Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (15 page)

The reaction to al-Ghazali’s book was very strong, with a large number of Salafabis writing to condemn him, and to question his motives and competence.
105
It is difficult to assess whether the harsh response to al-Ghazali’s book was indicative of his own importance and the power of his argument, or whether, in the 1980s, the Wahhabis had grown accustomed to not being criticized by any influential Sunni jurist. As noted earlier, apologetics and the sheer financial power of the Saudis have made critiques of Wahhabism written from within a non-Sufi juristic perspective exceedingly rare.
106
Muhammad al-Ghazali died shortly after suffering through the controversy that surrounded his book. Although my sense is that al-Ghazali’s book did not receive the kind of attention and fair hearing it deserved, this book has come to symbolize a cry of protest over the fate of Salafism, and its transformation into Salafabism – a

transformation that ultimately undermined much of the efforts of the Muslim reformers writing at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.
107

In light of the recent attention focused on the issue of terrorism, it is important to note that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the religious police who caused the death of schoolgirls in Mecca, as well as most extremist Muslims, belong to the orientation that I have called Salafabist. Bin Laden, although raised in a Wahhabi environment, is not, strictly speaking, part of that creed. Wahhabism is distinctively introverted – although focused on power, it primarily asserts power over other Muslims. From that perspective, the religious police involved in the school fire incident are more within the classic Wahhabi paradigm than bin Laden. This is consistent with Wahhabism’s classic obsession with orthodoxy and correct ritualistic practice, especially as they pertain to the seclusion of women. Militant puritan groups, however, are both introverted and extroverted – they attempt to assert power against both Muslims and non- Muslims. As populist movements, they are a reaction to the disempowerment most Muslims have suffered in the modern age at the hands of harshly despotic governments, and at the hands of interventionist foreign powers. In many ways, these militant groups compensate for extreme feelings of disempowerment by extreme and vulgar claims to power. Fueled by the supremacist and puritan creed of Salafabism, these groups’ symbolic acts of power become uncompromisingly fanatic and violent.

It would be inaccurate to contend that the militant supremacist groups fill the vacuum of authority in contemporary Islam. Militant groups such as al-Qaeda or the Taliban, despite their ability to commit highly visible acts of violence, are a sociological and intellectual marginality in Islam. However, these groups are in fact extreme manifestations of more prevalent intellectual and theological currents in modern Islam. In my view, they are extreme manifestations of the rather widespread theological orientation of Salafabism. While it is true that bin Laden is the quintessential example of a Muslim who was created, shaped, and motivated by the post-colonial experience, he is representative of underlying currents in contemporary Islam. Much of what constitutes Islam today was shaped as a defensive reaction to the post-colonial experience, as the product of either uncritical cheerleading on behalf of what was presumed to be the Islamic tradition, or an obstinate rejectionism against what was presumed to be the Western tradition. As such, the likes of bin Laden are the children of a profound dissonance and dysfunctionalism experienced towards both the Islamic heritage and modernity. In my view, bin Laden, like the whole of the Salafabist movement, is an orphan of modernity, but their claim to an authentic lineage in the Islamic civilization is tenuous at best.

After 9/11 and the bloodletting that followed, and the many extreme acts of ugliness that have become associated with the word “Islam,” the question is: now that we have witnessed the sheer amount of senseless destruction that the

