Islam and Modernity

Let's talk a little about Islam and this question that you touched upon, which is the relation of Islam to modernity. One of the bones of contention is that in the history of Western civilization, what emerged over many years, hundreds of years, was a separation of church and state. We see this as a key element in modernity. And then we look at Islam and say, "That hasn't happened there, and that is a problem." Help me understand what's wrong with that kind of reasoning.

It is true that it hasn't happened, but there are number of reasons for that. First of all, on the one hand you can say, yes, there are many Muslims who see Islam holistically, that religion is related to politics and society. But if we look at pre-modern times, this was true of most major world religions to one extent or another. Hinduism related religion to a social system. Christianity talks about separation of church and state, but it certainly stopped existing after Constantine. It was never an absolute separation, from the Holy Roman Empire and right down through the ages.

In modern period, yes, you have that modern transition. But where has the space been for any kind of debate about the relationship of religion to state and society in the Muslim world? The Muslim world didn't have a period of transition. You went from centuries of Islamic rule of Islamic territories to European colonialism. Colonial powers weren't addressing these kinds of issues. Post-colonialism, post-independence, let's say, in the mid-twentieth century, you wind up with modern nation states emerging, most of them authoritarian states. So where is the open debate about the relationship of religion to politics? book cover Then the late sixties and seventies come, and with the experience and perception of the failure of modern states you see the resurgence of religion. And in that resurgence of religion, there's a discrediting of the modern Western secular model and the reclaiming of the Islamic model. But often the Islamic models reclaimed are, in fact, new creations said to be resurrections of some sort of pristine model.

The discussion and debate that has gone on in the West hasn't begun to happen in the Muslim world. It's begun, but it's been severely restricted. There are now Muslim thinkers across the Muslim world talking about issues of Islam and modernity, pluralism and democracy. But clearly, it is a process that is only at the beginning. The problem is, there hasn't very much time to do it, and the nature of regimes will have to change in order for there to be the openness of the educational system, in the media, etc., for the debate that needs to be held.

When we have this misperception of the Islamic world, which sees everything as boiling down to terrorists hijacking a religion, one misses this whole realm of what you called the revivalist phenomenon. Help us understand that a little, because in most of your books you're grappling with and trying to help us understand the different ways that Islam is trying to change itself as it confronts both the constraints posed by the West, on the one hand, but also by the local political situation on the other.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Muslims engaged colonialism, but also looked to the future, [asking themselves] what independence might look like, you had a number of schools of thought. You had secularists who emerged and said, "There has to be a separation of religion and the state." You had a large body of more conservative sectors, led by many of the religious leaders, in effect, circling the wagons [against] colonialism, becoming more entrenched, and saying, "Don't borrow from the enemy. Islam is fine the way it is." You had Islamic modernists, thinkers who were saying Islam is compatible with modernity, and defining it. And then you had the beginnings of Islamic revivalist groups, who basically said, "We don't want to be completely Islamic modernists because they define themselves in terms of Western standards, so they wind up with a Westernized Islam or, if you will, a Protestanization of Islam." Parenthetically, Roman Catholics used to fear that in the mid-twentieth century when one talked about liberal reform within Catholicism.

But in the late sixties and the seventies -- the Arab-Israeli War, the '67 War, the Six-Day War; riots in Malaysia in '69; in 1971 the Civil War in Pakistan, what became Pakistan and Bangladesh; the mid-seventies in Lebanon; and then the Iranian Revolution -- you find across the Muslim world, for differing reasons, a sense that modernity is failing us. The modern nation state isn't working; these Western models aren't working. And a push from a minority, but a very strong minority, that says, "We need to get back to our religion to reclaim our identity and values." What emerges from that is both governmental reform movements and opposition movements appealing to religion, or using religion to buttress their various forms of nationalism, etc. And what emerges, also, is on the one hand a mainstream Islamic activism, but, also a strong, virulent, extremist activism. For example, when the Iranian Revolution came along and the confrontation with America, we see this as militant Islam personified. We also saw it in Lebanon, with hijackings and hostage-taking.

The situation becomes exacerbated with the Soviet-Afghan War. In the Soviet-Afghan War, you have, in fact, what I call a global jihad. That is, the sacred struggle to the defense of Islam was not only taken up by the Mujahadin in Afghanistan, it was taken up by America, by Europe, as well as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Now, post-Afghan War, a lot of these Mujahadin, those who came from other Muslim countries (who are called Afghan-Arabs, whether they were Arab or Afghan) go back to their countries. Having had a chance to struggle for what they believed in, they go back to many of their authoritarian regimes and suddenly find themselves in confrontations with the state. And then a whole set of issues emerges post- Gulf War that leads to the kind of radicalization of people like Osama bin Laden, and many of these other groups.

