by Omar Javaid
Each term and the concept behind it are established by a unique historical and cultural experience. This means any term or idea coined in either Western, Chinese or Hindu Civilization would have a different history as compare to a term coined in Islamic history. The values, ideals, beliefs upheld by a particular civilization further provides a contexts to define that term. The problem is even more significant when mainstream and popular discourse define the term in a context of a unique historical experience. Therefore if a person uses a term out of its context or frame of reference, then it may create serious confusions and may have adverse consequences as well.
For example terms like Tauheed, Risalat, Wahi, Khilafat, Salah, Azaan, Hajj, Zakat, Nikah etc. have a very established meaning in context of Islam's history and epistemology, being a Muslim when someone associates himself with Islam's history and defines his identity in the same context then its not hard to image how would that person would feel when these terms would be used out of their established meanings! Same is the case with terms associated with historical experience of other civilizations like west, whose power to control the popular discourse, shouldn't also be underestimated!
Allow me to explain with a few examples.
Enlightenment/Enlightened: Enlightenment was a movement in Europe which replaced the dominance of religion from public affairs and replaced it with modernism. The modernist thinkers advocated the idea of letting go of the ideals of past and embracing new continuously evolving standards and norms set by rational human beings. The cyclic view of society (Ibn-e-Khuldoon's model of society) i.e. restoring to its original traditionally or religiously inspired state from the past was rejected, and was replaced with the idea of continuous progress where the traditional & religious man was expected to get matured while transforming into a 'self determined autonomous being', i.e. someone who himself decides what is good and bad and what he wants to become. In short, enlightenment project gave birth to a human being who was a god in his own self. The Protestant reformation played its part in this transition as Protestants emphasized on individual’s right to interpret bible and seek guidance from it. However later the sectarian violence in Europe pushed people away from religion, while wealth accumulated during the colonial expeditions via loot & plundering, and the profits reaped through capitalist industrialization further pulled the public toward a so called humanistic and enlightened way of thinking, so much so that the religious dominated past was termed as dark ages. The new secular age termed as 'enlightenment' was born built upon capitalist value, liberal democracy and scientific rationality. Keeping this in view what would it mean to be an 'Enlightened Muslim'?
Democracy: Democratic system emerged out of the bitter experience of dark ages in Europe. When the public got fed up with sectarian violence going in for centuries between Catholics and Protestants then as a reaction they gradually came with an alternative way to govern a state. The old ways of Church, Aristocracy and Monarchy to form constitution, and implement it were scrapped. Therefore democracy is an ideology and a system which utilized human intelligence to differentiate legal from illegal, allowed from prohibited for the entire society etc. while completely excluding religion out of it. Religion may survive at a individual level. This means democratic system is purely secular and liberal in nature from the eyes of those who have created it. Now what does Islamic Democracy would mean to those who live in the west! Parliament is a place where illegal is declared as legal on the basis of majorities opinion in view of those who conceived it, does this imply it is compatible with the idea of Majlis-e-Shura which emerged in a completely different historical experience and context, where absolute authority is of Quran and Sunnah.
Human Rights: Or rights of Humans or rights of a self-determined autonomous being, who is an end in himself, means he doesn't serve any Deity, or Divine Authority. Michel Foucault once said that there was no human before 17th century but only mankind. How this concept of Human evolved in Europe is a long story, in a nutshell this was in reaction and opposition to the concept of man defined by Church previously. For details see Immanuel Kant's work. Now what would Human Rights mean in this context, and how they would be applied on religious people who consider their lives as a means to serve a Divine Authority? Those saying human rights violation has been done against a population who is purely religious then what sense it would make in the eyes of those in the west who understands its real meaning! Religiously devoted beings with a political agenda simply doesn't deserve the same rights as granted to Humans, as they are far from being a Human!.
