THE STASIS OF THE MUSLIM MIND
Maryam Sakeenah
“Lost in the
loneliness, we turn inwards- with a knife in our hands and a lump in our
throats”, writes Muhammad Fadel describing the deep crisis in contemporary Muslim
consciousness. The loss of the Khilafah has imbued Muslim sensibility with a
deep and haunting nostalgia for a bygone glory. The direction of foreign policy
taken by Western nations vis a vis the Muslim world has not helped assuage the
raw sentiment, leaving Muslims to harbour the supposition that the ascendant
West is locked in a crusade against the Muslim world in the throes of despondency
imposed by a malevolent external enemy. The frustration this engenders often makes
itself felt in spasmodic bouts of violence like the gasps of an etherized
patient laid across on the table.
The experience of long-drawn colonial rule across Muslim
lands intensified the nostalgic longing for a lost glory as well as the need to
hold on ever more strongly and exclusively to religious fundamentals as a means
of self-preservation and protection of religio-cultural identity. This
exacerbated the disconnect between ‘deen’ and ‘dunya’ in Muslim consciousness
in general and education in particular. Aurangzeb Haneef notes in his article, ‘Learning from the Past’, that one of
the most important effects of European imperialism in Muslim society was that the
pursuit of rational sciences (maqulat) was abandoned in favour of transmitted
sciences (manqulat)in the spirit of preservation in an attempt to re-center and
standardize the traditions of religious knowledge. Madrassas ceased to be the
training grounds for the intellectual and cultural elite and increasingly came
to be identified with religious education only, which was an aberration from
the tradition.
The rising popularity of Salafism is a reactionary response
out of a prevailing sense of defeatism, victimhood, vulnerability and
insecurity over what is seen as the encroachment upon Muslim identity and
culture by an ascendant Western civilization. The call for a puritanical ‘return
to the sources’ down to the letter shunning the accretions of theology and
jurisprudence over centuries is distressingly ahistorical, uncreative and
mimetic. It refuses to recognize the need to creatively and rationally respond to
the exigencies of the times. Ironically while it
claims fidelity to authentic Muslim tradition, it actually betrays the
essential dynamism of the same. This dynamism is the defining trait of Islamic
jurisprudence which traditionally accorded space to diversity. Muslim jurists
were remarkably tolerant of ‘ikhtilaf’(difference of opinion), and were adept
at the ‘adab’ (etiquettes) of ikhtilaf. Towering jurists of the sunni school
like Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik discouraged blind following (taqleed) of
their opinions, encouraging critical thinking and research.
These Muslim groups demonstrate all or most of the traits of
fundamentalism, that is: ‘a sense of
chosenness tied to the demonizing or damnation of all others who refuse to get
behind the truth subscribed to by the subject himself.’ (Farid Esack) By refusing
to defer to historical understandings of Islam in theology and law, these
Muslim groups place themselves at the fringes of Islamic tradition they claim
to be guardians and restorers of.
Due to a radical subjectivism that confers quasi-divine
authority to a certain set of literalist opinions these innovation-resistant
groups refuse to subject their opinions to rational inquiry. In so doing, they
implicitly refuse to recognize intrinsic human diversity as well as the status
of individuals as rational subjects imbued with the Divinely-bestowed gift of
intellect and free will. “Unto every one
of you have We appointed a [different] law and way of life. And if God had so
willed, He could surely have made you all one single community: but [He willed
it otherwise] in order to test you by means of what He has vouchsafed unto,
you. Vie, then, with one another in doing good works! Unto God you all must
return; and then He will make you truly understand all that on which you were
wont to differ.” (5:48)
At a subconscious level, the deep realization of the
untenability of opinions that refuse to defer to critical examination has resulted
in an inward-looking stasis characterized by an uncompromising exclusivism and
exceptionalism.
