Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions?

2002 Report (Continued) Background Paper


2. Understanding Islam

Theory and Practice

Western and Muslim commentators have naturally approached Islam from very different perspectives, with many Westerners emphasizing the comprehensiveness and inseparability of Islamic religion and politics. In this regard, author Bernard Lewis is not atypical. He has claimed that "between these two terms, [the West] and 'Islam,' there is, or there would appear to be, a certain asymmetry. The one is a geographical expression, the other is a religion." While the West stands for a broad notion of culture and polity, "for Muslims, Islam is not merely a system of belief and worship a compartment of life. It is rather the whole of life, and its rules include civil, criminal and even constitutional law." 25 Lewis goes on to state that "the term Islam is the counterpart not only of 'Christianity' but also of 'Christendom'--not only of a religion in the narrow Western sense but of a whole civilization which grew up under the aegis of that religion." 26

Lewis also suggests that the Islamic reaction to the West is the by-product of fundamentalists' resistance to the dramatic changes brought about by secularism and modernism. He contends that "fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to retain or restore for their people." 27 Unlike the Christian tradition, which developed alongside the concept of a separation of powers between church and state, Islam is a complete way of life incorporating both spiritual and corporeal dimensions. This concept of Islamic thought is expressed as the indivisibility of the whole: din wa dawlah, "faith and state."

The Prophet Muhammad exemplified this notion in his role as a leader of both the Islamic faith and the Islamic polity. Following his death in A.D. 632, however, the reality diverged from the ideal. He was succeeded by his closest companion, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, who became the khalifah ("caliph" or vice regent), which inaugurated the institution of the khilafah or caliphate. The first four are known together as the Rightly Guided Caliphs (632­61).

By the year 661, the caliphate was dominated by the Umayyad family and soon became a dynastic system. 28 Often at the expense of religious concerns, the Umayyad rulers, although retaining the title khalifah, became increasingly distracted by secular concerns and the problems inherent in the administration of what was, by then, a large empire. The Umayyad period is thus seen as a departure from the traditional unity of Islamic authority. The Umayyads established their capital in Damascus and continued to pass the caliphate down through their family.

Opposition to the Umayyad caliphs arose from a separate Islamic community in Iraq, which did not recognize their authority. These were the Shi’at ’Ali (“party of ’Ali”) who recognized only the descendants of ’Ali, the fourth caliph, as having the right to rule as the imam or supreme religious authority. Though several imams succeeded ’Ali, passing the imamate down to their sons in hereditary succession, Shi’ite Islam divided into several different sects, which disagreed among themselves as to the number of valid imams. Ithna-’Ashari (Twelver) Shi’ah eventually came to represent the majority of Shi’ism. In this tradition, the question of who represents the twelfth imam in his absence complicates Shi’ite political thought. Although Shi’ite ’ulama (religious officials) tried to name themselves as heirs to his authority, political rule came to be viewed as largely illegitimate in the absence of the imam. However, the Shi’i authorities adapted to political realities and focused on defending religious traditions and serving as moral critics of the more secular political leaders.

The Umayyads were succeeded by the Abbasid dynasty (758­1258), giving rise to what was to become known as the Sunni branch of Islam, named for the followers of the Sunnah, or practice, of the Prophet Muhammad. The Abbasids made their capital in Baghdad but did not have decisive control over Muslim lands. Independent rulers established themselves in Africa, Khorasan, and Spain. The dynasty was weakened by internal challenges, as province after province renounced the authority of the caliphs, who were gradually reduced to figureheads. Finally Hulagu, the Mongol general, attacked and burned Baghdad in February 1258.

