under|progress

Benedict XVI should read some Ibn Hazm

Abu Muhammad: "[The Pope's remarks lacked] sufficient concern for historical reality and an in-depth knowledge of Muslim philosophy. After reading the text of Ratzinger's speech quite a few times, I am still perplexed regarding the line of his reasoning; namely that faith in an absolutely transcendent God whose acts and will cannot be grasped completely by human reason can possibly lead one to conceive His images which are capricious and may be against all truth and goodness. The argument becomes further ironic as Pope strangely chooses to abduce views of a multifarious Muslim writer who can equally be classified as a quasi-liberal writer/poet, a literal jurist, a controversial philosopher, an innovative grammarian or above all a compassionate ethicist."

On positivism

Positivism is the path to tyranny.

Secular salafism

Critics of Salafism suggest that its basic philosophy is characterised by the phrase  'Islam is the simple religion'. They abhor the grey areas in which we must live and seek to find simplistic, black-and-white answers to everything. It reduces everything in the world to one problem: people aren't "religious" enough.

Similarly, there is a secular version of this mindset. It seeks to reduce the world's problems to a few items, the most commonly cited of which is religion: "Religion is bad". Violence, oppression, terrorism, cruelty are all done in the name of religion, therefore religion is bad. But what they really do is abhor the complexities of our world, the grey areas, which, at times, are indeed troubling to the mind, and which require patience and genuine tolerance. And if terrorism, violence and oppression are due to religion, what explains the countless people who sacrifice their worldly pleasures and ambitions to help the poor and the vulnerable in the world who are also driven by religious beliefs?

The Muslim Condition: VI

I would like to thank Atif Imtiaz, editor of the Bookviews section at DeenPort, for allowing me to reproduce a piece entitled "The Muslim Condition". I have serialised it into several parts and made some minor editions for the sake of presentation. May God reward his efforts. This is the last part of six part series.

Part VI: Ways of talking and working
Having outlined the basic parameters for work, I wish to now move on to discuss some of the particulars that affect our manners of engagement in British society. The first point is the style of talking. Political discourse dominates Muslim engagement. The language of rights is prevalent as it mirrors our nationalist concerns. An alternative would be a language of human sympathy that excavates the emotions of everyday life of those who seek the Divine. Instead, our language – the talk of ideology – is the talk of overkill. We jump to condemnations of concentration camps and genocide. The English, however, like to understate. We say: ‘You’re wrong!’, the English say: ‘Well, I’m not sure if I would put it like that’ [1], and in many instances it is worse to be inappropriate than wrong. Another example of the consequences of cultural delinquency is the failure to recognise rhetoric as rhetoric. There is a tradition within English culture of argumentation that seeks to offend as a way of provocation – to see how the opposing person will respond. They may not mean what they say, they may simply be attempting to test the robustness of our positions, and so, we should recognise their approach as a problem of style and not substance.

Secondly, our method of engagement should be responsive to those from whom we believe the criticism is originating. In the case of the British national sphere, this is mainly the middle classes. As such, the language adopted is attempted as a method of engagement with the middle classes, but the politicised nature of the interaction means that the middle classes are not positively responding to such attempts. They are far more interested in cultural engagement rather than the rhetoric of rights. Alternatively, the working classes share a rather different outlook and therefore require a different form of engagement. The issues that matter to the middle classes do not raise their eyebrows. It is indicative of how far we are from making significant progress that we have failed to develop a useful language for either the middle classes or the working classes.

One of the reasons why neither cultural groups are successfully engaged is cultural illiteracy amongst Muslims. Much of the British Muslim engagement relies upon fairly superficial readings of modernity and the present Western condition. This is because many young Muslim activists have mostly pursued careers in the technical, scientific, medical, financial or legal professions that is, they help work the wheels of British society. There are relatively few Muslim graduates in the cultural sciences. Rumi asks his students in one of his discourses: '... you put forward your excuse, saying, 'I expend myself in lofty tasks...' Well, for whose sake but your own are you doing all these things?’ (p. 28). One consequence is that our expertise on issues of culture and engagement, one of the foremost issues that we face, remains underdeveloped. In the aftermath of September 11, we could not muster one expert in American foreign policy from across the whole British Muslim community. The choice of career by our brightest means that we remain culturally delinquent, unable to notice the subtleties requisite for persuasion. Even in terms of our immediate urban needs, there are few Muslims who have mastered the downward spiralling in trends related to education or crime, a sociological know-how of how certain sections of the community are becoming de-educated and more importantly how to respond to it. Ideological groupings provide a way out here. They suggest that it doesn’t really matter what career path one embarks upon as long as one attends the irregular weekend gathering or the weekly meeting. So if one young man decides that he wishes to contribute to changing his situation and then approaches an ideological organisation, he is then told – at the moment when ideology asserts itself - that he should ignore his immediate situation and focus himself on whatever diagnosis the group is offering. This way, as long as we continue to gather to discuss the problem, while remaining a part of the capitalist architecture within our working lives, then the problem will eventually be resolved, or so ideology promises. The reverse is that we have to begin to choose those career paths that are more deserving of our life commitment as Muslims.

