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Tradition or Extradition*
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Shaikh
Abdal-Hakim Murad
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Is
Western Islam inevitable? Until recently we scarcely asked the
question. We assumed that the demography of the East, and the
expanding economies of the West, made nothing so certain as
continued Muslim immigration to Europe, Canada and the United
States.
The
rise of Al-Qa‘ida has now placed that assurance in doubt. An
increasing number of academics and politicians in the West are
voicing their doubts about the Muslim presence. Citing the Yale
academic Lamin Sanneh, the right-wing English journalist Melanie
Phillips suggests that the time has come to think again about Muslim
immigration to the West. Sanneh, whose views on Islam’s inherent
inability to adjust to the claims of citizenship in non-Muslim
states have attracted several right-wing theorists, is here being
used to justify the agenda that is increasingly recommended on the
far right across Europe, with electrifying effects on the polls.
The rise of Al-Qa‘ida has now placed that assurance in doubt. An increasing number of academics and politicians in the West are voicing their doubts about the Muslim presence. |
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Cooler
heads, such as John Esposito, reject the alarmism of Sanneh and
Phillips. Contrary to stereotypes, they insist, Islam has usually
been good at accommodating itself to minority status. The story of
Islam in traditional China, where it served the emperors so
faithfully that it was recognised as one of the semi-official
religions of the Chinese state, was the norm rather than the
exception. Minority status is nothing new for Islam, and around the
boundaries of the Islamic world, Muslims have consistently shown
themselves to be good citizens in contexts a good deal less
multiculturalist than our own.
The
anti-Dreyfusard charge against the Muslim presence, however, goes
further than this. It is not enough to behave; you must show that
your religion teaches you to behave. And where a hundred years ago
the cultivated Western public problematized Jews, it is now Muslims
who are feeling the pressure. Anti-semites once baited the Jews as
an alien, Oriental intrusion into white, Christian Europe, a Semitic
people whose loyalty to its own Law would always render its loyalty
to King and Country dubious. Christianity, on this Victorian view,
recognised a due division between religion and state; while the
Semitic Other could not. There was little wonder in this. The
Christian, as heir to the Hellenic vision of St Paul, was free in
the spirit. The Semitic Jew was bound to the Law. He could hence
never progress or become reconciled to the value of Gentile
compatriots. Ultimately, his aim was to subvert, dominate, and
possess.
Few
in the West seem to have spotted this similarity. One of the great
ironies of the present crisis is that many of the most outspoken
defenders of the State of Israel are implicitly affirming
anti-Semitic categories in the way they deny the value of Islam. In
many cases, the transformation has taken place over so few
generations that one wonders whether the old prejudice has been
entirely supplanted. Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch anti-immigration
politician who wanted to close all of Holland’s mosques, published
his book, Against the Islamisation of our Culture, to
celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Israel. Yet
the book is filled with characterisations of the new Muslim presence
that fit perfectly the categories of anti-Semitism. The Muslim Other
is driven by the Law, not the Spirit. He therefore is always the
same, and cannot reform. His intentions are not to enrich his
country of adoption, but to overcome it for the sake of a
transnational religious enterprise of domination and contempt.
One of the great ironies of the present crisis is that many of the most outspoken defenders of the State of Israel are implicitly affirming anti-Semitic categories in the way they deny the value of Islam. |
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We
are, in a sense, the New Jews. An odd transposition has taken place,
with one religious community ducking from beneath a Christian yoke,
which then found Muslim shoulders to rest on. We have little time or
inclination to contemplate the irony of this strange alteration,
however; since we cannot forget the fate of the prejudice’s
earlier victims, and its current prospects. The road from Auschwitz
to Srebrenica was not such a crooked one; and the new rightist
politicians in the West are surely positioned somewhere along that
road.
Given
that Al-Qa‘ida, or its surrogates, have massively reinforced this
new chauvinism, it is depressing that its roots and possible
entailments have yet to be assessed by most Muslim advocates in the
West. But we need to look it in the eyes. We are hated by very many
people; and cannot discount the possibility that this hatred will
spill over into immigration filters, mosque closures, the
prohibition of hijab in schools, and a generalised demonising
of Muslims that makes the risk of rioting, or individual violence
against us, uncomfortably great. Liberalism, as the Weimar Republic
discovered, can be a fragile ideology.
