Tradition and Change in the Encounter Between Islam and Secularism

One interesting aspect of the modern struggle for freedom for Muslims to practice their faith in the USA and Europe is how that struggle changes all the parties involved, in unexpected ways. Americans can fret about 'creeping sharia', Europeans can rail about secularism, and even ban the headscarf in the EU, but they can't keep more and more Europeans and Americans from converting to Islam, and indeed it seems, the more they rail, the more attractive Islam seems to free-thinking Europeans and Amricans, who wish to discover the religion for themselves. In other words, the kind of exclusionary hardcore secularism promoted by many Europeans and American atheists is precisely the kind of ideology more likely to drive people towards committed religious belief as a countercultural move (especially when they see the connection between Islam and the Black Freedom Movement in the US). And if anything the struggles over Islam expose how secular atheism can be just as much an exclusionary, hateful and doctrinal ideology as what these same atheists imagine Islam to be. Secular atheists of the left will try desperately to argue that the secular right in Europe and the US is not the 'true' secularism, but the fact is that secularism itself is being reshaped by struggles around Islam, and will continue to evolve in unexpected ways as a result of this encounter. On the other hand, traditionalist Sunni Muslims seeking the freedom to practice their faith in an American context can rail against liberalism and secularism all they want, but they will have to tolerate Ahmadis, Shias and other Muslim religious dissidents who would be persecuted and killed with nary a peep about human rights in majority Muslim countries (countries they often travel to because that is supposedly where the faith is the 'purest'). They will have to share religious space along LGBT communities who are politically mobilized in ways unfamiliar to those immigrating from majority Muslim countries. They will have to reckon with the close association between Islam and hip-hop in the US, while the scholars they learn from regard music as haram. Most importantly, they also have to share space with atheists, who are, along with Muslims, the least popular religious group in America. In advocating for religious space in America and Europe, using secular principles, Sunni Muslims are already beginning to shift, fudge or simply reject the faith's basic attitudes toward atheists, who the Quran condemns in the strongest possible terms. No doubt there will be a considerable amount of double think around this shift, but it is happening and it is already changing the practice of American Muslims I know (Europe I am much less familiar with). As much as this horrifies the likes of certain Muslim bloggers and preachers, Islam itself is being reshaped around its struggles with liberalism and secularism, and will continue to evolve in unexpected ways as a result of this encounter. What I personally take from this: Don't let anyone tell you that a civilizational clash is occurring, or that either Islam or the West has a superior moral code. Study civilizations and beliefs from the perspective of insiders, but don't assume the insider's beliefs are always valid. Don't let anyone convince you that secularism or Christian values or civilization or Islam "must be defended." Don't let anyone tell you not following a particular Abrahamic book means you have no metaphysical or moral foundation. Defense of abstractions, whether they be books or ideologies, can be necessary. But these same defenses can also quickly turn into a willingness to sacrifice others for the sake of your book or your ideology. There is an African proverb, "when two elephants fight, the grass gets crushed". Today's violent struggles are manmade fights for geo-political and worldly power that have brought untold horror to "the grass" (the people). At this point it is of little utility which elephant crushed whom. Some of us need a more limited focus on local principles of reciprocity and treatment of our neighbor. Some of us need education on what Islam is and what Muslims believe. Some of us need to remember that black Muslims were in America before most white Christians or atheists. Some of us need to stop assuming that a man with a beard and a thobe hates women and gays, or that a woman with a hijab was forced to put it on. Some of us need to be as outraged by violence in Mosul as we are about violence in Paris. Some of us need to stop implying that liberal Muslims are insincere goons and toadies. Some of us need to stop believing that all unbelief is just ingratitude. Some of us need to learn more about our own beliefs, and acknowledge both the good and the bad in them. Some of us need to look within at ourselves and our own civilization before we criticize. Some of us need to remember our debts to atheist freedom fighters like A. Phillip Randolph and W.E.B. Dubois before carping about the evils of atheism. #dailyrant #rantover

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The World From Islam (excerpt of interview with Sheikh Khalfan al-Isry)