children of this orientation are capable of producing and the type of world that they are capable of instigating, will Muslims be able to marginalize Salafabism and render it, like many of the arrogant movements that preceded it, a historical curiosity? The burden on Muslim intellectuals today is heavy indeed. There ought to be no question that Islam inspired one of the most humanistic, tolerant, and intellectually rich civilizations, but it would be a grievous mistake to assume any historical inevitabilities – just because Muslims achieved moral greatness once does not necessarily mean that they will do so again. From a Muslim perspective, it is arrogant to assume that regardless of the efforts and behavior of Muslims, God is, somehow, obligated to save Muslims from the consequences of their own deeds.
108
Classical jurists used to repeat that political power is necessary to safeguard the interests of religion, but they also used to warn that political power is fundamentally corrupting of the human conscience and the mandates of justice.
109
This is particularly true of the current Muslim reality. Since the severe sense of disempowerment experienced in the age of colonialism, Muslim intellectual activities have been abysmal. In the recent past, when contemporary Muslim intellectuals have attempted a critical engagement with their tradition and a search for the moral and humanistic aspects of the intellectual heritage, invariably they have been confronted by the specter of post-colonialism; their efforts have been evaluated purely in terms of whether these appease or displease the West, and whether they politically and socially empower Muslims or not, and are accepted or rejected by many Muslims accordingly. Extreme acts of ugliness, perpetrated in the name of Islam, are stark manifestations of a way of thinking that has come to value a superficial sense of independence, control, security, and power, regardless of their moral antecedents or consequences. Since the age of colonialism, Muslims have become politically hyperactive – a hyperactivity that has often led to much infighting, divisiveness, and inter-Muslim persecution – but they have also remained morally lethargic. If Islam is to be reclaimed from colonialism, blind nationalism, political hyperactivism, and Salafabism, this moral lethargy must be transformed. But, in my view, this moral lethargy can only be transformed through an intellectual commitment and activism that honors the Islamic heritage, by honestly and critically engaging it, and that also honors Islam, by honestly and critically confronting any extreme act of ugliness perpetrated in the name of the Islamic religion. In my view, there is no question that colonialism, and its many byproducts, was a violent rupture in Muslim history. Unfortunately, modernity, despite its many scientific advancements, reached Muslims packaged in the ugliness of disempowerment and alienation. This legacy has produced the modern ugly, and it is the modern ugly that Muslims must overcome today, as they go about reclaiming the beautiful in the vast and rich moral tradition of Islam. As argued in this essay, it would be unwise to rely on historical inevitabilities, but it would be most fitting for Muslims to recognize that the history of Islam does establish moral imperatives, the most powerful of which is the imperative of beauty.

endnotes

*I thank my wife Grace and assistant Naheed Fakoor for reading and commenting on this article. I also thank Adel al-Mu‘allim and Shorouk Press for supplying me with many rare sources.

1. On the modern origins of the
   mutawwa‘un
   , and their often violent practices, see Michael Cook, “The Expansion of the First Saudi State: The Case of Washm,” in C.E. Bosworth et al. (eds.),
   Essays in Honor of Bernard Lewis: The Islamic World From Classical to Modern Times
   (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 672–5; Ameen Fares Rihani,
   The Maker of Modern Arabia
   (New York: Greenwood, 1983), 203. William Gifford Palgrave,
   Personal Narrative of Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia
   (London: Gregg, 1883), 243–50, 316–18, reports that during the reign of King Faysal b. Turki (r. 1249–54/ 1834–8 and 1259–82/1843–65), in response to a cholera outbreak, twenty-two so-called zealots were selected to combat vice in Mecca and elsewhere. Apparently, this was the beginning of the system of the
   mutawwa‘un
   . Also, see Michael Cook, “On the Origins of Wahhabism,”
   Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
   , 3(2), 1992.
   

2. This incident was reported in Saudi newspapers such as the
   Saudi Gazette
   and
   Al-Iqtisadiyya
   . In rarely voiced criticism against the religious police, both papers demanded investigations and prosecutions of those responsible. The day after the event, Crown Prince ‘Abdullah announced that the government would investigate and punish those responsible. Three days after the event, the Saudi government ordered all newspapers to desist from publishing anything about the tragedy, and, to date, no one has been prosecuted or fired for the death of the girls. The tragedy was reported on extensively in the West, but received very limited coverage in the Muslim world. On the tragedy, its causes, and aftermath, see Eleanor Doumato, “Saudi Sex-Segregation Can be Fatal,” March 31, 2002, www
   .projo.com/opinion/contributors; Tarek Al-Issawi, “Saudi Schoolgirls’ Fire Deaths Decried,” March 18, 2002, www
   .washtimes.com/world; Mona Eltahawy, “They Died for Lack of a Head Scarf,”
   Washington Post
   , March 19, 2002, A21; “Muslims Allow Girls to Burn to Death in So-Called Moderate Saudi Arabia,” March 18, 2002, www.welchreport.com; “Saudi Police Stopped Fire Rescue,” March 15, 2002, http:// news.bbc.co.uk.
   

