09-07-2003, 07:17 AM
Fundamentalism is central to Islam
By Srinivasan K. Rangachary
[url="http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/03sep04/edit.htm#5"]http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/03sep04/edit.htm#5[/url]
As Islamic fundamentalism creates problems for world peace, Islam as
a religion has come under scrutiny by people from other religions.
As regards India, whitewashing Islam and its record in India is a
major activity of India's secularists. They tell us that Islam is
benevolent, peaceful, tolerant and egalitarian, although Muslim
rulers may not have lived up to its ideals. The idea originated with
the late Aligarh historian Mohammad Habib and was enthusiastically
picked up by successive generations of historians and apologists.
The well-known Daudi Bohra reformer Asghar Ali Engineer is therefore
in good company when he seeks to make out that Islam is a medieval
synonym for democracy, socialism and secularism. Since he is neither
the first nor the last to do so, his views merit comment.
According to Engineer there is no concept of a theocratic state in
Quran or Hadis. The primary concern of Quran is to provide moral
guidance and develop an appropriate atmosphere to set up a society,
which is just and benevolent to all, including people of other
faiths. It nowhere discusses any political doctrine or programme,
much less state structure. The Quranic ideal of a just society could
not be realised except for a brief period of few years (Mecca
period?) Medina was a pluralist society and there was no attempt to
impose Islam on any unwilling soul. Thus it was very much secular in
as much as plurality of religions was recognised. The states in
Muslim countries cannot claim to be Islamic states says Engineer,
because few of them have democracy and none of these guarantees
freedom of conscience which is very basic to the Quranic social
morality.
If Quran does not discuss any political doctrine, programme or state
structure, why blame Muslim rulers for their failure to provide
democracy, freedom of conscience, or social justice? There is
nothing wrong about people trying to interpret their tradition in a
liberal and humane manner. Nobody can quarrel with private versions
of Islam that people like Engineer entertain. However, sweeping
general statements about democratic and secular character of Islam
must be checked against the real, official Islam to make sure that
we are dealing with the authentic tradition and not a syrupy
misrepresentation.
For example, competent historians would laugh at Engineer's claim
that there is no religious sanction in Islam for a theocratic state.
For Islam itself is nothing but a theocracy. The prophet's own
ministration in Arabia was known as Nizam-i-Mustafa, a regulated and
purified system of government based on commands of God. According to
Dr. I.H. Qureshi "on these two rocksâthe Quran and Hadis is built
the structure of Muslim Law⦠This law was the actual sovereign in
Muslim lands". According to D. De Santillana, Islam is the direct
Government of Allah, the rule of God, whose eyes are upon his
people. The principle of unity and order which in other societies is
called the civitas, polis, state, in Islam is called Allah: Allah is
the name of the supreme power, acting in the common interest. Thus
the public treasury is the treasury of Allah, the army is the army
of Allah, and even the public functionaries are employees of Allah".
(Arnold and Guillaume (ed.) Legacy of Islam P. 268).
And the link between the theory and practice was very strong at
least in treatment of non-Muslims. Kishori Saran Lal, a senior and
respected historian, has devoted his latest work The Theory and
Practice of Muslim State in India (Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi,
1999) to tracing the relationship between the injunctions contained
in Islamic religious literature and the attitudes and actions of
Muslim kings and conquerors. According to him, the study of Islamic
scriptural literature like the Quran, the Hadis, the biographies of
the prophet and the Shariat reveals that Muslim invaders and rulers
were not cruel or fanatical by themselves as such, but they became
so by pursuing the malevolent ideology as projected in this
literature against non-Muslims as such.
Muslim invaders and conquerors of India belonged to different races,
countries and sects. Their rule extended ever a thousand years in
different parts of the country and their chronicles are written in
different languages. Yet there is a remarkable similarity in their
behaviour pattern. The source of this uniformity of action is Quran.
So much for the `non-theocratic' nature of Islamic state. Let
us now
turn to the claim that Islam recognises freedom of conscience,
minority rights and plurality of religions. Quran makes a clear
distinction with Muslims and non-Muslims and its injunctions on how
the Muslims should treat non-Muslims are numerous, unambiguous and
blood chilling. Quran repeatedly promises hell to Kafirs, warns
believers against mixing with them, calls on them to wage wars on
them and promises eternal luxury in paradise to shaheeds who die in
such wars.
