How the West Can Promote an Islamic Reformation

[Truth Seeker]

By Cheryl Benard

Cheryl Benard is a senior political scientist at RAND.

 

Rival versions of Islam are contending for spiritual and political dominance, with immense implications for the rest of the world. By understanding the ongoing ideological struggle within Islam and by distinguishing among the competing strains of Islamic thought, Western leaders can identify appropriate Islamic partners and work with them to discourage extremism and violence as well as to encourage democratization and development.

 

The notion that the outside world should try to nurture a moderate, democratic version of Islam has been in circulation for decades but gained great urgency after Sept. 11, 2001. There is broad agreement that this is a constructive approach. Islam inspires a variety of ideologies and political actions, some of which are inimical to global stability. It therefore seems sensible to foster the strains within Islam that call for a more moderate, democratic, peaceful, and tolerant social order.

 

It is no easy matter to transform a major world religion. If "nation-building" is a daunting task, "religionbuilding" is immeasurably more perilous and complex. Islam is neither a homogeneous entity nor a selfcontained system. Many extraneous issues and problems have become entangled with the religion. Many political actors in the Muslim world deliberately seek to "Islamize" the debate in a way that they think will further their goals.

 

The current crisis in Islam has two main components: a failure to thrive on its own terms and a loss of connection to the global mainstream. The Islamic world has been marked by a long period of backwardness and comparative powerlessness. Many homegrown solutions—such as nationalism, pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, and Islamic revolution—have been attempted without success, leading to frustration and anger.

 

Meanwhile, the Islamic world has both fallen out of step with contemporary global culture and moved increasingly to the margins of the global economy, creating an uncomfortable situation for both sides.

 

Muslims disagree on what to do about the crisis, what has caused it, and what their societies ultimately should look like. For the West, the question is which ideology (or ideologies) to support; with what methods; and with what concrete, realistic goals in mind.

 

An Ideological Spectrum

 

There are essentially four ideological positions in the Muslim world today: fundamentalist, traditionalist, modernist, and secularist. Each group contains subgroups that blur the distinctions among the primary groups. It is important for Western leaders to understand the differences within groups as well as among groups.

 

Fundamentalists reject democratic values and contemporary Western culture. They want an authoritarian, puritanical state to implement their extreme view of Islamic law and morality. They are willing to use innovation and modern technology. They do not shy away from violence.

 

There are two strands of fundamentalism. One, grounded in theology and usually rooted in a religious establishment, belongs to the scriptural fundamentalists. This group includes most of the Iranian revolutionaries, the Saudi-based Wahhabis, and the Kaplan congregation of Turks. The radical fundamentalists, in contrast, are much less concerned with the literal substance of Islam, with which they take considerable liberties either deliberately or because of ignorance of orthodox Islamic doctrine. Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and a large number of other Islamic radical movements and diffuse groups worldwide belong to this category.

 

Traditionalists want a conservative society. They are suspicious of modernity, innovation, and change. They are also divided into two groups. The distinction is significant.

 

The conservative traditionalists believe that Islamic law and tradition ought to be rigorously and literally followed. They see a role for the state and for the political authorities in encouraging or at least facilitating this. However, they do not generally favor violence and terrorism. They concentrate their efforts on the daily life of society. Their goal is to preserve orthodox norms and values and conservative behavior to the fullest extent possible. Their posture is one of resistance to change. The temptations and the pace of modern life are seen as posing major threats.

 

The reformist traditionalists believe that Islam, to remain viable and attractive throughout the ages, must be prepared to make some concessions in the application of orthodoxy. They are prepared to discuss reforms and reinterpretations. Their posture is one of cautious adaptation to change, being flexible on the letter of the law to conserve the spirit of the law.

 

Modernists want the Islamic world to become part of global modernity. They want to reform Islam to bring it into line with the modern age. They actively seek far-reaching changes to the current orthodox understanding and practice of Islam. They want to jettison the burdensome ballast of local and regional tradition that, over the centuries, has intertwined itself with Islam.

 

They further believe in the historicity of Islam—that Islam as it was practiced in the days of the Prophet reflected eternal truths as well as historical circumstances that were appropriate to the time but are no longer valid. They believe that the essential core of Islamic belief not only will remain undamaged but will be strengthened by changes, even very substantial changes, that reflect changing times, social conditions, and historical circumstances. Their core values—the primacy of the individual conscience and of a community based on social responsibility, equality, and freedom—are easily compatible with modern democratic norms.

