|
Here is a reflection, and an exchange that ensued the publication of
my article, Islam and Human Rights: Guide for a Perplexed Muslim (available
on this site as well as on: http://islam21.org). Given the significance of
the issues debated, and the paradigmatic nature of the argument expressed, it
is reproduced here for the benefit of wider readership. |
Everyone can easily see that the writer (TEEN) is all rage and no reason
- and it is impossible to argue with rage. Only reason can be - and is - the
common bond among men/women, even among men/woman of faith with claims to
unimpeachable piety and infallible knowledge. Thus, even though the substance
and tone of this letter renders futile any further conversation, a response is
nonetheless called for, if only for the reason that others may guard themselves
against the fatal charm of this suicidal rage and unholy despair.
Unfortunately, this letter is far too typical an exemplar of the morbid
fanaticism that is the sole consolation of our deprived and marginalized youth,
especially in the West. The sad, and scary thing is that this mindless,
heartless and soulless brand of literalism and fundamentalism is first presumed
to be the essence of the din of Islam and then propagated with impunity
and terror! To me it epitomises nothing but a failure of intelligence,
imagination and humanity; a bankruptcy of religious imagination, a collapse of
moral reason and a betrayal of trust to our fellow man/woman. For all the
claims of Islamic reason and conscience, moral, intellectual and scriptural,
thus, I repudiate this unreasoning ‘faith’. I dismiss the entire ideational
structure, the very metaphysical ground of this ‘fundamentalist’ doctrine. For
when stretched to its logical limits, it advances the following claims:
Upon closer inspection, these false tenets seem to insinuate that the
living faith of the countless number of Muslims is defective and flawed, that
almost throughout their entire history, Muslim existence has been sub-Islamic,
if not totally un-Islamic. The piety and prayer, fasting and charity, ibadat
and mu’amalat of individual Muslims, nay of the entire community,
are of no avail as long as there is no totalitarian and all-powerful Islamic
state. All Muslim achievements are thus weighed in the scale of political
existence, all Islamic values determined by the measure of worldly success. If
this is not secularism, the devouring of the Akhira by the Dunya,
then what is it?
Another pernicious upshot of this spurious doctrine is that it accords
far too great a role to the coercive institution of the state. The state,
according to this view, is always more powerful than society and is able to
discipline it with the scourge of punitive agencies. That
the fundamentalist vision is obsessed with power is, of course, no secret. But
the intellectual and moral poverty of this vision may be judged by the striking
fact that this power is conceived entirely as potestas (Quwwa), the
force that compels and coerces, and never as potentia (Qudra), the
faculty that conceives and constitutes. Or, employing our own terminology,
power is hukm without hikma, rule without reason, ordinances and
stipulations that need neither persuade nor convince! Given this highly
tendentious reading of the human situation as the Hobbesian war of all against
all, it is not fortuitous that fundamentalist politics, as exemplified by the
inflammatory rhetoric of the present letter, inhabits a Manichean world of pure
good and pure evil. Everyone in the modern world, not only the institutions of
political, economic and military domination, but also the representatives of
humanitarian conscience, the United Nations and its Human Rights agencies, are
pure evil. However, far more villainous than these foreign masters are the
indigenous lackeys, the incumbent Muslim regimes who have betrayed the Umma by
joining the confederacy of nation-states. Is it any wonder that such thinking
leads to the pitiless wasteland of despair and authorizes a politics of terror
and xenophobia?
True enough, no one can deny that for the last few centuries, Muslims
have been steadily loosing the historical race. The torch of civilization and
humanity has been passed on to other nations and other peoples. Nor is there
any dispute about the fact that Muslims are not the principal beneficiaries of
the modern world, which is not their creation. Such is the fate of the losers. One
need not haggle over the claim either that the issues of global justice and
inter-state morality must be squarely addressed if the current world-order is
to retain a modicum of legitimacy and ensure its survival as a community of
nations. Similarly, one cannot be lax in underscoring the urgency and immensity
of the task ahead for Muslims if they intend to become the movers of history
again. Any future revival of Islam as faith and civilisation would certainly
require an abundance of will, sacrifice and devotion. But it would as
indisputably be contingent upon all the resources of intellect and imagination.
And it cannot do without a resolute commitment to our common humanity and
universal morality. To indulge in a politics of despair and advocate the
creation of an alternate world-system, something for which Muslims neither have
the will nor the means, is madness, sheer suicidal madness. It is tantamount to
legitimating, nay sacralizing, the politics of ethnic-cleansing and replacing
the parochiality of the territorial state-system with the universality of the
apartheid of faith and confession!
