But for
the fact that God continues to repel some people by means of others, cloisters,
and churches and synagogues and mosques (all places of worship), wherein the
Name of Allah is mentioned much would surely have been razed to the
ground. (Qur’an 22:40).
[¼] The humanism,
moderation, rationality, flexibility, and openness that characterise much of
the Islamic tradition are highly prized by Muslims and leave many of them
disinclined to accept arguments that their religion is a static body of
doctrine impervious to change that obliges them to reject ideas from the West,
even where the latter are of demonstrable value. Thus, outside observers can
easily be misled if they assume that the average Muslim considers the more
exotic, reactionary “Islamic” views to be more consonant with his own Islamic
tradition than ones that correspond to the aspirations of contemporary Muslims
for enhanced rights and freedoms along international lines. (Ann Elizabeth Mayer pp. 145,
146)
Quuite a while ago a Christian student asked me
if I were a staunch Muslim; I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland when she was
asked by the caterpillar “and who are you?” She replied: “I..., I hardly know,
Sir. Just at present, at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but
I think that I must have changed several times since then.” I told the student:
“Well, it depends on what you mean by “staunch”, what you mean by ‘Muslim’ and
on the particular moment that you are asking the question or want the answer to
apply to.”
Inn this opening paragraph, I have
betrayed/disclosed where I am. Just before the protective barriers against the
post-modern demons of tentativeness and heurism are raised, let me hasten to
add that this ceaseless transformation of self is not without an undying
commitment to Islam, Tawhid and the creation of a world wherein it is safe to
be human and everyone free to serve Allah. Yet, even as I speak about an
“undying commitment”, I acknowledge that life and living is a process not
entirely unrelated to death and dying. In other words, my commitment is always
in various stages of growth and death. At the outset I want to suggest that it
is possible to pursue certain commitments while valuing tentativeness and space
for otherness. In other words, pluralism does not have to be an appendage of a
putatively value-free post-modernity.
Chhairperson, it may sound awfully vain to
present a keynote address with a question such as “who am I?” I have chosen to do this because I believe
that disclosure is a pre-condition for conversation for there are inescapable tinsels
that color the eyes of every beholder. The alternative to this disclosure, the
insistence on ‘objectivity’ or a privileged Gnostic access to the truth, may
make for interesting sermons, but not for conversation.
Thhe undisputed reference points for Muslims are
the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad's definitive conduct (Sunnah). The unavoidable point of departure from where these
reference points are approached, however, is one's self and the conditions
wherein that self is located. In ignoring the ambiguities of language and
history and their impact on interpretation, there is no effective distinction
between normative Islamic morality and what the believer “thinks” it to be.
Both traditionalism and fundamentalism deny any personal or historical frame of
reference in the first instance. While they will insist that normative Islamic
morality is “to be judged solely by the Qur'an and the Sunnah”, they will throughout their discourse simultaneously imply
“and we are the only ones who have correctly understood it”.
Soo who am I?
I am a Muslim male, the youngest of six sons
and one daughter – the latter’s “illegitimate” existence discovered more than
ten years after the death of my mother (May Allah have mercy upon her soul)-,
the son of a mother who died in her early fifties as quite literally a victim
of apartheid, patriarchy, and capitalism and of a father who abandoned his
family when he was three weeks old. As a young South African student of Islamic
theology in Pakistan with bitter memories as a victim of apartheid, I saw the
remarkable similarities between the oppression of blacks in South Africa and of
women in Muslim society. Later in my years as a Muslim liberation
theologian-cum-activist in the struggle against apartheid, I deepened my
awareness of the relationship between the struggle of women for gender justice
and that of all oppressed South Africans for national liberation.
I come from a society where “peaceful
co-existence” was initially a deep yearning of the vast majority of our
population and then, during the years of the liberation struggle, it became a
source of much suspicion. Only recently is “peaceful co-existence” being
re-embraced, even if rather tentatively, as a long-term goal among our people.
Whereas the language of peaceful co-existence in our country’s history is one
invoked by the apartheid ruling minority when they realised that the game of
racial domination was up, we, the oppressed majority, saw our sacred task as
one of making apartheid South Africa “ungovernable”. In our society we found an
echo in the voice of Paul E. Salem who, looking at the problem of peace in a
more global context, said: “To the dominated members of the “pseudo-imperial”
world system, peace may be something that they might indeed seek to avoid, and
conflict may be an objective that they might seek to invigorate in order to
destabilise the world system and precipitate its crisis or collapse.”[2]_
Inn a post-apartheid South Africa, I am
increasingly becoming aware of the limitations to socio-economic transformation
imposed on so-called free societies such as ours by the demands of ‘the
market”, and of the need to locate any discourse on cultural diversity within
these constraints.
Muuslims inhabiting countries where they are in
a numerical minority comprise approximately one third (270 million) of the
world’s Muslim population[3].
Despite this, they are a relatively marginalised group in Islamic discourse.
Muslim “minorities” are, of course, not the only one’s who are being ignored in
the attempts to find a new relevance of Islam to the challenges of our day and
age. How well known is the name of Seyyed Hosein Nasr in Arabic scholarly
circles? How significant are developments in Indonesian Islam, a country that
has the world’s largest Muslim population? How many Urdu, Persian and Turkish
scholars are being read in the Arab world? I believe that it is only in the
recognition of the endeavours of Muslims and Muslim thinkers all over the world
and in our comprehensive embrace of our ever-expanding heritage that we are
able to seek the best for our societies and for the ummah.
Soouth African Muslims, little more than 1% of
the country’s population,[4]
are not only a significant part of the country’s cultural and socio-political landscape
but also of the world of Muslim “minorities”. Comprising labourers, political
exiles or prisoners and slaves, they first arrived in South Africa in 1652 and
hailed from various parts of the East. Together with local converts to Islam,
they were usually referred to as 'Malays' despite the fact that less than one
percent of them came from today's Malaysia._ Mainly adherents of the Shafi’
madh-hab, they were concentrated in the Cape and, under apartheid, they were
one of the seven sub-groups of ‘Coloureds’. As if reflecting the essentially
eclectic nature of the community’s actual origins rather than mythologised
‘Malaysia’, the dominant `Ulama group resort to any of the four madh-habs (schools of Islamic
jurisprudence) in resolving juristic issues in a manner most compatible with
the requirements of a changing South African society. (Even while publicly
holding on to the notion that they are Shafi’s.) [5]
A second stream of Muslims arrived in 1860 from
India along with some Hindus to work as indentured labourers on Natal's sugar
plantations. Mostly hailing from Surat in India, today this group, is largely
located in the provinces of Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng. A large community
originating from Kokan in India who follow the Shafi’ madh-hab are also found
in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town. During the last twenty years or so, a
number of converts from the Black townships, many of them opting for the Maliki
madh-hab, have added to the ranks of
the Muslims - and these, the post-apartheid children who refuse to be second
class anything are beginning to own Islam. More recently, and even more
marginalised, are numerous Muslims from various parts of the world ranging from
Pakistan to Nigeria who have come to South Africa as economic refugees.