3. Quoted in A.A. Vasiliev,
   History of the Byzantine Empire
   (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952), vol. 1, 216. During that time a large number of Christians adopted the Arabic language without adopting Islam and became known as the
   mozarabs
   (the Arabized).
   

4. It is rather telling that the overwhelming majority of Muslim classical jurists were ethnically not Arabs, but they composed their works of jurisprudence in Arabic. In other words, although most Muslim jurists were descended from non-Arab ethnicities such as those of Central and South Asia and North Africa, the vast majority of Islamic law was composed in Arabic. Through the dynamic transformative power of the Arabic language in the pre-modern period, these jurists were Arabized.
   

5. For excellent studies on the historical misconceptions about Islam prevalent in Europe, see Franco Cardini,
   Europe and Islam
   (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2001); Albert Hourani,
   Islam in European Thought
   (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Maxime Rodinson,
   Europe and the Mystique of Islam
   (London: I.B. Tauris, 1987); Thierry Hentsch,
   L’Orient Imaginaire: La Vision Politique Occidentale de l’Est Mediterraneen
   (Paris: Ed. Minuit, 1988);
   

   R.W. Southern,
   Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages
   (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). The most comprehensive work on the subject, however, remains: Norman Daniel,
   Islam and the West: The Making of an Image
   (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960; reprint, Oxford: Oneworld, 2000). Also, see Norman Daniel,
   The Arabs and Medieval Europe
   (London: Longman, 1975). For a particularly useful and sophisticated collection of studies on the topic, see John Victor Tolan,
   Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam
   (London: Routledge, 2000).
   

6. On binary instincts, their impact, and challenge, see Rush W. Dozier,
   Why We Hate: Understanding, Curbing, and Eliminating Hate in Ourselves and Our World
   (New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), 39–48.
   

7. This is evidenced, for instance, by the influence of Muslim thought upon Maimonides, the intellectual movement known as the Averroists in medieval Europe, and the teaching of the medical treatises of Ibn al-Haytham in European universities; see Montgomery Watt,
   The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe
   (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972).
   

8. I am discounting the West’s need for Arab oil because it is a mineral extracted by Western technology, often through the use of Western technical expertise, and which benefits Western industries. More importantly, Western dependence on oil does not lead to cross- cultural or intellectual exchanges. All cultural and intellectual influences go one way and that is from West to East.
   

9. Tragic events such as the Salman Rushdie incident, the treatment of women by the Taliban, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks upon the U.S.A. have fed an extensive amount of vulgar anti- Islamic propaganda. For a partial list of Islamophobic works that were published after 9/11, see: Steven Emerson,
   American Jihad: The Terrorists among Us
   (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002); Daniel Pipes,
   Militant Islam Reaches America
   (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002); Dan Benjamin,
   The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam’s War against America
   (New York: Random House, 2002); Ergun Caner and Emir Caner,
   Unveiling Islam: An Insider’s Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs
   (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2002); Anthony J. Dennis,
   The Rise of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West
   (New York: Wyndham Hall Press, 2001); Mark A. Gabriel,
   Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran Really Teaches about Christianity, Violence, and the Goals of the Islamic Jihad
   (New York: Charisma House, 2002);
   

   S.F. Fleming,
   Islam and New Global Realities: The Roots of Islamic Fundamentalism
   (Surprise, AZ: Selah, 2002); George Grant,
   The Blood of the Moon: Understanding the Historic Struggle between Islam and Western Civilization
   (New York: Thomas Nelson Press, 2001); David Earle Johnson,
   Conspiracy in Mecca: What You Need to Know about the Islamic Threat
   (New York: David Johnson, 2002); Sumrall Lester,
   Jihad – The Holy War: Time Bomb in the Middle East
   (New York: Sumrall, 2002); John F. MacArthur,
   Terrorism, Jihad, and the Bible
   (New York: W, 2001); John F. Murphy, Jr,
   The Sword of Islam: Muslim Extremism from the Arab Conquests to the Attack on America
   (New York: Prometheus, 2002); Adam Parfrey (ed.),
   Extreme Islam: Anti-American Propaganda of Muslim Fundamentalism
   (New York: Feral House, 2002); Robert Spencer,
   Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World’s Fastest Growing Faith
   (New York: Encounter, 2002); Larry Spargimino,
   Religion of Peace or Refuge for Terror?
   (New York: Hearthstone: 2002); Marvin Yakos,
   Jesus vs. Jihad
   (New York: Creation House, 2001). For blatantly anti-Islamic and, by all measures, Islam-hating works that were published pre-9/11 but that have found new popularity in current times, see Paul Fregosi,
   Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries
   (New York: Prometheus, 1998); Ibn Warraq,
   Why I Am Not a Muslim
   (New York: Prometheus, 1995); Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb,
   Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross
   (New York: Dimensions, 1994); Victor Mordecai,
   Is Fanatic Islam a Global Threat?
   (Taylor, SC: n.p., 1997); Robert A. Morey,
   The Islamic Invasion: Confronting the World’s Fastest Growing Religion
   (New York: Harvest House, 1992); Anis A. Shorrosh,
   Islam Revealed: A Christian Arab’s View of Islam
   (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1988).
   

