect of the true principles of Islam. He believed
that these principles could be found in the teachings of the Prophet
Mohammed and in the practices of the first generation of Muslims,
before corruption began to spread among the religious practices of
the faithful. He was convinced that Islam, as a body of teachings
correctly understood, contained all the principles necessary for
happiness in this world and the hereafter, and that positive effort
to improve the material basis of the community was the essence of
Islam.
ZIA GOKALP (1876-1924)
Zia Gokalp, who has been considered as the most influential
spiritual founder of Turkish nationalism, affirmed that Islam had
been equipped with an adequate framework to accommodate and
adapt to morphological changes in time and space. He says that the
injunctions of the Quran (nass or text) stay eternal and
unchangeable while 'urf' or the collective ideas and ijma --the
consensus of the scholars -- allow enough room for the dogma to
adapt itself to changing necessities of life. According to Gokalp, the
Islamic law has a two-fold source: the traditional Shariah and the
Social Shariah. The Social Shariah is continually changing in
accordance with social evolution. The stagnation of the world of
Islam is due to the failure of the Muslims to relate the 'nass' to the
'urf' by means of ijtihad. Gokalp has no doubt that Islam is the only
religion that exhorts change.
He found Quranic sanction for the secular authorities to assume
legislative functions in Islam in the verse: 'Obey God and the
Prophet, and those in authority among you.' (IV:59) Those 'in
120
authority' are surely to exercise their authority in the secular-
mundane sphere. For this differentiation, he demanded the transfer
of the judiciary functions of the Sheikh al Islam to the legislature
and urged that the office of Sheikh al Islam should be more of a
scholar, devoid of political authority. Another of his demands was
the abolition of the Ministry of Awkaf and a ban on the various
Dervish orders who had misused the pious endowments for self -
perpetuation and the propagation of their exaggerated belief in
fatalism. Gokalp also advocated the modernization of Muslim
family life and urged the complete abandonment of purdah and the
unqualified recognition of equality of the sexes.
Ziya Gokalp was among the earliest public figures in Turkey to
champion a purely secular state which was later established by
Mustafa Kemal. "In the first place, in a modern state, the right to
legislate and to administer directly belongs to the people. No office,
no tradition and no other right can restrict and limit this right. In
the second place, all members of the modern nation, regardless of
their relgious affiliation, are regarded as equal to reach other in
every respect. In short, all provisions existing in our laws that are
contrary to liberty, equality and justice and all traces of theocracy
and clericalism should be completely eliminated."5
DR. MOHAMMAD IQBAL (1897 – 1938)
The same struggle at an intellectual level was pursued by
Muhammad Iqbal during the 1930s in the Indian subcontinent.
Iqbal's greatest contribution lay in his attempts to understand the
nature and thrust of global forces as manifested in Western cultural
and intellectual dominance. His response was both intellectual and
institutional. He argued that, "the claim of present generations of
121
Muslim liberals to interpret the foundational legal principles, in the
light of their own experience and the altered conditions of modern
life is perfectly justified. The teachings of the Quran that life is a
process of progressive creation necessitates that each generation,
guided but unhampered by the work of its predecessors, should be
permitted to solve its own problems. A false reverence of past
history and its artificial resurrection constitute no remedy for a
people's decay. The verdict of history is that worn out ideas have
never risen to power among a people who have worn them out."6
Iqbal believed that there are two spheres of Islam; one is "ibadaat"
which is based on the religious obligations (arkan-i- deen) - these
do not require any change; the other sphere is that of "muamelaat"
(social dealings) which is subject to the law of change. He says:
"The Shariah values (ahkam) resulting from this application (for
example, rules referring to penalties for crimes) are in a sense
specific to that people; and since their observance is not an end
itself they cannot be strictly enforced in future generations."
Iqbal thought that both the institutions of ijma (overall consensus
of the community) and ijtihad (creative judgment) could be lodged
in a Muslim assembly. If such an assembly were to develop its own
knowledge and expertise in Islamic law, there was no need for the
ulama to exercise their veto on the deliberations of the assembly.
"The primary source of the law of Islam is the Quran. The Quran
however, is not the legal code. Its main purpose is to awaken in
man the higher consciousness of his relation with God and the
universe. The principle of movement in Islam is ijtihad - effort to
form an independent opinion. The transfer of power of ijtihad to a
Muslim legislative assembly which, in view of the growth of the
122
opposing sects is the only possible form ijma can take in modern
times will secure contributions to legal discussions from laymen
who happen to possess a keen insight into affairs. The closing of
the door of ijtihad is a pure fiction suggested partly by the
crystallization of legal thought in Islam and partly by intellectual
laziness which, especially in the period of spiritual decay turns
great thinkers into idols."7
Iqbal pleaded that equipped with penetrative thought and fresh
experience the world of Islam should courageously proceed to the
work of reconstruction before them. But he was aware that this
work of reconstruction has a far more serious aspect than mere
adjustment in modern conditions life. He was of the view that
"humanity needs three things today - a spiritual interpretation of
the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic
principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human
society on a spiritual basis. Modern Europe, has no doubt, built
idealistic systems on these lines, but experience shows that truth
revealed through pure reason is incapable of bringing that fire of
living conviction which personal revelation alone can bring. This is
the reason why pure thought has so little influenced men while
religion has always elevated individuals, and transformed whole
societies."8
SAYYED AMIR ALI (1849-1928)
Sayyed Amir Ali, an eminent Indian scholar, was of the view that
the plight that has fallen on the Muslims is due to the doctrine
which has prohibited the exercise of individual judgment (Ijtihad)
and the Muslim clergy has closed the of Ijtihad for its own
interests. He says: "The present stagnation of the Muslimin
123
communities is principally due to the notion which has fixed itself
on the minds of the generality of Moslems that the right to exercise
private judgment ceased with the early legists. The Prophet had
consecrated reason as the highest and noblest function of the
human intellect. Our schoolmen and their followers have made its
exercise a sin and a crime."9
He argued: "The lives and conduct of a large number of Moslems of
the present day are governed less by the precepts and teachings of
the Master (God) and more by the theories and opinions of the
Mujaddids and Imams who,.....oblivious to the universality of the
Master's teachings, unassisted by his spirit and devoid of his
inspiration, have adapted his utterances to their own limited
notions of human needs and human progress. They mixed up the
temporary with the permanent, the universal with the particular. In
the Western world, the Reformation was ushered in by the
Renaissance and the progress of Europe commenced when it threw
off the shackles of Ecclesiasticism. In Islam also, enlightenment
must precede reform and before there can be a renovation of
religious life, the mind must first escape from the bondage,
centuries of literal interpretation and the doctrine of conformity
have imposed upon it."10
Sayyed Amir Ali called for reformation in Islam. He advocated the
philosophy of Mutazilites by saying "Under them rationalism
acquired a predominance such as it has not gained perhaps even in
modern times in European countries. The idea of these
philosophers was the same as has gained ground in modern times
owing to the extension of natural science. But they were, in fact, the
exponents of the doctrine of Ta'lil or agnosticism. It appears,
therefore that the Islam of Muhammad contains nothing in itself
124
which bars the progress or the intellectual development of
humanity."11
Sayyed Amir Ali believes that the ordinances and injunctions of the
prophet were of a temporary nature and that the prophet never
intended them to be eternally binding on the Muslims. The prophet
relied more on moral persuasion. "...to suppose that the greatest
Reformer the world has ever produced, the greatest upholder of the
sovereignty of reason, ever contemplated that those injunctions
which were called forth by the passing necessities of a semi-
civilized people should become immutable, is doing an injustice to
the Prophet of Islam," he suggested.12
Sayyed Amir Ali accuses the jurists and theologians of having
misinterpreted the message of Islam to satisfy their own
whimsicalities or the capricious dictates of the Caliphs and Sultans
whose obsequious servants they were.
125
Reference:
1 Abduh's Lectures on Theology, p-42, quoted by Al Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age
2 Tafsir al-Manar vol. II Cairo, 1373 p. 30
3 Tafsir al-Manar vol. IV Cairo, 1375 p.240
4 Tafsir al-Manar vol. V Cairo, 1374 p.189
5 Turkish Nationalism and Western Civilization, Ziya Gokalp, New York 1959, p-305
6 Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Iqbal, Sheikh Mohammad Ashraf, Lahore, 1960 p-146
7 Ibid. p-146
8 Ibid. p-179
9 The Spirit of Islam, Syed Amir Ali, p-182
10 Ibid. p-184
11 Ibid. p-435
126
CHAPTER VII: ISLAM AND MODERNIZATION –
Part II
SHEIKH ALI ABDUL RAZIQ (b. 1888)
Sheikh Ai Abdul Raziq, an Egyptian scholar and a disciple of
Abdu, attempted to confine Islam to spiritual functions and free
mundane matters from strict religious or priestly hold. He tried to
delineate the nature of Islam in a bid to deal with the intricate issue
of the relation between Islam and state. He says: "The complete
separation of religion and politics is to be achieved in the interest
of Islam, as a universal faith. The faith could, then be released free
from the contingencies of history and power politics. This device
can also be instrumental in furnishing the basis of modern state. It
thus keeps the option open whether we want, to stick to the 'archaic
and cumbersome regime, or whether the time has come to lay the
foundation for a new political organization according to the latest
progress of human spirit."13
Sheikh Ali Abdul Raziq wrote his book the Islam Wa Us'ul al
Hukm" at a time when attempts were being made to revive the
Caliphate. Mustafa Kemal had abolished the Ottoman Caliphate on
March 3, 1924. The whole Muslim world was deeply shocked at this
happening. The Indian Muslims launched the movement of Khilafat
as a protest against this state of affairs. Sharif Hussain of Hejaz for
a time dallied with the idea of Caliphate but then gave it up. After
him Fuad I of Egypt called a conference of the Muslim ulema with
the object of discussing the feasibility of reviving the Caliphate. He
himself desired to become the Caliph and the representative of
world Muslims. It is at this time, that Ali 'Abdul Raziq wrote his
127
book disproving the thesis that Caliphate is a necessary institution
of Islam.
He argued: "Islam is innocent of this institution of the caliphate as
Muslims commonly understand it. Religion has nothing to do with
one form of government rather than another and there is nothing in
Islam which forbids Muslims to destroy their old political system
and build a new one on the basis of the newest conceptions of the
human spirit and the experience of nations."14
Islam, according to him, is a spiritual community, who’s
disciplinary and religious precepts are binding only on individual
conscience and have nothing to do with power and politics. Thus
Din (religion) and Siyasia (politics) are world apart. The blending
of religion and politics in the history of Islam, according to Raziq
does not follow from the teachings of Islam which aims at personal
salvation and operates within the confines of individual morality.
This is why the extension of religion to political domain in the
guise of the theory of caliphate is taken by him to be the
innovations of the jurists and theologians.
The real fact is, Ali Abdul Raziq says, as evidenced a by modern
and ancient history and as proved by reason, that the preservation
of religion and the maintenance of religious rites does not depend
on that particular form of government which the Fuqaha' (legists)
call Caliphate or on the rulers whom they call Caliphs. We do not
need this kind of Caliphate for looking after our temporal and
spiritual affairs. Far from being a source of strength, the historical
Caliphate was actually a source of weakness and it gave rise to
many evils. When the Caliphate was centered in Baghdad, the
religious condition of the people living under the
128
Baghdad Caliphate was no better than that of the Muslims who
lived in the territories outside the Caliphate nor were the
people living under the Caliphate materially better off than the
who lived outside it.15
DR. TAHA HUSSAIN (b. 1890)
Dr. Taha Hussain, a leading Egyptian scholar, rejects the theory
that the political system of early Islam was prescribed by God
through His revelation to the Prophet. He says that there is no
doubt that in the addresses of the Caliphs to the people and in the
traditions related from them mention is made of the authority of
God and the duty of obedience to Him. From this some people have
concluded that the political system of Islam was not man-made but
God-sent. But there is nothing divine in this system except that
Caliphate was a contract between the Caliphs and the general body
of Muslims and God has commanded the Muslims to fulfill their
contracts. Beyond this, the political system of early Islam had no
divine sanction behind it.
Taha Hussain emphasizes the fact that in state affairs the prophet
used to consult his Companions and this shows that the political
system of early Islam was not divinely ordained. The revelation
only drew the attention of the prophet and his Companions to their
general interests without taking away their freedom to order their
state affairs as they liked, of course, within the limits of truth,
virtue and justice. The best proof of this thesis is that the Quran did
not lay down any political system either in outline or in detail. It
laid down only general limits and then left the Muslims free to
order their state affairs as they liked. The only condition was that
they should not transgress the limits laid down in the Quran. The
129
prophet himself did not give any specific political system to the
Muslims. He did not even designate his successor either by word or
in writing, when he fell seriously ill. He merely ordered Abu Bakr
to lead the prayers in his absence.16
Taha Hussain, in his book On Pre-Islamic Poetry, published in
1926, contended that a great deal of the poetry reputed to be pre-
Islamic had been forged by Muslims of a later date for various
reasons, one being to give credence to Quranic "myths". He also
cast a doubt on the authenticity of the story of Abraham and Ismail
of having built the Kaba. "Torah may speak to us about Abraham
and Ismael and the Quran may tell us about them too, but the
mention of their names in the Torah and the Quran is not sufficient
to establish their historical existence, let alone the story which tells
us about the emigration of Ismael, son of Abraham, to Mecca and
the origin of Arabs there. We are compelled to see in their story a
kind of fiction to establish the relationship of the Jews and Arabs
on the one hand and Islam and Judaism on the other."17
In another book entitled "The Future of Culture in Egypt,"
published in 1938, Taha Hussain advocated that Egypt is culturally
a part of Europe and advocated for the assimilation of modern
European culture. He argued that Egypt has always been an
integral part of Europe as far as its intellectual and cultural life is
concerned in all its forms and branches. "Egypt belongs by heritage
to the same wider Mediterranean civilization that embraces Greece,
Italy and France".
In his ripe age, Taha Hussain apparently had a second thought
about some of his early writings and pleaded for blind faith in
religion. "Reason does not have that power and penetration which
130
the Greek, Christian and Muslim philosophers thought it had.
Human reason is really one of the many faculties given to man.
Like other faculties its power is limited. It can understand certain
things, but certain others are not amenable to reason," he
advocated.18 Taha Hussain also criticized the apologists who try to
reconcile the Quran with modern science and said that "it matters
little whether Din (religion) is reconciled with modern knowledge
or remains unreconciled. "Din is knowledge from God which knows
no limits while modern knowledge, like ancient knowledge, is
limited by limitations of human reason."19
MAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD (1888-1958)
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a prominent Indian scholar, argues that
there is nothing more prominent in the pages of the Quran than its
declaration that it has not come to institute a new religion but to
deliver humanity from the quarrels that arise out of divergent
religious groupings and to call all men to the same one path which
is the agreed and common path of all religions. The Quran did not
demand of the follower of any religion that he should accept some
new religion. It demanded of every single religious group that it
should stick to the real teachings of its religion, shorn of all
perversions and interpolations. The Quran says that if you do this
my task is fulfilled, because as soon as you revert to the real
teaching of your religion, you will be facing the same reality
towards which I am calling you. My message is not a new message,
it is the same old universal message which all the founders of
religion have delivered.20
Abul Kalam Azad says that Islam did not follow the method
adopted by the farmers of the French Napoleonic Code who
131
produced a mass of detailed rules and regulations. If it had done
this, it would not have been a universal religion, but a religion for a
particular nation and for a particular time. Therefore, it did not
involve itself in details but laid down foundational principles, from
which detailed laws could be derived as and when the need arose.
The Islamic polity started its life in a limited territory
and environment. Therefore, its political and penal laws were also
very few. As the Islamic territory expanded and new needs arose,
the legists of Islam deduced detailed rules from the foundational
principles. All these detailed rules and regulations are not,
therefore, the direct injunctions of Islam. Therefore, a distinction
should be made between the direct teachings of Islam and the laws
derived therefrom by the legists.21
Abul Kalam Azad believes that "all religions have two aspects, one
of which forms their essence, the hard core of their truth. Another
aspect is the outer grab in which they are clothed. The Quran says
that the first aspect is Din, the second aspect is Shari’ah or Minhaj.
The Quran points out that in the first aspect that is Din, all
religions are essentially the same. All the differences between
religions relate to the second aspect that is the Shariah or the
external texture of religion consisting of laws, customs and modes
of worship. It was quite natural that such differences should arise.
Religion aims at the welfare of humanity, but humanity has to pass
through different conditions in every age and in every country.
Different nations are at different levels of culture and intelligence.
Therefore, when religion appeared in these nations, it prescribed
for them a different set of laws in accordance with their level of
culture and intelligence. Thus Shariah or Minhaj differed in each
nation and whatever shape it took was appropriate to the
conditions of the time and the level of culture attained by each
132
nation, but Din or the essential truth of religion was the same for
all. This is the Quranic stand."22
One of the major causes for the decadence of nations, according to
Azad, has been the exclusive monopoly of power exercised by
religious authorities. "To destroy this poison Islam suggested a
remedy which was that every individual in the Muslim community
should perform the duty of commanding the good (Amr bil
M'arouf) so that it should not remain the monopoly of any
particular group, and no class of priests like the Brahmans and the
fathers of the Catholic Church should exercise authority over the
common people in the community. But since many centuries
Muslims have bound themselves by the chains they had come to
break and the Muslim ulema have claimed a hereditary right over
this duty of commanding the good, making it impossible for the
common Muslims to perform this duty."23
Azad believed in divine guidance and says that the faculty of
reason, however, has one important limitation. It deals with
material things, powers, laws and modes of thought; in other
words, the realm of science. It has nothing to teach about matters of
faith and the life spiritual.