Thhe two dominant Muslim groups have co-existed
in a workable although sometimes tense relationship, and the present generation
of Muslims is the arguably the first one where marriage regularly occurs across
the cultural divide without or with minimal family acrimony. The various
provincial clerical bodies have an unwritten agreement to publicly respect each
other’s spheres of operation – mostly geographical, but often cultural.
Otther than the plurality of ethnicity, culture
and fiqh, one also finds a diverse
approach to the religious life with Sufi groups co-existing and intersecting
with those of a more urban and puritan orientation. While the history of
Islam’s survival in this part of the world is largely attributed to the work of
the Sufi tariqahs, the late twentieth
century proliferation of Wahabi and Deobandi Islam has served to provide
Muslims with a sounder traditional scholarly base. As elsewhere in the world of
Islam,
“Sufi orders [even if informally
organised in South Africa] came more and more to represent the true religious
feeling of the people, and the lawyer-theologians to whom the ummah is indebted
for its cohesion have to make their peace with them. Theology is adapted to
accommodate the more moderate version of Sufism, the majority of the Sufis themselves
adopt a positive attitude to communal life; the consensus of the pious and the
learned gradually approves ideas and practices that at first appeared difficult
to reconcile with ancestral tradition;
in short, everything is done to prevent the cleavage between the two
concepts of the religious life to result in full pluralistic separation of
their adherents. (Von Grunebaum, 1962:44, 45)
Thhe abuse of ethnic identity under Apartheid has
often led progressive Muslims being embarrassed to be described as 'Indians',
'Malay' etc. and the term ‘Colored’ was viewed as a pejorative term by those
described as such and they usually referred to themselves as “so-called
Colored”. Now, freed from the fetters of apartheid and being wooed by the
governments of India, Malaysia and Indonesia, many are beginning describe
themselves as “Malay” or “Indian” and the “so-called” has been unceremoniously
dropped as a prefix to “Colored”. Furthermore, the country’s new constitution
values cultural diversity and undertakes to protect not only the eleven of the
country’s languages but also to promote and ensure respect for “Arabic, Hebrew,
Sanskrit and other languages used for religious purposes” (Chapter 1, article
5.b.ii). Recent legislation affords legal recognition to customary and
religious marriages and the constitution provides for a permanent commission
dealing with language and culture.
Att a broader level Muslims lead shared lives of
prosperity and poverty, power and marginalisation with other non-Muslim South
Africans and in quiet indifference to a host of refugees from other countries.
With the exception of religious and a few community based educational
facilities, Muslims commune with the religious other in all else - on the
factory floor, in business, in sports and in political organisations. "Now
we come to the great problem," said a Christian missionary more than sixty
years ago, about this shared existence, "Christians and Moslems live next
door to each other and often rent rooms in the same house. They grow up from
childhood together" (Hampson 1934, 273).
Inn an embracing and welcoming sense though, the
doors of diversity are really only now being flung open in the new South
Africa. Muslims have rushed through them and only afterwards have we discovered
that some ‘other’ rather unwelcome pedestrians have also walked through. In a
society kept in chains for so long one has little control over the demons –
more often than not, your own - which are let loose when the doors of freedom
and diversity are opened,. The loosening of the state’s authority and the
expectation that adults are really meant to take charge of their own personal
lives and the morality which guide them were accompanied by a proliferation in
the sex industry and, more specifically, a steep rise in the drug trade and
crime in general. Many Muslims are in the forefront of a violent and bitterly
controversial public struggle against gangsterism and drug abuse initiated by
People Against Drugs and Gangsterism (Pagad).
Whhile numerous committed South Africa Muslims
are making a significant contribution to the reconstruction of our society,
several segments of the community display a haunting fear of the light of
democracy and freedom.
Thhe above brief overview raises significant
questions of identity, religion and history. Who are we? Of our Muslimness we
are certain; also about our South Africanness: beyond that though, there are
several more labels, Blacks, Coloreds, PDI’s (Previously Disadvantaged
Individuals), NPB’s (Newly Privileged Blacks), Malays, Shafi’ or Hanafi,
Barelvi or Deobandi? Is it ‘or’ or is it “and”? Does it depend on when the
question is being asked and by whom? At what point does being a Shafi’ or
Maliki cease to be a religio-legal issue and become a socio-cultural one? Can
one, in fact speak of points in any coherent sense?
Baased on my insights into the South African ummah, I want to highlight a few of
these issues: The unstable nature of identity, b) the way the ummah transcends geography, c) the way
religious tenacity combines with tenuousness and d) the notion of an ummah beyond religious dogma.[6]
Wee are all comprised of a multiple of
identities depending on where we come from, what we believe in, where we are
and who we are interacting with at a particular moment. The insistence on
viewing identity as stable, static or monolithic is usually reflective of our
insecurity, our fear of the unknown parts of our selves emerging when the label
is peeled off. So we desperately hold on to the label although the single
certainty about its contents is inescapable uncertainty. Our cultures are
increasingly uncoupled from their territorial bases and, as never before, we
are becoming the carriers of multiple cultures. The truth is that there is no
stable self or a stable other. Every encounter of the self with the other
contributes to the process of ongoing transformation.[7]
Intermarriages, linguistic cross-pollination, migration, the internet, McDonalds,
CNN and the emergence of Christian Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu
worshippers of the Market, are only the more obvious manifestations of the
collapse of borders - if indeed, there were ever borders. In the words of
Salman Rushdie,
We have
come to understand our own selves as composites, often contradictory, even
internally incompatible. We have understood that each of us is many different
people. [...] The nineteenth century concept of the integrated self has been
replaced by this jostling crowd of ‘I’s. And yet, unless we are damaged, or
deranged, we usually have a relatively clear sense of who we are. I agree with
my many selves to call all of them ‘me’
(Time, August 11, 1997).
