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Islam today is facing challenges from within and from the wider world. The
critical problems are the fundamental tensions within Islam. The attitudes
and criticisms common in the outside world can be ignored as misguided or
hostile, but the tensions within Islam throughout the world must be
confronted. In a simple geographical sense, Islam has to come to grips
with its changing centres. The religious centres define the heartland:
Saudi Arabia maintains its guardianship of the shrines at Mecca and
Medina, and the conduct of the hajj, against the claims of Shii Iran, the
Shii tradition, and other sects disillusioned with Saudi Arabia's
credentials within the ummah. Saudi Arabia enjoys much of its strength to
repudiate other claims because it remains the economic centre of the
ummah. It takes a combination of the incomes of Kuwait, Iraq, the United
Arab Emirates, Iran and Yemen even to come close to Saudi Arabia's oil
wealth. However, this wealth is based on finite resources, and in the
years to come the economic centre will shift to those parts of the Muslim
world with sustainable resources and reproductive assets. West Asian
financial investments recognise this long-term problem, but they remain
overwhelmingly located in the Western and non-Muslim economies. The
intellectual centre of Islam is Al-Azhar in Cairo. The ideas and attitudes
taught here are spread throughout the ummah, particularly through the
population centres of Islam: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and
Malaysia. The relative power of the different centres is shifting. Over
time the claims on and against the heartland from and by the peripheral
Muslim communities will exacerbate the tensions already present. The
conservative centre will be under greater pressure from the more vigorous,
prolific and liberal Muslim societies on the periphery.
Despite the ideals promoting an equitable and productive material life,
the overwhelming majority of Muslims experience living standards which are
hardly enviable by any standard. This frequently appears to be a greater
paradox in the wealthy oil-producing Muslim countries. Where justice and
brotherhood are recommended by the ideals, in such countries we see the
conspicuous consumption of the very rich, the purchase of very expensive
military technology and armaments, and we see the exploitation of
'guest workers': fellow Muslims from Palestine, Pakistan, the
Philippines, among others. The plight of these groups was obvious during
and after the Gulf War in 1990-1991. Unemployment of masses of people;
rapid urbanisation; unbalanced development - all need to be addressed
quickly by the ummah, if the ummah is to become the social force of
international Islam. The wide imbalances in the distribution of incomes
and wealth between Muslim societies are obvious, but since effective
redistribution is not happening within most Muslim societies it is
unlikely to occur to any major degree between different Muslim
societies.
Development investment in Muslim countries is slow simply because
investors are put off by the more extremist agitations and the perceptions
in the West about Islamic legal proscriptions of such financial mechanisms
as interest. Muslim investors appear quite happy to send their money into
the non-Muslim economies, where greater profits are available and the
political and social circumstances are much more settled. In other cases,
where people are trying to help their communities they often encounter
problems from unlikely sources. The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has been
lending small sums of money, mostly to rural women so that they can engage
in small enterprises, but also to collective groups. The sums are small
and the interest is fixed, with the principal being repaid first and the
interest calculated on the diminishing principal. Twenty per cent interest
per year still seems high, but it is tiny when compared with the twenty
per cent per month or ten per cent per day demanded by the traditional
money-lenders, or the compound interest at Bangladesh's commercial banks.
The Grameen Bank lends money to people who would not be eligible in the
normal commercial sense. People are helped to determine the best way to
satisfy their needs and are helped by the bank's officers in the villages.
The Grameen Bank goes out to its clients and it permits the good sense and
honesty of its clients to prevail: it has a recovery rate of some ninety
eight per cent. The bank faces conflict from the traditional
money-lenders, the commercial banks which claim that the scheme is too
small to create the economic growth necessary in Bangladesh, and from the
Muslims who see the scheme emancipating women in the villages. The bank
fulfils the ideals of Islamic thinking, but is attacked by established
interest groups defending their interpretation of
Islamic
practice.
Economic frustration and unequal opportunities are fertile breeding
grounds for dissent and protest. Equally important is the failure of most
Muslim governments to confront the demands of general education.