Colonization: Colonization was a process by which the Europeans ruled the world in such a brutal and barbaric ways that all the brutal forces of the past looks lame. It would be wrong to say that near about 200 million people almost in every part of the world were butchered, hundreds of thousands of women raped and tortured to death etc in total during a period of near about 350 years. The entire population of south and north America was killed, 90% of blacks who were transported to other parts of the world were killed, the Aboriginals of Australia were killed, and millions in the subcontinent were also starved to death by these colonial powers through different ways. Their agenda was to loot the wealth of different places, and transport it back to Europe and get rich in the process. It wouldn't be wrong to say that this period was even darker for non-whites then the dark ages of Europe. For details check 'People's History of United States of America' by Howard Zinn, 'Culture and Imperialism' by Edward Said, Civilization by Niall Ferguson, etc. Some argue that Islam also colonized the world during this own era, however those have simply no idea what history does this term Colonization holds and how different it would be from Islamic History.
Secularism: Its an idea of separating religion from politics and public policy, for e.g. a country where this is done is known as secular. Again Europe when excluded religion from politics used this term to explain their position. I have heard people saying that Islam is a secular religion because it respects the existence of religious minorities and also focuses on the administrative affairs of the state as well. This is naked misuse of this term as being secular which explicitly means not taking guidance from religious sources while formulating public policy and constitution. Quran and Sunnah on the other hand have explicit guidelines for head of the state, punishments for various crimes has been prescribed and it provides broad guidelines on how the state would be run, and the ultimate source of constitution is Quran and Sunnah. Now what would Islamic secularism mean?
Liberalism: The idea of liberalism is deontologist in nature, means equality is arbitrary from moral standpoint (see John Rawls), means a person who wants to spend his life cutting the leaves of grass has equal moral worth as compare to a person who has dedicated his life to study Quran and Sunnah! Liberalism doesn't weigh different individuals on any moral standard whatsoever and assumes everybody to be equal. This makes people to confuse that Islam is also liberal in nature. Islam does apply its law equally onto everyone however this doesn't mean that opinion of a religious scholar would also be considered as equal to the opinion of an ordinary man, or they would be getting the same level of respect. Liberalism in other words rejects any religious criterion to categorize individuals or rank them over one another by any means. In liberal discourse husband isn't superior than his wife, and mother isn't superior than one's father, unlike believed in Islam, and there is no way a parent can impose his will on to his children.
Capitalism: Capitalism emerged in europe not just as an economic system, but as a complete social order which include politics as well. Its most unique feature is its unique financial system which requires state support to survive. The core idea behind is to reject religion as a means to define reality and man's position in it, and focus on worldly success exclusively, which is possible with accumulation of wealth which would lead to maximization of freedom for the sake of maximization of worldly pleasures. This inevitably requires a financial system which enables such multiplication of wealth overtime as in real world this multiplication is constrained by resource limitations and competition. This means that the financial system always overshadows the real economy in a capitalistic society. The wealth in financial system is like a ghost and it represents nothing but trust that it can buy you real things, since its not tied with real economy therefore it's value can grow like a bubble and burst at a point causing loss to the real economy. This financial system cannot be eliminated from capitalism unless the core idea of unprecedented accumulation of wealth or Takasur (see Surah Takasur in Quran) is not discredited, as the very desire isn't possible in the real world. Without the financial system capitalism is meaningless. The entire Islamic history doesn't have any such example despite the existence of markets and international trading activities. The book Islamic Capitalism written by Vali Nasr, which has completely ignored this dimension of capitalism.
Socialism: According to Dr. Javed Akbar Ansari socialism is simply state own capitalism, where ownership of real economy is in the hand of government where individuals are not allowed to own almost everything. Ownership in fact is a crime in socialist economies. Islam of course doesn't permit so as individuals are allowed to own wealth and assets, and pay Zakat when needed. In Islam inspiration to live a simple and humble life is completely voluntary, prefered also, but doesn't stops any individual who doesn't want to do so as well. The idea of socialism also emerged in Europe in revolt to the exploitation of capitalism, and the solution which which was presented in the name of socialism by Karl Marx and followers had nothing to do with Islam, rather religion was considered as an opium for human mind in socialist discourse. This strong opposition to religion has also turned violent on various occasions throughout history in Russia and China as well, where genocide of religious population was orchestrated by the socialist governments on various occasions.
