Islam and Western World: Relationship and Challenges

Introduction

These days it is in the nature of things that if one needs to discuss the challenges presented to Islam by the west and, in fact by modern civilization in general. One must start by using the sword of discrimination and by embarking on a kind of ‘’ intellectual iconoclasm”. These days the modern world takes pride in having developed the critical mind and the power of objective criticism, whereas in reality it is in the fundamental sense the least critical of all known civilization for it does not possess the objective criteria to judge and criticize its own acts. It is an institution which fails in every kind of basic reform because it cannot begin with the reform of itself. Furthermore, there is an old saying which states that the devil hates sharp edges and points. This saying has some actuality to it which applies directly to this current present-day situation. The devil displays his influence by dulling all the sharp edges and points which are accessible to him so that sharp distinctions disappear. The boundaries of clearly defined doctrines undergo a corrosive process and their sharpness of definition gradually declines. The rights and wrong become intermingled, and even scared rites and doctrines which are the most valuable gift of God to man, becomes unclear and indefinite as a result of this corrosive influence. So this paper discusses the relationship of Islam and Western world and the challenges presented by it.

Islam and Western world

To discuss the challenges of the modern world to Islam requires a rigorous application of intellectual discernment based solely on the Shahadah, the first letter of which when written down in Arabic, is in fact in the form of a sword. This sword must be used to break the untruthful idols of the new age of ignorance or Jahiliya. One must always remember that in the present situation any form of criticism of the modern world based upon metaphysical and religious principles is a form of charity and in agreement with the most central virtues of Islam. Also, Muslims should never forget that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) not only possessed adab in its most perfect form but also asserted the truth in the most frank and straightforward manner. There were periods in the life of the Prophet (PBUH) when he was extremely categorical, and he never sacrificed the truth’s sake of adab.

What is missing in the Islamic world today is a thorough examination and careful criticism of all that is happening in the modern world. Without such criticism, nothing serious can ever be done in the business of confronting the west. All statements of modernized Muslims begin with the assertion, “The way to harmonize Islam” and conclude with whatever follows the “and”, are bound to end in catastrophe unless what follows is another divinity revealed and inspired worldviews. Furthermore, attempts to harmonize Islam and western socialism or anything else of the kind is doomed from the start because they begin without exposing the system in question to a thorough criticism in the light of Islamic principles, and also because they consider Islam as a partial view of things to be complemented by some form of modern ideology rather than a complete system and perspective in itself whose very existence excludes the possibility of its becoming a mere adjective to modify some other noun which is taken almost unconsciously as central in place of Islam. The swift changes in fashions of the day which Islamic socialism popular on day and liberalism or some other westernism the next is proof of the absurdity and shallowness of such an approach. A person who really understands the structure of Islam in its entirety knows that Islam can never allow itself to be reduced to the status of a mere modifier, or contingency a system of thought which remains independent of it. The defensive and apologetic attitude adopted by so many modern Muslims towards various fashionable modes of thought that issue from the west almost with the rapidity of seasonal changes is closely allied to their lack of a critical sense and a discerning spirit. Mostly, obvious inadequacies and what is easy to criticize are criticized, but only a few have enough courage to stand up and criticize the basic fallacies of our time. Nowadays there are only a few people in the Islamic world who can challenge the west and criticize and with the sword of intellect and the spirit, answer at its very foundations the challenge with which the west confronts Islam.

Nowadays in the Islamic world, there are essentially two main classes of people concerned with philosophical, religious, and intellectual questions, the ulma and modernists. It is only recently that a third group has begun to emerge, namely a group which, like the ulma is traditional, but which also knows the modern world. But the number of this third group is still very inadequate. As the ulma and the other spiritual authorities are concerned, they usually do not possess a profound knowledge of the modern world its difficulties and complexities. Regardless of that, they are the upholders of the Islamic tradition and its protectors, without them the very existence of the tradition would be threatened. The ulma are criticized by the modernists for not knowing western science and philosophy or the workings of modern economics. But the criticism, which is again of the facile kind so easily leveled by the modernists, is for the most part misplaced. Those who possessed the political and financial power in the Islamic world during the past century rarely allowed the madrasahs to develop in a direction that would permit them to give the ulama class the opportunity of gaining a better understanding of the modern world without becoming corrupted by it. In few places where attempts were made to change the syllabus of the madrasah the hidden intention was more often to do way with the traditional education system by deforming it beyond hope of redemption than to extend its program in any real sense to embrace courses which would acquaint the students with the modern world as seen in the light of Islamic teachings. Moreover, few attempts have been carried out to create establishments that would fill in the gaps between the traditional madrasahs and modern educational institutes. Furthermore, in the second of our three classes, we have the product of either western universities or universities in the Islamic world which are more or less similar to the west. Now the universities in the Islamic world are in a state of an identity crisis, for an educational system is organically related to the culture within whose atmosphere it functions. For example, a train can be made to arrive at a terminal of any country in Asia or Europe, no matter where it may be, it will always be identified as a part of its original country. The same cannot be said about an educational system because an educational system cannot be simply imported, and the fact that modern universities are facing a calamity in the Islamic world of a different nature from that which is found in the west is itself proof of this assertion. The crises could not but exist, because the original Islamic culture is still alive. Moreover, this crisis affects deeply those who are educated in these universities and who are usually called “the Intelligentsia”. This expression, like the term intellectual, is one that is most unfortunate in that those to whom it is applied are often the furthest detached from the domine of the intellect in its true sense. But by whatever name they are called, most members of this class, who are products of western-oriented universities, have for the most part one feature in common, and that is the liking for all the things western and a sense of alienation to things Islamic. This inferiority complex is opposite to the west among so many modernized Muslim, the complex is which is, moreover, shared by modernized Buddhists, Hindus, and other Orientals how are affected by the psychosis of modern forms of idolatry is the utmost challenge facing the Islamic world, and it afflicts the very group which one would expect to face the challenge of the west. The encounter of Islam with the west cannot therefore be discussed without taking into consideration the type of mindset which is often the product of modern university education and which, during the past century, has produced most of the apologetic Islamic writings which try to concern themselves with the encounter of Islam and the west.