Was our immigration purely economic? Or did we arrive to take tactical advantage of liberal press laws in order to launch a subversive internationalist agenda that will be profoundly damaging to our hosts? |
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The
question that is increasingly being put to us is this. Was our
immigration purely economic? Or did we arrive to take tactical
advantage of liberal press laws in order to launch a subversive
internationalist agenda that will be profoundly damaging to our
hosts? Are we Americans, or Canadians, or Britons, simply by virtue
of holding a passport and finding employment? Or is this our home?
Traditional
Islam has been expert in adoption and adaptation. The new
anti-Semitism makes not the slightest headway against it. Yet many
of our community leaders are sceptical of traditional Islam and its
historic flexibility. For them, we will always be a kind of
diaspora, with roots in an Arab elsewhere.
Traditional Islam has been expert in adoption and adaptation…
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An
inference needs to be squarely faced. If our belongingness to our
adopted countries is only about economics, then we cannot blame the
host societies for regarding us with dislike and suspicion. For if
we are suspicious of non-Muslims in Muslim majority countries who
fail to acclimatise themselves to the ambient values and sense of
collective purpose of their countries of citizenship, then why
should we demand that they behave differently when it is we who are
the minority? A country that accepts migrants, however conspicuously
economic their primary motives, has the right to expect that they
engage in some form of cultural migration as well. No Muslim would
deny that multiculturalism must always have some limits.
A country that accepts migrants, however conspicuously economic their primary motives, has the right to expect that they engage in some form of cultural migration as well. |
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It
is time to realise that if we are here purely to enhance our earning
power, then our sojourn may prove short-lived. It is annoying that
the new kind of sermonizers who are loudest in their demonising of
Western countries are often the slowest to accept that those
countries might turn out not to tolerate them after all. The
greatest irony of our situation might just be that our radicals end
up on the road to the airport, astonished at the discovery that
their low opinion of the West turned out to be correct.
So
it is time to get moving. This will be hard for the older
generation, most of which is embedded either in regional folklorisms
which have no clear future here, or in a Movement Islam of various
hues. But we need some deep rethinking among the new generation,
that minority which has survived assimilation in the schools, and
knows enough of the virtues and vices of Western secular society to
take stock of where we stand, and decide on the best course of
action for our community. It is this new generation that is called
upon to demonstrate Islam’s ability to extend its traditional
capacities for courteous acculturation to the new context of the
West, and to reject the radical Manichean agenda, supported by the
extremists on both sides, which presents Muslim minorities as
nothing more than resentful, scheming archipelagos of Middle Eastern
difference.
The
first tough realisation that we face is that the future of Islam in
America will be an American future, if it is to happen at all. As
the ‘war against terrorism’, with all its clumsy, pixillated
violence, and cultural simplifications, gathers momentum, it is
likely that there will be further events and atrocities which will
render the current social and psychological marginality of the
community still more precarious. Unless American Muslims can locate
for themselves, and populate, a spiritual and cultural space which
can meaningfully be called American, we will be in the firing line.
Only a few of the ultras in the mosques would welcome such a
showdown; most of us would be appalled.
Regrettably
- and this is one of its most telling failures - our community
leadership has invested much energy in Islamic education, but has
spent little time studying American culture to locate the elements
within it which are worthy of Muslim respect. Too many of the
activists dismiss their new compatriots as promiscuous drunkards, or
as fundamentalist fanatics. Movement Islam, with its vehement
dislike of the West on grounds that often in practice seem more
tribal than spiritual, and rooted in various utopian projects that
seldom seem to work even on their own terms, is, particularly in its
harder reaches, little better. Often it provides ammunition to
chauvinists allied to the stance of Daniel Pipes, for whom all
‘Islamists’ are a fifth column to be viewed with unblinking,
baleful suspicion.
What
the new generation must do is therefore threefold. Firstly, we need
to acknowledge that confrontational readings of Islam, imported by
some leaders from countries where confrontation with local tyrannies
is often morally necessary, may not serve Muslims in the dangerous
context of the modern West. It is already clear to many that Mawdudi
and Qutb were not writing for 21st century Muslim
minorities in America, but for a mid-twentieth century struggle
against secular repression and corruption in majority Muslim lands.
They themselves would, quite possibly, be startled to learn that
their books were being pressed on utterly different communities,
fifty years on.
