The West and Islam: Clash Points and Dialogues
Features of the New Islamic Discourse: Some Introductory Remarks
Dr. Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri
(Ain
Shams University)
Some
people tend to view Islam as if it were a monolithic or one-dimensional
entity. Islam is undoubtedly the faith of transcendental monotheism,
the belief in Allah, (the one and only God), who transcends both man
and nature. But monotheism does not lead to monism; on the contrary,
it leads to plurality and diversity. For from a strictly Islamic point
of view, except for God, everything else exists in variety. Therefore,
there is not one single Islamic discourse, but rather a variety of discourses
that manifest the various endeavors (ijtihad) of the Muslims, within
a specific time and place, to understand the world around them and to
interpret the Quran.
One may classify the Islamic discourse prevalent at the present time in the following manner:
1. A populist salvationist “messianic” discourse. This is the discourse of the overwhelming majority of the Muslim masses that have instinctively realized that the processes of modernization, secularization, and globalization do the umma (Muslim community) no good and bring no real reform. These masses have observed that these processes are in essence nothing but processes of Westernization, that rob the umma of its religious and cultural heritage, giving it nothing in return, and that have only led to further colonial hegemony and class polarization within society. Adhering and clinging to Islam, which they know well, the masses encapsulate themselves within their Islamic heritage, cry for help, and hope for salvation from Allah. But they are incapable of contributing new ideas or organizing political movements. Such a discourse frequently expresses itself in the form of spontaneous and, at times, violent acts of protest against all forms of radical Westernization and colonial invasion. But more often it expresses itself in the form of philanthropy, either at the individual level (giving money to the poor), or at the community level (building mosques, hospitals and schools or providing meals to the public, especially in Ramadan, etc.). The populist discourse is mainly the discourse of the poor and the marginal, but it is also the discourse of those wealthy members of society who appreciate their religious and cultural heritage, and who recognize that its loss would mean a loss of everything.
2. The political discourse. This is the discourse of some middle class professionals, academicians, students, and traders, who perceive the need for an Islamic action that can protect this umma. These people, having realized that political action is the means of achieving their objective, have set up or joined political organizations that do not resort to violence, and out of which youth and educational organizations may branch. Some of the bearers of this political discourse harbored, at one time, the illusion that taking over the central state would be the long sought panacea, and some of them did develop para-military organizations and try to infiltrate the armed forces and seize power by force. However, as of 1965, as will be shown later, there has been a general inclination toward working through existing legitimate political channels. Most of the bearers of this political discourse, at the present time, tend to restrict their activity to the political and/or educational sphere.
3. The intellectual discourse. This is the discourse that deals primarily with theoretical and intellectual issues.
This classification
does not mean that the three discourses exist in total isolation, each one
separate from the other. In fact, the populist and political discourses,
more often than not, merge into one another, and the same can be said
about the political and intellectual discourses. Notwithstanding the
common ground shared by the three kinds of discourse, we deem it useful,
from the analytical point of view, to assume their independence from
one another.
In addition to this synchronic system of classification, a chronological, diachronic classification might prove more relevant, from the standpoint of this paper.
1. The old Islamic discourse. This emerged as a direct and immediate reaction to the colonial invasion of the Muslim world, and prevailed until the mid-1960s.
2. The
new Islamic discourse. After an initial indefinite, marginalized period, this discourse began to assume a more definite form
in the mid-1960s, and started to move gradually toward the center.
Both discourses endeavored to provide an Islamic answer to the questions raised by modernization and colonization. Nevertheless there are radical points of divergence between them that stem from two interrelated points:
1. Their respective attitudes vis-à-vis Western modernity.
2. The
varying levels of comprehensiveness of outlook that each discourse has
developed.
This
paper focuses primarily on the old and the new intellectual Islamic
discourses, and to a much lesser degree, on the political discourse. It tries
to identify some of the salient characteristics of the new discourse.
Any intellectual or political movement must pause from time to time
to look critically at itself and to assess its performance so as to
be able to abstract some of its own nascent traits and crystallize them
into a relatively coherent system, then map its future course.
It
is worth noting that the first generation of Muslim reformists came
in contact with the modern Western cultural formation in a historical
era that is considerably different, in many aspects, from the present
one. It could be argued that the comprehensive secular paradigm, the
fundamental paradigm underlying the modern Western cultural formation,
has always occupied a central position in the conscience of
the modern Western
man and has always
molded
his view of the universe. It could also be
said that the imperialist aspects of Western modernity manifested themselves
only too clearly from the very beginning. All of these facts notwithstanding,
modern Western civilization viewed itself as a humanistic, man-centered
civilization, and
for some time maintained, at the level of vision
if not also at the level of practice, a sense of balance and faith in
absolute moral and human values. At the structural level, Western societies
long maintained a high level of social coherence
and solidarity. Family values, far from being an empty social slogan
remembered during election days, were a concrete social reality.
