By the end of the nineteenth century CE, many
scholars in the Muslim world started to engage with the West. They began to
initiate a new trend of Islamic thoughts, which is generally called Islamic
modernism[1]. In this essay, a modern Muslim is the one who is
influenced by this trend of Islamic thoughts and have represented Islam through
his or her interactions with modern ideas and practices. Still, the term
‘modern Muslims’ may refer to a wide range of Muslim population around the
world. Therefore, given the history of more than two centuries from the
beginning of modernisation in Islam and the expansion of modernist Muslims
throughout the Islamic world, the question of whether modern Muslims are in danger
of losing their faith or not can be discussed from various perspectives. To
further specify the topic, in this essay, the question will be discussed in
relation to various states of modernist Muslims in different historical
situations such as under the domination of colonialism, in pursuit of
secularism, and in a direct counter-invasion attempt. In addressing the
question, this essay posits that modern Muslims are not in danger of losing
their faith, generally, because of two main reasons: firstly, since the late
nineteenth century in facing the non-Islamic world modern Muslims continually
returned to the supreme texts and traditions of Islam, and secondly, the historical
purpose of Islamic modernisation was to resist the domination of the Western
colonialism, not to raise the question of the Islamic faith.
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| Al Afghani |
There is a history of more than two centuries
since the first emergence of the idea of Islamic modernisation among those
Islamic scholars who were pioneering modernist Muslims. Some scholars recorded that
Islamic modernism was started following a closer understanding of “the Western
challenges”[2]
by the Islamic elites. Other writers state the name of Islamic scholars who were
mostly known for their efforts in modernising Islam in the late nineteenth and
the early twentieth centuries. Olomi notes that “Al Afghani is one of the
forefathers of the Islamic modernism movement of the nineteenth century along
with Muhammad ‘Abduh”[3].
In order to overcome Western domination, Islamic scholars advocated the idea of
modernisation of Islam through incorporating the tools of “cultural imperialism
[…] i.e. Western technology, medicine, public health, education, administrative
methods, political ideologies, newspapers”[4]. It
can easily be understood that Western colonialism which had occupied almost the
majority of Islamic countries from Egypt up to Indonesia had deep effects on
the opinions and positions of Muslim elites. Shepard mentions that opposition
to Europe was one of the firmest principles in Afghani’s thoughts especially
the feeling of danger from British imperialism[5]. Furthermore,
according to Olomi “Al Afghani’s imagines the East as a pan-Islamic state,
unified and capable of resisting European hegemony”[6].
Thus, Islamic modernism was formed under the shadow of opposition to
colonialism, and throughout the past two centuries the nature of its formation
has been perpetuated by the encountering of modern Muslims with the non-Islamic
world.
Afghani's legacy included ‘defending Islam in
his debates with the Western scholars, call for unity of Muslims under one
Islamic sovereignty, advocacy in awakening the Muslim nations through encouraging
rationality and modern science from the Western countries, and above all, his
virulent opposition to the Western domination’[7]
remained to shape the world-view of many modern Muslims. Nevertheless,
modernisation in Islam was essentially enforced by the idea of encountering
Western colonialism domination. This means that unlike modernism in the Western
tradition, which was intrinsically challenging traditional values including religious
faith, modernism in Islam did not the Islamic traditions.
There has been a constant tendency among
modern Muslims to return to the original traditions of the Prophet according to
Quran and Hadith. Many modern Muslims are seeking to strengthen the faith of
modern Muslims forcefully as Byrd names ISIS in particular as those Muslims who
“have little confidence in Islam to be convincing”[8]. This
reactionary tendency which is a response to the Western cultural supremacy and
its worldwide dominance, supports the idea that Islam is weakened due to impure
practices and Muslims must return back to the literal enforcement of Early
Islam. Historically, modern Muslims such as Afghani and his disciples had also continually
referred to Quran and Hadith to find solutions for the concurrent problems in
the modern Muslim world. And the main problem was how to fight against the
colonial Western domination. Just as the modernisation of Islam begun with the
progressive sense of anti-colonialism of the Western imperialisms, the role of
modern Muslims continued in confronting non-Muslims invaders throughout the
twentieth century. This continuous and historical encountering did not only
weaken the faith of the modern Muslims but it even led to a growing trend among
modern Muslims, through curtailing the arena of Islamic thoughts into merely
combating non-Muslim invaders. Therefore, from the very beginning the modern
Muslims did not seem to be in danger of losing their faith.