Bank, Central Bank: Carl Winnerlind has explained that Banks made something possible which alchemists weren't able to do, that it multiply the amount of existing cash many times over through their unique fractional reserve system. This means if a country has a total deposits of 1 trillion rupees for example, then the physical cash available to back this amount would be a fraction of the total only. How this is done isn't a point of concern here, and anyone who is interest to understand can read Jesus Huerta De Soto's book 'Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles' or Michael Rowbotham's book 'The Grip of Death'. The point is that an entire institutional infrastructure is required to multiply the existing money supply so that the rich can use it for their own benefit and in the meanwhile allow the currency to debase and cause inflation. If the govt. issue the entire money stock instead of allowing the banks to do this, then the blame would be on the govt. for causing the inflation and its cause would be easy to understand, however the money multiplication process occurring in private banks is complicated enough that a common man cannot understand. This process simply takes the purchasing power of the money issued by the banks from the poor and gives it to the rich. Now what would Islamic Bank mean?
Scientific Research: Modern science as we know it today is a product of enlightenment movement of Europe where we see science taking the place of religion so much so that even the theological questions about life, death, morality, creation etc. are all answered by science only with the help of logic or rationalistic thinking and using empirical human observations (standardized through measuring instruments and laboratory). The limits of human senses and logic is the limit of science hence the limit of the knowledge in the modern world! In words of Akbar Ala Abadi
Nationalism
When europe colonized the world, mean the British, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Germans etc. then the world was divided fundamentally between these colonial powers. The British led the show as we know it from history. Since locals perceived the colonizers as a foreign oppressor therefore fighting back for freedom was a cause which united people on various occasions against the foreign oppressor. The 1857 mutiny in subcontinent can be considered as an example. To break away the unity the famous 'divide and rule' strategy was put into place to ignite differences across ethnic, sectarian, geographical and religious lines. The Hindu / Muslim divide, Shia / Sunni divide are examples. Furthermore the spirit of nationalism was also getting ignited in Europe as various monarchs and sects of Christianity had been violently against each other since many centuries. In the same spirit the rest of the world also got divided (a) because of being under a specific colonial power like French or British, (b) as a strategy to divide and rule... as a consequence the British particularly left lots of nations behind with a unique state structure and institutional framework in place so that Britishers can have its influence on its colonies even after the end of colonization period. This never happened in Islamic history, subsequently there is no such example of so called nationalism in history of Islamic civilization, and it would be preposterous to call any society during Islamic history as a nationalistic phenomenon, or explain any contemporary one as Islamic nationalism! doing so would make a Muslim guilty of equating Islam with any ethnic or cultural phenomenon, which in fact has given birth to the idea of nationalism during colonial rule...
Freedom
Freedom is the most fundamental among the set of values upheld in the western world since the dawn of enlightenment movement. Freedom to do or choose anything, from religious beliefs, choose mating partner, how much alcohol to consume on a given night, to selecting a leader!... We can see lots of Hollywood movies in which the hero is fighting for everyone's freedom against the bad guy who is trying to steal it by making everyone a slave... Batman, Ironman, Superman, Spiderman, Avengers, Transformers etc. are just a few examples, let alone the ones made to discredit communist ideology. In the same context freedom of nations is defined in the mainstream modern discourse. Coupled with the idea of nationalism, freedom of nations implies that the public has now been given the freedom to choose their own leaders and constitution! however the idea looks like an oxymoron as soon as one recalls that nationalism and idea of (so called) freedom was imposed upon the locals by the colonial powers! On the contrary when a Muslim accepts Islam with his freewill, he rather chooses to submit his will to the Divine Will of Allah s.w.t articulated in The Holy Book of Quran and explained elaborately in the sayings and teachings of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Once he has done so, there is no going back. Furthermore once a Muslim has realized the truth from Islamic perspective, its his duty to invite others toward Islam as well, and once a society of such individuals is formed, then the Islamic constitution is supposed to be implemented in that society which doesn't allow individuals to be as free as they are in the west... A Muslim is free within a prescribed boundary defined in the teachings of Islam, but not to go beyond that! Western societies also draw boundaries for its inhabitants within which they are at liberty to do anything they want to, however these boundaries are subjected to change as per the whims of the society for example allowing gay marriages or interest based finance, but not quite so in Islam. Islam rather idealize complete submission of ones freewill as opposed to the value of celebrating freewill in the western world.