But
things changed. It might be useful, in this context, to conceive of
secularism not as a fixed paradigm, but rather as a dynamic paradigmatic
sequence that unfolds progressively in time and space. One can say that
by the end of the nineteenth century, many of the links that make up
this sequence had not yet materialized. Man’s private life and many
aspects of his public life were still beyond the reach of the processes
of secularization. In other words, Western man was a secularist only
in some aspects of his public life, but in his private life as well
as in many aspects of his public life, he was committed to moral and
human values, and, more often than not, to Christian religious values
and code of ethics. When the first generation of Islamic reformists,
the bearers of the old Islamic discourse, encountered this modern cultural
formation, they did not interact with a comprehensive secular civilization
but rather with a partially secular one. Whereas partial secularism
recognizes the validity and importance of values on the moral level,
and of the idea of totality on the epistemological level, comprehensive
secularism denies them as well as the very idea of transcendence. Many
of the negative aspects of Western modernity, which later
became
more or less a recurrent pattern and central phenomena, were isolated
events and marginal incidents that could be easily overlooked. Furthermore,
the Western critique of modernity and the Enlightenment had not yet
been crystallized, in spite of the fact that the voices of protest were becoming
stronger. Western romantic literature, for instance, is in essence
a protest against the negative aspects of Western modernity. The writings
of some conservative Western thinkers, such as Edmund Burke, include
references to many topics that were later developed by the Western
critical discourse on modernity. Nevertheless, the shortcomings of modern
Western civilization, whether at the level of theory or at the level
of practice, were not yet obvious to those who observed or studied it.
As
for the bearers of the new Islamic discourse, the situation is quite
different. Most had their intellectual formative years in the
1950s and had their first encounter with modern Western civilization
in the
1960s.
This was the time when Western modernity had already
entered the stage of crisis, and when many Western thinkers had begun
to realize the dimension of this crisis and impasse.
(See Introduction to the Deconstruction of the Secular Discourse, 4 vols., Cairo, December 1997). The bearers of the new Islamic
discourse realized, from the very beginning, the darker aspects of Western
modernity. It had embroiled the entire world in two Western wars, called
“world wars” because the whole world was dragged into the arena of conflict.
In the time of “peace,” the world was caught in a frenzied arms race.
The centralized nation-state, growing
stronger and more authoritarian,
expanded and reached the most private aspects of man’s life, and, through
its sophisticated security and educational apparati, tried to “guide”
its citizens! The media, another by-product of Western modernity, extensively
invaded the private lives of citizens, accelerating the process of standardization
and escalating the consumerist fever. In the meantime, the pleasure
sector became so powerful as to control people’s dreams, selling them
erotic utopias and
outright pornography. The family as a social institution
could not sustain the pressures and therefore divorce rates rocketed,
reaching levels rarely witnessed before. The crisis of meaning, the
epistemological crisis, anomie, alienation, and reification became more
pronounced. While the liberal capitalist project ceased to be the smashing
success story it used to be, the socialist experiment collapsed and
lost any vestige of credibility. Anti-humanist intellectual trends such
as Fascism, Nazism, Zionism, and Structuralism emerged and reached a
climax in post-modernist thought. By the mid-1960s, the critical Western
discourse on modernity had crystallized and the works of the Frankfurt
School thinkers had become widely available and popular. Many studies,
critical of the age of the Enlightenment, were published. Writing about
the standardization that resulted from Western modernity and about its
one-dimensional man, Herbert Marcuse sought to demonstrate the existence
of a structural defect that lies at the very heart of modern Western
civilization in its totality, a defect that goes beyond the traditional
division of this civilization into a socialist and a capitalist camp.
Many revisionist historians, rewriting the history of modern Western
civilization, tried to underscore the enormity of the crimes committed
against the peoples of Asia and Africa and the colonial pillage of
their lands. Many studies, radically critical of development theories,
appeared during the same period. The New Left movement made a significant
contribution in this regard. Thus, whether on the
practical or theoretical level, it was not difficult for the bearers of the
new Islamic discourse, those who studied Western modernity in the middle
of the twentieth century, to recognize many of its shortcomings and
to see it in its totality. It was no longer possible for them to experience
a naive infatuation of the type experienced by the intellectuals of
the first generation. The Western modernity they knew, experienced,
and studied was, in many aspects, different from the Western modernity
known, experienced, and studied by the generation of the pioneers.
It
should be pointed out that neither the new nor the old generation of
Muslim intellectuals constructed their respective intellectual systems exclusively
on the basis of the Islamic
worldview. Their interaction
with Western modernity was, as could be
expected, an important formative factor.
After all, this was a civilization that acquired centrality by virtue
of its economic and military accomplishments, put forward its own view
of the world as if it were the view of all human beings at all times
and in all places, conceived of its knowledge as a precise science applicable
to all communities, and set the challenge that everyone else had to
respond to. Responses varied with the type of challenge and its intensity.
The early reformists found many positive aspects in Western modernity.
One may even go so far as
to suggest that they were entranced by it.