Another consequence of cultural delinquency is the categorical condemnation of all others as enemies. 'We can’t work with anybody'. 'They are all disbelievers anyway'. 'Everything is controlled'. Even amongst Muslims, we can not work with the majority of them, because some of them do such and such and the others are such and such. This is again a problem that plagues the manner of our present engagement though again it is changing. What most of us need to recognise is that of all the non-Muslims, very few are actually outrightly anti-Muslim. Perhaps a similar number are Muslim-philes but don't know who to (or how to) approach. And most are confused, unsure, they have some information provided to them by the media, but are willing to hear the other side, change their mind, even. The refusal by many Muslims to engage perhaps out of shame or lack of know-how means that we have few partners. This has meant that some sections of the left have gone over to the right, whether this is in the form of journalistic commentators or votes for the British National Party. The reasons for this can be summarised from much of the above. As we constantly claim our rights in pursuit of further inclusion, we are in fact becoming further excluded since our claim to legal inclusion is leading to cultural exclusion. It is my main contention that we need to change our manner of engagement from a language of identity rights towards one that seeks to further human conversation – to mirror Rorty’s appeal to fellow liberals – to extend human sympathy, and this can only be done through a non-ideological Islam that ignores the daily media frenzy – that is, through deep religion, an 'inside Islam'.

© S. M. Atif Imtiaz

[Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.]

Notes
[1] H. Eaton makes such a point in "Under Western Eyes", Islamica, Winter 2004.

The Muslim Condition: V

I would like to thank Atif Imtiaz, editor of the Bookviews section at DeenPort, for allowing me to reproduce a piece entitled "The Muslim Condition". I have serialised it into several parts and made some minor editions for the sake of presentation. May God reward his efforts. This is the fifth part of what will be a six part series.

Part V: 'Inside Islam'
It is important because Muslim identity politics and Muslim character development are two separate and often contradictory ways of working. For example, Muslim identity politics as it manifests itself today is about righteousness, victimhood, anger, pride, the advocacy of self, the blaming of others, the looking out for self and the looking down on others – all of these have been condemned by scholars of the heart. So though it may seem that we are championing Muslim causes, it may be through means that are un-Muslim. Imam Ghazali has written lengthy treatises in his Ihya Ulum ad-Din on the condemnation of pride and anger – both characteristic of identity politics and Ibn Ata’illah condemns self-righteousness and the looking down on others in his Hikam. Another problem for the Muslim identity paradigm is its lack of concern for personal morality. Morality in this paradigm is a public matter to be upheld and championed but only on those issues that affect the specific group concerned. This is because, as Young (1990) has noted, the nature of public policy dispute forces identity politics groups into cynical manoeuvrings to further their case. But morality, if it is to count (in an eternal sense), has to provide a compass for action beyond political posturing: a personal code that nurtures good character. Islam is therefore not a form of nationalism but an ethics. This affects the immediate outcome as well as people will listen to our complaints of the Muslim situation and our concern for the lack of public morality and accountability and then they will watch us in our everyday actions, and if they see a discrepancy then our case will be weakened. If we are calling for goodness and fairness at the global scale, then people will look to see if we ourselves have goodness in our little everyday behaviour. This point is sometimes extended to such an extent as to make it unreasonable but the issue here is one of methodology, our chosen trajectory of escape has to accept our sinful nature as part of our condition but then work to reduce the discrepancies.

Here we come to the second kind of Islam: 'inside Islam'. Its focus is upon the believer's immediate environment – primarily his self, and thereafter those whom he has to serve and then those whom he should serve if he can. This 'inside Islam' concentrates on the details, the small, regular acts of everyday behaviour – he attempts to secure some order and coherence to his life and thereafter provides whatever service he can (in his area of interest or concern) to those around him. For most this will be in their immediate vicinity, for some – but a minority - this will involve some 'outside' kind of work [1]. All of this community work is khidmah (service) – he recognises that he is only responsible for that which he is able. He feels the suffering of his fellow brothers and sisters but he also knows that endlessly talking about their suffering and the particulars of their political situation will not resolve the situation – he knows that if he is to be sincere to their suffering then his heart must move his limbs to action towards the general betterment of the ummah, as one of the Sufis says: 'If every man were to mend a man, then everyman would be mended'. But all of this moral energy can and must only come from a re-organisation of one's priorities and understandings. All of the above should come about as a result of recognising the true nature of things by distinguishing between that which is miniscule and that which is Magnificent, and by choosing between that which is temporary and that which is Eternal. Once these realities begin to dawn on one, and one submits oneself to the true nature of things, then the rest is merely a matter of following that which is logically obvious.

Ideology though only ever has a lasting influence, its effects tends to wither with time, as the real, immediate issues make themselves known. Talking about the khilafah makes way for talking about drugs, talking about the details of aqeedah makes way for talking about education, talking about Islam and democracy makes way for talking about disenfranchised youth, even on a personal level, ambition will have to make way for service, and more crucially than all of these, absence from the Kind and Gentle gives way to a longing and yearning for closeness. The various groups have begun to shed their ideological baggage, and it seems that at present the 'dawah scene' is in a state of flux. So how are we to agree on the way forward?

The first point has to be sincerity before the All-Knower. Imam Ghazali begins his Ihya Ulum ud-Din with a stinging critique of religion as industry. There is no doubt that much of what is becoming institutionalised within British Islam is religion as industry – small economies within small fiefdoms. The nurturing of sincerity at the heart of these small communities will be central to their success.

The second point has to be adab. Adab should become the universal Muslim language. It should be the marker by which we can identify each other: the way we talk, the way we look, the way we move our hands: all are indications of our hearts' state [2]. Adab also regulates our disagreements: did we raise our voice? Did we plot against our brother behind his back? In this sense, one measure of our Islamic-ness – or perhaps more appropriately, our closeness to the Divine – is our adab, even in matters of eating and personal hygiene. All of this regulation of behaviour is ultimately only obedience to the sunnah of the Messenger and a recognition of the Divine Command.