 

Secularists want the Islamic world to accept a division of mosque and state in the manner of Western industrial democracies, with religion relegated to the private sphere. They further believe that religious customs must be in conformity with the law of the land and human rights. The Turkish Kemalists, who placed religion under the firm control of the state, represent the secularist model in Islam.

 

These positions should be viewed as segments on a continuum, rather than divergent categories. There are no clear boundaries among them. Some traditionalists overlap with fundamentalists. The most modernist of the traditionalists are almost modernists. The most extreme modernists are similar to secularists. At the same time, the groups hold distinctly different positions on issues that have become contentious in the Islamic world today, including political and individual freedom, education, the status of women, criminal justice, the legitimacy of reform and change, and attitudes toward the West.

 

An Agenda for Reform

 

What the roiling ideological ferment requires from the West is both a firm commitment to fundamental Western values and a sequence of flexible postures suited to different Islamic contexts, populations, and countries. This approach could help to develop civil, democratic Islam while giving the West the versatility to deal appropriately with different settings.

 

The following outline describes what such a strategy might look like. It rests on "five pillars of democracy" for the Islamic world. The pillars correspond to the postures that the West should take toward the four ideological groups and toward ordinary citizens in Muslim countries.

 

1. Support the modernists first, promoting their version of Islam by equipping them with a broad platform to articulate and to disseminate their views. It is tempting to choose the traditionalists as the primary agents for fostering democratic Islam, and this appears to be the course that the West is inclined to take. However, some very serious problems argue against taking such a course.

 

Overendorsing the traditionalists could undermine the ongoing internal reform effort within Islam and hinder those—the modernists—whose values are genuinely compatible with our own. Of all the groups, the modernists are the most congenial to the values and spirit of modern democratic society. We need to advance their vision of Islam over that of the traditionalists.

 

Modernism, not traditionalism, is what worked for the West. This included the necessity to depart from, modify, and selectively ignore elements of the original religious doctrine. The Old Testament is not different from the Koran in endorsing conduct and containing a number of rules and values that are unthinkable, not to mention illegal, in modern society. This does not pose a problem in the West, because few people today would insist that we should all be living in the exact literal manner of the Biblical patriarchs. Instead, we allow our vision of the true message of Judaism or Christianity to transcend the literal text, which we regard as history and legend. That is exactly the approach proposed by Islamic modernists.

 

Secularists are also close to the West in terms of their values and policies. But some secularists are unacceptable to the West because of their reflexive anti- Americanism or other positions. The secularists also have trouble appealing to the traditional sectors of an Islamic audience.

 

For these reasons, the modernists are the best partners for the West. Unfortunately, they are generally in a weaker position than the fundamentalists and traditionalists, lacking powerful backing, financial resources, an effective infrastructure, and a public platform. Therefore, Western leaders should support the modernists by these means:

 

• Publish and distribute their works at subsidized cost.

• Encourage them to write for mass audiences and for youth.

• Introduce their views into the curriculum of Islamic education.

• Make their religious opinions and judgments available to a mass audience to compete with the fundamentalists and traditionalists, who have web sites, publishing houses, schools, institutes, and many other vehicles for disseminating their views.

• Position modernism and secularism as counterculture options for disaffected Islamic youth.

• Use the media and educational curricula in suitable countries to foster an awareness of their pre-Islamic and non-Islamic histories and cultures.

 

2. Support the traditionalists enough to keep them viable against the fundamentalists (if and wherever those are the only choices). Among the traditionalists, the West should embolden those who are the relatively better match for modern civil society: the reformist traditionalists. The West should support the traditionalists against the fundamentalists in these ways:

 

• Publicize traditionalist criticism of fundamentalist violence and extremism.

• Encourage disagreements between traditionalists and fundamentalists.

• Discourage alliances between traditionalists and fundamentalists.

• Encourage cooperation between modernists and reformist traditionalists.

• Where appropriate, educate the traditionalists to debate the fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are often rhetorically superior, while traditionalists practice a politically inarticulate "folk Islam." In places such as Central Asia, traditionalists may need to be trained in orthodox Islam to be able to stand their ground against fundamentalists.

• Increase the presence and profile of modernists in traditionalist institutions.

• Encourage the traditionalists who support the Hanafi school of Islamic law as a way to counter the conservative Wahhabi-supported Hanbali school of Islamic law.