It is already clear to many that Mawdudi and Qutb were not writing for 21st century Muslim minorities in America, but for a mid-twentieth century struggle against secular repression and corruption in majority Muslim lands. |
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Secondly,
we need to turn again to the founding story of Islam for guidance on
the correct conduct of guests. An insulting guest will not be
tolerated indefinitely even by the most religious of hosts; and our
communal condemnations of Western culture have to be seen as at best
discourteous. A measured, concerned critique of social dissolution,
unacceptable beliefs, or destructive foreign policies will always be
a required component of Muslim discourse, but wild denunciations of
Great Satans or global Crusader Conspiracies are, for Muslims here,
not only dangerous, but are also discourteous - scarcely a lesser
sin.
Imam
al-Ghazali provides us with some precious lessons on the conduct of
the courteous guest. He cites the saying that ‘part of humility
before God is to be satisfied with an inferior sitting-place.’ The
guest should greet those he is sitting beside, even if he should
privately be uncomfortable with them. He should not dominate the
conversation, or loudly criticise others at the feast, or allow
himself to be untidy. Ghazali also tells us that he should not keep
looking at the kitchen door, which would imply that he is primarily
present for the food. It is hard to avoid thinking of this when one
contemplates the loud demands of many Muslims, particularly in
Europe, for financial payouts from the state. If we wish to be
tolerated and respected, one of our first responsibilities is surely
to seek employment, and avoid reliance on the charity of our hosts.
If we wish to be tolerated and respected, one of our first responsibilities is surely to seek employment, and avoid reliance on the charity of our hosts. |
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Some
hardline scholars of the Hanbali persuasion took a narrow view of
the duty of guests. Imam Ahmad himself said that if a guest sees a
kohl-stick with a silver handle, he should leave the house at once,
on the grounds that it is a place of luxurious indulgence. Yet for
Imam al-Ghazali, and for the great majority of scholars, one should
always give one’s host the benefit of the doubt. And in the West,
our neighbours usually fall into the category of ahl al-kitab,
for whom certain things are permissible that we would condemn among
Muslims. Resentment, contempt, hypercriticism, all these vices are
discourteous and inappropriate, particularly when used to disguise
one’s dissatisfaction with oneself, or with one’s own
community’s position in the world.
The
refugee, or migrant, is therefore subject to the high standards that
Islam, with its Arabian roots, demands of the guest. Discourtesy is
dishonour. And nowhere in the sira do we find this principle
more nobly expressed than in the episode of the First Hijra. Here,
the first Muslim asylum-seekers stand before the Emperor of
Abyssinia to explain why they should be allowed to stay. Among them
were Uthman and Ruqaiyya, and Ja‘far and Asma’, all young people
famous for their physical beauty. Umm Salama, another eyewitness,
narrates the respect with which the Muslims attended upon the
Christian king. They would not compromise their faith, but they were
reverent and respectful to the beliefs of an earlier dispensation.
Their choice of the annunciation story from the Qur’an was
inspired, showing the Christians present that the Muslim scripture
itself is not utterly alien, but is beautiful, dignified, and
contains much in common with Christian belief. Altogether, they made
a hugely favourable impression, and their security in the land was
assured.
Today,
of course, we do not usually use Surat Maryam as the basis for our
self-presentation to the host community. Instead, we create lobby
groups that adopt provocatively loud criticisms of American policy,
thereby closing the door to any possibility that they might be
heard. Our sermons pay little attention to the positive qualities in
our neighbours, but instead recite dire warnings of the consequences
to our souls of becoming ‘like Americans’. Again, the danger is
that the cumulative image given by many American Muslims will result
in our being treated as cuckoos in the nest, deprived of rights, and
even ejected altogether. In the long term, the choice is between
deportment, and deportation.
Today, of course, we do not usually use Surat Maryam as the basis for our self-presentation to the host community. |
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If
we take this seriously, rather than trusting eternally to the
patience of our hosts, then we need a new agenda. And it is
essential that this not be defined as an Islamic liberalism.
Liberalism in religion has a habit of leading to the attenuation of
faith. Instead, we need to turn again to our tradition, and quarry
it for resources that will enable us to regain the Companions’
capacity for courteous conviviality.
The
first step has to be the realisation that Islamic civilisation was a
providential success story. Modern and modernist agendas which
present medieval Islam either as obscurantism or as deviation from
scripture will leave us orphaned from the continuing and magnificent
story of Muslim civilisation. If we accept that classical Islam was
a deviant reading of our scriptures, we surrender to the claims of
Christian evangelical Orientalism, which claims that the glories of
Muslim civilisation arose despite, not because of, the Qur’an. We
are called to be the continuation of a magnificent story, not a
footnote to its first chapter.