The third point has to be the following of madhabs. Take two common suggestions: 'I can derive my own law from the Qur’an and the hadith' and 'I want to follow a scholar who does not follow a madhab himself'. The first suggestion rejects taqlid. The second suggestion accepts the necessity of taqlid as long as it is to any authentic and well-recognised scholar. The first suggestion is no longer regarded as credible [3]. The second suggestion holds some weight amongst some Salafis, but they still have to show how the individual scholars that they wish to follow instead of the madhabs can somehow remain stronger when lined up against the scholarship of any of the four madhabs. If the salafis can arrive at a fiqh-related meeting point from which they can negotiate their interaction with others (without condemnation), then this could open the doors of mutual opportunity.

The fourth point has to be an agreement on the forbidden nature of killing people who are not directly involved in warfare. The jihadi argument has extended the limits of permissibility in this area and this perspective has leaked out into other groupings. What is required is the rejection of such points of view and the affirmation of the sacredness of all human life.

The fifth point then has to be an agreement on the problems that face the community. If the starting position is that working on extra-local platforms (beyond impacting the local community: the national and the international) is for the few and may ultimately only remain chimeral, then the focus for the majority of activists – that is those who wish to serve their communities – has to be their local communities. Without wishing to romanticise localism, there can be little doubt that the most effective form of intervention is local-based. This approach would require the outlining of strategies across major urban areas where those who share similar concerns could identify the key challenges that they wish to take on (and this should be closely followed by regular auditing of the extent of achievement within these projects). In mainly post-industrial areas, this would include an analysis of educational standards, delinquency, employment and health. A simultaneous awareness of avoiding exclusively negative strategies (i.e. beyond victimhood) would help protect against a worsening psychology, for example, through volunteering or mentoring schemes, outdoor clubs and artistic endeavours. In successful working environments the challenge may be more to do with a respect for the law as middle class communities seem to have less regard for obedience to the law. Essentially, this is about the fostering of an Islam within an urban environment, and I wish to suggest that the response will vary according to class demographics. As the world as a whole moves towards urbanisation, the challenge of making Islam work within a variety of city environments will become more urgent.

The sixth point concerns the level at which organisation is abstracted. Many of the organisations have maintained a national focus and this is an indication on the extent to which the parameters and the kinds of containers that we employ are determined by modernity which many of us have implicitly assumed. Even Hizb ut Tehrir, the most anti-nationalist of the groups, has a national leadership. But there is no reason why those who are committed towards khidmah have to organise at a national level, or for that matter at a regional or local level. They should organise at that level which makes most sense in light of the objectives that they wish to achieve, and it would be my contention that most of what we would wish to achieve can best be achieved while focused on individual cities. It is probably important here to note that ideology becomes more influential as one moves towards the national level of organisation. Otherwise, we should be united in our hearts by helping each other, being generous towards each other, respecting and honestly working with people’s territorialisms. Similarly we should turn away from disliked forms of social activities such as gossip, tale mongering, back-biting and pointless conversation - that is, we should account for our time as we account for our wealth. Those who do not adhere to such behaviours should be encouraged to change, as enjoining one another to truth and patience are two of the four Qur'anic conditions of success.

© S. M. Atif Imtiaz

[Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part VI of this series.]

Notes
[1] This distinction between an 'inside Islam' and an 'outside Islam' concerns the psychology of a person more than his behaviour. Two people may behave the same in terms of level of activity, but psychologically, one may be with His Lord, and the second may be with society, that is, the news reports.
[2] For good expositions of Islamic adab see "The Way of Sufi Chivalry" by al-Sulami and "Islamic Manners" by A. Abu Ghuddah.
[3] For example, see "Why do we need Madhabs when we have Qur’an and Sunnah?" by N. Keller and "Understanding the Four Madhabs" by A. Murad.

The Muslim Condition: IV

I would like to thank Atif Imtiaz, editor of the Bookviews section at DeenPort, for allowing me to reproduce a piece entitled "The Muslim Condition". I have serialised it into several parts and made some minor editions for the sake of presentation. May God reward his efforts. This is the fourth part of what will be a six part series.

Part IV: Ideology and identity politics
All of the above is an attempt [I, II, III] to outline a sociology of knowledge. I wish to distinguish between three different types of knowing: knowing of, knowing about and knowing. The first is a glancing kind of knowledge, it is the first post of threshold past ignorance. To know of is to have heard of the subject, but not much more. Perhaps a sentence or two on the subject are all that can be recalled. The second is a slightly more elaborate form of knowing, the subject matter is known, perhaps its relations with other subjects is also known; explanations, attributions, causes, histories could all be briefly provided. This kind of knowing involves being able to speak of the subject matter for a couple of minutes, but no more. The third kind of knowing is knowing itself. The subject is thoroughly understood; its history, relation, internal distinctions etc. are all familiar and if pursued then this kind of knowing could provide the substance for lengthy conversations.

The first and second kind of knowing are provided in the main by the media whereas the third can only be attained through individual study and it would be a personal guess to suggest that most of current modern knowledge is of the first and second kinds. Since September 11, the popular transition in relation to the knowing of Islam and Muslims is that now many people can talk about Islam and Muslims for about half an hour but it would be a totally prejudicial conversation – as such shallow or sham forms of prejudice have become fortified. This is developing while we Muslims have little control over what is known about us since sections of the media are communicating about us on our behalf. In this sense there is a cultural objectification that is developing when in fact a form of cultural inclusion is required. This does not represent the total trend, however, it is an important aspect of the present state of affairs. The only antidote against this social poison is our own personal behaviour - our behaviour communicates, it can confirm or deny, whether it is in the form of a casual glance or a lack of morality.