Professionalism
The idea of professionalism has its roots in the concept of division of labor, division of knowledge, scarcity, individualism, freedom and an urge to have an identity in a market dominated society. The western world once began propagating the value of 'freedom'; removing any physiological, social and economic barriers was therefore deemed necessary. Shedding away the social bonds of ones family leads to the idea of individualism and subsequently the death of the family system in the west. Each individual lives his own life as this allows him to maximize the opportunities to enhances ones freedom. Physiological barriers restricts ones mobility & access, therefore technology helps to overcome just that, however one have the pay a price, so more wealth you have the more chances you have to enjoy more freedom brought by the tech. To earn more in a materialistic world of scarce resources, if you posses a skill, a set of knowledge, a specialization which only few people have then you subsequently increases the chances to earn more money... in parallel industrialist have also been interested in division of labor, for the simple idea of 'divide and rule' i.e. if they had to be dependent on individuals who are expert in a variety of fields then their production line would be at the mercy of such people! Frederick Taylor the father of scientific management therefore proposed to divide the entire production process into small insignificant parts to ensure no single worker has the bargaining power to dictate his terms. The structure of industrial production line became compatible with the division of knowledge (specialization) however with antagonistic motivations. Later on when capitalistic market became stronger then nationalistic boundaries based on ethnic, racial, sectarian, or religious connotations became irrelevant subsequently eroding away the identity of their individualistic subjects. In the midst of this identity crisis ones profession came to rescue which in turn became the new identity of individuals, who had their lives dedicated to market place to maximize their wealth to increase their freedom. The products of modern education takes pride in identifying themselves not in religious, ethnic, nationalistic, tribal or sectarian sense, rather as citizens of corporate worlds with titles like 'Manager Finance', 'Director HR', 'Vise President XYZ'... of a ABC company! More popular the company is and higher the position in hierarchy, more proud the products of modern education feels. In the context above, what would an Islamic professional means?
Civil Society
Freedom comes at a personal price, and that price is 'a sense of insecurity' as when in pursuit of becoming unique and individualistic you tends to disconnect with others around you secondly in a materialistic struggle you also feel guilty conscious for not being able to do something altruistically and give back to the society as well, therefore professionals gang up as 'associations', 'groups', 'societies', etc. and voluntarily try to clean up the mess the society has created in blind rat race toward wealth accumulation and freedom. This subsequently gives birth to civil societies which also exists to lobby for rights or interests of a particular group of professionals. On a micro level and in isolation the idea of civil societies seems noble, however from a holistic perspective and on a macro scale its a symptom of an underlying value system, social structure and ideals which are not just foreign to Islam but also contradictory on many occasions.
To be continued...
Author is an academic researcher and reader in Islamic and western history, philosophy, and political theory and frequently writes on the subject as well. His area of specialization includes Islamic economics and entrepreneurship
Each term and the concept behind it are established by a unique historical and cultural experience. This means any term or idea coined in either Western, Chinese or Hindu Civilization would have a different history as compare to a term coined in Islamic history. The values, ideals, beliefs upheld by a particular civilization further provides a contexts to define that term. The problem is even more significant when mainstream and popular discourse define the term in a context of a unique historical experience. Therefore if a person uses a term out of its context or frame of reference, then it may create serious confusions and may have adverse consequences as well.
For example terms like Tauheed, Risalat, Wahi, Khilafat, Salah, Azaan, Hajj, Zakat, Nikah etc. have a very established meaning in context of Islam's history and epistemology, being a Muslim when someone associates himself with Islam's history and defines his identity in the same context then its not hard to image how would that person would feel when these terms would be used out of their established meanings! Same is the case with terms associated with historical experience of other civilizations like west, whose power to control the popular discourse, shouldn't also be underestimated!
Allow me to explain with a few examples.
