Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity (RLE Politics of Islam)

William Montgomery Watt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134609772
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Islam is a burning topic in modern scholarship and contemporary world affairs. It is a subject poorly understood by Western observers, and in this book Professor Montgomery Watt takes a significant step towards its demystification.

Montgomery Watt examines the crucial questions of traditional world-view and self-image which dominate the thinking of Muslims today. This traditional self-image causes them to perceive world events in a different perspective from Westerners – a fact not always appreciated by the foreign ministries of Western powers. Professor Watt presents a brilliant and critical analysis of the traditional Islamic self-image, showing how it distorts Western modernism and restricts Muslims to a peripheral role in world affairs. In a scholarly and incisive way, he traces this harmful image to its origins in the medieval period and then to the traumatic exposure of Muslims to the West in modern times. He argues that Muslim culture is suffering from a dangerous introspection, and in his closing chapters presents a constructive criticism of contemporary Islam, aimed at contributing to a truer, more realistic Islamic self-image for today.

First published in 1988.

Chapter Five

THE SELF-IMAGE AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS

It is obvious to informed observers that the traditional Islamic self-image is making it difficult for Muslims to adjust adequately to life at the end of the twentieth century. It is also making it difficult for Islamic countries to play the part in world affairs that their populations and strength justifies. Before looking at the problems in detail, however, it will be helpful to look generally at the unsatisfactory features of the traditional world-view and self-image.

1 THE RECOVERY OF A TRUER SELF-IMAGE

Many Muslim statesmen, and others who have to take important decisions, are aware of the special difficulties Muslims have to face nowadays, and may realize that to some extent these are due to features of the traditional self-image. Thus because Muslims have tended to think of social conditions as unchanging, many suppose that a return to the exact form of Islamic social life in the early period would solve all contemporary problems. This supposition is based on a false assumption, however, that of the unchangingness of the world in which we live, especially its social structures. As noted in chapter I, it may be allowed that basic human nature does not change, since some twentieth-century people have proved to be just as wicked as any in the past. What is clear, however, is that Western science, technology and industry have so changed some of the material circumstances in which people live that changes of social structure have inevitably followed.

This is most evident in respect of communications, both actual travelling and the dissemination of information. These two factors make it possible for an individual or a small group to control much vaster organizations than have been known in the past. Large states are more effectively controlled from above than ever before; and enormous economic empires can also be built up. The instantaneous transmission of news means that an incident in one part of the world may provoke public demonstrations in another continent a few hours later. Even more spectacular changes may result from the present computer revolution. Such changes also have negative results. Many of the old skills and crafts are no longer required, and those who practise them sink in the social scale unless they acquire some of the new skills.

For a proportion — sometimes large — of the population of many countries material goods are easily obtainable, and the outlook of such people tends to be dominated by consumerism. At the same time there are increasing disparities of wealth within countries. All this means that many Muslims today are living in conditions which are very different from those of seventh-century Mecca or ninth-century Baghdad, so that merely to imitate what was done in these cities is unlikely to solve today's problems in Cairo, Baghdad, Lahore, Tehran or Jakarta.

The ideal of self-sufficiency also hinders Muslims in dealing with contemporary problems. Many Western-educated Muslims today are only too conscious of the weakening of their religious beliefs by the anti-religious elements in Western thought; but few Muslim religious leaders are aware of the extent to which the anti-religious forces have been opposed by Christian thinkers, and of the possibility of adapting these Christian responses to the needs of Muslims. The unwillingness of the ulema to learn from the West in this repect means that they are unable to help other Muslims with religious doubts, and indeed have no inkling of the depth and complexity of the problems with which such people are dealing. The situation is comparable to that which faced al-Ghazālī in the eleventh century when the ulema were largely unaware of the serious challenge to their teaching from the Falāsifa; but today's challenge is more extensive, since it is not only from philosophy but also from historical and literary criticism.

Perhaps the most acute difficulties created by the traditional self-image are in the area of international relations. Muslim statesmen have, of course, entered into commitments in the United Nations and other international bodies, but there is no precedent for this in the Islamic past. Many Muslims still tend to think in terms of the contrast between the sphere of Islam and the sphere of war. The Egyptian reformist Sayyid Quṭb applied the concept even within his own country, as will be shown later. The Iranian treatment of the American hostages in 1980 and 1981, and then of a British diplomat in May 1987, was not thought to be contrary to the Sharī'a. In traditional Islamic thinking there was no such entity as diplomatic immunity. The statesmen doubtless observed something of the sort in their relations with foreign powers, but on a pragmatic basis and not because of any formulations by the ulema. In the modern world diplomatic immunity is seen by traditionalists as something imposed by Western colonialism, which need not be taken too seriously. It is certainly no sin from a traditional Islamic point of view to disregard this ‘foreign’ idea. The traditionalists fail to realize that, if Islamic countries are to be accepted as members of the international community of nations, they must observe the accepted rules. These rules are presumably in accordance with the Sharī'a, despite the fact that in medieval times they were never formulated.