Secularism is another political system that
its incorporation in some Islamic countries has not led to the loss of modern
Muslim faith. There are several countries with a majority of Muslim populations
controlled by secular states around the world. From a historical point of view,
Turkey and Pakistan are the earliest major instances of secularism in the
Muslim world. The experience of secularism in these two Islamic countries can
be discussed in relations to the modern Muslims and their issues of losing
faith. Both countries with a predominantly but not exclusively Muslim
population had experienced the process of secularisation in the first half of
the twentieth century. Secularization was going to have profound and extensive
consequences on these Islamic countries and subsequently would affect the faith
of modern Muslims, as it is defined by Shepard ““Secularization” means […] to
limit the influence of religious institutions on society, often by separating
them from other institutions, but not necessarily seeking to destroy them”[9].
The secularization in Turkey went further in the second and third decades of
the twentieth century. It “replaced Shari‘a law with law codes derived from
Europe, closed the madrasas and the Sufi tekkes”[10].
Considering the historical rule of Islam through the Ottoman Empire over the
course of more than six centuries, these changes seemed to be extremely rapid
and applied with less public acceptance and without a sufficient socio-political
foundation in post-Ottoman Turkey. However, following the long history of
secularisation in Turkey, in recent years, there is a growing tendency toward
the leadership based on Islamic faith as it is claimed by some scholars that “with
the rise of political parties and democracy, secularism has begun to lose its
appeal among the Turkish masses”[11].
In Pakistan, although secularisation has acknowledged religion to “continue as
personal faith but not as political identity”[12], it
has been rejected decisively by Abu’l Ala al-Mawdudi “the true founder of
modern Islamism”[13]
in that region. As a result, the Islamic faith of modern Muslims in the
secularist system is not at stake of being lost.
In the early years of the twenty-first
century, three Islamic countries were occupied by non-Muslim military forces. Considering
the new phenomenon of internet and communications, the wars in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Syria became attractive to some people from around the world. The
fact that thousands of young Muslims from western countries, such as Australia,
joined the war against the Western allies in Syria represents that the broader
confrontation may turn a Muslim's faith into the zeal for violence. Especially
those who are not integrated well in Western societies will easily leave their good
lives in Australia for a deadly war in the Middle East. Because as Byrd explains,
they are longing for a religious society that is ruled by God’s law and Islam “is
seen as the only viable way of establishing a society that could be endorsed by
the divine” [14].
Therefore, modern Muslims not only are not at risk of losing their faith under Western
invasion, but more pointedly invasion can provoke their faith for taking
further action, in the form of Jihad, that is the counter-invasion rebellion.
In conclusion, modern Muslims are not seen to
be in danger of losing their faith. For more than two centuries, Muslim
scholars have mostly encountered the domination of non-Muslims and less focused
on thinking about the Islamic faith. Thus the Islamic faith remained untouched
by religious scholars. Additionally, in order to confront external dominations,
modern Muslims continually returned to the Prophet message and renewed their
religious faith based on the original text and tradition of Islam. Therefore, during
the domination of Western colonialism, within the system of secularism, and under
the direct occupation of non-Muslim invaders, modern Muslims have been
successful to keep their connections with the Islamic faith.
Bibliography
Byrd, Dustin, J. Islam in a Post-Secular
Society: Religion, Secularity and the Antagonism of Recalcitrant Faith. Brill,
2016.
Kundi, Mansoor, Akbar. “The Vicissitudes of
Secularism in Turkey.” Journal of European Studies 24-25,
no.2-1 (2009): 112-124.
Malise, Ruthven. “The Islamic Road to the
Modern World”, New York Review of Books, 22 June 2017. Retrieved
May 28, 2019 from https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/22/islamic-road-to-modern-world/
Moaddel, Mansoor. Islamic Modernism,
Nationalism, and Fundamentalism : Episode and Discourse. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Olomi, Ali, Ahmad. “The Oriental and the
Orientalist: Al Afghani and the Construction of Pan-Islamism.” MA thesis, University
of California, Irvine, 2014. Accessed May 27, 2019. ProQuest Dissertations and
Theses.
Shepard, William E. Introducing Islam. London:
Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[1] Moaddel. Islamic Modernism. 2.
[2] Shepard,
“Introducing Islam,” 237.
[3] Olomi, The
Oriental and the Orientalist, 3.
[4] Shepard,
Introducing Islam, 232.
[5] Ibid., 239.
[6] Olomi, “The
Oriental and the Orientalist,” 33.
[7] Shepard,
Introducing Islam, 239-240.
[8] Byrd, Islam
in a Post-Secular Society, 209.
[9] Shepard,
Introducing Islam, 233.
[10] Ibid., 242.
[11] Kundi. “The Vicissitudes of Secularism in
Turkey,”124.
[12] Shepard,
Introducing Islam, 243.
[13] Malise
Ruthven, “The Islamic Road to the Modern World”.
[14] Byrd, Islam
in a Post-Secular Society, 246.