Religion | Islam » Islam and Modernity

Source: http://www.doksinet • • • ISLAM  AND  MODERNITY   Bridging  Islamic  Traditions  Module   Site  Visit:  Dr.  Emily  Tai,  Project  Mentor   Professor   of   History,   Queensborough   Community   College   Presentation  for  Humanities  and  World  History  Students     What  difficulties  do  each  of  these  authors  describe  for  Muslims  in  the  modern  world?   How  do  each  of  these  passages  address  modernity?   How  do  each  of  these  passages  view  Islam?   Hassan  al-­‐Banna,    The  Tyrrany  of  Materialism  Over  the  Lands  of  Islam     The  Europeans  worked  assiduously  to  enable  the  tide  of  this  materialistic  life,  with  its  corrupting  traits   and  its  murderous

 germs,  to  overwhelm  all  the  Islamic  lands  toward  which  their  hands  were   outstretched.    An  ill  destiny  overtook  these  under  their  domination,  for  they  were  avid  to  appropriate   for  themselves  the  elements  of  power  and  prosperity  through  science,  knowledge,  and  industry,  and   good  organization,  while  barring  these  very  nations  from  them.    They  laid  their  plans  for  this  social   aggression  in  a  masterly  fashion  invoking  the  aid  of  their  political  acumen  and  their  military   predominance  until  they  had  accomplished  their  desire.    They  deluded  the  Muslim  leaders  by  granting   them  loans  and  entering  into  financial

 deals  with  them,  making  all  of  this  easy  and  effortless  for  them,   and  thus  they  were  able  to  obtain  the  right  to  infiltrate  the  economy,  and  to  flood  the  country  with   their  capital,  their  banks,  and  their  companies;  to  take  over  the  workings  of  the  economic  machinery  as   they  wished;  and  to  monopolize,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  inhabitants,  enormous  profits  and  immense   wealth.    After  that,  they  were  able  to  alter  the  basic  principles  of  government,  justice,  and  education,   and  to  imbue  political,  juridical  and  cultural  systems  with  their  own  peculiar  characteristics  in  even   the  most  powerful

 Islamic  countries.  They  imported  their  half-­‐naked  women  into  these  regions,   together  with  their  liquors,  their  theatres,  their  dance-­‐halls,  their  amusements,  their  stories,  their   amusements,  their  stories,  their  newspapers,  their  novels,  their  whims,  their  silly  games,  and  their   vices.    Here  they  countenanced  crimes  they  did  not  tolerate  in  their  own  countries,  and  decked  out  this   frivolous,  strident  world,  reeking  with  sin  and  redolent  with  vice,  to  the  eyes  of  deluded,   unsophisticated  Muslims  of  wealth  and  prestige,  and  to  those  of  rank  and  authority.    This  being   insufficient  for  them,  they  founded  schools,

 and  scientific  and  cultural  institutes  in  the  very  heart  of  the   Islamic  domain,  which  casts  doubt  and  heresy  into  the  soul  of  its  sons  and  taught  them  how  to  demean   themselves,  disparage  their  religion  and  fatherland,  divest  themselves  of  their  tradition  and  beliefs,   and  to  regard  as  sacred  anything  Western.”     From  Sayyid  Qutb,  Milestones  (1964)   Mankind  today  is  on  the  brink  of  a  precipice,  not  because  of  the  complete  danger  of  annihilation  that  is   hanging  over  its  headthis  being  just  a  symptom  and  not  the  real  diseasebut  because  humanity  is   devoid  of  those  vital  values  which  are

 necessary  not  only  for    its  healthy  development  but  also  for  its   real  progressIt  is  essential  for  mankind  to  have  new  leadership!         It  is  necessary  for  the  new  leadership  to  preserve  and  develop  the  material  fruits  of  the  creative  genius   of  Europe  and  also  to  provide  mankind  with  such  high  ideals  and  values  as  have  so  far  remained   undiscovered  by  mankind  and  which  will  also  acquaint  humanity  with  a  way  of  life  which  is   harmonious  with  human  nature,  which  is  positive  and  constructive,  and  which  is  practicable.     Islam  is  the  only  System  which  possesses  these  values  and  this

 way  of  life.     The  period  of  the  Resurgence  of  science  has  also  come  to  an  end.    This  period  which  began  in  the   Renaissance  in  the  sixteenth  century  after  Christ,  and  reached  its  zenith  in  the  eighteenth  and   1     Source: http://www.doksinet nineteenth  centuries,  does  not  possess  a  reviving  spirit.    To  attain  the  leadership  of  mankind,  we  must   have  something  to  offer  besides  material  progress,  and  this  other  quality  can  only  be  a  faith  and  a  way   of  life  which  on  the  one  hand  conserves  the  benefits  of  modern  science  and  technology  and  on  the   other  fulfills  the  basic  human  needs