These drawbacks and difficulties arising from the attempts to live in today's world according to the traditional self-image lead to the question whether this is a sound self-image or whether it has not been perverted in some ways. The conception of unchangingness is not prominent in statements of the Islamic world-view but it is an underlying assumption. Even a relatively Westernized Muslim like Seyyed Hossein Nasr can write: ‘For Islam, the crushing evidence is of permanence, that which comprises Islam's central reality…. The idea of permanence in Islam permeates the whole Islamic consciousness about itself.’¹ Sufficient has perhaps been said here, however, to show that in important respects changes have occurred in felsesocial structures, and that the assumption of unchangingness is

The belief in the finality and superiority of Islam is always asserted in a general way and is not defended in detail. The external observer cannot, of course, object to the Muslim holding that his religion is superior to all others, since this is to be expected of the adherents of every religion; but the bare assertion of superiority carries little conviction. One would expect some demonstration of how Islam is superior to other religions in its ability to deal with the problems of the end of the twentieth century. Moreover, the assertion of Islam's superiority to Judaism and Christianity is partly based on the doctrine of the ‘corruption’ (taḥrīf) of their scriptures, which is alleged to be taught in the Qur'ān, but which cannot in fact be justified from the Qur'ān and which is historically untenable.

The belief in Islamic self-sufficiency is patently false. No man is an island, nor is any religion. Islam first appeared in seventh-century Mecca where there were various rival religious beliefs: Arabian polytheism; belief in Allāh as a ‘high god’ superior to other deities; and some slight knowledge of Judaism and Christianity. The presence of these religious ideas in Mecca does not mean that the new religion was wholly dependent on them or merely a new amalgam of elements from them. I hold that the new religion was a fresh initiative on the part of God; but the forms in which its teaching was expressed (the Qur'ān) owed much to the existing religious situation in Mecca and Medina, if only by way of pointing a contrast; and people's understanding of the Qur'ān had to start from their existing beliefs. Similarly there was a pre-Islamic morality which was accepted and followed in much of Arabia, and this morality was practised also by the earliest Muslims except in respect of those matters where it was felt to be unsatisfactory and where new rules were propounded in the Qur'ān (as in the case of marriage). The belief in Islamic self-sufficiency was supported by the belief in the Qur'ān as the word of God received by Muhammad with complete passivity — a belief which fails to allow for the human element in the formulation, acceptance and interpretation of the text (as will be explained more fully in the next section). The denial of any human element in the Qur'ān implies that it owes everything to God alone and nothing to the web of human relationships within which Muhammad and the early Muslims existed.

For the period up to 1600 there is some truth in the view of world-history according to which the Dār al-Islām is advancing and will eventually comprise the whole world, while in the dwindling Dār al-Ḥarb there need only be temporary arrangements. It is perhaps by a kind of extension of this view that some Muslims see the Western world as engaged in a conspiracy to destroy Islam. The traditional division of the world into two spheres is not appropriate to the last four centuries, and fails to give the Islamic umma an adequate positive image of its place in the contemporary world.

Again, the idealized image of Muhammad and early Islam is seen by the external observer as containing many elements which are unhistorical. Why should it be denied that Muhammad in his youth shared in the polytheistic beliefs of his fellow-Meccans? There are reports which state this, and some verses of the Qur'ān may reasonably be interpreted in a similar sense, notable the word ‘erring’ (ḍāll) in 93.7. Many Muslim writers, too, paint very black pictures of the conditions of life in Arabia prior to Islam, although the plentiful information about the Arabs of the Jāhiliyya shows that such a picture is far too black. It is also virtually certain that conditions under the first four ‘rightly guided’ caliphs were by no means so idyllic as is often assumed by traditionalists. There was much violence and caliphs were assassinated; and it is also likely that many decisions of public policy were based on Arab custom and not on Islamic principles. As noted in chapter I the punishment of stoning for adultery was probably not practised until some time after Muhammad's death; and other Islamic laws may not have been finally formulated until the Umayyad period (661–750) or later.

