ISLAM IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

www.ghazali.net

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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Abdus Sattar Ghazali, born in 1938, is a professional journalist, with Master's degree in Political Science from the P unjab 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

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 contr ol 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

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 selfinterest, 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

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 onefifth 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.

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 base d 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

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 reenact, 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

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 engendered 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 an d 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 economic by the system, cultural and of the crisis with of identity so-called encounter the

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.

10

CHAPTER I: THE ISLAMIC WORLD TODAY

The 20th century will be remembered in the collective Mus lim 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, Isla m 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

11

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

12

and theories. Most of the knowledge we live by today has been acquired through this method largely in the last 300 years. The nonWestern 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' tyrants 2 , 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

13

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

14

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

15

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 real m. 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 perpetua te 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

16

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.

17

Islamic

resurgence,

as

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

18

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

19

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

20

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 politica l mythology? Weekly Middle East International - London 4.3.1994 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

21

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

22

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. Bu t, 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

23

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

Wests 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

24

fashioned the modern states. Western power, too, has integrated Muslim 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 th e international law and world peace. economies into the new western-dominated world

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 b y those countries whose interests and sovereignty are most at stake.

25

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, t he 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

26

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 developmen t 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 i mmoral. 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 a nd 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,

27

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

28

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."

29

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 glo bal 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

30

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.

31

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; t o 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

32

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 essenc e 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 are borrow different from from Hippler: us and In a certain sense you could in call his argument 'culturally racist'. The Muslims (or Chinese) therefore dangerous. Unlike 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. Hippler Only military elaborates solutions this can promise very result. 11

further

point

convincingly:

Huntington's image of Islam (or of other Asian cultures) is hardly original. It follows the current stereotypes and clichs of popular literature and some of the media. Yet he manages brilliantly to

33

embellish these repeated fears pseudo-scientifically and elevate them ideologically. His success is in making the old clichs 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) whos pre-eminence as a world power he is set on serving and maintaining. The real subject of hi s 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 styl e 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

34

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 potenti al conflict. However, the major conflicts of the 20th century contradict Huntington's assertion. Walter C. Clemens 14 enumerates major conflicts of the century to refute Huntington's "exaggeration": "Cultural influences may distort our perception and aggra vate 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 nonOrthodox 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,

35

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 Kirkpatrick 15 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

36

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 Kawato 16 , has to say on the issue of values: Perhaps the debate regarding value differences reflects the ongoing 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 expans ion 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,

37

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

Madhubani 17 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 Hunt ington well documents. Two key sentences in Huntington's essay, when put

38

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 nation al 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 Weeks 18 explains: "Sameul P. Huntington has resurrected an old controversy in the study of international affairs: the relationship between "microcosmic" and "macrocosmic" proce sses. 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

39

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 fr om 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 -today, 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."

40

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. Wi thin these troubled walls, Samuel P. Huntington's essay "The Clash of Civilizations?" is bound to resonate.

41

Reference :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Jochen Hippler, The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, p -147 Ibid. p-20,21 Ibid. p-57 Ibid. p-67 Ibid. p-11 Schulze, lecture in Colone, September 1991 Hippler op. cit. p-146 Cited by Khalid Bin Sayeed, Western Dominance and Political Islam, p -17 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

42

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 mid1980s 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

43

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 te rm 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 to o 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 lowintensity 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

44

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

45

"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

46

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.

47

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

48

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 divideand-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 occupati on 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 adminis trations and a US Congress which in the 1980s appropriated a war chest of billions of dollars, covered the recruiting, training and arming of

49

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 Musli m 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 CIA 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

50

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 Westerncorrupted 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 197 7 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

51

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, pr esented 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

52

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

53

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

Wests 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 I srael when that country ignores UN resolutions to leave Lebanon or take back Palestinian Islamic activists it forcibly expelled. 15

54

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 n eighbor'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 I raq 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.

55

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

56

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 a rrive 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.

57

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 developi ng 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 comprehensib le 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

58

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

59

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 inherit ed 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

60

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

61

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,

62

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-voteone-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,

63

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

64

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

65

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

66

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

67

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 som ething 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

68

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 th is 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.

