At the
beginning of the twentieth century, almost every single Muslim intellectual was
in love with the West. They wanted their countries to look like Britain and
France, at that time the leaders of secular, democratic modernity. Some even
went so far as to say that the Europeans were better Muslims than the Muslims
themselves, because their modernized societies approached the egalitarian ideals
of the Quran more closely than anything that prevailed in traditional, Islamic
countries. Muhammad Abdu (1849–1905), Grand
Mufti of Egypt, was profoundly disturbed by the British occupation of his
country, but was well versed in European culture and felt entirely at home with
Western people. After a trip to Paris, he is reported to have said: “In France I
saw Muslims but no Islam; in Egypt I see Islam but no Muslims.” In Iran, mullahs
fought alongside secularist intellectuals for democratic, representative
government. When the new parliament was established in 1906, Shaykh Muhammad
Husain Naini (1850–1936) argued that it was the
next best thing to the coming of the Shiite Messiah, who was expected to
establish a rule of justice in the last days, because it would curb the tyranny
of the Shah.
It is
important to remember this early enthusiasm. When Muslims first encountered the
modern, democratic West, they did not recoil in visceral disgust, but recognized
that it resonated with their own religious traditions. Today many Muslims and
Westerners regard one another with deep distrust. After the atrocities of
September 11th, many in the West have come to believe that, as Samuel
P. Huntington had predicted, there is indeed a clash of civilizations, because
their religion renders Muslims unfit for modernity. Many are convinced that
“Islam” somehow compels Muslims to commit acts of terror and violence, that it
applauds suicide bombers, and is inherently incompatible with liberal, Western
democracy. This is understandable, since most American and Europeans have very
little understanding of either Islam or the political conditions that have
contributed to our present perilous predicament.
If we
are indeed fighting a “war against terror,” we need accurate information. We
cannot afford to remain in ignorance because the stakes are now too high. It is
vital to know who our enemies are, but it is equally important to know who they
are not. Only a tiny proportion of
Muslims take part in acts of terror and violence. If our media and politicians
continue to denigrate Islam, accepting without question the stereotypical view
that has prevailed in the West since the time of the Crusades, we will
eventually alienate Muslims who have no quarrel with the West, who are either
enjoying or longing for greater democracy, and who are horrified by the
atrocities committed in the name of their faith. We urgently need to build
bridges with the Islamic world. I can think of few projects that are more
crucial at the present time.
That is
why this book is so important. Instead of concentrating on “What went Wrong?” like Bernard Lewis,
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf shows what Islam has going for it, and what it has to
offer the West. He is himself a bridge figure, because he has deep roots in both
worlds. He was educated in Egypt, England, Malaysia and the United States, and
his mosque in New York is only a few blocks away from the site of the World
Trade Center. After September 11th, people often asked me: “Where are
the moderate Muslims?” “Why are they not speaking out?” In Imam Rauf, we have a
Muslim who can speak to Western people in a way that they can
understand.
One
of the most important assets of the United States in their struggle against
terrorism is the Muslim community of America. Many American Muslims have long
been aware that they can practice their religion far more creatively in the
United States than they could in their countries of origin. Years before 9/11,
they were trying to build a vibrant and strong “American Islam,” bringing up
their children to be good Muslims and patriotic Americans. When I visited such a
community in 1999, I suggested that they should ~ at least in some respects ~
look at the example of American Catholics. At the time of the War of
Independence against Britain, only one percent of the colonists were Catholic.
Catholics were a hated and despised minority: they were thought to be in league
with Antichrist, to be ruled by a tyrannical Pope, and to be indelibly opposed
to freedom and democracy. Nobody would have dreamed that a Catholic would one
day become the President of the United States. These were bad times for American
Catholics, but in the Nineteen-Sixties, it was the bishops of the United States
who were largely instrumental in pushing forward the reforms of the Second
Vatican Council. Their faith had been invigorated by the American ideals of
freedom, equality, and transparency in leadership and, like Pope John XXIII,
they wanted the bracing air of modernity to sweep through the musty corridors of
the Vatican. Had this spirit prevailed, the Catholic Church might have avoided
some of its present problems.
