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ISLAM AND THE WEST: CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS?
Francis Robinson
[continued...]
The roots of Islamic civilisation lie in the
monotheistic and Hellenistic traditions of
the Eastern Roman Empire. Indeed, its universalism
is directly derived from the political and
religious universalism of Constantine’s Byzantine
Empire. Medieval Europe was hugely enriched
by the Arab-Muslim knowledge which was transmitted
through Italy and Spain. Down to the 19th
century Europeans measured themselves in various
ways against the world of Islam. During the
19th and 20th centuries, as we have seen,
the Muslim world came to be shaped by Europe,
And now, of course, Muslims play their part
in shaping the West both as communities within,
as well as from without. These two worlds,
Christian and Muslim, have shared much and
have much to share. 21
In a most important statement the
Second Vatican Council asked Christians to
reflect on what they shared with Muslims:
The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems.
They adore the one God, living and subsisting
in Himself, merciful and all-powerful, the
Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken
to men; they take pains to submit whole-heartedly
to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham
with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure
in linking itself submitted to God. Though
they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they
revere him as a prophet. They also honour
Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even
call on her with devotion. In addition they
await the day of judgement when God will render
their deserts to all those who have been raised
up from the dead. Finally, they value moral
life and worship God especially through prayer,
almsgiving and fasting. 22
Arguably, if there is a clash of civilisations,
it is between those who believe in God and
those who do not. Do the howls of rage and
protest at the dominance of the West speak
for all Muslims? No. Throughout the period
of Western dominance in the world, there have
been Muslims who have felt that Western power
and dominance was not a cause for complaint
but a call to constructive action. Western
power and dominance was based on knowledge
from which they should benefit. This goes
as much for leading figures such as Sayyid
Ahmad Khan, the creator of Islamic modernism,
or Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, who gave modern
Turkey such distinctive direction, as it does
for the tens of thousands of Muslims every
year who come to the West to beeducated in
its universities. These expressions of protest,
moreover, stem less from an intrinsic hatred
of the West than from the impact of the West
on Muslim societies. Often it is part of a
discourse within Muslim societies about how
they should progress, a discourse in which
Western influence is felt to be a constraint.
It is worth reflecting on the sense of self-confidence
which Iran has gained from its revolution,
a revolution which has allowed it to chart
its own destiny. “What has your revolution
achieved, what has it given the Iranian people
who are suffering from the ravages of war?”
a journalist asked an Iranian leader in 1989,
as ten years of the revolution were celebrated.
He replied: "We have given the Iranian
people a sense of self-respect and dignity.
Now Iranians in Tehran, and not in Washington
or in London, make decisions about the destiny
of Iran". 23
In considering the clash of civilisations,
how much weight should we give to pan-Islamic
consciousness, to Islamic solidarity? Traditionally,
Islamic solidarity has tended to founder on
the other affinities which bind groups of
Muslims: the differences between major ethnic
groups - Arabs, Persians, Turks, South Asians
and so on. There are the subnational affinities
which bedevil the politics of many states:
Kurds, Berbers, Azeris; the differences between
the Punjabis and the rest in Pakistan, those
between the Pathans and the rest in Afghanistan.
We have the great religious distinctions between
Shi'a and Sunni. There are the often bitter
sectarian distinctions generated by the process
of Islamic revival on the Indian subcontinent:
Deobandi, Barelvi, Ahl-i Hadith, Ahl-i Quran,
Ahmadi, Jamaat-i Islami, Tablighi Jamaati
and others. Then on top of this there are
the often-competing interests of Muslim states.
For a moment, iconic issues such as Palestine
can bring Muslims together, but in the long
term solidarity is always likely to be broken
by local affinity, local antagonism, state
interest, and the mundane. 24
What weight should we give to the
issue of Islamism? Islamist parties form the
chief opposition to current governments in
many Muslim states. Moreover, given the weakness
of these states, given their economic problems,
and in particular given their age structures-
most Muslim societies are experiencing or
about to experience massive youth bulges (the
Muslim population of the world which was 18%
in 1980 is due to become 30% by 2025)
25
- it is likely that a number of
Islamist parties will come to power. Will
the accession to power of parties, which more
often than not see Western civilisation as
the enemy, bring us closer to a clash of civilisations?
Certainly, in the first flush of victory we
might expect some hardening of attitudes towards
Israel, a revision of oil policy, or a withdrawal
of support for UN resolutions supporting interventionist
policies. However, as Anthony Parsons, HM
Ambassador to Iran at the time of the revolution,
always used to maintain, and Fred Halliday
does now, these régimes will be swiftly constrained
by the political economies of their societies
and by the geopolitics of their environment.
It is remarkable how increasingly pragmatic
the revolutionary régime in Iran has become,
whether it be over allied intervention in
Afghanistan, sending its students to Europe,
or talking to the 'Great Satan' itself. Deputy
Foreign Minister Kharazi had to resign in
April this year, not because he was talking
to the US, but because he revealed the fact
in public.
