Prophecy and the Mullah: Hotel Mohenjodaro

http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/spring2004/pillars.html

by Rand corporation.

An Ideological Spectrum

There are essentially four ideological positions in the Muslim world today: fundamentalist, traditionalist, modernist, and secularist. Each group contains subgroups that blur the distinctions among the primary groups. It is important for Western leaders to understand the differences within groups as well as among groups.

Fundamentalists reject democratic values and contemporary Western culture. They want an authoritarian, puritanical state to implement their extreme view of Islamic law and morality. They are willing to use innovation and modern technology. They do not shy away from violence.

There are two strands of fundamentalism. One, grounded in theology and usually rooted in a religious establishment, belongs to the scriptural fundamentalists. This group includes most of the Iranian revolutionaries, the Saudi-based Wahhabis, and the Kaplan congregation of Turks. The radical fundamentalists, in contrast, are much less concerned with the literal substance of Islam, with which they take considerable liberties either deliberately or because of ignorance of orthodox Islamic doctrine. Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and a large number of other Islamic radical movements and diffuse groups worldwide belong to this category.

Traditionalists want a conservative society. They are suspicious of modernity, innovation, and change. They are also divided into two groups. The distinction is significant.

The conservative traditionalists believe that Islamic law and tradition ought to be rigorously and literally followed. They see a role for the state and for the political authorities in encouraging or at least facilitating this. However, they do not generally favor violence and terrorism. They concentrate their efforts on the daily life of society. Their goal is to preserve orthodox norms and values and conservative behavior to the fullest extent possible. Their posture is one of resistance to change. The temptations and the pace of modern life are seen as posing major threats.

The reformist traditionalists believe that Islam, to remain viable and attractive throughout the ages, must be prepared to make some concessions in the application of orthodoxy. They are prepared to discuss reforms and reinterpretations. Their posture is one of cautious adaptation to change, being flexible on the letter of the law to conserve the spirit of the law.

Modernists want the Islamic world to become part of global modernity. They want to reform Islam to bring it into line with the modern age. They actively seek far-reaching changes to the current orthodox understanding and practice of Islam. They want to jettison the burdensome ballast of local and regional tradition that, over the centuries, has intertwined itself with Islam.

They further believe in the historicity of Islam—that Islam as it was practiced in the days of the Prophet reflected eternal truths as well as historical circumstances that were appropriate to the time but are no longer valid. They believe that the essential core of Islamic belief not only will remain undamaged but will be strengthened by changes, even very substantial changes, that reflect changing times, social conditions, and historical circumstances. Their core values—the primacy of the individual conscience and of a community based on social responsibility, equality, and freedom—are easily compatible with modern democratic norms.

Secularists want the Islamic world to accept a division of mosque and state in the manner of Western industrial democracies, with religion relegated to the private sphere. They further believe that religious customs must be in conformity with the law of the land and human rights. The Turkish Kemalists, who placed religion under the firm control of the state, represent the secularist model in Islam.

These positions should be viewed as segments on a continuum, rather than divergent categories. There are no clear boundaries among them. Some traditionalists overlap with fundamentalists. The most modernist of the traditionalists are almost modernists. The most extreme modernists are similar to secularists. At the same time, the groups hold distinctly different positions on issues that have become contentious in the Islamic world today, including political and individual freedom, education, the status of women, criminal justice, the legitimacy of reform and change, and attitudes toward the West.

An Agenda for Reform

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS/EPA/
KERIM OKTEN
Whirling dervishes dance in the Mevlana dance hall in Konya, Turkey, on Dec. 17, 2003, the 730th anniversary of the death of Sufi poet Mevlana Jalal aldin Rumi. Through its poetry, music, and philosophy, Sufism can bridge religious affiliations within and beyond Islam.
What the roiling ideological ferment requires from the West is both a firm commitment to fundamental Western values and a sequence of flexible postures suited to different Islamic contexts, populations, and countries. This approach could help to develop civil, democratic Islam while giving the West the versatility to deal appropriately with different settings.

The following outline describes what such a strategy might look like. It rests on ``five pillars of democracy`` for the Islamic world. The pillars correspond to the postures that the West should take toward the four ideological groups and toward ordinary citizens in Muslim countries.