This is evident from Shaykh Muhammad Abduh’s oft-quoted remark that “whereas
in the West he found Muslims without Islam, in the East he found Islam
without Muslims.” He wanted to say that in the West he found people
who manifested in their very conduct the ideals of Islam even though
they were not Muslims, whereas in the Muslim world, he found people who
believed in Islam, but their conduct belied their belief. Consequently,
the issue for many of the bearers of the old Islamic discourse was basically
how to reconcile Islam with Western modernity, and even how to make
Islam catch up with it, and live up to its standards and values. This
was the core of Muhammad Abduh’s project, which predominated until the
mid-1960s.
Had
Shaykh Muhammad Abduh's experience with Western modernity been different,
he would have hesitated long before making this remark and before proposing
his project. The following incident may explain this point further.
In 1830, Shaykh Rifa’a
al-Tahtawi, whose infatuation with Western civilization
is well-known, was in Paris. In that same year, French cannons
were pounding unsuspecting Algerian towns and villages, reducing them
to rubble. Shaykh
al-Tahtawi
could see only the bright lights in Paris
and could hear only the urbane and sophisticated rhythms of Western
modernity. On the other hand, the Algerian shaykhs, who were subject
to a brutal colonial attack using the most sophisticated technology
available at the time, could see only the raging flames of fire and
could hear only the racket of bombs. One of these
shaykhs was once told
that the French troops had actually come to Algeria to spread
Western civilization and modernity. His response was as cryptic as it was
significant: “But why have they brought all this gunpowder?” Like this
Algerian shaykh, the bearers of the new Islamic discourse smelled the
reek of gunpowder, saw the flames of fire, heard the racket of cannons,
and watched the hooves of colonial horses tread over everything. Then
they saw gunpowder become omnipresent, transformed
into a variety of weapons of destruction and extermination: bombs, missiles,
biological and nuclear weapons, etc. Huge budgets were allocated for
the production or purchase of these weapons, first by
western, then
eastern,
southern and
northern governments. In fact, the mass-destruction weapons
industry has grown into the most important industry of our enlightened
rational times, and homo sapiens, for the first time in his long history,
allocates more funds for the production of weapons of destruction than
for the production of food.
The
old Islamic discourse was neither unique nor isolated in its advocacy
of Western modernity; it was, in a sense, part of the general outlook
that prevailed in the Third
World since the beginning of this century.
Efforts were directed at catching up with the West and competing
with it on its own terms.
Liberals called for the adoption
of the modern Western outlook in its totality, “both its sweet and bitter
aspects.”
The Marxists rebelled slightly and suggested that the peoples
of the Third
World could enter the promised land of Western modernity
through the gates of Marxism and social justice. The Islamists, in their
turn, imagined it would be possible to adopt the Western modern outlook
or rather adapt Islam to it. It is interesting to note that all the
trends and movements, religious or secular, irrespective of their ideological
inclinations and social or ethnic backgrounds, turned the West into
a silent and ultimate point of reference.
As
a result of this attitude to Western modernity, the Islamic worldview
retreated, its dimensions shrunk, and it lost its comprehensiveness.
Instead of providing an Islamic frame of reference for Muslims in the
modern age, the issue became how to “Islamize” certain aspects of Western
modernity. The Islamization process would, in most cases, take the form
of “omitting” those aspects of Western modernity deemed haram (prohibited)
by Islamic law, without any addition or innovation, underscoring those
aspects of Western modernity deemed halal (permissible) by Islamic law,
and searching for those aspects within the Islamic worldview analogous
to some aspects found within Western modernity. This inevitably meant
the eventual atrophy of those aspects of the Islamic worldview that
have nothing analogous to them within the modern Western worldview.
But ironically, those aspects constitute the very essence and source
of the specificity of the Islamic worldview.
The
bearers of the new Islamic discourse do not have the same fascination
with Western modernity. Actually, a radical critique of Western modernity
is one of their main points of departure. They too are neither unique
nor isolated in their critique, for they do not differ from many of
the thinkers and political movements in the Third
World at the present
time who try to evolve new forms of modernity, nor from many important
thinkers in the West who are critical of Western modernity. Marxism
was a form of critique of modernity, out of which sprung the Frankfurt
School which further deepened the critique. Romantic literature, as
indicated earlier, was also a protest against Western modernity. The
protest of modernist literature, however, is even more profound and
radical; it tries to represent the reified world of modernity, where
the chain of causality is either completely broken or becomes so rigid that man becomes completely determined. The
theater of the absurd is
part of this Western protest against the dead-end
Western modernity has
landed mankind in. More recently, religious fundamentalism emerged
as a populist extension of this intellectual trend. All of these trends,
in one way or another, show an increasing, if implicit, realization
that Western modernity strips man of his specificity and subverts his
human essence.
The
new Islamic discourse is only part of a wider global trend. The perceived
crisis of Western modernity has taken different forms in different
parts of the world. In the Muslim world, the perception has taken an
Islamic form. Nevertheless, the critique of the new Islamic discourse
of modernity is characteristically different from the other critiques.