The final issue is whether Osama Bin Laden’s
al-Qaeda represents a new strand of Islamism
which has broader objectives. By his own account
it does. He is no longer concerned just to
take power in Muslim societies but to wage
war on Western hegemony. In his book America
and the Third World War, for instance, which
became available in 1999, he calls on the
entire Muslim world to rise up against the
existing world order to fight for their rights
to live as Muslims, rights he says which are
being trampled on by the West’s intentional
spreading of Westernisation. 26
In Bin Laden we have a Muslim who
sees the current situation in terms of a clash
of civilisations, and who has created a global
terrorist network to resist Western hegemony.
In addressing this threat, it will not be
enough to focus on the terrorist network itself,
the West must address and be seen to be addressing,
the many issues of injustice from Palestine
onwards which drive young Muslims into the
Bin Laden camp. The prize is Muslim public
opinion, that third of the world's population
by 2025. If we act so as to alienate, or sustain
the existing alienation of, that public opinion,
we might just begin to have a real clash of
civilisations.
References:
1. Huntington, S.P. The Clash of Civilizations
and the Remaking of World Order, New York,
1996.
2. See, for instance, the critique of Huntington
in Fuller, G.E. and Lesser, I.O. A Sense of
Siege: the geopolitics of Islam and the West,
Boulder, Colorado, 1995, and Halliday, F.
Two Hours that Shook the World: September
11, 2001: Causes and Consequences, London,
2002.
3. Wallerstein, I. The Modern World System,
Vols. I-III, New York, 1974-89.
4. For a translation and commentary on this
most influential work in the lives of Urdu-speaking
Muslims in South Asia see: Shackle, C. and
J. Majeed, J. trans. and introd., Hali’s Musaddas:
the Flow and Ebb of Islam, Delhi, 1997.
5. Translation by Gail Minault in Minault,
G. ‘Urdu Political Poetry during the Khilafat
Movement’, Modern Asian Studies, 8, 4, 1974,
pp. 459-71.
6. Miller, S.G. trans. and ed., Disorienting
Encounters: Travels of a Moroccan Scholar
in France in 1845-1846: The Voyage of Muhammad
As-Saffar, Berkeley, 1991, pp. 193-94.
7. Safarnamah-i Malta, Madani, H.A. Deoband,
1920, quoted in Malik, R. Mawlana Husayn Ahmad
Madani and Jami-yat `Ulama-i Hindi 1920-1957:
‘Status of Islam and Muslims in India’, PhD
thesis, University of Toronto, 1995, pp. 44-45.
8. Arberry, A.J. trans. Persian Psalms (Zabur-i
Ajam) ... from the Persian of the late Sir
Muhammad Iqbal, Karachi, 1968.
9. Quoted in Hamid Algar's introduction to
Algar, H. trans. On the Sociology of Islam:
Lectures by Ali Shari’ati, Berkeley, p. 23.
10. Algar, H. trans., Islam and Revolution:
Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini,
Berkeley, California, 1981, p. 182.
11. Hillenbrand, C. The Crusades: Islamic
Perspectives, Edinburgh, 1999, p.590.
12. Ibid., pp. 592-600.
13. Ibid., p.602.
14. Bodansky, Y. Bin Laden: The Man who Declared
War on America, Roseville, California, 1999,
pp. 226-27.
15. de Bary, W.T. ed., Sources of Indian Tradition,
New York, 1958, p.756.
16.Robinson, F. 'Islam and the Impact of Print
in South Asia' in Robinson, F. Islam and Muslim
History in South Asia, Delhi, 2000, pp. 66-104.
17. Idem.
18. For a sketch of the overall development
of this process see: Robinson, F. Atlas of
the Islamic World since 1500, Oxford, 1982,
pp.110-75; and for its impact on the individual
see: Robinson, F. 'Religious Change and the
Self in Muslim South Asia since 1800', South
Asia, XXII, Special Issue, 1999, pp.13-27.
19. For an authoritative analysis of the Deobandi
movement see: Metcalf, B.D. Islamic Revival
in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900, Princeton,
New Jersey, 1982.
20. For the growth of madrassas and their
significance in Pakistan see: Zaman, M.Q.
‘Sectarianism in Pakistan: The Radicalization
of Shi’i and Sunni Identities’, Modern Asian
Studies, 32, 3, 1998, pp. 689-716 and Nasr,
S.V.R. ‘The Rise of Sunni Militancy in Pakistan:
The Changing Role of Islamism and the Ulama
in Society and Politics’, Modern Asian Studies,
34, 1, 2000, pp.139-80; and for the relationship
between the Taliban and the madrasas see Rashid,
A. Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game
in Central Asia (London, 2000).
21. Robinson, F. 'The Muslim and the Christian
Worlds: Shapers of Each Other' in Robinson,
F. Islam and Muslim History, pp. 28-43.
22. Nostra Aetate, proclaimed by Pope Paul
Vi on 28 October 1965.
23. Hussain, M. ‘Roots of anti-Americanism’
Herald, October 2001, pp.50-54.
24. Fuller, G.E. and Lesser, I.O. op. cit.,
pp.109-36.
25. Huntington, op. cit., pp.102-21. 26. Bodansky,
op. cit., p.388.
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