Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (28 page)

1.
Here I am indebted to
^c
Abd al-Fattah Kilitu, who was the first to analyze systematically the link between the West and strangeness; see his
Al-adab wa al-gharaba
(Literature and Strangeness) (Beirut: Dar al-Tali
^c
a, 1982).

2.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night,
trans. Richard F. Burton (N.p.: Privately printed by the Burton Club, n.d.), vol. 4, pp. 130-31.

3.
Ibid., pp. 131-32.

4.
I must clarify why it is that I often use the words “Arab” and “Islam” interchangeably, and why from here on I focus on Arabs and the Arabic language. It is certainly not because the other cultures that contributed to this extraordinary mosaic that is Islam are minor. I am in a poor position to discuss Pan- Arabism because, like the majority of Moroccans, I am ethnically rather Berber. This small detail posed a problem at the time of the formation of the Arab League. If it is Arab, what are Berbers and Sudanese doing in it? The Moroccan leader Allal al-Fasi explains in the last pages of his book
Al-haraka al- istiqlaliyya ji al-maghrib al-arabi
(The Independence Movements in the Arab Maghrib) (Cairo: Mataba
^c
at al-Risala, 1948) that one of the clauses of the league’s charter stipulates that the countries of the Maghrib are an integral part of the Arab world, which is above all else a culture. I thus do not distinguish between the words “Arab” and “Muslim"—not that the two words overlap, because there are Muslims who are not Arabs (Iranians, Turks, Chinese, etc.) and Arabs who are not Muslims (Arab Christian or Jewish minorities in the Middle East), but because Islam was originally expressed in the Arabic language. Although other languages and cultures have modulated the regional cultural expression of Islam, the fact remains that the importance of Arabic as the original language of the sacred overrides all differences. So if in this book I examine the Arab Islamic culture only through the Arabic language, the schemas and concepts that emerge may help us decipher all the cultures of the Islamic tradition, even those whose language is not Arabic. I am not saying that Islam can be reduced to Arabism, which would be both racist and absurd, and in any case would not help us see things more clearly. I am simply stating that by exploring the nuances of the Arabic words that express Islam, we can understand certain fundamental schemas of that culture. I therefore limit myself to examining the way of thinking and seeing of the group to which I belong, the group that is part of both Arab and Muslim culture. I say “culture” and not “race” because many Algerians and Moroccans as well as Sudanese are not ethnically Arab but are immersed in the Arabic language and Muslim culture, and the two are intimately linked. What I am trying to do is explore what I call our mental territory, the stock of images and symbols that generate our emotions and thoughts, our cultural schemas, the landmarks of our civilization—all of which allow us not only to understand the world but to situate ourselves in it and act in it. It is in this context that Islam and language become practically one and the same thing.

5.
Imam al-Qurtubi,
Al-intiqa
fi fada
il al-tal
^c
at al-
^c
a
imma al-fuqaha, malik, shafi
^c
i wa abu hanifa
(Beirut: Dar al-
^c
Ilmiyya, n.d.), p. 44. The author died in year 463 of the Hejira.

6.
Ibn Khallikan,
Wafayat al-cfyan
(Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d.), vol. 2, p. 140. Ibn Khallikan died in year 681 of the Hejira. Those who wish to know more about Hallaj should read what Massignon has written, especially
La passion de Hallaj, martyre mystique de I’Islam,
4 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1975).

1.
See Fatima Mernissi,
The Forgotten Queens of Islam
(Cambridge: Polity Press, forthcoming 1993), chap. 2.

2.
Bernard Lewis, “Islam et societe civile,” in
Islam et politique en Proche Orient aujourd’hui
(Paris: Gallimard, 1991), p. 29.

3.
Shahrastani,
Al-milal wa al-nihal
(Beirut: Dar Sa
^c
b, 1986), vol 1, p. 114. The author died in year 547 of the Hejira.

4.
Al-Mas
^c
udi,
Muruj al-dhahab
(Beirut: Dar al-Ma
^c
rifa, 1982), vol. 2, p. 423. Al- Mas
^c
udi died in year 346 of the Hejira (A.D. 956).

5.
Shahrastani,
Al-milal wa al-nihal
_}
vol. 1, p. 115. Concerning the use of modern fundamentalist slogans, see Qadi
^c
Ashmawi,
Al-Islam al-siyasi
(Political Islam) (Algiers: Mawfim li-Nashr, 1990), chap. 1, “Hakimiyyat Allah, nahj al- tughat” (The Power of God or the Way of the Despots). The French translation, entitled
L’Islamisme contre I’Islam,
is published by Editions la Decouverte (1989).

6.
Shahrastani,
Al-milal wa al-nihal,
vol. 1, p. 122.

7.
^c
Ashmawi,
Al-Islam al siyasi,
pp. 23ff.
^c
Ashmawi, who defends representative democracy against rebel democracy, gives a very concise analysis of this point.

8.
Ibn Hazm,
Al-Rasa
il
(Beirut: Al-Mu
assasa al-
^c
Arabiyya li Dirasat wa Nashr, 1981), vol. 2, pp. 106fF. Ibn Hazm died in year 456 of the Hejira (the eleventh century).

9.
After
^c
Uthman there was only one more orthodox caliph,
^c
Ali, whose successor, by violating the rule of accession to the caliphate, was considered outside orthodoxy. The caliphate was made hereditary, which is regarded as contrary to the spirit of Islam, instituting despotism with the first dynasty, the Umayyads, in 31/661.