For one thing, it recognizes and emphasizes the inextricable ties between
Western modernity and Western imperialism. Imperialism was, after all,
our first encounter with modernity, and Zionist settler colonialism
in Palestine is the last. Furthermore, unlike the Western critique of
modernity, which is nihilistic and pessimistic, the Islamic critique
is optimistic by virtue of the fact that it proposes a project for reform.
II
It could be said that even though there are many points of agreement and disagreement between the old and the new discourses, the attitude to Western modernity and the level of comprehensiveness of the Islamic paradigm, as indicated earlier, are the basic points of difference that could serve as a basis for classification. The main distinguishing features of each discourse spring from these two fundamental points and can be outlined as follows:
1. The bearers of the new Islamic discourse are neither apologetic nor self-defensive. They are not interested in expending much energy on the attempt to “improve” the image of Islam or to “justify” themselves, even though they are interested in sending “a message” to the world.
2. The
bearers of the new discourse neither reject nor accept the West uncritically.
Ironically, total rejection, just like total acceptance, presupposes
the West as a silent point of reference. What the bearers of the new
Islamic discourse reject, in effect, are both the presumed centrality
and universalism of the West, as well as its imperialism, which is closely
linked to its claim of centrality. They reject the practices of
spoilage, pillage, and repression that were perpetrated by Western colonialism
in the past and that at present take new forms that are no less brutal
than the previous ones. They also reject what they consider the negative
aspects of Western modernity and fully realize its crisis.
But
despite their awareness of the crisis of Western modernity, and their
realization that there is no point in repeating the mistakes of others
or proceeding along the same path that led to an impasse, the bearers
of the new Islamic discourse do not resemble the Algerian
shaykh who
smelled the reek of gunpowder and saw nothing else in Western modernity.
Indeed, they have read Eliot’s
The Waste
Land, Becket’s and Camus’ absurd plays, and Derrida’s nihilist writings; and they know that
the West constructed its material infrastructure through the process
of pillage (which led to “imperialist” not “capitalist accumulation”
as claimed).
However,
they also know Western theories of architecture,
how to use the computer, various management theories, and the broad
horizons opened up by Western modernity. They know the advantages
of this modernity just as they know its destructiveness. They
also know that Western modernity has raised certain questions that cannot
go unanswered. They know that the Muslim mind is not a blank sheet,
and that the Islamic starting point cannot be a hypothetical zero point. Hence the necessity, and even the inevitability, of engaging and interacting
with Western modernity, and assimilating its achievements without
adopting its value system. In short, the bearers of the new Islamic
discourse do not see any justification for accepting Western modernity
in its entirety. Instead, they stand on their Islamic ground and
view Western modernity, opening up to it, simultaneously
criticizing
and interacting with it. This is what can be referred to as “the
interactive critical response,” which is the very opposite of the “positive”
unqualified acceptance or the “negative” unqualified rejection of Western
modernity–two extreme points between which the old discourse oscillated.
The
old Islamic discourse is an eclectic, cumulative discourse that imported
constituent elements of Western modernity, without realizing
their relation
to the Western worldview, and at the same time adopted other constituent
elements of the Islamic religio-cultural formation, without realizing
their relation to the Islamic worldview. Having isolated these
Islamic and modern Western constituent elements, the bearers of the
old discourse tried to “add” the one to the other, creating a concoction
rather than a totality.
The
bearers of the new discourse, on the other hand, are not content with
importing ready-made Western answers to the questions posed by Western
modernity. They have developed a radical, exploratory, generative discourse
that neither attempts to reconcile Islam with Western modernity, nor preoccupies itself with searching for the points of contrast (or
similarity) between the two. Rather, it sets forth to explore
the main traits of Western modernity, presenting a radical, yet balanced
critique. In the meantime, the bearers of
the new discourse go back
to the Islamic worldview, with all its values and its religious, ethical,
and
civilizational
specificities. They explore it and try to abstract
an epistemological paradigm from it, through which they can generate
answers to the problems raised by Western modernity. One can place the modern attempts aimed at reviving
fiqh (jurisprudence) from within, in the context of this generative approach. Rather than impose Western analytical categories on the Islamic
worldview,
the bearers of the new discourse try to discover its fundamental categories. One can safely argue that the new Islamic discourse, issuing forth from
an Islamic framework, opens the door of ijtihad regarding both the modern
Western worldview and the Islamic religious and cultural heritage.
Given
this radical generative approach, the new Islamic discourse is by necessity
comprehensive. While at the grass roots-level the bearers of the
new Islamic discourse raise the slogan “Islam is the solution,” at the
philosophical level they raise a more complex one, “Islam is a worldview.” Theirs is a discourse that stems from a comprehensive
worldview
from which different ethical, political, economic, and aesthetic systems
are generated. It is an Islamic discourse that deals with architecture,
love, marriage, economics, city planning, the philosophy of law and history,
modes of analysis and thinking, etc. It deals with the quotidian,
the direct, and the political, as well as with the total and ultimate.
Actually, the new Islamic discourse claims that it is addressed not
to Muslims only, but to “all humanity.”