ASAF ALI FYZEE (b. 1899)
Asaf Ali Fyzee, an Indian Moslem thinker, agreed with Abul Kalam
Azad that the object of religion was service of humanity and that a
static law was unsuitable to a progressive society. He thought that
Islam had two sets of rules, one that do not change and the other
that cannot stand against change. Fyzee called for the interpretation
of the tenets of Islam in terms of twentieth century thought. "It is
133
the duty of the scholars of each age to interpret the faith of Islam in
their own times," he suggested.24
Fyzee argued: "On a truer and deeper examination of the matter, it
will be found that certain portions of the Shariah constitute only an
outer crust which encloses a kernel - the central core of Islam -
which can be preserved intact only by reinterpretation and
restatement in every age and in every epoch of civilization. The
responsibility to determine afresh what are the durable and what
the changeable elements in Islam rests on us at the present time.
The conventional theology of the ulema does not satisfy the minds
and the outlook of the present century. A re-examination,
reinterpretation, reformulation and restatement of the essential
principles of Islam is a vital necessity of our age."25
He questioned the authority of the traditional Muslim schools of
thought who had closed the door of Ijtihad in Islam. "It must be
asserted firmly, no matter what the ulema say, that he who
sincerely affirms that he is a Muslim, is a Muslim; no one has the
right to question his beliefs and no one has the right to
excommunicate him. That dread weapon, the fatwa of takfir, is a
ridiculous anachronism. Belief is a matter of conscience, and this is
the age which recognizes freedom of conscience in matters of faith.
What may be said after proper analysis is that a certain person’s
opinions are wrong, but not that 'he is kafir."26
According to Fyzee, the rules of Muhammadan jurisprudence (usul)
and Muhammadan law (furu) should be studied in their relation to
social conditions. In such study, historical, political and cultural
factors should not be neglected, and the material studies should be
exhaustive: it should not be confined to Arabic sources, but Latin
134
and Greek, the four Semitic languages - Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac,
Ethiopic - and Urdu and Persian and Turkish should also be laid
under contribution. With such equipment the following five stage
study should be attempted:
1. What was the condition of society in relation to a particular
legal doctrine prior to Islam?
2. What was the rule of law laid down by the Prophet?
3. What was the result of such legislation?
4. Today, after fourteen centuries, how is the rule interpreted in
the diverse countries in which Islam subsists?
5. Can we not, always keeping the spirit of Islam before us,
would the rules of law so that healthy reforms can be carried
out? 27
In his view, Shariah embraces both law and religion. Religion is
based upon spiritual experience; law is based upon the will of the
community as expressed by its legislature, or any other law-making
authority. Religion is unchangeable in its innermost kernel - the
love of God for His own sake is sung by sufis and mystics
throughout the world.28
Fyzee said that "the separation of civil law from the moral or
religious law can now no longer be delayed in Islam. We must in
the first instance distinguish between the universal and particular
moral rules. And then we must deal with the law. The first task is
to separate logically the dogmas and doctrines of religion from the
principles and rules of law. The essential faith of man is something
135
different from the outward observance of rules; moral rules apply
to the conscience, but legal rules can be enforced by the state. The
inner life of the spirit, the "Idea of the Holy," must be separated to
some extent from the outward forms of social behaviour. The
separation is not simple; it will even be considered un-Islamic. But
the attempt at a rethinking of the Shariah can only begin with the
acceptance of this principle."29
"Religion should place emphasis on devotion to God, cleanliness of
spirit, orderliness of life, and not be enmeshed in the minutiae of
particular do's and don'ts. Apart from everything else the Islamic
virtues of generosity, humility, brotherliness, courage and
manliness should be taught by examples drawn from early Muslim
history. Additionally, the ethics and morality of Islam should be
fortified by the teaching of the ethical and philosophical teachers of
the modern world. ......We cannot make the Koran a book "which
imprisons the living word of God in a book and makes tradition an
infallible source."30
He believed that the divinely-revealed laws are necessary only for
peoples in a primitive stage of moral and social development while
the secular man-made legal systems are the sign of a mature and
advanced civilization. "The sources of law and religion being the
same (in Islam), the fusion is complete; the lessons of history, the
changing conditions of society, the ever-varying pattern of
civilization and the evolutionary process in the economic structure
of modern world have not been taken into consideration
sufficiently by the Shariah and the result is that by and large
Islamic law remains backward and undeveloped in many parts of
the world."31
136
DR. KHALIFA ABDUL HAKEEM (d. 1957)
Dr. Khalifa Abdul Hakeem, an eminent Pakistani scholar, maintains
that only the fundamental principles of Din (religion) laid down in
the Quran are eternal. Whatever else there is in the Quran is of the
nature of a temporary Ijtihad which can change with times. If Islam
is an eternal religion, it cannot lend support to details that were
related to a particular form of culture and civilization. Some of the
reforms affected by Islam related to the needs of contemporary
society. He says: "It is a matter of vital importance to understand
the attitude of Islam to legislation that must suit time and
circumstances and must vary from nation to nation and from epoch
to epoch."32
In his view, Islam originally had brought no extensive and
comprehensive code of laws with it but gave only the fundamentals
of civilized life which could secure for the individual and society
total well-being. "The most authoritative, if not the only
authoritative, book is Quran, but in the entire holy Book, the code
of laws would not cover more than ten pages. So Islam is really not
burdened with a heavy code of which by its immutability could
stand in the way of any progressive legislation."33
Essentials of legislation shall be derived from the basic principles
of the Quran and the practice followed by the Prophet; otherwise
almost the entire field of legislation shall be left unhampered, to be
molded as circumstances demand by men of knowledge who know
and can evaluate the actualities of a situation. Legislation shall
proceed according to the principles of logical and analogical
deduction and the demands of public welfare and an assembly of
137
the learned shall, by a practical consensus, legislate for all changing
situations.34
The theocratic basis of Islamic jurisprudence should not, therefore,
scare away the progressive rationalists who really hunger and
thirst after social justice and the gradual creation of a classless
society. The Quran teaches only fundamentals of morality and
social justice and ordains it as a duty to wage war only against
persecution or intolerance. The Quran is the real basis of Islamic
life and its actual legislation is very limited. Muslims are free to
legislate as needs arise, in the spirit of social justice. The few laws
in the Quran are often permissive and give large latitudes to suit
any change in circumstances. Its theocratic basis grants equal civil
liberties to the non-Muslims who live as loyal subjects of a Muslim
state; their personal laws are respected and even a Muslim judge
must decide the cases of non-Muslims according to their own laws,
provided they do not violate the general principles of social justice
on which all laws and orders are based.35
Original Islam was neither theocratic nor secular in the modern
meaning of these terms. Secularism in the West was a revolt against
the absolutism of Church and priesthood. Islam had abolished
these institutions; so there was no need of freeing secular life from
the clutches of retrograde theocracies. Between God and man there
are no intermediaries.
A truly Muslim state would possess all the good qualities of a
secular state without being secular in the modern sense. It would
be theocratic without having the narrowness of outlook generally
associated with theocracies. A truly Muslim state would synthesize
theocracy with healthy secularism as Islam has synthesized so
138
many traits which were considered by the world to be
contradictory and irreconcilable.36
Khalifa says that it is a misconception to regard the codified Fiqh as
beyond reform and alteration. It is wrong to think that the whole of
this collection is Islam, and therefore it cannot be changed even in
its details. He argued that "a religion ceases to be alive when its
concepts and customs, rituals and conventions become so rigid that
all new experiences and experiments are shunned as dangerous
innovations."37
He further explains this point by saying that: "The prophet himself
and his immediate successors varied the application of these
fundamental principles as the circumstances changed, but always
within the framework of the essentials of Islam, because they had
fully imbibed the spirit of Islam. The Later jurists had to elaborate
the science of jurisprudence and also to compile comprehensive
codes to deal with actual or hypothetical cases. These schools of
jurisprudence, later on, became the back-bone of Muslim orthodoxy
and were considered as fixed and immutable as the essentials of
Islam itself. Such fossilised orthodoxies are the result of the
political stagnation of the Muslim states when all creative genius,
adaptive urge and free inquiry were curbed by autocratic un-
Islamic rule and dynastic struggle."
Islam was a movement of liberation of the human spirit and owed
its phenomenal success to its liberalizing outlook. There is no doubt
that the Quran and the Prophet gave the Muslims a few laws but
the Prophet was averse to the multiplication of laws. .. Islam was
afraid of instituting a priesthood or establishing a church for fear
that they would be to act as intermediaries between God and man,
139
curbing the freedom of human spirit. ..... The Mullah claims now to
be the repository and custodian of eternal truths. For every vital
question he has a ready answer on the basis of some old authority;
no new thinker or reformer is authoritative because free thinking is
anathema to all orthodoxies .38 However, he was against the Muslim
apologists. "Muslims shall have to rethink about the fundamentals
of Islam. They should cease to suffer from that inferiority complex
which tries to conform Islam to whatever the West brings forth."39
Khalifa asserts that Islam can advance again only by recovering its
pristine liberal spirit and rediscovering its eternal values. Muslims
have to develop a theistic democracy with a respect for the liberty
and dignity of the individual. Original Islam was an attempt to end
all exploitation of man by man, religious, social, political or
economic. Muslims advanced when the pursuit of all knowledge
and truth was considered a religious duty. They made an attempt
to create one humanity by abolition of castes and classes. Freedom
of conscience and equality of civil rights were the basic principles
of faith. Muslim society was open to all cultural influences that did
not run counter to the basic principles of Islam.40
MAULANA ABUL ALA MAUDUDI (1903-1979)
Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, an eminent scholar of Pakistan, was
highly critical of the apologetic approach of the Modernists, which
he believes, started as a result of the Western domination over the
Muslim societies during the colonial rule. He sees modernization
together with the different character traits and norms associated
with it, e.g. rationalism, positivism, nationalism, and scientism,
essentially as deeply rooted desire of man to dominate man by the
ever-shifting ideological concepts.
140
Maududi declares that Islam stands in absolute opposition to all
these ideologies since in Islam man is taught, as his prior most
article of confession, to submit only to God and to discard all other
masters. "To dominate is to play God and to accept domination is to
worship a Golden Calf," insists Maududi. "Whenever, man finds
himself in a position from which he can dominate, tyranny, excess,
intemperance, unlawful exploitation and inequality reign
supreme."41
Modernism, therefore, appears to Maududi as an ideology of
domination by the scientifically and technologically advanced
nations of the world of the rest of mankind; and so he stands
vehemently opposed to it. In his view, God's revelation is essential
as the highest normative, universalistic link between mankind.
He castigated the Western educated class for its lack of
understanding of the meaning of religion. Maududi declared that
these earlier writers had accepted the Western notion of religion
without realizing that the Western viewpoint on religion had been
obtained from Christianity and not Islam. Without any critical
analysis they had accepted the Western proclamation that religion
was in actuality a private matter and had nothing to do with the
experience of society as a whole. According to Maududi, the
Islamic apologists had taken Western philosophies and ideologies
to be the criteria of truth and therefore, had started remaking
Islam. They had attempted to shape everything in Islam to agree
with Western criteria and whatever could not be shaped had to be
deleted from history and if it was unable to be eradicated excuses
had to be advanced for it before the world.42
141
Maududi also did not spare the traditionalist Muslims from his
criticism. He maintained that there was a second group in Muslim
society that had attempted to conserve the earlier heritage of the
Islamic disciplines without any consideration of good or bad
elements in it. These traditionalists did not embrace any influence
from the modern successful civilizations. They did not think it was
useful to understand the West, nor did they try seriously to analyze
their own past legacy and discover what was worth preserving and
what was to be discarded from it. Similarly, they failed to study the
nature of Western civilization to recognize what could be gained
from it and try to find out the weaknesses in Muslim thought and
performance. According to Maududi, the traditionalist Muslims
also ignored the force of science that had the British the ability to
dominate in India. Rather than understand the new circumstances
these Muslims exhausted themselves in preserving the past with a
system of education that was the same as in the beginning of the
nineteenth century. He deplored the thinking and the way of life of
these traditionalists and remarked that it remained the same as it
was before the impact of the West.43
On the question of the need to transform the traditional Islamic
interpretations, the Maulana insists that Islam is a perfect religion
and a way of life that must be re-lived rather than re-stated.
Fanciful reinterpretation of the Revelation, he warns, is misleading.
According to Maududi, Muslims are weak and backward because
they have strayed from Islam. He, therefore, staunchly and
sincerely preaches for the true understanding and application of
Islamic concepts in individual and social life today not only for the
Muslims but also for the Westerners. "If the West had ever to face
true Islam, the Westerners rather the Muslims would have been
conquered to it."44
142
He cautioned Muslims that if they wanted their well-being then
there was no option at all but to surrender and behave as the Quran
required them to function. In fact there was no way out. To prove
his point, Maududi quoted the Quranic verse (3:83) "Seek they
other than the religion of Allah, when unto Him submitted
whosoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly
and unto Himself they will be returned."
He was for borrowing Western technology and machines but not
the Western cultural influences, and he is sanguine that such a
selective borrowing is possible. Maududi was a staunch opponent
of both Western secular democracy and socialist doctrines. He
thought that both secular democracy and socialism were based on
the assumption that men were free to decide their worldly affairs
independent of religion.
143
Reference:
12 Ibid. p-182, 183
13 Abdul Raziq, al-Islam wal-usul al-Hukum (Islam and the Principles of Government), translated by Nadav Safran, Egypt in search of political community, p-103
14 Cited by Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age pp-188 - Oxford Press, London, 1962
15 Islam Wal Usul Al Hum, pp 74, 76
16 Fitna Al Kubra, Cairo p-24, 25
17 Cited in Egypt in Search of a Political Community, Nadav Safran, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1961, p-155
18 Mirat-ul-Islam, Cairo, 1959 p-278
19 Mirat-ul-Islam, Cairo, 1959 p-283
20 Tarjuman-ul-Quran, Karachi, Vol. I, p-231
21 Abul Kalam Azad, Al-Hilal, Calcutta, Dec. 1927
22 Tarjuman-ul-Quran, Karachi, Vol. I, p-217
23 Al Hilal, Calcutta 28th August 1912
24 A Modern Approach to Islam, Asia Publishing, Bombay, 1963, p-110
25 Ibid. p-82-83
26 Ibid. p-107
27 Ibid. p-54-55
28 Ibid. p-87
29 Ibid. p-98-99
30 Ibid. p-100
31 Ibid. p-37
32 Islamic Ideology, Dr. Khalifa Abdul Hakeem, Lahore, p-212
33 Ibid. p-212
34 Ibid. p-242
35 Ibid. p-221
36 Ibid. 238
37 Ibid. p-310
38 Ibid. p-310, 311
39 Ibid. p-xxi
40 Ibid. p-312
41 Cited by Freeland Abbott, Islam and Pakistan, pp-175-76
42 Come Let Us change This World (Selections from Maududi's Writings), p -21-22
43 Ibid. p-22-23
44 Ibid. p -21-22
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CHAPTER VIII: ISLAM AND MODERNIZATION –
Part III
SAYYED QUTUB (1906-1966)
Sayyed Qutub, an eminent Egyptian scholar, believed that the
Quran is the constitution revealed by God to regulate all human
actions in every conceivable situation. The Quran also repeatedly
proclaims that accepting Islam means submission to the Shariah
and the denial of all other laws. There is a wide gap between the
"rule of Allah" and that of and jahiliyya (ignoring the divine
ordained laws). If humans refuse to comply with the Shariah they
would have to face some serious consequences for their act.
For Qutub a means for renewal of Islam and a crucial element in
the re-establishing of political power is the understanding of the
distinction between the Shariah and Fiqh. The Sharia, or divine law
of Islam, as created by God and with the Quran as its primary
source, is compete, perfect, and changeless. "Islamic society did not
make the shariah," says Qutub, 'but rather the shariah made Islamic
society.' The shariah declines the perimeter within which Islam
operates. Fiqh or the science of jurisprudence, on the other hand, is
open to change precisely because it deals with local applications in
a changing world. In this understanding Qutub sharply criticizes
those who hand on to the literal interpretation of fiqh and seem
therefore to render it as eternal and changeless as the shariah. 45
He attacked the Western civilization and said that it had already
expanded its effectiveness with nothing more to offer humanity,
and was standing on a shaky foundation. He appealed to Muslims
that they should not be blind with the grandeur of this materialistic
145
culture and its technological achievements because it was on the
path of destruction. Qutub proclaimed that it was unbecoming that
Islam should become a slave of the West, submit to it and take
instructions from it.
Sayyed Qutub called the revolt against God's authority in the world
as jahiliyya. He explained that after examination of the roots of
contemporaneous living styles it became obvious that the entire
world was drained in jahiliyya, and all the fantastic material
opulence and sophisticated gadgets do not reduce this ignorance.
He declared that the degeneration of humanity in the collectivist
governments, the inequity endured by the people ruled by
capitalism and colonialism was the effect of this resistance to the
command of God, the denial of the distinction that God bestowed
upon humanity.
Qutub argued that the present ignorance was not found in the
elementary and crude form of the early jahiliyya but took the
fashion of declaring that the liberty to establish values, to prescribe
precepts of collective conduct, and to embrace any lifestyle rests
with the people themselves without any consideration of God's
decrees.
The solution suggested by Qutub for jahiliyya problem was the
establishment of a new elite, a saleh jamaat (righteous group),
among the Muslims that would struggle against the new jahiliyya
as the Prophet had once did against the old jahiliyya. For him,
Islam was not just theoretical discipline but was both aqida (belief)
and a minhaj (program of action). The faith must be transformed
into action. The vanguard must aim at the destruction of the
jahiliyya with all its values, rules, leaders and legacy. This group
146
should not yield because the option was between faith and disbelief
and between Islam and jahiliyya.