69

Reference:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Jochen Hippler, The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, p -4 Ibid. p-4 Ibid. p-4 The New York Times Magazine, 31 May 1992 John Esposito, The Islamic Threat - Myth or Reality? New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p-175 Jeff Hynes, Religion in Third World Politics - p-3 Hippler, op. cite. p-127 Ibid. p-131 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

70

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

71

Christian Church as opposed to modern thought influenced by scientific knowledge. Originally fundamentalism arose in the USA and Great Britain as a Protestant supporters counter-movement saw themselves and to as the Enlightenment overrun a by of and to modernization in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its being As social the developments such as the consequences of the American Civil War, industrialization modernization. result 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 th eir 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 However, fundamentalism is respected in centre-right politics.

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

72

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 clichs 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, 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 a s 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 medieval backwardness and antipathy towards

73

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 opposi tion; 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

74

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

75

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

76

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 Wes terners 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 illiteracy 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

77

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

78

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 ma ny 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 s everal 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

79

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 agrari an-feudal society into an industrial society. This profound socio-economic change is essentially embedded in the fast-developing capitalist

80

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

81

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 fa cto 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

82

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

83

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 government all opposition political parties. The Jordanian "has argues opposition figure, Labib Kamhawi,

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

84

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

85

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 do es

86

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

87

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,

88

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

89

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 Reacting to Westernization, have been challenged to the core.

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.

90

Reference:
1 2 Jeff Hynes, Religion In Third World Politics - p-16 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 James Veitch, Muslim Activism, Islamization or Fundamentalism: Exploring the issues, Islamic Journal - Islamabad Vol. 32, No. 3, Autumn 1993 Jochen Hippler/Andrea Lueg, The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, Pluto Press, London, 1995 p-7 Jeff Hynes, op. cit. p-64 Ibid. p-79 Ibid. p-149 Ibid. p-107 John Voll, Fundamentalism i n the Sunni Arab World: Egypt and the Sudan Chicago, 1992 - p-347 cited by Hippler op. cit.

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

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 Rawalpindi - 26.5.1993 - The News

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

91

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

92

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 i n 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 They 60 million fundamentalist or 'born-again' the archconservative Christians in the USA, i.e. more than a fifth of the population. provided the core support for 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

93

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

94

"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

95

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 s tate -- 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

96

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

97

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 f acilitators 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 religio-political India in satisfying which popular obviously socio-economic encompassed aspirations. A result has been that each country experienced resurgence, 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

98

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

99

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 challen ge 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 type s, 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

100

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

101

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

102

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 wa r 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

103

holy Warriors did not go home to open bakeries or flower shops. Determined to destroy their own governments and Westerncorrupted 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

104

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

105

Reference:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Anthony Hyman, Muslim Fundamentalism (Conflict Studies) - p-1 Jeff Hynes, Religion in Third World Polics - p-95 Hayman, op. cit. p-1 Haynes, op. cit. p-145 Ibid. p-31 Ibid. p-149-150 Ibid. p-10 Ibid. p-37 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

106

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 judgmen t) has

107

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.

108

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

109

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.

110

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 Eu ropean 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.

111

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

112

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.

113

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.

114

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 Ahma d 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

115

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

116

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

117

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

118

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

119

authority' are surely to exercise their authority in the se cularmundane 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

120

Muslim liberals to interpret the foundational legal principles, in t he 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

121

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

122

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 w ere, in fact, the exponents of the doctrine of Ta'lil or agnosticism. It appears, therefore that the Islam of Muhammad contains nothing in itself

123

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.

124

Reference:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Abduh's Lectures on Theology, p-42, quoted by Al Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age Tafsir al-Manar vol. II Cairo, 1373 p. 30 Tafsir al-Manar vol. IV Cairo, 1375 p.240 Tafsir al-Manar vol. V Cairo, 1374 p.189 Turkish Nationalism and Western Civilization, Ziya Gokalp, New York 1959, p305 Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Iqbal, Sheikh Mohammad Ashraf, Lahore, 1960 p-146 Ibid. p-146 Ibid. p-179 The Spirit of Islam, Syed Amir Ali, p-182

10 Ibid. p-184 11 Ibid. p-435

125

CHAPTER VII: ISLAM AND MODERNIZATION Part II

SHEIKH ALI ABDUL RAZIQ (b. 1888) S heikh 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

126

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, whos

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

127

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

128

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

129

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

130

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 Shariah 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 aris e. 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

131

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 Kala m 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

132

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 civilizati on. 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 persons 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

133

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

134

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

135

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

136

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 wo uld 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

137

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 ha d 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,

138

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.