The last few paragraphs show various ways in which the traditional self-image is perpetuating a conception of Islam which in certain respects is false and inadequate. The nature of truth in this matter is by no means simple and obvious. In a discussion of ‘Religion as a Cultural System’ Clifford Geertz has written:

In religious belief and practice a group's ethos is rendered intellectually reasonable by being shown to represent a way of life ideally adapted to the actual state of affairs the world-view describes, while the world-view is rendered emotionally convincing by being presented as an image of an actual state of affairs peculiarly well arranged to accommodate such a way of life.²

In accordance with this way of thinking it might be suggested that the traditional Islamic world-view, despite the points just criticized, was well suited to be the basis of life for the community of Muslims from the time it received something like its present shape until about 1600. It gave Muslims a feeling of confidence about their place in the world, and it supported the internal balance of power between the religious and political institutions. Thus the world-view, in addition to its other functions, served the interests of those with power of one sort or another by justifying their power. The points just mentioned as being unhistorical probably did not matter in medieval times, since they had no adverse effects on the values presented in the self-image. Thus the traditional self-image, when first given shape, was well suited for its purposes. It is only because conditions in the world have changed that it now requires to be transformed.

In speaking of the need for a transformation of the traditional Islamic self-image I am not attacking Islam as such but am rather trying to help Muslims to make a better adjustment of their community to its place in the contemporary world. To emphasize this point I shall quote a Christian writer speaking about the need for such a transformation in Christianity. The transformation has already occurred to some extent, but it is also continuing into the future:

There may be a coherence between the teaching and the practice of the Church, but if its basic assumptions are false, then there will be a disharmony between the teaching of the Church and our everyday life, and the teaching presented will split off and become a part of our consciousness which has nothing to do with the rest of our human experience. A Church isolated from our human experience can only survive as long as it can succeed in forbidding its adherents to ask questions and think for themselves. It must lay heavy emphasis on the importance of obedience to religious authority, obedience being understood as unquestioning acceptance of whatever is presented by the teaching authority, and making it sinful for its members to criticise, or to read or listen to anyone who may propose any contrary teaching….

The Church must encourage the critical element in its members. If it fails to do so, then the individual will not be able to integrate religious belief with everyday experience or, put in other words, God will be excluded from most of the individual's life until religion comes to be considered a private but harmless eccentricity of a minority.

If the Church does encourage the critical element, then it must expect to be questioned and challenged by its members and it must be prepared to change its own ways of thinking and acting, submitting itself to the light of truth. Such an attitude is only possible in a Church which has a strong faith in God's presence in all things.³

The writer of these words was thinking only about Christianity and his own Catholic religious institution, and not at all about Islam; but what he says about forbidding people to ask questions and emphasizing ‘obedience to religious authority’ could almost be a description of the attempts of the Islamic religious institution to stifle discussion of possible changes in the traditional self-image. When the adherents of a religion begin to ask questions — as Muslims are doing today — their questions must be answered at the level at which they are asked, and not treated as acts of apostasy and rebellion. Any other course sooner or later leads to disaster.

2 INTELLECTUAL RECONSTRUCTION

The first point to be looked at is the need for the reconstruction of the intellectual basis of an Islamic world-view. Muslim ulema, by shutting themselves off for centuries from the intellectual life of the West, knew nothing about important new developments taking place there, and were unprepared for dealing with them when contacts increased. Similarly unprepared were the diplomats and students who were sent to the West in the nineteenth century and plunged into the maelstrom of Western intellectual life. In the West there was no one coherent philosophical system but several rival systems. In many of them were incorporated the values of the Enlightenment, and these values were also widely accepted by people, especially the belief in rationality. Most educated people also believed in the soundness of the empirical methods used in the sciences, and came to accept the results on which the main body of scientists was agreed. There was indeed some hesitation in the latter part of the century before it was generally accepted that the human race was descended from lower species of animals, just as there was in the present century about the theories of Freud and Jung.

In some ways the severest shock to the traditional Islamic self-image came from the almost universal acceptance in the West of the results of historical criticism (with which may be included literary criticism). When Western scholars applied their normal historico-critical methods to certain aspects of Islamic history, they reached conclusions which were very disquieting to traditionally minded Muslims. There was no special illwill on the part of most of the scholars. This was simply the point at which the weaknesses of the traditional Islamic self-image were thrown into relief by the encounter with Western thought. The criticism made of orientalists by some contemporary Muslims are thus unjustified. The orientalists were applying to Islam the same ideas and methods which other scholars were applying to Christianity and to secular histo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• I The Traditional Self-Image of Islam
• II The Religious Institution and Its Decline
• III The Beginnings of Islamic Resurgence
• IV The Liberal Search for a New Identity
• V The Self-Image and Contemporary Problems
• VI The Iranian Experience
• VII Epilogue
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index