A
recovery of our sense of pride in Islam’s cultural achievements
will allow us to reactivate a principle, the third in my list, that
has hardly been touched by most Muslim communities in the West,
namely the obligation of da‘wa. It is evident that da‘wa
is our primary duty as a Muslim minority; and it is no less evident
that da‘wa is impossible if we abandon tradition in order
to insist on rigorist and narrow readings of the Shari‘a. Our
neighbours will not heed our invitation unless we can show that
there is some common ground, that we have something worth having,
and, even more significantly, that we are worth joining. Radical and
literalist Islamic agendas frequently seem to be advocated by
unsmiling zealots, whose tension, arrogance and misery are all too
legible on their faces. Few reasonable people will consider the
religious claims made by individuals who seem to have been made
miserable and desperate by those claims. More usually, they will be
repelled, and retreat into negative chauvinism.
Our neighbours will not heed our [da‘wa] invitation unless we can show that there is some common ground, that we have something worth having, and, even more significantly, that we are worth joining. |
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The
believer’s greatest argument is his face. True religion lights up
the face; false religion fills it with insecurity, rage and
suspicion. This is perceptible not only to insiders, but to anyone
who maintains some connection with the fitra in his heart.
The early conversions to Islam often took place among populations
that had no access to the language of the Muslims who now lived
among them; but they were no less profound in consequence. Religion
is ultimately a matter of personal transformation, and no amount of
missionary work will persuade people - with the occasional exception
of the disturbed and the desperate - unless our own transformation
is complete enough to be able to transform others.
So
rigorism and narrow-mindedness, the boring recourse of the
culturally outgunned, end up reinforcing the negative attitudes that
they claim to repudiate. Conversely, a reactivation of the Prophetic
virtue of rifq, of gentleness, which the hadith tells us
‘never enters a thing without adorning it’, will make us welcome
rather than suspected, loved and admired rather than despised as a
community of resentful failures.
Virtues,
therefore, need to be cultivated, to replace the self-indulgence of
hatred and self-exculpation. And these will not come easily until we
reconnect with the Umma’s history of spirituality. No other
religious community in history has produced the number and calibre
of saints generated by Islam. Jalal al-Din Rumi has now become
America’s best-selling poet, an extraordinary victory for Islamic
civilisation and the integrity of its spiritual life which our
communities are scarcely aware of. Our spirituality is the crowning
glory of our civilisation, and the guarantor of the transformative
power of our art, literature, and personal conduct. Once we have
relearned the traditional Islamic science of the spirit, we can hope
to produce, as great Muslim souls did in the past, enduring
monuments of architecture which will replace the sterile, ugly
cement structures that we currently commission as our places of
worship. Beauty is the splendour of the truth, and it is a measure
of the decadence of our communities that so few of our leaders seem
capable of commissioning buildings which uphold the glorious
traditions of Islamic sacred design, traditions which, it often
seems, are better-known and more respected among non-Muslims than
among most Islamic activists and members of mosque committees.
The
task may seem daunting; but the new generation produces more and
more Muslims eager to reinvigorate Islam in a way that will make it
the great religious success story of modern America, rather than the
embarrassing sick man of the religious milieu that it currently
seems to be. Increasingly our young people want passionately to be
Muslims and to celebrate their uniquely rich heritage, but in a way
that does not link them to the desperate radical agendas now being
marketed in a minority of the mosques. As those young people assume
positions of leadership in their communities, and proclaim a form of
Islam that is culturally rich and full of confidence in Allah’s
providence, Islam will surely take its place as a respected feature
on America’s religious landscape, and begin the process of
integration here that it has so successfully accomplished in
countless other cultures throughout its history, and which is a
condition for its continuing existence in a potentially hostile
place.
‘And
if you turn aside, He will replace you with another people, and they
will not be like you.’ (47:38)
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Article first appeared at http://www.masud.co.uk
reproduced with kind permission
Shaikh
Abdal-Hakim Murad A
celebrated Muslim scholar, and a translator of traditional Islamic
texts. He is currently Secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust
(London) and Director of the Sunna Project at the Centre of Middle
Eastern Studies at Cambridge University.
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