139

Maududi declares that Islam stands in absolute opposition to all these ideologies since in Islam man is taught, as hi s 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, 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 unlawful exploitation and inequality reign

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

140

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 go od 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

141

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.

142

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

143

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

144

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

145

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

146

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 betw een man and God, nor is it characterised by the experience of an individual of a subjective nature, but is essential a code of life,

147

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 t o 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 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 we shall have to admit that the first link of this chain comes into existence

148

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

149

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

150

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.

151

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

152

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 a nd 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

153

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

154

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

155

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

156

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

157

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

158

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, cite d 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

159

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 17 th , 18 th 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 con sidering 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

160

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 w ere 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 1 st /7 th and throughout the 2 nd /8 th 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

161

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"; endemic
69

This comprehensive study of the Quran and amongst the Muslims between the

various Islamic institutions would go a long way in clearing up the confusion general/universal Islamic principles and their specific/historical application in the past. Stopping at this point would be use less, 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

162

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 societybuilding. 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

163

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 al so 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.

164

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.

165

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 an d 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

166

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

167

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 " whos 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.

168

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 wellknown '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.

169

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

170

have wanted to get rid of the status-quo vis--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 m en, like Taha Hussain, even recanted openly in their later writings and expressed serious misgivings about Western civilization and its fruits. 76

171

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

172

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. Fo r 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

173

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

174

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--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

175

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.

176

Reference:
67 "Colonalism is reponsible for the dearth of the desireable mea ns 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 Mazharudd in 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

177

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 ut ter 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

178

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 sh owing 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

179

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, ju stice, 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.

180

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:

181

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 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 of stereotypes: Arab Terrorist, Islamic Fundamentalist, Oppressed Muslim Women, Sword of Islam,

182

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 terr orism. 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.

183

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 43nation 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 chilledThe perception that the US backs Israel uncriticallyhas 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 worldis Pan-Islamic. It is 'global intifada,' embracing not only the Islamic

184

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 leadersh ip 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

185

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 pha se, 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,

186

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, Through religious their revival words means and asserting they and also exhibiting Islam's particularism. There is very little emphasis on its universalism. deeds 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

187

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

188

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

189

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

190

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

191

Reference:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Islamic Resurgence: Challenges, Directions & Future perspectives - A round table with Khurshid Ahmad, p-61 Jocehn Hippler & Andrea Lueg, The Next Threat: Western Percep tion of Islam, p-155 Abdul Munir Yaacob & Ahmad Faiz Abul Rahman, Towards a positive Islamic World-View, p-68 Randa Abdel Fattah, Muslims and the Media, Al Nahdah, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Vol. 16, No. 3-4, 1996 A Kuwait News Agency Report, Arab Times, Kuwait 8.11.98 Richard Nixon, Seize the Moment, p-194,95 Ibid. p-20 Esposito, The Islamic Threat (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) p -182 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

192

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 th reat 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

193

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 postindependence 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

194

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

195

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.

196

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

197

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 enlightened handling approach of the is case has re-emphasized sustained by an the which further

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

198

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

199

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

200

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.

201

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-iAzam 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 Constitu ent 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 t he 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

202

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 fost er 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 1 97 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

203

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-eIslami 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 8year 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 sentime nt 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

204

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

205

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-ulUlema-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 deferen ce 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.

206

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

207

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

208

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-

209

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 socalled 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

210

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."

211

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

212

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 exerc ised 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 chea p 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-iUlema 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

213

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 highway since the implementation theft from of Islamic pumps, punishments in 1979. This is notably in crimes against property, which include robbery, petrol 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.

214

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 -yearold blind girl, who alleged rape by her employer and his son was convicted for adultery under the Zina Ordinance whilst, the rapists

215

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 appea l, 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.

216

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

217

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 fl ow 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,

218

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 mosq ue 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

219

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.

220

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.

221

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

222

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, 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? which throughout centuries was the cause of

retardation, was transformed into a builder and energizer of

223

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 consciousne ss 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 ru n towards our "metamorphosed" past and religion, as well as towards

224

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

225