I have written in a very general way about the media representation of Islam in the recent past. I wish to focus however on one consequence of this representation that is a direct result of this continuous stream of representations: ideology. Macro-politics and its depiction almost necessitates an ideological response. This was certainly evidenced in the early nineties after the first Gulf war and the war in former Yugoslavia. It can also be evidenced by the success of two forms of associations within the Muslim public sphere: ideological organisations and charities. Both depend upon the repeated imagery of Muslim victimhood. This may be justified in that many of the world’s problems are Muslim related and that many of the world's victims are Muslims, furthermore any response that does not feel the suffering of fellow Muslims is surely lacking in basic matters since it is a sign of faith to feel for fellow Muslims. However, this does not represent the total story of the Muslim predicament which with over one billion followers is extremely complicated and cannot be reduced to the single story of victimhood especially as James notes: "…if hostile to light irony, religion is equally hostile to heavy grumbling and complaint" (p. 38) [1]. That both charities and ideological organisations rely upon such imagery for their success is problematic. Both protagonists would no doubt suggest that such methods are the only methods they have available, but what does the continued focus upon such imagery do to the Muslim psyche?

These ideological groupings are in the main protest movements, interestingly all function in the English language, are based mostly around the campuses, involve a rejection of corruption within the community and specifically amongst the elders and critique the lack of religious practise amongst Muslims. The ideological groupings are in essence an 'outside Islam' – a young man as he views his community on a local and global scale adopts a vision that takes his focus away from his immediate surroundings towards some global/complete solution to all problems – this 'outside Islam' even takes the young man's focus away from his self as his criticism focuses on others that have forced this situation upon him.

These groups share a similar philosophical approach even if they disagree in their conclusions. However, even their disagreements have become reduced over the last few years. The intense pressure of daily scrutiny and criticism has lead to a peculiar situation in the Muslim community in which salafis are talking about education, Hizb ut Tehrir is working on drug rehabilitation, the Muslim Association of Britain has a national, public profile and the Islamic Society of Britain has close relations with a Labour government. One can hear the proverbial bus conductors shouting: 'All change!' What this means is that we are moving beyond our ideological phase – ideology has served its purpose and the demands of a new generation are more exacting as questions are asked as to relevance and utility.

A problem remains, though, in that the sum total of these ideological groupings begins to create a climate of ideological opinion that because it is supported across the board becomes fairly resilient to criticism. There develops a synergy as well in which this climate spreads its influence to people outside of these groupings and I would wish to suggest that the consequences of the mass adherence to such opinion in the long term are serious. The sum total of this synergy I will label as Muslim identity politics and this lends its colour to the temperament of the community as it mixes with religious adherence in a variety of ways, almost all negative and inauthentic. This is a kind of temperament that we should question. This returns me to my central question: What is in the Muslim mind? If it is occupied by highly convoluted arguments with suggested anathemas then the words, the facts, figures, rhetoric and feelings will shape the extent of the depth of his religion. This is a form of psychological engagement that privileges the mind and language – it is shallow religion. The centre of psychological work according to Muslim ontology though is the heart and we are constituted as nafs or ruh according to our efforts [2]. Why is this important?

© S. M. Atif Imtiaz

[Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part V and Part VI of this series.]

Notes
[1] James, W. The Varieties of Religious Experience.
[2] For an exposition of Islamic psychology, see Disciplining the Soul by Imam Ghazali.

The Muslim Condition: III

I would like to thank Atif Imtiaz, editor of the Bookviews section at DeenPort, for allowing me to reproduce a piece entitled "The Muslim Condition". I have serialised it into several parts and made some minor editions for the sake of presentation. May God reward his efforts. This is the third part of what will be a six part series.

Anti-Muslim opportunism and the pills of humility
The events of September 11 have also opened up a window of opportunity to those who would wish to peddle populist prejudices but would have previously been made to feel uncomfortable while doing so, that is to say that the boundaries of acceptability have widened. This is because the zeitgeist has shifted against the cultural relativist as multiculturalism is on the back-foot. For some strange reason, the terrorist acts have shifted the whole context of the multicultural debate. Since there is no connection between the topic of integration and the terrorists of September 11, this can only be regarded as a form of opportunism by those who have never felt comfortable with human diversity. This opportunism is based upon a particular understanding of how people actually change their mind. This approach believes that shaming people is more effective than argument. In pursuit of this, some sectors in the media and the academic world are engaged in a branding exercise: Islam and violence, Islam and oppression etc. The simple retort is to add up and compare how many people have been killed by the military of the US and 'al Qaida fighters' since September 11. This point of historical contingency can perhaps be highlighted by the French 'l'affaire du foulard' which began in earnest in September 1989 – eight months after the fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini against Rushdie. A window of opportunism for a climate of prejudice was opened then and the process has repeated itself now in France with its recent outlawing of all ostentatious religious symbols, except that this time the French have suggested that Sikhs should wear hairnets instead of their turbans, it has repeated itself as comedy. As C. S. Lewis says: "There’d be no fun if there were no outsiders..."

Pietersen [1] in his book on the history of cultural representation of African-Americans shows how as the anti-slavery argument became more powerful during the time of William Wilberforce, then representations that increased distanciation became simultaneously more prevalent. That is, as attempts were made to decrease the distance between opposites, a counter-reaction followed in which the difference was exacerbated. This analysis disturbs the projected relation between liberalism and culture because as certain forms of liberalism attempt to extricate themselves from culture, they simultaneously project images of difference that depend upon a cultural history. Sander Gilman's [2] work is also a testimony to this. This point has an economic slant as well in that the progress of the Muslim community in Britain will involve social mobility and hence as the class profile for some sections of the community will change, then representations may become an aspect of the resistance to such change. In view of this, we have to be careful about the hatred we may arouse in others and all of the above perhaps explains the increasingly paranoid and hysterical reaction of some of those who are at present engaged in critiquing Muslim practice. I will return to how we can lessen the tension towards the end of this paper.