"Modernity, the circumstance of being 'modern', is, in a central sense,
inescapable. It is the necessary context for every tolerably well-informed
life-journey undertaken in the contemporary world." [1] Being modern
does not mean being Western but it does mean that some degree of secular
knowledge will have to be given far greater prominence in Muslim
epistemologies. Dr Mahathir bin Mohamed has made the point that there can
be no separation between secular and religious knowledge because all
knowledge, all life, is encompassed by Islam. It is interesting that so
prominent and successful a Muslim leader as Dr Mahathir had to tread a
fine line: advocating on the one hand an independent and progressive
Muslim attitude to acquiring the widest possible knowledge, while
placating the traditional sensibilities by insisting on the moral
rectitude of learning as the only way to protect the faith. There are
Muslim intellectuals working to understand what it means to be a Muslim in
the modern world, but they do not receive the prominence given to the
extremists in Western reports. Western media are more interested in the
violent and emotional than they are in quiet, but deeply significant,
debates about the eternal values that remain, despite the anarchic
individualism of Western communities, the essence of being human. Not only
are Muslim intellectuals under pressure from the conservative elements of
their own societies, they are not receiving the recognition and support
they deserve from the West. Yet it is at this level of ideas and
reassessments that Muslim leaders will have to convert the de
facto modernisation of their societies into general acceptance. The
renaissance of ijtihad will be needed to reinterpret the
principles of Islam, to retain the critical moral core while jettisoning
the dubious accretions of traditional and worldly Muslim
authorities.
The whole panoply of modern knowledge and technology is acceptable, but
its Western manifestations are to be avoided if all they achieve is the
perpetuation of the Muslim world's dependence on Western developments. A
fundamental problem here is that which bedevils Western societies: can the
use of and reliance upon new technologies alter perceptions, change
desires, force social changes? Do the people who create and maintain the
new technologies become the new high-priests. All knowledge and technology
entail more than the physical and objective characteristics; they also
contain the moral questions about how the new technologies should be used,
what controls should be placed on them and who should be responsible for
the implementation of the regulations. These are moral questions the
simply secular authorities cannot answer, if only because utilitarian
arguments lead us only to numerical quantities not qualitative
priorities.
There is a very real danger involved if Muslims are not critical enough of
Western world perceptions and if they take things for granted. There needs
to be an increase in criticism in the light of Islam criteria. Without a
heightened critical faculty Muslims are in danger of
considering
"Islam
as a partial view of things to be complemented by some modern
deology rather than as a complete system and perspective in itself, whose
very totality excludes the possibility of its becoming a mere adjective to
modify some other noun which is taken almost unconsciously as central in
place of Islam...He who understands the structure of Islam in its totality
knows that it can never allow itself to become reduced to a mere modifier
or contingency vis-a-vis a system of thought which remains independent of
it or even hostile to it." [2]
The
main danger arises if Muslims accept the more extreme view of the
difference of Islam and the insistence on establishing 'the third way'. If
everything Western is to be discarded, then the creative and productive
dynamism inherent in Islamic traditions will be suppressed yet again. Is
Islamic resurgence giving enough attention to the challenges of poverty
and hunger, disease and illiteracy? Have Islamic resurgents gone past, or
are they still stuck on, their rhetoric regarding education and knowledge,
science and technology, politics and administration, economics and
management in their preferred Islamic order? To what extent have Islamists
become pre-occupied with forms and symbols, rituals and practices? Do they
regard laws and regulations in a static rather than a dynamic manner ? Is
there a tension between the extremists' positions and the principles of
the Quran and sunnah about the roles of women in society and the place of
minorities in Muslim societies? Is the main problem a betrayal of the
spirit of the Quran in the extremists' exclusiveness in a variety of
matters ranging from charity to politics? Are the activities of extremists
encouraging sectarianism in the umma through their insistence on their
interpretations being the only correct ones? Have extremist views
contributed to the factionalism and fragmentation of the ummah.
[3]
The
moral question is at the heart of the matter. Fazlur Rahman stated the
position precisely. Islam needs: "some first-class minds who can interpret
the old in terms of the new as regards substance and turn the new into the
service of the old as regards ideals". [4] Can the
modernists who want modernisation without Westernisation expect to realise
their hopes? There is evidence enough in Western society that
modernisation, with all its technological developments, has radically
changed values by putting traditional attitudes under pressure and then
instituting a new ethic.
Untrammelled economic
growth and development has resulted in consumerism, institutionalised
selfishness, ill-gotten wealth, rising expectations, laxity in sexual
behaviours, the dissolution of the family, essentially independent
electronic media, the influx of foreigners and foreign values, the
materialism of modern science and technology and greater amounts of
secularism. [5]
In an
Increasing Secular World, can Islam unite a Modern Society?