Muslim exceptionalism betrays the Quran’s universal embrace of
humanity with its consistent appeal to mankind as the creation of God, a single
family. ‘O men! Behold, We have created
you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes,
so that you might come to know one another. Verily, the noblest of you in the
sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of Him. Behold, God is all
knowing, all aware.” (49:13) The Quran attaches sanctity to all
humankind when it narrates how God blew of His own spirit into the first
created person. Muslim exclusivism refuses to recognize the fact that our
well-being as a species on a finite planet is tied to the well-being of all
others we share it with, and that in the face of this reality, all labels and
artificial boundaries are secondary. It is only the extremely narrow-minded and
short-sighted who would refuse to recognize the fact that our well being is inextricably
tied to the well being of all others.
A further corollary of such exclusivism is the tendency to view
ideas as mutually exclusive, with an either/or approach. The middle ground, the
many grey areas of overlap are lost sight of. This generates a characteristic
intellectual extremism that infects Muslims en masse. It is not understood that
neither of the extremes is an acceptable alternative to the other, hence the
world appears all black and white, like an arena for a clash of ideas. The ‘Us
versus Them’ psyche translates into ‘Islam versus The West.’ This is dangerous
as it understands both Islam and the West as monoliths and glosses over the
many instances both historical and contemporary, of coexistence, intercultural
exchange, common grounds and shared values. It denies the universality of
commonly held values, viewing them as ‘Western’ or ‘Islamic.’ The actual
confrontation as recognized by Islam, is between Haqq and Baatil (Truth versus
Falsehood), and before deciding if anything that passes for Islam is the whole
truth, we need to ask ‘whose Islam?’, given the fact that the Quran and sunnah
are open to diverse readings and interpretations and the self-appointed
spokespeople of Islam are as many as the possible interpretations. Nor is Falsehood
equivalent to all that the West is about, given the fact that the
military-industrial complex and the clique of influential policy-making elites
are responsible for the highhandedness of foreign policy decisions and the
injustices that have wreaked havoc and provoked backlash among Muslim
populations.
Muslims often invoke the ideal of Islam comparing it to the
reality of Western society which often betrays its own values such as freedom
and liberty, to show the degeneracy of the latter as compared to the Divine
system they have been denied- unmindful of the many ways Muslim societies
consistently betray the values of Islam.
The myth of ‘Islam versus the West’ also denies the
collective heritage of Islamic and European civilizations and the instrumental
role Islam had in making the Enlightenment possible. “Arab science altered medieval Christendom beyond recognition. For the
first time in centuries, Europe’s eyes opened to the world around it- Arab
science and philosophy helped rescue the Christian world from ignorance and
made possible the very idea of the ‘West.’” (Jonathan Lyons, ‘House of
Wisdom’) Aime Cesaire beautifully and powerfully reminds us of this collective
human heritage and that attempts to claim a monopoly over the achievements of
human civilization are a form of intellectual dishonesty, whether done by
scholars in the West or the Muslim world.
"But the work of man is only
just beginning, and it remains to conquer all the violence entrenched in the
recesses of our passion, for no race possesses the monopoly of beauty, of
intelligence, of force. And there is a place for all at the rendezvous of
victory." - Aimé Césaire
In the same vein, there are other binaries like ‘Islam
versus Democracy.’ In the recent Pakistan elections numerous religious groups
propagated that casting a vote was an act of ‘kufr,’ because democracy is based
on the sovereignty of the masses over the sovereignty of God. While the system
of electoral politics in Western societies has elements that are incompatible
with Islam, the values of democracy are universal and are part and parcel of
Islamic governance. Following the majority opinion a standardized practice in
Muslim tradition (‘Ijma’ has many forms, the last of which sanctions general
voting by the public to settle questions that bear upon the interests of the
general masses and can be put to a public vote). Moreover, respecting popular
sentiment and being accountable to the public are fundamental Islamic political
values. The procedural rules of electoral politics can and should be reformed
to conform to Islamic standards and shari’ rulings made exclusively the job of
a panel of qualified ulema, beyond the purview of general voting- and it no
more is ‘an affront to God’s sovereignty.’ Numberless Islamic scholars have
talked of the compatibility between democratic principles and Islamic politics.