For Qutub nationalism, socialism, secularism, capitalism,
democracy and communism make up one thing that has originated
in the West in direct antagonism with Islam. Islamic societies have
given up their religion and degenerated into a state of jahiliyya
something similar to what thrived before Prophet in Arabia. Qutub
used the term as a characterization of the modern civilization of
Europe that he interpreted as having again triumphed worldwide
ever since Islam lost its position of supremacy.
He castigated "defeatist-type people" who wanted to restrict jihad
to defensive war and declared that true religion was the fight
against infidel oppression. For Qutub, jihad was the continuation of
God's politics by other means. Qutub considered jihad as a
responsibility that becomes binding on Muslims whenever the
principles and legitimate regulations of Islam were breached or
ignored. He argued that in this connotation jihad was a type of
political effort that attempted to disable the adversary non-Muslim
power so that Muslims were permitted to apply the Shariah.
Qutub shared many of the ideas of Sayyed Maududi with regard to
the world-view of Islam. He singly believed in the universality of
Islam's message. He wrote: "Islam came to elevate man and save
him from the bonds of earth and soil, the bonds of flesh and blood
... There is no country for the Muslim except that where the Shariah
of God is established, where human relations are bonded by their
relationship to God. There is no nationality for a Muslim except his
creed which makes him a member of the Islamic ummah in the
abode of Islam."46
147
He emphasized that Islam was markedly different from both
liberalism and communism and was, in fact, a distinctive world-
view which should be understood in its own terms. He criticized
liberalism for its unlimited individual freedom, unjust economic
system and disregard for the community's rights. He also criticized
communism for its lack of concern for the individual's rights, and
for imposing the dictatorship of one class over the others. Islam, in
his view, provides a balance between the two systems. It is superior
to both capitalism and communism in the sense that while the other
two ideologies are solely materialistic, Islam takes care of both the
material and spiritual needs.
Qutub considered the concept of social justice central to the Islamic
polity: "Justice in Islam, in his view, denotes human equality as
well as mutual social responsibility. He notes:[Islamic social
justice] is a comprehensive human justice, and not merely an
economic justice, that is to say, it embraces all sides of life and all
aspects of freedom. It is concerned alike with the mind and the
body, with the heart and the conscience. The values with which this
justice deals are not only economic values, nor are they merely
material values in general; rather they are a mixture of moral and
spiritual values together."47
GHULAM AHMAD PARWEZ (1903-1984)
Ghulam Ahmad Parwez, an eminent Pakistani scholar, believes that
Islam is not a religion in the limited sense of the word, as a form of
worship, but a way of life. "Islam is neither a relationship between
man and God, nor is it characterised by the experience of an
individual of a subjective nature, but is essential a code of life,
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regulating the conduct of affairs concerning the individual as well
as the collective life of human beings."48
He believes in the supremacy of law in the universe and says that
the Quranic conception of God is that of a God Who administers
the universe according to law. "Along with faith in God, the
distinguishing feature of the Islamic concept lies in the belief that
God did not merely create the universe, but has also laid down
definite laws to regulate the scope and functions of the various
objects comprising it. The Law of Cause and Effect, and the Law of
the Uniformity in Nature, among others, being of basic importance;
and they deal with the external nature of the universe. He has,
besides, prescribed definite laws regulating human life and its
activities."49 Thus all arbitrariness is excluded from the life of man
and the phenomena of nature. Everything happens according to the
law of causation. But, Parwez says that if we go back tracing the
causes and effects of things, we shall reach a stage where we shall
have to admit that the first link of this chain comes into existence
without any cause.
However, the knowledge of the Divine Laws relating to the external
universe is derived from a close observation of nature, scientific
experiments and discoveries, but not so in the case of laws relating
to human life and the regulation of its conduct which are
communicated only through Revelation to the prophet." He argues
that it is this wherein Islam as a Din also distinguishes itself from
the material concept of life which takes no cognizance of Divine
Guidance by means of revelation.50
Parwez recognizes the Quran as an authoritative binding source
containing the divine message. All other sources, such as the
149
Sunnah and the rulings of Muslim scholars are not binding. True
Islam is to be recovered from the Quran. He condemns scholastic
tradition of the ulema, which has reduced Islam to a heap of rites
and rituals.
"It should not, however, be misunderstood that the laws thus
framed are rigid and hidebound with hardly any scope for progress
or wanting in meeting out the exigencies of the ever-changing
conditions of life in the progressive world. In fact, the Islamic State
is fully authorized, after mutual consultations to legislate, within
the framework of the Permanent Values, to provide for the needs of
the time, and the body of laws thus promulgated could be altered
and amended when necessary to suit the circumstance prevailing at
a given time, with this essential provision that in no circumstance
shall the framework of the Permanent Values be disturbed or
interfered with.51 The permanent values, according to Parwez
include: respect of human beings, unity of all humanity, freedom of
conscience, tolerance, and justice.
For reviving Islam as a way of life the creation of an Islamic state is
indispensable. Such an Islamic state would be based on the
Permanent Values. "The order of life according to these Permanent
Values is termed as the Quranic Social Order, or, in other words,
the Islamic State."52 He argues that the ulema have reduced Islam to
a madhab (ritualized form of worship meant to attain salvation)
making it a religion in the same way like other religions. In reality
Islam is a Din (way of life). The emergence of elaborate rituals and
esoteric mysticism, the distortions introduced by the ulema and
sufis have confined Islam to the domain of the spirit, leaving the
matters of the world in the hands of secular forces. He lamented
that the ulema, who wish to revive Islam as a Din, understand by
150
that the revival of formalized Fiqh, which makes it a religion in the
narrow Western sense.
Genuine Muslim scholars should be those who earnestly study the
universe in the light of Quranic exhortations to reflect, probe and
unravel the mysteries of nature. There can be no question of
Quranic knowledge coming in conflict with the discoveries of
science. On the contrary, science can find direction and guidance in
the Quran for further deeper study of the natural phenomena. 53 He
was of the view that no scientific discovery can contradict the
stories in the Quran. This of course means that the Quran is to be
interpreted freely.
Ghulam Ahmad Parwez is far, more keenly aware of the
importance of reason, though he is equally insistent on the
limitations of human reason. The knowledge that reason does
achieve is useful and valuable. However, "it is equally wrong to
exaggerate the power of reason and claim that the whole of reality
is within its ken. Only a few aspects of reality are accessible to
reason and about them it does supply true and useful knowledge.
We cannot understand revelation, he declares, only by faith, or
through reason alone. What is needed for this purpose is a happy
blend of the two. He is convinced that the Nabi (prophet) is
enjoined not to demand blind obedience from men but to exhort
them to think and ponder."54
151
IMAM RUHOLLAH MUSAVI KHOMEINI (1902-1989)
Imam Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, founder of the Islamic
revolution in Iran, believed in the all-comprehensive nature of the
Islamic system and felt that Islam was perfect and had no need to
emulate alien ideologies. He called for an independent Muslim
outlook by eliminating from the society both Western and Eastern
ideologies.
He said that the Quran was not a book of fables but was meant to
deal with everything in the world, especially the advancement of
humanity. The Quran directed not only the spiritual life of
mankind but also its government.
Khomeini believed that the Shariah was an all-comprehensive
system in which all the requirements of humanity have been met,
that includes not only concerns of family and society but also
international relations, commerce, trade, agriculture.
To Khomeini all non-Islamic ideologies were evil and that all
goodness belonged to Islam with the Quran as the ultimate
guidance for every situation for every individual and the society as
a whole.
Khomeini pointed out that Islam "is a religion where worship is
joined to politics and political activity is a form of worship." 55 To
him politics was the highest form of religious undertaking and the
establishment of an Islamic state was his ultimate goal. Unlike
other ulema, who were mostly apolitical, Khomeini was a firm
believer in the concept of jihad as a means to establish the power of
Islam worldwide, starting the establishment of Islam in Iran itself.
152
Khomeini, in order to justify the role of ulema in politics,
expounded the theory of wilayat-e-faqiah by saying that the ulema
should lead the struggle to establish the Islamic state although the
people as a whole had a duty this way, the burden of the Islamic
scholars was momentous and crucial. He states that fuqaha
(religious leaders), as the representatives of the Twelve Infallible
Shiite Imamas, had the right to rule. In the absence of the Twelfth
Imam, it is the responsibility of the just fuqaha, as the interpreters
of the Shariah, to institute a social system for its execution and
propagation. Khomeini declared that the faqih had the same power
as that of the Prophet in supervising society. Accordingly the
fuqaha were trustees not merely because they gave juridical
opinions, but because they fulfilled the most important function of
the prophets, the creation of a fair social system through the
execution of Islamic laws and regulations, meaning that the job
assigned to the prophets must also be discharged by the fuqaha as a
matter of trust.
He asserts: ...the true rulers are the fuqaha themselves, and
rulership ought officially to be theirs, to apply to them, not to those
who are obliged to follow the guidance of the fuqaha on account of
their own ignorance of the law."56
Khomeini blames the imperialists for the division of the Muslim
community by establishing separate nation-states and urges the
Muslims to overthrow the existing nation-states: " They have
separated the various segments of the Islamic ummah from each
other and artificially created separate nations...In order to attain
the unity and freedom of the Muslim people, we must overthrow
the oppressive governments installed by the imperialists and bring
153
into existence the Islamic government of justice that will be in the
service of the people."57
Khomeini distinguishes between patriotism and nationalism. He
regards patriotism as a natural sentiment but rejects nationalism
because of two reasons: (a) it is contrary to the Islamic teachings;
(b) it is an alien idea propagated by foreigners in order to divide
the Muslim community. He notes: "To love one's fatherland and its
people and to protect its frontiers are both quite unobjectionable,
but nationalism, involving hostility to other Muslim nations, is
something quite different. It is contrary to the Holy Quran and the
orders of the most Noble Messenger. Nationalism that results in the
creation of enmity between Muslims and splits the ranks of the
believers is against Islam and the interests of the Muslims. It is a
stratagem concocted by the foreigners who are disturbed by the
spread of Islam."58
He also blames the imperialists for imposing an unjust order: " ...
the imperialists have also imposed on us an unjust economic order,
and thereby divided our people into two groups: oppressors and
oppressed. Hundreds of millions of Muslims are hungry and
deprived of all forms of health care and education, while minorities
comprised of wealthy and powerful, live a life of indulgence,
licentiousness and corruption. The hungry and deprived have
constantly struggled to free themselves from the oppression of their
plundering overlords, and their struggle continues to this day." 59
Khomeini was one of the most clear-headed and determined leaders
who argued that the struggle between the West and political Islam
was not just between Western imperialism and Islam as a religion.
To him, Islam represented a whole way of life and civilization and
154
he, as a spokesman for the Third World nations, opposed what he
termed the oppressors and imperialists.
Unlike other religious leaders in other Muslim societies, he
constantly preached to his people that they had to participate in a
massive socio-economic revolution. He asked Iranians to wake up
from the sleep that had been imposed upon them for several
hundred years - not so much performing prayers but for initiating
rapid economic and industrial change.
"Those who developed industries are just like us - one hand and
two ears. But the difference is that they woke up before us and they
put us to sleep and used their forces to keep us in that situation…
In every revolution in the beginning there are slogans. But after the
revolution we have to act. Your hand should not be stretched either
East or West. We don't want to be dependent. First, we have to
wake up."60
DR. ALI SHARIATI (1933-1977)
Dr. Ali Shariati, an eminent Iranian scholar, argues that the two
types of Islam that had confronted one another in Islamic history
were "the degenerate and narcotizing religion" and "the progressive
and awakening religion." Shariati was convinced that Islam had
been reduced by the traditional religious leaders, or ulema and
others to a "degenerate and narcotizing religion" and had to be
replaced by an Islam which could be progressive and dynamic. At
the same time, he was against those Muslim intellectuals who
imitate the Western ideologies which are being imported into the
Muslim society "like canned and packed products to be opened and
consumed."61
155
Shariati called for launching of a religious renaissance through
which, by returning to the religion of life and motion, power and
justice, will on the one hand incapacitate the reactionary agents of
the society and, on the other hand, save the people from those
elements which are used to narcotize them. By launching such a
renaissance, these hitherto narcotizing elements will be used to
revitalize, give awareness and fight superstition. He believed that
returning to and relying on the authentic culture of the society will
allow the revival and rebirth of cultural independence in the face of
Western cultural onslaught.
He pleaded for the destruction of all the degenerating factors
which, in the name of Islam, have stymied and stupefied the
process of thinking and the fate of the society. Shariati also called
for eliminating the spirit of imitation and obedience which is the
hallmark of the popular religion, and replace it with a critical
revolutionary, aggressive spirit of independent reasoning (ijtihad).
Shariati advocated that the anti-religious experience of Christianity
in the Middle Ages cannot be extended to the Islamic world,
whether its past or its present. "One cannot extend anti-religious
feelings of Europe - stemming from the unique religious experience
in the Middle Ages and the ensuing freedom of European society in
the 15th and 16th centuries - to the Islamic world, because the
culture of an Islamic society and the tradition which has shaped
that society is utterly different from the spirit which under the
name of religion ruled Europe in the Middle Ages. Logically,
therefore, one cannot judge and condemn both religions on the
same ground. A comparison between the role of Islam in Africa and
that of Christianity in Latin America illustrates my point." 62
156
He believed that unlike what we are told it was not the negation of
religion which created modern Western civilization but the
transformation of a corrupt and ascetic religion into a critical,
protesting and mundane Christianity. That is, Protestantism was
the creator of modern Western civilization, rather than materialism
or anti-religious sentiments which did not exist in the
Renaissance.63
Therefore, an enlightened person in an Islamic society, regardless
of his own ideological convictions, must, of necessity, be an
Islamologist. Having understood Islam, he will in astonishment
realize the grave and disastrous waste of the intellects and the
efforts of the people due to "wrong start," misunderstanding,
irrelevant appreciation and irrational connections.
An enlightened Muslim should be fully aware of the fact that he
has a unique culture which is neither totally spiritual, as is the
Indian culture nor totally mystical, as is the Chinese, nor
completely philosophical, as is the Greek, and not entirely
materialistic and technological, as is the Western culture. His is a
mixture of faith, idealism and spirituality and yet full of life and
energy with a dominant spirit of equality and justice, the ideology
that Islamic society and other traditional societies of the East are in
desperate need of.
He advised the Muslim intelligentia to obtain the raw materials
from its contemporary society and social life. "There exists no
universal type of enlightened person, with common values and
characteristics everywhere. Our own history and experience have
demonstrated that whenever an enlightened person turns his back
on religion, which is the dominant spirit of the society, the society
157
turns its back on him. Opposition to religion by the enlightened
person deprives society of the possibility of becoming aware of the
benefits and the fruit of its young and enlightened generation." 64
An enlightened Muslim must know that the Islamic spirit
dominates his culture and that the historical processes of his
society, as well as its moral codes, have ball been shaped by Islam.
To fail to understand this, as the majority of our 'intellectuals' have,
limits and restricts a person to his own irrelevant atmosphere.
Shariati thought that only the enlightened intellectuals and not the
traditional ulema could spearhead an Islamic resurgence. "This can
be accomplished through scientific research and logical analysis of
political, religious, and philosophical ill-motives and class factors
which had been at work throughout our history as well as through
diagnoses of religious innovations, deviations and negative
justifications that have occurred throughout history plus their
negative social effect and ominous ideological and practical
consequences in the lives of the Muslims.65
In the final analysis, Shariati points out that "the tragedy is that, on
the one hand, those who have controlled our religion over the past
two centuries have transformed it into its present static form and,
on the other hand, our enlightened people who understand the
present age and the needs of our generation and time do not
understand religion. As a result, our Islamic society, despite Islam
with its rich culture and history which would have otherwise
enabled it to emancipate itself, could not acquire the religious
awareness necessary for its salvation. The intellectuals erroneously
fought Islam and the reactionaries used it to narcotize the masses
and to maximize their own gains. Meanwhile, true Islam remains
158
unknown and incarcerated in the depths of history. The masses
buried in their own static and restricted traditions and the
intellectuals isolated from the masses and disliked by them."
Therefore, "whereas our masses need self-awareness, our
enlightened intellectuals are in need of "faith."66
159
Reference:
45 Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History, Yveonne Yazbeck Haddad, New York, 1982 p-95
46 Social Justice in Islam by Sayyed Qutub, cited by Tahir Amin, Nationalism & Internationalism, Islamabad, 1991, p-77
47 Ibid. p-78
48 Islam a Challenge to Religion, Ghulam Ahmad Parwez, Lahore, p-355
49 Ibid. p-355
50 Ibid. p-356
51 Ibid. p-357
52 Ibid. p-357
53 Ulma Kon Hein (Lahore) p-16
54 Islam a Challenge to Religion, op. cit. p-126, 127
55 Islam & Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Trans. Hamid Algar, Berkely: Mizan Press, 1981 p-275
56 Ibid. p-34
57 Ibid. p-50
58 Ibid. p-49
59 Ibid. p-34
60 Messages and Speeches of Imam Khomeini, Vol. 2 (Teheran, 1980) p -285 quoted and translated by Bin Sayeed from Persian.