In other words,
it claims that its project for reform is an answer to the crisis caused
by Western modernity. In this respect, its claim is similar to
the claim made by the Islamic discourse that prevailed during the time
of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
By
virtue of their open-ended critical interactive approach to Western modernity,
the bearers of the new Islamic discourse are able to benefit in a creative
way from this modernity without being engulfed by it. Issues such
as class conflict, the necessity of an equitable distribution of resources,
gender issues, and the influence of the environment on shaping
man’s personality had been debated by Muslims before. However, the sensitivity and intense awareness of the new discourse
vis-à-vis
these issues have been enhanced, thanks to the interaction with
Western modernity. The bearers of the new discourse do not object
to benefiting from this modernity in discovering the mechanisms of the
solutions for these problems nor the solutions themselves,
as long as
such solutions do not contradict the Islamic paradigm.
Opening
up to the modern Western worldview and critically interacting with it
have alerted the bearers of the new discourse to aspects that would
otherwise have been difficult for them to realize. Issues raised
by Western modernity such as international relations, globalization,
the menace posed by the media and the central state to the human individual,
the increasing amount of leisure time available to ordinary people,
and the processes of standardization and leveling, were never raised
by humanity in the past, and expectedly were not raised by the old Islamic
discourse.
The
bearers of the new Islamic discourse discovered that opening up to Western
modernity and studying it in a critical and interactive manner may serve to
sharpen the awareness of Muslims who would then come to know the
nature of the crisis of Western modernity and its magnitude. Consequently,
this may increase the Muslims’ knowledge of and confidence in, themselves,
and may even help them discover the creative and generative potentials
within the Islamic worldview. The bearers of the new Islamic discourse,
having realized the wide gap separating science, technology, and democratic
procedures from human values, try to address themselves to this issue.
For instance, in the case of science and technology, they try to benefit
from the technological and scientific achievements of Western modernity,
without adopting its worldview and without accepting its claims of scientific
neutrality and value-freedom. An attempt is made to incorporate these
achievements within an Islamic value system (see below). The same
applies to democracy. The attempt to distinguish between democracy and
shura (consultation) is an attempt to incorporate democratic procedures
within the Islamic value system, so that value-free democratic procedures
do not become the frame of reference, and do not arrogate for themselves
the status of an ultimate value.
The
bearers of the new Islamic discourse realize
that the human sciences
are neither precise, nor universal or neutral, that they contain several
human biases, and that they are fundamentally different from the natural
sciences. However, the human sciences do not lose their value
because of
this lack of precision and neutrality. On the contrary, their
ability to deal with human phenomena is thereby enhanced. The
difference between the natural sciences and the humanities emanates from the fact that the basic subject of the humanities, that is man,
cannot be reduced in his entirety to the natural-material system. Human reality is radically different
from material reality, in spite
of the existence of man in the natural-material world. Thus, the
bearers of the new Islamic discourse attempt to establish human sciences
that do not exclude the human element and that are, consequently, different
in their basic premises, principles, ambitions, and criteria from the
natural sciences. The main characteristic of the human sciences
is that they are not, and cannot, be value-free, and that they have to
be incorporated within a value system, which is the Islamic value system
in the case of the Muslims. This, indeed, is the basic premise
of the Islamization
of knowledge project, or the project for generating
Islamic knowledge.
The
bearers of the new discourse are quite aware of what is referred to
as “the new science” that comprises concepts such as indeterminacy and
that does not move within the framework of the concepts of hard causality
within which
nineteenth century science moved. The bearers of the
new Islamic discourse
realize
that the terms in the Western lexicon
are not simple, for they are an integral part of a complex cultural
lexicon that determines their purport and meaning. For instance
the word ‘aql (mind–reason) within the Islamic context has a specific
and definite Islamic meaning. Having been so impressed by modern
Western
civilization, and having failed to master the subtleties of
its cultural idiom, the former generation imagined that the word “reason”
in the modern Western philosophical lexicon was synonymous with the
word ‘aql in the Islamic lexicon. Hence the deep admiration for,
and even fascination with, Western rationality and the Enlightenment. On the other hand, the bearers of the new discourse have
knowledge of the complexity of the category of the mind in the Western
lexicon and the contradictions inherent therein. They are also
familiar with the Western critique of reason,
that is divided into “instrumental
reason,” “critical
reason,” “functional
reason,”
“imperialist reason,” “abstract
reason,” etc.
The critique also
talks of “the negation of reason,” “destruction of
reason,” “deconstruction
of reason,” and
“decentering
reason.”
Thus, it is no longer tenable
to suppose that the word ‘aql, as it exists in the Islamic lexicon,
is synonymous with the word “reason,” as it exists in the modern Western
lexicon. With the emergence of
absurd, irrational
tendencies
in the West, the matter has become even clearer and more
crystallized.