George Negus is a famous Australian journalist who wrote a book, The World From Islam, which was published by HarperCollins and panned by The Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) as "a superficial piece of puffery that fluctuates in tone between the two poles of sanctimony and sycophancy." They are right in a way, but not because of any supposed 'anti-Semitic, T.E. Lawrence syndrome' the reviewer accuses him of. They are right because of this statement from Negus, found on the back cover: "Over the last twenty-five years, I've worked and travelled in more than a dozen Islamic countries. On the basis of this regular and varied contact, I would argue that more than 99.99 per cent of Muslims are not, repeat not, terrorists."

While the statement is, of course, true, it indicates how sickeningly flawed the general Western public discourse is on Islam. When an author feels it necessary to make such a statement, something is very very wrong with public perception. Despite Negus's good intentions, such a statement is presumptous and idiotic in the extreme. To demonstrate why, lets insert other stereotypes of social or religious groups into the equation. E.g.: "99.99% of Hindus don't practice 'sati'" or "99.99% of blacks aren't petty criminals and drug addicts." The very presumption in making such a statement demonstrates in and of itself (in spite of its possible good intentions) what a ridiculous starting point for true dialogue it is. What can those seeking a deeper view of Islam really get from such a facile starting point?

It turns out that Negus's book isn't all bad; there is an intriguing interview with Sheikh Khalfan al-Isry, a notable Omani sheikh who has his own radio program and gives regular programs (in English) about giving da'wah. I have reproduced portions of the interview below:

GN: Non-Muslims--not just in Australia where I come from but everywhere--are thirsty for first-hand knowledge of Muslims. That's why I want to talk to outspoken Muslims like your good self!
K: Yes, but I also think largely sentimental Muslims need to equip themselves with understanding of their own religion. Islam does not want you to follow it blindly. The first thing that is taught in Islam is knowledge. So you should go and open books, Islamic books, that try to teach Islam--how to pray and how to do things. The book of knowledge is the first book, the first chapter.
GN: Are you saying there are Muslims out there who don't really understand Islam themselves?
K: I know many Muslims who go and pray and I usually ask them: 'Why do you pray?' And they say, 'To worship God.' 'Do you know who is God, the one you're trying to worship?' I ask them. 'Yes I know him,' they say. 'He's the Creator. He's the one giver who gives us everything.'
GN: How do you reply?
K:I say 'no' to the slogans. That's what you've been taught, but it's what you know, what you believe that matters.
GN: The same could probably be said of many Christians or Jews.
K: Did you know that half of the Omani population is still at school? More than half, actually, are under the age of twenty. So I say that many Muslims have taken Islam by tradition, by inheritance--not by personal belief.

GN: Is Western materialism affecting Muslims?
K: We have been influenced by the glamour of Western civilization. Islam says that we have been made to be the agent of God on this Earth and that civilizations will be there for us if we have made a difference and co-exist with the differences. Its the differences that make us as we are. It's capitalising from each other, benefiting from each other. In the days of the Prophet himself, as he was advocating the message of the oneness of God, he co-existed with the Jews, the Christians, even with pagans. In the heart of Islam, he co-existed with them.
What we have seen though, is the glamorous picture of the West. Maybe that has influenced Muslims a lot. Maybe the crime of taking that glamour was moral disintegration. Not everything that's glamorous is good. The good thing is that these days the educated Islamic elite are the ones who are making the comparisons. Those advocating boycotting Western and US products are not religious, they are Islamic people who are perceived in the West to be 'civilized'.
An example! If you go to mosques today--not twenty years ago, but today, 2003--you see that mosques are filled, even for the early morning prayer, which is at 4:30, with not only the regulars; you see the working community--workers and professionals--and their kids. Twenty years ago, it was only the elders that went there for early prayers and they didn't have the persuasive skills to entic their kids to go to the mosque. The working community didn't care. They were raised that this was just basic tradition. But today they have gone beyond the obvious of why I have to pray, more to why I should pray, what do I get out of it? And seeing the benefit themselves, they say if this is the benefit I get, I'd better visit the mosque regularly.