• Encourage the popularity and acceptance of Sufism, a traditionalist form of Islamic mysticism that represents an open, intellectual interpretation of Islam.

 

3. Oppose the fundamentalists energetically by striking at the vulnerabilities in their Islamic and ideological credentials. Expose things that neither the youthful idealists in their target audience nor the pious traditionalists can condone about the fundamentalists: their corruption, their brutality, their ignorance, the bias and manifest errors in their application of Islam, and their inability to lead and to govern. The West should fight the fundamentalists in these ways:

 

• Challenge their interpretation of Islam, and expose their inaccuracies.

• Reveal their linkages to illegal groups and activities.

• Publicize the consequences of their violent acts.

• Demonstrate their inability to develop their countries and communities in positive ways.

• Target the messages to youth, pious traditionalists, Muslim minorities in the West, and women.

• Portray violent extremists and terrorists accurately as disturbed and cowardly, not as heroes.

• Encourage journalists to investigate corruption, hypocrisy, and immorality in fundamentalist and terrorist circles.

• Encourage divisions among fundamentalists.

 

One strategy holds great promise. Despite the success of radical fundamentalism in mobilizing discontented young people, especially young men, it has many features that should turn young people away. This major flaw in fundamentalist political strategy has not so far been exploited.

Radical Islam does not value young lives very highly. By manipulating youthful idealism and their sense of drama and heroics, radical Islam turns young people into cannon fodder and suicide bombers. Madrassas (the fundamentalist schools) specifically educate boys to die young, to become martyrs. If Muslim youth ever begin to look at things through a generational lens, as Western youth did in the 1960s, they may begin to ask why most suicide bombers and martyrs are under the age of 30. You don’t have to be young to strap explosives onto yourself. If it’s such a wonderful thing to do, why aren’t older people doing it?

 

4. Support the secularists on a case-by-case basis. The West should encourage secularists to recognize fundamentalism as a common enemy and discourage secularist alliances with anti-U.S. forces. The West should also support the idea that religion and state can be separate in Islam, too, and that the separation will not endanger the faith but, in fact, can strengthen it.

 

5. Develop secular civic and cultural institutions and programs. Western organizations can help to develop independent civic organizations that can provide a space in the Islamic world for ordinary citizens to educate themselves about the political process and to articulate their views.

 

Any strategy of this sort should be pursued with a wariness of the potential for backlash. The alignment of U.S. policymakers with particular Islamic positions could endanger or discredit the very groups and people the West is seeking to help. Partnerships that may seem appropriate in the short term, such as affiliations with conservative traditionalists, could provoke unintended consequences in the long term. To prevent this, the West needs to adhere consistently and faithfully to its core values of democracy, equality, individual freedom, and social responsibility.

 

http://www.rand.org/publications/ra...04/pillars.html

[Truth Seeker]

You can now see what we are up against - The only solution to build the intellectual and poltical strength of the muslims so that they can see clearly the kafirs plans.

[Conscious Manipulation]

asalaam

 

Here's an interesting article I just came across on another discussion board. It's an attempted intellectual response to the criticisms "fundamentalists" like Sayid Qutb make against Western values. It's rather long but very interesting.

 

 

July 02, 2004, 12:30 a.m.

Land of the Free

The Islamic critique cuts deep, but there is an answer.

 

By Dinesh D'Souza

 

Behind the physical attacks on the West and its allies is an intellectual attack — an assault not just on what America does but also on what America is. So far the U.S. government's military response — in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere — has been reasonably effective against terrorism and its sponsors. But our intellectual response has been weak. This matters, because ultimately it is not enough to shut down the al Qaeda training camps. We must also stop the "jihad factories," the mosques and educational institutions that are turning out tens of thousands of aspiring terrorists and suicide bombers. We cannot kill all these people; we have to change their minds. Yet America is making few converts in the Muslim world.

 

 

The problem is that we have not effectively answered the strongest version of the Islamic critique of the United States. Usually Americans seek to defend their society by appealing to its shared principles. Thus our leaders remind us that America is a free society, or a prosperous society, or a diverse and pluralistic culture, or a nation that gives women the same rights as men. The most intelligent Islamic critics acknowledge all this, but they dismiss it as worthless triviality.