The
bearers of the new Islamic discourse
realize
the cultural dimension
of most human phenomena, religion included. The bearers of the
old discourse stopped at the distinction between what is halal (permissible)
and haram (forbidden). The car and the hamburger are undoubtedly halal, and so is canned meat, as long as it does not contain pork. However, the pioneers did not grasp the cultural dimension of the commodity
and
its roots in a comprehensive
worldview. (It should also
be added that a full realization, on the part of many Western intellectuals,
of the nature of the commodity as a cultural artifact was still quite
rudimentary and nascent). Consider the car for instance: when a driver
turns the ignition key, more often than not,
he thinks he is handling
a simple machine that transports him from one place to another, which
of course is a fallacy. Driving
a car is an act rooted in a whole
worldview that manifests itself in a specific lifestyle; it necessitates
prospecting for oil then drilling innumerable wells. Huge oil tankers
cross the oceans to deliver huge quantities of oil to hungry gas-guzzlers
and over-heated houses. That of course results in the pollution
of the atmosphere, the land, and the sea. Troops are deployed to guarantee
the flow of cheap energy and to protect the “national security” of the
consumers. Speed gradually becomes the sole criterion for judging human
conduct and city planning. Towns are planned in such a way as to facilitate
the movement of speeding cars; and consequently, old, traditional districts
and buildings are demolished. The same can be said of the hamburger
and the take-away food. The cultural dimension of these commodities,
which seems perfectly innocuous, absolutely halal, and entirely unblemished
from the purely religious point of view, is an organic part of a worldview
that conflicts with the Islamic worldview and Islamic certainties.
The
realization
on the part of the bearers of the new Islamic discourse
of the importance of the cultural dimension of all phenomena is manifest
in their acceptance of the nationalist idea, and their refusal to take
a confrontational attitude
in relation to it. They accept cultural plurality
within the framework of Islamic values, and
realize
the importance of
forging an alliance with the nationalist elements in a common confrontation
with the forces of hegemony and globalization that try to eradicate
autonomy, specificity, and the very idea of absolute values and transcendence.
The
bearers of the new Islamic discourse are perfectly aware of the problem
of the environment and the ecological crisis. Concepts such as
“infinite progress” (which are central in Western modernity)
are deemed by them as hostile to the very idea of boundaries and therefore
to the idea of man and nature, and, eventually, to the idea of God. Such concepts are atheistic, not only in the religious, but also in
the epistemological human sense. Thus, the bearers of the new
discourse persistently search for new theories of development and new
concepts of progress. They argue that Islamic theories of development
should be radically different from the generalist Western theories
promoted by “international”
organizations, for such theories have
largely proven
to
fail, and have led to an environmental crisis and
the impoverishment of the masses.
This is linked
to the continuous criticism by the bearers of the new discourse of consumerism
(the invitation to accelerate consumption, the revolution of rising
expectations, etc.) and their
realization
of its danger to the environment,
natural resources and man’s psychological and nervous systems.
The
new Islamic discourse is aware of the basic philosophical question in
the modern world, that is, the question of epistemological relativism
that leads to nihilism. It replaces it with what may be termed
“Islamic relativism,” which asserts that there is only one absolute,
the Almighty. But His absoluteness implies the relativism of everything
else. However, by virtue of the presence of the absolute God outside
relative time, He becomes the center of the universe, bestowing on it
purpose and meaning. This means that while the world is itself
relative, it does not fall into relativism, nor does it become meaningless. Islamic relativism is a “relative
relativism,” not an absolute one. Thus, there is a simultaneous awareness of the irreducibility of truth
to matter and of the relativity and impermanence of some of its aspects.
In other words, there is an awareness of a certain interrelatedness
between the absolute and the relative that does not necessarily result
in a nihilistic negation of the absolute. Any human discourse,
the discourse of the Muslims included, is primarily and ultimately a
set of endeavors, assiduously exerted by human beings, living within
time and place, to comprehend the world of man and nature, and for each
to interpret his sacred text. But human hermeneutics, the bearers
of the new Islamic discourse would argue, is different from the sacred
text.
All
this leads to a belief in the idea of tadafu’ (gentle conflict–interplay)
and tadawul (succession or alteration), and to a recognition of
the dynamism of the world. Tadafu’ does not necessarily mean conflict,
even if it occasionally takes that form. Tadawul implies that
permanence is one of God’s traits and that everything else changes.
It also implies that the world is not exclusively ours. On the
concrete human level, this means accepting to co-exist with “the other”
and to search for a common ground. Hence,
the emergence of the
modern fiqh of minorities, whether pertaining to non-Muslim minorities
in Islamic societies or Muslim minorities in non-Muslim societies. This fiqh stems from the Islamic concepts of justice and equality.
The
bearers of the new Islamic discourse are aware of the danger of post-modernism,
which manifests itself in an onslaught on all human and sacred texts.
The Quran, for instance, is seen as a historical text, that can be interpreted
in its entirety with reference to certain
temporal circumstances and events.
I believe that Justice Tariq Al-Bishri has made a major contribution
in this field. Through his work, he has attempted to assert the
stability of the sacred text. He has explained that the disagreement
among religious jurists, in most cases, does not stem from their interpretation
of the text, but rather from their disagreement regarding the nature
of the human incident for which they were asked to issue a fatwa (legal
judgment). This is a very important matter, because post-modernism
involves an attack on anything stable or normative and involves a
denial of any ultimate foundation.