61 What is to be done? by Shariati, Houston: Institute for Research and Islamic Studies, 1986 p-63
62 Where shall we begin? by Shariati Teheran, 1981, p-249-294
63 Man and Islam by Shariati
64 Where shall we begin? by Shariati Teheran, 1981, p-249-294
65 What is to be done? Op. cit. p-63
66 Where shall we begin? op. cit. p-249-294
160
CHAPTER IX: ISLAM AND MODERNIZATION –
Part IV
DR. FAZLUR RAHMAN (1919-1988)
Dr. Fazlur Rahman, an eminent Pakistani scholar, contends that
the decline of the Muslim world did not begin with Western
penetration in the 17th, 18th centuries, but with the intellectual
ossification which took root in the aftermath of the collapse of the
Abbasids in the thirteenth century. This fact is obvious considering
the quantity and quality of original scholarship produced by the
Muslims after the collapse of the Abbasids. "The ability of the
Europeans to penetrate the Muslim world was the most dramatic
evidence of the internal decline of Muslim society, not its cause."
Here Rahman is echoing the Algerian thinker Malek Bennabi's
thesis that the Muslims became colonized because they had become
"colonizable".67
Since the cause of Muslim decadence lies in the adherence to an
Islamic methodology which has put a vast chasm between Islamic
society and the Quranic principles, Fazlur Rahman argues, the path
to revival lies in developing an Islamic methodology which will
close this gap.
Rahman proposes a new methodology that strives to draw a clear
distinction between "historical Islam and normative Islam". This
distinction has to be drawn both in regards to Islamic principles
and Islamic institutions. He states that the multitude of Quranic
revelations took place "in, although not merely for, a given
historical context". Muslims must recognize the essential feature in
the revelation which is meant not only for the specific context in
161
which it was revealed but is intended by the Creator to "outflow
through and beyond that given context of history". This can be
accomplished by undertaking a comprehensive study of the Quran
to firmly establish the general principles and required objectives
elucidated therein. The objective of this comprehensive study
would be to establish the elan of the Quran. Thereafter, the Asbab
al-Nuzul (the historical circumstances surrounding a specific
revelation) should be used to examine specific pronouncements, to
ensure that the pronouncement is in keeping with the elan of the
Quran. This will allow for the resurrection of the original thrust of
the Islamic message, free from the accumulated debris of tradition,
precedent, and culture of the past millennium.
He argues that the examples of polygamy and slavery make it
abundantly clear that whereas the spirit of the Quranic legislation
exhibits an obvious direction towards the progressive embodiment
of the fundamental human values of freedom and responsibility in
fresh legislation, nevertheless the actual legislation of the Quran
had partly to accept the then existing society as a term of reference.
This clearly meant that the actual legislation of the Quran cannot
have meant to be literally eternal by the Quran itself....Very soon,
however, the Muslim lawyers and dogmaticians began to confuse
the issue and the strictly legal injunctions of the Quran were
thought to apply to any society, no matter what its conditions and
what its inner dynamics. There is a good deal of evidence to believe
that in the very early period, the Muslims interpreted the Quran
pretty freely. But after a period of juristic development during the
late 1st/7th and throughout the 2nd/8th century, the prominent
features of which were the rise of the Tradition and the
development of technical, analogical reasoning, the lawyers neatly
tied themselves and the Community down to the 'text ' of the Holy
162
Book until the content of Muslim law and theology became buried
under the weight of literalism."68
In addition to this, he says, the Muslims have to become aware of
the historical transformation of important Islamic institutions. Only
when they are able to determine the impact of various sociopolitical
trends upon their legal, intellectual, and political institutions they
will be able to distinguish the "historically accidental from the
essentially Islamic"; 69 This comprehensive study of the Quran and
various Islamic institutions would go a long way in clearing up the
endemic confusion amongst the Muslims between the
general/universal Islamic principles and their specific/historical
application in the past. Stopping at this point would be useless, a
detailed study of the problem afflicting the Islamic societies should
be undertaken. Then the general principles garnered from the study
of the Quran would be applied to the particular problems faced by
modern Islamic societies in order to come up with a satisfactory
solution.
Rahman summarizes his methodology in the following words: "In
building any genuine and viable Islamic set of laws and
institutions, there has to be a twofold movement: First one must
move from the concrete case treatments of the Quran—taking the
necessary and relevant social conditions of that time into account—
to the general principles upon which the entire teaching converges.
Second, from this general level there must be a movement back to
specific legislation, taking into account the necessary and relevant
conditions now, obtaining."70
He asserts: "But the real problem of the Muslim society is to
assimilate, adapt, modify and reject the force, generated within its
163
own fabric by the introduction of new institutions —of education,
of industry, of communication, etc.— as these forces are purely
good, necessary evils, or positively harmful. The new forces have
an ethic of their own and a simple return to the past is certainly no
way to solve this problem—unless we want to delude ourselves.
But recourse to the Quran and Sunnah in order to get there from an
understanding of, and guidance for, solving our new problems will
undoubtedly meet the situation. This is because the Quran and
Prophet's activity guided and were actually involved in society-
building. Besides, therefore, certain general principles that lie
enunciated in the Quran and certain Prophetic precepts, their actual
handing of social situations is fraught with meaning for us. But the
meaning is not that we should repeat that very situation now,
which is an absurd task, but rather to draw lessons from this
concrete historical pradigm."71
In formulating his Islamic methodology Rahman utilizes various
principles from the rich tradition of Islamic epistemology and
scholarship. Ijtihad being the foremost among these principles. He
defines ijtihad to be: . . . the effort to understand the meaning of a
relevant text or precedent in the past, containing a rule, and to alter
that rule by extending or restricting or otherwise modifying it in
such a manner that a new situation can be subsumed under it by
extension. According to Fazlur Rahman ijtihad fulfills the role of
contrasting the eternal Quranic principles with "freshly derived
inspiration from revelations". Then the knowledge and wisdom
gained from this process are to be used to tackle issues and
problem facing contemporary society.
In spite of the fact that for nearly a millennium 'official orthodoxy'
preached that ijtihad was no longer necessary, there is no Quranic
164
injunction or Prophetic tradition which justifies such a view. A
strong argument could indeed be made that closing the gates of
ijtihad, by anyone at any point in time, is against the letter and
spirit of Islamic teachings. Fazlur Rahman traces the anti-
intellectualism of ulema to their rejection of the Mutazilite position
with regard to reason. "Since the orthodoxy first rejected the
position of the Mutazila on the role of reason, this anti-rational
theological position affected their attitude to legal thought also and
their standard works formally deny any role to reason in law-
making."72
He goes on to point out that "the majority of theologians even to
this day hold that in matters of belief, particularly in the case of
existence of God and Mohammad's prophethood (and allied
matters), authority alone is not sufficient and that these beliefs
must be grounded in reason. But in the field of law they teach
Taqlid (i.e. unquestioning acceptance of authority) at least to the
majority of Muslims and in practice to all Muslims."73
CONCLUSION
Modernism is often defined as a tendency in matters of religious
belief to subordinate or harmonize tradition with modern thought.
Modernism, as opposed to medievalism, believes in the sovereignty
of reason and repudiates every authority that cannot stand the test
of reason. Modern knowledge relies upon a scientific, rational and
empirical understanding of reality with a view to gaining greater
control of the forces of nature for the betterment of life in this
world. The rationalist and positivist spirit that symbolizes
modernity would in turn give rise to a new kind of society
subscribing to norms and values that run counter to traditionalism.
165
Rational criticism has laid open many areas hitherto closed to
knowledge. With the increase in the knowledge of man, new
concepts like those of evolutionism and utilitarianism have gained
ground. Whereas medieval man took a static view of things,
modern man sees things in their development.
One product of the idea of evolution is the concept of progress.
Modern man has faith in progress, just as he has faith in reason. It
is assumed that in spite of retardation and temporary set-backs,
man will go on from progress to further progress. Nothing can turn
back the wheel of time. The future of things is more important than
their past. Good and evil are judged on the basis of their relevance
to progress. Anything that retards progress is evil, anything that
furthers progress is good. Religion is also judged on the basis of
how far it leads to the progress of man .74
However, a distinction should be made between modernization and
modernism or modernity. Modernization theory was a dominant
analytical paradigm in American sociology for the explanation of
the global process by which traditional societies achieved
modernity. (1) Political modernization involves the development of
key institutions - political parties, parliaments, franchise and secret
ballots - which support participatory decision-making. (2) Cultural
modernization typically produces secularization and adherence to
nationalistic ideologies. (3) Economic modernization, while distinct
from industrialization, is associated with profound economic
changes - an increasing division of labour, use of management
techniques, improved technology and the growth of commercial
facilities. (4) Social modernisation involves increasing literacy,
urbanization and the decline of traditional authority.
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The modernization theory has been criticized on two grounds: (1)
modernization is based on development in the West and is thus an
ethnocentric model of development; (2) modernization does not
necessarily lead to industrial growth and equal distribution of
social benefits, since it is an essentially uneven process resulting in
underdevelopment and dependency. Many attributes of
modernization, like widespread literacy or modern medicine, have
appeared, or have been adopted, in isolation from other attributes
of the modern Western society. Hence modernization in some
spheres of life may occur without resulting modernity.
Technological modernity intrinsic to western civilization, it is said,
allows ultimately no alternative to Muslims or anyone clinging to
pretechnical values. According to Daniel Pipes, "worldly success
requires modernization; modernization requires Westernization;
westernization requires secularism; secularism must be preceded
by a willingness to emulate the West." The development gap made
continuously wider by technological modernity places Muslims on
the lower side of the gap, and presents them with the most difficult
of all historical questions: can a traditional society achieve
industrial development by importing technology which undermines
its cultural heritage, opens a breach in its tradition and undermines
its world view? However, very few Muslims believed that the
appropriation of modern technology would necessitate a change in
ideological commitment.
The desire for religious reconstruction and moral regeneration in
the light of fundamental principles of Islam has, throughout their
historical destiny, been deeply rooted among the Muslims --
radicals as well as traditionalists. Both the sections seem conscious
of the fact that the only way for the Muslims of today, for an active
167
and honourable participation in world affairs, is the reformation of
positive lines of conduct suitable to contemporary needs in the
light of social and moral guidance offered by Islam.75
In their attempts to resolve the problem of the relationship of
reason to faith and of science to religion, Muslim reformers turned
in effect to the theory of the "dual truth" advanced by Ibn Rushd,
known in the West as Averroes [1126-1198), the great Arab
philosopher and free-thinker. The modernists were attracted, in
particular, to the views of the Mu'tazilah: affirmation of God's
unity and denial of all similarity between him and created things;
reliance on human reason; emphasis on man's freedom; faith in
man's ability to distinguish between good and bad; and insistence
on man's responsibility to do good and fight against evil in private
and public places.
Ibn Rushd held that religion and philosophy differed, if not in their
content, at least in the expression of the common truth. The images
of scriptural descriptions suitable for the common man are not
taken to be the full truth by philosophers and conceptions of
philosophers of perhaps the same truth are not comprehensible to
the common man. Therefore it is best to keep them apart as two
truths, and accept the position that something may be true
theologically but not philosophically, and vice versa. Thus the
realm of Grace was separated from the realm of Nature, the one for
the theologian to pursue and the other for the scientist and the
philosopher to know.
Ibn Rushd isolated science from religion, ascribing to the latter the
realm of "divine things" that exercised no influence on the laws of
nature. He separated the spheres of science, philosophy and
168
religion, claimed that they were autonomous and more, the
opposite of each other. In his "discourses, passing judgment on the
connection between wisdom and religious law", Ibn Rushd wrote
that he saw no harmony between faith and knowledge or between
religion and philosophy. He allowed for disparities between
science, philosophy and religion on specific and separate problems,
but maintained that philosophy and religion must ultimately arrive
at one and the same truth. The former by means of sensory and
logical cognition, and the latter by means of intuition and
revelation.
According to the "dual truth" theory there is a distinction not only
between the object and method, but also the subject, philosophical
and religious cognition. Ibn Rushd grouped people into three
classes: the first and the most numerous were those who had blind
faith in religious dogmas. He styled them "unsophisticated
orthodoxes". The second consisted of those "who’s understanding
of religion reposed partly on discourse, but mainly on uncritical
acceptance of certain premises from which the discourse follows".
These were the class of scholastics and theologians. And the third
and least numerous class were those who attained a rational
understanding of religion, their beliefs based on proofs following
from carefully checked and confirmed premises. They were
philosophers.
The "dual truth" theory holds an important place in the history of
the clash between the scientific world outlook and the religious
Idealism and omniscience of the Church both in the Eastern lands
and in the West. Ibn Rushd and his followers advanced the "dual
truth" theory to promote the independent development of scientific
knowledge, to protect it from religious interference and dictation.
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This is why Ibn Rushd was condemned as "godless" and "heretical";
this is why he was banished and all his books on philosophy were
burned.
The domination of the West in the 19th century hastened a
tendency which had been launched in the eighteenth century in
the Arabian Peninsula by Muhammad ibn Abdul Al Wahhab to
'purify' Islam by returning to the sources of the religion. This
movement became more and more the rallying point for the well-
known 'reformist' movement associated with the names of such
personalities as Jamal al Din al Afghani (Iran), Muhammad Abduh
(Egypt) and Rashid Rida (Syria). The intellectual background of the
reform of Rashid Rida's Salafiyya movement was nearly the same
as that of the Wahabis. In both cases there was, along a positive
emphasis upon the Shariah, a bitter opposition to Sufism and the
mystical life. A ‘rationalism’ was developed which was combined
with 'Puritanism' and based upon a juridical and theological
attitude which drew much from the writings of the 13th century
Syrian scholar, Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328).
The traditionalism of the late 19th century was essentially
reactionary in character - its more articulate protagonists are what
we have labeled the 'conservative' intellectuals. It derived its
inspiration and strength from a historically evolved tradition and
in its intellectual attitude always assumed a backward stance. For
the traditionalists the past, rather than the future, was the locus of
Golden Age -- to a certain extent it upheld the status quo. Closely
allied with the traditionalists, and sometimes identified with them,
were the ulema. Politically and intellectually conservative, they
served as the strongest supporters of the status quo.
170
Much of Muslim religious thought took an apologetic turn from
late in the nineteenth century and many Muslim religious
thinkers were now seeking only to de fend their faith by showing
that somehow every fashionable thought of the time had been
Islamic before being adopted by the West. Even discoveries of
modern science, which, of course, soon became stale and
outmoded, were traced back to the Quran as if to show that the
grandeur of the Quran resides in anticipating this or that discovery
of physics or biology. The primary concern for the first generation
of modernist thinkers was the need to reorient the direction of
Muslim history, to reinterpret Islam in the context of modern
science and learning. The intellectual challenge for modernists was
to convince Muslims that the demands of both Islam and the West
"were not incompatible with each other."
Another mode of thought was developed gradually from the
beginning of the 20th century, which preached various degrees of
secularism and ranged from mild defenses of western civilization to
the writings of Salamah Musa and the early Dr. Taha Hussain, who
preached the complete adoption of Western culture and a total
break with the sacred ambiance of tradition of Islam.
Between conservative traditionalism and totally westernized
modernism there was a middle ground occupied by what may be
best termed as the reformist position. Reformism is also referred to
by some writers as 'endogenous' modernism as opposed to
'westernized' modernism. Reformism at heart was tradition bound.
Although its primary goal was to safeguard Islam and some of the
institutional structures upholding it, reformism was anxious to free
Muslims of the stultifying interpretations to which they had been
bound before the 19th century. For example, reformers may not
171
have wanted to get rid of the status-quo vis-à-vis the ulema, but
they certainly would have liked to make some changes to what the
ulema had been teaching, such as blind obedience or taqlid.
Sometimes reformism has also been described as a revivalist
movement equipped with a more rational awareness of the
Muslims' situation and needs. Although the reformist position, in
its fundamental premise and ultimate conclusion, opposed outright
secularization and westernization, 'at the same time it opened the
doors to modernization especially in the scientific aspects of the
process. Reformism was especially the movement of the younger
educated Muslims who knew that Islam, as it was to be properly
defended, had to overcome its inertia and be revitalized. In this
respect, therefore, they were also modernists of Muslims and in
their efforts, they inevitably collided with the established
traditional hierarchy of the ulema.
Another reaction began among the Arabs, mostly after the Second
World War, which has modified greatly the effect of these earlier
movements. This new reaction was the disenchantment with the
West and the realization of its moral bankruptcy, made so evident
by the atrocities of the World War and later in the Palestine war
and its aftermath. The blind admiration of the West espoused by so
many of the 'leaders' of the previous generation gave way to doubt
about the value of the civilization for whose sake the Arabs were
asked to forsake their own religion and way of life. Some men, like
Taha Hussain, even recanted openly in their later writings and
expressed serious misgivings about Western civilization and its
fruits.76
172
In the final analysis, the modern reformist thought in Islam may be
classified in general terms as conservative (including orthodoxes,
reformists and revivalists) and modernist (including secularists and
westernizers).
Conservatives believe that Islam in its full articulation in history
achieved its zenith somewhere in the past in the Medinan society
under the guidance of Prophet Mohammad and the time of the four
rightly guided caliphs, and whether or not it also encompasses the
laws of the faith as developed during the early centuries of Islam
when the "door of ijtihad" was open. Thus Islam is conceived as a
closed cultural system that allows for no change. Modernists, in
their attempt to make Islam relevant to modern society,
deliberately attempt to provide a contemporary Western ethos to
Islam. They reinterpret its fundamental teachings in such a way
that it provides a sanctioning forum for the introduction of new
ideas and authenticates the adoption of Western legal, social and
economic institutions. Modernists (like Taha Hussain, Khalifa
Abdul Hakeem and Fazlur Rahman) perceive that the closing of the
door of ijtihad was an error and that Islam is always to be seen as
open to reinterpretation.
