Mr. Manzurul
Haque blames the
“intransigence of the Western imperial forces” for the failure of “the project
of Islam to bring peace and tranquillity in human life”. This is not a
proposition New Age Islam agrees with. But the fact that he at least admits a
failure is in itself valuable in the process of introspection that we promote.
We don’t think cursing enemies or external circumstances, in short, the Other,
serves any purpose either in our individual lives or as a community. If we have
to improve our situation, we will have to look within and correct our own
conduct and beliefs first.
The
process of the failure of the Islamic project – the nature of this project too
needs to be debated -- itself started early on, with the demise of the Prophet
itself, to be precise. We don’t think any imperialist, Zionist or Hindutva
conspiracy was involved in preventing Muslims from giving their prophet a decent
and timely burial. His dead body lay in the heat of the Arabian Desert – without
any air-conditioning, of course, - for seven to eight hours as his closest
companions we hold in such high esteem kept squabbling over who should succeed
him as the spiritual and political heir. Then within half a century Muslims
allowed the inveterate enemies of Islam to kill almost the entire family of the
Prophet and embark on their pre-Islamic hereditary “monarchical” system in the
name of Islamic Khilafat. These sworn enemies of Islam had joined Islam only
after having failed to destroy the religion from outside and with a clear
intention to beat it from within. Having succeeded in doing that, they embarked
on an imperialist expansion with the help of new scriptures promoted as sayings
of the prophet and a new institution of priesthood which had no place in Islam.
Even those who opposed the Yazidi Islam embarked on their own misguided project
of declaring the Prophet himself as a monarch who wanted his family members and
their descendants to rule for ever.
From
then till today we have committed horrendous mistakes. Even now Arab Islam is
dominated by despots and monarchs. Hardly any Muslim society reminds us of the
Islamic vision. Indeed, if there are any societies that appear somewhat close to
Islamic ideals of human rights, these are invariably non-Muslim majority
societies. However, Mr. Manzurul Haque presents here a viewpoint that is widely
prevalent among Muslims the world over and thus needs to be discussed and
debated. His plea for ijtehad to bring about ideological reform in Islam also
needs to be seriously engaged with. He considers defending the ideology of Islam
as his prime duty, but perhaps there needs to be more clarity on what this
ideology actually is that need to be defended and from whom. Does the danger to
Islamic ideology come more from within or without? -- Sultan Shahin,
Editor, New Age Islam
In the article presented below Mr. Manzurul Haque blames the
“intransigence of the Western imperial forces” for the failure of “the project
of Islam to bring peace and tranquillity in human life”. This is not a
proposition New Age Islam agrees with. But the fact that he at least admits a
failure is in itself valuable in the process of introspection that we promote.
We don’t think cursing enemies or external circumstances, in short, the Other,
serves any purpose either in our individual lives or as a community. If we have
to improve our situation, we will have to look within and correct our own
conduct and beliefs first.
The process of the failure of
the Islamic project – the nature of this project too needs to be debated --
itself started early on, with the demise of the Prophet itself, to be precise.
We don’t think any imperialist, Zionist or Hindutva conspiracy was involved in
preventing Muslims from giving their prophet a decent and timely burial. His
dead body lay in the heat of the Arabian Desert – without any air-conditioning,
of course, - for seven to eight hours as his closest companions we hold in such
high esteem kept squabbling over who should succeed him as the spiritual and
political heir. Then within half a century Muslims allowed the inveterate
enemies of Islam to kill almost the entire family of the Prophet and embark on
their pre-Islamic hereditary “monarchical” system in the name of Islamic
Khilafat. These sworn enemies of Islam had joined Islam only after having failed
to destroy the religion from outside and with a clear intention to beat it from
within. Having succeeded in doing that, they embarked on an imperialist
expansion with the help of new scriptures promoted as sayings of the prophet and
a new institution of priesthood which had no place in Islam. Even those who
opposed the Yazidi Islam embarked on their own misguided project of declaring
the Prophet himself as a monarch who wanted his family members and their
descendants to rule for ever.
From then till today we have
committed horrendous mistakes. Even now Arab Islam is dominated by despots and
monarchs. Hardly any Muslim society reminds us of the Islamic vision. Indeed, if
there are any societies that appear somewhat close to Islamic ideals of human
rights, these are invariably non-Muslim majority societies. However, Mr.
Manzurul Haque presents here a viewpoint that is widely prevalent among Muslims
the world over and thus needs to be discussed and debated. His plea for ijtehad
to bring about ideological reform in Islam also needs to be seriously engaged
with. He considers defending the ideology of Islam as his prime duty, but
perhaps there needs to be more clarity on what this ideology actually is that
need to be defended and from whom. Does the danger to Islamic ideology come more
from within or without?
-- Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age
Islam
---
CRISIS IN MUSLIM
MIND
By Manzurul
Haque
Muslim world community today
faces a multifaceted crisis. Two kinds of stalemates have aggravated the
situation - historical stalemate, and ideological stalemate.