This remorseful, modernized type of approach has tried to answer the challenge of the west by bending backward in a servile attitude to show in one way or another that this or that element of Islam is just what is fashionable in the west today while other elements, for which there could not be found a western equivalence by even the greatest stretch of the imagination, have been simply brushed aside as unimportant or even extraneous later “accretions”. Limitless arguments have been presented for the hygienic nature of the Islamic rites of the “egalitarian” character of the message of Islam, not because such things are true if seen in the larger context of the total Islamic message, but because hygiene and egalitarianism are the currently accepted ideas in the west or at least they were before the “hippy” movement. By upholding such obvious and two easily defended characteristics, the apologetics have evaded the whole challenge of the west, which threatens the heart of Islam and which no number of attempts to placate the enemy can avert. ‘When surgery in needed there must be a knife with which to remove the infected zone’. Also, when error threatens religious truth nothing can replace the sword of criticism and discernment. One cannot remove the negative effect of error by making peace with it and pretending to be its friend.

The remorseful attitude is even more pathetic when it concerns itself with philosophical and intellectual questions. When people read some items in this category of apologetic literature, which issued mostly from Egypt and the sub-continent at the beginning of this era and which tried to emulate all ready very stale and defunct debates that went on between theology and science in Victorian England and France of the same period, the weakness of such works, which were supposed to answer the challenge of the west, becomes most apparent, and even more so against the background of the decades that have since gone by. Afforce, at that time one could hear the strong voice of the traditional authorities, who, basing themself on the immutable principles of the Islamic revaluation, try to answer these challenges on a religious level, even if they were not aware of the more abstruse and hidden philosophical and scientific ideas that were involved. But this type of voice gradually diminished, without, of course, ceasing to exist altogether, while the other, that of the modernists, became ever more audible and invasive. This phenomenon has led to the rather odd situation today in which, among the educated, practically the most ardent defenders of the western civilization in the world are western Orientals. Furthermore, for the modernized Muslims, particularly the more extreme among them, the true meaning of Islam has been for some time now that the west has dictated. If evolution has been in vogue “true Islam” is evolutionary. If it is socialism that is the fashion of the day, the ‘real teachings of Islam are based on socialism. Those who are familiar with this type of mentality and the works it has produced are most aware of its docile, servile, and passive nature.

Western secular politics is based on the notion that sovereignty belongs to individuals who select their governments through political consensus arrived at during free and regular elections. Islam believes that sovereignty belongs only to God and that a legitimate temporal government is so only for as long as it implements God's will and the Sacred Laws.

Conclusion

Despite the overwhelming global influence of Western ideas, the West, of course, is not a monolithic presence. The 20th century has proved beyond any doubt that the ideals espoused in the West do not prevent hypocritical justifications for untenable attitudes towards the rest of the world, nor do they prevent total war between European nations. Western attempts to circulate ideas about Western civilization as 'universal civilization' have resulted in significant reactions against new imperialism: 'cultural imperialism', 'human rights imperialism', and so on. The religious revivals and reiterations of local, traditional values, among the younger generations in Islamic and Hindu beliefs especially, are often reactions against the insidiousness of Western cultural influences. Western societies must reconsider their ideas about the superiority of their ideals. Islam and the West have much to offer each other. Nothing productive will develop while the dominant attitudes are those of suspicion, bigotry, and fear. Islam once played an essential role in preserving knowledge during the ignorance and savagery of Europe's 'dark ages'. The rediscovery and enhancement of this knowledge helped to set Europe on the path to its modern dominance of science and technology. The grip of worldly and corrupted religious leaders was broken in Europe. At the same time, the suppression of ijtihad and rational dissent within Islamic civilizations by similar sorts of rulers caused the decline of the Islamic world, allowing the Europeans to indulge in imperialism and colonialism from the 18th century to the mid 20th century. A compassionate exchange of knowledge, flowing this time from Western societies to Islamic societies, may well revivify Islam and permit Islamic societies to enjoy a more creative and significant role in the modern world.