The discussion among conservatives and modernists has focused
not on the adequacy and validity of Islam for modern life, but on
the definition of what constitutes true Islam. Both groups agree that
Islam must continue to provide the purpose of the Umma for the
future, although they disagree on the scope and content of this
Islam. To some modernists (Fayzee) religion is perceived as
something that deals with the spiritual aspects of life, and as such
must not be intricately involved in the shaping of the social order.
The conservatives (like Maulana Maududi, Sayyed Qutub and
173
Imam Khomeni), on the other hand, have insisted that Islam is a
total system that is constantly molding and shaping all aspects of
life to conform to divine guidance.
The conservatives and modernists both are unhappy with the
situation of Muslims in the present. They share a pride in the glory
of the past and have confidence in the prospective of a bet ter
future, but their views of past, present and future vary greatly. The
tension between conservatives and modernists stems from the fact
that both deal with the same basic facts concerning the life of the
community. They are both concerned with specific ideas, dates, and
events, but from different vantage points.77
The conservatives find the authority of the past valid for the
present and the future. The past is ideal, and if Islam were to
reappropriate it, it would regain its ascendancy in the world. For
the conservatives, religion is not only the central part of life, it is
the totality of life, that from which all the reality proceeds and has
its meaning. For the modernists, on the other hand, the past is
crucially important because of the element of pride it gives the
individual. Dignity is appropriated from a glorious past where the
community has provided the world with leadership in the
intellectual, technological, artistic, and ethical fields among others.
Thus Islam, which has provided the world with excellence, endows
the Muslim with the ability to function in the modern world.
Among the modernists are some who seek a thoroughgoing
Westernization. They are willing to ascribe to religion a personal
status that has bearing only on the individual life divorced from
the social and cultural context.78
174
Both the conservatives and the modernists feel that the condition of
the Muslims needs reform. To the former reform means renovation,
since Islam is perceived as a living organism to which alien bodies
have attached themselves, draining the life out of the faith. The
only way to save Islam is to eliminate, "surgically" if necessary, all
these foreign bodies. The modernists, on the other hand, perceive
reform as creative innovation; to them Islam as a living organism is
suffocating because it has not adjusted to changing realities. It has
not kept up with the march of history and has been arrested in its
growth and development. To progress in health, it needs new
substance and changes in its stultifying habits.
All thinkers agree that it is not Islam that is the cause of the
retardation, but the Muslims themselves and what they have
practiced in place of pure Islam. Secularists, while willing to grant
that Islam in its pristine purity may not be an impediment to
progress, are anxious to relegate it to the realm of the personal in
order to proceed with the necessary task of development. For the
conservatives, the decline set in when Muslims slackened in their
efforts to maintain pristine Islam, when they allowed alien
accreditations to alter the basic tenets of the faith, when they lost
their zeal and became apathetic, allowing others to take over the
leadership of the world.
One of the important aspects of Islam in contemporary life has been
the appearance of movements which stand for the re-establishment
of the full and complete reign of the Shariah over the everyday life
of Muslims. These parties range from the Istiqlal party in Morocco,
Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan, which have also definite political and
social programs, to the Ikhwan Al Muslimin (Islamic Brotherhood),
the most important movement of this kind to appear after the
175
Second World War. Along with the growth of all these tendencies
one can notice a marked renewal of interest in religion, especially
among the youth. The rise of religious interest in the Muslim World
in the recent decades is a phenomenon of central importance which
can hardly be brushed aside as a momentary emotional reaction
before the inevitable onslaught of complete secularism, as
secularist historians would wish to do.79
In reality, what has happened during this period is that on the one
hand the blinding glitter of Western civilization has begun to fade
and its innate faults and present difficulties have become more
evident, and, on the other hand, the false gods for whose sake the
modernized Muslims sought to brush Islam aside have failed them
in the worst way imaginable. The defeat in the 1967 war and the
humiliations before and after cannot possibly be blamed in any way
upon traditional Islamic institutions. For many Muslims, , recent
events have only strengthened their serious disillusionment with
the program of simply aping the West. Rather, they see recent
tragedies as a divine punishment for their having forsaken Islam.
They have also come to realize that in order to return to Islam they
must re-discover Islam in all its fullness, not in its atrophied and
apologetic form as presented by so many of the modernist
'reformers' during the last two centuries.80
Christian Missionaries and Orientalists in writing about Islam in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ascribed the cause
of the retardation of Arab countries vis-à-vis Europe to its religion.
The West would love to hear Muslim intellectuals condemn the
religion of Islam for the failures of Muslims and their nations.
However, very few Moslems believe that the appropriation
of technology would necessitate a change in ideological
176
commitment, although Westerners have continued to insist that
unless the Muslims can shed their own ideologies and appropriate
Western technological commitments they would not be able to
prosper. Much of the Western opinion has continued to insist that a
technological orientation is by definition a secular, and by
extension western one since it seeks an ever-increasing rational
control of human activity which, once initiated, is very hard to
contain since it is a catalyst of change in the political, social and
economic as well as the religious area.81 While Daniel Pipes argues
that worldly success requires modernization, secularism and
Westernization some Christian missionaries believe that by simply
adopting Western technology, Arabs have taken a major step
towards Westernization and thus by definition towards
Christianization.82
In his famous lectures on philosophy of history, the German
philosopher Hegel wrote that Islam was departing from the era of
world history. This contention, made in the beginning of 19th
century, looked valid for his time. But in the subsequent years, new
trends in the development of the Muslim countries showed that its
validity is no more than relative. With the inception and
invigoration of the anti-colonial movement, Islam regained its lost
vigor.83 Inasmuch as it is impossible for men to remove the imprint
of the Divine upon the human order, Islam continues today as the
most powerful and enduring motivating force within the Muslim
soul and mind, and an ever present factor in Muslims' life.
177
Reference:
67 "Colonalism is reponsible for the dearth of the desireable means for development his talents and material resources, but the unwillingness of the Muslim to utilise the available means, and to exert required over-effort to raise his standard of life denotes colonibility. An analysis of the causes of inhibition that hamper the evolution of the Muslim world, would reveal that they are overwhelmingly the result of the internal factors, that is, of colonisibility." [Islam in History and Society by Malek Bennabi - p-49]
68 Islam & Modernity by Fazlur Rahman, p- 3940
69 Ibid. p-20.
70 Ibid. p-20
71 Islamic Methodology In History by Fazlur Rahman, Islamabad, 1984, p -143-144
72 Ibid. p-151
73 Ibid. p-152
74 Modern Reformist Thought in the Muslim World, by Mazharuddin Siddiqi, Islamabad, 1982,
75 Islamic Methodolgy, op. cit. p-vii
76 Islam and the Pligh t of Modern Man by Sayyed Hossein Nasr, p-92
77 Haddad, op. cit. p-8
78 Ibid. p-8
79 Nasr, op. cit. p-97
80 Ibid. p-97
81 Haddad, op cit. p-22
82 Ibid. p-208
83 Islamic Philosophy and Social Thought by M.T. Stephaniants, Lahore, 1989, p -9
178
CHAPTER X: CONCLUSION
At the beginning of the new millennium, the Islamic world finds
itself politically impotent, economically weak and socially confused
or in disarray. Despite their resources that have fattened others, the
Muslim countries are a strange combination of power and utter
helplessness. They possess all the ingredients of power, for
example, wealth, vast territory, huge human potential, large
armies, stocks of all sorts of most lethal and sophisticated arms,
still, they can be pushed around.
The Muslim countries represent one-fifth of world population but
produce only 5 per cent of the world GNP. The combined output of
53 Muslim countries amounting to 950 billion dollars annually is
less than the GNP of France that exceeds 1200 billion dollars. Their
exports amounting to 7 per cent of the world trade consists largely
of raw materials the prices of which are falling, thus reducing their
buying power. In fact the price of oil has fallen back to the 1973
level in terms of real purchasing power.
The level of illiteracy remains far too high in the Muslim world. To
give some examples, in Male it is 90%, Afghanistan, 88%, Pakistan
79%, Saudi Arabia, 85%, Bangladesh, 78%, Sudan 75%, Iraq 74%,
Morocco 72%, Algeria 65%, Egypt 60% and in Somalia and Iran the
figure is 50%.
This represents a very dismal picture of the state of development of
the Muslim countries and their standing in the world. Islamic
world does not figure in current listings of the centers of power
emerging in the today's post-cold war world. These include, apart
179
from the US, the European Union, Russia, China, Japan and the
possibility of India making the league in the future.
Ironically, this very Muslim world which has suffered at the hands
of the West in the past and which remains even today weak
materially, economically, technologically and militarily, is now
being projected as a threat to the West.
Several factors shed light on the current problems: 1) the lingering
shadows of colonialism; 2) the legacy of a leadership in Muslim
countries whose vested interests somehow coincide with the
interests of certain elements in the West, and 3) the failure of the
leadership in the Muslim world during the last five decades to
serve its own society, realize the ambitions of its own people, be
accountable to them, and ensure freedom of expression, human
rights, and political participation.1
It may be argued that the last fifty years of Muslim "independence"
have been only in theory. They remained as much controlled and
dependent on the former colonial masters as before. Independence
should have brought a spurt in self-reliance efforts but the ruling
elite took to easy ways of development through foreign aid and
purchasing arms and industry from the industrialized world.
Perhaps in their thought, it was the shortest cut to showing results
and buying social peace. Also, it was the shortest cut for them to
get rich through kickbacks. This policy, however, has reduced the
Muslims to the status of purchasers in the strait jacket of the
industrialized countries.
It might be too harsh a judgment on a mere five decades of
independence, but the fact remains that the Muslim states, and the
180
rest of The third World remained a junk-yard of outdated
technology, governed by a bunch of dim-witted rulers who made
"foreign aid" a permanent feature of their national economies and
mortgaged their people to the "donors". Worse, the ruling elite has
acquired slavish attitudes and developed a perpetual client
mentality. It may be appropriate to say that the Muslim elitist
systems are a part of the broader elitist systems of the world with
centers located in the west.
However, lava is already fomenting under the seemingly quiet
surface. The great gulf between the Muslim masses and their
compromised rulers and elite, whose loud voice is mistaken as the
opinion of the majority, is now seems beyond repair. As
demonstrated in Shah's Iran, it can be a mistaken notion. Popular
reaction against the US bombing of Iraq in December 1998 is
another vivid example of the wide gap between the masses and
ruling elite.
Despite their poverty, technological backwardness and political
structural defects, Muslims have traditionally been anti-colonial,
with an enduring belief in themselves. Islam remains an ideological
threat to the West with its firm belief in equality, justice, and
simplicity of belief in the unity of God. No doubt, there exists a
Muslim resistance to the Western domination since the West is
practicing a double standard. In cases where the Muslim actions are
in the Western interest, though they do not conform to Western
values, they consider the Muslims as friends or allies. In other
cases, when the Muslims resist Western domination, they are
considered with negative connotations such as extremists or even
terrorists.
181
The Muslim reaction is understandable. To borrow from Hippler,
the reservations of a Muslim towards 'the West' may be based on a
number of very real experiences that do not always have religious
roots. The earlier experience of colonial oppression and
exploitation, the experience of cultural arrogance, of the West's
economic and technological supremacy, the exploitation of the
natural resources of the Middle East, the experience of double
standards or military domination -- these and much else are
reasons enough for skepticism or hostility towards the West.
Whether someone then chooses to express this skepticism in secular
or religious terms is their business. Criticism of the West or of one's
own regime should not be automatically ignored simply because
religious terms are used. References to European and American
politics of supremacy or to the neo-imperialist policies of the West
in the Middle East do not become invalid just because they are
made by a practicing Muslim or Christian."2
There is an abiding sense of injustice felt by the Muslims
everywhere at the way in which they are portrayed in most
Western media. Why, someone will occasionally ask, don't the
newspapers write "Roman Catholic" or "Protestant" terrorist when
covering Northern Ireland? Why, as the California school textbook
critic Shabbir Mansuri queries, do social studies texts write things
like "The Bible says" this or that, whereas "Muslims believe" that
their Quran teaches this or that? In this example, the Bible is taken
as an unquestioned authority, while the Quran is held at a distance
and qualified.3
Randa Abdel Fattah, Law Professor at the Melbourne University,
provides a detailed description of the technique used by the
western media to portray Muslims:
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1. The first technique used is probably the essence of television,
newspapers and magazines-images. When it comes to
portraying Muslims or Islam, the images chosen are usually
negative and denigrate the entire Muslim community.
2. The second basis of media manipulation is the use of
stereotypes, which encompass all methods really. Some
examples of stereotypes: Arab Terrorist, Islamic
Fundamentalist, Oppressed Muslim Women, Sword of Islam,
Holy War.
3. The third technique is generalizing. The media assume a sort
of homogeneity among Muslims so that the actions of one
Muslim are almost always represented as a reflection of the
uniform actions and intentions of all Muslims.
4. The fourth method is sensationalism. This is often used to
attract attention to the story by presenting captions and
headlines that are provocative, controversial, eccentric,
extreme and so forth.
5. The fifth method is to deliberately distort the story. I can't
think of any better example to use than the current civil
conflict in Israel. The emphasis on the Hamas suicide bomb as
being violent and damaging to the peace process is a
deliberate distortion of the facts. The media dares not
thoroughly discuss what events provoked such actions or how
the building of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem is a
mockery of any plans of peace. In most coverage of this sort,
the provocation of actions by such so-called Islamic groups is
183
never raised. Muslims are merely presented as perpetrators of
violence.4
A 20th Century Fox film "The Siege", released in November 1998,
links the Arab culture and Islamic religious practices and terrorism.
According to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR),
the film links Islamic religious practices such as prayer, the ritual
washing before prayer, the call to prayer, supplication, beards,
Quranic recitation and even the green color with terrorism. For
Example, terrorists are shown making abolition and the next shot is
of making or wearing bombs. Practicing Muslims are shown as
terrorists while the non-practicing Muslim is shown in a positive
light.5
The desired consequence of the media campaign is as Nixon said:
"Many Americans tend to stereotype Muslims as uncivilized,
unwashed, barbaric, irrational people. …No nations, not even
Communist China, have a more negative image in the American
consciousness than those of the Muslim world" .6
Despite their weaknesses, the Muslims in their collective conscience
have a feeling of togetherness as an ummah. The Muslim
conscience is shaped by thirteen hundred years of basking in the
glory of Muslim history created by the Prophet, Muhammad, the
Four Caliphs, the Umayyads and the Abbasids in the Middle East
and Spain, the Ottomans in Europe, the Mughals in South Asia, the
Safavis in West Asia, the Tumerides and Seljukes in Central Asia
and the Middle East. Normally such feelings of a glorious past do
not die among its inheritors easily. Western writers mention this
feeling but only as if it was wrong to have them.
184
In the fifties and the early sixties Muslims had veered too much in
one direction. Secular nationalism then seemed to have become the
dominant ideology of the Muslims of a greater part of the world
and the idea of trans-national Muslim unity seemed to be receding
into oblivion. After the six-day Arab-Israeli war of 1967, however,
the tide began to turn and the idea of Muslim solidarity gradually
emerged as a force to contend with. This idea eventually found
expression in several inter-Islamic organizations, especially the 43-
nation Organization of Islamic Conference and the expanded
Regional Cooperation for Development. It is true that up until now
the Islamic unity has not been able to express itself, at the
institutional level, with the desired degree of effectiveness. But
over and over again Muslims have unmistakably shown that the
feeling of Muslim unity flows in their veins.
According to Nixon, although, at present, there is no central
representation or politburo of the Muslim world which can lead
them and keep them united, the immense resemblance between
their common values, their ways of thinking and their social and
political attitudes is a great binding force. If an incident takes place
in any Muslim country, Muslims all over the world feel it as one
body and show their reaction to it. "Some solidarity do es exist
among Muslim nations. When the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan, Moscow's relations with Muslim countries from
Morocco to Indonesia chilled…The perception that the US backs
Israel uncritically…has been a major impediment to closer US ties
with all Muslim countries."7
Esposito corroborates Nixon when he quotes Charles
Krauthammer: "The political awakening in the Islamic world…is
Pan-Islamic. It is 'global intifada,' embracing not only the Islamic
185
heart lands but also the peripheries of the Muslim world where
Islam confronts the non-Muslim communities--in Kashmir,
Azerbaijan, Kosovo in Yugoslavia, Lebanon and the West Bank."8
Broadly speaking to the West, any manifestation of Muslim
"nationalism" even within the confines of their states is equal to
Islamic threat to its existence. Movements for Islamic solidarity are
repugnant to the West. What shows through this hate campaign is
that while Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus, Bishop Desmond Tutu
of South Africa, Cardinal Mendzeti, Popes and Cardinals can be in
politics, and political parties in Europe may be named as Christian
Democrats, it is only the mixing of Islam in politics that is
objectionable to the West.
Apparently, the Western aim is to eliminate Islam as a political
force in any form, in national politics or inter-Muslim states
relations. By a strange logic, they identify Islamic forces with
terrorism. The terrorist act of a few desperados, which is a
microscopic minority, is equated with the Islamic forces. Such acts
of terrorism happen only when a country disallows organized
political activity, incapacitating seasoned leadership to channelize
discontent into a healthy political action. Such individual acts of
terrorism have shaken the West out of its wits, and made it equate
Islamic resurgence with terrorism out of a paranoid state of mind.
Martin Indyk, the US Assistant Undersecretary for Near East and
South Asian Affairs, suggested "containment" of the Islamic forces
on the same pattern as "communism" was once contained. He
advocated that "the containment approach to dealing with the
revival of the political expression of Islam is based on the idea that
Islamic states and political parties are hostile to Western concepts
186
of pluralist democracy, human rights, and the operation of the
world capitalist system of economics."9
The resurgence of Islam is the most significant transit ional
phenomenon of the contemporary Muslim world. To single out
Muslim resurgence as fanatical and fundamentalist is not going to
change the realities on the ground. It only affects the credibility of
the Western leadership in the minds of the Muslim people.