To be sure, there are a few seemingly tolerant passages in Quran
(there is no compulsion in religion: unto you your religion, unto me
my religion). However, these do not bear closer scrutiny, especially
when we examine the context in which these revelations were received.
When the Prophet was strong and powerful, when he had a free choice
between tolerance and intolerance, he shed all tactical semblance of
live and let live and opted for aggression and persecution.
The Hadis or Sunnah is explicit enough and proves that the Prophet
practised what the Quran preaches. As Engineer mentions, he made a
covenant with Jews of Medina whom he recognised as a people of the
book. However, within a few years, two of the three Jewish clans in
Medina were driven out and the third was slaughtered.
The Prophet, in his treaty with Zoroastrians of Bahrain, recognised
them as ahi-al-kitab or people of the book, though they are not
mentioned in the Quran as such.
Where are they now? Apart from a few thousand Zoroastrians living in
abject poverty in a few villages of Iran, Islam has wiped them out.
Only those who fled to the land of Hindu `fascists' have
survived
and prospered.
Engineer refers to the political (sic) crisis over the choice of the
Prophet's successor, which ultimately led to the split between
Shias
and Sunnis, rise of hilafah and imamah and persecution of the latter
by the former. Yet he is unwilling to accept that what the Prophet
had founded was not so much a religion as a state, which claimed to
guide and control each and every aspect of the life of the
individual as well as the society.
For this reason, fundamentalism is not accidental but central to
Islam. It is inherent in all those ideologies, which are built on a
narrow spiritual vision, have a limited psychic base and which
emphasise dogmas and personalities rather than experience of an
impersonal truth.
As the great scholar Ram Swarup pointed out, worthwhile liberalism
in Islam would involve rethinking its fundamentals like its concepts
of god, the last prophet (khatimunnabiyin), and the revelation that
ends all revelation. It will have to discuss whether the Prophet
speaks for Allah or Allah speaks for Prophet. It will have to
rethink the whole concept of Kafirs , Islam's name for its
neighbours. It should raise the question whether Kafirs should treat
the Muslims the way Muslims treat Kafirs.
Obviously, engineer makes no such effort. A spokesman of Islam
extolling virtues of tolerance and freedom of conscience for non-
Muslims represents a great advancement. Unfortunately, what we get
in most cases is either some variant of Islamic fundamentalism or
downright deception divorced from real Islam. INAV
By Srinivasan K. Rangachary
[url="http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/03sep04/edit.htm#5"]http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/03sep04/edit.htm#5[/url]
As Islamic fundamentalism creates problems for world peace, Islam as
a religion has come under scrutiny by people from other religions.
As regards India, whitewashing Islam and its record in India is a
major activity of India's secularists. They tell us that Islam is
benevolent, peaceful, tolerant and egalitarian, although Muslim
rulers may not have lived up to its ideals. The idea originated with
the late Aligarh historian Mohammad Habib and was enthusiastically
picked up by successive generations of historians and apologists.
The well-known Daudi Bohra reformer Asghar Ali Engineer is therefore
in good company when he seeks to make out that Islam is a medieval
synonym for democracy, socialism and secularism. Since he is neither
the first nor the last to do so, his views merit comment.
According to Engineer there is no concept of a theocratic state in
Quran or Hadis. The primary concern of Quran is to provide moral
guidance and develop an appropriate atmosphere to set up a society,
which is just and benevolent to all, including people of other
faiths. It nowhere discusses any political doctrine or programme,
much less state structure. The Quranic ideal of a just society could
not be realised except for a brief period of few years (Mecca
period?) Medina was a pluralist society and there was no attempt to
impose Islam on any unwilling soul. Thus it was very much secular in
as much as plurality of religions was recognised. The states in
Muslim countries cannot claim to be Islamic states says Engineer,
because few of them have democracy and none of these guarantees
freedom of conscience which is very basic to the Quranic social
morality.
If Quran does not discuss any political doctrine, programme or state
structure, why blame Muslim rulers for their failure to provide
democracy, freedom of conscience, or social justice? There is
nothing wrong about people trying to interpret their tradition in a
liberal and humane manner. Nobody can quarrel with private versions
of Islam that people like Engineer entertain. However, sweeping
general statements about democratic and secular character of Islam
must be checked against the real, official Islam to make sure that
we are dealing with the authentic tradition and not a syrupy
misrepresentation.
For example, competent historians would laugh at Engineer's claim
that there is no religious sanction in Islam for a theocratic state.