Western secular politics is based on the notion that sovereignty belongs
to individuals who select their governors through political consensus
arrived at during free and regular elections. Islam believes, in theory at
least, that sovereignty belongs only to God and that a legitimate temporal
government is so only for as long as it implements God's will and the
Sacred Laws. Whatever the theory asserts, the reality is that governments
have to find the equilibrium that produces social prosperity and harmony
under the guiding impulses of a strong moral code. The problem is made
more complex when the moral code is itself subject to sectarian divisions:
between orthodox and heterodox claims to revelation and legitimacy. We
have to return to the questions: whose Islam, what Islam, where and when?
It is clear that in states which have declared Islam as the ideology of
political order, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan,
there has been little reduction in domestic conflict or the reduction of
conflict with their neighbours, Muslim or otherwise. In these states there
is little real evidence of effective redistribution of wealth or
substantial economic and social benefits flowing down to the general
population. The benefits promised by Islam are not being
realised.
In the Muslim communities with an emphasis on the secular ideology of
politics, such as Turkey and Egypt, the general welfare is only slightly
better, although there appears to be a greater freedom of belief and
action. The majority of Muslims live under governments with a qualified
acceptance of a secular ideology. These states have taken Western models
for modern political and social institutions and have imbued them with a
strong Islamic character. [6] The problem
remains: how does Islam deal with public morality and public order? What
institutional frameworks can define, separate, and regulate private vice
and public morality? What arguments can be raised in favour of, and
against, the devout who insist that there exists already a definitive,
well-known and comprehensive path revealed by God? In our reflections on
the issues, we must remember to distinguish between the genuinely devout
people and those utilising religious symbols to promote their own
positions.
Political Islam is under challenge from its own rhetoric and message to be
self-critical: to live up to its own standards; to live up to the
principles it espouses and demands of others; to avoid and denounce
excesses committed by governments and movements that identify themselves
as Islamic; to take or share responsibility for the failures of Muslim
societies, and not simply to blame the West for all the problems.
[7] One of the
central questions will be the treatment of minorities under Islamic
governments, and the behaviour of Muslim minorities in other countries. At
present the political ideology of Islam cannot entertain an equal and
pluralist society of Muslims and non-Muslims. [8] This is not
just a matter of tolerance: it entails the recognition in ideal and
reality of the unqualified equality and citizenship rights of people of
all faiths irrespective of whether they are male or female. The role and
influence of political dissent, trade unions, and the media will have to
be re-examined along with the social and legal issues. A new equilibrium
will have to be reached between the legitimate demands of the individual
and the legitimate demands of the society in which he or she
lives.
In the same way, Muslim minorities will need to reach a new accommodation
with the ruling groups in their countries. Indian Muslims (about one
hundred millions, or twelve per cent of the population), and Muslims in
the Philippines (about six millions, or eight per cent of the population),
will have to control the extremist elements within their communities. The
examples of Pakistan and Bangladesh are clear demonstrations that
separatism is not a viable option. Religious homogeneity is no more
capable of establishing a harmonious society than is the ethnic
homogeneity being attempted by the Bosnian Serbs. The spread of Islamic
terrorism into the emerging Muslim states in Central Asia, in Africa, as
well as the sporadic outbreaks in Western countries, will need to be
suppressed. At the same time the legitimate demands of Muslim minorities
must be recognised by the governments of their countries. Some fifty
million Chinese Muslims cannot be ignored even within a population as
large as
China's.
In international terms, Islamic states are increasingly significant
economically, financially and politically. Across the ummah local
interests and national politics appear to be more important than simple
identification of interests based on Islamic traditions. The Islamic
states antipathetic to the West (Libya, Iran, Iraq, Yemen) are balanced by
those which are firmly supportive (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Singapore,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei). This is not to say
that the states with positive relations with the West are not critical of
the West. Many of the criticisms of leaders such as Dr Mahathir, Lee Kuan
Yew, and Goh Chok Tong (Prime Minister of Singapore), among others, are
incisive and go to the heart of many of the problems in the West.
Despite the overwhelming global influence of Western ideas, the West, of
course, is not a monolithic presence. The twentieth century has proved
beyond any doubt that the ideals espoused in the West do not prevent
hypocritical justifications for untenable attitudes towards the rest of
the world, nor do they prevent total war between European nations.
