About this blog

In recent times a plethora of misconceptions, misrepresentation and myths have been forged about Islam
and Muslims. Many western influentials from politicians, policymakers to judges have taken it upon
themselves to undermine the Islamic beliefs, values and rules so to make it palatable to their
egotistic minds and the secular liberal thoughts.

This blog is dedicated:-

1. To argue the point for Islam in its belief and systems and to refute the misconceptions.
2. To expose the weakness and contradictions of all forms of secularism.

23 Jun 2009

Liberalism’s Origins & the Superimposition of a Specific European Experience

Having travelled to the America’s, Middle East and Europe, lecturing and debating on issues related to Islam, philosophy and politics, I have found a common trend when people try to understand Islam and its political authority. This common trend is the imposition of European history, intellectual development and religious experiences on the Islamic narrative.

As a result of finding myself trying to deconstruct this common approach many times, I feel it is only wise to write some notes on how Liberal or European minds should seek to understand Islam and its political structures. One way of doing this is by explaining the specific political history of Europe, the origins of its predominant ideology and the different experiences in Islamic history.

Liberalism is purely a European product. Liberalism’s political values are the outcome of specific social and historical conditions, subjected to a specific type of analysis. Therefore it must be asked, is Liberalism an 'absolute' alternative to other ideologies, or is it historically and geographically bound?

History & Political Climate

Liberalism’s core political values, of individual freedoms and the primacy of individual rights, emerged and were developed as a result of a specific European problem. This problem was the clash between the Catholic Church and the people who carried ideas that were incongruous with the Church’s doctrine and philosophy.

The medieval Catholic Church never recognised other dogmas and beliefs. It frequently persecuted those who sought to promulgate non-Catholic ideas and practices in the public square. By the beginning of the 16th Century it sought to suppress Protestantism using the rulers of Spanish Netherlands and France who were sympathetic to Catholic intolerance.

In 1517 Martin Luther pinned to a church door in Wittenberg his famous theses attacking Catholicism. This event initiated a process, which is now called the ‘Reformation’, leading to a massive split in the Christian Church. This new version of Christianity – Protestantism – gained popularity in North Western Europe and many of its rulers adopted its doctrine as a means to bring to light their completed independence of the Pope and Emperor.

In spite of this, the Catholic Church pursued its oppression to the extent that, in the Netherlands, the Protestants revolted and after an eighty year war it became an independent state which succeeded the peace of Westphalia in 1648. During this period many massacres took place as a result of clashes between Catholicism and Protestantism. Some of these included the massacre on St Bartholomew’s Day in 1572 in France and the 30 years war in 1618 which was fought on German territory but involved the Catholic and Protestant states of Denmark, Sweden, Spain and France. There were many merciless massacres committed by both parties.[1]

The Origins of Liberalism’s Premise

As a result of the revulsion of the huge scale of atrocities committed in the name of Christianity, several parties were formed with the mandate to bring about reconciliation. Some of the members in these groups included the likes of Erasmus of Rotterdam who facilitated the Edict of Nantes which set measures of tolerance for the French Protestants, but also in England in promoting the Toleration Act of 1689.

This climate produced the emotional and intellectual environment for the likes of Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Samuel Pufendorf who developed a new understanding of natural law which was to become the philosophical basis for Liberalism. These seventeenth century theorists developed an individualistic doctrine of rights. Professor John Charvet describes this individualist view as,

“…the rights held by individuals independently fitting into, and filling a function within, a God-ordered purposive whole based on the good.”[The Liberal Project and Human Rights. Cambridge University Press. 2008]

These theorists viewed the rights of the human being as independent to that of a societal context, and therefore rested on the premise of individualism. This was perfectly consistent in preventing any further religiously inspired atrocities because this individualist view took the rights of a human being abstracted away from God’s perceived will for society. In this way an individual belonging to the Catholic or non-Catholic tradition could be tolerated. However this need for an individualist view on rights was based upon the weakness of Catholicism, inasmuch that it did not have the capacity to tolerate.

In this context is the individualist view of rights valid?