1. Support the modernists first, promoting their version of Islam by equipping them with a broad platform to articulate and to disseminate their views. It is tempting to choose the traditionalists as the primary agents for fostering democratic Islam, and this appears to be the course that the West is inclined to take. However, some very serious problems argue against taking such a course.

Overendorsing the traditionalists could undermine the ongoing internal reform effort within Islam and hinder those—the modernists—whose values are genuinely compatible with our own. Of all the groups, the modernists are the most congenial to the values and spirit of modern democratic society. We need to advance their vision of Islam over that of the traditionalists.

Modernism, not traditionalism, is what worked for the West. This included the necessity to depart from, modify, and selectively ignore elements of the original religious doctrine. The Old Testament is not different from the Koran in endorsing conduct and containing a number of rules and values that are unthinkable, not to mention illegal, in modern society. This does not pose a problem in the West, because few people today would insist that we should all be living in the exact literal manner of the Biblical patriarchs. Instead, we allow our vision of the true message of Judaism or Christianity to transcend the literal text, which we regard as history and legend. That is exactly the approach proposed by Islamic modernists.

Secularists are also close to the West in terms of their values and policies. But some secularists are unacceptable to the West because of their reflexive anti- Americanism or other positions. The secularists also have trouble appealing to the traditional sectors of an Islamic audience.

For these reasons, the modernists are the best partners for the West. Unfortunately, they are generally in a weaker position than the fundamentalists and traditionalists, lacking powerful backing, financial resources, an effective infrastructure, and a public platform. Therefore, Western leaders should support the modernists by these means:

Publish and distribute their works at subsidized cost.
Encourage them to write for mass audiences and for youth.
Introduce their views into the curriculum of Islamic education.
Make their religious opinions and judgments available to a mass audience to compete with the fundamentalists and traditionalists, who have web sites, publishing houses, schools, institutes, and many other vehicles for disseminating their views.
Position modernism and secularism as counterculture options for disaffected Islamic youth.
Use the media and educational curricula in suitable countries to foster an awareness of their pre-Islamic and non-Islamic histories and cultures.
2. Support the traditionalists enough to keep them viable against the fundamentalists (if and wherever those are the only choices). Among the traditionalists, the West should embolden those who are the relatively better match for modern civil society: the reformist traditionalists. The West should support the traditionalists against the fundamentalists in these ways:

Publicize traditionalist criticism of fundamentalist violence and extremism.
Encourage disagreements between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
Discourage alliances between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
Encourage cooperation between modernists and reformist traditionalists.
Where appropriate, educate the traditionalists to debate the fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are often rhetorically superior, while traditionalists practice a politically inarticulate ``folk Islam.`` In places such as Central Asia, traditionalists may need to be trained in orthodox Islam to be able to stand their ground against fundamentalists.
Increase the presence and profile of modernists in traditionalist institutions.
Encourage the traditionalists who support the Hanafi school of Islamic law as a way to counter the conservative Wahhabi-supported Hanbali school of Islamic law.
Encourage the popularity and acceptance of Sufism, a traditionalist form of Islamic mysticism that represents an open, intellectual interpretation of Islam.
3. Oppose the fundamentalists energetically by striking at the vulnerabilities in their Islamic and ideological credentials. Expose things that neither the youthful idealists in their target audience nor the pious traditionalists can condone about the fundamentalists: their corruption, their brutality, their ignorance, the bias and manifest errors in their application of Islam, and their inability to lead and to govern. The West should fight the fundamentalists in these ways:

Challenge their interpretation of Islam, and expose their inaccuracies.
Reveal their linkages to illegal groups and activities.
Publicize the consequences of their violent acts.
Demonstrate their inability to develop their countries and communities in positive ways.
Target the messages to youth, pious traditionalists, Muslim minorities in the West, and women.
Portray violent extremists and terrorists accurately as disturbed and cowardly, not as heroes.
Encourage journalists to investigate corruption, hypocrisy, and immorality in fundamentalist and terrorist circles.
Encourage divisions among fundamentalists.
One strategy holds great promise. Despite the success of radical fundamentalism in mobilizing discontented young people, especially young men, it has many features that should turn young people away. This major flaw in fundamentalist political strategy has not so far been exploited.

