We certainly live in interesting times. There is a new breed of thinkers in the Muslim community who are quite ashamed of being Muslims. Or more correctly, they believe that Islam is at the root of most of the problems we see in the Muslim world. There must be some fundamental design flaw, they argue, in Islam itself and that's why we see all Islamic countries in decline in terms of education, research, economic development, political freedoms and societal development. They take the argument a step further: Islam is archaic and must be "fixed" to align it better with contemporary thinking about religion (i.e., delegating it to a personal hobby).
Let's face it: the criticism of Muslim countries and societies is quite true (please read my earlier blog: A Moral GPS in Pakistan to understand the underlying causes of these societal problems). Many historians have analyzed the root causes of this decline observed over the last couple of centuries (I urge you to read "What Went Wrong? The clash between modernity and Islam in the Middle East" by Bernard Lewis).
But the conclusion drawn by these apologists is absolutely wrong. We are faced with these problems not because Islam is faulty in its design, rather we have stopped implementing it as it should be. In our societies, we have the extremes of "liberalized" apologists who do not understand the fundamental concepts on the one hand, and of "radicalized" extremists on the other hand who want to simply burn everything that doesn't match their world view.
Let's focus on the apologists and analyze some the arguments they put forward.
The first key argument they use is that Islam is not a religion of peace and engenders hatred, which leads to violence. I offer that Islam is no more pacifist or violent than any other religion. In the last two thousand years, hundreds of wars have been waged by followers of all religions in their defence as well as while invading other territories. If we follow this bizarre logic of religion triggering violence, then Christianity would top the list when you consider the two World Wars. Many of the recent and extremely violent conflicts - like the massacre and genocide in Rwanda (1994) - had no Muslims involved at all. So, violence is not the exclusive domain of any religion.
The present state of violence and intolerence can be traced to illiteracy, poverty and political oppression. Another scratch below the surface will lead you to the recent colonial history, which can also be found in many African countries with negligible Muslim populations but same societal problems. In this milieu of problems, illiteracy and educational deprivation stand out quite tall and are directly related to people's inability to understand and follow Islam correctly. These same illiterate masses are also easily incited to political violence of various kinds, often thinly wrapped in religion.
The second argument is that Islam's doctrine is outmoded and doesn't match the 21st century's demands. This is based on the very fundamental confusion in the minds of these apologists: they somehow mix up Islam's teachings with the interpretation of the Sharia law. The former is a broad set of principles and beliefs for both individuals and societies in how they interact with each other (please read my earlier blog: Who is an Ideal Muslim?). The latter is a form of law based on interpretation of those principles - and which can evolve through the consensus within Muslim societies. The apologists look at the recent misguided attempts to enforce an "Islamic justice system" in some countries and reach the false conclusion that Islam must have an oppressive and restrictive doctrine. In reality, however, Islam's constructs are progressive and evolutionary - unfortunately, we have significantly faltered in implementing them during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The third important argument used a lot by the apologist "intelligentsia" is that religion is an individual's private affair and should not be connected to any social or societal constraints. This is a ridiculous argument that stems from an inability to understand the purpose and intent of religion. Religion - and this is true for all branchings of the same Abrahamic religion - aims to create a societal model in which people interact with each other in a compassionate and fair way. It also allows for an individual's growth on intellectual, economic and social grounds; put differently, religion does not aim to create drones that are equal in all respects.
Such a societal construction based on compassion and justice cannot be undertaken by chopping off the most fundamental sense of being that we have achieved through religion. Interestingly, Christianity -- even after it has drifted very far away from its original paradigm -- provided the building blocks used by the North Americans to climb to global supremacy we observe today. Basic questions - like why humans are on this earth, what is the ultimate design for a human society and what is the purpose of life - cannot be answered purely through empirical discovery. It is a bit silly to pretend that philosophy and logic alone can provide these answers - and that the answers will have no bearing on the society so constructed (Soviet Communism is the classic example of such a failure). Religion is more than a hobby to be practised once a week or in times of desperation.
I ask Islam's apologists to spend some time and effort on their own to learn what Islam actually is. One should not parrot off statistics and faulty arguments that are borrowed from elsewhere. This is again an invitation to learn and use the Moral GPS we have been given.
No comments:
Post a Comment