By Abdiaziz Abdi
Thursday, June 02, 2011
No astute observer with an honest heart inside can deny the fact that “the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world” (Ayn Rand). Its “government was created on righteous morals created out of the ashes of governments of the past that had failed such as, Romans, the Greeks, and the Egyptians. Many great and brilliant minds were put together to come up with a government based around liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness” (George Orwell).Contemplating on these universalistic principles which the polity of United States of America is based on, an enlightened Muslim cannot help but to remember great knights from a Muslim enlightened age.
Such knights include, among others, Ibn Rushd/ Averroes, Al-Farabi, and Ibn Khaldon; philosophers who had devoted their entire intellectual careers preaching the merits of righteousness and calling for the establishment of al-madina al fadilah/ the Virtuous City: their Virtuous City is described to be presided by intellectual, honest, and compassionate statesman, who sacrifices the salvation of his comfort for the good of the city; his edicts come about by means of consultative processes; and the al mujtama ul fadil/ the virtuous society---the constituents of that state work together diligently in pursuing justice, human dignity, and happiness. So in a sense, all else being equal, the Islam of al-madina al fadila is on a par with Constitutional Democracy and thus like it promotes a moral government premised on liberty, equality, and justice; put it simply, it endorses a system which both the welfare and the happiness of man take precedence over all thing else. What a déjà vu!
Alas! Pondering on these humanistic concepts which Muslim forefathers had delineated more than nine hundred years ago and then weighing it against the Islam of today, one is dismayed. Today’s Islam does not bring to mind that of humanistic and humanitarian religion; rather it bursts with malicious conventions which render no dignity to human-being. In fact, Islam in our modern time has become an emblem of intolerance, bigotry, and backwardness. There are numerous anecdotes perpetuated in the name of Islam, ranging from stoning teenage girls in Somalia, dehumanizing women in Saudi Arabia, mutilating local non-Muslims in Egypt, blowing secular and religious premises in India , issuing fatwas which are urging the killing of individuals such as Salman Rushdie and Ayan Hirsi Ali (whose the only crime they have committed is that they have spoken their minds), and excommunicating everyone who is apt to favor reason as useful tool of thinking!
The aforementioned conception of “vulgarized” Islam, as some people might think, is not confined to the enclaves of undeveloped undemocratic places such Afghanistan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia, but it also has widespread currency in democratic countries and its sequels could be heard in cosmopolitan places like England, France, Netherlands, and the United States of America. This state of mind may be elucidated lucidly by a conversation that involved a Muslim-American child about eight years old and a non-Muslim American individual. The non-Muslim-American asked the question of how Islam and Judaism relate to each other. The child replied in manner that showed a cherry –picking pedagogy. He stated that “the Jews are the enemy of Allah; because a Jew man attempted to assassinate Prophet Muhammad in Mecca, Muslims are obliged to loathe them for eternity”! This anecdote attests to the fact that Islam, particularly the one prevalent among young generations of Muslim-Americans is in a barren intellectual milieu; it is impoverished from the humanistic moral visions which are the prerequisite to all religions and ideologies meant to ease human distress. Bluntly, the predominant Islamic political Jurisprudence currently heralding the discourse in United Sates of America is vile: it is laden with moral numbing codifications, e.g., endorsing polygamy, harboring animosity to nonbelievers, devilling individuals who deviate from religious codes. This is because, virtually, Islam in America today is by default underwritten and propagated by fundamentalists, radicals, and Wahabis and thus bears their bigoted worldview.
The fundamentalists in America are outspoken and more prominent. Thanks to the International resources they procure, they have an infrastructure of organizations, mosques, and committees. According to Rand Corporations’ Cheryl Benard magisterial analysis “U.S. mosques, Islamic centers and groceries prominently feature the writings of al Maudoodi, [Sayid Qutb, Hassan al Banna, and Muhamed Abdel Wahab (a fundamentalist forerunners), a mission undertaken by interconnected] fundamentalists, who flood international markets with mass publications of [these] writings in the form of inexpensive brochures. Fundamentalists thus currently dominate the discourse”. These fundamentalists within are not only gullible but they are also dangerous. They are dangerous, for the same reason that the terrorists are dangerous: as terrorists, they give allegiance to a doctrine ahead of their loyalty to democracy, to peace, and to earthly justice. If a chance comes around, some of them are prepared to wreak havoc on the very system they live under its roof and bring about celestial justices aimed against sinners and the enemy of Allah! Such mentality cannot be melded with democratic systems which human mandates—not doctored ordinances from God —constitute the launch pad of legitimacy.
At this juncture, I think it becomes imperative for every conscientious Muslim to take on the project of reclaiming authentic Islam, the one underpinned on love of God—not on political ideology — honor of human life, and dignity to all God’s creations, from these ill-educated zealots who have blundered its sanctum sanctorum. Here, I join my plea to Khalid Abou El fadl’s plea that “Muslims must come to terms with, and reclaim their religion from a supremacist Puritanism that has been born of a siege mentality – a mentality that this supremacist puritanical orientation continues to perpetuate as the primary mode of responding to the challenge of modernity”.
It’s high time that American-Muslim intellectuals embark on various undertakings intended to curb the spread of fundamentalism: they should, for instance, a)publish and distribute their works in an inexpensive pamphlets and in a format suiting for mass readership, b)introduce their views into the curriculum of Islamic education, c)set up public platforms of their own, d)make their opinions and judgments on fundamental questions of religious relevancies and make it available to mass audiences. These projects must be undertaken to compete with those of the fundamentalists who already have their own Web sites, publishing houses, schools, institutes, and many other vehicles all utilized for disseminating the draconian interpretation of Islam. More to the point, Muslim-Americans must revitalize Islam of of Al Farabi ---the one that combines religion with fidelity of compassion, justice, forbearance, human respect and, and diversity. I have no misgivings that such Islam (American Islam, so to speak) if staged to provide a salient ideological discourse that would put to rest one and for all the wholesale of Islamic of zealotsism.
Abdiaziz Abdi
[email protected]