However, a blanket condemnation of the media incorporation (or lack thereof) of the Muslim voice is now unwarranted. There have been several inroads made into the national and local media since September 11 by spokespersons and academics that represent a positive step forward. However, national figures and faces remain absent, and the most famous Muslims in Britain are probably Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Muhammad. This indicates the extent to which the whole process is managed. There seems to be no coincidence that such figures have been promoted within certain sections of the media. This repeated exposure of the exception (as both figures are) as the rule is helping to define the multiculturalism debate (and that probably explains their utility) as the construction of a variety of nodes of difference is contributing towards the establishment of a language that firmly places Muslims outside of the circle: honour killings, forced marriages, Islamic terrorism, suicide bombers, female circumcision [3] – this attempted reification within certain sections of the media needs to be interrogated. But as Parekh suggests in his Rethinking Multiculturalism: "The assimilationist pressure sometimes has the opposite consequences to those intended by its champions" (p. 198). These nodes of difference emerge from a cultural Weltanschauung that objectifies and condemns the acts of others as barbaric whereas privileging the moral life of the self as clean from all these contaminations. But this construction of difference needs to be challenged – at the level of foundations and at the level of rhetoric in relation to moral practice. In terms of foundations, if we take key discourses upon which modernity is assumed such as the privileging of rationality and science, the mechanics of democracy, the possibility of liberal individualism and the toughness of nationalism, then those who are familiar with academic musings over the last half century or more will know that such assumptions can no longer be taken for granted. In fact, they stand as vastly weakened versions of their former selves. Hence, the meaninglessness of their employment in shallow discussions on Islam and modernity. Even Gellner, who can stake a stronger claim to intellectual competence on these issues than most, could only state that the reason why modernity was ‘right’ was because ‘it worked’. The point is that the liberal foundationalist hope for moral absolutism can flounder if challenged.

The rhetoric on moral practice is similarly confusing. It is true that suicide bombers kill, but then so do missiles that are fired from fighter aircraft. What two word appellation do we have for the latter? Similarly, it is also true that some people kill their relatives as a way of preserving their honour, but then so do husbands in British society who found that their wives had been unfaithful – but what two word appellation do we have for their crime? Female circumcision is condemned because the values of a culture are forced upon the female body, so what of breast enlargement, or more generally, plastic surgery as a whole that seeks to pursue accepted notions of beauty? Polygamy is condemned, but pornography is widespread (and even occasionally celebrated) while prostitution is soon to be decriminalised. It is true that there are many Islamic practices that are un-modern, but while we may not be able to persuasively explain every Islamic injunction, we may nevertheless rest assured that those who condemn us most stridently do so from a position that itself is beginning to appear increasingly absurd. 

What is happening is that we are being forced to try to understand each other, but an important part of this is being organised by those who do not wish to see this understanding emerge. Life is complicated, prejudice however requires a certain – only a certain – amount of knowledge. Easy conclusions on important issues can encourage prejudice – but understanding and analysis, this has been difficult to find. For example, in the above examples that reflect a generalised Western critique of 'Muslim practices', some practices such as honour killing and female circumcision (in its extreme form) are universally condemned and forbidden, some such as 'suicide bombing' are disputed and polygamy is permitted. But this moral distinction is not clear in the public conscience, because the force of the rhetoric obfuscates such distinctions. Perhaps an example would help. Geertz examines two Muslim societies in his book Islam Observed. He examines the kinds of individualism that each has:

"Mysticism", "piety", "worship", "belief", "faith", "sacredness", "tradition", "virtue", "spirituality", even "religion" itself all these words we use, as we must, for there are no others by means of which we can talk intelligibly about our subject – thus turn out, when we compare the way in which each our people’s came, on the whole, to develop a characteristic conception of what life was all about, a conception they called Islamic, to mean rather different things in the two cases. On the Indonesian side, inwardness, imperturbability, patience, poise, sensibility, asceticism, elitism, and an almost obsessive self-effacement, the radical dissolution of individuality; on the Moroccan side, activism, fervour, impetuosity, nerve, toughness, moralism, populism and an almost obsessive self-assertion, the radical intensification of individuality [4].

Such deep interpretations may also help in the analysis of gender in Muslim society debate. Those familiar with the variety of Muslim cultural life will know that though the public, outward manifestations may be similar, the actual private relation may be differentiated and involve alternative notions of masculinity and femininity. What is happening is that the transition of 'Western society' from modernity towards a postmodern unravelling is leading to a situation in which multiple moralities are becoming publicly more available, and not all of them have their gaze firmly fixed towards the future.

© S. M. Atif Imtiaz

[Read Part I and Part II, Part IV, Part V and Part VI of this series.]

Notes
[1] Pietersen, J. N. White on Black: of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture.
[2] See for example Gilman’s contribution to the multiculturalism debate in Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, edited by S. M. Okin.
[3] This criticism of Muslim practice makes no distinction between that practice which is obligated, permitted, disliked or forbidden by Islamic law. It similarly makes no distinction between those practices which are geographically confined to certain cultures and those which are universal Muslim practices (like the obligation to give charity).
[4] Geertz, C. Islam Observed.

The Muslim Condition: II

I would like to thank Atif Imtiaz, editor of the Bookviews section at DeenPort, for allowing me to reproduce a piece entitled "The Muslim Condition". I have serialised it into several parts and made some minor editions for the sake of presentation. May God reward his efforts. This is the second part of what will be a six part series.