Since these theories were developed as a result of this clash and intolerance then it can be argued that in absence of this historical context these theories are no longer valid from a universal perspective. The reasons for this are due to their limited intellectual scope, the scope was to ensure European tolerance rather than seeking a true understanding of the human being and their standing in the world.

This individualistic perspective was temporarily sufficient in providing a relatively quick solution to the problems faced in the 16th and 17th Century. However in the absence of these problems nothing was done to review this individualist doctrine in order to ensure that it was philosophically and practically sound. It was just taken for granted because it solved the problems of violence and intolerance. This was problematic because individualism, as a premise for an entire political outlook, has been found to be philosophically incorrect and it has produce problems in society that have ensured its destruction.

If Europe never experienced the intolerance of the Church, would have Liberalism developed as a result of thinking and humanity’s ideological progress? Or is Liberalism an accidental product of Catholicism’s coercive political nature?

Is Liberalism Universal?

Whatever the answers are to these questions, what can be concluded is that the most predominant ideology in the west emerged as a result of a specific history. The claim by some liberal ideologues is that Liberalism is universal; however there are some philosophical issues with this line of thought. Firstly it is a logical fallacy to take something specific and make it general. What if non-European nations developed non-individualist views on natural rights and still created a cohesive tolerant society?

Secondly when we do look into other societies, such as Islamic societies, it can be seen that in Islamic history there was no clash between state and ‘church’ or religion. There was a symbiotic relationship between the two. Tolerance, justice, compassion, rights and responsibilities resonated in Islamic societies, all due to the ruling religion at the time, Islam.

Understanding Islam

It must be highlighted that Islam must not be viewed through the eyes of European history or understood by fallacious references to Catholic intolerance and coercion. Rather, Islam and its history, must be viewed without a reference to historical or intellectual baggage that is specific to Europe. Superimposing a specific negative history to understand another world view is fallacious and only skews understanding. To really understand Islam, or any other worldview for that matter, it must be understood – as the Chinese put it – by “emptying your tea cup”.

[Written by Hamza Tzortzis]
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What they said...

“Islam represented the greatest military power on earth…It was the foremost economic power in the world…It had achieved the highest level so far in human history, in the arts and sciences of civilization...Islam in contrast created a world civilization, poly-ethnic, multiracial, international, one might even say intercontinental.”





[Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Orientalist and Historian, 2001]





"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts…the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600… Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage"





[Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard, 2001]





"For the first three centuries of its existence (circ. A.D 650-1000) the realm of Islam was the most civilized and progressive portion of the world. Studded with splendid cities, gracious mosques and quiet universities where the wisdom of the ancient world was preserved and appreciated, the Moslem world offered a striking contrast to the Christian West, then sunk in the night of the Dark Ages."





[Lothrop Stoddard, Ph.D (Harvard), American political theorist and historian, 1932]





"Medieval Islam was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than in contemporary Europe;it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical books are now known to us only through Arabic copies. It invented windmills ,trigonometry, lateen sails and made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering and irrigation methods. In the middle-ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe rather from Europe to Islam. Only after the 1500's did the net direction of flow begin to reverse."





[Jared Diamond, UCLA sociologist and Author, 1997]



"No other society has such a record of success in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity and endeavour so many and so varied races of mankind. The great Muslim communities of Africa, India and Indonesia, perhaps also the small community in Japan, show that Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of the East and west is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition."





[Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Professor at Harvard University, 1932]





“The Muhammadan Law which is binding on all -- from the crowned head to the meanest subject is a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned and the most enlightened jurisprudence that ever existed in the world.”





[Edmund Burke, British Statesman and Philosopher, 1789]





"The Exile here is not like in our homeland. The Turks hold respectable Jews in esteem. Here and in Alexandria, Egypt, Jews are the chief officers and administrators of the customs, and the king’s revenues. No injuries are perpetuated against them in all the empire. Only this year, in consequence of the extraordinary expenditure caused by the war against Shah Tahmsap al-Sufi, were the Jews required to make advances of loans to the princes."