Inn quoting the author of the Satanic Verses, I
am reminded of a saying about Satan attributed to the Prophet (Peace be upon
him) and cited by Seyyed Hoosein Nasr: “Satan hates sharp points and edges”
(1988:131). Yet here I am, not blunting the edges, but dealing with the notion
that in culture there are no sharp edges. Ali Mazrui speaks of Africa being a
“cultural bazaar” where “a wide variety of ideas and values drawn from
different civilisations compete for the attention of potential African buyers
(1986:97).[8] Taking a broader sweep, Akbar Ahmed reflects
on how “mainstream Muslim tradition [¼] combined with local culture to produce
interesting mutations [¼] most pronounced in mosque architecture.”
In
Africa, the Mali-Songhai mosques are marked by buttresses, pinnacles and
soaring minarets with expose beams giving a hedgehog effect. In Java and
Sumatra mosques are layers and pagoda like. In China they had gabled tiled
roofs which sloped upwards ending in dragon tails¼ (1988, 109)
Ammong the Muslims of South Africa we, in fact,
find a microcosm of the universal ummah with its competing and ever changing
historico-cultural differences among its overlapping sub-sets. Islam was the
cement of religious belief that held different communities in various states of
togetherness and sought to eliminate customs that appeared to be incompatible
with those beliefs. Even here the boundaries shifted within specific
communities; E.g., in 1894 Muslims of the Cape were willing to die in their
resistance to inoculation against smallpox, believing it a vain human attempt
to defy “the will of Allah”. Less than a hundred years later inoculation became
a pre-requisite for anyone travelling on pilgrimage to Mecca and the “will of
Allah” was now to secure health for all via inoculation. In 1886 they rioted in
the streets of Cape Town when their ancestral burial place, the Tana Baru, was
closed down and they were offered a new burial site some distance out of the
city. They insisted that following the bier on foot for the entire journey was
a religious requirement and that they could not travel in a horse-drawn cart
(cf. Davids, 1984). By 1994 Muslims walked only a hundred metres or so and the
bier completes the rest of the journey in a Japanese designed station wagon,
its parts manufactured in Europe and assembled in South Africa and painted in
green, “the Prophet’s colour”.
Whhile post-modernity has deepened our
appreciation of the complexity of identity, these reflections are far from mere
theoretical musings for Muslim organic intellectuals – if I may borrow from
Antonio Gramsci - thinkers who grapple with the challenge of cultural diversity
while being engaged in a struggle for a more just society.
Fiirst, when we deal with the ummah or with the “other” we are really dealing
with persons who are the carriers of multiple and ever-changing selves. We can
no longer speak of “the Americans”, “Algerians”, “Kurds” or “Blacks” but must
have to have the willingness to understand and appreciate the nuances and
distinctness of each community along with the many diverse and ever changing
elements that it comprises.
Seecond, we observe that communities are not
unchanging entities which we can collectively hold hostage for crimes committed
against an equally ahistorical and essentialist “our people”. “The Jews are our
enemies”, I often hear, to which I respond: “Well, that may be the case, but
tell me, which ones? Where do they live? When did they do what? What were their
names? What kind of support did they have and from whom? And, besides, who are
the “our” in “our enemies”?
Thhird, while it is true that the way we deal
with others is really a reflection of the way we deal with ourselves, the
process of learning to live alongside our own many selves - intra-community
diversity - must accompany, and not precede, the process of living alongside
the other. When learning to live with the self precedes learning to live with
the other then self-discovery runs too great a risk of degenerating into a
narrow narcissism and the ummah develops an obsession with controversies of
sighting the moon and the correct method of slaughtering a cow.
Unnderneath the unwillingness of the previous
generation of Indian South African Muslims to allow their off-spring to marry
Malay Muslims or of the still prevalent racial prejudice against “our Zanzibari
brothers”, the notion of the ummah has not only survived but continues to give
Muslims a deep sense of belonging.
“Muslim
armies would fight each other; ¼ communities in different linguistic
areas would, in many regards, go their own way; but no political shifts and
hardly any local spiritual divergences, no differences in the customs governing
the believers’ everyday lives, would decrease their intense identification with
the ummah Muhammadiyyah, the Muslim community, that had gradually come to
extend from the southern Philippines to the Atlantic coast of Morocco, from
North Central Asia to South Africa, with some offshoots sprouting as far afield
as the Americas. The individual groups
might hardly know of one another, the rank and file would be practically
precluded by geographical and linguistic estrangement, visitors might be
shocked by mores and practices of other units;
and yet the ummah has remained, and is certain to remain, a
“pluralistic” unit in the strictest sense of the word. (Von Grunebaum, 1962)
Whhile Muslims are not averse to behaviour which
seeks to reducing Allah to a tribal deity or to a particular nation’s hockey or
cricket fan as is evident from supplications on the eve of a war or before the
commencement of a cricket match, there has always been the assumption that we
worship a Universal God – rabb al-alamin
- who elevated our understanding oof self from the tribal and ethnic
organisational level to the universal level of a single community. The ummah, at its best, is thus an
open-ended community under one universal God and transcends the boundaries,
however elusive, of ancestry or ethnicity. This notion of a universal community
under God has always been a significant element in Muslim discourse against
tribalism and racism.
Whhile numerous South African Muslims continued
to hold those of darker skin pigmentation in contempt, they never attempted to
produce a theological justification for their prejudices. On the contrary,
qur’anic texts such “And we have created you in tribes and nations so that you
may understand each” and hadith such as “There is no is distinction between an
Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab; lo all of you are the children
of Adam and Adam was made of dust” became rallying slogans for non-racialism
and inclusivity.
Thhere is a justified pride in this unequivocal
rejection of tribalism and racism on the one hand, and rejoicing in inclusivism
and diversity, on the other. However, much of progressive Muslim discourse
today tends to overlook a fundamental exceptive; illa bi’ttaqwa – except in the fear of God. This leads me to two
issues: a) the admirable tenacity of the faith of Muslims and the way they
identify with the ummah alongside the
simultaneous erosion of faith as something personal and dynamic and b) the
notion of an ummah beyond dogma.