Enlightenment/Enlightened: Enlightenment was a movement in Europe which replaced the dominance of religion from public affairs and replaced it with modernism. The modernist thinkers advocated the idea of letting go of the ideals of past and embracing new continuously evolving standards and norms set by rational human beings. The cyclic view of society (Ibn-e-Khuldoon's model of society) i.e. restoring to its original traditionally or religiously inspired state from the past was rejected, and was replaced with the idea of continuous progress where the traditional & religious man was expected to get matured while transforming into a 'self determined autonomous being', i.e. someone who himself decides what is good and bad and what he wants to become. In short, enlightenment project gave birth to a human being who was a god in his own self. The Protestant reformation played its part in this transition as Protestants emphasized on individual’s right to interpret bible and seek guidance from it. However later the sectarian violence in Europe pushed people away from religion, while wealth accumulated during the colonial expeditions via loot & plundering, and the profits reaped through capitalist industrialization further pulled the public toward a so called humanistic and enlightened way of thinking, so much so that the religious dominated past was termed as dark ages. The new secular age termed as 'enlightenment' was born built upon capitalist value, liberal democracy and scientific rationality. Keeping this in view what would it mean to be an 'Enlightened Muslim'?
Democracy: Democratic system emerged out of the bitter experience of dark ages in Europe. When the public got fed up with sectarian violence going in for centuries between Catholics and Protestants then as a reaction they gradually came with an alternative way to govern a state. The old ways of Church, Aristocracy and Monarchy to form constitution, and implement it were scrapped. Therefore democracy is an ideology and a system which utilized human intelligence to differentiate legal from illegal, allowed from prohibited for the entire society etc. while completely excluding religion out of it. Religion may survive at a individual level. This means democratic system is purely secular and liberal in nature from the eyes of those who have created it. Now what does Islamic Democracy would mean to those who live in the west! Parliament is a place where illegal is declared as legal on the basis of majorities opinion in view of those who conceived it, does this imply it is compatible with the idea of Majlis-e-Shura which emerged in a completely different historical experience and context, where absolute authority is of Quran and Sunnah.
Human Rights: Or rights of Humans or rights of a self-determined autonomous being, who is an end in himself, means he doesn't serve any Deity, or Divine Authority. Michel Foucault once said that there was no human before 17th century but only mankind. How this concept of Human evolved in Europe is a long story, in a nutshell this was in reaction and opposition to the concept of man defined by Church previously. For details see Immanuel Kant's work. Now what would Human Rights mean in this context, and how they would be applied on religious people who consider their lives as a means to serve a Divine Authority? Those saying human rights violation has been done against a population who is purely religious then what sense it would make in the eyes of those in the west who understands its real meaning! Religiously devoted beings with a political agenda simply doesn't deserve the same rights as granted to Humans, as they are far from being a Human!.
Colonization: Colonization was a process by which the Europeans ruled the world in such a brutal and barbaric ways that all the brutal forces of the past looks lame. It would be wrong to say that near about 200 million people almost in every part of the world were butchered, hundreds of thousands of women raped and tortured to death etc in total during a period of near about 350 years. The entire population of south and north America was killed, 90% of blacks who were transported to other parts of the world were killed, the Aboriginals of Australia were killed, and millions in the subcontinent were also starved to death by these colonial powers through different ways. Their agenda was to loot the wealth of different places, and transport it back to Europe and get rich in the process. It wouldn't be wrong to say that this period was even darker for non-whites then the dark ages of Europe. For details check 'People's History of United States of America' by Howard Zinn, 'Culture and Imperialism' by Edward Said, Civilization by Niall Ferguson, etc. Some argue that Islam also colonized the world during this own era, however those have simply no idea what history does this term Colonization holds and how different it would be from Islamic History.
Secularism: Its an idea of separating religion from politics and public policy, for e.g. a country where this is done is known as secular. Again Europe when excluded religion from politics used this term to explain their position. I have heard people saying that Islam is a secular religion because it respects the existence of religious minorities and also focuses on the administrative affairs of the state as well. This is naked misuse of this term as being secular which explicitly means not taking guidance from religious sources while formulating public policy and constitution. Quran and Sunnah on the other hand have explicit guidelines for head of the state, punishments for various crimes has been prescribed and it provides broad guidelines on how the state would be run, and the ultimate source of constitution is Quran and Sunnah. Now what would Islamic secularism mean?