I
believe that the bearers of the
new Islamic discourse are
making a concerted effort
to discover new middle analytical categories that
distinguish the Islamic discourse from the discourse of Western modernity, characterized
as it is by a feverish oscillation between two conflicting
poles. The discourse of Western modernity demands either absolute
certainty or absolute doubt; either a
reason fully dominating
the world, or a reason completely dominated by it (reduced to fluctuating
matter and perpetual experimentation); and, finally, either a full presence
(to use post-modernist idiom) or full absence. It is a discourse
that shifts from rigid materialistic rationality to an equally rigid
materialistic irrationality. The new Islamic discourse, on the
other hand, tries to create a human space that goes beyond the materialistic
extremes of Western modernity. In human matters, evidence does not have
to be decisive and comprehensive, covering all possibilities and filling
all gaps, and the chain of causality does not have to be organically
or strictly linked. It is sufficient to marshal adequate evidence, and cause and effect need not be linked in a
rigidly scientific, materialistic manner. This is what can be called
in Arabic sababiyah fadfadah.
The
closest equivalent to the word fadfadah in English is the word “loose”
or “wide,” neither of which truly expresses the meaning of
the Arabic word that
connotes a level of tolerance and a loosening
of rigid organic unity, permitting a degree of freedom without necessarily
leading to incoherence and fragmentation. This causality, in my
view, is the essence of the Islamic worldview; it asserts that A does
not uniformly and absolutely lead to B, but that it does so by the will
of God. “God willing” expresses the distance that separates the
creator from the created, a distance which is actually a human space
where man can exercise his freedom and use his reason, becoming thereby
a responsible trustworthy creature.
It is an affirmation of what
is called in Islamic jurisprudence bayniyah, from the preposition bayn,
which means “between.”
Dr.
Bashir Nafi' has
made the important point that
the Islamic discourse in traditional Islamic societies is shari’a (religious
law). Shari’a is indeed the very basis of both the old and new
Islamic discourses. However, the new discourse attempts to resolve
the problem of what I call the “duality of idiom.”
Shari’a,
Muslims believe, is open and has been capable of generating answers
to collective and ultimate questions that have faced both Muslim communities and Muslim individuals throughout history. But the
idiom of the shari’a, due to the historical and cultural discontinuity
caused by the colonial invasion, has become inaccessible to many people. The bearers of the new Islamic discourse are trying to
decode this idiom, so that it would be possible to extract the wisdom
inherent therein and apply it to modern realities. This is exactly
what one Muslim scholar
did when he described “enjoining good and
forbidding evil” as the Islamic idiom for expressing the problem of power
sharing. This does not mean that the Western and Islamic
idioms are synonymous. All that this scholar tried to
explain is that this modern issue, expressed in a modern idiom, is the same issue that was addressed by the Islamic tradition through
its own idiom. Such an ijtihad would undoubtedly help in increasing
the generative power of the traditional religious worldview and help Muslims to stand firmly on their own doctrinal ground.
Due
to the isolation of shari’a from political and social realities,
many Muslims have come to view it as if it were a set of disjointed
verdicts and opinions. However, the process of generating new
answers to new challenges requires an awareness of the interrelatedness
and integrity of the components that make up the shari’a, as
well as an awareness of the fact that it expresses a
worldview. This is what
the new discourse is trying to accomplish. Undoubtedly, the traditional
discipline of maqasid (purposes) deals with this issue. It is
through this discipline that it is possible to distinguish between the
whole and the part; the final and the
temporary; the essential and the
contingent; the permanent and the
impermanent; and the absolute and
the relative. What is needed is to develop this traditional discipline
so as to attain an Islamic epistemological paradigm emanating from the
Quran (the Muslim’s sacred text) and the sunna (the Prophet’s traditions).
Such a paradigm would be hierarchical, its crown is the testimony that
there is no god but Allah; this is succeeded by the
primary Islamic
of justice and
equality; and then by the various lateral
precepts. The scope of ijtihad can then be expanded without much
apprehension of going astray. After all, ijtihad would take place
within the framework of the hierarchical epistemological paradigm extracted
(through a continuous process of ijtihad) from the Quran and the sunna.
That paradigm would be the only norm on the basis of which judgments
are made and new interpretations are formulated.
One
of the main traits of the new Islamic discourse is that its bearers
realize the complex dimensions of the question of power, its various
intricate mechanisms, and the relationship between local reality and
international relations. The bearers of the new discourse also
realize
the complexity of the modern state as well as its power and
ability to dominate and interfere in man’s private life. They
know it has become an octopus that has its own quantifying logic, which
goes well beyond the will of those who are supposed to be running it,
be they Islamists, Marxists or liberals. The role of bureaucracy
in decision making, and in manipulating the ruler according to its whims
and purposes, is quite clear to them. They
realize
too that the
state has a variety of “security” apparati (information, education,
etc.) that maintain a tight grip over the masses through the pleasure
industry, the bombardment of the public with information and songs,
and the rewriting of history. Thus, taking over the state does
not solve the problems of the Muslims, as some of the bearers of the
old discourse used to imagine. The heart of the matter is the
necessity of setting bounds
on the state and trimming its nails
to enable the umma to
be restored
to its role as vicegerent. Hence their interest
in the notion of the umma and the increasing attention to civil society
and to the role of the awqaf (religious endowment), and their growing
interest in new theories of the state and administration.
