Islam and its Other
Our religious scholars generally choose not to be well informed on the troubling questions that modernity has raised.
How do we engage with “Neo-Salafi”/“Wahabi” Islam, “Sufi” Islam, Revivalist/“Political” Islam and in fact endless debates amongst various juristic and theological schools; and also consequent divisive interpretations of such important issues as Caliphate/State, women’s/minority’ rights, interfaith dialogue? We find fundamentalists on the one hand and aggressive secularists on the other. From antinomian pseudo-Sufis to politically hyperactive class of religionists we find other extremes failing to understand demands of either religion or contemporaneity. Our religious scholars generally choose not to be well informed on the troubling questions that modernity has raised.
It seems Muslims have been divided in their response to modernism, modern science and philosophy. From Mawlana Thanvi’s Answer to Modernism and his translator Hasan Askari’s deadly attack against fallacies of modernism to Iqbal, Azad, Shibli Nomani, Ali Shariati, Maududi, Fazlur Rahman, Muhammad Arkuon and Abu Nasr Zayd, we find many different and contradictory responses. On every major issue we have quite divided views. There are both advocates and critics of modern democracy and certain Enlightenment values defended by modern secular modernity, of veiling and unveiling, of triple divorce, of music, of Sufi practices, of intolerance of other religions, of historical criticism or higher criticism, of evolution, of Quranic inspiration for modern science, of theocracy, of capital and market centric economy, of current banking system, of warrant of esoteric/philosophical approach to religion, of current development model and technological culture, of birth control, of traditional laws of inheritance and punishment, of what is called Islamization of sciences, of place of native elements of culture or custom in religious practice, of jihad against the religious/political other, of (in)validity of taqleed in matters juristic and theological.
Given the case that the Muslim response to problems within and without seems far from coherent or comprehensive, what options do we have today negotiating difficult choices that seem to involve both our eternal destiny and temporal welfare? For me there is a way out of contesting perceptions about Islam vis-à-vis its internal and external Other. Since these questions have been raised by what may be broadly called philosophers and scientists, they could best be addressed in their idiom and this in turn requires Quranic call for wisdom/thinking seriously. And thus it requires taking Muslim and some modern philosophers seriously. It is not simply the question of return to what is called the Quran and Sunnah in popular parlance that needs to be rehearsed. It is the question of contested interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah. Some points one gathers from reading Muslim sages are in order for consideration in dealing with divisive issues.
How do we engage with “Neo-Salafi”/“Wahabi” Islam, “Sufi” Islam, Revivalist/“Political” Islam and in fact endless debates amongst various juristic and theological schools; and also consequent divisive interpretations of such important issues as Caliphate/State, women’s/minority’ rights, interfaith dialogue? We find fundamentalists on the one hand and aggressive secularists on the other. From antinomian pseudo-Sufis to politically hyperactive class of religionists we find other extremes failing to understand demands of either religion or contemporaneity. Our religious scholars generally choose not to be well informed on the troubling questions that modernity has raised.It seems Muslims have been divided in their response to modernism, modern science and philosophy. From Mawlana Thanvi’s Answer to Modernism and his translator Hasan Askari’s deadly attack against fallacies of modernism to Iqbal, Azad, Shibli Nomani, Ali Shariati, Maududi, Fazlur Rahman, Muhammad Arkuon and Abu Nasr Zayd, we find many different and contradictory responses. On every major issue we have quite divided views. There are both advocates and critics of modern democracy and certain Enlightenment values defended by modern secular modernity, of veiling and unveiling, of triple divorce, of music, of Sufi practices, of intolerance of other religions, of historical criticism or higher criticism, of evolution, of Quranic inspiration for modern science, of theocracy, of capital and market centric economy, of current banking system, of warrant of esoteric/philosophical approach to religion, of current development model and technological culture, of birth control, of traditional laws of inheritance and punishment, of what is called Islamization of sciences, of place of native elements of culture or custom in religious practice, of jihad against the religious/political other, of (in)validity of taqleed in matters juristic and theological.
Given the case that the Muslim response to problems within and without seems far from coherent or comprehensive, what options do we have today negotiating difficult choices that seem to involve both our eternal destiny and temporal welfare? For me there is a way out of contesting perceptions about Islam vis-à-vis its internal and external Other. Since these questions have been raised by what may be broadly called philosophers and scientists, they could best be addressed in their idiom and this in turn requires Quranic call for wisdom/thinking seriously. And thus it requires taking Muslim and some modern philosophers seriously. It is not simply the question of return to what is called the Quran and Sunnah in popular parlance that needs to be rehearsed. It is the question of contested interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah. Some points one gathers from reading Muslim sages are in order for consideration in dealing with divisive issues.
