Islam in Crisis (part 1)

Introduction: After the terrorist attacks of September 11 in the US, writers on Islam are coming around to asking a question hitherto regarded as politically incorrect: Is there something about Islam that predisposes it towards violent militancy? This inquiry is the more necessary now, as Islam is increasingly seen more as political ideology than as religious faith.

Commentators in the newspapers, here and abroad, have been content to cite selected verses from the Quran showing that Islam is essentially a religion of peace and tolerance. In the wake of the US terror, this was needed in order to prevent a violent backlash against innocent Muslims in the West. But it is as well to remind ourselves that the Quran, like any other scripture, needs to be read as a whole.

As Mark Lilla, professor of social thought at Chicago University, pointed out in an article published in the New York Times (Oct 7), the real issue is not what the scriptures of a religion say but how its traditional doctrines, including deviations ‘said and unsaid’, are received and understood by its followers.

Prof Lilla gives the example of the Roman Catholic church and its now admitted role in the betrayal of the Jews throughout its history, and adds significantly: "It is all very well for Catholics today to insist that their faith, properly interpreted, does not condone anti-Semitism. But that does not get us closer to understanding how millions of Catholics over a millennium could have thought that it did. Any Catholic who is serious about his fait must pose this question to himself."

Deviations from the scriptures, he rightly maintains, "do not arise from nowhere but have roots, however twisted, in the faith itself".

Prof Lilla’s piece goes on to expand on his theme of "extremism’s theological roots". He provides more telling examples from both Judaism and Christianity to show that neither can absolve itself of fundamentalist tyranny committed in the name of their scriptures.

Thus, Christianity has a proven record of unprovoked militancy during the crusades against Islam in the 10th century. Even today, its "moral majority" followers bomb abortion clinics appealing to the teachings of the Bible. As for Judaic fundamentalism: Israeli settlers have been daily perpetrating violence against Arabs in Palestine in what they see as a movement "fired by the eschatological belief that reclaiming land will hasten the coming of the Messiah".

Prof Lilla’s remarks on Islam and its claim to a place in the modern world are particularly relevant if Islam is to take its rightful place in the modern world.

Praising scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim, whose writings during the present crisis were "informed by a humane spirit of toleration", Prof Lilla concludes his piece by warning them, however, not to be guilty of "an abdication of intellectual responsibility", but boldly look for answers in their religious sources why Islamic theology has apparently failed in raising "defences against the spread of political extremism".

x x x

A word of personal explanation: As you will no doubt recall, I have been working under a Nehru Fellowhip for nearly a decade now on precisely the issues Prof Mark Lilla has now highlighted in the context of the tragic events of September 11. During this period of ‘sanyas’ from writing, my friends and well wishers almost without exception advised me in my own interests not to give publicity to my radical research findings in view of the delicate nature of the issues involved. The time has now come, I hope you will agree, for me and those like me to come out of the closet and openly say the things we have wanted to all these years. So here is my attempt to do so in response to Prof Lilla’s concluding query.

x x x

Gist of my thesis on Islam: There are three fault lines in Islam’s religious history - one institutional, another systemic, a third historical - which need to be seriously examined before we can find definitive answers to what Prof Lilla has identified as the apparent absence of theological defences in Islam which tend to tilt it towards fundamental extremism.

These revolve respectively around the following themes: the status of the Quran, the ‘madrasa’ system of education, and nostalgia for a past golden age. I give below short notes to give some elaboration of these themes and offer a possible way out of the difficulties they raise.

Status of the Quran: Rethinking the institutional status of the Quran is of prime importance. This is not simply a question of finding a verse in the Quran that suits the apologist’s purpose. Given the mixed character and non-contextual arrangement of the Quranic verses, it is not difficult for the fundamentalist Muslim, perhaps with more literal justification, to cite a verse which in so many words calls for the ‘slaying’ of non-believers in a violent ‘jihad’.

The authority the Quran enjoys as scripture on the Muslim mind is reminiscent of the hold exercised by the ‘inerrancy-of-the-bible’ doctrine among Christians, still cherished by its ‘moral majority’. The Muslim continues to be locked in the vise-like grip of a frozen-in-time text. This has been so since at least the 13th century when the clerical institution decreed that the door of ‘ijtihad’ (or creative reinterpretation of the scriptures) had been closed and the doctrine was replaced by that of ‘taqlid’ (or blind imitation of tradition).