During this period of political upheaval, the religious officials redefined their own identity, institutions, and discourse. They continued adapting to political realities, sometimes supporting and sometimes opposing the local political authorities. The separation of religious and political power thus occurred at an early stage, and the pattern persisted throughout Islamic history. From 1258 until 1924, various caliphal dynasties arose, at times setting up rival political entities that constituted a break--despite rhetoric--with the caliphs of Baghdad. 29

Islamic political theory and culture continued to develop as the faith spread into new regions and mixed with diverse cultures. This phase lasted until the nineteenth century, when European colonial powers occupied Muslim lands--a decisive turning point in Islamic history. Traditional systems of governance, social organization, and education faced enormous challenges from colonial regimes. New borders were created between Muslims and the outside world and among Muslims themselves. Arbitrary geographic boundaries added layers of identity and created particularistic communities, as new nation-states fostered their individual ethnic and political agendas. 30

After achieving independence in the late twentieth century, many nationalist governments launched ambitious nation-building programs. In those early years of independence, many Muslim governments experimented with a mixture of socialist ideology and nationalism. At the same time, they instituted programs to privatize and depoliticize the faith, subordinating Islamic life to more secular institutions and state-based agencies. These programs also brought roads, markets, mass media, and highly involved state administrations into previously self-contained communities. In the process, governments raised literacy rates and the average level of education to several times their earlier levels. 31

By the late 1960s, the combination of general education and the availability of mass-market literature on Islam had created a wider awareness of and interest in the faith. 32 In the 1970s and 1980s, this translated into a religious resurgence of unprecedented proportions, accelerated by the inability of government systems to deliver prosperity. Endemic corruption, failed policies, and the nature of geopolitics combined to ensure that the nationalist leaderships failed to make good on their promises.

Who Speaks for Islam?
Through these developments, public life in Muslim societies witnessed growing public competition over both the interpretation of religious symbols and the control of the institutions, formal and informal, that produce and sustain them. 33 Although lacking scholarly credentials, many ordinary Muslims, now empowered by their literacy and with raised social and political expectations, came to believe that they, too, had a right to determine the form and meaning of their faith. The authority of traditional Islamic leaders, based as it was on a theoretical, if not always practiced, unity of society and religion, was now threatened by a host of rival leaders. As had occurred in American Protestantism in the early twentieth century, traditional scholars found their role as interpreters of the faith challenged, but the resulting democratization of religious authority did not lead peacefully to democratization of thought. 34 In fact, the meaning of Islam itself has become the focus of fierce public debate. Emphasis on hostile Muslim-Western encounters has generally distracted attention from this internal turmoil over Islamic authority. But the question of who has the right to speak for Islam remains open and fuels much of the tension between would-be spokesmen--governments, Islamic movements, official and unofficial 'ulama.

The debates over Islamic political theory often center on whether the caliphate represented the inheritance of the Prophet's mantle, conveying spiritual and political leadership, or whether this handing down marked the separation of the two spheres. "Traditional" Sunni scholars, who support the Islamic political model of din wa dawlah, would point to the continuation of the institution of the khilafah until 1924, when it was abolished by the Turkish Republic. Opponents would argue that the caliphate took on a more political role following the death of the Prophet and that the emergence of an independent judiciary signaled the split between political and religious authority.

For many Sunni Muslims, the first four caliphs exemplified a golden age of Islamic government when a true Islamic polity was in existence. From the Shi'ite perspective, the Prophetic period was the only period when there was legitimate Islamic government. In both views, the founding of the Umayyad dynasty ushered in more than a millennium of conflict and debate on the nature of Islamic governance--a debate that has great political impact even today.

Some Islamic resurgents insist that Islam is not compatible with Western concepts of democracy and civil society, ironically agreeing with their Western enemies that the conflicts consuming the world are indeed the result of a Clash of Civilizations. 35 This point of view is by no means unanimous, however, and many other new Muslim leaders see democracy, civic freedom, and the rule of law as deeply consistent with Islam. 36 This mode of thought is referred to by various terms including neo-modernism, Islamic liberalism, and, simply, democratic Islam.