[David dei Rossi, Jewish Traveller 17CE, quoted by Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands]





"The notable religious tolerance towards Christians and Jew under Muslim rule had given way to the uncompromising zealotry of Spanish Inquisition. Jews and Muslims thus fled Spain with large numbers of Jews immigrating to the Ottoman Empire which was known for its tolerance to the Jews."





[Graham Fuller, Author and former CIA, 1995]





“If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and systems of beliefs, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history”





[Charles Philip Arthur George, HRH The Prince of Wales, 1993]





"...Not being subject to the Sharia, Jews and Christians were free to go to their own religious authorities for adjudication of disputes; but in many cases they went instead to the [Muslim] Qadi"





[Richard W. Bulliet, Professor of History and Author, 2004]





"Here in the land of the Turks we have nothing to complain of. We possess great fortunes; much gold and silver are in our hands. We are not oppressed by heavy taxes and our commerce is free and unhindered. Rich are the fruits of the earth. Everything is cheap and each one of us lives in freedom. Here a Jew is not compelled to wear a yellow star as a badge of shame as is the case in Germany where even wealth and great fortune is a curse for a Jew because he therewith arouses jealousy among the Christians and they devise all kinds of slander against him to rob him of his gold. Arise my brethren, gird up your loins, collect up your forces and come to us."





[In his book 'Constantinople', Philip Mansel quotes a rabbi in Turkey writing to his brethren in Europe where they were facing increasing persecution after 1453]





"Praise be to the beneficent God for his mercy towards me! Kings of the earth, to whom his [the Caliph’s] magnificence and power are known, bring gifts to him, conciliating his favour by costly presents, such as the king of the Germans, the king of the Gebalim, the king of Constantinople, and others. All their gifts pass through my hands, and I am charged with making gifts in return. (Let my lips express praise to the God in heaven who so far extends his loving kindness towards me without any merit of my own, but in the fullness of his mercies.) I always ask the ambassadors of these monarchs about our brethren the Jews, the remnant of the captivity, whether they have heard anything concerning the deliverance of those who have pined in bondage and had found no rest."





[Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (915-990 CE) Jewish physician, chief minister of Islamic Caliphate in Cordova, 'The Jewish Caravan']





"In Baghdad there are about forty thousand Jews, and they dwell in security, prosperity, and honour under the great Caliph [al-Mustanjid, 1160-70 CE], and amongst them are great sages, the Heads of the Academies engaged in the study of the Law…’"





[Benjamin of Tudela, Rabbi in Baghdad in the year 1168 CE, 'The Jew in the Medieval World']





"Those Eastern thinkers of the ninth century laid down, on the basis of their theology, the principle of the Rights of Man, in those very terms, comprehending the rights of individual liberty, and of inviolability of person and property; described the supreme power in Islam, or Califate, as based on a contract, implying conditions of capacity and performance, and subject to cancellation if the conditions under the contract were not fulfilled; elaborated a Law of War of which the humane, chivalrous prescriptions would have put to the blush certain belligerents in the Great War; expounded a doctrine of toleration of non-Moslem creeds so liberal that our West had to wait a thousand years before seeing equivalent principles adopted.





[Leon Ostorog, French Jurist]





"The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence"





[Robert Briffault, Novelist and Historian, 1928]





"The only effective link between the old and the new science is afforded by the Arabs. The dark ages come as an utter gap in the scientific history of Europe, and for more than a thousand years there was not a scientific man of note except in Arabia"





[Oliver Joseph Lodge, Writer and Professor of Physics, 1893]





“Thus, when Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711 and invaded the Iberian Peninsula, Jews welcomed them as liberators from Christian Persecution.”





[Zion Zohar, Jewish scholar at Florida International University, 2005]







“Throughout much of the period in question, Arabic served as the global language of scholarship, and learned men of all stripes could travel widely and hold serious and nuanced discussions in this lingua franca. Medieval Western scholars who wanted access to the latest findings also needed to master the Arabic Tongue or work from translations by those who had done so.”





[Jonathan Lyons, Author, Writer and Lecturer, 2009]