Given the perversity and depravity of this totalitarian vision that
discards the modern world as well as Muslim history and tradition in its
entirety, a conscientious Muslim has no choice but to repudiate in its
totality. A Muslims has to reject it because Islam as revealed faith is based on
the acceptance of the ultimately transcendent nature of truth and reality. A
Muslim may not accept any view of ‘Islam’ that equates it with the existential,
temporal and historical, in a word secular, reality of the Muslims.
Islam is always greater than the sum total of the living Muslims, the empirical
collectivity of the now extant historical community. And certainly, the primary
mission of Islam is not to resolve the current political impasse in the Middle
East.
Finally, I would like to end this response by pre-empting any fruitless
and puerile debate which might ensue and which might lead to either of the two
assertions; one, all power is coercive and inasmuch as power regulates any
human relationship, it is always morally reprehensible (the Christian squeamishness);
two, because of the ubiquity and even inevitability of power/coercion in human
affairs, everything human is subject to its arbitration (the Machiavellian and
Fundamentalist fallacy). No, power does not inevitably corrupt morality, nor
does powerlessness necessarily promote it. This may also foreclose any
foreign-polemical or indigenous-apologetic claim that would construe the
Prophetic theo-polity as coercive temporal order. That the Prophet (S)
exercised ‘political’ authority is beyond any dispute. But to view the
Prophetic regime as coercive order is patently false and erroneous. The
Prophetic regime was a contractual theo-polity; one entered the faith of Islam
through a voluntary contract of obedience to the Prophet. Hence, there
is no sense to the statement that the Prophet exercised coercive force on the
Muslims, his followers. It is both illogical and a contradiction in terms.
However, this unique authority of the Prophet cannot be inherited by any other
regime. Unfortunately, the modern – secularist - theory of ‘the Islamic state’
confers this personal authority of the Prophet to a trans-personal entity and turns
the moral and spiritual heritage of our faith upon its head.
|
Here is the exchange. Quotations
from PM’s article that are criticised by TEEN have been emphasised. |
Posted by Teen on 01-Mar-00 at 07:41 AM (EST)
PM: ‘We need to start from the reality
of the secular system of territorial states to which all Muslim regimes have
given their full allegiance.’
TEEN: No we don't. These regimes
(secular tyrannies, slavish to western, neo-imperialist nations) signed on the
dotted line without the consultation of the people (nor the Qur'an or sunnah).
This is a FACT.
PM: I do not ask that these regimes be
given unconditional allegiance or that full Islamic legitimacy be conferred
upon all these nation-states that were created during imperialism. No, I am
merely suggesting that we have ‘to start from this reality’. Whatever transformations
we may have in our minds, must come gradually through consensus building and
public debate (Not unlike the unfolding of the immensely instructive and
fascinating project of the gradual realisation of the European Union.) Why must
our politics be always devoid of argument, debate and consensus?
--------------------------------------------------
PM: ‘Muslim states are also signatories
to the United Nations’ ‘Charter of the Fundamental and Universal Human Rights’
and as such morally and legally bound to honour and implement its provisions.’
TEEN: Does that mean that we must honour
people's right to stand up in the Central
Square and burn the Qur'an? This is, after all, free speech and is
mentioned in the UN charter. Does it also mean that people have the right to
practice zina and homosexuality? These are, after all, "human
rights" as understood in the secular context and are being currently
considered by the UN.
PM: Please calm down a little bit. You
probably have not read the whole of my article. I am not without my own
criticism of HR. I do not consider them as a substitute for universal morality
or transcendent faith. Nevertheless, I do support them conditionally. And
there’s no mistaking that the promotion of HR could lead to a more humane
political culture in Muslim lands. Muslim politics need not be brutal,
totalitarian and pitiless. Like what happened in Malaysia, ‘the model Muslim
democracy’ of our times, to the former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and
his friend Munawwar Anees!
As for the fear that certain practices that we Muslims cannot accept
become permissible under the Charter of HR, my response is that as Muslims we
need not approve, or indeed accept, those practices. There is nothing in the
provisions of HR that compels us to adopt these practices. HR is basically a
code of conduct for the state, a matter of procedure and method regarding the
proper treatment of citizens; or, to proceed to a touchy subject, whether the
state should involve itself, or not, in matters of ‘personal morality’. (Of
course, there is a good deal of intellectual confusion and moral duplicity
here. But all this is part of the current debate and the Muslim position must
be duly articulated in these forums.) As Muslims we can mobilize all our
resources, through debate, publications, broadcasting, and all the other means
of communications. We have all the rights of influencing ‘public opinion’ and
thus putting an end to these practices. What the provisions of HR would
stipulate, and the ethics of HR demand, is that, in opposing these expressions
of different beliefs and morally reprehensible behaviour, we do not ‘use
violence’. I do not think that it is such a reprehensible restriction!
