The claim that Islam is backward and has no place in the world today is often built upon the premise that none of the Muslim countries have produced anything in terms of scientific research or technological development. It is often claimed that progress in science and technology occurred in the West when it rid itself of the authority of the Church and separated religion from life. Today this claim has become the criterion to study any alternative thought. Thus when Muslims are questioned about their views on homosexuality or apostasy the question essentially being asked is: do you believe in the universal views on such issues delineated by secularism? Many Muslims have fallen into the trap. Often through sincerely trying to defend Islam, of presenting Islam as agreeing with secular liberalism, this being the default standard by which all thoughts are measured.
An example of this was when a leading Muslim leader in the UK was asked, should Muslim women have towear the veil, niqab or burqa? He answered “No one should be compelled to wear either the hijab (headscarf), the niqab (face-veil) or the burqa (full body covering). [But] Islam calls upon both men and women to dress modestly.” The question essentially being asked is: do Muslim women have the freedom NOT to cover? Here the Islamic rule was presented in order to agree with freedom of expression, a Western ideal. This is one of the founding arguments of Islamic reformation that Islam is at odds with the universal values of Liberalism which render it outdated and deserving of reform similar to what happened to the reformation of the Christian church.
The historical process the West underwent is considered the history of the world and termed
modernity, whilst all alternative thoughts are primitive if they do not match Western Liberalism (Capitalism). There are however some fundamental differences between the history of the West and the struggle with the Church, relative to Islam and its history that clouds the judgment when ascertaining the validity of Islam. In order to understand this we need to understand the history of the West.
The initial adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire was not based on the legitimacy of
Christianity or on its ability to deal holistically with humanity’s affairs. Rather, Christianity was adopted by Constantine in 325 CE simply to preserve the Empire by building a common mentality and loyalty among citizens. Christianity offered blind loyalty to the secular emperors based on the understanding that society could have two separate authorities; one temporal, the other spiritual, and that both authorities could coexist harmoniously. This understanding came from the saying attributed to Jesus:
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.” The Bible - NKJ Version (Luke 20:25)
Despite this, Christianity could not sustain or preserve the Empire and the demise of the Romans as a force meant the Church was able to dominate much of Europe. The domination of the Church meant that all affairs of life had to conform to the dogma of the Church. This caused countless problems given that the Bible, which the Church used as its authoritative text, dealt with only very limited matters. The scope of the Bible, as the Church would be the first to admit, does not and cannot stretch to being used wholly and exclusively to govern a nation or civilisation. Even determined advocates of the Bible fully accept it cannot be the primary source for the derivation of detailed rules, prescripts and guidance on every issue humanity faces till the Last Day. It did give some specific rules related to the Jews in their worships and their foodstuffs. It gave general moral principles for Christians and set norms for their prayers and communal worship. It did not give detailed regulation and direction on economy, accession to ruling, foreign policy, transactions, leasing of land, contracts, representation, judiciary, criminal punishments, the structure, accountability and functioning of government etc.
This meant there was a huge gap in the political landscape and this was an area of constant conflict of interests between kings, feudal barons and priests. During Europe’s dark ages it was the priests who dominated life and when they passed judgement all had to submit, even Kings. Yet the judgements of priests were an arbitrary and inconsistent exercise of their authority owing to the lack of comprehensive legislative texts to base their rules upon. It was this essentially random practice that laid the seeds of direct confrontation between the Church and society. With the passage of time scientific discoveries were made that were at odds with the teachings of the Church. To preserve its authority, the Church took harsh steps against the emergence of such new ideas. Scientists were branded as heretics, infidels and Satan’s. In 1633 CE, Galileo was forced to renounce his belief and writings that supported the Copernican theory of heliocentrism that claimed the Earth circumvented the Sun. Instead, the Church adamantly maintained the flawed theory of geocentricism, which stated that the Sun circumvented the Earth. Other thinkers, such as Bruno, suffered even worse treatment at the hands of the Church. Bruno was imprisoned for 8 years while questioning proceeded on charges of blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy. Bruno was eventually burned at the stake.