Liberalism: The idea of liberalism is deontologist in nature, means equality is arbitrary from moral standpoint (see John Rawls), means a person who wants to spend his life cutting the leaves of grass has equal moral worth as compare to a person who has dedicated his life to study Quran and Sunnah! Liberalism doesn't weigh different individuals on any moral standard whatsoever and assumes everybody to be equal. This makes people to confuse that Islam is also liberal in nature. Islam does apply its law equally onto everyone however this doesn't mean that opinion of a religious scholar would also be considered as equal to the opinion of an ordinary man, or they would be getting the same level of respect. Liberalism in other words rejects any religious criterion to categorize individuals or rank them over one another by any means. In liberal discourse husband isn't superior than his wife, and mother isn't superior than one's father, unlike believed in Islam, and there is no way a parent can impose his will on to his children.
Capitalism: Capitalism emerged in europe not just as an economic system, but as a complete social order which include politics as well. Its most unique feature is its unique financial system which requires state support to survive. The core idea behind is to reject religion as a means to define reality and man's position in it, and focus on worldly success exclusively, which is possible with accumulation of wealth which would lead to maximization of freedom for the sake of maximization of worldly pleasures. This inevitably requires a financial system which enables such multiplication of wealth overtime as in real world this multiplication is constrained by resource limitations and competition. This means that the financial system always overshadows the real economy in a capitalistic society. The wealth in financial system is like a ghost and it represents nothing but trust that it can buy you real things, since its not tied with real economy therefore it's value can grow like a bubble and burst at a point causing loss to the real economy. This financial system cannot be eliminated from capitalism unless the core idea of unprecedented accumulation of wealth or Takasur (see Surah Takasur in Quran) is not discredited, as the very desire isn't possible in the real world. Without the financial system capitalism is meaningless. The entire Islamic history doesn't have any such example despite the existence of markets and international trading activities. The book Islamic Capitalism written by Vali Nasr, which has completely ignored this dimension of capitalism.
Socialism: According to Dr. Javed Akbar Ansari socialism is simply state own capitalism, where ownership of real economy is in the hand of government where individuals are not allowed to own almost everything. Ownership in fact is a crime in socialist economies. Islam of course doesn't permit so as individuals are allowed to own wealth and assets, and pay Zakat when needed. In Islam inspiration to live a simple and humble life is completely voluntary, prefered also, but doesn't stops any individual who doesn't want to do so as well. The idea of socialism also emerged in Europe in revolt to the exploitation of capitalism, and the solution which which was presented in the name of socialism by Karl Marx and followers had nothing to do with Islam, rather religion was considered as an opium for human mind in socialist discourse. This strong opposition to religion has also turned violent on various occasions throughout history in Russia and China as well, where genocide of religious population was orchestrated by the socialist governments on various occasions.
Bank, Central Bank: Carl Winnerlind has explained that Banks made something possible which alchemists weren't able to do, that it multiply the amount of existing cash many times over through their unique fractional reserve system. This means if a country has a total deposits of 1 trillion rupees for example, then the physical cash available to back this amount would be a fraction of the total only. How this is done isn't a point of concern here, and anyone who is interest to understand can read Jesus Huerta De Soto's book 'Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles' or Michael Rowbotham's book 'The Grip of Death'. The point is that an entire institutional infrastructure is required to multiply the existing money supply so that the rich can use it for their own benefit and in the meanwhile allow the currency to debase and cause inflation. If the govt. issue the entire money stock instead of allowing the banks to do this, then the blame would be on the govt. for causing the inflation and its cause would be easy to understand, however the money multiplication process occurring in private banks is complicated enough that a common man cannot understand. This process simply takes the purchasing power of the money issued by the banks from the poor and gives it to the rich. Now what would Islamic Bank mean?
