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"WHENCE AND WHITHER ISLAM?"

A review of Polity Press by Leonard Swidler - Wednesday 27th of August 2003

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WHENCE AND WHITHER ISLAM?

Leonard Swidler

Akbar S. Ahmed, Islam Under Siege (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003), 213 pp.

"I encountered more problems than jealousy and malice. I was warned by Pakistan intelligence services...not to talk so much of...compassionate Islam....The mullahs would be unhappy." Akbar S. Ahmed is a "pluralist" (meaning that various religions are valid paths to livr an authentically good life) Muslim scholar from Pakistan, who, besides having taught at Cambridge University, also fought in the trenches of the Pakistan Civil Service, reaching the rank of High Commissioner (Ambassador) to London , 1990-2000. He is now the holder of the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, Washington, D.C.

Islam Under Siege is a courageous book that is clearly addressed to both Muslim and non-Muslim, attempting to lift up the best of the Islamic tradition - and there is indeed a wealth to draw on - as what authentic Islam has been, and what it is being called to become in the future. Though manifestly a thinker who is committed to Islam, Ahmed claims that what is important "is not so much whether believing in one God (as in the Abrahamic faiths) is better than believing in many gods (Hinduism), or even in no god (Buddhism), but of creating a balanced, compassionate, and harmonious society with decent, caring people in it."

For his efforts both as a Muslim intellectual (anthropologist) and an ambassador, he "was accused of being every kind of agent - Hindu, Zionist, Islamic....The reason, I felt, was primarily malice and jealousy." He was called by fellow Muslims "â€˜a chocolate Muslim' and â€˜an Uncle Tom' because â€˜he admires Western civilization more than Islamic civilization.'"

Islamic civilization's present miserable state is of course the result of multiple causes. However, Ahmed sees at the heart of Islam and the civilization that it had created at its best - and should again! - three key virtues: adl, justice, ilm, knowledge, and ihsan, compassion and balance, but there is a "depth of feeling in the Muslim world about their absence." Ahmed tells non-Muslim readers how he thinks they can help to move relations with Islam from destructive to constructive - nuanced knowledge through dialogue and sensitive study - but it is the Muslims themselves who first must acknowledge their sorry state, and their own complicity in it. He paints a depressing picture of Islamic scholarship, noting that "the scholars of Islam, who could offer balanced advice and guidance, are in disarray.... Unfortunately, in the contemporary Muslim world scholars are silenced, humiliated, or chased out of their homes.... And to where do the scholars escape? To America or Europe. And yet it is popular to blame the West, to blame others, for conspiracies."

"The Muslim countries themselves have proved barren.... They have failed to produce either major international works or scholars or intellectual movements." Why? Ahmed in answer quotes fellow Muslim Abdulaziz Sachedina: "It is not an easy task for any conscientious Muslim intellectual in the Muslim world or in the West to undertake this critical task without endangering his or her life." Ahmed is on the one hand relentless in what he considers the vital first step of self-criticism, but he provides balance by a pointing to hope: "Muslim leadership appears bankrupt of vision and indifferent to the conditions of its societies. But the idea of dialogue - dialogue between civilizations and within civilizations - promises hope."

Ahmed is not, however, into barren breast-beating. He lays out what he believes Muslims must undertake if their religion is to contribute to making its adherents creative representatives of the beneficent and merciful God - as God is constantly described by every devout Muslim. "Unless there is commitment to dialogue and understanding there will be little progress" - and this obviously applies equally to non-Muslims, for it takes a duo to dialogue! Beyond that, both sides must cease demonizing each other, but perhaps concretely most of all "the Muslim world needs to institute and ensure the success of democracy."

At the foundation of a successful democracy, however, must be an educated citizenry. Modern medicine and the green revolution have kept billions alive who otherwise would have died aborning or soon afterward, but without education most of them will become terrorist fodder or victims of misery and starvation. As one response, it is to an education which fosters a deep-dialogic and critical-thinking mentality that my Global Dialogue Institute is dedicated and is working with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Religious Affairs in the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia. Ahmed insists that "Muslim education needs to emphasize the tolerant and compassionate nature of Islam. Only thus will the central features of Islam re-emerge.... Most important: Women will be given their rightful place in society."

However, arching over the building of democracy and a broad and deep education, Ahmed sees the deepest challenge for Muslims "to rebuild an idea of Islam, which includes justice, integrity, tolerance, and the quest for knowledge - the classic Islamic civilization - not just the insistence on the rituals; not just the five pillars of Islam but also the entire building."

Ahmed as anthropologist assesses a fundamental malaise plaguing contemporary Islamic civilization as what he designates hyper-asabiyya Asabiyya in Arabic means solidarity or group loyalty, but in crises it may tend to go "over the top" and degenerate into a lashing out at all who are different: Hyper-asabiyya We need, rather, "to build the idea of asabiyya or group loyalty that encompasses global society or all mankind, not just the tribe or the nation." We need the "idea and the practice of the dialogue of civilizations."

Ahmed questions the appropriateness of referring to extremist versions of Islam as "fundamentalist" because that is historically a Christian term. True, however, as I wrote explaining "Fundamentalism" in an essay shortly after September 11, 2001:

Historically it is a term coined at the beginning of the twentieth century by a group of conservative Protestants who wanted to stress what they called the "Fundamentals" of Christianity. Their ideals included a so-called "literalist" understanding of the Holy Scriptures, an alleged un-changing understanding of "the truth," and consequently a restrictive policy on the public behavior of women ("should be in the home," "wives subject to husbands").

Subsequently the term Fundamentalism has found rather wide application to persons and groups other than conservative Protestantism where a similar mentality is present: That is, a mentality that tends to be characterized by 1) a literalist approach to some basic text, 2) an absolutist attitude toward "the truth"â€“which they hold exclusively, and whoever differs is in falsehood and must expect the consequences, and 3) the exercise of a restrictive policy toward certain groups, especially women. Such a Fundamentalist mentality can be found today in Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Marxist, Muslim, and other religious and ideological groups.

Elsewhere Ahmed says much the same, without using the now broadly applied term "fundamentalism," referring to a mentality: "...interpret Islam narrowly. Islam for them has become a tool of repression. Women and minorities take the brunt.... In times of change and disruption men practice hyper-asabiyya [Ahmed's analogue for "Fundamentalism"], which inevitably targets the women of other opposed groups."

What is it that generates the crisis in Islamic civilization that then produces hyper-asabiyya? In a word: Modernity; it is "rooted in the indigenous response to modernity." This is in no way surprising, for the transition from Christendom to Western Civilization was also fraught with many decades of violence, most obviously launched by the 1789 French Revolution (including its "Terror"), followed for a hundred years by a series of violent internecine wars and revolutions in Greece, Belgium, France, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy, the Germanies..., as well as social and cultural upheavals of the greatest magnitude. Islamic civilization is attempting to move from a pre-modern consciousness and social structure to a modern consciousness and culture with its stress on freedom, critical-thought, and a dynamic sense of open-endedness - all very upsetting to traditional societies.

It is to be hoped that Islam Under Siege will be widely read - and followed! - by both non-Muslim and Muslim.

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