- The Quran requires us to recall what has been called its pre-text, Abrahamic tradition and even other revelations in non-Semitic milieu. Sunnah grounds itself on the Sunnah of earlier prophets and thus can best be appreciated by taking note of well established paths that various traditions have been foregrounding. The Quran calls for taking note of common points of various traditions it found in the environment of its immediate addressees. The Quran doesn’t promulgate new truths but advocates already known truths (revealed truths) – intellection, potentially or theoretically available or accessible to anyone who takes required trouble, verifies the most basic claims of revealed truth – besides an openness to wisdom/truth in any experience/narrative. All these points imply we have to enquire about religious/philosophical other rather than come up with this or that claim made beforehand in the name of Islam or so-called Islamic ideology or belief system. It is partly an empirical enquiry in which contemporary scholars of diverse religions and traditional ideas have to be taken on board. We may have things to learn rather than teach. The Quran teaches the significance of investigation, learning, questioning our inherited biases/forefathers. What has so far been written about other religions in the classic works of such masters as Ghazzali, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Hazm, Sharistani and Al-Biruni is quite valuable but, retrospectively, we see them fraught with certain interpretative, methodological and empirical problems that scholars are busy investigating. Muslim world has had a legacy of mostly approaching the question of the other from what has been called imperialistic theological lenses. Quite early in our history, Islam came to be seen as another revelation/religion more than as unifying/underlying/confirming Religion and accordingly a battery of concepts were woven to prove the exclusivist claims and otherness of the othered aspects of its own pre-text. Islam’s universalism got restricted to certain Sufis and philosophers whose influence was restricted to certain sections while the masses were tutored by scholars who didn’t take into account richness, complexity and nuances of various key ideas/terms in the Islamic sources that have been better attended today by scholars of world religions, mysticisms and wisdom traditions. Read Ibn Hazm’s treatment of the definition/characterization of the essence of religion/belief/ritual in Islam and other religions in the light of the treatment of the same by such contemporary scholars as Huston Smith, Mircea Eliade and W. C. Smith or appreciate divergence in approaches to myth in him and Joseph Campbell and one finds much water has flown down the ages. Or, to take more recent example of two divergent approaches to religious other, compare Harun Yahya’s text on Islam and Buddhism with Reza Shah Kazmi’s on the same. The problem is not merely of choosing this or that interpretation here but of choosing or not choosing to take note of enormous development in scholarship of religious other. One often laughs at certain old texts on Islam written by Orientalists as biases are now evident to even an elementary student of Islam but the same applies to many texts written by Muslims about other traditions the biases of which are evident to elementary students of world religions. It no longer comes to us a surprise that Vedas can be read as emphasizing oneness of God though previously more dominant approach was to emphasize their polytheism. Muslims have read other scriptures literally and found it easy to find enormous problems in them from historical, philosophical and theological perspectives and the same could be asserted about many Christian and Hindu critics of Islam. It has increasingly been recognized that secularizing age has cornered all religions and it would be better to take on common challenge confronting all religions with the resources common to all Absolute/Spirit centric traditions than emphasizing admittedly real theological differences amongst them. Philosophers today, in the face of globalization that bridged geographical and communicative barriers between various traditions, often work with concepts and methods that unearth deeper underlying ideas or affinities and they are more ready than exclusivist apologists of various religions to take note of wisdom wherever it is found. Al-Farabi reconciled the Prophet-Imam figure with the Philosopher, Ghazzali reconciled Sufism with orthodoxy of the day, Soharwardi reconciled Iranian-Zoroastrian and Islamic philosophies, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd reconciled science/philosophy and religion, Shah Waliullah reconciled two major Sufi schools and most importantly the paths of saints and the path of prophets, Iqbal reconciled the diverse portfolios of a philosopher, a theologian, a mystic and a poet in himself as did many sages preceding him. These attempts may need refinement now and newer paths need to be charted in the face of ever evolving nature of challenges posed by sciences and philosophies.
- The kernel of revealed truths is universally believed by people of traditional cultures and wisdom traditions and, arguably, finds receptive audience amongst the best of modern thinkers as well. The Quran’s emphasis is – as everyone can readily agree – more on orthopraxy (right action) than on right details of dogmas and as such the problem to be settled is who has a better claim to virtue/competes better in good deeds or is more God fearing.
- Right understanding can’t, by definition, come from any inherently limiting exotericist theological/legalistic approaches or other ideological appropriations. It demands discipline of senses and purification of the mirror called heart as all scriptures and saints of diverse traditions and generality of traditional philosophers agree.
- Most comprehensive interpretation/understanding involving existential, metaphysical, religious, aesthetic, intellectual, social and psychological dimensions of oneself/world could be found in its most penetrating and forceful and authentic form in the greatest of the sages whose names are well known.
- That interpretation is to be preferred that preserves the spirit and embraces/includes/transcends rather than negates/excludes other interpretations that ordinary believers have traditionally lived by and whose fruit has been sanctity or taqwa. Literal sense has to be honoured and not trivialized. However, as we move higher or deeper, analogical, anagogical and symbolic interpretations have to be taken note of. That interpretation which best furthers the most basic tenets – love of God/attachment to the Absolute or the Real and love of neighbor – has traditionally been accepted as the best.
- Juristic opinions that do find support in primary sources or universal principles informing primary sources can’t be vetoed especially if we keep in mind their ultimate rationale in helping our salvation/felicity. Here modernists can rub shoulder with conservatives in most cases as God/Spirit remains indifferent to their divergent practices. Where traditional authorities have differed thanks to divine mercy who are we to impose uniform codes?
- Some debates have been going on/may go on for millennia or centuries because what is at stake is not truth claim of either positions but different starting points, definitions and necessarily divergent perceptions regarding appropriate judgment in given cases. Since judges or jurists have differed and arguably should differ in many cases, let us enjoy this difference. What is one’s view with respect to such issues as identifying riba (usury) with bank interest, many modern financial institutions, music, veil, Islamic State or understanding of divine sovereignty where authorities best qualified to interpret primary sources have disagreed should not be allowed to divide us or condemn other people who choose other arguably valid views. We may condemn other views but not upholders of other views as traditions have taught us to condemn the sin (if divergent view is indeed sin in the first place) and not the sinner.
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