Scientific Research: Modern science as we know it today is a product of enlightenment movement of Europe where we see science taking the place of religion so much so that even the theological questions about life, death, morality, creation etc. are all answered by science only with the help of logic or rationalistic thinking and using empirical human observations (standardized through measuring instruments and laboratory). The limits of human senses and logic is the limit of science hence the limit of the knowledge in the modern world! In words of Akbar Ala Abadi
منزلوں دور ان کی دانش سے خدا کی ذات ہے
خوردبین اور دوربین تک ان کی بس اوکت ہے
Iqbal also explained the disparity in his words as well:
محسوس پر بنا ہے عالم جدید کی
اس دور میں ہے شیشہ عقائد کا پاش پاش
And at another place he asserted in persian:
دانش حاضر حجاب اکبر است
بت پرست و بت فروش و بت گرست
The above means that the modern framework of knowledge based on rationalism and empiricism is a great barrier, a veil rather, between mankind and the Divine, though this frame of knowledge creates idols for mankind for worship.
Keeping in view the background of modern science it seems quite strange when someone intends to explain Quran and teachings of ahadith scientifically. Why would it matter to anyone who knows the reality of modern scientific method, and rather it would appeal to only those who would consider science to be an authentic means toward the truth of this world and hereafter! From a scientific perspective its superstition to believe in divine, hereafter, angels, taqdeer, ghaib and the process of wahi or revelation through which the Quran and previous books were revealed to the respective Prophets. Also from a scientific perspective its ridiculous to infer while looking at the various signs in the universe, which Quran invites the believers to look at, that a supernatural divine power was behind the creation of the universe who has a design for mankind and way prescribed toward salvation in Akhirah, however from Quranic perspective such a person is the one with intellect! What would Scientific explanation of Quranic verses would imply?
When europe colonized the world, mean the British, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Germans etc. then the world was divided fundamentally between these colonial powers. The British led the show as we know it from history. Since locals perceived the colonizers as a foreign oppressor therefore fighting back for freedom was a cause which united people on various occasions against the foreign oppressor. The 1857 mutiny in subcontinent can be considered as an example. To break away the unity the famous 'divide and rule' strategy was put into place to ignite differences across ethnic, sectarian, geographical and religious lines. The Hindu / Muslim divide, Shia / Sunni divide are examples. Furthermore the spirit of nationalism was also getting ignited in Europe as various monarchs and sects of Christianity had been violently against each other since many centuries. In the same spirit the rest of the world also got divided (a) because of being under a specific colonial power like French or British, (b) as a strategy to divide and rule... as a consequence the British particularly left lots of nations behind with a unique state structure and institutional framework in place so that Britishers can have its influence on its colonies even after the end of colonization period. This never happened in Islamic history, subsequently there is no such example of so called nationalism in history of Islamic civilization, and it would be preposterous to call any society during Islamic history as a nationalistic phenomenon, or explain any contemporary one as Islamic nationalism! doing so would make a Muslim guilty of equating Islam with any ethnic or cultural phenomenon, which in fact has given birth to the idea of nationalism during colonial rule...
Freedom
Freedom is the most fundamental among the set of values upheld in the western world since the dawn of enlightenment movement. Freedom to do or choose anything, from religious beliefs, choose mating partner, how much alcohol to consume on a given night, to selecting a leader!... We can see lots of Hollywood movies in which the hero is fighting for everyone's freedom against the bad guy who is trying to steal it by making everyone a slave... Batman, Ironman, Superman, Spiderman, Avengers, Transformers etc. are just a few examples, let alone the ones made to discredit communist ideology. In the same context freedom of nations is defined in the mainstream modern discourse. Coupled with the idea of nationalism, freedom of nations implies that the public has now been given the freedom to choose their own leaders and constitution! however the idea looks like an oxymoron as soon as one recalls that nationalism and idea of (so called) freedom was imposed upon the locals by the colonial powers! On the contrary when a Muslim accepts Islam with his freewill, he rather chooses to submit his will to the Divine Will of Allah s.w.t articulated in The Holy Book of Quran and explained elaborately in the sayings and teachings of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Once he has done so, there is no going back. Furthermore once a Muslim has realized the truth from Islamic perspective, its his duty to invite others toward Islam as well, and once a society of such individuals is formed, then the Islamic constitution is supposed to be implemented in that society which doesn't allow individuals to be as free as they are in the west... A Muslim is free within a prescribed boundary defined in the teachings of Islam, but not to go beyond that! Western societies also draw boundaries for its inhabitants within which they are at liberty to do anything they want to, however these boundaries are subjected to change as per the whims of the society for example allowing gay marriages or interest based finance, but not quite so in Islam. Islam rather idealize complete submission of ones freewill as opposed to the value of celebrating freewill in the western world.