Itt is remarkable that a community at the
Southern tip of Africa could have survived in relative isolation from the wider
world of Islam for more than three hundred years, never ceasing to see itself
as a part of that world. Here, once again is a manifestation of the universal
ummah defying all conventional understandings of community. The ummah also
thereby affirms the notion of a community based on shared participation or
aspiration towards a more sacred life. In the words of Von Grunebaum
¼. there is nothing in its location
in the face of the earth that can force a community, however isolated it may
be, to consider itself part of a larger if actually remote community, unless it
be its free decision, motivated by a realisation that by so doing its members
will partake of the higher life, a nobler and more truly human existence than
by pursuing their own ways without acknowledging themselves parts of an
inter-tribal, international, intercultural entity. (1962:41)
Cooming to the Cape of Good Hope in the early
seventeenth century as slaves and political prisoners, it is difficult to think
of any earthly reason why so many of them remained Muslim, often even using
their own sense of community to provide a larger home to slaves who did not
share there faith. Outside visitors are impressed with the apparent tenacity of
the faith of South African Muslims, the dynamism of community life and their
role in vibrant and very visible role in the country’s socio-economic life. Yet
underneath the surface all is far from well. Two recollections make the point:
a)) Marches against gangsterism and drugs have
often filled Muslims with a sense of pride that “we are the ones to turn our
drug infested communities around.” Yet, alert drug dealers watching these
marches from the side-lines have often pointed out that among the most
vociferous chanters of “Death to the [Drug] Merchants!” are some of their most
dedicated (addicted?) clients.
b)) A year or two ago I was asked by the father
of a Muslim girl to be in conversation with his future son-in-law who was about
to convert to Islam. In talking to him about the religio-cultural taboos of the
Muslims, I mentioned that pork was an absolute no in a Muslim home. He casually
mentioned that that would not be a problem because his seemingly Islam-
observant future wife is a closet bacon-eater. (Meanwhile, his father-in-law regularly
passed on manuals on performing salah
to this convert who was only interested in learning the physical motions in
order to blend in during the occasion of the “Id prayer”.)
Peerhaps in both of these recollections one does
find a microcosm of the ummah. Underneath the world-wide reality of a resurgent
Islam is an enormous amount of brokenness and addiction. Our chants of “Death
to America” is also as much a death wish upon an internal enemy which we do not
have the insight or the courage to confront as it is a desperate cry from an
addict caught up in a web. Like the relationship between drug merchant and
customer, this is a web which, while it dehumanises both supplier and consumer,
ends up enriching the former and impoverishing the latter.
Thhese recollections highlight the schizophrenia
of Muslim existence. We fit into a Muslim culture during the day and slip out
under the cover of darkness at night. Those demons that we encounter during the
night remain with us during the day even if unnoticed or not deemed worthy of
attention. How much of what remains are label and how much is content? This
slipping away is of course done without any announcement, thus avoiding the judgment
of takfir (heresy) and irtidad
(apostasy); in the words of Mohammed Talbi,
[¼] one continues to circumcise children [¼] and to recite the Fatihah as a blessing on
marriage contracts and over the graves of the deceased but the heart has gone
from it all, leaving just the social phenomenon, a civic religion in the manner
of those Ancients who continued to pay respects to the gods without believing
much in them¼ it is no longer a case of
individual loyalty to a faith but an overall sharing in an ethnic identity.
(1984:7)
Inn a certain sense, there is nothing new about
this, for personal identification with the ummah
and the ensuing loyalty to it are also sociological facts rather than narrowly
defined religious commitment. As von Grunebaum observed that “the abyss
separating the Islam of Berber mountaineers from that of the fuqaha’ of Cairo
has, sociologically speaking, no weakening effect on the cohesiveness of the
Muslim community” (1962:51). This current slipping away, however, is not just
reflective of multiple identities or sub-sets of a single religio-cultural
identity. At both a personal and communal level, it is not only a departure
into the night, we often ignore, but also an entry. It is, in fact, part of a
descent into a globalised religion; that of the Market. This, as I will
elaborate upon later, is also the context that needs to shape our approach to
both cultural and religious diversity.
Thhe South African socio-political culture with
the all-pervasive ideology of apartheid had polarised its people to an
unprecedented extent. The struggle against apartheid had a similar effect,
albeit along entirely different lines. People on both sides of “the struggle”
divide had 'Muslim', 'Hindu', 'Christian' or 'Jewish' names. The formidable
presence of religious figures and organisations and, especially, the
unprecedented Muslim-Christian religious solidarity which formed an integral
part of this struggle, ensured that questions of identity, affiliation and
community assumed a stark and new dimension. Progressive Muslims moved beyond
the political necessity of religious diversity to a) an appreciation of
theological legitimacy for interfaith solidarity against racism and b) an
unambiguous embracing of Christians and Jews as "brothers and
sisters" and "believers":
Noon-Muslims have shed their blood to oppose
apartheid’s brutality and to work for a just South Africa. We are then
committed to work side by side with others for the destruction of apartheid
society. (Call of Islam 1985, 4)
Thhis commitment to work with the other went
beyond a functional or utilitarian relationship with non-Muslims to the
acceptance of the theological legitimacy of other faiths. Thus, Imam Hassan
Solomon, then chairperson of the Call of Islam and now a Member of Parliament,
said:
All the
messengers of Allah formed a single brotherhood. Their message is essentially
one and their religion and teachings are one [...] Let us enter the future as
brothers and sisters in the struggle. May Allah [...] strengthen all the
believers in Him [emphasis mine] until freedom and justice is concrete for all
the oppressed in our country. (1985, 5)
I believe that this position has it basis in
the Qur’an and have discussed these in some length in my book, Qur’an, Liberation
and Pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld, 1997) First, the People of the Book, as
recipients of divine revelation were recognised as part of the ummah.
Addressing all the Prophets, the Qur'an says, "And surely this, your
community (ummah), is a single community." (Q. 23:52)_ The establishment
of a single ummah with diverse religious expressions was also explicit in the
Charter of Medina concluded between the Prophet and the Jewish and Christian
communities. Second, in two of the most significant social areas, food and
marriage, the generosity of the qur'anic spirit is evident: the food of 'those
who were given the Book' was declared lawful for the Muslims and the food of
the Muslims lawful for them (Q. 5:5). Likewise, Muslim males were permitted to
marry "the chaste women of the People of the Book" (Q. 5:5). If
Muslims were to be allowed to co-exist with others in a relationship as
intimate as that of marriage then this seems to indicate quite explicitly that
enmity is not to be regarded as the norm in Muslim-other relations. Third, in
the area of religious law, the norms and regulations of the Jews and of the
Christians were upheld (Q. 5:47) and even enforced by the Prophet when he was
called upon to settle disputes among them (Q. 5:42-3). Fourth, the sanctity of
the religious life of the adherents of other revealed religions is underlined
by the fact that the first time that permission for the armed struggle was
given was to ensure the preservation of this sanctity; "But for the fact
that God continues to repel some people by means of others, cloisters,
churches, synagogues and mosques, [all places] wherein the name of God is
mentioned, would be razed to the ground" (Q. 22:40).
