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| Dialogue with Orthodox Islam |
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However occupation by foreign powers and colonialisation led to an interruption of this natural process. When the foreign powers finally departed what they left behind was a medley of countries; many of which may have looked good on a map when the French and British planners created them, but in reality they were completely artificial and did not represent peoples that had been bound together by a common and shared history and set of values. In addition, the institutions that Muslims inherited were based on French or British models. By the time the colonial powers left there was no public role for Islam to play in society, Islamic law and education had been devalued and Islamic scholars had been marginalised. With the old well established moral compass no longer available and with social and political institutions that were French or British in origin and lacking in social consensus, it is not surprising that the Muslim world is blighted by instability, coups, tyranny and totalitarianism.
In his new book, entitled "The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization", the Columbia Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Richard Bulliet, argues that comparative stability prevailed in the Islamic world not because of the Ottomans' success but because Islam was playing its traditional role of constraining tyranny.
"The collectivity of religious scholars acted at least theoretically as a countervailing force against tyranny. You had the implicit notion that if Islam is pushed out of the public sphere, tyranny will increase, and if that happens, people will look to Islam to redress the tyranny."
This began to play out during the period. Instead of modernisation, what ensued was what Muslim clerics had long feared: tyranny. What the Arab world should have seen was "not an increase in modernisation so much as an increase in tyranny. By the 1960s, that prophecy was fulfilled. You had dictatorships in most of the Islamic world." Egypt's Gamel Nasser, Syria's Hafez Assad and others came in the guise of Arab nationalists, but they were nothing more than tyrants.
Some Muslims put the blame for the tyranny and the totalitarianism practiced in the Muslim world and the lack of a role for Islam in Muslim societies on western interference. There is little doubt that historically western nations have a share in the responsibility for bringing the Muslim world to where it is; they occupied it, created artificial entities and left the conditions for tyranny to arise. However, arguably the Muslim rulers who practice tyranny upon the Muslim masses and the Muslim elites who support them also have a share of the blame. However some Muslims place all the blame on the West for the current situation of the Muslims and seek to kill western civilians so that westerners also taste the pain of what Muslims have been forced to suffer. Their aim, we are told, is to push for a civilisational war between the western and Muslim worlds; one in which all Muslims will be forced to join in from the sidelines: the irony is that the Lewis-Bush doctrine in Iraq has done far more to realise such an aim than any preachers from within the fold of Islam could have achieved.
The majority of Islamic traditional scholars reject the deliberate killing of civilians, and thus most scholars rejected the attacks that took place on America on September 11th 2001. However in the tyrannies of the Muslim world, it is extremely difficult to start a debate upon the correct response to western imperialism using Islamic texts and principles. Islamic scholars in the Muslim world are unable to debate this or other social issues openly because the current regimes in the Muslim world don't tolerate such debate and discussion. For this reason the public scholars, appointed by the governments to preach a message of the governments choosing, lack credibility in their pronouncements. These governments view any genuine Islamic debate as a threat and they fear that once started it will be directed towards them: exposing their own lack of legitimacy and their ongoing tyranny. Whilst some Muslim scholars are kept quiet by paying them off - given government funded positions where they are only able to state the official government position - many others remain locked up in prisons because in the past they have dared to criticise the actions and policies of Muslim governments. Other Islamic scholars practice self censorship of the subjects they will discuss because they are afraid of the consequences of being seen to be critical of the government.
Even though orthodox Islam has not played a public role in most Muslim societies for the last century and Islamic scholars and teachings have been marginalised, in many Muslim societies a revival in Islamic practice and teachings is taking place. For more and more Muslims, Islam is becoming a major factor in shaping their attitudes, behaviour and perspective. Many ideas such as Arab nationalism, secularism and socialism have been discredited in the Muslim world by regimes that claimed to be socialist, secular, or pan-Arabist but brought totalitarianism and tyranny and little material progress. Today however, the only public choices that are being presented to Muslims are chosen by governments that are discredited and there is a distinct lack of independent voices - Islamic or otherwise - for people to listen to. Those that exist operate under persecution. Given this lack of open political debate and the sensation of western armies occupying Muslim lands, with the blessing of many Muslim governments, it is unsurprising that many Muslims feel deeply alienated from their own governments and feel closer to those who enact any form of violence against western targets.
There is a way of tackling chronic instability in the Muslim world caused mainly by oppressive pro-western dictators. However this requires western politicians and intellectuals to accept that Islam should be allowed to play its natural role in Muslim societies: outside attempts to dictate a secular Islam will fail and occupation of Muslim lands by foreign armies is counterproductive and will just generate more recruits for countering, by any means, the western onslaught. They should do this even if they disagree with some of orthodox Islam’s positions. There are too many Muslims in the world for their beliefs and religion to be sidelined against their wishes. Globalisation means that we will be affected by what happens in other parts of the world. Muslims need to be allowed to complete the transformation of their societies without western interference - a process that started in the nineteenth century - so that they too can find their place in the world of the twenty-first century with governments that fairly represent their own beliefs and values. If liberal and secular thinkers find they have strong disagreements with Muslims then they should try to engage in thought provoking debate with Muslims on the rights and wrongs of their beliefs and system. The approach of the neo-conservatives and intellectuals like Bernard Lewis who want to dictate the reformation of Islam, import American defined democracy upon the Muslim world and occupy large parts of it, will bring about a conflict that will last for many generations. To avoid this, Western politicians and thinkers must find a constructive way of dealing with Muslims and Islam based around the notion that Muslims must define their own political destiny.
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