Radical Islam does not value young lives very highly. By manipulating youthful idealism and their sense of drama and heroics, radical Islam turns young people into cannon fodder and suicide bombers. Madrassas (the fundamentalist schools) specifically educate boys to die young, to become martyrs. If Muslim youth ever begin to look at things through a generational lens, as Western youth did in the 1960s, they may begin to ask why most suicide bombers and martyrs are under the age of 30. You don’t have to be young to strap explosives onto yourself. If it’s such a wonderful thing to do, why aren’t older people doing it?

4. Support the secularists on a case-by-case basis. The West should encourage secularists to recognize fundamentalism as a common enemy and discourage secularist alliances with anti-U.S. forces. The West should also support the idea that religion and state can be separate in Islam, too, and that the separation will not endanger the faith but, in fact, can strengthen it.

5. Develop secular civic and cultural institutions and programs. Western organizations can help to develop independent civic organizations that can provide a space in the Islamic world for ordinary citizens to educate themselves about the political process and to articulate their views.

Any strategy of this sort should be pursued with a wariness of the potential for backlash. The alignment of U.S. policymakers with particular Islamic positions could endanger or discredit the very groups and people the West is seeking to help. Partnerships that may seem appropriate in the short term, such as affiliations with conservative traditionalists, could provoke unintended consequences in the long term. To prevent this, the West needs to adhere consistently and faithfully to its core values of democracy, equality, individual freedom, and social responsibility.

Ralph.

The trouble is Manto agreed with that part.

And now calling these passages ``shameless lies``.

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HP, Manto

For some gems verbatim, such as (escapist #161)

``ijtihad is not done without real need. Ijtihad does not mean mowing and clearing a forest; it simply means that to understand the will of Shariah, if the orders are clear and injunctions established, then these will be accepted. But if in a given matter, the orders are not clear or injunctions are absent, then intellect and wisdom will be applied. While doing so, however, certain rules and methods will be followed. Thus by way of ‘necessity’, we are not differing with Iqbal. We believe and admit that whenever necessity so demands, there should be ijtihad.``

Look here

Ijtihad, Allama Iqbal, and Islamic Movement

http://www.jamaat.org/qa/ijtehad.html

HP #169

``I have had a chance to go over his posts and they are clearly his own or someone else’s spin on history.``

Escapist is lifting his posts almost verbatim from a websites run by either Jamaat-e-Islami or one of the other many similarly minded groups. I can`t recall offhand which one. He might tell us or I will let you know later today.

One minor opinion: You won`t be able to defeat any party by accusing them of putting a spin. You actually need to make a compelling case with facts and data. Manto did a great job it and was able to change many people`s opinions about Jinnah.

HP 169...

Completely agreed...

These JI types and their JUI allies are shameless liars when it comes to history.

-YLH

Yasser,

I have had a chance to go over his posts and they are clearly his own or someone else’s spin on history.

For sometime now these JI types have been trying to gain acceptance as by portraying Modoodi/JI as the true inheritor of Jinnah and Iqbal`s legacy.

JI and RSS types are masters of distorting history and lying to meet their narrow political goals.
Modoodi all his life translated Christian Science monitor’s publications and “Musharaf ba Islam” them. If you happen to get some of CSM publications from the 40s and compare them with Modoodi’s work you will be surprised at how much modoodi plagiarized.

Escapist...

So in other words you don`t agree with the idea of giving non-muslims complete equal rights ... or with the idea of finishing off the distinction of Muslim and Non Muslim in Pakistan... both ideas expressed by Jinnah atleast 40 different times during those crucial years? I thought you said Jinnah`s pronouncements were not secular but the expression of Islamic principle. So then why do you have a problem with accepting these ideas?

Or is it that you are having a problem with the words `non-theocratic` and `democratic` ... but I took them out of your own post... you said Islam could not envisage a theocracy and you spoke about this idea of an `Islamic democratic state`... then why do you have a problem acceping `Non-theocratic Islamic democratic state` when I am willing to give up the word secular..

Clearly you don`t mean what you say! Sadly Honesty and integrity, two other words that Islam have taught us ... have never touched you. Now hear this... we will create a Modern Democratic state in Pakistan today or tomorrow... call it non-theocratic Islamic democratic state, call it secular... we will have it as per the vision expressed by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah. We will have it... and people like you, the obscurantists will no longer hold us back.


