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| Britishness and Identity Politics |
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Helpful advice from the Muslim experience?
A system much admired in European history for its achievements in Andalusia was the Islamic Caliphate. From its outset in the Middle East the Caliphate achieved a largely cohesive citizenship between people of different races and religions. In the context of that diverse society Sir Thomas Arnold once wrote:
"We have never heard about any attempt to compel Non-Muslim parties to adopt Islam or about any organized persecution aiming at exterminating Christianity. If the Caliphs had chosen one of these plans, they would have wiped out Christianity as easily as what happened to Islam during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; by the same method which Louis XIV followed to make Protestantism a creed whose followers were to be sentenced to death; or with the same ease of keeping the Jews away from Britain for a period of three hundred fifty years. The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christiandom, throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of Mohammedan [sic] governments towards them”. Arnold, Sir Thomas W. THE PREACHING OF ISLAM, A HISTORY OF THE PROPAGATION OF THE MUSLIM FAITH, Westminster A. Constable & Co., London, 1896, p. 80.
There are two essential points to consider based upon the model that Arnold describes. Firstly, the level of commitment to the state that needed to be shown by any citizen was obedience to the law. That was all. Not that they be forced to believe in the source of that law. Had non-Muslims been asked to proclaim that the source of law was divine it would have violated the Islamic principle: ‘there is no compulsion in the deen (religion).’ People who did not share the fundamental beliefs and values of lslam were not expected to change their religion to Islam, nor to omit verses from the Torah and Bible to conform with Islam. To ask for that would have been tantamount to a forced conversion, and could only have been described as totalitarian. Of course many will argue that Muslims are also not being asked to leave their faith, yet what is effectively being asked of Muslims is to secularise their faith to conform with the dominant value system found in western societies. As Islam does not recognise a separation between religion and state, asking Muslims to adopt divergent values and concepts is tantamount to asking them to leave important parts of their holistic faith.
The second point to reflect upon is that people in the society Arnold described trusted the system, felt secure and as a consequence felt like stakeholders. People feel secure, and consequently feel ‘at home’ when they have equal access to justice, have opportunities for redress and have space to hold on to their beliefs. The Caliphate gave citizens of different faith the space to practice their faith and even exempted them from the obligations of citizenship that were specifically linked to the Islamic belief.
This view that the predominant expectation of any citizen should be no more that to abide by the law and display civility in interaction with others is not unique to the Caliphate. It is one that some brave voices do air, and it is a demonstration of confidence in ones values and state.
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