 on  the  same  level  of  excellence  as  technology  has  fulfilled  them  in   the  sphere  of  material  comfort.    And  then  this  faith  and  way  of  life  must  take  concrete  form  in  a  human   societyin  other  words,  in  a  Muslim  society.         This  religion  is  really  a  Universal  declaration  of  the  freedom  of  man  from  servitude  to  other  men  and   from  servitude  to  his  own  desires,  which  is  form  of    human  servitude;  it  is  a  declaration  that   sovereignty  belongs  to  God  alone.”       God  knew  that  true  social  justice  can  come  to  a  society  only  after  all  affairs  have  been  submitted  to   the

 laws  of  God  and  the  society  as  a  whole  is  willing  to  accept  the  just  division  of  wealth  prescribed  by   Him,  and  every  individual  of  the  society,  whether  he  be  a  giver  or  a  taker,  firmly  believes  that  this   system  has  been  legislated  by  God  Almighty  The  society  should  not  be  in  such  a  condition  that  some   are  driven  by  greed  while  others  are  burning  with  envy,  that  all  the  affairs  of  the  society  are  decided  by   the  sword  and  the  gun,  fear  and  threats,  that  the  hearts  of  the  population  are  desolate  and  their  spirits   are  broken,  as  is  the  case  under  systems  which  are

 based  on  any  authority”     Essay  by  Ziba  Mir  Hosseini  on  contemporary  Islamic  feminism:As  both  a  scholar-­‐activist  and  a   Muslim  woman,  I  am  a  committed  participant  in  debates  about  gender  equality  in  law.  My  academic   discipline  –  anthropology  –  enables  me  to  observe  my  own  participation  in  the  debate,  but  I  do  not   claim  to  be  a  detached  observer.  I  understand  ‘feminism’  in  the  widest  sense:  it  includes  a  general   concern  with  women’s  issues,  an  awareness  that  women  suffer  discrimination  at  work,  in  the  home   and  in  society  because  of  their  gender,  and  action  aimed  at  improving  their

 lives  and  changing  the   situation.  There  is  also  an  epistemological  side  to  feminism;  it  is  a  knowledge  project,  in  the  sense  that   it  sheds  light  on  how  we  know  what  we  know  about  women’s  rights  in  religious  law,  enabling  us  to   challenge  religious  patriarchy  from  within.   As  for  ‘religion’,  I  concurthat  those  who  talk  of  Islam  too  often  fail  to  make  a  distinction  now  common   when  talking  of  religion  in  other  contexts,  namely  between  faith  (and  its  values  and  principles)  and   organized  religion  (institutions,  laws  and  practices).  The  result  is  the  pervasive  polemic/rhetorical   trick  of  either

 glorifying  a  faith  without  acknowledging  the  horrors  and  abuses  that  are  committed  in   its  name,  or  condemning  it  by  equating  it  with  those  abuses.  Sholkamy  rightly  notes  the  confusion  of   meanings  in  the  English  word  ‘religion’,  though  it  might  be  better  to  avoid  a  deceptive  chalk  vs  cheese   contrast  between  ‘faith’  and  ‘politics’  and  rather  to  note  that  a  term  (Islam  or  the  Arabo-­‐Muslim  din,  as   much  as  the  English  ‘religion’)  that  can  encompass  faith  and  belief,  legal  traditions  and  discourses,  and   organizational  structures  and  positions,  has  political  and  rhetorical  potential.   For  in  many

 ways  it  is  the  notion  of  ‘Sharia’  that  is  the  problem.  In  modern  times,  when  nation-­‐states   have  created  uniform  legal  systems  and  selectively  reformed  and  codified  elements  of  classical  Islamic   law,  and  when  new  forms  of  political  Islam  have  emerged  that  use  Islamic  law  as  an  ideology,  one  of   the  main  distinctions  in  the  Islamic  tradition  has  been  distorted  and  elided.  This  is  the  distinction   between  Sharia  and  fiqh.  In  Muslim  belief  Sharia  is  God’s  will  as  revealed  to  the  Prophet  Muhammad   Fiqh,  jurisprudence  denotes  the  process  of  human  endeavor  to  discern  and  extract  legal  rulings  from