You're touching on something that's very interesting about Islam, which is this notion of the global versus the local. One of the roots of our misperception, which you touched upon, seems to be that we are not subtle in seeing the diversity that comes about by the local situation transforming Islam and creating [regional variations] in the religion. So we lose sight of that interplay. Is it fair to say that, on one hand, there's a global identity and the global religion, but on the other hand, there is this mosaic created by all the local situations in which Islam comes into being and essentially changes and is changed by the locality?

That's right. There's an enormous difference between Islamist practice in Saudi Arabia and Islamist practice in many parts of Africa, and certainly in Malaysia and Indonesia. I did my studies, but most of my teachers were Arab, so my focus was on the Middle East. I remember when a Muslim colleague invited me to Southeast Asia, I kept thinking, "Who needs to go? I know what I need to know about Islam." And when I got to Malaysia and I went through Kuala Lumpur, the first thing I couldn't believe was how many signs were in Chinese! I wasn't prepared to even deal with that. Also, it was during Ramadan, and what I couldn't believe was that you could walk into a restaurant and you could have a meal during the hours of fasting, because, of course, for the Chinese, restaurants were open, society was moving around. I had focused on Arab Islam, particularly; and especially if you're dealing with the Gulf, you will see a far more restricted notion when it comes to the use of music in religion. You then see the way in which in Africa, even the Shahada, the Confession of Faith, will be chanted to an African beat. I remember a colleague of mine who had only dealt with the Arab world, and we were in an African country, and he was watching this mass demonstration and he said, "My God, this would never be allowed in the Arab world."

That appreciation of the local for the average American simply isn't there, nor is an appreciation for the the average Arab or Muslim. What we know are the leading political leaders, the talking heads. We have this other term we use, the "Arab street." Most people think the "Arab street" is sort of the ... I don't know what ... the hoi polloi ... the mob. When, in fact, by "Arab street," you really mean a cross-section of society. But how many Americans engage your average Arab or Muslim successful businessperson, professional? That's only been happening very much in recent years. It wasn't on our screen.

When I began to study Islam, people said to me, "Why are you going into that abracadabra field? You'll never get a job." Islam was invisible in the academy, in general, except for some major universities, and in our landscape. Today, Islam is the second or third largest religion in America and Europe. That wasn't the case in the past. So, again, how do we generalize? It's a bit like my youth, raised in Brooklyn in a totally Italian neighborhood, and then I encounter my first Irish person. That Irish person happens to be a classmate who's an attractive young woman, great personality, but gets left back three times in grammar school. What conclusion do I draw? Irish people seem to be nice, but not all that bright. Or people who engage Italians and conclude that all Italians are emotive people like myself, when, in fact, there are all kinds of personalities. I think that that's it. Certainly, if you just take a look at the movies and the TV and media in the last few years, who are the bad guys? How are they portrayed? They're terrorists. They're people that like to slap their women around. Even on more prominent shows. You look at a show like JAG and go back and look at the way in which Arabs and Muslims have been portrayed on that show and other shows, and it's pretty astonishing. Post-9/11, it's an open field in terms of what one can say and get away with.

There are many experiments with democracy, despite the dilemma in Islam about whether you have the rule of the Koran and Sharia versus the rule of people. But there is a lot of diversity there, and an attempt to come terms with democracy in an Islamic setting. Talk to us about that.

In a book that a colleague of mine, John Voll, and I did a few years ago, called Islam and Democracy, one of the things we try to say is that the first thing you have to remember is that democracy has taken many forms of the West -- from the Greeks to today, from direct to indirect, etc. And there are enormous differences in terms of the relationship of religion and the state, if you look at the United States vis-à-vis Canada or Germany. The issue of Islam is often, "How come there is no democracy, or very little? Isn't it that there's a contradiction between Islam and democracy, or democracy and Arab culture?" What I try to say to people is, distinguish between pre-modern and modern. Judaism and Christianity and all world religions that began in pre-modern times legitimated divine forms of government -- kings and feudal systems of government. Then they reinterpret themselves. Whether or not and to what extent Muslims will do that remains [to be seen]. But what we do see in recent years are countries that have experimented with democracy -- Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey.

Now, why the limited forms of democracy? Again, you go from the pre-modern to modern. Modern, you have European colonialism. Colonial powers were not about creating strong civil societies and democratic institutions. Independence comes. You have modern nation states, artificial boundaries, therefore, fragile. Who are the rulers? Kings, military, ex-military. Therefore, what we have in most Arab and Muslim countries are, in fact, governments that create a culture of authoritarianism, not of democracy.

