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| How Should the West View Islam’s Political Aspirations? |
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Having warned about the misapplication of unhelpful metaphors such as 'militant' there is one widely quoted western metaphor that Muslims can very much appreciate: 'the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there'. Muslims, who do not share the same past as their western counterparts are puzzled that it is the spiritual basis to Islamic polity, more than Islamic polity itself, which is the cause for secular concern. Islam's political philosophy and its detailed systems of ruling and economy are a major theme of writing in this magazine and elsewhere, but what of Islam's spiritual and moral bases? The following injunctions of the prophet Muhammad are worthy of consideration: 'you should be humble so that no-one boasts over his neighbour nor anyone oppresses his neighbour'; 'Allah is not merciful to him who is not merciful to people'; 'he is not of us who has no compassion for our little ones and does not honour our old ones'; 'charity is due upon every limb of a human being on each day that the sun rises. To act justly between two people is charity. To help a man with his riding beast, or to load his provisions on it or lift them up for him is charity. A good word is charity. Every step going to prayer is charity. Removing from the road what causes harm is charity.'
The sentiments expressed in these religious texts can be found in other religions, but what distinguished Islam from them is the existence of a detailed system of governance that preserved these values for the good of mixed communities comprising both Muslims and non-Muslims from many different races. Islam was not, as Daniel Pipes declared, a mere host' to 'one of the world's great civilisations'; it was the basis of a civilisation, that was rigid enough to maintain its character over thirteen centuries and flexible enough to maintain its relevance, as G B Shaw said, to the 'changing phase of existence' in 'every age'. Its political appeal to Muslims today goes far deeper than its antidote to the ills of western neo-colonialism. It is a way of life that successfully harmonised between the spiritual and temporal spheres of human social activity where the west historically failed. Our pasts are indeed foreign to each other, but I believe that there is good promise for the future if the western and Islamic worlds better understand each others fears and hopes and their historical and ideological bases.
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