The precise strengths and ideological emphases of democratic Islam vary by nation. In general, however, the Muslim democrats embrace the concept of constitutional government, endorse a balance of state powers, support civic freedoms, and, to some degree, insist on a separation of religious and state authority. Muslim democrats typically do not support the full privatization of religion, in other words, the complete retreat of religion from public life and its relegation to a strictly private realm. Some Western commentators argue that this unwillingness, or inability, to totally separate religion from politics is a recipe for political authoritarianism.37 Salman Rushdie, referring to recent intercommunal riots in India, made the generalization, "What happened in India happened in God's name. The problem's name is God." 38

It is clear that the political theory of Islam has long been shifting to accommodate the changing reality. The debate has by no means been resolved in favor of an Islamic state (al-dawlah al-islamiyyah), despite the fact that this notion has acquired a talismanic quality among certain Muslim political groups. The gauging of the Muslim population's position, overall, is inhibited by the authoritarian nature of many Muslim governments, which limit dissent and rely on their military and security forces to stay in power. Furthermore, many contemporary nation-states in the Muslim world--whether monarchical, dictatorial, semidictatorial, or democratic--are completely detached from the prophetic or caliphal model of Islam's past. Adding to the confusion is the fact that these states invariably call themselves "Islamic."

The View of the Other: Muslims in the West
For forty years following the Second World War, the two superpowers offered their ideological systems for the world to imitate, and states were defined by their alignment with one bloc or the other. The end of the Cold War not only meant the overthrow of the bipolar organization of the world, but also challenged established geopolitical understandings. In the post­Cold War period, globalization quickly became a dominant trend, but was countered by native peoples' growing interest in their local cultures, which often translated into an increasing assertion of nationalism and religion. In this sense, as people sought new ways to distinguish "us" from "them," the world's cultures were simultaneously coming together and moving apart.

The emergence of a religiocultural paradigm was a major development of the period, and with over 1 billion adherents, Islam was the largest religio-cultural bloc. From the perspective of Western Christianity, the rise of Islamic religious fervor evoked a strong sense of déjà vu based on fourteen hundred years of complex, and often turbulent, relations between Christendom and Islam. Popular media stereotypes and oversimplification of Islam has had an enormous impact on the Muslim population living in the West and has often turned them into targets of discrimination and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Despite the contemporary progress of interfaith dialogue and the overall improvement of Christian attitudes toward Islam, even churches can still harbor intransigent voices. Two years ago, the Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, called for the closure of Italy's mosques and an end to immigration by Muslims, who are, in his words, "outside our humanity." 39 Additionally, as discussed above, traditionally liberal Holland experienced the frightening growth of the popularity of far-right Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn until his assassination in May 2002. In polls taken in March 2000, 35 percent of voters in Rotterdam said they had voted for Fortuyn, bringing Holland into line with other European countries where anti-Muslim feeling has revived the neo-Fascist tendencies that have been relatively dormant since the Second World War. 40 Fortuyn's religious views are detailed in his 1997 book, Against the Islamisation of Our Culture, which explains that Islam, unlike his own strongly held Christian faith, is a "backward culture," with an inadequate view of God and an inherent hostility toward European culture. He called for massive curbs on Muslim immigration and for greater emphasis to be placed on Holland's Christian heritage. 41

In Norway, too, the 1997 election saw the sudden appearance of the anti-immigrant Progress Party of Carl Hagen, which now holds 25 out of 165 parliamentary seats. Likewise, the Swiss People's Party commands 22.5 percent of the popular vote in Switzerland and has been widely compared to the Freedom Party of Jorg Haider, which in 1999 joined the Austrian coalition government. In Denmark, the rapidly growing ultranationalist DPP has become the third most popular party, benefiting from the country's widespread hatred of Muslims. The DDP's housewife-leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, rails against "welfare cheats" and is famous for her outbursts against Islam. "I think the Muslims are a problem," she stated in a recent interview. "It's a problem in a Christian country to have too many Muslims." 42

One result of these sorts of sentiment may have been seen in Bosnia. Historian Michael Sells drew the following conclusion in his book The Bridge Betrayed.

