Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions?

2002 Report (Continued)


Defining Islam

This session focused on the questions of “who speaks for Islam?” and whether Islam is a political religion, as well as considering how Islam is perceived by the Other. There was disagreement among the Muslim participants and panelists as to whether Islam is a faith to be defined by the individual according to his reading of the sacred texts, or whether Islam is rather a way of life that cannot be separated from government. A consensus was established that there is a difference between who should speak for Islam and who does speak for Islam. Osama Bin Laden, for example, does not have the support of most Muslims, and yet he tries to claim the authority to speak for the Muslim world, which he is sometimes granted—at least in the mind of the Other. The discussion of Western perceptions restated that Islam is not a monolith and that the West should develop a more complex understanding of the Islamic world. There was no such agreement, however, when it came to whether the West is indeed “hated” by the Muslim world and, if so, why. Likewise, conflicting opinions emerged as to whether the West’s perceptions of Islam constitute discrimination and vilification, or whether these attitudes and fears are driven (or justified) by a recent history of Americans being killed by people claiming Islam as their motivation.

Omayma Abdel-Latif, political correspondent for Al-Ahram, Egypt, was the first panelist to address “Who Speaks for Islam?” She took issue with the question itself, pointing out that by asking this, we imply that there should be one person or entity who speaks for the whole Islamic world, which would be an oversimplification given the diversity of Islamic voices. Therefore, no one should speak for Islam as a whole, though certainly there is an established, government-backed religious establishment that does try to do so. However, Islamic religious texts say there should be no mediation between the individual and God, so the position of this establishment has no actual legitimacy. In fact, the alliance between the religious authorities and the state is an issue of increasing debate in the Muslim world. Abdel-Latif maintained, though, that it would take at least a generation to break this unfortunate alliance. She concluded by asking why we would want an institution to be able to speak for Islam and if its purpose would be to achieve reconciliation with extremists.

The second speaker on this question was Mohamed Talbi, 10 professor emeritus of history at the University of Tunis, Tunisia. His answer was clear: the only one who can speak for Islam is God. Although there are many Muslims, there is one Islam, articulated by the Qur’an. According to Talbi, the elite today are largely de-Islamized and cannot speak for the average Muslim. The ’ulama 11 are reading scripture with “the eyes of the salaf.” 12 But what is required is for the Qur’an to be read with “the eyes of the living.” Furthermore, the mixture of currents within the Muslim world—which mirrors the differences that exist within other religions—also shows that there can be no unified voice but the Qur’an itself. Muslims must read this text rather than base their religious identity on interpretations, which are tainted by human intervention and political agendas. The Qur’an must serve as the only reference for the West, as well, if it wishes to speak about Islam.

Following this analysis, Haji Mahfuz Haji Omar, chief of youth of the Islamic Party of Malaysia, defended his party’s view of Islam as a political religion. He argued that, in addition to being a bond between an individual and God, as Professor Talbi claimed, Islam is a way of life, as is prescribed by the divine teachings. Thus Islamic law must bear upon the system of government in a Muslim country. Indeed, the flourishing of Islamic civilization during the period of al-Andalus, for instance, coincided with the practice of Islam as a political religion. On the other hand, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, which signaled the separation of church and state in much of the Islamic world, initiated the period of turmoil that has led to the current critical situation. Haji Mahfuz continued by explaining that secularism itself has actually caused the suffering of many Muslims (e.g., Afghanistan under the Soviets) and it is in reaction to secularism that extremist “reform” movements have gained momentum.

In contrast to Haji Mahfuz’s argument against the separation of church and state, James Phillips, Middle East policy expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., began his statement on “Islam from the Perspective of the Other” by praising America’s long-standing commitment to this very separation as the foundation of religious tolerance. Phillips maintained that since power corrupts, religious leaders must stay out of politics in order to avoid abuses of power such as the Spanish Inquisition—a manipulation of religion into a strategy to eliminate the Jewish creditors who had financed the king’s war debt. Indeed, the combination of religion and state is a “lethal experiment.” With regard to the perceptions of Islam in the Western world, Phillips admitted that many Americans do equate the Islamic faith with extremist Islamist movements; this conflation is not the fault of the media, but has resulted from decades of experiences in which Americans have been murdered by people claiming Islam as their motivation. Phillips insisted, however, that the Bush administration (despite the typically ahistorical American misstep in using the term “crusade”) does not share this perspective and has made clear that the target of American foreign policy is not Islam, but terrorism. We are now engaged, Phillips said, in a struggle against a radical ideology, a quasi-totalitarian political force that would like to impose its will on Muslims as well as Westerners. In fact, Muslims should be extremely wary of movements like Al-Qaeda, which tend to use violence against their own people in order to export their revolutions within the Islamic world. In conclusion, Phillips stressed that the battle against terrorism is ideological rather than religious or civilizational, and that Osama Bin Laden, power-hungry though he may be, speaks for a cult movement and not for Islam.