A rock and a hard place: Between imperialism and terrorism
Let us begin with the two dominant narratives. The hegemonic position is almost monist in terms of the totalitarianism of its language: it focuses upon the act of violence, the cameras follow the blood of innocents, the microphones pick up the screams of pain; these real images are allowed to linger as we ask the questions of ourselves, no framing is required – the perpetrators are depicted as mindless zealots who are locked into forcing violence upon others because that is the way they are and therefore they can only be killed. The subaltern position, however, points to an empire that feels threatened, that knows no legal boundaries, that is continuously rewriting its own rulebooks so that it must ultimately win in whatever game is being played. These are the two competing, dominant languages.

How do these global narratives impact upon a local community? The war on terror is, in one sense, an attempt to formulate a kind of monism. However, there remains widespread support for various causes throughout the Muslim world including from those Muslim communities that are embedded in European and American cities. This monism is forcefully applied upon Muslim communities through the question: 'Why don't you criticise terrorist acts more?' Since the languages are so diametrically opposed the subtext to this question becomes: 'Why don't you join our side?' The discomfort that such pronouncements create is not due to some ambivalence towards the murder of innocent people. Usually, a delayed consensus emerges that such acts are forbidden, unjust and wrong. Instead, the discomfort is due to the seeming lack of availability of a third option since there is only terrorism and imperialism. To criticise imperialism is to become a distant relation of the terrorist. To criticise terrorism is to become a distant relation of the imperialist. In fact, there is a certain amount of insanity to all of this – if insanity is the result of the forceful acceptance or capitulation of two opposites. On the one hand, Muslims are expected to condemn terrorism, and then on the other, the governments of the US and Britain continue with their policies, for example in supporting Israel. So the cause of terrorism increases, and terrorism is simultaneously more forcefully condemned. What options remains for the oppressed? Here, some Muslims have successfully negotiated the two paradigms to adopt a stance in which they are simultaneously condemnatory of imperialism and terrorism. The present global order would no doubt prefer some of us to take the next step and adopt the Mandela option. Nelson Mandela is regarded as a great figure because he forgave his oppressors – the non-violent victim. His option, perhaps it could also be called the Gandhi option, is championed because the oppressed are not allowed to be violent in today's world. As Parekh suggested in a recent issue of Prospect [1] through his fictional dialogue between Gandhi and Osama bin Laden, why don’t Muslims advocate non-violence? Why do the oppressed disgrace themselves through violence? The answer must surely lie with the oppressed.

© S. M. Atif Imtiaz

[Read Part I, Part III and Part IV, Part V and Part VI of this series.]

Notes
[1] Parekh, B. "Why Terror?", Prospect, April 2004.

The Muslim Condition: I

I would like to thank Atif Imtiaz, editor of the Bookviews section at DeenPort, for allowing me to reproduce a piece entitled "The Muslim Condition". I have serialised it into several parts and made some minor editions for the sake of presentation. May God reward his efforts. This is the first part of what will be a six part series.

Part I: Introduction
What occupies the Muslim mind? As events, chapters and details are all added day by day to an accumulating narrative, I wish to raise a question at this hour: what concerns us? How are we thinking through these various events? Who decides the manner in which we respond? Can we ignore them? It seems that the language, the manner of response and the analysis are in many senses dominated by the media. It is after all the media that on a daily basis constructs our view of the world [1]. Every day people die and are born, goods are bought and stolen, people make speeches and write books, and all of these events are filtered by those who decide on the extent of newsworthiness such that some of these events are more important than others – that is, they become more available within the public conscience than others.

The first filter is the minute-by-minute news wire of Reuters or Associated Press, which is itself dependent upon a variety of factors: the close proximity of their correspondent or associate to the event, its relevance to the current narrative canon and the competition of other events that may be viewed as more important. All of these factors at the stage of the first filter decide what ultimately becomes news. The journey from this point to the News at Ten or the tabloid front page is similarly dependent upon similar kinds of decisions and processes at different levels of editorial hierarchy (and their relationships with proprietors and government officials). But this radical contingency is lost in the living room conversation as contingency begins to confirm prejudice, in all directions, such that the conspiracy is proved true or the universal terrorist threat is affirmed. However, Muslims, like everybody else, have to be careful here because the media can exert such an influence that our whole understanding of reality can become dependent upon media-constructed notions of power and history. History has shown, for example, that all superpowers have withered away, and more importantly, we believe as Muslims that ultimately there is only the One Power, the Source of all Power: the Eternal. The media instead turns our attention away from the Eternal against the purpose of creation towards the variety of perpetual stories in public life. What is Eternal and what is temporary? Allah is Eternal, and the present situation of our ummah is temporary.

This essay is an attempt to answer the question: how to get us out of our present predicament? I will begin this paper with a short discussion on various aspects of the media’s depiction of events and our response to them. I will then move on to discuss one major consequence of this kind of dialectic: ideological groupings and identity discourse. I will then end the paper by examining the limitations of such discourses and pointing towards what I would wish to suggest as a more authentic expression of Islamic religiosity.

© S. M. Atif Imtiaz

[Read Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V and Part VI of this series.]

Notes
[1] For good discussions on the media’s influence on the distribution of information, read Amusing Ourselves to Death by N. Postman and Ideology and Modern Culture by J. B. Thompson.

What incompatiblity? Whose liberalism? Which Islam?

Last night I went to see The City Circle debate 'Islam is incompatible with liberalism'. It was good to see that the room was packed, mainly with young Muslim students and professionals. The format was quite simple: the speakers were given around 10 minutes to argue their case, and then the debate was open to questions or comments from the floor. First I present a precis of the arguments and then my own views.