Historical stalemate started
with the downfall of the Turkish Empire on the one hand and slipping away of the
Indian empire to the British on the other. Though these two historical scenarios
were quite distinct - these were tied genetically with another parallel
phenomenon of ideological stagnation which ran in the lives of Muslims,
throughout the Muslim world. The ideological stagnation had preceded the
historical stagnation by at least a couple of centuries. Intensive research is
required to bring out the true origins and progression of the ideological
stagnation.
Pre-disposition of
Muslims
Strange though it may sound
Muslims were at ease with both these kinds of stagnations. The religion of Islam
which of late has been seen as an extremely militant ideology (this can be
explained separately), can also assume sometimes the most pacifist shape and put
men and women to a straight path of living a plain life within the regimen of an
uneventful family life (little romance, littler adultery, no drunken brawl,
etc.) engaging relentlessly in five-times-a-day namaz, and annual roza for a
month, and hajj, and zakat etc. In fact in every rakat of every namaz, a Muslim
prays for this kind of life – the straight path. The concern of a Muslim
society, in the normal circumstances, is to goad individuals to endlessly
explore ways and means of adding up more and more sawab (blessing) to their kitties. A
non-Muslim can never possibly understand the true essence of what I have just
described, because it is a matter of sheer practice which only the practitioner
can experience. But this can explain some of the bizarre pursuits of men and
women (more women) of Islam and their preoccupations with questions which would
appear to be silly to a non-Muslim –just see the question-answer series of QTV
(in the present age) and the entire body of fatwas which grew from these small
questions of Muslim men and women throughout the ages.
Stagnation of
history:
The seed of the destruction
(stagnation) in Islam is contained in its ideology which seeks to introduce
peace and tranquillity in human life by means of a process described above. And
at some level the Islamic ideology can be justified for bringing this stagnation
in Islamic history. If we examine the life of humans on this earth, it is not
difficult to see that the progress of the modern world under Western aegis has
not been an unmixed blessing. True, the
use of mobile telephone is an unparalleled bliss, and the use of antibiotics
gives us a new lease of life. But just think of the effect of modern war
machines, not excluding the nuclear weapons and the biological weapons. The environmental degradation must however
top the list of the negative achievements, if we can ever call it an
achievement. At least nobody can blame Islam for bringing in this kind of
technological ‘progress.’
‘Islam by sword’
Unfortunately, its conflict with
the Europeans did not permit Islam the space it had come to occupy in a natural
course as a result of social dynamics [Contrary to ‘Islam by sword’ theorists and the starry-eyed Tablighis, (For
any sociologist, ‘tabligh’ is a very noble pastime of little consequence), Islam
had spread in quantum jumps when the whole nations converted to Islam because
they had a contending non-Islamic race
or kingly power breathing down their necks,
which in the end got annihilated by the superior social system and
ideology of Islam (I am terribly sorry to state this to those who caution us
against Islam-supremacy because this is what exactly happened)].
A visceral
hatred
Gradually the West developed a
visceral hatred for the ideology of Muslims, because while on the one hand Islam
taught Muslims to live a plain life, it also ideologically opposed racism and
imperialism. For the white nations of the West, these ideas were not acceptable.
Hence, while the Muslims slept for centuries after the Crusade, the West kept
preparing for war with the Muslims. If we study the entire long process of
Crusades we can discern that the Muslims were the reluctant fighters. So
post-Crusade, and after centuries of preparation when the Western onslaught came
from the rear Eastern side of Muslim world - India, to be precise, Muslims had
no chance to stand before the West. The
imperial hunger of the West (which might be a reflection of their racism) should
not be underestimated. It is common knowledge that both the World Wars were
results of Western greed for sharing imperialism or in other words for the loot
of the rest of the earth (preceding the World Wars was the destruction of the
Turkish Empire and the loot of the Balkans). The baton of imperialism was picked
up from the spoils of World War II by the USA, and while doing so, USA dropped
two atomic bombs needlessly on the hapless populations of the two cities of
Japan – just to terrorize and lay down the foundation of an imperialism of a
different kind – economic imperialism.
Economic imperialism of
USA
The economic imperialism of USA
supported by other countries of the West is a reality. The creation of Israel is
a Western project to serve that imperialism vis-à-vis the Muslim-Arab world in
which the Jews have been used merely as pawns.
At the same time a false story has been spread amongst Muslims that Jews
control USA and the entire West. In truth the Arab-Israel conflict is an
outright Western project, which was protected and closely guarded from prying
eyes even during the days when the USSR had become a parallel Superpower in the
world. The Arab-Israel conflict is a handle with the West to operate some of the
strings attached to the edifices of its economic imperial power. If the
geopolitical reality of the world permitted, USA (no doubt in concurrence with the other Western powers like UK, France,
Germany, Canada, Australia, Italy, Spain and a whole host of other European
countries) would have allowed Israel by now to bomb the nuclear installations of
Iran, and you might never know, it might still do that. Israel is too weak to
resist such a command which indeed will be issued in secret as all such commands
are.