10. There has been an extensive debate about what is called the paradigm of the Clash of Civilizations. The proponents of this paradigm believe that there are values that are distinctly Islamic, and which are fundamentally at odds with the values of the Judeo- Christian West. As many of the critics of this paradigm have pointed out, it is doubtful that there is such a thing as distinctly Judeo-Christian values. Most moral values have a mixed lineage that was heavily shaped by the Islamic heritage. Furthermore, it is not coincidental that the proponents of the Clash of Civilizations invariably ascribe to Islam values that are contrary to democracy, human rights, and liberties. On the debate of Clash of Civilizations, see: Samuel P. Huntington,
    The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order
    (New York: Touchstone Press, 1996); Colin Chapman,
    Islam and the West: Conflict,
    

    Co-existence or Conversion?
    (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 1998); John Esposito,
    The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?
    (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); John Esposito and Zafar Ishaq Ansari (eds.),
    Muslims and the West: Encounter and Dialogue
    (Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 2001); Fred Halliday,
    Islam and the Myth of Confrontation
    (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995); Shireen T. Hunter,
    The Future of Islam and the West: Clash of Civilizations or Peaceful Coexistence?
    (Westport, CT: Praeger Press, 1998); Karim H. Karim,
    The Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence
    (Montreal: Black Rose, 2000); Jorgen S. Nielsen (ed.),
    The Christian–Muslim Frontier: Chaos, Clash or Dialogue?
    (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998); Dieter Senghaas,
    The Clash within Civilizations: Coming to Terms with Cultural Conflicts
    (London: Routledge, 1998). Not surprisingly, writers who clearly do not like Muslims very much have exploited Huntington’s thesis. For an example of paranoid Islamophobia, a work that was unfortunately highly praised by various American politicians, see Anthony J. Dennis,
    The Rise of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West
    (Bristol, IN: Wyndham Hall Press, 1996). For another example of a work, written from the perspective of a Christian fundamentalist, that exploits Huntington’s argument and that is hostile to Islam, see George Grant,
    The Blood of the Moon: Understanding the Historic Struggle between Islam and Western Civilization
    (New York: Thomas Nelson Press, 2001). Typically, in this genre of literature, Christianity, Judaism, and Western culture are, rather jovially, all bundled up in a single unitary mass, placed in a corner, and then pitted against the fantasized concept of: THE ISLAM.
    

11. The expression “vulgarization of Islam” was inspired by an essay written by Robert Scott Appleby in Khaled Abou El Fadl (ed.),
    The Place of Tolerance in Islam
    (New York: Beacon Press, forthcoming).
    

12. On the doctrine of necessity (
    darura
    ) see Subhi Mahmassani,
    The Philosophy of Jurisprudence in Islam
    , trans. Farhat Ziadeh (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1961), 152–9; Mohammad Hashim Kamali,
    Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence
    (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1991), 267–81. The well-established Islamic legal maxim provides: necessities will render the forbidden permissible (
    al-darurat tubih al-mahzurat
    ), and the preservation of human life is considered in Islamic jurisprudence to be the most basic and fundamental necessity of all. Preservation of human life, in the order of Islamic values, is a greater priority than the safeguarding of God’s rights (
    huquq Allah
    ). See, on the subject, Khaled Abou El Fadl,
    Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
    (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2001), 196–7; Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Constitutionalism and the Islamic Sunni Legacy,”
    UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law
    , 1(1), 2001–2, 86–92.