I would willingly admit, however, that this commitment to treat certain issues
as ‘off-limit’ to force, as ‘inviolable’, is arbitrary. It is merely symptomatic
of the peculiar prejudices and revulsions of the modern man and does not solve
the moral (universal) problem of coercion in human affairs, especially in a world
of warring territorial states where each state is entitled to monopoly over
means of violence! Nevertheless, there’s no denying that we Muslims must learn
to argue and convince others, win their consciences, rather than simply state
and assert our beliefs. If Islam is a divine message directed at the whole of
mankind, it cannot shun debate and argument. It is our own lack of
self-confidence, induced by centuries of intellectual slumber that makes us
such cowards and bullies.
Of course, Muslim rulers did not consult either their people, or their
ulema, before signing the UN’s charter of HR. However, the debate and criticism
of HR is a Muslim societal responsibility – and it is not over yet. All I am asking
is that we do not pre-judge the moral issues involved in this discourse and that
we allow our learned to reflect properly and respond critically. You seem to have
made up your mind and are merely thinking of those negative acts (above), which
are abominable in your eyes. Yet, you do know, that Human Rights is more than
these odd practices. Surely, to treat every human being with respect and
dignity, to have a due process of law, and not to inflict torture on your
fellow human beings, are goals worthy of pursuit for the Islamic conscience?
--------------------------------------
PM: ‘Moreover, with few exceptions,
contemporary Muslim rule is alien, arbitrary and predatory.’
TEEN: Muslim rule? What Muslim rule? I don't
know of any "Muslim" country practicing real Muslim rule. Hell, if
these countries practice "Muslim rule", then I wonder what secular
rule would be in your utopia.
PM: Oddly, despite your sneer and
scorn, we may be in agreement. I use the word ‘Muslim’ for the empirical and
the outwardly (zahiri). ‘Islamic’, for me, connotes the ideal and the
normative. Yes, I do agree, that what, outwardly and nominally, goes as ‘Muslim
rule’ need not be ‘Islamic’.
-------------------------------------------------
PM: ‘Hence, it must not be allowed to
use ‘Islam’, or the medieval formulations of Muslim jurists, as the
legitimising argument for its oppression and denial of the fundamental rights
of their citizenry’.
TEEN: Give me an example of this
oppression. Also, please define for me what you mean by "human
rights." This is crucial if we are to have a meaningful dialogue (although
I am a bit sceptical of this after reading some of your idiotic arguments).
PM: You cannot be that naïve and
innocent. You know full well that all the Muslim regimes in the Middle East
that bolster their authority and legitimacy by posing as ‘Islamic’ are the most
repressive and inhumane – which is not to say that the secular ones are any
better!
------------------------------------------------------
PM: ‘Cynicism against Human Rights is
also cynicism against Islam.’
TEEN: No, being FOR "human
rights" (in the secular context) is to be AGAINST Islam. Your reasoning
illustrates perfectly contemporary Muslim thinking: INFERIORITY COMPLEX.
PM: I simply differ. For I do not
believe that HR have been properly debated in Muslim societies, or have been
thoroughly scrutinised by our ulema (Even if I have many question marks
regarding the ability, and willingness, of our scholars to come to grips with
the normative claims of secular morality which lie at the heart of the Charter
of HR.) Further, contrary to what you may think, I am not awed by modern
western thought: I’ve always expressed my misgivings and questioned its most
cherished notions and myths. It is all on the record.
Finally, I do not consider myself a secularist. For, I do believe in a
transcendent, trans-secular and trans-existential, order of reality. Further, I
do not accept that the (political) state is ever ‘sovereign’, that it is the
final arbiter of truth, that it is autonomous in its moral conduct, that its well-being
is the only index of human bliss, that it is indispensable for human progress. I
do not, in short, subscribe to the Hegelian dictum, oddly accepted by many
Muslim ‘fundamentalists’ though for different reasons, that ‘the state is God’s
march on earth’. (Or that the Khalifa/Imam is God’s shadow and
representative on earth!). Those who do so are the real secularists!
______________________________________________________