Muslim Societies Need a Renaissance a la Europe
By
Dr. Mohammad Ghitreef, New Age Islam
24 November
2022
Muslims
Do Not Rely On The Quran As A Timeless Rule Of Conduct Except In Lip Service.
Main
Points:
1. Contrary to
what spiritual teachings and their essence should be, Muslims' new religious
awakening has not led to their leading lives and acting in ways that are
beneficial, productive, kind, and humane.
2. Religious
fanatics' excessive religiosity, which is frequently bordering on abnormal
levels, has led to their unfavourable attitudes and intolerance toward other
faith communities as well as frequently toward their own fellow co-religionists
who adhere to other alternative schools of thought
3. This alleged
religious awakening fails to inspire and motivate the rank and file of Muslims
to carry the scientific rejuvenation torch throughout the populace. In order to
revive, enrich, enhance, and develop a scientific outlook in Muslims, I believe
they need a comprehensive renaissance.
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Our Ulama
curse the West day in and day out; yet, the fact remains that without the West
Islamic and Arabic awakening was also not possible. This awakening began in
Egypt after Napoleon Bonaparte attacked and conquered the country in 1798. His
invasion planted the initial seed and provided the incentive for reform
measures as he brought a printing press and several specialists with him. Soon
Napoleon's adversaries, the English, were successful in forcing the French to
leave Egyptian territory, aiding the Ottomans in taking back Egypt from them.
The Nahza
Arabia ( نهضة عربية)
or Arabic revival initiative, which Mohammad Ali (1805), the satrap of Egypt
from the Turkish Caliphate, started in the early 19th century to revive Arabic
literature and uplift Arab people by sending a few brilliant students to Paris
to study there on the government's expenses was found to be very limited in its
objectives after the French withdrawal.
Nevertheless it had a significant impact on
Arab life at the time. All the well-known and progressive Arab writers and
philosophers, such as Rifaah Tahtawi, Mohammad Abduhu, Taha Hussain, Ahmad
Ameen, Kurd Ali, Shakeeb Arsalan and Nagib Mehfooz et al were born in the wake
of Mohammad Ali's reforms and resetting things.
In the
twentieth century, there were three major trends in the Islamic world. Their
waves and effects reached Muslim minority counters too.
Courtesy
different Muslim government's generous help and targeted financial support,
more specifically the huge Saudi Salafists', to Ulema and traditional
scholastic circles, many conventional sciences such as Quranic sciences, Hadees
legacy, and Fiqh canonical legacy have flourished the world over. Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia, Damascus, Egypt, Qatar, and Bahrain etc have become a flourishing
centre for publishing new books. Rich Encyclopaedias have been printed, indexes
have been prepared along with a rush of forming the worldwide Islamic Fiqh
academies and councils with huge budgets and a great deal of literature,
holding seminars and symposia on old and rather new subjects become a norm.
Thousands of hitherto untouched Islamic manuscripts have been connotated,
edited, and printed.
2- Secondly
there was a push for the so-called Islamisation of knowledge project. (please
see my article:
Where Has The Ghost Of The
Islamisation Of Knowledge Gone?
Under this
considerable budgeting scheme, studies were conducted on Islamic finance and
banking and also on Islamic social thought, thanks to the major efforts of the
International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in Washington, DC.
For that
purpose, several institutions have been set up, and a good deal of literature
has been published on these subjects. Awards were given to some colleges. Universities were also established to
experiment with these ideas with hundreds of conferences and seminars and
heated debates around these issues.
3- The
third trend is Islamic preaching movements: among them are many hues and
shades. Some are vehement protagonists of political Islam such as
Jamaat-e-Islami in the subcontinent and Muslim brotherhood in the Middle East
and their offshoots. Some are puritanical as Salafist, and some are
Sufi-oriented and peaceful preaching organizations enjoying a substantial
global following such as Tablighi Jamaat.
The darker
side of Political Islam and Salafist movements is the upsurge of a new kind of
violent, obscurantist, aggressive and militant version of Islam best
exemplified in the Taliban of Afghanistan and the notorious ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
On the
Educational front, to me, the Sir Syed movement is miserably defeated by the
connivance of Ulama, preachers, Islamists, and unfortunately by Sir Syed's own
inheritors, who have proven incompetent to bring forth the great Syed's ideas
on religious reform and promote rational thinking. Now it is replaced by
madrasas being mushroomed everywhere with centuries-old Dars e Nizamia,
based on different Masalik (schools of thought) in Fiqh and also in
theology, thus upholding and sustaining sectarian theologies and closing all
the doors of fresh air and rethinking, their students running in millions
around the globe.
Now, if we
look back with hindsight at all these vast efforts and their net result, we
find that in Muslim societies today, sectarian violence on the pretention of
Takfeer (ex-communication) is much higher, as you can see in the case of Syria,
Iraq, Pakistan where blood-shedding on sectarian grounds is a norm.
Faisal
Foundation in Saudi Arabia was built by the late king Faisal to encourage
research and discoveries in human knowledge. It Gives Faisal Awards yearly to
distinguished writers, scholars, and innovators. You will be taken aback to
know that so far, Muslim scholars and intellectuals have only received the
Faisal prize in areas regarding Islamic services, Arabic Studies, Islamic
Finance, Hadeeth, Fiqh, etc. Every time awards in medicine, innovation, and new
scientific discoveries go to a scientist or researcher from the
"damned" West!