The
new Islamic discourse, by virtue of its universality and interest in
the cultural dimension of human phenomena and on the basis of its awareness
of itself as a comprehensive worldview, pays great attention to
aesthetics.
It is not content with a halal/haram categorization
of things. In fact, the bearers of the new Islamic
discourse endeavor
to develop a comprehensive vision of Islamic arts
based on the Islamic worldview. Hence the new theoretical formulations,
and the many applications in the field of architecture
and various arts. This aspect of the new Islamic discourse
is an expression of its creative critical approach to Western modernity
and its generative approach to tradition. Many Islamic artists
in the modern age, studying either in the West or in the East, have
been exposed only to Western artistic views and methodologies. Nevertheless,
many of them seek to break away from the modern Western worldview.
While directing their critique to it and benefiting from the knowledge
they acquired thus far, they attempt to generate artistic criteria and
norms from within the tradition that translate themselves into Islamic
artworks and buildings that follow an Islamic style, yet respond to
the needs of the modern age. It is notable that these artists
study the Islamic heritage from new angles; they rediscover it and its
theoretical bases, using the analytical tools they learned in the West.
They have also started showing interest in classical Islamic writings
in this field.
One
of the important aspects of the new Islamic discourse is the way its
bearers read history. There is a rejection of the idea of unilinear
concepts that presume the existence of a single terminal point and a
final telos toward which the entire history of mankind is moving. This
makes viewing the histories of all men through a single
viewpoint and judging them through one and the same standard inevitable. But this single viewpoint and standard are not, in reality, universal
(as claimed), it is actually the viewpoint and standard of modern Western man. I believe that Dr. Bashir Nafi’ has
given us a concrete example of this rejection of unilinear history by
presenting a reading of Islamic history from within, without importing
analytical categories from outside the system The reading process
here is at once explanatory, empathetic and critical. Dr. Bashir
has read the documents that Western historians have not read, or probably
have read but marginalized, for they deemed them unimportant. Thus,
he has succeeded in offering a new view. This includes his emphasis
on the role of Sufism and the Sufi tariqa (guild) which other historians,
trained within the secularist tradition, usually unconsciously overlook
or consciously disregard. They view Sufism as mere superstition,
whereas Dr. Bashir Nafi’ finds the study of Sufism and Sufi schools
an essential prologue to understanding Islamic history. In some
of his studies, Justice Tariq al-Bishri also explains the importance
of studying the Sufi tariqas in order to comprehend the history of modern
Egypt.
One
can say that there are scores of the bearers and promoters of the new
Islamic discourse including Malik Bennabi, Naquib al-Attas, Fahmi Huwaidi,
Rachid Ghannouchi, Munir Shafiq, Adel Hussein, Tariq Al-Bishri, Dr. Abdelhalim
Ibrahim Abdelhalim, Dr. Rasim Badran , Dr. Salim Al-’Awwa, Dr. Bashir
Nafi’, the IIIT group including Dr. Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi, Dr. Taha Jabir
Al-’Ulwani, Dr. Abdulhamid Abu Sulayman, Dr. Hisham Al-Talib and Dr. Jamal
Al-Barzinji, who are the founders of the Institute. Of those associated
with IIIT, one can also mention Dr. Muna Abulfadl, Dr. Dr. Sayf Yusuf,
Dr. Nasr Arif, Dr. Usama Al-Qaffash, Ms. Hiba Ra’uf, Dr. Al-Bayumi Ghanim,
Fuad Sa’id, Hisham Ja’far, Dr. Aly Gomaa and Dr. Lu’ay As-Safi.
The bearers and promoters of this discourse also include: Dr.
Jamal `Atiyah (and the contributors to Al-Muslim Al-Mu`asir), Azzam Tamimi,
(and Liberty for the Muslim World group), and Al-Habib Al-Mukni (and Al-Insan
group). There are, undoubtedly, scores of others inside and outside
the Arab world who are contributing to the crystallization of the new
discourse. It is also notable that many intellectuals among the Islamic minorities in the West have started to contribute quite
creatively to this new Islamic discourse. One may count in this category Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, Ziaudin Sardar, Ali Mazrui, and Parviz Manzur. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list. Such a list would
be compiled by a research institute that can assign the task to a group
of researchers. Perhaps what is required now is to deepen our
understanding and knowledge of the central premise of this discourse,
and to initiate a process of epistemological condensation by listing
the names and publications of those who bear or promote this discourse.
This Paper
Translated from Arabic by Azzam Tamimi.
Cairo, 15-23
February 1997
© 21st Century
Trust