Thhe qur’anic recognition of religious pluralism
is not only evident from the acceptance of the other as legitimate
socio-religious communities but also from an acceptance of the spirituality of
the other and salvation through that otherness. The preservation of the
sanctity of the places of worship alluded to above was thus not merely in order
to preserve the integrity of a multi-religious society in the manner which
contemporary states may want to protect places of worship because of the role
that they play in the culture of a particular people. Rather, it was because it
was Allah, the God which represented the ultimate for many of these religions,
and who is acknowledged to be above the diverse outward religio-cultural
expressions of that service, who was being worshipped therein. That there were
people in other faiths who sincerely recognised and served Allah is made even
more explicit in the following text:
Not all
of them are alike; among them is a group who stand for the right and keep
nights reciting the words of Allah and prostrate themselves in adoration before
Him. They have faith in Allah and in the Last Day; they enjoin what is good and
forbid what is wrong, and vie one with another in good deeds. And those are
among the righteous. (Q. 4:113)
Soouth African progressive Muslims who were
actively involved in the liberation struggle and who valued their South
Africanness are clamoring for a new 'urf',
custom – often cultural and a basis of jurisprudence, rooted in our South
Africanness. Intrinsic to this new 'urf
is the 'humanum', the truly human, as
an ethical criterion. This notion is invoked to justify a liberal democratic
ethos that is really un-African in the same way that Islam is being used to
justify the universal values of human rights and democracy which have little to
do with the socio-cultural hinterland of Islam.
Ammong the fruits of South Africa’s long march
out of Egypt are our new constitution and the Bill of Rights, which are
arguably the most “progressive” in the world. In addition to guaranteeing all
the rights enshrined in the United Nations' Declaration on Human Rights, the
constitution specifically prohibits "discrimination on the grounds of
race, gender, sex, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orientation, age,
disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture or language." Christians,
Hindus, Jews, Communists, feminists, lesbians and gays were also an intrinsic
part of the struggle. At the altar of maximum unity among the oppressed, their
presence was passed over in silent discomfort. If Muslims have arrived, then
they have as well (and I am not suggesting that there are no Muslims in their
ranks), as the protection against discrimination on the basis of gender or
sexual orientation in the Bill of Rights testifies. Gay rights, Freedom of
choice for pregnant women, and the abolition of the death penalty are but some
of the principles viewed as “unpleasant fellow passengers” who walked in when
the doors of diversity were flung open.
Ass I indicated earlier, the distinctness of Muslim
identity is valued in the new dispensation; we have arrived, but so have
others. We have fought for freedom, declared that the struggle was a Jihad, and
invoked one Qur'anic text after the other to spur the believers on to battle
for freedom. Rather belatedly, we are beginning to discover that freedom is
indivisible and, for some of us somewhat frightening; freedom also implies the
right of others to be, and we do not always like the face of that otherness.
When most Muslims rejoice in the new recognition of the legal rights of all
four wives in a polygamous marriage – something quite “bizarre” by western
public standards – then the
uncelebrated flip side of the coin is the recognition of gay marriages – something
equally “bizarre” by Muslim public standards.[9]
Appartheid theology has alerted us to the
relationship between exclusivist and conservative political ideology and
conservative theology (and to the selective invoking of a kind of morality that
is rather vocal on woman as evil and on sex and silent on hunger and
injustice.). Many of us who transcended the boundaries of a useful but
shortsighted anti-apartheid Islamic theology have long since known that sooner
or later we would have to confront the full implications of a new and
inclusivist sense of morality forged within a struggle for human rights.
Whhile Muslims have every right to articulate
the Islamic view of personal morality, it is important to understand that this
morality is intrinsically related to a comprehensive Islamic moral‑ethico
worldview. In the same way that one does not demand amputating the hands of
thieves in a poverty ridden society, one cannot insist on capital punishment as
the norm in a society which is not governed by the laws and values of Islam.
The Shari’ah injunctions and Islamic morality are parts of an ever developing
whole and, while the fundamental principles of tawhid and justice are eternal,
the way that these are to be concretised in society has always been subject to
human interpretation. To isolate the rules from their context and argue for
their artificial transplantation into a non‑Islamic society is to reduce
an entire worldview to a set of punishments.
Thhere are two major challenges which confront
the advocates for diversity in Islam dealing with our own tradition and in the
broader context wherein this diversity is articulated. The first is essentially
theological and the second essentially political.
Wiith ubuntu
– the notion of the eternal indebtedness to the other, “I am who I am because
you are who are”, and the humanum – to hold sacred the essentially human inside
each person- elevated to the level of
ethical criteria, what happens to the 'will of Allah' as expounded in the
Qur'an and elaborated in the Prophet Precedent (Sunnah)? And what happens to
the notion of human beings as sacred because of the Spirit of Allah blown into
them and not just because they are human beings?
Plluralism is not ideologyless. It is part of a
discourse founded and nurtured in critical scholarship which in turn functions
as an extension of areligious - even anti religious - western scholarship.
Western scholarship, although not physically limited to the west is but an
extension of a whole culture which has clear hegemonic interests over the
so-called under-developed world. Isn't it correct to say that the
post-modernist Muslim has really sold out hook(er?), line and sinker to
neo-colonialism - particularly of the cultural type? Tolerance and co-existence
are OK for the modernist Muslim. Pluralism, however, goes beyond this; it talks
about valuing differences and being enriched by it. As I addressed myself in a
forthcoming book (On Being a Muslim,
Oxford: Oneworld, January 1999)
Spell
out for us how shirk (associationism/polytheism) enriches Islam, what we have
to learn from ancestor veneration in African Traditional Religion, what
Hinduism and its multiple gods have to teach us. How different is your
post-modernity with its absence of boundaries, overlapping gods, and a million
ideas from shirk? Has it occurred to you that perhaps it is you, your likes and
the post-modernity which breeds you all that require scrutiny and re-thinking
rather than Islam? [¼]
Your
project is re-thinking Islam [¼]. Where do you draw the line?