Also, plenty of evidence exists indicating that hundreds of thousands of women, alleged to be witches were brutally tortured, burnt and drowned. The response to this oppression from the people, especially the scientists, thinkers and philosophers was equally strong. Many began to highlight the contradictions of the Church and reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin called for nothing less than the complete separation of the Church from the State. Desperate measures were taken by the Church to deflect the people’s criticism, frustration and anger but these measures failed to halt the flames of change that had galvanised the masses. The Church realised that it could no longer remain dominant without reform. The eventual outcome of the struggle for power between the Church, on the one hand, and the scientists, thinkers and philosophers, on the other, was the complete separation of the Church from State. This compromise solution limited the authority of the Church to preserving morals in society and conducting rituals. It left the administration of worldly affairs to the State itself. The Reformation led to the Enlightenment period that bred secularism as a worldview and finally removed the arbitrary authority of the Christian Church. This formed the basis of the Capitalist ideology and sparked the industrial revolution in Europe.
This state of affairs led to an intense intellectual revolution in Europe. European philosophers, writers and intellectuals made considerable efforts for comprehensive change in European ideas with the aim of uniting Europeans under secular liberal democratic thought i.e. Capitalism. Many movements were established and played a great part in the emergence of new opinions about life. One of the most significant events that occurred was the change of the political and legislative systems to the nation state. The spectre of a despotic monarchy gradually disappeared to be replaced by republican systems based on representative rule and national sovereignty. This had the effect of triggering the awakening of Europe from its slumber. The industrial revolution was the centre of the European scene. There were numerous scientific discoveries and inventions springing from Europe. These factors all boosted Europe’s intellectual and material progress. This material and scientific progress resulted in Europe finally riding itself of its medieval culture. When Europe rid itself of the Christian Church, science and technology came to flourish. Today, advocates of secularism claim Islam needs to go through a reformation process similar to the West whereby Muslims redefine and confine Islam to individual worship rather then a political creed i.e. do away with Shari’ah, Khilafah, jihad, hudood (punishments) and adopt allegedly universal values of secularism, freedom, democracy, Human Rights, pluralism and the rule of law. The unfounded claim is that only with such reform can Muslims progress and make a transformation just as the West has done.
This understanding is flawed due to two reasons:
- Liberal thinkers saw Christianity as folklore as well as being part of their cultural heritage.
This led them to deny miracles, revelation, prophets and other religious beliefs. This was because for them the Christian creed, which all these ideas and beliefs were based upon, was diametrically opposed to rationality.
- For Western thinkers the Church and enlightened thought cannot meet. Martin Luther the
famous Christian reformer said, “Among Christians the rule is not to argue or investigate, not to be a smart aleck or a rationalistic know-it-all; but to hear, believe, and persevere in the Word of God, through which alone we obtain whatever knowledge we have of God and divine things. We are not to determine out of ourselves what we must believe about him, but to hear and learn it from him.” (LW. 13.237; Q. in Wood, 120). This means Christianity is not based on intellectual thought, rather even if the scripture contradicts the clear mind, the scripture must always take precedence.
Defining all religions like Christianity and Islam as in the dark ages is a disservice to critical debate. It deflects any potential debate on secular liberal values and demonstrates clear insincerity in discussing which way humanity should move forward.
The history and struggle of the West was an event that occurred in Europe and was not the only event taking place in the world. When secularists study Islam, they view it through the lens of their history, which was their struggle to remove the authority of the church. For them Islam is no different to the church - irrational, medieval etc, and therefore it needs a reformation, just as the Christian Church went through. Only then can Islam be considered to have met the criteria for modernity.