Hoda Badran, Egyptian chairperson of the Alliance for Arab Women, presented the commentator’s remarks for this session. She highlighted the theoretical versus practical dimensions of the question, “Who speaks for Islam?” In other words, although many Muslims may agree with Professor Talbi that only God should speak for Islam, the reality is much more complex. Not only do governments and other movements claim the authority of Islam, but the relationship between the individual and God cannot be entirely free from human intervention, since the Qur’an itself is situated in history, having been written down by men or passed along by word of mouth. In addition, there are a large number of Muslims who cannot read and must access their religion through the interpretation of a religious leader. Therefore, while limiting Islamic authority to the Qur’an may be the ideal, the reality is that Islam is written into the constitutions of many Muslim countries whose officials purport to be its guardian. With regards to James Phillips' comments, Hoda Badran said that his question, “Why do they murder us?” cannot be answered without addressing the Islamic world’s grievances against American policy.

The general floor discussion then began with one speaker considering the problem of Islamic authority as an issue of foundations as well as a question of how to adapt to new circumstances. In terms of foundations, he argued that Islam always had a clergy, even if it was an informally hierarchical one, and that this clergy was traditionally independent from the government and derived its authority from the vox populi. As for adapting this tradition to new circumstances, the speaker emphasized that it is all right to develop various new institutions—just as the early Islamic world saw a plurality of schools of law—as long as the individual is free to choose among these authorities for himself. The problem we now face, then, is the existence of government-backed councils that dictate how individuals should interpret their faith.

The issue of historicity was brought up by several other participants who echoed concerns that the Qur’an itself has undergone human intervention. Also underlined was the point that although God’s message is one, its expression has been different in different periods of history. Talbi responded to these concerns by agreeing that the Qur’an must certainly be adapted to our own time. We must act in accordance with the book’s prescriptions, whereas traditions, no matter how established, must be discarded if they contradict the Qur’an. With respect to the problem of authority, Talbi dismissed the issue by stating that this is not a religious problem but a political one—and “who has the force, has the authority.”

The discussion also raised the problem of the treatment of women in the Muslim world. One female participant told the story of how she was not even allowed to pray at her husband’s funeral. She insisted that women have the same right to talk to God and should not be segregated. Talbi answered this comment by quoting from the Qur’an, which says that man and woman are the same soul divided into two and each part has the same name. He maintained that, therefore, segregation—while it may be a historical fact beginning with men feeling crowded out of the mosques by women—is not dictated by the Islamic religion and it is women’s duty to become theologians and read the Qur’an for themselves.

Media prejudice in the Western and Muslim worlds was also reconsidered during this session. A Western speaker asked whether it was true that the theory that September 11 was a Jewish conspiracy had been widely accepted by Muslim public opinion in the Middle East. A Muslim participant answered that no, this theory was spread by the Internet and did not hold water for most Muslims, especially intellectuals. In terms of the perceptions of the Other, several participants not only discussed the vilification of the Muslim in American movies and television, but also raised the problem of the West considering itself a “yardstick” by which to measure the Islamic world. This sort of one-way analysis makes Muslims feel frustrated and objectified. These feelings are compounded by the fact that America lends financial and military support to countries including Israel by which Muslims consider themselves oppressed. Phillips opposed this argument, explaining that even if Palestinian grievances are used as a justification for the September 11 attacks, this was counterproductive since the attacks have actually garnered greater support for Israel and its use of force. Phillips again warned that Al-Qaeda’s co-opting of issues like Palestine signifies its desire to seize power in that region as well.

The discussion ended on the topic of Muslim minorities in the West. One speaker suggested that Western governments are trying to bureaucratize the Islamic faith in an attempt to exercise greater control over the religion and its adherents. For example, governments turn Islamic studies into an educational discipline, they create official-sounding organizations like the “Muslim Council,” and they sometimes go so far as to look for a Muslim “pope” within the particular society. However, these efforts by the state to structure Islam most often backfire by fueling resentment and rebellion in the younger generation of Muslims. Another Western participant added that indeed 3–5 percent of the European population is now Muslim and that the protection of this minority against discrimination must be a top priority for the European Union. In fact, with the EU considering Turkey’s application for membership, the West must resist Islamophobia and instead must continue, as Talbi has helped us do, to distinguish the Islamic faith from unacceptable forms of Islamic extremism.

The concluding speaker summarized two important points made during this fourth plenary session. First, there must be more widespread dialogue within the Islamic world itself to prevent various Muslim schools of thought from forming coalitions and trying to speak for Islam as a whole. Second, both Western and Islamic states co-opt Islam for their own end, and often use government money or force to spread their understanding of the faith; yet, even when states think they can control Islam, they most often fail. While these ideas were well received by most participants, the session left many questions unresolved, for instance: Why does humanity respond so poorly to other religions in moments of crisis? If people cannot read the Qur’an for themselves, who can they trust to interpret the sacred text? If Islam is thought of by many as a way of life, will secular Islamic societies continue to experience fundamentalist revolutions? How can we stop the media from allowing certain individuals and groups to speak for Islam when these groups are unrepresentative of the Muslim world overall? Defining Islam, with all these implicit questions about Islamic authority and Western perceptions, thus remains an extremely complicated task on which no real consensus could be reached.

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© 2006, The Center for Dialogues: Islamic World - U.S. - The West

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