On the other hand, in recent years, along with some of the experiments, the push from below on the part of many critics of regimes is to criticize them by what you might call democratic standards -- to call for more political participation, more accountability, rule of law. Iran is a perfect example of that struggle within a society. How well that will move ahead is very much up for grabs. A lot of it has to do with the nature of regimes. If you continue with the kinds of regimes we have, it means that that impacts on your educational system, both secular and religious, the seminaries. It impacts on your media. It impacts on your public space, on your civil societies. In some Muslim countries, political parties and trade unions are banned or restricted. And so a lot of it has to do with how do these societies develop and what role do European, and let's say American, governments play in terms of either reinforcing authoritarian regimes or reinforcing the need for broader, political participation.

One could make the argument that our hands are not completely clean with regard to some of the regimes that we support in the region, because of national security concerns, rightly or wrongly.

I remember after the Gulf War, several of us were on a panel at the Kennedy School at Harvard, and a colleague whom I often debate with and strongly disagree with made the statement, "I don't understand. Why didn't Muslims turn more against the Soviet Union? Why is there more anti-Americanism? After all, the Soviets are unbelievers and we're believers." A member of the State Department said to the person, "The reality of it is our foreign policies, what government have we been associated with."

Why was there such a strong reaction on the part of many Iranians during the Iranian Revolution? There was a memory of the role that the United States played in keeping the Shah on the throne; when the Shah was driven into exile, bringing him back; the role of the CIA; the role of our military. Anti-Americanism in the Muslim world today has to do with a lot of our foreign policy, it has to do very much with the roles that we play, the support that we give to governments, whether it's the Israeli-Palestinian [conflict], or today in terms of Russia vis-à-vis Chechnya. President Bush was very clear, before he became president, in chiding Russia with regard to the Chechens.

You look at the policy today: Where are we in terms of our attitude toward Iraqi sanctions, whether it's Clinton or Bush? Where are we when it comes to talking about the problems with Pakistan, but not sufficiently India, when it comes to Kashmir? We support many authoritarian regimes, in terms of military support. In many of these countries, they see our aid as not an aid that is given for a country to defend against the outside, but an aid that it often used against its own population. We often have played a role not only with our aid but also in selling the equipment and in training security forces, military, etc. So that's not lost sight of.

Let's talk about some examples, as you do in your book, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. You focus on three moderates, who in different settings -- in Indonesia, in Malaysia, in Iran -- are trying to come to terms with modernity. The president of Iran is trying to deal with some of these issues of democracy, trying to bring democracy even in the context of clerical rule. Again, we don't focus on that. We don't see the constraints that these leaders are operating under, what they're trying to achieve.

Iran provides an interesting case, because we know the reign of the mullahs. We know what happened in post-revolutionary times, both immediately under Khomeini and under his successors, in terms of restrictions. But what we lost sight of was, however restricted, Iran moved to a point where there were regular parliamentary elections -- again, restricted, but regular parliamentary elections. After a struggle about women's role in society -- and it has been an ongoing struggle -- in fact, women are visible in public space: they function in jobs, etc. Khatami is a reflection not just of this reformist thought (many would say that he increasingly has failed as a reformer, in terms of being able to get the right leverage); he's a reflection of the society itself. A significant number of Iranians, young people, women, and other [groups], want a more open society, more political participation, more accountability. Indeed, some want it with a religious flavor or character, and some want religion to be pushed into private space. But we certainly see, during the Khatami period, a real attempt to open up a debate and to press for greater democratization.

Similarly, if we jump over to Indonesia, it's interesting that after Suharto went, you had democratic elections, and in those first democratic elections, Abdurrahman Wahid, the leader of one of the largest Islamic organizations in the world, the Nahdatul Ulama (NU), that has maybe 35 million people, was democratically elected. Indeed, when he was somewhat pushed out, the democratic process continued in Indonesia. Now it's in fits and starts, it's fragile, but it's clear that it's there. That is what becomes important.

Same thing is true in Malaysia. I wrote about Malaysia five years ago and saw a far more rosy picture. It's gone through a more limited form of democracy in recent years. But there are pressures within the society to move forward.

The same is now happening in Turkey in the recent elections. A group called Justice and Development -- a party which has Islamist roots but now casts itself more broadly, almost as one talks about Christian Democrats, sort of "Muslim Democrats" -- they, in fact, succeeded in elections. They now have their own prime minister in control of the government, and they are the predominant force in the Parliament.

These experiments are taking place. The reality of it is that while there are reformers that are pushing for these reforms, democracy is a messy game, as I try to tell people. We forget that the American Revolution was followed by the Civil War, even bloodier. We forget the French Revolution and the post-French Revolution. So we shouldn't be surprised, particularly when coming out of authoritarian cultures, to see a lot of failures along with gradual success. It's going to be a struggle both at the intellectual level and at the political level. We forget when we talk about the Reformation and the Enlightenment, we tend to think that it was just intellectual conversation -- "Luther, and the Pope, and Calvin sat around...." There were religious wars!

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