Post-modernity does not believe in such a thing as lines, does it? Tell us
about your boundaries. Where do your equality and justice stop if they do stop
anywhere? Gay marriages? Women leading the Jumu'ah salah? A Hindu priest
conducting a nikah in a mosque (with a bit of fire to add character)? In fact,
why have any kind of marriages? Isn't that too defined a relationship, too
confined a union for post-modernity? Why have salah at all? It's a tradition
with little rational basis, isn't it? What's the point of one ruku' and two
sajdahs. Why don't you post-modernists not just cancel the whole thing? Come
on, tell us what's on agenda.
You're
pretty neat with all your questions and merely outlining frameworks for possible
solutions, what Mohammed Arkoun calls 'heuristic lines of thinking'. I smell
that underneath all your 'frameworks for possible solutions' lie definite
answers, answers for which you don't have the guts to stand up and be counted.
Att the heart of all of these questions is the
issue of drawing lines. The assumption that one can draw lines and that these
will actually have any impact on our theology or law is problematic. We have
this notion that sometime ago the door of ijtihad
(creative juristic thinking) was closed. (When, on what date, at what time and
by whom?) There is no definable moment where any one person - even the most
conservative - stops thinking other than the unconsciousness of death. Human
beings will always be confronted with new dilemmas and challenges based on new
knowledge and deeper awareness. Removing one's shoes, today accepted as an
intrinsic part of our prayer preparations, was never practiced by the Prophet.
How does one fast from dawn to dusk when you end up at a place where the sun
does not set for six months? Are you a traveller, and therefore entitled to
reduce your prayer units or to abstain from fasting, when a concord plane in a
very comfortable first class journey escorts you in whiz thousands of miles
away?
Iss the haunting question of drawing lines not
rooted in our desperation for safety and security rather than in any sensible
appreciation of the inherently dynamic nature of the human condition? One of
the great thinkers in the Muslim world today, Dr Ebrahim Moosa, always answers
"Allah; Allah is the limit" when I ask him this question. I am not
entirely convinced that this is the best answer. Perhaps his sense of certainty
about Allah is greater than mine, perhaps he is less afraid of tumbling off
from whatever it is that all of us
"re-thinkers" are on. However, for the moment, I too have to do with
that as a response.
Heere I want to address myself to the broader
context within which diversity and the quest for pluralism is pursued.
Inn the post-apartheid South Africa there is
much talk from the economically powerful about letting bygones be bygones.
Whites hardly attended any of the hearings of the country’s Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, and are now loud in their clamour to “forget the
past so that we can have peace”. Our country desperately needs to have its
people together and to have peace, but peace at what price? Most whites in
South Africa are committed to change because they believe nothing will change.
The fundamental economic injustices of the Apartheid era have remained and will
ensure that the "peace" in the new South Africa is based on the
principle that “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. It is not that I do not yearn for these or
that I do not work towards them. Nor, I would like to believe, is my own life
bereft of these. I am, however, concerned with the naiveté which these terms
are bandied about. Like the unexamined life that is not worth living, the
unexamined diversity is not worth experiencing.
Whhen we seek space for our own culture and ways
to communicate it to the other, then we have to live in a world where
individuals are less and less formed by “the wealth of their traditions and their
own cultures”, but in one where the market is so all-pervasive that all of our
so-called freedom of choices are steered into particular directions - all of
them ultimately serving the market and impoverishing the human spirit. While one must guard against the
essentialising of community and culture, even more so against glossing over the
multifarious injustices often intrinsic to these ranging from xenophobia to
homophobia, the truth is that globalisation and the celebration of individual
liberty – the core of modernity - are not ideologically neutral. The
fundamental question in diversity is thus not how our cultures and traditions
can be integrated within a new unquestioned mainstream constituted by a process
of globalisation, but what is concealed by globalisation.
Wiithin the South African context, these
freedoms were already articulated in the Freedom Charter adopted by the ANC
about 50 years ago and were intrinsically connected to the broad-based nature
of the liberation struggle. It is however, no coincidence that the liberal
democratic notions of individual freedom should find themselves most forcefully
expressed in South Africa, the most economically developed African country.
Foor me as Muslim theologian, this represents
the single most significant ideological difficulty. I can only truly be who I
am in my unceasing transforming self within the context of freedom. In today’s
world this freedom is intrinsically connected to all the ideological baggage of
the modern industrial state along with the Coca colonisation of global
consciousness through a process of relentless MacDonaldisation. In other words,
my freedom has been acquired within the bosom of capitalism along with all of
its hegemonic designs over my equally valued cultural and religious traditions.
And so I am afraid of the Other which for me is not another community or other
individuals, but one which has entered my consciousness, the intangible and
faceless market forces, my eternal companion in my back pocket in the form of
my credit cards.
Inn a critique of the way some Muslim
fundamentalists engage in a blanket denunciation of modernity, Bassam Tibi
speaks about the “confusion between two different, even if intrinsically
interrelated phenomena: the cultural project of modernity and the institutional
dimension in the globalisation processes of modernity.” He describes cultural
modernity as an “emanicipatory project which has resulted in the liberation of
mankind from oppressive traditions and from their quasi-natural religious
status” while “globalised institutional modernity has been an instrument of
power to establish Western dominance over the rest of the world” (1992: 175-6).[10]
I am unconvinced of this neat distinction.
First, does this globalisation not have faces other than that of “emancipation”
when, for example, one sees how “aggressive petro-fundamentalism” in some of
the Gulf States with their “primitive messages of obedience (ta’ah),
intolerance, misogyny and xenophobia – is inconceivable without the liberal
democracies strategic support of conservative Islam” (Mernissi, 1996:39). Far
from it being “one of the most puzzling marriages in the 20th century”
postulated by Mernissi, is this not merely the reverse side of globalisation?
Second, this “emancipatory project”, when viewed outside the context of
globalised institutional modernity, frees people as objects in relentless
marketing strategies. (In its crudest form, we see the abuse of women as sex
objects without which you cannot market a box of matches). Finally, while linking
“oppressive traditions” to their “quasi-natural religious status” may be valid,
the inability to point out how religion has also regularly served to
destabilise and eliminate oppressive traditions – from infanticide in
pre-Islamic Arabia to racism in Apartheid South Africa – effectively
essentialises religion in pretty much the same way that fundamentalists do.