10.
Ibn Hazm,
Al-Rasa
il
vol. 2, p. 102.

11.
Ibid., p. 103.

12.
Shajarat al-Durr was one of those who used the
hammam
as the site for revenge on her husband,
^c
Izz al-Din Aybak, the sovereign of Mamluk Egypt; see Mernissi,
Forgotten Sultanas,
chap. 6.

13.
Al-Mas
^c
udi,
Muruj,
vol. 4, p. 20.

14.
Ibid.

15.
Lisan al-Arab,
entry for
sharfa.

16.
Abu Zahra,
Al-madahi al-islamiyya
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Adab, n.d.), pp. 5-6.

17.
Shahrastani,
Al-milal wa al-nihal,
p. 45.

18.
Al-Mas
^c
udi,
Muruj,
vol. 3, p. 236.

19.
For a concise discussion and a list of references see the article “Mu
^c
tazila,” in Encyclopedia of Islam.

20.
Marshall G. S. Hodgson,
The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), vol. 1, pp. 41 Off.

21.
See the special issue of
Muslim World
devoted to fundamentalism (January 1990).

22.
Muhammad
^c
Abid al-Jabiri,
Nahnu wa al-tharwa
(Beirut: Al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-
^c
Arabi, Dar al-Baida, and Dar al-Tali
^c
a, 1980).

23.
Muhammad
^c
Abid al-Jabiri,
Taqwin al-
^c
aql al-arabi
(Beirut: Dar al-Tali
^c
a, 1980).

24.
Sharastani,
Al-milal wa al-nihal,
vol. 1, p. 37.

1.
La semaine internationale
(a weekly review of United Nations activities), FI-37- 87, February 9, 1987, p. 7.

2.
World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Arms and Disarmament Agency, 1984), pp. 8-9.

3.
Ibid.

4.
Scott Armstrong, “Eye of the Storm/’
Mother Jones,
November/December 1991, p. 34.

5.
James Davison Hunter, “On Secular Humanism,”
Dialogue
(U.S. Information Agency, Washington, D.C.), February 1991, p. 70.

6.
Ibid., p. 66.

7.
Hichem Djait, “Culture et politique dans le monde Arabe,”
Le Debat,
“Islam et politique” (special issue), 1991, p. 71.

8.
Hunter, “On Secular Humanism,” p. 70.

9.
F. Ja
^c
dan, “Usui al-taqaddum
^c
ind mufakkir al-Islam,” quoted in Djait, “Culture et politique,” p. 37.

10.
^c
Ali Umlil,
Al-tasamuh hasab al-islahiyya al-islamiyya
(Beirut: Dar al- Thanawbar, 1985); published in French as
Islam et etat national
(Casablanca: Editions le Fennec, 1991).

11.
Ibid., p. 47.

12.
Anwar al-Jundi,
Muhakamat fikr Taha Husayn
(Cairo: Dar al-I
^c
sam, 1984), p. 15.

13.
I don’t recall exactly whether these childhood readings were chosen by the teacher from Taha Husayn’s
Hadith al-arbi
^c
a
or his
^c
Ala hamish al-sira;
probably they were from both books. A rereading of the two works last year reintroduced to my rather limited cultural life in Rabat the luminosity of those happy mornings at school in Fez, although I didn’t find the exact pages that produced the magic I had experienced in my first acquaintance with them.

14.
Rifa
^c
at al-Tahtawi, “Al-a
^c
mal al-kamila,” quoted in Umlil,
Al-tasamuh hasab,
p. 117.

15.
My first education, which I describe in
Chapter 5
, was in a Koranic school. I was enrolled in first grade in a nationalist school, and I did my secondary school studies in a “college for young Muslim ladies,” an institution financed by the French protectorate (that is, by our taxes). To tell the truth, moving from one institution to another had no bad effect on me. Perhaps it was because the spirit of Descartes and Enlightenment philosophy, reflected through the mirror of a French colonial lycee and taught by Catholic teachers, didn’t succeed in shining through. In any case, no one ever taught me tolerance, and I never saw it practiced during my long period of schooling. I learned it not from my teachers but in chance encounters with humble people in the shops, alleys, and neglected areas of the Fez medina.

16.
See Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Militant Islamic Groups,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies
12 (1980), pp. 423-53.

17.
See the excellent studies done for UNESCO by a group of Arab experts: Ramdane Ouahes,
La science et la technologie dans les etats Arabes a Vhorizon 2000
(May 1988); and F. Mardam Bey and L. Soliman,
La culture dans le monde Arabe
(July 1988).

18.
Djait, “Culture et politique,” p. 88.

19.
I am talking about the countries of Western Europe. I am not well acquainted with Eastern Europe; I do not know the languages, and my strolls in the streets of Prague and Berlin in September 1991 were too brief for me to make anything but a superficial judgment. I did begin to sense in East Berlin and in Prague something resembling the Arab feeling of
^c
azma,
the feeling of malaise and self-deprecation. Some little details—the weary, disillusioned comments of taxi drivers in Prague and East Berlin, for example—had a familiar ring. But it could be that I was wrong. It would be interesting to conduct a public opinion poll to measure the feelings of discontent with the economy in both Eastern Europe and the Arab world, and then compare the findings to learn how the crippling of the democratic heritage is experienced there and here.

20.
The quotation is from sura 2, v. 186.

21.
On workers’ feelings about their rights as employees, see Fatima Mernissi,
Chahrazad n’est pas Marocaine,
2nd ed. (Casablanca: Editions le Fennec, 1991), p. 85. See also the interviews with workers in the new edition of idem,
Le
Maroc raconte par ses femmes,
which is entitled
Le monde n'est pas un harem
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1991).