Thus for the West ‘modernity’ carries specific connotations of the Enlightenment mission, defined as emancipation from self-imposed infancy i.e. from religion. This mission resulted in the development of secularism and the banishing of the Church, its teachings and its dogma to the private sphere. This was in addition to human rights, equality and freedom. Soon this historical process was termed ‘modernism’. For secularists, the adoption of secular liberal values is termed modern and anything not compatible with such values is backward and no different to the medieval Church. What is being discussed here is an alternative ideology and an alternative way of organising life’s affairs to the current secular model. There exists some fundamental differences between the two models – the secular and Islamic models are not the same. They do not overlap as they do not stem from the same fundamental ideas. They will therefore have entirely different impressions on how society should look.
These differences lead to each viewing the other as a potential challenger to its superiority. Since secularism and Islam do not agree at the basis it is wholly inappropriate to judge this alternative using the secular model as a benchmark. Doing so would inevitably lead to the elimination of any methodology not in agreement with secularism before the discourse even commenced. No debate on secularism would ever take place!
If Islam is an alternative way to organise life it will inevitably have solutions which are the complete opposite to the secular model. However a non-agreement with the secular basis is not proof in itself to render a thought invalid. Consider the following:
- Would we consider the development of China wrong because it was not entirely built upon
the free market model, even though it’s on course to become the largest economy on the
planet within 30 years?
- Would it be wrong for Indian companies to offer free medical alternatives to its poor
because Capitalism abhors state intervention in the economy?
- Would it be correct for one to say the UK’s fiscal policy is wrong because it does not have
Islamic taxation incorporated into them?
- Would we consider state handouts to the poor wrong because Capitalism advocates leaving
the wellbeing of citizens to the market?
What must also be agreed is that time alone is not enough to render a thought invalid; this is because ideas are never time specific. The revival of ancient Greek philosophy, art and culture was termed a renaissance in 16th Century Europe. Most of the legislation we find today across Western Europe has their traditions in writings three millennia old, which are still considered valid today. For example:
- The US Bill of Rights, passed in 1791, reflects the guarantee of due process which was
taken from the Magna Carta in 1215.
- Western scholars and jurists study the thoughts of Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Locke and
Nietzsche with no qualms that these people lived a long time ago.
- Modern civil law was developed upon the theory of liability which has its origins in Roman
Law
- Common law, which is the principle of deciding cases by reference to previous judicial decisions has its origins in the Middle Ages in Roman law and influenced by Norman Saxon custom. Today it remains a source of legislation for the UK, US and Canada.
From this perspective democracy would definitely be backward and primitive due to its ancient origins. So the fact Islam emerged in seventh century Arabia is not an argument to suggest modern inapplicability.
Capitalism’s universality in reality is a Western specific ideology, an event which cannot be used to measure alternative thoughts as it is not a neutral measure. So it would be incorrect to place Islam on the West’s political spectrum as this is a Western construct which follows their historical process.
The terms ‘left’ or ‘right’ derive from the seating positions in the National Assembly arising out of the 1789 French Revolution. The revolutionary groups sat on the Left and the conservative groups sat on the Right. These terms have come to be used relatively to compare between different factions andattitudes to state intervention. However wherever one sits on the political spectrum secularism forms their basis. So although there may have been numerous groups or sects in the history of Islam such as the mu’tazilah, jabriyah, khawarij, qa’dariyah, itnah ashari, the ashari, and ahul Sunnah, Islam formed their basis and it would be incorrect to speak about a Muslim left or term certain radicals as the Muslim right. This would only aid the integration of Islam with Capitalism thus aiding the reformation of Islam. The RAND report ‘civil democratic Islam’ proposed this method of reforming Islam by segmenting the Muslim into moderates, fundamentalists and liberals. Thus interpreting Islam from a Western perspective is in reality aiding the call for an Islamic reformation.
[Extracted from the book ‘Islamic Reformation: Exposing the Battle for Hearts and Mind’ by Adnan Khan]
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