The argument for the motion that Islam is incompatible with liberalism
Alice Kneen, a PhD candidate in her final year and graduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge, started off by presenting her case for why she believes Islam is not compatible with liberalism. Most of her arguments were based on the data she'd gathered during her research with Muslims living in Oldham (she lives and works in the Greater Manchester area herself). Her basic arguments were that "as value systems", liberalism and Islam cannot be reconciled; there are fundamental points over which the two disagree that makes them incompatible. As examples she cited liberty and freedom of belief promoted by liberalism as against the lack of such freedoms in Islam; the Muslim belief in the Qur'an as God's Word as opposed to the humanism of liberalism; and the notion of equality between men and women defended by liberalism and opposed in Islam. She said that she had noticed a difference in views between generations. Older, first generation, Muslim Oldhamites had different views to some of their children; the younger Muslims were more 'strict in their Islam'. She said that the belief that Islam was a superior religion than other beliefs was at odds with how liberalism sees people of different beliefs and views. Kneen also heavily criticised Tariq Ramadan and Ziauddin Sardar. Her claim was that they were 'liberals first and Muslims second', because they espouse 'liberal values' and she couldn't see how they could make 'Islam compatible with liberalism', whilst at the same time 'believing in the Qur'an as God's Word'. Lastly, she said that social cohesion had started to break down (giving us the Home Office definition of social cohesion), and cited the race riots in Oldham as an example of why Islam was not compatible with liberalism. In her own words, it was 'impossible to measure social cohesion', but was 'easy to measure where it was breaking down'.

The argument against the motion that Islam is incompatible with liberalism
Dr. Richard Stone, was chairman of the old Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia and holds a number of key positions in numerous organisations, was opposing the motion presented by Kneen. Essentially, Stone's argument against the motion was firstly about about how one should approach minority groups (and gave us numerous parallels to his time as a young Jew living in Britain). Secondly, that his own experiences were at odds with Kneen's pessimistic views, although he conceeded that her fieldwork was far more rigorous than his own perceptions. According to Stone, the approach to Muslim communities ought to be, in the first instance, asking them what they need in order to better integrate with 'mainstream' society (like access to better healthcare, jobs, education and housing). He said he found that Muslim communities he'd visited, also in the north of England (he gave Beeston as an example, from where two of the London bombers came from), were happy to integrate; they disliked the isolation they experienced and wanted to meet and interact not only Muslims from across Britain, but also non-Muslims. He said that what was needed was dialogue and interaction between Muslims and others to marginalise the 'literalist' and 'extremist' voices.

The panel also included a chair (a South African Muslima, whose name escapes me) and one of the co-founders of The City Circle, Asim Siddiqui. The role of Siddiqui was to question the assumptions of Kneen. His basic argument focused on the point that Kneen had, unfairly he felt, given due prominence to one particular 'interpretation of Islam' and of calling this True Islam as opposed to other (weaker?) forms of Islam as lived and thought of by, say, the Muslims in the audience or Tariq Ramadan. In addition he said that taking the 'core values of Islam and the aims of the the shari'ah' that there was there needn't be too big a clash between Islam and liberalism.

My thoughts on the debate and views from the audience
While I thought the topic of the debate was an interesting one, overall the debate was poorly organised and poorly argued by both sides.

I don't think Stone presented a very good case against Kneen's points. Perhaps a polemical debate isn't his cup of tea? Given his history as a founder of Alif-Aleph UK and the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, I think he is more at home in reconciliatory discussions, rather than a heated debate where giving complex, philosophical, points rhetorical force is important. From his ten minutes I could not see why Kneen's thesis was faulty, other than knowing that some Muslims he'd met were friendly towards him (he was also complimentary to Muslims who showed outward expressions of their faith, saying this had allowed more observant Jews to wear symbols of their religion); and that some Muslims wanted better access to facilities. The fact that, once his ten minutes was up, Stone contributed little merely underlines my point.

Kneen's arguments were flawed on several points too, although I don't think her basic belief was wrong, per se (for reasons I'll come onto). It was fair of her to ask the question and to make the case. She is, afterall, only propogating her views (as she admitted when she said that the one thing liberals like her could learn from Islam was the concept of da'wah). However, her arguments were marked by sloppiness. For a start, for a research student in the final year of her PhD (and a graduate of such a prestigious university) to make such a basic error regarding the supposed Qur'anic verse on stoning (there is none!) is quite poor. This doesn't dismantle her arguments, but it's just a little sloppy and factually incorrect.

At first she made little attempt to define both liberalism and Islam; questions from the floor made this point too. In response she said that liberalism was best defined as being 'progressive', accepting of 'uncertainty', and of utilising 'rational methods of inquiry'. Although the very idea of Progress in human history is questionable, her strongest point on showing that Islam was incompatible with liberalism would have been a case for moral progress as described by liberal theories. This idea would be contradictory to many widely held Islamic beliefs; although, for some reason, she didn't drive this point home. However, uncertainty and the use of rational methods of inquiry are not unique to liberalism and not even anathema to Muslims (just read al-Ghazali). Would she have argued for the uncertainty of reason, through which she grasps the world? She certainly wasn't arguing for a postmodernist view, given that she asked for liberalism not to be conflated with moral relativism (notwithstanding the point that liberalism is itself a contested tradition). And how can one reconcile social cohesion, which must require some element of certainty in thought and practice, whilst stressing the role of uncertainty in liberalism? It appears her own uncertainty was itself limited by more pressing needs (the need for moral certainty and a cohesive national identity). What's more, Kneen didn't actually present any data which showed the audience that her description of liberalism was held by most Britons!