(“Islam is the problem” versus “Islam is the solution”)_
Myy major difficulty with a theoretically
postulated dislocated or decontextualised passion for diversity and pluralism
is that it so easily becomes a kind of socio-intellectual venture that often claims to not take sides. “This is the
perfect ideology for the modern bourgeois mind. Such a pluralism makes a genial
confusion in which one tries to enjoy the pleasures of difference without ever
committing oneself to any particular vision of resistance, liberation and
hope” (Tracy 1987, 90).
Eaarlier on in this paper I spoke about how
Muslims slip away under the cover of darkness and how this slipping away is not
just reflective of multiple identities or sub-sets of a single religio-cultural
identity or a departure into the night but also a descent into a globalised
religion; that of the market..
I recently came across an unpublished article
by David Loy that reflects what many engaged religionists in South Africa have
been sensing as we witness the way our newly liberated country’s economic
policies are being determined by “global forces”, the concomitant downscaling
of social expenditure by the government and the fact that diversity and
pluralism are not worth much if what you have are jobless, homeless and hungry.[11]
Thhe Market, he argues, “is becoming the first
truly world religion, binding all corners of the globe into a world-view and
set of values” that has “become the most successful religion of all time,
winning more converts more quickly than any previous belief system in human
history”. Because we insist on seeing the values of the market as “secular” we
have not been able to “offer what is most needed, a meaningful challenge to the
aggressive proselytising of market capitalism” (n.d.: 1)
Until
the last few centuries there has been little genuine distinction between church
and state, between sacred authority and secular power, and that cozy
relationship continues today: far from maintaining an effective regulatory or
even neutral position, the U.S. government has become the most powerful
proponent of the religion of market capitalism as the way to live, and indeed
it may have little choice in so far as it is now a pimp dependent upon skimming
the cream off market profits. (n.d.:6)
Thhe market is not just an economic system but a
religion - yet not a very good one, for it can thrive only by promising a
secular salvation that it never quite supplies. Its academic discipline, the
“social science” of economics, is better understood as a theology pretending to
be a science. (n.d.:10)
Unnderpinned by globalisation, the prevailing
form of capitalism is every bit ferocious as the most intractable forms of
religious fundamentalism. It seeks to convert all other cultures in its image,
utilising them for consolidating the system. “The most insidious aspect of it
is the fact that it presents itself as the only way, and appears to claim that
outside its pale there is no salvation for the world, but only hell-fire of
destruction, or the limbo of “primitivism”.” (Wilfred, 1995)
In the face
of threats – real and imagined – the aspect of intolerance, resistance and the
lack of any real sense of pluralism inherent in globalisation comes out most
vehemently. The enemy is then painted
in the vilest forms and in darkest colours.
The threat to the consortium of advanced capitalist countries could be,
for example, the “illegal immigrants” storming at the portals of “fortress
Europe”; it could be Islam- with
haunting memories of Crusades -, or it could be the challenges posed by the
cultures and traditions of Third World peoples. (ibid.)
Wiithin the context of the enormous injustice
suffered by people all over the world today, the people of conscience and
compassion have a moral calling to disturb the peace. For us, a far greater
requirement than inter-faith and cross-cultural dialogue in the world today is
inter-faith and cross-cultural solidarity for a just and human world. It is
good for us to understand the other, to know about their beliefs and to
understand where they come from. It is, however, only on the battlefield for
human dignity for all of God's people, for freedom and justice where we will
see and experience the point of your faith and what it actually does for you in
your life.
Iff I may return to the more obviously
theological by way of conclusion.
Thhe Qur'an does not regard everyone and their
ideas as equal, but proceeds from the premise that the idea of inclusiveness is
superior to that of exclusiveness; that justice must replace injustice, that
the mujahidin (those who engage in
struggle) are above the qa’idin.
(those who remain idle) Diversity is not the mere willingness to let every idea
and practice exist. Instead it was geared towards specific objectives such as
freeing humankind from injustice and servitude to other human beings so that it
may be free to worship God.
Thhe responsibility of calling humankind to God
and to the path of God thus remains. The task of the present day Muslims is to
discern what this means in every age and every society. Who are to be invited?
Who are to be taken as allies in this calling? How does one define the path of
God? These are particularly pertinent questions in a society where definitions
of self and other are determined by justice and injustice, oppression and
liberation and where the test of one's integrity as a human being dignified by
God is determined by the extent of one's commitment to defend that dignity and
to become a subject in history – a doer rather than the object where things are
eternally done to you, subjected only to God as mediated by your conscience.
Ahhmed, Akbar. 1988. Discovering Islam: Making
Sense of Muslim History and Society. London: Routledge.
Ahhmed, Akbar. 1992. Post-Modernism and Islam:
Predicament and Promise. London and New York: Routledge
Ahhmad, Barakat. 1979. Muhammad and the Jews: A
Re-Examination. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House.
Caall of Islam. 1985. Information Brochure.
Fordsburg: Call of Islam.
Daavids, Achmat. 1984. 'The Revolt of the
Malays: A Study of the Reactions of the Cape Muslims to the Smallpox Epidemics
of the Nineteenth Century Cape Town.' Studies in the History of Cape Town.
5:55-87.
Essack, Farid. 1997. Qur’an Liberation and
Pluralism. Oxford: Oneworld.
Haampson, A.R. 1934. The Mission to Moslems in
Cape Town. The Moslem World 26:271-277.
Looy, David. n.d. Religion and the Market. n.p.
Maayer, Ann Elizabeth. n.d. “Current Muslim
Thinking on Human Rights” in An-Na`im, Abdullahi A. & Deng, Francis M.
(eds). Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Washington: The
Brookings Institution.
Maazrui, Ali. 1986. The Africans: A Triple
Heritage. London: BBC Publications
Meernissi, Fatima. 1996. Palace Fundamentalism
and Liberal Democracy: Oil, Arms and Irrationality” in (ed.) de Alcantara, Cynthia H.. Social
Futures, Global Visions. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Naasr, Seyyed H. 1988. Islam and the Plight of
Modern Man. Lahore: Suhail Academy.
Saalem, Paul E. n.d. A Critique of Western
Conflict Resolution from a Non-Western Perspective. n.p.
Saamuels, J., Sardien, T. & Shefer, T. 1997.
‘Anti Bias Work: Creating Space’ in Qubeka Post-Conference Document. Cape Town:
Early Learning Resource Unit.