The violence in Bosnia was a religious genocide in several senses: the people destroyed were chosen on the basis of their religious identity; those carrying out the killings acted with the blessing and support of Christian church leaders; the violence was grounded in a religious mythology that characterized the targeted people as race traitors and the extermination of them as a sacred act; and the perpetrators of the violence were protected by a policy designed by the policy makers of a Western world that is culturally dominated by Christianity. 43

In the aftermath of September 11, Western interest in Islam and Muslims naturally rose dramatically. Media attention became centered on questions like: Is Islam more militant than other religions? Does Islam condone violence and terrorism directed against nonbelievers? Is Islam a threat to the West? In the United States, in particular, these issues have been examined with great intensity in all the venues of public discourse--on television, on the radio, in newspapers, in magazines, and over the Internet. The attitudes of American Muslims are instructively ambiguous. Polls indicate they are highly critical of American foreign policy, for example, on Palestine and Kashmir. Over two thirds believe that the United States could wage the war on terrorism more effectively if it changed policy on the Middle East. Eighty-four percent believe the United States should support a Palestinian state and 70 percent want the United States to reduce its financial support of Israel. Despite these reservations about American policy, less than one in five American Muslims polled after September 11 believed that the United States was waging a war against Islam. 44 Indeed, only 8 percent argued that America was disrespectful toward Islam in general, even though about 52 percent knew of anti-Muslim prejudice in their communities after the attacks. 45

Some of the most audible voices in America, however, have been right-wing intellectuals and conservative Christian pastors whose opinions on Islam have been colored by recent political events, but also by a long history of animosity. Franklin Graham, son of Rev. Billy Graham and a prominent evangelist in his own right, said of Islam: "I believe it's a very evil and wicked religion." Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called Islam a violent religion that wants to "dominate and then, if need be, destroy." 46 His colleague, leading Christian commentator Rev. Jerry Falwell, declared on national television, "I think Muhammad was a terrorist."47

In Europe, too, the public statements of senior officials have reinforced negative DIAimages of Islam. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and the former secretary-general of NATO, Willy Claes, among others, have all made generalized statements denigrating political Islam and identifying it as the greatest threat to Western security since the fall of Communism.48

Implications for Policy
In the period following the Second World War, Western policy circles held the belief that modernization required the separation of religion from public life. However, many political analysts and observers of religious trends in the West have come to realize that, in fact, religious traditions in countries like the United States have continued to play a vital public role. The role of religion in American political life is vague and complicated but its continued presence suggests that it is possible, in fact, for religion and democracy to coexist. 49

In the Muslim world, the role of religion in politics is at least equally complex. As this paper has discussed and will continue to explore, political Islam is not rigidly defined and is even less uniformly practiced. In Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, and Pakistan, a variety of shades of political Islam are practiced. In some cases, as will be shown, democratic behavior and civil institutions are already emerging.

Many Muslim countries, though, are still crippled by unrepresentative, despotic governments that have co-opted the established 'ulama in order to dominate political discourse and manipulate religious interpretation and practice. This has led to the delegitimization of many traditional sources of religious authority (e.g., al-Azhar) and the rise of new, alternate sources of legitimacy. As a result, many of the most significant and popular interpreters of the faith are today found at the periphery of political power.

This has led a number of Islamic movements, ranging from conservative to reformist, to challenge these governments. Some have turned to violence and terrorism to overthrow regimes and impose their vision of an Islamic state. Some, to justify their actions, exploit religion through selective reading and interpretation of sacred texts, history, and doctrine. Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda appeal to grievances shared among many mainstream Arabs and Muslims--grievances over foreign policy issues like Palestine, the American presence in the Gulf, and the Russian presence in Chechnya, as well as domestic complaints against repressive and corrupt governments and failing economies. These groups translate Islam's values of faithful governance, justice, and the requirement to defend a besieged Islam into a call to arms and a legitimatization of the use of force and terrorism. Their ideology creates stark divisions between good and evil, between the world of believers and the world of unbelievers. But this state of affairs, as destabilizing as it is, is only partially representative of the cases of political Islam today.

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© 2006, The Center for Dialogues: Islamic World - U.S. - The West

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