 

One of the leading theoreticians of Islamic fundamentalism is the Egyptian thinker, Sayyid Qutb, who has been called "the brains behind bin Laden." Like the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center, Qutb was a man who lived in the West and knew its ways. After studying in America, he wrote a book called The America That I Saw in which he argued that his familiarity with the United States was his basis for rejecting it. Qutb wrote that he was shocked by the rampant prejudice of Americans, especially toward Arabs and Muslims. He professed outrage at the materialism and sexual promiscuity of American culture. Even the church, Qutb commented, has become a place for amusement and social interaction rather than worship.

 

In his later writings, Qutb alleged that America used to be Christian; now it is pagan. The Muslim believer, he wrote, has no reason to envy or emulate the ways of America; rather, true Muslims should feel contempt for those ways. "The believer from his height looks down at the people drowning in dirt and mud."

 

How, in Qutb's view, did America reach its sorry state? One problem, Qutb said, is that American and indeed Western institutions are fundamentally atheist, based on a clear rejection of divine authority. "Democracy" and "capitalism" are in Qutb's view atheistic ideas. When democrats say that sovereignty flows from the people, this means that the people — not God — are the rulers. So democracy is a form of idol worship. So, too, Qutb insisted that capitalism, which is based on the notion that the market and not God is the best arbitrator of value, is a form of idolatry.

 

A second problem, Qutb wrote, is that the core principle of America is liberty — the right to determine one's own destiny — and this, he argued, is a highly defective principle. The reason is that liberty can be used well or liberty can be used badly. Given what Immanuel Kant called "the warped timber of humanity," the human propensity for selfishness and vice, Qutb argued that freedom will often be used badly.

 

For evidence of this, he said, just look at what goes on in America. Qutb pointed to divorce, family breakdown, homosexuality, promiscuity, and the triviality and vulgarity of American popular culture as proof that human beings cannot be expected to use freedom except to gratify their basest impulses. Indeed, Qutb sternly charged that America is materially prosperous but morally rotten. In a famous formulation that has stirred up widespread debate in the Muslim world, Qutb insisted that the West is a once-religious civilization that has now been reduced to what he termed jahiliyya — the condition of social chaos, moral diversity, sexual permissiveness, polytheism, unbelief, and idolatry that was said to characterize the Bedouin tribes before the advent of Islam.

 

Qutb's alternative to America and the West is Islam, which in his book Social Justice in Islam he terms "an unparalleled revolution in human thinking" that provides the only solution to "this unhappy, perplexed, and weary world." Islam, Qutb emphasized, is not merely a moral code or set of beliefs; it is a way of life based upon the divine government of the universe. The very term "Islam" means "submission" to the authority of Allah. This worldview requires that religious, economic, political, and civil society be based on the Koran, the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and the Sharia or Islamic law. Islam regulates religious belief and practice, but also the administration of the state, the conduct of war, the making of treaties, divorce and inheritance, property rights and contracts. In short, the advocates of Islamic fundamentalism like Qutb seek to bring the whole framework of human life under divine — which is to say Islamic — supervision.

 

Qutb admits that notions of "submission" and obedience may sound alien to Western ears. In his view, this is because Western society is based on freedom whereas Islamic society is based on virtue. Qutb gives an example of what he means by Islamic virtue. There is a story in the Islamic classical tradition about a man and a woman who came to the prophet Muhammad and said, "Messenger of Allah, purify us." Muhammad asked, "From what am I to purify you?" They replied, "From adultery." Muhammed asked the two people whether they were insane or drunk. Assured that they were not, Muhammad asked them again, "What have you done?" They confessed that they had committed adultery. Then Muhammad gave the order, and the two were stoned to death. While the couple was being buried, onlookers scorned them, but Muhammad chided the scoffers. The couple had repented, he said, and now they were with Allah.

 

"This is Islam," Qutb wrote. Analyzing the incident, he pointed out that no one had witnessed the adultery, and the prophet initially sought to attribute the couple's confession to the influence of alcohol or mental disturbance. Still, they had persisted. Finally Muhammad had no choice but to have them stoned in accordance with God's law. Qutb posed an interesting question: why did the couple demand to be stoned? His answer: "It was the desire to be purified of a crime of which none save Allah was cognizant. It was the shame of meeting Allah unpurified from a sin which they had committed."

This, in brief, is Qutb's defense of Islamic theocracy. Islamic societies may be poor, Qutb admitted, but at least they are seeking to implement the will of God. Even if they are failing at this, Qutb said, at least they are trying. And that — he concluded — makes Islamic society superior to Western society.