American Muslims could exert a similar influence on the
Islamic world, and prove that it is indeed possible to live according to the
ideals of the Quran in the United States. But they cannot do that if they are
shunned as potential terrorists and feel constantly on the defensive. It is
vital that Western people realize that Islam is not an alien creed, but that
this tradition is deeply in tune with their own ideals. In these pages, they
will see that for centuries, Muslims created societies that were far more
tolerant and pluralistic than European Christendom; that there are important
principles of Muslim law that are highly congenial to democracy; and that the
Quran stresses the importance of justice and equity that are so central to the
Western ideal. They will learn that Muslims helped Europeans to rebuild their
culture after the long trauma of the Dark Ages, by reacquainting them with the
philosophical, scientific and mathematical heritage of ancient
Greece.
But
herein lies the rub. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, while European
scholars were sitting at the feet of Muslim scholars in Spain, the European
Crusaders were slaughtering Muslims in Palestine and Syria. There was, at this
formative period of Western civilization, an unhealthy imbalance. In their
efforts to build a new identity, Western Christians saw Jews and Muslims, the
two victims of the Crusades, as a foil, a symbol of everything that they
believed they were not (or feared that they were). They tended to project buried
anxieties about their own behaviour onto these two “enemies of civilization.”
Thus it was during the Crusades that scholar monks of Europe stigmatised Islam
as the religion of the sword, even though Christians had themselves instigated
brutal holy wars against Muslims in the Middle East. During the Crusades, hatred
of Jews became a chronic disease in Europe, and this shameful tradition led to
some of the worst crimes of Western history. But our Islamophobia is equally
engrained, and the cruel atrocities of September 11th have confirmed
many in the old crusading prejudice.
We
now need to cultivate a more just and balanced view of Islam. The old medieval
hatred was fuelled by denial. It is always difficult to forgive people we have
harmed. Crusading Christians found it impossible to appreciate the strengths of
Muslim civilization, because at a subconscious level, they knew that they had
sinned. Jesus, after all, had told his followers to love their enemies, not to
exterminate them. Today Western people must become aware that during the last
century, their foreign policy has contributed to the present crisis. As Imam
Rauf shows in these pages, by supporting undemocratic regimes in the Middle
East, for example, Britain and America have not only failed to live up to their
own ideals, but have unwittingly fostered the growth of extremism. Nothing can
excuse the massacre of September 11th or the suicide bombing in
Israel and Palestine. Imam Rauf explains the causes of the malaise and abuse of
religion in some parts of the Muslim world. Western people rightly demand that
Muslims become more openly self-critical, but they cannot therefore turn a blind
eye to their own shortcomings.
Imam
Rauf’s book has a positive message. It helps Muslims and Western peoples to see
a way out of the present impasse, in which atrocity leads to retaliation, attack
to counter attack, to pre-emptive strike and a new spate of terror. If we are to
break out of this vicious cycle, we must learn not simply to tolerate but to
appreciate one another. The West has lost much of the admiration that it enjoyed
in the days of Muhammad Abdu, partly because of its own misguided policies. In
the middle of the twentieth century, the Canadian scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith
issued a solemn warning. A healthy, functioning Islam is crucial for world
peace, because for centuries it helped Muslims to cultivate values and ideals
that we in the West also share, because they spring from a common tradition.
Muslims must learn to accommodate the West, and not fall prey to the lure of
extremist rejection of Western power. But the peoples of the West must also
realise “that they share the planet not with inferiors but with equals.” If they
fail, Smith concluded, both “will have failed to come to terms with the
actualities of the twentieth century.” The
blazing towers of the World Trade Center symbolize, perhaps, our collective
failure to pass this test. This book shows that the only possible way forward is
by the assiduous cultivation of mutual respect. It should be read, but then ~
even more important ~ it should be acted upon.