For Islam itself is nothing but a theocracy. The prophet's own
ministration in Arabia was known as Nizam-i-Mustafa, a regulated and
purified system of government based on commands of God. According to
Dr. I.H. Qureshi "on these two rocksâthe Quran and Hadis is built
the structure of Muslim Law⦠This law was the actual sovereign in
Muslim lands". According to D. De Santillana, Islam is the direct
Government of Allah, the rule of God, whose eyes are upon his
people. The principle of unity and order which in other societies is
called the civitas, polis, state, in Islam is called Allah: Allah is
the name of the supreme power, acting in the common interest. Thus
the public treasury is the treasury of Allah, the army is the army
of Allah, and even the public functionaries are employees of Allah".
(Arnold and Guillaume (ed.) Legacy of Islam P. 268).
And the link between the theory and practice was very strong at
least in treatment of non-Muslims. Kishori Saran Lal, a senior and
respected historian, has devoted his latest work The Theory and
Practice of Muslim State in India (Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi,
1999) to tracing the relationship between the injunctions contained
in Islamic religious literature and the attitudes and actions of
Muslim kings and conquerors. According to him, the study of Islamic
scriptural literature like the Quran, the Hadis, the biographies of
the prophet and the Shariat reveals that Muslim invaders and rulers
were not cruel or fanatical by themselves as such, but they became
so by pursuing the malevolent ideology as projected in this
literature against non-Muslims as such.
Muslim invaders and conquerors of India belonged to different races,
countries and sects. Their rule extended ever a thousand years in
different parts of the country and their chronicles are written in
different languages. Yet there is a remarkable similarity in their
behaviour pattern. The source of this uniformity of action is Quran.
So much for the `non-theocratic' nature of Islamic state. Let
us now
turn to the claim that Islam recognises freedom of conscience,
minority rights and plurality of religions. Quran makes a clear
distinction with Muslims and non-Muslims and its injunctions on how
the Muslims should treat non-Muslims are numerous, unambiguous and
blood chilling. Quran repeatedly promises hell to Kafirs, warns
believers against mixing with them, calls on them to wage wars on
them and promises eternal luxury in paradise to shaheeds who die in
such wars.
To be sure, there are a few seemingly tolerant passages in Quran
(there is no compulsion in religion: unto you your religion, unto me
my religion). However, these do not bear closer scrutiny, especially
when we examine the context in which these revelations were received.
When the Prophet was strong and powerful, when he had a free choice
between tolerance and intolerance, he shed all tactical semblance of
live and let live and opted for aggression and persecution.
The Hadis or Sunnah is explicit enough and proves that the Prophet
practised what the Quran preaches. As Engineer mentions, he made a
covenant with Jews of Medina whom he recognised as a people of the
book. However, within a few years, two of the three Jewish clans in
Medina were driven out and the third was slaughtered.
The Prophet, in his treaty with Zoroastrians of Bahrain, recognised
them as ahi-al-kitab or people of the book, though they are not
mentioned in the Quran as such.
Where are they now? Apart from a few thousand Zoroastrians living in
abject poverty in a few villages of Iran, Islam has wiped them out.
Only those who fled to the land of Hindu `fascists' have
survived
and prospered.
Engineer refers to the political (sic) crisis over the choice of the
Prophet's successor, which ultimately led to the split between
Shias
and Sunnis, rise of hilafah and imamah and persecution of the latter
by the former. Yet he is unwilling to accept that what the Prophet
had founded was not so much a religion as a state, which claimed to
guide and control each and every aspect of the life of the
individual as well as the society.
For this reason, fundamentalism is not accidental but central to
Islam. It is inherent in all those ideologies, which are built on a
narrow spiritual vision, have a limited psychic base and which
emphasise dogmas and personalities rather than experience of an
impersonal truth.
As the great scholar Ram Swarup pointed out, worthwhile liberalism
in Islam would involve rethinking its fundamentals like its concepts
of god, the last prophet (khatimunnabiyin), and the revelation that
ends all revelation. It will have to discuss whether the Prophet
speaks for Allah or Allah speaks for Prophet. It will have to
rethink the whole concept of Kafirs , Islam's name for its
neighbours. It should raise the question whether Kafirs should treat
the Muslims the way Muslims treat Kafirs.
Obviously, engineer makes no such effort. A spokesman of Islam
extolling virtues of tolerance and freedom of conscience for non-
Muslims represents a great advancement. Unfortunately, what we get
in most cases is either some variant of Islamic fundamentalism or
downright deception divorced from real Islam. INAV