I am not
talking about Noble Prize; Faisal Award is purely a prize created by Muslims.
This speaks volumes about the pathetic situations of Muslims and their apathy
towards science and modern knowledge.
Second,
there seems to be a rise in phoney and pseudo-religious among the Muslim
populace. For instance, despite the fact that mosques are packed with people
offering prayers, diseases, superstitions, illiteracy, and other ills continue
to exist.
There are
religious preachers throughout Muslim nations with YouTube accounts and a
sizable following, including ones who speak fluent English in the West. The
majority of them are immigrants from the Middle East or the Indian
subcontinent, but all of them, with the exception of a few, are spreading
absurd beliefs among their listeners in the name of Islam. This fuels sectarian
conflict and creates additional splinters in society because of their limited
outlook, parochial thinking, biased education, and limited orientation.
After
listening to a number of these preachers, I discovered that they all shared a
dislike of the West and Western civilization. This is another thing that most
of them are propagating their ideas via using Western scientific tools and
modern technology, and also enjoy in their personal life all the facilities
provided and invented by science!
Except for
mindless recitation in the hopes of receiving large blessings from God, which I
don't believe will happen, and memorising it in the hopes of making a meagre
living, the Quran does not occupy a central place in the lives of Muslims in
general. So, they do not rely on the Quran as a timeless rule of conduct except
in lip service.
Muslims
appear to be a fairly marginalised group in terms of global economic activity,
contributing the smallest amount to global production. There aren't many
well-known Muslims who are successful businessmen, international traders, or
market catchers, except of a few wealthy Arab princes. No Muslim university is
ranked among the top 10 in the field of education. If you look at any area of
science and technology, you won't find any notable contributions from the
Muslim Ummah. In contrast little in certain ways, Israel is technologically far
ahead of the US, let alone any other nation or, for that matter, a Muslim
nation. No invention, no patent, or noteworthy piece of scientific research
referenced in the global reference index supports the assertion that Muslims
have been living on outside sources for the previous millennium. All we have is
inflated assertions of prior accomplishments in many fields of study. What can
we infer from this? The fact that Ulama, scholars, and intellectuals are
preoccupied with pointless pursuits tells eloquently about the sad apathy of
the Muslim masses toward science and toward the rest of the world as well. For
instance, in the proclamation of the supposedly impending arrival of the Mahdi,
who would go away with their maladies and miseries and afflictions. It is a
widely accepted religious concept among Sunni and Shia alike.
A fresh,
thorough renaissance is desperately needed for the awakening of Muslim
community as a whole. Because a renaissance is required to rekindle the spirit
that Islam once inspired in Arabs towards reason, new methods of inquiry and
investigation, and the discovery of new vistas of knowledge. The so-called صحوة اسلامية or Islamic awakening, the influx of people into mosques, the enormous
Naat (praise of the Prophet) industry, the high celebration of Eid Meelad un
Nabi, (prophet’s birth celebration) and all of these things are good, yet
they are hurting the actual cause of enlightenment in Muslims.
It is
strange that an anti-intellectual
movement exists in some Muslim nations like Pakistan and Iran in
addition to the foolish, stupid, and fraudulent anti-science preaching of
Ulama. This is said to be a traditionalist school of thought and is fuelled by
a French convert Rene Ganu’s odd and ludicrous idea. Additionally, their
effects are escalated to some Western universities too. They preach all the
time that modern science is totally unIslamic, unethical, and inhuman. So, it
must be resisted at all costs, particularly in Muslim societies.
To
encounter this blatant propaganda by traditionalists and negativity-feeding
scholars, journalists, and Islamists, Muslims need throughout the world a
powerful intellectual movement to wage a jihad against the forces of
fundamentalism and obscurantism mentioned above on the one hand, and on the
other to launch vehemently a strong movement to promote science literacy,
philosophical studies and a rational temperament among Muslim masses as Sir
Syed once did to advance modern science among Muslims, especially among Indian
Muslims.
It is
essential to restore the former intellectual splendour of Muslims, their lost
scientific legacy, and to promote critical philosophical inquiry, revitalise
new hermeneutics, and rigorously raise the scientific temperament in future
generations. The first stage in laying the foundation for a secular renaissance
will be to establish centres of study for science like Baitul Hikmat or the
Wisdom House founded by Al-Mamoon in Baghdad, in order to develop a culture
similar to that produced by him. It is an urgent requirement right now. I wish
to refer to such a brilliant plan as a thorough revival for Muslim societies.
This should be comprehensive, coherent, and thorough, without discounting
religion and the crucial role it has played, and still playing, in the lives of
the masses throughout history. To reconcile religion and science, there should
be a strong call, comparable to those made by Mohammad Abduhu, Iqbal, Fazlur
Rehman, Waheeduddin Kahn, and others. For such an end, religion may indeed be
an energising resource, if understood correctly.
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A
regular columnist for New Age Islam, Dr. Mohammad Ghitreef is a Research
Associate with the Centre for Promotion of Educational and Cultural Advancement
of Muslims of India, AMU Aligarh.
URL: https://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/muslim-societies-renaissance-europe/d/128475
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