One could agree to a certain extent with Khurshid assessment that
the Islamic resurgence today is not merely a product of certain
specific contemporary challenges, but one must see it in the context
of historical continuity and the response of Muslims to the
challenges of the contemporary world. It has to be understood in its
historical perspective. Without going deeper into history, one can
discern three phases in the contemporary history of Islamic
resurgence:1) pre-colonial, 2) colonial, and 3) post-colonial.
Throughout the Muslim history, there have been ups and downs,
ebbs and flows. In other words, there is no linear progression and
for a number of reasons, mostly domestic, Muslim society in the
sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth centuries, that is in pre-colonial
times, was in a state of decline, not capable of creatively
responding to challenges, particularly in the fields of science and
technology, agriculture and industry, and military power.
Muslim confrontation with the West in the second phase, which is
known as colonialism, has been one in which the Muslims were on
the decline and by the end of the nineteenth century, almost the
entire Muslim world was under colonial rule, leaving only four
small countries of hardly any great significance. During this period,
187
Islam acted as a rallying point to resist colonialism, Western
penetration and invasion of Muslim lands. When colonial rule was
established, again it was the Islamic instincts of honor, national
identity, and political independence which provided continuous
resistance to colonial rulers. In the post-colonial phase of the 20th
century, Islam has been one of the major forces in confronting both
the legacy of colonialism and the reordering of society.
In the final analysis, it seems realistic to conclude that the capitalist
development and imperialist conquests have created the situation
of Islamic resurgence we are experiencing.
One of the central problems facing the Muslim community across
the world is this: how much of what may be called as "historical"
Islam can they today carry in framing their responses to the multi -
faceted problems of the modern world. More so in a world where
Western propaganda is busy painting Islam as barbarous, and
Muslims as a body of fundamentalists and terrorists. Unfortunately
Islam today is being confused with an archaic system of table of
punishments and suppression of segments of population such as
women etc. This can hardly be called Islamization of society. Such
misguided enthusiasm and misplaced emphasis can only prove
counter-productive and self-defeating.
In this regard, what Osman Bakar has to say is very instructive:
"For many Muslims, religious revival means asserting and
exhibiting Islam's particularism. There is very little emphasis on its
universalism. Through their words and deeds they also
demonstrated their indiscriminate rejection of the West, something
that is contrary to Islam's universal doctrines. Various expressions
of extremism in many parts of the contemporary Muslim world are
188
clearly in conflict with true civilizational identity of Islam. But we
believe these are mere episodes in Muslim history that are
peripheral to Islamic civilization. They have occurred mainly as
hasty and uninformed responses to the evils and injustices of the
contemporary world out of sheer ignorance and a sense of
frustration. While this is understandable, acts of extremism are not
to be condoned for Islam clearly teaches that ends do not justify
means."10
It may be hard to deny that the Ulema (traditional Muslim religious
leaders) by and large are incompetent to understand and handle the
problems and potentials of modern times. There is no concept of
"clergy" in Islam and hence the total elimination of "Papacy." A
Muslim's relationship is directly with God and hence there is no
priesthood, according to which a section of the Muslim society has
taken upon itself the right to pronounce arbitrarily laws and
volitions on God's behalf. There is no organized Church or
ordained clerical hierarchy. The real unity of the Muslims lies in
their attachment to the Quran and the Sunnah.
The civilization identity of Islam is as much defined by its
distinctive religious traits as by its universal doctrines and
perspectives. Universalism and particularism are two sides of the
same coin of civilizational identity, not just of Islam but of every
civilization. Even contemporary Western civilization, which we all
agree is the most dominant right now and almost overwhelms
every other civilization, is not completely universal. Many of its
civilizational features and characteristic, and many of the ideas,
values and norms that have been in currency in that civilization
really represent the particularism of Western society. The problem
of the non-West with the West concerns that aspect of Western
189
cultural imperialism, which seeks to impose, consciously or
unconsciously, its particularism in the name of universal culture
and civilization. This pretentious universalism will be opposed by
other non-Western civilization, whether it pertains to politics,
culture, art or the social ethos.11
We should not forget that there is no such thing as a value-free
social science. One of the basic cannon of sociological theory and
cultural analysis is that no knowledge is value-free; no knowledge
is free of supposition. Dr. Khurshid Ahmad is perhaps right when
he says: If in the Muslim mind, Western powers remain associated
with efforts to impose the Western model on Muslim society,
keeping Muslims tied to the system of Western domination at
national and international levels and thus destabilizing Muslim
culture and society directly or indirectly, then, of course, the
tension will increase. Differences are bound to multiply. And if
things are not resolved peacefully through dialogue and
understanding, through respect for each other's rights and genuine
concerns, they are destined to be resolved otherwise. But if, on the
other hand, we accept that this is a pluralistic world, that Western
culture can coexist with other cultures without expecting to
dominate them, that others need no necessarily be looked upon as
enemies but as potential friends, then there is a genuine possibility
that we can learn to live with our differences.12
Modernization is not a package deal. Muslims can adapt to their
culture. But the West insists on adopting it in full, including
abandoning their basic tenets of belief. Many Western scholars
equate modernization with westernization. Whatever be their
reasons, modernization, as held by the Muslims, is different from
westernization and stands for change in implements of production
190
and material conditions. Westernization means change in the value
system as epitomized in the West.
According to Dr. Koreshi, "Muslims have been rejecting
"modernization" for a long time equating it with westernizat ion.
Japanese were the first among the Asians, followed by Chinese and
Indians, who realized that importing modernization (of science and
technology) did not mean acculturation. Modernization had
another facet -- of improving techniques, managerial skills, and
acquiring new tools of production, which should have been
sought."13
The religious tradition of any culture is as integral to it as the
chemical composition of the bloodstream is to the life that it
sustains. To change the metaphor, the roots of all our language, our
art, of all our values, are to be found in our religion. Most of the
time, we may be unaware of this.14 Pure secularization exists only
as a theoretical model. Nowhere today is the state wholly neutral in
matters of religion, nor are religious establishments at all neutral
when it comes to political affairs. When religion has been displaced
from social domains to the exclusive province of the individual, it
attempts to intrude back into society. Secular domains, moreover,
contain remnants of the holy, which is the main component of
religion.15
The socioeconomic problems in the Muslim world are quite acute
and are likely to grow more in time to come, as can be gauged from
the statistics given by late President Nixon's Seize the Moment.
According to him, the global population explosion centers are in
the Muslim World. The population of the Middle East alone will
double by the year 2010.16 "The people of the Muslim World are
191
candidates for revolution. They are young: 60% are under twenty
years of age; they are poor."17
For the Muslims, the 20th century ended in problems. The world in
the third millennium, like the second millennium, is most likely to
continue to be one of violent power politics because, to borrow
from Jon Dunn," one powerful strand in Western political thinking,
especially prominent in the study of international relations
assumes, that for all practical purposes it is the struggle for wealth
and power which will determine the human future, and that in that
struggle moral or spiritual factors will be of little, if any, lasting
consequence."18
192
Reference:
1 Islamic Resurgence: Challenges, Directions & Future perspectives - A round table with Khurshid Ahmad, p-61
2 Jocehn Hippler & Andrea Lueg, The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, p-155
3 Abdul Munir Yaacob & Ahmad Faiz Abul Rahman, Towards a positive Islamic World-View, p-68
4 Randa Abdel Fattah, Muslims and the Media, Al Nahdah, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Vol. 16, No. 3-4, 1996
5 A Kuwait News Agency Report, Arab Times, Kuwait 8.11.98
6 Richard Nixon, Seize the Moment, p-194,95
7 Ibid. p-20
8 Esposito, The Islamic Threat (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) p -182
9 Containing Muslim Zealots by David Killion, The Daily Dawn Karachi - 27.4.1994
10 Prof. Osman Bakar, Islam's Destiny, Al-Nahdah, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Vol. 16, No. 3-4, 1996
11 Ibid.
12 James Veitch, Muslim Activism, Islamization or Fundamentalism, Islamic Studies Journal, Islamabad, Vol. 32, No. 3, 1993 p-15,16
13 Dr. S.M Koreshi,., New World Order - Western Fundamentalism in Action, Islamabad, 1995 p-262
14 Edward A. Robinson, Modernization, Paragon House Publishers, New York, 1982, p-226
15 Jocehn Hippler, op. cite. p-82
16 Nixon, op. cite. p-197
17 Ibid. p-203
18 Jon Dunn, Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future (Cambridg e, 1992) p-125
193
APPENDIX I: ISLAM AND POLITICS IN
PAKISTAN
Islam has played a decisive role in Pakistan's history. Religious
institutions collaborated with the feudal power structure for
common interests in retaining the status quo and still pose a threat
to any real social transformation. The dubious ruling regimes and
opposition movements trying to dislodge them both exploited
Islam to the utmost. Those in power, used religious sentiments of
ignorant masses to maintain their power and those thirsting for
power, exploited the same sentiments in an attempt to maneuver
their way in.
Hence, the process of the so-called Islamization worked to the
satisfaction of all privileged segments of the society, namely
military, bureaucracy, land owners and industrialists. The military
elite found status quo continuation easy with Islamization as the
economically deprived lower cadres of the army got solace in it,
thanks to their traditional background. The civil bureaucracy that
has learnt the art of surviving in all sorts of governments found it
safe and secure, since Islamization has not substantially altered the
socio-political realities in Pakistan. The land-owning and business
classes enjoyed enough protection in legitimization of unlimited
private property. The nominal land reforms introduced during
Ayub and Bhutto's era were reversed in the name of Islam.
Islam has never been an issue in Pakistan. In fact, even those
parties which talk of scientific socialism or secular politics did not
ignore the potential and popularity of the faith in electoral politics.
What however, is a matter of concern is the emergence of
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propagation of an idea that Islam is opposed to progress and
enlightenment.
The emergence of Pakistan on the world map left the ulema high
and dry since most of them opposed its creation. Soon after
independence, when the administration of the new state was
coping with huge problems arising out of the partition of the
subcontinent, the ulema began arousing the religious passions of
the people to get an "Islamic Constitution" passed by the
Constituent Assembly.
The cry of 'Islam in danger' was a powerful weapon in the struggle
for Pakistan. Every contemporary politician was aware of the risk
that too adventurous policy would be greeted with the dangerous
words, 'Islam betrayed.' The politicians therefore wished at least to
preserve a facade of harmony on religious matters until the state
should be more firmly established. Therefore the post-
independence period presented the political leadership with the
problem of the role of Islam in the structure of the new state. This
however, was overshadowed by the need for political stability.
Most political leaders and the "moderates" among the men of
religion wanted to see a new flexibility in the social and political
thinking in Islam. But to pursue this issue before the new
constitution had been brought into operation would have been to
invite confusion and conflict.
Politics is 'the art of the possible' and in the long run depends upon
convincing the convincible and politically active middle section of
the population towards a particular course of action or way of life.
Each succeeding government in Pakistan hence thought it suitable
to continue with the agencies established to find out the methods
195
for Islamization of the laws and the social structure. As a device to
appease the ulema and illiterate mass of the people, the political
leadership conceded that if the Quran has clear guidance to offer on
any matter, then that guidance must be followed.
Ironically, it was the socialist and secular Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who
started the process of Islamic fundamentalism in the country. The
1973 constitution contains a number of clauses which later paved
the way for the Islamization of laws. He was responsible to declare
the Ahmadis constitutionally as non-Muslims. To Islamize the
society, he declared Friday as holiday instead of Sunday, and
introduced the subjects of Islamiyat as compulsory subject for the
students. He invited the Imam of Ka'ba to Pakistan to lead the
prayers. However, these initiatives could not save him from the
ultimate disaster and he became the victim of his own acts and
deeds when almost all the religious parties joined hand in
launching a campaign against him.
Bhutto's successor, General Ziaul Haq fully utilized the process of
Islamization to achieve his political ends and sought legitimacy by
implementing Islam as an ideology of Pakistan. General Zia, with
the help of state institutions, weakened the secular and progressive
forces and introduced the Hudood, Qisas and Diyat in the legal
system of the country. The Federal Shariat Court was established
through an amendment to the constitution with the powers to
examine and decide the question whether or not any law or
provision of law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. (Article
203D of the constitution). The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) has
proved as a law-demolishing agency in conflict with parliament as
the constitutionally sovereign legislative body. The Council of
Islamic Ideology, another constitutional body, has restricted itself
196
to a negative role; to identify what is 'repugnant' to Islam without
spelling out the alternative which is 'in conformity' with Islam.
The Islamization process, which was used as a political weapon,
has caused severe damage to our national life. Wrong
interpretation of Islam has resulted in the rise of fundamentalism,
obscurantism and retrogression. Since the death of General Zia,
inconsistency and instability prevails in our laws. Instability means
that the law is frequently changing or is under threat of change
because of differences of opinion among the ruling factions. Three
of the most obvious inconsistencies in our Islamic law are (a) those
between legal norms and socially observed norms; (b) those
between statutory legal norms and the norms applied in practice in
the courts (e.g. Hadd is difficult to implement as confession,
retraction of confession and strict standards of proof make it
difficult to execute); (c) those between different formal legal norms
(e.g. non-compliance with the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance is
compromised by the courts but is strictly punished under the Zina
Ordinance). Another example of this contradiction is that the
constitution assures women equal status on the one hand but, on
the other hand, they are greatly discriminated in criminal law.
With the passing of the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance in 1990, the
victim (or heirs of the victim) of a crime now have the right to
inflict injuries on the offender identical to the ones sustained by the
victim. The law also allows offenders to absolve themselves of the
crime by paying compensation to the victim or their heirs. In the
already existing system of bribery and corruption, it gives free
hand to the people with money. The Human Rights activists rightly
say that in effect this means that rich people can get away even
with willful murder.
197
The interpretation of the Shariah Act of 1991 has been challenged
by the Federal Shariat Court. Sections 3(2) and 19 of the Act, which
safeguards the existing political system and the country's financial
obligations (including interest payments), have been declared un-
Islamic by the FSC because of the riba (interest) involved. In its
ruling of January 1992, [the Court held that rules and regulations
relating to interest were repugnant to the Quran and Sunnah and
should be brought in accordance with Islam. This ruling was
embarrassing to the government, while on the one hand they
wanted to satisfy the traditionalists, on the other hand the ruling
was not in accordance with the government's international
obligations. A private appeal was thus lodged with the Supreme
Court against the FSC decision. Other rulings of the FSC in 1992
included one stating that the country's system of employment
quotas was un-Islamic, as was the charging of court fees.
Women became the special victims of Islamization of law and its
inconsistencies. The Zina Ordinances, which have been particularly
discriminatory against women, continued to be law despite all the
demands from women's organization. [See Chapter VIII for detailed
discussion.) As always, the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961 is
continuously under challenge. In 1992, there was an interesting
case in the Supreme Court where the court declared Section 7 of the
ordinance to be against Islam.
The government of Benazir Bhutto promoted Pakistan as a
moderate Islamic state. A booklet published by the Ministry of
Information -- entitled, Pakistan: a moderate Islamic state --
acknowledges that "from late 1970s to mid-1980s, Pakistan often
found itself specially featuring in (western media) dispatches about
"Islamic Fundamentalism," an expression depicting religious
198
intolerance. The dispatches brought out Pakistan as an irrational
society suppressing minorities, contemptuous of human rights,
treating women as inferior and generally living inside a cocoon of
faith debarring contemporary compelling. Such negative references
have not been totally abandoned but their frequency has
considerably declined in the last about ten years. Some recent
developments recreated misgivings vis-a-vis fundamentalism in
Pakistan as blasphemy erupted as an issue. However, a superior
court restored the confidence of the people in the state's
commitment to a learned approach. The court's objective and
dispassionate handling of the case has re-emphasized an
enlightened approach which is further sustained by the
government's negotiations and consultations with leaders of
religious political parties and scholars to affect amendments in the
existing laws on blasphemy to incorporate safeguards against
exploitation of any segment of the population.
In May 1995, the federal cabinet approved two amendments in the
blasphemy law -- i.e. article 295-C of Pakistan Penal Code. The
amendments stipulates ten years prison term for instituting a false
blasphemy charge against anyone and forbids registration of any
First Information Report (FIR) on this count without a preliminary
investigation by a judicial officer, not below the rank of deputy
commissioner, as to the veracity of the allegation. However, the
proposal met severe resistance from religious and other groups.
The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab passed a resolution against
the proposal on May 4, 1995. This was the second resolution of the
Punjab Assembly on the issue. On April 20, 1994, the Assembly
unanimously adopted a resolution urging the federal government
to maintain the blasphemy law as such. On June 29, 1995, the
199
Provincial Assembly of Baluchistan also passed unanimously a
similar resolution.
The government has now deferred its decision to bring the bill, to
amend the blasphemy law, before parliament since it was not in a
position to pass the legislation. In the meantime, the government
has instituted administrative changes to the procedures for filing
blasphemy charges. Formerly, individuals could be charged with
blasphemy if any individual filed an FIR with the police. Now,
formal charges cannot be levied until a magistrate has investigated
the allegations and determined that they were credible
under the law.
The US Assistant Secretary of state, Robin Raphel, testifying before
the Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee, on March 7, 1996, said
that the United States recognize that the religious parties in
Pakistan have "street power" and not "ballot power" and this is a
major constraint for the Benazir Bhutto's government to repeal
blasphemy laws. She revealed that more than 150 blasphemy cases
have been lodged in Pakistan since 1986. Most of these have been
brought against members of the Ahmadis community. None of the
cases against Ahmadis have resulted in convictions. During the
same period, at least nine cases have been brought against
Christians and nine against Muslims. There have been convictions
in some of these cases, but no one has been executed under the
law's mandatory death penalty. Some convictions have been
overturned and several individuals are currently appealing their
convictions.