However, a close look at Islam’s religious history shows that, while the Quran has always been held by Muslims to be God’s own word directly communicated through Prophet Muhammad, the issue of whether this necessarily implies that the Quran is binding scripture was the subject of vigorous debates from the 8th to the 9th century between theologians from the two mainstream schools, the Asharite and the Mutazilite.

The ‘freethinking’ Mutazilites put forward the radical thesis, supported by an array of impressive dialectics, that while the Quran was undoubtedly God’s word, it was scripture ‘created in time’; thus historically specific (or time- and place-bound). The Asharites, on the other hand, staunchly maintained the orthodox position that the Quran was eternal and immutable; therefore, as present-day ulema choose to put it, it is scripture ‘good and true for all times and places’.

In the ultimate analysis, the Asharite view prevailed, but not, be it noted, because of any ulema opposition but as the upshot of a political development. Three reigning caliphs of the 8th/9th centuries persisted in making the Mutazilite doctrine of the Quran official ideology of the state. Their fiat stirred up a popular revolt, especially when a much-respected conservative leader, Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal, was imprisoned and tortured for his stubborn adherence to the dissenting view. The successor caliph had eventually to withdraw the order, in the process burying deep all traces of the Mutazilite thesis. In its possible rehabilitation by the ulema would seem to lie the seeds of an Islamic reformation.

(Interestingly, there is nothing in the early sources to suggest that the dissenters against the orthodox consensus attracted the charges of heresy or apostasy from the ulema of the time).

The ‘madrasa’ system of education: This is the only type of schooling that the less well-off families in Muslim countries can afford to give to their children. The ‘schools’ are usually located in the premises of mosques, themselves well endowed by charitable trusts created and replenished by pious Muslims.

President Musharraf pointed out in the course of a press conference recently that there are as many as 40,000 such schools in Pakistan. Pressed by Western reporters on whether ‘madrasas’ serve as a breeding ground for religious extremism, he defended them as serving a social objective because they also often look after the food and clothing needs of their inmates.

There is, however, a downside to the system that is seldom acknowledged. Young minds are nurtured through their most formative years on an exclusive diet of the ‘Quranic sciences’ which are taught them by teachers themselves trained only in the traditional disciplines. Not having the benefit of exposure to a broader spectrum of learning, the young graduate as bigoted, tunnel-visioned adults, providing in the last analysis excellent recruiting material for fundamentalists to further indoctrinate.

Reforming this centuries-old system is not just a matter of adding supplementary courses on maths or basic science to the syllabi, as many well-meaning Muslim reformers seem to think. A systemic restructuring is called for which few states in the Islamic world, however much they may believe in Islamic reform, can afford.

Nostalgia for a past golden age: On the historical plane, there is a yearning among Muslim populations for a return to the supposedly pious and austere days of a past era, an era that probably never was. But a glorification of Islamic history stemming from traditional accounts buttresses the view. This is the stock-in-trade of generations of Muslims who tend to dismiss the application of a critical-historical analysis to their early sources - which is what enabled modern Christianity to rescue itself from a similar mire - is a conspiracy of Western scholars, keen to put down the civilizational achievements of Islam.

W Montgomery Watt, the eminent Scotch Arabist, an Islam-friendly scholar, tried to show a long time ago that there is no historical justification for the belief that the three decades during which the first four successor-caliphs to the Prophet ruled were free of strife; indeed they had more than their fair share of internecine troubles. Three of the rulers were murdered, in two cases by political assassins. Yet, their rule is regarded as a period of history when calm and tranquillity prevailed, prompting a wish for its revival.

Such utopian ideologies are a common feature of fundamentalist thinking in the developing countries, unable to solve their problem of mass deprivation and poverty. Indeed, it is the defining characteristic of religious fundamentalism in the world today. The challenge to come to terms with modern values in this respect is perhaps most formidable for Islam, as indeed it would be for any faith in which religious fundamentalism has found a niche.

Take my own country India - a modern and secular state with a proud record of being a full-fledged democracy since Independence more than 50 years ago. Recent attempts to inject traces of religious fundamentalism into its body politic by Hindu extremists have been only partially successful. Hinduism is perhaps the least dogmatic of the world’s religions, its fundamentalism consequently the least lethal. Yet the theme of a mythified golden age in the millennial past haunts its extremist followers who have been pursuing their pet agenda of rewriting history and downgrading science. (End of Part-1)