As for Iqbal`s stance on Polygamy... please read `The Reconstruction of religious thought in Islam`... which you sadly quote very selectively ... and refer to the lecture on the principle of movement in Islam... in which he declares Turkey`s decision to ban polygamy a great Ijtehad of our times... and perfectly Islamic. Similarly you have stayed quiet on the issue of Interest Banking... in which again Iqbal`s views are considered controversial by the Mullahs... You know most of your posts are verbose but twist the real facts... and you have succeeded in turning another liberal against Iqbal... namely HP.... I hope you are happy with your performance... What great service you do to Islam and men like Iqbal... convincing the world that their ideas have no meeting point with the modern world.



HP,

I sincerely hope that instead of digesting that this spin on the board... you will pick up Iqbal`s `Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam`... and give it a read.

I will let you draw your own conclusions.

-YLH

YLH,

I am not aware of Iqbal`s stance on polygamy. As far as I know, he married twice, and was having lil affair with Atia Faizee . So he hardly was a monogmous man.

HP.
You are absolutly right. Infact, maududi agreed with Iqbal`s ijtihad that a parliment can act as a body to do Ijtihad, and joined the electoral politics. Muhammad Iqbal and Maudoodi shared lot of common ideas.

YLH,

I am not aware of Iqbal`s stance on polygamy. As far as I know, he married twice, and was having lil affair with Atia Faizee . So he hardly was a monogmous man. i think I did answer you in my last post. If the sharia is silent on the issue of the rights on non-muslims in an islamic state, we can go for such an ijtihad in a non-theocratic islamic welfare state. But I think Islamic sharia is very clear on rights and duties of muslims and non-muslims in an islamic state.

and yes, like all others, I do want to see pakistan turned into a welfare and just islamic society

HP.
You are absolutly right. Infact, maududi agreed with Iqbal`s ijtihad that a parliment can act as a body to do Ijtihad, and joined the electoral politics. Muhammad Iqbal and Maudoodi shared lot of common ideas.

Dear HP,

I don`t admire all that Allama Iqbal has to offer but I admire him as a great philosopher and an academic. I have profound disagreement with some parts of his ideology. I don`t like his However ... please do read my post 144 addressed to Malik99...

However Iqbal`s conception of a separate Muslim state was hardly based on any theocratic idea. Similarly his views on polygamy which he considered un-Islamic, Interest Banking which he considered perfectly justified, parliamentary democracy which he considered in line with the original ideas of Islam, and his sense of history, philosophy and politics... all were progressive...

Iqbal would have been a Mullah had he not been exposed to the great philosophers of the west including Nietzche and Kant... but he certainly would have given up his idea of `Mard-e-Momin` had he lived to see the idea of `superman` being abused and crushed by the Nazis in the second world war. He was after all a Humanist ... and look at the kind of poets and philosophers he continued to inspire... his biggest fan we know was the great Faiz Ahmed Faiz... Anne Marie Schimmel spent an entire life time devoted to Iqbal...

Iqbal was a store of information, ideas and philosophies... he therefore is readily available on stock to support any ideology. I sure can find many things in Iqbal`s writings to prove my point... like his intense admiration for Kemalist Turkey... Just like Pakistanis, Indians can also point to his tarana Hindi... even the fascists could point to Iqbal`s ode to Mussolini`s greatness... infact some on the SDPI committee last year called Iqbal a fascist ... though I think that too is a far fetched argument... akin to saying that he was a socialist...

Jinnah is known to have used Iqbal`s words to couch his liberal secular ideas... it was Iqbal who had written to Jinnah and convinced him that Islam was completely compatible with the idea of a modern democracy which went a long way in convincing Jinnah of the demand for Pakistan. V S Naipaull actually criticizes Iqbal for this somewhere ... he says that Jinnah was misled by Iqbal into thinking this...

Karen Armstrong says in her book `The History of God` that Iqbal was to Muslims what Gandhi was to the Hindus ... this comparison is apt ... there is a lot in Gandhi that a Modern Indian Hindu might not be able to reconcile with... especially his views against Western civilization, suffrage movement etc... but he was an intellectual giant... so was Iqbal to the Muslims of South Asia.