The Lahore High Court, on February 22, 1995, acquitted Salamat
Masih and Rehmat Masih from blasphemy charges. They were
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sentenced to death by a Sessions Judge on February 9, 1995, for
allegedly writing blasphemous word on the wall of a mosque in
1993. The death sentence was quickly overturned following an
international uproar. During the appeal hearings there were almost
daily demonstrations by small religious groups demanding that the
sentence should be carried out. After the judgment, religious
groups observed a protest day throughout Pakistan to protest
against the acquittal.
The year 1995 also witnessed a ghastly incident of religious frenzy,
when Dr. Sajjad Farooq, was beaten to death by people outside a
police station in Gujranwala. He was declared an apostate and
accused of having desecrated the Holy Quran. Dr. Farooq, who was
later reported by the press to be a staunch Muslim, was dragged
out from the police station where he was lodged and stoned to
death by frenzied mobs. On the basis of a rumor, apparently
circulated by someone out of personal enmity, through loud-
speakers of the mosques in his locality he was proclaimed to be a
Christian. While religious fanaticism of one sort or another has
tended to manifest itself in Pakistan in occasional incidents from
time to time, many in the country are now beginning to regard it
almost as sacrosanct. The so-called Islamization of Pakistan during
late General Ziaul Haq's regime has imbued the fanatics with a
spirit of self-righteousness which can only be regarded as alarming
in any civilized society.
Islam, which should have served to unite the people of Pakistan --
over 90 percent of them being Muslims -- has been, and is being,
misused to divide them into mutually hostile sectarian groups and
to divert their attention from basic social and economic problems.
The myth of popular support for religious parties has repeatedly
201
been exploded by the electorate. Yet, sectarian and religious hate
mongers have proliferated. Major parties are courting leaders of
religious parties, while latter's militias continue fanning the flames
of sectarianism. The only all-Pakistan force that seems to be
growing uniformly is sectarianism.
1958 CONSITUTION
When the question of constitution-making came to the forefront,
the Ulema, inside and outside the "Constitutional Assembly"_ and
outside demanded that the Islamic "Shariah"_ shall form the only
source for all legislatures in Pakistan. In February 1948, Maulana
Maududi, while addressing the Law College, Lahore, demanded
that the Constitutional Assembly should unequivocally declare:
1. That the sovereignty of the state of Pakistan vests in God
Almighty and that the government of Pakistan shall be only
an agent to execute the Sovereign's Will.
2. That the Islamic "Shariah"_ shall form the inviolable basic
code for all legislation in Pakistan.
3. That all existing or future legislation which may contravene,
whether in letter or in spirit, the Islamic Shariah shall be null
and void and be considered ultra vires of the constitution;
and
4. That the powers of the government of Pakistan shall be
derived from, circumscribed by and exercised within the
limits of the Islamic Shariah alone.
202
On January 13, 1948, "Jamiat-al-Ulema-i-Islam"_, led by Maulana
Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, passed a resolution in Karachi demanding
that the government appoint a leading Alim to the office of Shaikh
al Islam, with appropriate ministerial and executive powers over
the qadis throughout the country. The Jamiat submitted a complete
table of a ministry of religious affairs with names suggested for
each post. It was proposed that this ministry be immune to
ordinary changes of government. It is well known that Quaid-i-
Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was the head of state at this time and
that no action was taken on Ulema's demand. On February 9, 1948,
Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, addressing the Ulema-i-Islam
conference in Dacca, demanded that the Constituent Assembly
should set up a committee consisting of eminent ulema and
thinkers... to prepare a draft ... and present it to the Assembly.
It was in this background that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan on
March 7, 1 949, moved the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent
Assembly, according to which the future constitution of Pakistan
was to be based on " the principles of democracy, freedom,
equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam."
Islamic provisions in the 1956 constitution were contained in the
Directives Principles of State Policy, which were not enforceable in
the courts. The directive principles reaffirmed the statement in the
preamble that "steps shall be taken to enable the Muslims of
Pakistan individually and collectively to order their lives in
accordance with the Holy Quran and Sunnah. Further the state was
to endeavor (a) to provide facilities to the Muslims to enable them
to understand the meaning of life according to the Holy Quran
and the Sunnah; (b) to promote unity and observance of
Islamic moral standards; (c) to secure the proper organization
203
of Zakat and Awkaf. Article 24 provided that the state should
endeavor to strengthen the bonds of unity among
Muslim countries. The same article enjoined Pakistan to foster
friendly relations among all nations.
There was no provision to make Islam the state religion in Pakistan.
Article 21 provided that no person should be compelled to pay any
special tax, the proceeds of which were to be spent on the
propagation of any religion other than his own. The Head of State
was to be a Muslim not younger than 40 years of age. The
constitution of 1956 represented a decision to transfer to the people
and not the Ulema or other religiously privileged class, the
responsibility, if not for making the authoritative interpretation of
Islam, at least for choosing which interpretation shall become
authoritative.
Insofar as Islam was given any practical legal significance in the
1956 Constitution, it was in two ways. First, through Article 197 the
president was obliged to set up an organization for Islamic research
and instruction in advanced studies to assist in the reconstruction
of Muslim society on a truly Islamic basis; and under article 198 the
President expected to appoint a Commission of Experts to make
recommendations ' as to the measures for bringing existing laws in
conformity with the injunctions of Islam. 'The Commission was to
submit its report to the President within five years of its
appointment. This report was to be placed before the National
Assembly, and the Assembly after considering the report was to
enact laws in respect thereof.
The constitution had something to offer to both sides; it gave
grounds to the orthodox traditionalist that his cause might be
204
advanced, while there was nothing in the Islamic clauses to cause a
liberal democrat to feel that Pakistan was incapable of becoming
the kind of a state he wishes to see. The constitution did little to
settle the fundamental issue of the desirable role of Islam in a
modern state. Nor did its adoption serve to bridge what one writer
had called the ' wide gulf between the Ulema of the orthodox
schools and the intelligentsia."
The 1956 constitution was accepted without widespread opposition
from religious groups concerning its Islamic provisions. Jamat-e-
Islami described it as an "Islamic constitution." A statement issued
by the Majles-e-Shura of the Jamat on 18th March 1956 said: "The
preamble of the constitution, its Directive Principles and Article
198 of the constitution have finally and unequivocally settled the 8-
year old struggle between the Islamic and anti-Islamic trends in
favor of the former. And the fact that the future system of life in
this country has to be shaped on the basis of Islam and that the
Quran and the Sunnah shall ever reign supreme here has been so
firmly embodied in the constitution of the country that no worldly
power shall, Insha Allah, be able to obliterate it."
ZULFIQAR ALI BHUTTO (1971-1977)
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's attempts to exploit Islamic sentiment were
scarcely different from those of his predecessors. As with the
previous constitutions, the 1973 document cites "all existing laws
shall be brought in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid
down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah....and no law shall be enacted
which is repugnant to injunctions of Islam." Article one of the 1973
constitution describes Pakistan as an Islamic Republic. The same
phrase was utilized in the 1956 document, although initially Ayub
205
omitted references to an Islamic Republic in his 1962 constitution
and only relented under great pressure to reconsider his position.
Article Two of the 1973 constitution declares: "Islam shall be the
state religion of Pakistan." The phrase did not appear in the 1956 or
1962 constitutions and the implications of its inclusion are only
being realized since the removal and execution of Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto.
Bhutto hosted the Second Islamic Summit in Lahore from February
22 to 24, 1974. The summit was attended by thirty five member
states of the Organization of Islamic Conference and Palestine,
represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization. The summit
helped him the recognition of Bangladesh when Sheikh Mujib was
invited to attend the meeting. The Islamic summit was followed by
an invitation to the Imams of the mosques at Madina and Ka'aba to
visit Pakistan. Later the government sponsored an international
conference on the life and work of the Prophet. International Seerat
Congress was held in Pakistan in March 1976. The Congress was
attended among others by Imam of Ka'aba and more than hundred
prominent scholars and Ulema drawn from all over the Muslim
world, America and Europe. This catering to Islamic sentiments
was expected to generate support for the government.
On March 31, 1972 Bhutto asked his people to 'make this beautiful
country an Islamic state, the biggest Islamic state, the bravest
Islamic state and the most solid Islamic state." More than 90,000
Pakistanis performed Haj in 1972. The National Assembly passed
an Act in July, 1973 to ensure "Error Free Publication of the Holy
Quran." Adequate steps were taken against the desecration of the
torn pages of the Holy Quran. A Ministry of Religious Affairs was
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set up for the first time. Religious education was made compulsory
from primary up to Matriculation.
Bhutto's strategy was both to placate and outwit the religious and
conservative opposition. He defeated it handsomely in the general
election in 1970 but by 1974, unlike Khawaja Nazimuddin, a weak
man, Bhutto, the strong man, was not able to meet the challenge
posed by the “anti-Ahmadi agitation”. The demonstrations in
Lahore and Lyallpur in June 1974 resulted in widespread rioting,
destruction of property and army units being called to quell the
disturbances. Bhutto surrendered to the opposition demand to
declare Ahmadis as non-Muslim minority. The constitution was
suitably amended to placate the Ulema. But that did not stop the
Ulema to use the religious appeal against him. In 1970 election,
religious and conservative parties like Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat-ul-
Ulema-i-Islam, and the Muslim League were divided but in March
1977 elections these parties had formed a common alliance --
Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). Bhutto did not see the danger in
the Alliance for he called it a "cat with nine tails."
In the aftermath of violence erupted by the "fraudulent' election
results, Bhutto announced a ban on liquor, night clubs and horse
races in May 1977. Friday was declared as a closed weekly holiday
in lieu of Sunday from 1st July, 1977 "in deference to the wishes of
the Muslim community." These measures were taken during the
last days of Bhutto's regime. The motive behind these measures was
not the enforcement of the injunctions of Islam in the country but to
outwit the mounting opposition, which gathered on a religious
platform.
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GENERAL ZIAUL HAQ (1977-1988)
In December 2, 1978, General Ziaul Haq made a dramatic
announcement on the occasion of the first day of the Hijrah year to
enforce the Islamic system in the country. In a nationwide address,
General Zia accused politicians of exploiting the name of Islam
saying: "many a ruler did what they pleased in the name of Islam.
After assuming power the task that the present government set to
was its public commitment to enforce Nizam-e-Islam. As a
preliminary measure to establish an Islamic society in Pakistan,
General Zia announced the establishment of Shariah Benches.
Speaking about the jurisdiction of the Shariah Benches he said:
"Every citizen will have the right to present any law enforced by
the government before the "Shariah Bench" and obtain its verdict
whether the law is wholly or partly Islamic or un-Islamic." But
General Zia did not mention that the Shariah Benches jurisdiction
was curtailed by the following overriding clause: " (Any) law does
not include the constitution, Muslim personal law, any law relating
to the procedure of any court or tribunal or, until the expiration of
three years, any fiscal law, or any law relating to the collection of
taxes and fees or insurance practice and procedure." It meant that
all important laws which affect each and every individual directly
remained outside the purview of the Shariah Benches. However, he
did not have a smooth sailing even with the clipped Shariah
Benches. The Federal Shariah Bench declared rajm, lapidation, to be
un-Islamic, Ziaul Haq reconstituted that court which declared rajm
as Islamic.
In his drive of Islamization General Ziaul Haq announced further
measures on Feb. 10, 1979. In a speech on the occasion of the
birthday anniversary of the Holy Prophet Mohammed he said: All
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major political parties despite their other differences are agreed
that the Islamic system should be introduced in this country ...... I
am formally announcing the introduction of the Islamic system in
the country." The Islamic measures were enforced through
presidential orders and ordinances under which the existing laws
relating to the offenses of theft, robbery and dacoity, adultery, false
charge of adultery and wine-drinking were replaced by the fixed
punishments prescribed by the Holy Quran and Sunnah. One of the
ordinances was related to the execution of the punishment of
whipping.
Under Offenses Against Property (Enforcement of Hudood)
Ordinance 1979, the punishment of imprisonment or fine, or both,
as provided in the existing Pakistan Penal Code for theft, was
substituted by the amputation of the right hand of the offender
from the joint of the wrist by a surgeon. For robbery, the right hand
of the offender from the wrist and his left foot from the ankle
should be amputated by a surgeon.
Drinking of wine (i.e. all alcoholic drinks) was not a crime at all
under the Pakistan Penal Code. In 1977, however, the drinking and
selling of wine by Muslims was banned in Pakistan and the
sentence of imprisonment of six months or a fine of Rs. 5000/-, or
both, was provided in that law. Under Prohibition Order these
provisions of law were replaced by punishment of eighty (80)
stripes for which an ijma of the companions of the Holy Prophet
ever since the period of the Second Caliph Umar was cited.
Under the Zina Ordinance the provisions relating to adultery were
replaced as that the women and the man guilty will be flogged,
each of them, with hundred stripes, if unmarried. And if they are
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married they shall be stoned to death. It was argued that the
section 497 of the Pakistan Penal Code dealing with the offence of
adultery provided certain safeguards to the offender in as much as
if the adultery is with the consent or connivance of the husband, no
offence of adultery was deemed to have been committed in the eye
of law. The wife, under the prevailing law, was also not to be
punished as abettor. Islamic law knows no such exception.
The Pakistan Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, were
amended [through ordinances in 1980, 1982 and 1986] to declare
anything implying disrespect to the Holy Prophet, Ahle Bait
(family of the prophet), Sahaba (companion of the prophet) and
Sha'ar-i-Islam (Islamic symbols), a cognizable offence, punishable
with imprisonment or fine, or with both. Instructions were issued
for regular observance of prayers and made arrangements for
performing noon prayer (Salat Al Zuhur) in the government and
semi-government offices and educational institutions, during office
hours, and official functions, and at the airports, railway stations
and bus stops. An "Ehtram-i-Ramadan" (reverence for fasting)
Ordinance was issued providing that complete sanctity be observed
during the Islamic month of Ramadan, including the closure of
cinema houses three hours after the Maghreb (sunset) prayers.
By amending the constitution, General Zia also provided the
following definition of a Muslim and a non-Muslim: (a) "Muslim"
means a person who believes in the unity and oneness of Almighty
Allah, in the absolute and unqualified finality of the Prophet hood
of Mohammed (peace be upon him), the last of the prophets, and
does not believe in, or recognize as a prophet or religious reformer,
any person who claimed to be a prophet in any sense of the word or
of any description, whatsoever, after Mohammed. (b) "Non-
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Muslim" means a person who is not a Muslim and includes a
person belonging to the Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Bhuddist, or Parsi
community, a person of the Qadiani Group or the Lahori Group
(who call themselves Ahmadis), or a Bahai, or a person belonging
to any of the scheduled castes.
Within the framework of Islamization of economy, the National
Investment Trust and the Investment Corporation of Pakistan were
asked to operate on equity basis instead of interest as of July 1,
1979. Interest-free counters were opened at all the 7,000 branches of
the nationalized commercial banks on January 1, 1980. But interest
bearing National Savings Schemes were allowed to operate in
parallel. The Zakat and Ushr Ordinance was promulgated on June
20, 1980 to empower the government to deduct 2.5 per cent Zakat
annually from mainly interest-bearing savings and shares held in
the National Investment Trust, the Investment Corporation of
Pakistan and other companies of which the majority of shares are
owned by the Muslims. Foreign Exchange Bearer Certificate scheme
that offered fixed interest was exempted from the compulsory
Zakat deduction. This ordinance drew sharp criticism from the Shia
sect which was later exempted from the compulsory deduction of
Zakat. Even Sunnis were critical of the compulsory deduction and
the way Zakat was distributed.
On December 13, 1980, to the surprise of General Zia, the Federal
Shariah Court declared the land reforms of 1972 and 1977 as
eminently in consonance with Islamic injunctions. Then the so-
called Ulema were brought in who traditionally supported the
landlord class. Three Ulema _XE "Ulema "_were inducted into the
Federal Shariah Court and two into the Shariah Appellate Bench of
the Supreme Court which reversed the FSC judgment in 1990. After
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the imposition of martial law, many landlords were reported to
have told their tenants to seek the protection of their benefactor,
namely, Bhutto. Thousands of tenants were forcibly evicted from
the land in various districts. The martial law regime made it clear
that it was not committed to redistributive agrarian policies and
described the land reforms as ordinary politics to reward
supporters and punish enemies.
REFERENDUM: In the mid-1983, General Zia realized that despite
his extremely repressive and barbaric measures, which included
whipping the dissidents, the Movement for the Restoration of
Democracy (MRD) had not only survived but had also gained
strength. Faced with the inevitability of a return to civilian rule, the
general tried to make his position secure by getting himself elected
as the head of state through a process, in which the people were
asked to vote for their religion. On December 1 9, 1984, a
referendum was held on the Islamization policy of the martial law
regime. Announcing the referendum plan, General Zia said that if
the people say yes to his Islamization process he would consider it
as an endorsement of his rule for the next five years.
The people were asked a loaded question: "Do you endorse the
process initiated by General Mohammed Ziaul Haq, the President
of Pakistan, for bringing the laws of Pakistan in conformity with
the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and
Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), and for the
preservation of the Islamic ideology of Pakistan, the continuation
and consolidation of that process, and for smooth and orderly
transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people."