Soolomon, Hassan. 1985. What is the Ummah to
do?' Muslim News, August, p.3.
Taalbi, M. 1984. “Islam and the West: Beyond
Confrontations, Ambiguities and Complexes” in Encounters 108.
Tiibi, Bassam. 1992. “Islamization as a Claim to
De-Westernization: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Challenge of Cultural
Modernity” in van Gelder, Geert J. & de Moor, Ed (eds.). Orientations 1,
167-178.
Tiibi, Bassam. n.d. International Relations and
the Universality of Human Rights as a Background for Islam’s Predicament with
the Western Concept of Human Rights. n.p.
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Hermeneutics, Religion and Hope. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
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[1] In a fortcoming publication. Religious & Cultural Diversity in the World of Islam. Ed. AA Said, University of Washington Press.
[2]
In a challenging essay,
Salem challenges conventional notions of Western approaches to conflict
resolution and points out that its “theorists and practitioners operate within
a macro-political context that they may overlook, but which colors their
attitudes and values. This seems remarkably striking from an outsider’s point
of view and is largely related to the West’s dominant position in the world.
All successful “empires” develop an inherent interest in peace. The ideology of
peace reinforces a status quo that is favourable to the dominant power. The
Romans, for example, preached a Pax Romana, the British favoured a Pax
Britannica, and the Americans today pursue – consciously or not – a Pax
Americana. Conflict and bellicosity is useful – indeed essential – in building
empires, but an ideology of peace and conflict resolution is clearly more
appropriate for its maintenance.”
[3]
The concept of Muslim minorities is not without its complexities; in
Mogul India, while they were in a numerical minority, they could hardly be described
as a religious minority with the usual connotations of marginalization. In
other countries such as Ethiopia and Tanzania, they may be a numerical majority
while being on the political margins of society.
[4]
According to the 1991 population census, 166 609 and 157 801 Indians and
Coloreds respectively indicated that they were Muslim. 9 048 Blacks and 1 697
whites also listed Islam as their religion. The total population for that year
was 38 012 000. The 1996 census records 553 585 Muslims out of a total
population of 39 806 598 which makes
for about 1,3% of the population.
[5] Where both communities live in roughly
equal numbers in the same city such as Kimberly in the Northern Cape, a combination
of local consultation on issues such as the sighting of the moon and cultural
allegiances – such as in the settling of divorces – will determine the outcome
of the issue at hand. E.g., in the province of Gauteng, Muslims from a ‘Malay
background’ would often call in the Cape based Muslim Judicial Council to
assist in the mediation of disputes and ignore the (Indian) Jami’atul Ulama.
[6]
The term ummah occurs nine
times in the Meccan context and forty-seven times in that understood to be
Medinan. It is used to refer exclusively to the socio-historical community of
Muslims (Q. 2:143; 3:110), to 'a group of people' (from among the Muslims in Q.
3:104 and from among the Christians in Q. 5:66), community in the broad sense
(Q. 6:108; 7:34; 10.47), to an individual (Q.16:120-1). In the verse cited in
the text above, it refers to the communities of all the Prophets. For much of
the Medinan period the term was used to describe "the totality of
individuals bound to one another irrespective of their colour, race or social
status, by the doctrine of submission to one God" (Ahmad 1979, 38-9).
Looking at the way the term ummah has
today acquired an exclusivist meaning, Ahmad says "the main difficulty in
dealing with the history of ideas is that terms are more permanent than their
definitions" (ibid. 1979, 39).
[7]
Samuels, Sardien and Shefer narrate an interesting account of an
exercise whereby participants were asked to bring along something of symbolic
value to them and explain that value to the rest of the participants. One woman
participant had brought a blanket along, which was draped over her knees. She
spoke of the blanket in the following manner: “This blanket was given to me by
my mother-in-law, who lives in a rural area, when I got married. When I visit
my family, I wear the blanket around my body and it becomes a symbol of my
status as a married mature woman. But when I am here, in the urban areas,
mostly I use this blanket over my legs to keep me warm.” (1997, 41) In the
varying functions of her blanket are reflected the different layers of her
identity.
[8] Ahmed speaks about how Muslims had
“consciously to define and redefine themselves in terms of Islam” and how Islam
easily incorporated local pre-Islamic cultures. “In Indonesia the Wayang or shadow
theatre, the cyclic of plays in the rural areas adapted from stories from the
Hindu epics of the Ramayana and Mahabarata, continues with the introduction of
new Islamic characters. Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle, was a favorite character.
While Islamic characters were introduced in traditional plays, pre-Islamic
heroes were updated and adjusted in Islam. Tradition among the Yennger of east
Java has Ajisaka, famous for his wisdom and beauty, visiting the prophet in
Makkah to obtain his spiritual knowledge. But Ajisaka does not become a Muslim.
Indeed impressed by Ajisaka’s ability to make himself invisible, the Prophet
declares, “You will be my equal [¼]”. Another example of the influence of
Islam is provided by the popular dance. Although the traditional forms of
dancing remained on the Indonesian
islands, now after Islam, the legs are neither kicked high nor wide open
as shown in the sculptures of Hindu Borobudur” (Ahmad, 1988, 109).
[9] In many ways this dilemma is reflected
in the developed world where many progressive Christian bodies and liberal
churches are opening their doors to Muslims in the spirit of theological
dialogue and solidarity against racism, xenophobia etc. Little do these Muslims realize that a part
of this opening up also extends to gender, and sexually marginalized groups as
well environmental concerns.
[10]
Tibi is, in fact,
explicit about this essentialization when he says: “In my view, scholars who
exclusively stress the diversity of Islam fail to see that Muslims, be they in
the Middle East, South Asia or black Africa, share a virtually consistent
common worldview” (1992:11). This kind of reasoning has, even if unintended,
the effect of placing those Muslims committed to pluralism outside the realm of
the faithful.
[11] Loy cites UNDP statistics that indicate that in 1960 countries of the North were about twenty times richer than those of the South. In 1990 - after vast amounts of aid, trade, loans, and catch-up industrialization by the South - North countries had become fifty times richer. The richest twenty percent of the world’s population now have an income about 150 times than that of the poorest twenty percent, a gap that continues to grow. According to the UN Development Report for 1996, the world’s 358 billionaires are wealthier than the combined annual income of countries with 45% of the world’s people. As a result, a quarter million children die of malnutrition or infection every week, while hundreds of millions more survive in a limbo of hunger and deteriorating health (n.d.:1,2).