-YLH

escapist,

You state:
``It means that theocracy in Islam is not in the sense that there be some monopolist religious class, which alone should be the source to know the will of Allah. ``

and then

``Ijtihad does not mean mowing and clearing a forest; it simply means that to understand the will of Shariah, if the orders are clear and injunctions established, then these will be accepted. But if in a given matter, the orders are not clear or injunctions are absent, then intellect and wisdom will be applied. While doing so, however, certain rules and methods will be followed. ``

so, this to me means that in order to ``function`` well in a islamic state, one has to become well-versed in islamic cuture and heritage (largely arabic). Clearly, the religious class will have the advantage thus leading to theocracy is it not? Can non-believers get to rule if they dont have faith but have enough knowlege of islam, hadith and jurisprudence?

thanks

After reading what I read here, I think Iqbal was the biggest mullah of them all.

``the West is a big obstacle in the way of human progress, and unless the humanity gets rid of the concept of life given by the West, its problems will not be solved. The moral reconstruction of the universe according to the principles ordained by Islam, the discovery of the faithful person and building the society around social justice, are the foundations on which the world (system) needs to be established``. This was Iqbal’s mission.-- #153 by escapist

How this rhetoric and tirade against the west is any different than what the Mullah teaches everyday?
Iqbal first claims that The West is a big obstacle in human progress and then present Islam as the alternate. Isn’t this exactly what Modoodi does or isn’t this what every Madarassa educated Mullah claims? How is the West big obstacle? This is dogmatic.

Iqbal was the guiding philosopher and intellectual behind the demand for Pakistan and if he perceived Pakistan based on this repulsive, dyed-in-the-wool Mullah logic then I am afraid Pakistan’s problem from the very inception, were not a series of political blunders as I always thought, but were the results of fundamentally flawed and skewed philosophical basis of the country.
With this kind of line of argument espoused by the “Philosopher of Pakistan” no wonder Pakistan is dominated by the Mullah ideology and here we have some bright young men admiring him and arguing that Pakistan can still be a “secular or `Non-theocratic Islamic Democratic welfare state`” crap.

What further amazed me was the following statement;
“principles ordained by Islam, the discovery of the faithful person and building the society around social justice, are the foundations on which the world (system) needs to be established”

That is the reason Pakistanis are always looking for a messiah and that appears in the shape of Ayub, Zia and Musharraf. The literal reading of the “discovery” of the “faithful person” is the hallmark of the philosophy.
So you first discover the faithful person and then build the society around him or let him create that society like it was done in Medina.
The hollowness of these arguments and a blind following to this stupidity has brought Pakistan to where it is now.
Reading Iqbal was a huge disappointment.

Escapist...

But you didn`t answer the question:

You yourself said that Jinnah`s pronouncements were perfectly Islamic and that his conception of the state was a non-theocratic Islamic democratic state (your words)... so will you be willing to work towards this `Non-theocratic Islamic Democratic welfare state` that is impartial to the faith of the individual citizen, where there is no discrimination between a Muslim and a Non-Muslim and where every citizen is a Pakistani regardless of religion caste or creed? Because if you agree... you will find that people like me will be willing to drop even the word secular...


Ijtehad, as per Iqbal, needs to be done on many issues... like polygamy, like women`s inheritance issue, like Interest banking... Al Azhar and the Islamic Republic of Iran have already come out with some progressive new ideas on these topics...

Do you accept?

-YLH

YLH.

One thing should remain clear that ijtihad is not done without real need. Ijtihad does not mean mowing and clearing a forest; it simply means that to understand the will of Shariah, if the orders are clear and injunctions established, then these will be accepted. But if in a given matter, the orders are not clear or injunctions are absent, then intellect and wisdom will be applied. While doing so, however, certain rules and methods will be followed.

there are certain regulations for ijtihad and a certain level of scholastic capability. Ijtihad does not mean that those who know not even the preliminaries of religion, or on the other hand have no understanding of the contemporary problems, be given the right to formulate some wishful view in a given matter. If, for pleading a case in a court of law, you impose the condition, that the person should be a qualified lawyer, who has properly registered himself after studying law, if you set a level of education necessary for a doctor and hakim and consider quacks fistular ulcers for the health and society and similarly, if a degree of knowledge and experience is essential for an engineer; then why on earth, it is only religion in which anyone, without knowledge and practical experience, should jump in and exercise ijtihad? Even in the present time, personal righteousness , comprehensive understanding of the Qur’an and Sunnah, fair taste of the Arabic language and literature, thorough study of the vast jurisprudential material, and detailed study of the modern economic and political philosophies, are necessary for ijtihad. A lawyer of the high calibre like Allama Iqbal could not hold an unjust view that overlooks such fundamental pre-requisites.

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