Islam and modernity by Khwaja Masud

This is a very interesting article on Islam and modernity and it appeared on The News. Here is the full text of it:

How to accept challenge of modernity?



Feuilleton

Prof Khwaja Masud

The only course open to us is to approach modern knowledge with a respectful but independent altitude and to appreciate the teachings of Islam in the light of that knowledge, even though we may be led to differ from those who have gone before us.

Iqbal in the fourth lecture on ‘The reconstruction of religious thought in Islam’ Ideology is born, developed and has its being in dialectic i.e. dynamism fuelled by the struggle to overcome contradictions which come to the fore in its onward march. It is through constant questioning, argumentation and dialogue that the issues are threshed with the consequence that the grain is sifted from the chaff.

It is not by re-examining old problems with old terminology that an ideology can save itself from ever threatening anachronism. It renews itself by occupying itself with the questions that are the stuff of every day social life.

The question is: why have the Muslims proved themselves to be incapable of tackling their intellectual, social, economic and political problems?

Is Islam a bundle of rites and dogmas as visualised by our religious leaders? Or, is Islam a permanent revolution, ever inspiring its followers to intellectual, cultural and spiritual regeneration? Can Islam give a befitting response to the scientific and technological revolution? As electronic highway is piercing through all geographical and ideological frontiers, can we present a culture, which may respond to this onslaught?

If the answer to all these questions is in the affirmative, then how do we explain the prevalent hibernation of the ummah?

So far as the ummah is concerned, the trouble began when the priests claimed that they had monopoly over truth and the rulers claimed that they had monopoly over power. Not only people who claim infallibility in religion or political power do immense damage to society but these also impoverish human knowledge and understanding by the systematic suppression of supposedly subversive ideas.

Human creativity takes a marvellous diversity of forms. To a closed mind, dissent is anathema. Dogmatism flourishes. Fanaticism deals a fatal blow to the flourishing of culture. The spiritual authoritarianism breeds intolerance of the most pernicious kind, considering the slightest dissent to be punishable by death.

Nietzsche says: “Gaza not too deeply lest the abyss gazes unto you.” Those who claim to be the bearers of absolute truth are people who have gazed too deeply into the abyss. They have committed the sin of hubris i.e. overweening. This hubris enslaves people spiritually. It breeds bigotry, leading to violence, chaos anarchy and terrorism.

Iqbal says: “Tapping nature and history as the source of knowledge, Islam ushers in the modern outlook.” Unfortunately, under the malignant influence of orthodoxy, turning their back on nature and history, the Muslim intelligentsia has lost the grip on reality and hence the ability to change it.

No wonder, the Muslim intellectuals have sealed their minds to the philosophical, sociological and scientific discoveries of the modern world. They have set aside the dictum of Iqbal: “Life is a process of progressive creation and necessitates that each generation, guided but unhampered by the predecessors, should be permitted to solve its own problems.”

According to Iqbal: “For the purposes of knowledge, the Muslim culture fixes its gaze on the finite and the concrete.” If we were to follow this rule, we shall find the concrete and finite truth by meeting headlong the burning problems of the ummah. Had it not been the perennial temptation of our ulema to escape from reality, from the present, from history and modern science? Little wonder the ummah that gave the world Bu Ali Sina, Ibn Rushd, Razi, Omar Khayyam and Rumi, is so deficient in science and philosophy.

We must learn to distinguish between modernism and modernity. Modernism is a narrower term, referring specific movements in modern culture. Modernity is a much broader term. It refers to the period stretching from the Renaissance to the present. The three pillars of modernity are: rationality, objectivity and empiricism. Modernity started when Descartes proclaimed: “I think, therefore I am.”

Mohammad Arkoun, professor emeritus of Islamic thought at the Sorbonne University, in his book, Rethinking Islam, makes a strong plea for integrating Islam with modernity. He believes that the essence of Islam is tolerance, liberalism and acquiescence to modernity. Iqbal has also made the same plea, as quoted in the beginning of the article.

Arkoun argues that the philosophical and cultural achievements of the early Islamic era in bringing together Quranic revelations and Greek rational humanism have long been abandoned. He believes that the Qur’aan must be re-experienced as a religious revelation that brings about an inner transformation of the individual and inspires a devotional love of God that transcends all ritual, legal, sectarian and institutional forms.

While Arkoun is a devout believer in the message of the Quran, he says that the covenant between God and man has been allowed to deteriorate into legal codes, rituals and ideology of domination in the interest of religions and political elites.

The renewal of the Quranic revelation, according to Arkoun, depends on a renewal of the philosophic, scientific and humanistic culture — a Muslim renaissance that would allow for an assimilation of the scientific, technological and information revolutions. This would establish the foundation for a critical formulation of Islamic modernity. The Muslims must approach the west with the Quranic dictum: “Take hold of that which is pure and reject that which is impure.”

It is by critical acceptance of modern knowledge that can and must give birth to Islamic renaissance, enabling the ummah to redeem lost glory.

The writer is a former principal of Gordon College, Rawalpindi. Email: khmasud22@yahoo.com