I found her usage of the race riots in Oldham to prove that 'Islam was incompatible with liberalism' quite strange to say the least. Was the Brixton riot the 1980s -- and the numerous race riots across Britain involving predominantly black Britons -- proof that Afro-Caribbean identities and beliefs were incompatible with liberalism? No; in fact, after those race riots different questions were asked of policing and social deprivation. Why ignore these questions in relation to the riots in northern England involving South Asian (nominally Muslim) youths?

Her definition of Islam was no less problematic. Her fieldwork had given her access to a wealth of data amongst Muslims in Oldham and their views. It was wrong for Muslims who disagreed with her to argue against this data (as some tried to do). But how far can should the views of her sample be privileged over other views? On what basis can her problem (that Muslims she met professed that their beliefs were not compatible with liberalism) be 'Islamised'? What about factors such as income, education, ethnicity? Islamic thought and practice, afterall, does not exist in a vaccum as is assumed by some Muslims and their critics. She could, of course, make a scriptural argument, and this she did tried to do. But again, how far do you extract a religious text away from how the religious tradition is living, especially if you're not a believer in that text? We interpret everything we read. There is nothing to say a literal reading holds first sway other than convention; one needs to make such an argument. The difference between Islam and Muslims, between what is claimed to be in a text and between what element is living, is not always an easy question to answer; it would be unfair to assume Kneen could answer that question. But she should at least have recognised this point on her part, and maybe even try to explain it away. One early questioner asked on what basis her arguments were raised considering that Muslims were in a minority in Britain and implementation of some facets of Islamic law (like the penal code) would simply never occur; she had tried to anticipate this question by raising a hypothetical situation where Britain became an Islamic state, although that is too complex a situation to ever answer (consider that if such a situation did occur, Islam would have developed quite differently to, say, Islam in the Gulf).

In the end I think a lack of clarity undid her arguments, although as I said earlier she was not wrong to make her basic point. She framed her question in an incorrect manner. When she says 'Islam' is incompatible with 'liberalism' she needs to be clearer as to the scope of incompatibility she is talking about and what she means by Islam -- at points some of her reponses to questions from the floor merely sounded like the Our Way of Life trope used by so many ardent right-wing nationlists, by insinuating that Muslims did not fit in with the 'British way of life' (she didn't say this explicitly, but that was a conclusion one could draw). What some Muslims tried to do, including Siddiqui (perhaps his best contribution all night), was to ask Kneen if she would reconsider her views given that there may be some common ground between some Islamic values and some liberal values she was outlining (for example, social welfare). I wasn't quite sure of her answer on this point; when pressed again about what she meant by liberalism and the possibiliy that Muslims and liberals shared some common goals she first resorted to calling upon the Englightenment basis of liberalism to distinguish it from Islam, then switched and said that 'basically, liberalism comes from a Judeo-Christian ethic'! (Although one could make an argument that some founders of the Enlightenment were not necessarily opposed to God or even religion, but attacked the hypocrisy, greed and prejudice of the political and religious authorities. She, however, didn't make that argument and conceeded that it wasn't only Islam in her eyes that was at odds with liberalism after some in the audience pointed out other beliefs like Evangelism, orthodox Judaism and Roman Catholicism as well as the existence of the Bible.)

I wanted to ask her a question towards the end but wasn't given the chance: what was her solution? Now that there are close to two million Muslims in the UK, how should the problem she had identified be solved? Perhaps I'll have to wait for her Radio 4 show later this summer.

Throughout the night Siddiqui, as well as some members of the audience, stressed the point on the possibility of reinterpreation of source texts and of pluralism in Islamic history. A couple of members of the audience pointed out the advancement of arts and science in Andalucia; so free inquiry and toleration for other beliefs did not pose any problem for Islam in theory. Siddiqui cited the use of ijtihad (in matters outside ibadat), as many liberal Muslims do (I use liberal here in the strictest sense to mean thinking outside defined authoritative paradigms), as a way out of some of the more 'literalist' interpretations. However, ijtihad is a technical term in Islamic legal literature and I think many progressive and liberal Muslims would do well to remember that (this means they need to engage with the Islamic legal tradition, rather than try and ignore it and simply shout ijtihad at every uncomfortable issue). This sort of invocation of ijtihad by some Muslims is lazy thinking and verges on intellectual dishonesty. I think it would be equally dishonest of Muslims, including liberals, to say that every point of liberalisms (plural) are in total agreement with either historical Islamic values or Islamic values that could be drawn from a combination of reason, text and heart. If Muslim liberals want to fight a case, their strongest ground is on trying to point out common views and values that are shared by both liberals and Muslims -- but for this to work, those with the power outside of the Muslim communities will have to be accomodating of difference. Siddiqui also made a fundamental error when he described a variety of Islamic values and beliefs that were not necessarily antithetical to Kneen's liberalism, but failed to mention the most fundamental one: tawhid (unicity of God) which is a distinctly Islamic belief (if I'm being very generous I'd say he was thinking of practical matters rather than doctrinal ones). Not surprisingly Stone, as a religious liberal, was in full agreement with Siddiqui urging liberals like Kneen not to exclude progressive and liberal voices amongst Muslims by attack the entirity of Islam.

Ultimately I am not sure I learnt anything new, albeit the evening wasn't totally wasted. I already knew that there are liberals who are hostile to religion, and to Islam in particular. I already knew that there are Muslims who are equally hostile to any sort of liberal thought and of Muslims who are calling for ijtihad without giving it too much thought. What was needed last night was, perhaps, a scholarly Muslim perspective, whether from an orthodox angle or a progressive one.

Update (04/06): Yusuf Smith was also at the debate. See his review.