The West has to understand Islam; not because Islam is the next great
threat, but because Islam contains so many ideas and moral values that the
West, for all its rampant secularism, still shares. The West must also
recognise the diversity of Muslim experiences across the world. Muslim
societies do not only suffer from 'Islamic' problems; they suffer the same
problems long familiar in the West: political, economic, ecological,
social and moral development. As such, these are shared human experiences
and the beneficial resolutions: in science, technology, medicine,
education should also be shared equitably. If Western nations believe in
the value of their defining concepts: individualism, liberalism,
constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law,
democracy, free markets, and the separation of church and state
[9] then they will
have to be shared through sympathetic dialogue, not forced upon others.
The idea of contending world views which define the good states from the
bad states will have to be scrapped. It has not worked in the West's
relationships with China, where the hypocrisy of the West's stance on
human rights has been highlighted by the West's attitudes towards Algeria
and Bosnia. Western support, especially that by the United States, for the
authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan while
denigrating other exclusive Islamic authorities in Iran, Syria, Iraq, and
the Sudan, does not generate confidence among Muslim societies around the
world. Western nations supported the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, yet helped
to oppress Palestinians through support for Israel. The continued
existence of Israel is not negotiable, but the ways in which Western
nations have treated the concerns and sensibilities of the Palestinians
have not been sympathetic enough. Neither have the more aggressive Muslim
attitudes helped the situation.
Western attempts to propagate ideas about Western civilisation as
'universal civilisation' have resulted in significant reactions against a
new imperialism: 'cultural imperialism', 'human rights imperialism', and
so on. The religious revivals and reaffirmations of local, traditional
values, among the younger generations in Islamic and Hindu cultures
especially, are often reactions against the insidiousness of Western
cultural influences.
Just as Western societies must reassess their ideas about the superiority
of their ideals, so too must Muslim societies understand that their
traditions need reinterpretation. It is pointless for the ulama to keep on
insisting that Islam is not simply a different tradition: it is a superior
tradition. In this light Western ideas are not only inferior, they are
inapplicable and irrelevant to Islam and Muslim society. [10] At the level
of ideals the arguments depend eventually on the leap of faith: whether
divine authority rests in the Torah, the Bible or the Quran. People who
accept the superior divinity of only one of these not only have the
problem of repudiating other claims, they must also address the people who
do not accept the authority of any divine revelation. It is useless to
quote the authority of the Quran to people who do not accept it. The
arguments have to be conducted on other levels: rational and empirical
levels. Here the ideals can be seen to have been debased over the
centuries by the practical realities of living. This does not mean that
the ideals are worthless, but it does mean that demands for a return to
the simplicity of Islamic principles must be tempered by courageous and
clear-sighted analysis of the differences between the Quranic ideals and
their historical development.
Islam and the West have much to offer each other. Nothing productive will
develop while the dominant attitudes are those of suspicion, bigotry, and
fear. Islam once played an essential role in preserving knowledge during
the ignorance and barbarism of Europe's 'dark ages'. The rediscovery and
refinement of this knowledge helped to set Europe on the road to its
modern dominance of science and technology. The grip of worldly and
corrupted religious leaders was broken in Europe. At the same time the
suppression of ijtihad and rational dissent within Islamic societies by
similar sorts of rulers caused the decline of the Islamic world,
permitting the Europeans to indulge in imperialism and colonialism from
the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. A sympathetic
exchange of knowledge, flowing this time from Western societies to Islamic
societies, may well revivify Islam and permit Islamic societies to enjoy a
more creative and significant role in the modern world.
Simple material transfers are not enough. There has to be a reworking of
the central ideas in both societies. It may seem an obvious point, but in
the bigotry of the religious confrontation it is necessary to emphasise
that non-Muslims must recognise as a fact God's revelation of truth to
Muhammad. If we can accept our own monotheistic traditions and the role of
prophets we must recognise the genuine prophetic claims of others. We can
critically examine the traditions but we must do so from recognition and
knowledge not from denigration and outright rejection. Islam offers much
to Western societies presently dominated by the anarchic demands of
rampant 'isms': individualism, materialism, consumerism and
secularism.
Islam has preserved the central position of moral values as the defining
character of human society. Francis Lamand, President of the French
Association 'Islam and the West', considers that: "Islam can contribute to
the rebirth, in the West, of three essential values: the sense of
community, in a part of the world that has become too individualistic; the
sense of the sacred; and the legal sense. This can be the contribution of
Islam to Western societies". [11] In return the
West has to control its arrogance and reassess its stance towards the rest
of the world. The notion of there even being a 'rest of the world', from
whatever perception, is something we all have to
change.
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