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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

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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

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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

144

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

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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,

148

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

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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

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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.

169

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:

182

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

200

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.

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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

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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?

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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