Sameen Sadaf notes the irony in ‘The Dynamism of Islam”: The
alternative, they say, is ‘Khilafat’ (which in many ways is democratic in its
ethos). However, since there is no comprehensive system and candidature for
khilafat at the time, one can suppose that all we can do is wait for a savior
while the forces of actual ‘Kufr’ take over and ruin us.” Pro-Sharia
activists seem to assume that mainstreaming the Islamic way of life through
dialogue and dawah can be discounted without any loss and they can march
straight to an Islamic Khilafah state that will somehow miraculously tame the
Muslim masses into believing
slaves of God.
The binary thinking pattern and exclusivism has made Muslim
consciousness be preoccupied with narrow, parochial concerns considered ‘Islamic.’
It is forgotten that being slaves of Allah means being good human beings first and
that as Muslims everything in the universe is our business. Zaid Hassan writes
of the need to ‘reclaim our relationship
to the whole’ in his wonderful article, ‘Notes
towards an Incomplete Manifesto for Liberating the Muslim Mind.’ The growing
distance between ‘deen’ and ‘dunya’ in Muslim consciousness has made Muslims unconcerned
about aspects that belong to the secular domain as profane and unworthy. Hence
there is an intellectual degeneracy, and a clear absence of contemporary Muslim
discourse in science, philosophy and the humanities, a near-absence of Muslim
contribution to research. In the recent
elections, Islamic parties in Pakistan exclusively talked of the need for a
return to rule by Islam, invoking Shariah, the Islamic identity and ethos of
Pakistan. Talking of issues that resonate with the masses like poverty or the
energy crisis was considered redundant given their ‘Islamic’ credentials. The
growing unpopularity of these parties and their less-than-expected performance
comes as no surprise.
This ghettoization of Muslim thought threatens to make us
dwindle into a cult at the margins of civilization. Religious discourse that
fails to take account of the modern mind and appeal to the youth with their voracity
for rational argument cannot be shoved down people’s throats. It is condemned
to survive as no more than a fringe-cult.
Still more lamentable is the fact that Muslims are failing
to realize the need to introspect in these critical times. Any manifestation of
the deep crisis in Muslim consciousness is dismissed as ‘unrepresentative of
Islam’ at best, and ‘propaganda against Islam’ at worst. Self-criticism is
noble, highly needful and the essential trait of the faithful. Muslims have
abandoned it altogether, and any voice helping us to examine ourselves
critically or calling for a reform is disdainfully rejected with suspicion and
sneering self-righteousness. The belief that terrorists or criminals or misogynists
‘use’ the name of Islam to justify their deeds is comforting but unhelpful
because it does not recognize the fact that many interpretations of the Quran
and sunnah actually give some grounds to sanction such acts and that therefore
there is great responsibility on Muslim thinkers to expose and oppose the textual
basis of such arguments.
The stasis of the Muslim mind is a daunting project before
us. Muslim society is terribly fragmented and polarized between the extremes of
the secular and the religious. So much of Muslim scholarship today is pitiably
out of touch with the vicissitudes of contemporary society, rationally
indefensible, in a language far removed from and inaccessible to the mass man
and incognizant of the psychology of modernity and post-modernity. ‘Maqulat’
must be brought at par with the ‘Manqulat’ as central to a holistic Muslim
education, precisely because that is how it had always been and was supposed to
be before things went awry. The need today is for Muslim scholars to negotiate
between entrenched extreme positions, address issues of the here and now in a
language that appeals to the common man, and to appeal to modern sensibility in
a manner that is faithful to the ethos of Islamic tradition. Such voices need
to collate, organize and rise to a crescendo that can drown out the clamour of
extremisms. It is a grand project and an urgent one, but cannot be begun until
we first realize the need for such effort today and cease to live in denial of
the terrible crisis that threatens to rob our faith of its very soul and reduce
it to perpetual irrelevance.