The Failure of the Islamic Project
Thus, in a sense the project of
Islam to bring peace and tranquillity in human life has failed historically,
because of intransigence of the Western imperial forces. This creates a crisis
in Muslim mind, with its complex ramifications which would need to be addressed
in bits and pieces. All the various geographical conflicts in which Muslims are
involved need to be addressed under this head. It calls for wars, cool diplomacy
and collateral advancements such as building-up of alliances and military
strength (clearly an un-Islamic project but nevertheless needed to help the
cause of peace), and innovation of new political structures in concert with the
opposing forces. For example Israel-Arab conflict can go away without the shrill
cry of the destruction of Israel, if American influence on the deal can somehow
be lessened. The problem of J& K can be settled, if the overall relationship
of Hindus and Muslims in the sub-continent can be improved, and as and when the
corrupt rulers of both the countries are taken care of by their respective
citizenry. There can be similar situation-specific solutions elsewhere, though
in most cases it will take time because of some condition precedent attached to
each of these local problems. Another example I can cite is of Uyghur. It is
imperative for sensible Muslim NGOs (Do we have one? Since China would not allow
a foreign government agency to step-in.
How about converting Organization of Islamic Conference into an NGO,
registered, say in Dubai, with the best possible infrastructure available there,
which will add to its dexterity) to engage with the Muslims of Uyghur on one
hand and China on other hand, to completely diffuse the situation, before it
comes to a boil. One can be sure that as long as Chinese suzerainty is not
questioned, they will have no problems in giving a fair deal to the Muslim
subjects. I think the same could be true of Chechnya, Ingushetia and
Dagestan.
Stagnation of
ideology
We must however reserve our most
poignant analysis (which I will not do here in full measure) for the ideological
stagnation that has gripped the Muslims through centuries although there is no
justification for such ideological stagnation in human affairs. An overview of
the current efforts in this direction itself would be enough to convince us of
the enormous complexity of the problem. Unfortunately, this is an issue that
cannot be swept under the carpet because even the historical movements forward,
suggested in the preceding paragraph, would not lurk anywhere without shaking
this ideological pyramid. These two opposing and tearing requirements create yet
another crisis in the Muslim mind today. The stagnation is too heavy to waver,
but the need to shake up was never this high before.
The difficulty in solving a
problem is hidden in the inability to find a solution that works. In Muslim
community, nearly every Muslim (because of his eagerness no doubt to attend to
this urgent problem of the community) has something by way of solving the
problem but the fact is that solution that works eludes. From this itself, we
can however draw some tentative conclusion. This job cannot be done in a
hurry.
A survey of the efforts made in
this regard sometimes brings us face to face with suggestions which are plainly
ridiculous – coming even from otherwise well-educated persons. But are we
supposed to ridicule them? No way. This will only create bad blood. So the
second tentative conclusion is that while working in the direction of seeking to
remove ideological stagnation we cannot adopt a ridiculing attitude, much less a
marauding attitude and this is true for all sides participating in this great
process.
Need for Ijtehad
Ijtehad is a word in our
dictionary which has not been used since ages. The enormous volume of work
needed to research for any meaningful and acceptable ijtehad, is no single man’s
job. Departments of Islamic Studies of the Muslim Universities of the world can
organize the work on ijtehad and I have to repeat an adage that they must not
only bring out the truth, but be seen to be bringing out the truth. That is,
their work should speak for itself.
Acceptance of a finding of
ijtehad by the general masses is a colossal task and vested interests are almost
bound to oppose it (which might unfortunately include some of our traditional
maulanas), as also the enemies of Islam who are waiting to curse upon any step
that has the potential to do good to Muslims. A very resilient approach would be
needed for the acceptance of the changes brought about by ijtehad. The biggest guarantee of its success will
come from two elements of social life - quality education which imparts ability
to think independently, and the use of mass communication – even if it is
nothing more than the use of internet.
Defending the Ideology of
Islam
In their wishful pursuits some
friends of mine object to my use of the word defence, when I say, that one prime
area of my work is to defend the ideology of Islam in the field of communication
with the help of the resources, including arguments, that are present and
available (I am not going to even wait for the results of ijtehad to attend to
this urgent business). I am sorry to continue to use the word defence which I
consider to be the birth right of every human being. It would be puerile and
woolly-headed if we forsake the right to defend – in any area of activity. This is my last tentative conclusion.
I have not touched upon any
specific area of reform of the Islamic ideology, because my analysis is at the
macro level and because I do think this to be the work of ‘ijtehadists’. Of
course each one of us may contribute towards the inputs for future ijtehad to
supplement the hands of ijtehadists, but I hope to do that on some other
occasion, Insha Allah.
Based in Patna, India,
Manzurul Haque is a regular commentator on www.NewAgeIslam.com (manhaq@yahoo.com).
9:31 PM
Sultan Shahin
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