  the  sacred  sources  of  Islam,  that  is,  the  Qur’an  and  the  Sunnah  (the  practice  of  the  Prophet,  as   contained  in  Hadith,  Traditions).  This  distinction,  which  underlies  the  emergence  of  the  various   jurisprudential  schools  in  the  tradition,  and,  within  them,  a  multiplicity  of  positions  and  opinions,  has   immense  epistemological  and  political  ramifications.  It  allows  contestation  and  change;  it  enables  us  to   separate  the  legal  from  the  sacred,  and  to  ask  basic  questions  such  as,  how  do  we  know  what  the   Sharia  is?  How  do  we  know  what  we  know  about  gender  rights  in  Islam?  Who  says  what  ‘Islam’  says

 or   2     Source: http://www.doksinet mandates?  The  distinction  is  therefore  crucial  to  the  arguments  of  committed  feminists  who  choose  to   locate  their  feminism  within  Islamic  tradition.     From  Lorraine  Ali,  “Behind  the  Veil,”  New  York  Times,  June  11,  2010,  at   http://www.nytimescom/2010/06/13/fashion/13veilhtml?pagewanted=all& r=0     HEBAH  AHMED  assessed  the  weather  before  she  stepped  out  of  her  minivan.  “It’s  windy,”  she  said   with  a  sigh,  tucking  a  loose  bit  of  hair  into  her  scarf.  Her  younger  sister,  Sarah,  watched  out  the   window  as  dust  devils  danced  across  the  parking  lot.  “Oh,  great,”  she  said,  “I’m

 going  to  look  like  the   flying  nun.”       Hebah,  who  is  32,  and  Sarah,  28,  do  wear  religious  attire,  but  of  the  Islamic  sort:  a  loose  outer  garment   called  a  jilbab;  a  khimar,  a  head  covering  that  drapes  to  the  fingertips;  and  a  niqab,  a  scarf  that  covers   most  of  the  face.  Before  the  shopping  trip,  they  consulted  by  phone  to  make  sure  they  didn’t  wear  the   same  color.  “Otherwise,  we  start  to  look  like  a  cult,”  Sarah  explained       When  Hebah  yanked  open  the  van’s  door,  the  wind  filled  her  loose-­‐fitting  garments  like  a  sail.  Her  6-­‐ year-­‐old  daughter,  Khadijah

 Leseman,  laughed.  Hebah  unloaded  Khadijah  and  her  2-­‐year-­‐old  son,   Saulih,  while  struggling  to  hold  her  khimar  and  niqab  in  place.       The  wind  whipped  Sarah’s  navy-­‐blue  jilbab  like  a  sheet  on  a  clothesline  as  she  wrangled  a  shopping   cart.  Her  3-­‐year-­‐old  son,  Eesa  Soliman,  stayed  close  at  her  side,  lost  in  the  billowing  fabric       Most  people  in  the  parking  lot  stopped  to  stare.       If  the  sisters  were  aware  that  all  eyes  were  on  them,  they  gave  no  signs.  In  the  supermarket,  they   ignored  the  curious  glances  in  the  produce  section,  the  startled  double  takes  by

 the  baked  goods  and   the  scowls  near  the  cereal.  They  glided  along  the  aisles,  stopping  to  compare  prices  on  spaghetti  sauce       Two  Hispanic  children  gasped  and  ran  behind  their  mother.  “Why  are  they  dressed  that  way?”  the  girl   asked  her  mother  in  Spanish.  “Islam,”  the  woman  said,  also  telling  the  child  that  the  women  were  from   Saudi  Arabia.       Hebah,  who  is  from  Tennessee,  smiled  at  the  girl,  but  all  that  could  be  seen  of  her  face  were  the  lines   around  the  eyes  that  signaled  a  grin.  After  nearly  a  decade  under  the  veil,  she  and  her  sister  know  full   well  that

 they  are  a  source  of  fascination    and  many  other  reactions    to  those  around  them.       Hebah  said  she  has  been  kicked  off  planes  by  nervous  flight  attendants  and  shouted  down  in  a  Wal-­‐ Mart  by  angry  shoppers  who  called  her  a  terrorist.  Her  sister  was  threatened  by  a  stranger  in  a  picnic   area  who  claimed  he  had  killed  a  woman  in  Afghanistan  “who  looked  just  like”  her.  When  she  joined   the  Curves  gym  near  her  home  in  Edgewood,  N.M,  some  members  threatened  to  quit  “They  said   Islamists  were  taking  over,”  Ms.  Ahmed  said       Her  choice  to  become  so  identifiably  Muslim