 

How should we in America evaluate, and answer, Qutb's critique? We need to take Qutb's views seriously, partly because they are taken seriously in the Islamic world, and partly because for all his vehemence, Qutb is raising deep and fundamental questions. Indeed in some respects the Islamic critique as exemplified by Qutb is similar to the critique that the classical philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, made of freedom. The classical thinkers would have agreed with Qutb that virtue, not freedom, is the ultimate goal of a good society. And in saying this they would be quite right. How, then, can the Islamic argument against America be answered on its own terms?

 

Let us concede at the outset that in a free society freedom will often be used badly. The Islamic critics have a point when they deplore our high crime and illegitimacy rates and the triviality and vulgarity of our popular culture. Indeed some Americans may be tempted to say, "The Muslims have a point about Jerry Springer and Howard Stern. If they will agree to stop bombing our buildings, in exchange for us sending them Springer and Stern to do with as they wish, why not make the deal? We could even throw in some of Springer's guests."

 

But on a less facetious note, we should not be surprised that there is a considerable amount of vice, license, and vulgarity in a free society. Freedom by definition includes freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Given the warped timber of humanity, freedom becomes the forum for the expression of human flaws and weaknesses. On this point Qutb and his fundamentalist followers are quite correct.

 

But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations that a rich and free society offers, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen. The free society does not guarantee virtue any more than it guarantees happiness. But it allows for the pursuit of both — a pursuit rendered all the more meaningful and profound because success is not guaranteed but has to be won through personal striving.

 

By contrast, the theocratic and authoritarian society that Islamic fundamentalists advocate undermines the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue of insufficient in free societies, it is almost nonexistent in Islamic societies, because coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman in Afghanistan or Iran who is required to wear the veil. There is no real modesty in this, because the woman is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue; it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue.

 

Indeed, once the reins of coercion are released, as they were for the 9/11 terrorists, the worst impulses of human nature break loose. Sure enough, the deeply religious terrorists spent their last days in gambling dens, bars, and strip clubs, sampling the licentious lifestyle they were about to strike out against. In this respect they were like the Spartans who, Plutarch tells us, were abstemious in public but privately coveted wealth and luxury. In theocratic societies such as Afghanistan under the Taliban or Iran today, the absence of freedom signals the absence of virtue.

 

This is the argument that Americans should make to people in the Islamic world. It is a mistake to presume that Muslims would be totally unreceptive to it. Islam, which has common roots with Judaism and Christianity, respects the autonomy of the individual soul. Salvation for Muslims, no less than for Jews and Christians, is based on the soul choosing freely to follow God. We can make the case to Muslims that freedom is not a secular invention; rather, freedom is a gift from God. Moreover, it is not the case that Islamic fundamentalists care about virtue while we in the West care only about freedom. We, too, care about virtue; like them, we seek the good society; but we disagree with the Islamic fundamentalists about the best means to achieve this goal. In the Western view, freedom is the necessary precondition for virtue. Without freedom, there is no virtue. I believe this is an argument that well-meaning Muslims would have to consider.

 

The arguments on behalf of freedom, and of America, are not only for the benefit of Muslims in the Arab world; they are also for the benefit of people in America and the West. To help counter the anti-Americanism that we see from Europeans and sometimes even from Americans, we can confidently show our allies, our citizens, and our idealistic young people that America is not simply richer, more varied, and more tolerant, it is also morally superior to the fundamentalists' version of Islamic society. It was Edmund Burke a long time ago who wrote, "To love our country, our country ought to be lovely." Burke's point is that the highest form of patriotism is not based on the dogmatic assertion, "My country, right or wrong." Nor is the highest form of patriotism based on loving your country simply because it is yours. Rather, the highest form of patriotism is based on loving your country because it is good.

 

In my view America, for all its flaws and weaknesses, can meet Burke's test. America merits a rational patriotism that can confront, and answer, the strongest criticisms of this country. Ultimately America is worthy of our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it makes possible for its citizens the good life, and equally important, the life that is good.

 

— Dinesh D'Souza, the Rishwain Scholar at the Hoover Institution, is the author of What's So Great About America.

[Truth Seeker]

Excellent analysis by Qutb but as to the writers point on:

 

"Consider the woman in Afghanistan or Iran who is required to wear the veil. There is no real modesty in this, because the woman is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue; it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue".

 

Incorrect.