More can be found in George Negus's book, The World From Islam.

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Pensee #3: Reconceptualizing the "Regions" in "Area Studies"

I couldn't have said it better! As someone who has had the privilege to sit in Dr. Voll's class, his thoughts are on point and very welcome in light of the issues discussed in this blog.
by John Voll, Professor of Islamic History and Associate Director of the Prince al-Waleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
Article originally appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies
“Area studies” as a way of trying to understand human experience is undergoing a major transition. Questioning the connection between Middle East and African studies highlights important dimensions of the changing nature of area studies at the beginning of the 21st century.

The question reminds us that the “regions” at the core of the concept of “area” studies were and are constructs for the convenience of analysts. During the 1950s and 1960s, policymakers and scholars divided the world conceptually into regions for study. In the United States, the definition of these regions crystallized around the list of non-Western “world regions” studied in centers supported by funding initially authorized by the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Although world regions had been (and are still) defined in many different ways, this 1960s conceptual division of the world became widely accepted. It is in this context that the regions involved in “African” studies and “Middle East” studies came to be defined. African studies became primarily the study of sub-Saharan Africa rather than the continent as a whole. The emerging cadre of professional “Africanists” tended to exclude the countries of “North Africa”
from their subject matter.

The definition of the Middle East changed significantly from the early usage by military planners in the 1890s. However, virtually every definition excluded African areas beyond the Mediterranean coast. In one exception, the British War Office during World War II included the Horn of Africa, but by the 1960s, most people accepted the conclusion of one of the standard geography texts of the time that Sudan and the countries of the Horn were “more properly considered as parts of intertropical Africa.”

One important result of this division was that the two fields—African and Middle East studies—developed relatively separately, and the conceptual regions tended to become reified. People spoke of “culture continents” with distinctive identities,2 opening the way for a vision of the world made up of separate—and clashing—“civilizations.” Topics that did not fit into these two conceptual boxes tended to be marginalized in “mainstream” coverage of sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East in conferences and professional associations.

These conditions contributed to two difficulties in the area-studies approach that are now changing. The first is a regionalist primordialism, which endows regions with some essential identity. As a result, interactions among regions are viewed as “borrowing” or “foreign” influences. However, interactions between the Middle East and “Africa” have resulted in dynamic cultural syntheses that are distinctively local but no longer simply manifestations of some primordial essence that has “borrowed” some foreign elements. Studies of these developments require “area-studies” expertise but also require transcending regionalist primordialisms. An interesting example of this postprimordialist analysis is Donald Wright’s study of Islamization and globalization in “a very small place in Africa." A dual regional studies approach, combining African and Middle East studies, is an important part of going beyond the primordialist perspective.

A second difficulty is a monolithic view of the dimensions of human activities in the region under study. Classical area studies tended to see geographicphysical, economic, cultural, and religious boundaries as being roughly the same. However, looking at the Middle East and Africa together reminds us that important regions or networks of interaction cross borders. The networks of Muslim pilgrimage that run from the Atlantic coast of Africa to western Arabia are an integrated region rather than two regions interacting. The networks of economic interaction have little relationship to the boundaries assumed by area-studies definitions of the Middle East and Africa. The classic study of the trans-Saharan trade from antiquity by E. W. Bovill presents an important example of how economic enterprise does not conform to the regions of area
studies. Studies of religious and economic relations between South Arabia and East Africa by scholars like Anne Bang illustrate that there was no clear “regional” boundary between the Middle East and Africa in this broad swath of territory.

Within the framework of these thoughts, why and how should Middle East and African studies be connected? They need to be connected through scholarship that transcends the primordialism and monolithic definitions of old-style area studies because these two regions are not separate “areas” or discrete “civilizations.” Instead, they are interacting and diverse sets of human experiences that historically have influenced and shaped each other. Understanding this will help scholars build a perspective and a methodology that avoids the dangers of old-style cultural essentialism that can lead not only to the conception but also to the reality of a clash of civilizations.

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