Prattle from the Party: I

Abdurrahman Hilmi, a Hizb al-Tahrir activist who has left numerous comments across a variety of Muslim blogs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and of all of which look more or less the same), asks a question on Tariq Nelson's post, "Don't confuse me with the facts", which I think he also asked on a post either here or at Haroon's blog:

I always hear this excuse from you reformists and “modernists”, “what about the change in time?” Well what about it? What exactly changed other than technology? Did human value change? Or are we now past obeying the Quraan and are wise enough to make our own rules and laws? And how would the change in technology effect Islamic rule other than make it easier?

Firstly, it should be borne in mind that people who constantly talk about The Islamic State that are actually the ones who should be called "modernists". For it is a uniquely modern belief that politics will totally change our lives and redeem us, or that the existence of the correct political structure can cure 'the problems of society'. This belief in the salvational quality of politics, as has been noted by John Gray, is dying or already dead in liberal societies (to be replaced by the 'cult of science and technology' according to Gray). One can't help but agree with Dr. Yahya Michot, when he said (during a debate I attended on Wednesday night), that too many Muslims, having concentrated on politics to the exclusion of almost everything else, ended up "backing the wrong horse" in the 20th-century (especially if one considers that, according to Michot, economics has trumped politics). It is the modern idea of fascism that says the state must control and define all activities of its citizens: the economic, the political, the social, the legal, the cultural and even the metaphysical. It is people who reduce Islam to nothing more than a bid for power, a method and an end of governance, that will actually end up secularising Islam.

Political structures, Muslim or not, have crumbled in the past, and will crumble in the future. "The End of History" is a fantasy that many indulge in -- Islamist, Marxist, neoliberal -- but is something which will never occur through human action, for it is God alone who will bring about the end of the world. Tying one's faith in the Transcendent to a particular political form is thus ludicrous. In the words of S. Parvez Manzoor:

The transformation - disfigurement - of Islam into an ideology has produced at least one casualty - the Islamic tradition. For it may no longer assert its right to be judged on its own terms but has now to prove its legitimacy by out-secularising the secular state, by accepting that goods and gadgets are as salubrious as salah and zakah!

It is also a sign of the absurdism of such a belief when we consider that even if the caliphate (as such groups see it) was to be created tomorrow morning, it is people who must run these institutions. People are flawed. People are greedy. People are stupid. People are corruptable. (Of course, they have capacities to be good, moral, just and intelligent.) Law and culture are intrinsically linked together, and all verses in the Qur'an, and all hadith material, all juristic activities require people, individuals, to interpret and enter the space between "text" and "reality". Muslims have long known this: why else did they create and develop educational and legal traditions?

Abdurrahman asks, "What exactly changed other than technology?" This is breathtakingly naïve. Think about the changes in identities. Think about how many Muslims do not live in tribal societies (not that there is anything necessarily wrong with such socities). Think about mass urbanisation and how it has pushed people together (speculating, I'd say Muslim Andalucia might be a good historical example of this: urban populations of different religions and cultures living next to each other). Think about modern methods finance and economics, which has become an art and a science. Think about consumerism and commercialisation. Think about our relations with other peoples; not all people clearly identify with the communities in which they are born anymore. Think about inter- and intra-national relations; whereas there was a time when a Muslim could not live in Paris, London or Chesapeake Bay, today things are very different. Think about the change from the assumed 'state of war' between peoples and nations to the assumed 'state of peace' (this is a generalisation, but a good generalisation). Think about ideas such as international law. Think about the stratifications in societies: from noble, professional, rural and slave groupings to notions of working, middle and upper classes, or trade unionism, or (new and old) professions on a global scale (teachers, doctors, journalists etc). Think about the abolishment of slavery as a social class (of course, one can argue slavery still exists in different guises). Think about mass education: no longer is reading, writing, or even publishing, the luxury afforded to a certain section of society. Think about the inter-connectedness of the world, which supersceeds the 'globalisation' that past empires might have brought.

And then think about "technology" (by which I assume he also means advancements in health care and medicine), towards which many Muslims have a 'utilitarian' approach. Think about how warfare is now fought and about new means of technology: where does lobbing a bomb leave the chivalrous soldier? (Also, think about the very real difference between a sword and a gun and attitudes both can have.) Think about the implications of the general population living longer and of improved health care. Think about how our notions of self can be challenged: through surgical techniques to remove deformities or improve our physical characteristics, or through 'virtual' interactions across the internet. Think about mass communication: television can be used to push propoganda into our homes; the internet can be used to interact with people across the world, potentially free of national borders and cultural limitations. Think about how genetics and medical techniques will change our views on who we might disabled, and how such methods might potentially create other forms of life, where notions about racism, equality, slavery and freedom will again be debated with extreme vigour (racism etc. still exist, but there are certain assumptions amongst liberal societies which render them less serious than before, e.g. it is assumed that if racism was completely stamped out in Britain or the United States things would be more or less the same as they are today).

None of this is to say Muslims can't respond through their own traditions; far from it. Nor do I argue against an essential quality of humans: we have souls created by God. Yet, how can anyone say "What exactly changed other than technology?" and even then not consider the implications that changes in technology potentially have.

One must also ask questions to such Muslims, who criticise democracy as being alien to Islam and from the West, but then are happy to consume technology which also comes from the West. Yet, science and technology are also linked to the way we view ourselves and the world, and is not always 'value free'.

Also see this response from Tariq in his comments.

(See Part II and Part III of this series.)

Comments

[Abdul Rahman Hilmi]

bismillah
Assalamu alaikum

Economics, healthcare, tribalism, globalism. This is the EXACT response brother Tariq gave to that question and I replied to it. If you have something to add akhi, join the discussion over there. Other than that, I'm not going to start all over again over here.

How exactly will healthcare effect our need for a khilafah? Why does advancement in healthcare make us not need a khilafah? Economics? globalism? I explained what a Khilafah is several times. SEVERAL times. Halal, haram, ijtihaad. How exactly are these things you mentioned go against the khilafah? Why wont they be compatible with it?

what do you know, you made me repeat myself. Although I said more in Tariq's blog...

wassalam

[haroon]

Damn son, you told him. Masha'allah Thabet -- breathtakingly naive, your response was breathtaking. Most Muslims can't even grasp the ways in which globalization and a consciousness of planetary commonness have radically changed identity, politics, association, ideology, language and cause-and-effect even in the local. Beautifulness.