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Given that the country was created in 1947 specifically as a Muslim
state, and that 95 per cent of the population is of that faith, it is
inconceivable that even a sizable minority, let alone an actual
majority, would dissent. And therein lies the General's strategy,
said The Times, London on Dec. 20, 1984. The Gazette, Ottawa
described the referendum exercise as an insult to the intelligence of
the helpless masses and said: "The referendum will not bestow
upon Mr. Zia the aura of legitimacy --international and domestic --
he so desperately is seeking" (18.12.84). There was no criticism of
the referendum in the Pakistani press since any criticism of the
political maneuvering was outlawed.
International Commission of Jurists said "Zia manipulated the
referendum on his Islamization policy in order to remain in power
for a further five years. His subsequent amendments to the
constitution giving him sweeping powers, the continuing use of
martial law, charges of torture and increasing control of the media -
- all cast severe doubts on President Zia's claim to be working
toward restoration of democracy" (UPI dated 9.7.1985).
SHARIAH ORDINANCE: On June 15, 1988, two weeks after
dissolving the national and provincial assemblies (elected on non-
party basis) and disbanding ministries (formed on party basis),
General Zia promulgated a new Shariah Ordinance to declare
Shariah as the supreme law of the land with immediate effect.
Article 3 of the Act for the enforcement of the Shariah said "the
Shariah that is to say, the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the
Holy Quran and Sunnah shall be the supreme law of Pakistan.
Explaining the reasons for taking this dramatic step, he said it was
unfortunate that the enforcement of Shariah could not attract due
attention of the members of the National Assembly, which the
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nation expected of them. Under the Shariah Ordinance were
eligible to be appointed as judges of the court which were
empowered to challenge almost all existing laws of the country.
However, it was apparent that the whole exercise was primarily
meant to put extensive powers in his own hands to be exercised
through his nominees on various courts. The president was given
powers to make rules for the appointment of the Ulema judges to
the courts. Even Ulema of different schools of thought denounced
the Shariah Ordinance and described it a move seeking cheap
publicity. A Jamat-i-Islami leader declared that the Shariah
Ordinance does not conform to the Shariah and it has been enforced
by the rulers to save themselves from accountability. Jamiat-i-
Ulema Pakistan expressed the apprehension that leaving the
interpretation of Quran and Sunnah to the Ulema will open a new
pandora's box.
Like many near-bankrupt military regimes in Muslim countries,
General Zia used the so-called "Islamisation process" to legitimize
and perpetuate his narrowly-based military rule marked by public
and political executions, flogging of people in the name of Islam
and confusing the country's judicial system by simultaneously
operating the Shariah courts, the military tribunals and the
common law civil courts. Justice Shafi Mohammad, Judge of the
High Court of Sindh, while allowing quashment of criminal
proceedings against two accused booked under the Hudood
Ordinance remarked:
"It is the considered opinion of many religious scholars that
Islamization in 1980s as adopted by the government of General
Ziaul Haq was devoid of the real spirit of Islam and the same
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created complication not only for the prevailing judicial system,
but also ambiguity about Islam instead of solving the problems of
this country" (Dawn 9.6.1995).
Pakistani legal experts fully agree that Islamic criminal law
thoroughly suited tribal Arab society. This is especially so if we
look at the Islamic law of murder. Murder is considered a private
vengeance and in tribal Arabian society the avenging of a murder
fell on the victim's next-of-kin; so it was the right of the family to
demand satisfaction. Punishment was effected on the principle of
retaliation, commuted to a payment of blood money or
compensation for the injury. Cutting of limbs, stoning to death and
flogging were also prevalent as punishments (in the tribal Arab
society. The position of women in tribal society was also secondary
to that of men. In the light of modern developments in criminology
where the insistence is on reform and rehabilitation of criminals,
the claim of the Muslim traditionalist, however, is that Islamic
concepts are not contrary to the modern spirit of criminology.
Pakistan is one of those Muslim countries (the first being Saudi
Arabia) where Islamic criminal law has partly been put into
practice. Generally speaking, there has been a significant increase
of crime in Pakistan since the implementation of Islamic
punishments in 1979. This is notably in crimes against property,
which include highway robbery, theft from petrol pumps,
housebreaking and bank robbery, cattle rustling, motor vehicle
thefts etc. An increase of crime has also been noted in Zina, Qazf
and prohibition of alcohol cases.
Modernists question whether the criminal policy adopted in
Pakistan is compatible with the requirements of a modern society.
215
The modernist demand in this respect is that the codification of
Islamic criminal law should be done in the light of modern
circumstances. There can be no return to the past. Islamic law has
to face the challenges of the modern world. Otherwise, Islamic law
is just a mockery, as we now know from the experience of Pakistan.
Islamic criminal law is certainly not compatible with the status that
women already have in Pakistani society. It was a shock to the
women of Pakistan to have to accept that they are not accepted as
full human beings, that in Hudood cases they are not considered
capable of appearing as witnesses and that in financial matters two
women are considered equal to one man. (Rubya Mehdi,
Islamisation of the Law in Pakistan)
The women became the special victims of Islamisation and its
inconsistencies. The Zina Ordinance carried grave injustices and
untold miseries on women in the country and prompted bitter
international criticism. Women's rights groups helped in the
production of a film titled "Who will cast the first stone?" to
highlight the oppression and sufferings of women under the
Hudood Ordinances. In September 1981, the first conviction and
sentence under the Zina Ordinance, of stoning to death for Fehmida
and Allah Bakhsh were set aside under national and international
pressure.
In many cases, under the Zina Ordinance, a woman who made an
allegation of rape was convicted for adultery whilst the rapist was
acquitted. This led to a growing demand by jurists and women
activists for repealing the Ordinance. In 1983, Safia Bibi, a 13-year-
old blind girl, who alleged rape by her employer and his son was
convicted for adultery under the Zina Ordinance whilst, the rapists
216
were acquitted. The decision attracted so much publicity and
condemnation from the public and the press that the Federal
Shariah Court (Safia Bibi v. The State, PLD 1985 FSC) of its own
motion, call for the records of the case and ordered that she should
be released from prison on her own bond. Subsequently, on appeal,
the finding of the trial court was reversed and the conviction was
set aside.
In early 1988, another conviction for stoning to death of Shahida
Parveen and Mohammed Sarwar sparked bitter public criticism that
led to their retrial and acquittal by the Federal Shariah Court. In
this case the trial court took the view that notice of divorce by
Shahida's former husband, Khushi Mohammed should have been
given to the Chairman of the local council, as stipulated under
Section 7(3) of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961. This
section states that any man who divorces his wife must register it
with the Union Council. Otherwise, the court concluded that the
divorce stood invalidated and the couple became liable to
conviction under the Zina ordinance.
The International Commission of Jurists ' mission to Pakistan in
December 1986 called for repealing of certain sections of the
Hudood Ordinances relating to crimes and "Islamic" punishments
which discriminate against women and non-Muslims. The
commission cited an example that a Muslim woman can be
convicted on the evidence of man, and a non-Muslim can be
convicted on the evidence of a Muslim, but not vice versa.
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APPENDIX II: SPREAD OF ISLAM IN EUROPE
French demographer Jean-Claude Chesnais says "Europe is
becoming the new frontier of Islam." As the number of Muslims has
grown in Europe due to massive immigration in the 1960s and
1970s, Minarets have risen over Madrid and grand mosques have
been built in Britain, Italy and Holland. According to Chesnais,
Muslims outnumber both Protestants and Jews in predominantly
Roman Catholic countries of Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.
Europe, with its aging population and low birthrates, relies on
immigration not only as a source of cheap labor but also as support
for its social-welfare system. And, for most of Europe outside
Germany, the nearest supply of immigrant labor lies among
Europe's Muslim neighbors -- North Africa, the Middle East,
Turkey -- all growing at a phenomenal rate. At one time Europe
was starved for cheap Muslim labor. Belgium, for instance, had
special immigration treaties with Morocco and Turkey from 1964 to
1974. Muslim immigrants were invited to come with their families
as welcome replacements for Italians, Spanish, Greek and
Portuguese immigrants who had become too expensive.
France, formerly a major colonial power in North Africa, has 2.2
million Muslims, mainly immigrants from Morocco, Algeria and
other North African countries. It is estimated that France's Muslim
population will grow to between six million and eight million in
the next 15 years, or more than 10 per cent of the projected
population. Germany's two million-strong Muslim community
dates from the immigration of guest workers from Turkey 30 years
ago. These Gastarbeiter, supposed to be temporary workers who
would never settle into German society, are now in their second
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and even third generation. Many speak better German than Turkish
and feel thoroughly estranged from their homeland. In October
1994, Cem Ozdemir became the first naturalized Turkish-German
elected to the German parliament, Bundestag, as a member of the
environmentalist Greens party. Economically the Turks are already
well integrated with 37,000 businesses employing about 135,000
people, 15 percent of whom are native Germans. Yet for all this,
and even with the more liberal laws, only four percent of
Germany's total Muslim populations have become citizens.
In Britain, by contrast, 75 percent of the 1.3 million Muslims are
citizens. The dramatic increase in the Muslim population has
occurred in the past 30 years when large numbers of migrant
workers were enticed to Britain by the promise of manual jobs that
in years of industrial growth the indigenous population spurned.
From Pakistan, India and Bangladesh they came in a steady flow to
the industrial cities of the Midlands and Strathclyde and the textile
towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire.
Britain's Muslims, forming 2.6 percent of the population, are
concentrated in the industrial centers like Birmingham, Bedford,
Midland and Glasgow. In Bedford, the Muslims population is 25
per cent. In December 1993, a court in Wales declared a ban, on
preventing Muslims from prayers, as racist. The court said that the
festival of Eid was as important for the Muslims as Christmas was
for the Christians.
The Muslim immigrants to Britain in the seventies met almost the
same problems and prejudices as the Catholic Irish had met in the
last century, says Duncan Macpherson, of St. Mary's University
College. Like the Muslims now, the Irish then were seen as dirty,
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superstitious, and disloyal. They spoke in an alien tongue and
owed allegiance to a foreign religion that seemed to aim at a global
theocracy. Even then later generations moved into labor politics,
they were cut off from the mainstream by their demand for
denominational schooling; their attitude to women and family life,
and their loyalties in foreign affairs. Both Catholics then and
Muslims now form "awkward minorities' which want neither
complete integration nor complete separation.
Islam is influencing everyday European life in countless ways, in
everything from literature to fashion to popular culture. Mosques
are multiplying, and Islamic schools follow in their wake. Muslim
butcher shops and bakeries can be found in many major European
cities. In Ireland, the first Islamic school was established in 1993,
which was inaugurated by the Irish President Mrs. Jerry Robinson,
who declared the establishment of the school as an important
milestone in the history of the country. In Holland, a major mosque
was inaugurated in November 1994 in Zondem at a cost of 750
million dollars. The Mosque, with a capacity of 1700 people, was
built by the Turkish origin community.
As a result of immigration, as their numbers have grown and the
European economy has faltered, Muslims have become a favorite
target for racist attacks by skinheads and neo-fascist rhetoric from
right-wing politicians. The NATO Secretary General Willy Claes
and Stella Rimington of Britain's M.1.5 (intelligence service) have
gone so far as to call radical Islam the geo-political menace of the
future.
At a moment when communism is defunct and neo-fascism is no
more than a primitive politics of resentment, the West is bereft of
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ideologies and instinctively searching for adversaries. Some
western intellectuals, such as the American political theorist
Samuel Huntington, predict that in the search for a new enemy
after the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War that
the great conflict of the 21st century will be between Islam and the
West. However, French academic Olivier Roy - the author of The
Failure of Political Islam - says: "The specter haunting Europe is
immigration, not Islam as such. But what disturbs people about
Islam is that it seems impossible to assimilate."
Activistic fears have revived in the current climate of tension
between the West and a resurgent Islam. Muslims and Christians
have established such deep habits of hatred and incomprehension,
formed over such a long history of crusades and jihads, nationalist
revolutions, terror and counter-terror, that the patterns may be
almost impossible to break. "Our hatred of Muslims in Europe goes
right back to the Crusades. It developed at the same time and
along-side anti-Semitism," says British scholar Karen Armstrong,
author of "Holy Wars" and "The History of God."
Europe's Muslims are far from united as they come from different
lands and races, and from several different sects of Islam. Some
practice their faith with zeal while many are diffident. But a kind of
unity is imposed on them by the prejudices and ignorance that
surround them.
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APPENDIX III: MODERNIZATION AND ISLAM –
DR ALI SHARIATI
Mankind is being driven into a new stronghold of slavery.
Although we are not in physical slavery, our thoughts, hearts, and
will powers are enslaved. In the name of sociology, education, art,
sexual freedom, financial freedom, love of exploitation, and love of
individuals, faith in goals, faith in humanitarian responsibilities
and belief in one's own school of thought are entirely taken away
from within our hearts.
The new so-called modern culture is built on the basis of "Western
superiority and the superiority of its civilization and its people.
The West made the world believe that the European was
exceptionally talented mentally and technically, whereas the
Easterner had strange emotional and gnostic talents.
These were the persons who convinced people to lay aside their
orthodoxy, discard their religion, get rid of native culture (as these
had kept them behind the modern European societies) and become
Westernized from the tip of the toe to the top of their head!
Then this very way of thinking, which was introduced to the world
to justify the need for modernizing the non-European nations,
became the basis of thought for the non-European elites as well!
Modernization in what? In consumption, not in mind. In the name
of civilization, the campaign for modernization was carried on, and
then for more than 100 years, the non-European societies
themselves strove to become modernized under the leadership of
their sophisticated intellectuals.
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Let us consider the genesis and composition of this class of
intellectuals. Jean Paul Sartre in the preface to "the Wretched of the
Earth" points out: "We would bring a group of African or Asian
youth to Amsterdam, Paris, London......for a few months, take them
around, change their clothes and adornments, teach them etiquette
and social manners as well as some fragment of language. In short,
we would empty them of their own cultural values and then send
them back to their own countries. They would no longer be the
kind of person to speak their own mind; rather they would be our
mouthpieces. We would cry the slogans of humanity and equality
and then they would echo our voice in Africa and Asia, "humanity",
and "equality."
As Fanon says: "In order for Eastern countries to be the followers of
Europe and imitate her like a monkey, they should have proven to
the non-Europeans that they do not possess the same quality of
human values as the Europeans do. They should have belittled
their history, literature, religion and art to make them alienated
from all of it. We can see that the Europeans did just that."
A real intellectual is one who knows his society, is aware of its
problems, can determine its fate, is knowledgeable about its past
and who can decide for himself. These quasi-intellectuals, however,
succeeded in influencing the people.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
That is culture? It is the spiritual, mental, moral, and historical
accumulations of a nation, similar to natural resources. How were
natural resources formed? Throughout centuries animals and plants
were pressurizes within layers in the depth of the earth. Due to the
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interplay of myriads of variables they were transformed into vital
economic substances. Throughout history, culture, due to the
appearance and demise of successive generations, also becomes
accumulated and forms the spiritual assets of a nation. No matter
how we interpret originality, it belongs to history since man's
character is not suddenly formed from nothing in a single period.
Christianity, which throughout centuries was the cause of
retardation, was transformed into a builder and energizer of
Europe.
Unlike what we are told it was not the negation of religion which
created modern Western civilization but the transformation of a
corrupt and ascetic religion into a critical, protesting and mundane
Christianity. That is, Protestantism was the creator of modern
Western civilization, rather than materialism or anti -religious
sentiments which did not exist in the Renaissance.
The transformation of Catholic to Protestant meant changing a
corrupt religious spirit to a social religious spirit, one which built
today's grand civilization upon centuries of Western retardation
and inertia.
What was Renaissance? It was a revival of the Greek cultural
elements which were unknown in the Middle Ages. Therefore
today's great Western civilization is the product of 15th,16th, and
17th century thinkers who decided to extract the Greek and Roman
cultural resources (along with their own vast reservoir of faith and
feeling) in order to consciously "know" Christianity, so that they
could convert this opiate to energy and awareness- generating
force. And they successfully did it. Why we are not told the truth?
224
We are told these thinkers threw religion and passed away,
marched forward and suddenly embraced a new civilization! But
how could they march forward empty-handed? With an empty
hand you must start from zero and a primitive condition. Rather,
they returned to the past consciously from the right direction, and
instead of knowing Plato and Aristotle through the Arabs, they
decided to do it their own way.
We Easterners have been civilization builders and humanity's
teachers throughout man's history, so much so that we now own a
collection of vast and deep cultural, mental, and social experiences
of humanity. Why can't we, by depending on ourselves, extract and
refine all these spiritual resources (which have been sitting
unknown and idle), rejuvenate, and convert them to consciousness
raising and protesting forces? Yes, we have these vast resources
which are like mines and rich sea under our feet, but they were
severed to such an extent that in order to regain our personality we
have to resort to others. What should we do?
We must mend and fill up this gap in order to be able to think
independently and know ourselves. We must find the strength to
choose and turn into a creative force the past historical, religious,
theosophical, and literary factors which have changed to
superstition, and opiate matters and have caused inertia and
corruption in our societies.
The Westerners, unlike what they did to Africans, did not negate
our past, they metamorphosed it. And when we look at our own
new portrait we hated it. Consequently we began to run towards
our "metamorphosed" past and religion, as well as towards
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European schools and culture. We have had no choice but to shatter
such images of ourselves and inculcate the portrait of reality in the
minds of our masses in the East, and extract and refine our cultural
resources, not the way the West has done it for us, but with a
method and conscious responsibility, relative to our people and
society. Further, as in economics, where we convert raw materials
to energy and consequently start a great industry and production,
we have to use the same spirit in building up our personality and
cultural independence in thinking, spirituality, and human
movement.
Title: Islam in the Post-Cold War Era
Author: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Source: Ghazali.net, http://www.ghazali.net
Editor: @dauF, http://www.twitter.com/dauF