Professionalism
The idea of professionalism has its roots in the concept of division of labor, division of knowledge, scarcity, individualism, freedom and an urge to have an identity in a market dominated society. The western world once began propagating the value of 'freedom'; removing any physiological, social and economic barriers was therefore deemed necessary. Shedding away the social bonds of ones family leads to the idea of individualism and subsequently the death of the family system in the west. Each individual lives his own life as this allows him to maximize the opportunities to enhances ones freedom. Physiological barriers restricts ones mobility & access, therefore technology helps to overcome just that, however one have the pay a price, so more wealth you have the more chances you have to enjoy more freedom brought by the tech. To earn more in a materialistic world of scarce resources, if you posses a skill, a set of knowledge, a specialization which only few people have then you subsequently increases the chances to earn more money... in parallel industrialist have also been interested in division of labor, for the simple idea of 'divide and rule' i.e. if they had to be dependent on individuals who are expert in a variety of fields then their production line would be at the mercy of such people! Frederick Taylor the father of scientific management therefore proposed to divide the entire production process into small insignificant parts to ensure no single worker has the bargaining power to dictate his terms. The structure of industrial production line became compatible with the division of knowledge (specialization) however with antagonistic motivations. Later on when capitalistic market became stronger then nationalistic boundaries based on ethnic, racial, sectarian, or religious connotations became irrelevant subsequently eroding away the identity of their individualistic subjects. In the midst of this identity crisis ones profession came to rescue which in turn became the new identity of individuals, who had their lives dedicated to market place to maximize their wealth to increase their freedom. The products of modern education takes pride in identifying themselves not in religious, ethnic, nationalistic, tribal or sectarian sense, rather as citizens of corporate worlds with titles like 'Manager Finance', 'Director HR', 'Vise President XYZ'... of a ABC company! More popular the company is and higher the position in hierarchy, more proud the products of modern education feels. In the context above, what would an Islamic professional means?
Civil Society
Freedom comes at a personal price, and that price is 'a sense of insecurity' as when in pursuit of becoming unique and individualistic you tends to disconnect with others around you secondly in a materialistic struggle you also feel guilty conscious for not being able to do something altruistically and give back to the society as well, therefore professionals gang up as 'associations', 'groups', 'societies', etc. and voluntarily try to clean up the mess the society has created in blind rat race toward wealth accumulation and freedom. This subsequently gives birth to civil societies which also exists to lobby for rights or interests of a particular group of professionals. On a micro level and in isolation the idea of civil societies seems noble, however from a holistic perspective and on a macro scale its a symptom of an underlying value system, social structure and ideals which are not just foreign to Islam but also contradictory on many occasions.
To be continued...
Author is an academic researcher and reader in Islamic and western history, philosophy, and political theory and frequently writes on the subject as well. His area of specialization includes Islamic economics and entrepreneurship
It is very important discussion as understanding terms is the basis of forming understanding and consensus.
ReplyDeleteThe article started nicely and I agree with most of what it says for the initial list of terms.
When it discussed colonization, and discussed Islamic colonization, it should write a couple of things more, or a good reference, that discusses how Islamic colonization was different from other colonization. I think the writer lost it when discussing capitalism. It is talking about "unprecedented accumulation of wealth" as very important dimension of capitalism as part of the financial system ... but his point is not explained properly nor it is the core of it. The author should have discussed "interest" and some other aspect of it.
Also, socialism and communism is lumped together which might not be the case for most part. Actually, this point is not discussed in a good way. On banks, it is confusing govt and bank. This is true on how it plays out time to time, but conceptually this is not the case. People corrupt even Islamic systems, so discussing a system and some of the corruptions as part of the system does not allow a good understanding.
On Nationalism, I can't understand what author is saying. Same for professionalism.
Again, very good article and a good discussion. Great author and May Allah give more strength of arguments to his work.