 even  rattled  her  parents,  immigrants  from  Egypt.       “I  was  more  surprised  than  anything,”  said  her  father,  Mohamed  Ahmed,  who  lives  in  Houston  with  her   mother,  Mervat  Ahmed.  He  said  he  raised  his  daughters  with  a  deep  sense  of  pride  about  their  Muslim   background,  but  nevertheless  did  not  expect  them  to  wear  a  hijab,  a  head  scarf,  let  alone  a  niqab.       Raised  in  what  she  described  as  a  “minimally  religious”  household  by  parents  who  wore  typical   American  clothes,  Hebah  used  to  think  that  women  who  wore  a  niqab  were  crazy,  she  said.     3     Source: http://www.doksinet “It  looked

 like  they  were  suffocating,”  she  said.  “I  thought,  ‘There’s  no  way  God  meant  for  us  to  walk   around  the  earth  that  way,  so  why  would  anyone  do  that  to  themselves?’  ”  Now  many  people  ask  that   same  question  of  her.       HEBAH  AHMED  (her  first  name  is  pronounced  HIB-­‐ah)  was  born  in  Chattanooga,  raised  in  Nashville   and  Houston,  and  speaks  with  a  slight  drawl.  She  played  basketball  for  her  Catholic  high  school,  earned   a  master’s  in  mechanical  engineering  and  once  worked  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  oilfields.       She  is  not  a  Muslim  Everywoman;  it  is  not  a  role  she  would

 ever  claim  for  herself.  Her  story  is  hers   alone.  But  she  was  willing  to  spend  several  days  with  a  reporter  to  give  an  idea  of  what  American  life   looks  like  from  behind  the  veil,  a  garment  that  has  become  a  powerful  symbol  of  culture  clash.       All  that’s  visible  of  Ms.  Ahmed  when  she  ventures  into  mixed  company  are  her  deep  brown  eyes,  some   faint  freckles  where  the  sun  hits  the  top  of  her  nose,  and  her  hands.  She  used  to  leave  the  house  in   jeans  and  T-­‐shirt  (she  still  can,  under  her  jilbab),  but  that  all  changed  after  the  9/11  attacks.  It  shook   her  deeply

 that  the  people  who  had  committed  the  horrifying  acts  had  identified  themselves  as   Muslims.       “I  just  kept  thinking  ‘Why  would  they  do  this  in  the  name  of  Islam?’  ”  she  said.  “Does  my  religion  really   say  to  do  those  horrible  things?”       So  she  read  the  Koran  and  other  Islamic  texts  and  began  attending  Friday  prayers  at  her  local  Islamic   Center.  While  she  found  nothing  that  justified  the  attacks,  she  did  find  meaning  in  prayers  about   strength,  piety  and  resolve.  She  saw  them  as  guideposts  for  navigating  the  world       “I  was  really  questioning  my  life’s  purpose,”

 Ms.  Ahmed  said  “And  everything  about  the  bigger  picture   I  just  wasn’t  about  me  and  my  career  anymore.”       She  also  reacted  to  a  backlash  against  Islam  and  the  news  that  many  American  Muslim  women  were   not  covering  for  fear  of  being  targeted.  “It  was  all  so  wrong,”  she  said  She  took  it  upon  herself  to   provide  a  positive  example  of  her  embattled  faith,  in  a  way  that  was  hard  to  ignore.     So  on  Sept.  17,  2001,  she  wore  a  hijab  into  the  laboratory  where  she  worked,  along  with  her  business   attire.       “A  co-­‐worker  said,  ‘You  need  to  wrap  a  big  ol’

 American  flag  around  your  head  so  people  know  what   side  you’re  on,’  ”  Ms.  Ahmed  said  “From  then  on,  they  never  let  up”       Three  months  later,  she  quit  her  job  and  started  wearing  a  niqab,  covering  her  face  from  view  when  in   the  presence  of  men  other  than  her  husband.       “I  do  this  because  I  want  to  be  closer  to  God,  I  want  to  please  him  and  I  want  to  live  a  modest  lifestyle,”   said  Ms.  Ahmed,  who  asked  that  her  appearance  without  a  veil  not  be  described  “I  want  to  be  tested  in   that  way.  The  niqab  is  a  constant  reminder  to  do  the  right

 thing  It’s  God-­‐consciousness  in  my  face”       But  there  were  secular  motivations,  too.  In  her  job,  she  worked  with  all-­‐male  teams  on  oil  rigs  and  in   labs.       “No  matter  how  smart  I  was,  I  wasn’t  getting  the  respect  I  wanted,”  she  said.  “They  still  hit  on  me,   made  crude  remarks  and  even  smacked  me  on  the  butt  a  couple  times.”    Wearing  the  niqab  is   “liberating,”  she  said.  “They  have  to  deal  with  my  brain  because  I  don’t  give  them  any  other  choice”     4