Ignorance Is Not Bliss Intellectual laziness in the Muslim world holds us back from real reform and progress By Kashif Pirzada We all know that Muslim scholars led the world in a variety of fields a millennium ago. That fact is pointed out repeatedly by our beleaguered leaders to defend our faith and civilization. But very few Muslims question how or why those Muslims were different from Muslims today. What made the scientists of that golden age want to seek out and translate entire libraries of Greek and Persian texts, to make immeasurable contributions to civilization, when modern Muslims instead are the most uneducated of peoples and are bent on the destruction of historical sites (à la Taliban)? How is it that Spain was made a Muslim country by Tariq ibn Ziyad to protect Iberian civilization from the Visigoths when Muslims now murder innocent civilians by the thousands? What conditions were able to create great scholars such as Abu-Hanifah, who set the basis for the Hanafi madhan (school of thought) from what was before a disorganized system of informal law? What is missing from the soul of Muslims today that lit the hearts of our ancestors? More importantly, why is the current Islamic revival movement so flawed and blind to these problems? There is a systemic rot that has paralyzed Muslim societies across the globe. So widespread is this contagion that few of us even understand the two forces that keep us in darkness: ignorance of our own history, religion and law and a complete lack of freedom to question things. Those of us now free in the West with some experience of living in the Muslim world, especially in repressive dictatorships, can probably understand more clearly what my point is. None of these points are addressed in the rhetoric of the reformists, or reactionary Islamic parties in the Muslim world. My final point is that it is up to Muslims in the West to show our brethren, mired in poverty and ignorance, the way to prosperity and peace. ______________________ What is missing from the soul of Muslims today that lit the hearts of our ancestors? ______________________ While Muslims of all cultures can point to periods of brilliance in their past, often the memory that is evoked is selective. We have no idea how intolerant and hate-filled we have become until we have examined the historical record. The MSA at the University of Toronto has been running an excellent speaker series on the 800-year period of Muslim rule in Spain, which many Western scholars acknowledge as perhaps the earliest example of a truly pluralistic and harmonious society. Enormous Islamic contributions to science and philosophy were made alongside the greatest flowering of Jewish philosophy and literature in history. This was repeated in Ottoman Turkey, where a policy of multiculturalism allowed vast swaths of Eastern Europe to remain proudly Christian until modern times and where many post-Inquisition Jews settled. We forget the example of two cities that were ruled by Muslims for 700 years: Athens and Delhi. Both retained their original religious character under Islamic guardianship. Compare this to modern times where Christian and some other Gulf nationalities are jailed for practising their religion or where attacks against Jews increase every year. Philosophers in the courts of Baghdad, Istanbul and Delhi were free to debate a wide range of religious issues, but now questioning even minor aspects of faith can incur the wrath of conservatives and cost you your life. A fundamental and constricting intolerance chokes the heart of the modern Muslim and makes him immune to reason, prone to violence, and unable to reform. In our intolerance, we have forgotten the basis of much of the law that constitutes sharia. Part of the blame can be seen in historical events, where Muslims have been grappling with change imposed by outsiders throughout the last two centuries of the colonial period. From shocks like the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258 and the end of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924, there has been considerable damage to the quality of Islamic discourse. If we compare, it takes a modern Anglican Christian priest several years of university graduate level training, plus practical work in churches, to become a member of the clergy. For a member of the Muslim ulema (community of legal scholars of Islam), the training period is considerably less, and in some cases in Pakistan, it is shortened to a matter of weeks. Where the ulema of 18th-century Isfihan, Persia courted philosophy and science with religion, most modern “scholars” cannot live up to this legacy. Given this state, it is not surprising that many popular Islamic movements advocate a return to the ideal time of the Medinan period, the time of the Prophet, and to the value of the Qur’an and the Sunna (body of traditional social and legal customs and practice that constitutes proper observance of Islam). It would be nice if that were so, for surely there could not have been a more exciting and dynamic time in Muslim history – but human nature can corrupt even the most pure of messages. There is no better example than that of the Taliban of Afghanistan. In 1996 they captured Kabul and brought their brand of Islam to prominence in the world. It was marked with an extremely literal interpretation of the Qur’an and the Sunna which included flogging men who shaved, preventing women from going to work, and other interesting twists. This “return to basics” approach is a common theme in many Islamic movements, from the FIS in Algeria, the Ikhwan in Egypt to the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. It is also complete unhistorical, not supported by any past Islamic government, and has been destructive and divisive at all times in our history. Only the total collapse of proper Islamic education could have allowed this half-educated opinion to propagate throughout the world. So pervasive is this mentality that true Islamic practice is based solely on a literal reading of just the Qur’an and Sunna that we even forget the role of the most speculative branches of Islam in converting much of the Muslim world. If you are of South Asian, African, Turkish or Indonesian origin (i.e. over 70% of Muslims), chances are Islam was spread to your ancestors by Sufi mystics and their followers. They retained the flexibility to adapt Islam to local practices, made the beauty and simplicity of the worship of Allah appealing to countless millions, and made Islam the world force it is now. We disown that heritage today; we scorn them and their ways and relegate them to the margins of disbelief. ______________________ How can we protest the ban on the hijab (headscarf) in France when Muslim countries force women to wear it? ______________________ A cause of this ignorance and inability to countenance disagreement can be blamed on a complete lack of freedom. The word is not some cliché to be used by your favourite superpower in its actions overseas. It is a difficult concept to understand, but the essence is that you can make decisions in your life and, for our purposes, in the manner of your faith, free from the fear of harm – physical or psychological. It is also the freedom to question, to probe, to investigate, to test the limits. We Muslims in the West are probably best positioned to comment on this. It was our parents (or ourselves) who escaped the decay of Muslim societies in the Old World to make a better life here. Many conservatives in Muslim countries think the idea of freedom, along with democracy and capitalism, is some kind of Western alien imposition that should be rejected. Besides the fact that most of these groups have no coherent alternative to this model (a recently elected religiously conservative government in Pakistan decided that banning music and movies took priority over education, health care, and poverty alleviation), one should remember that the most free and capitalistic societies a thousand years ago were Muslim. It was Muslims in Spain and then Turkey who welcomed the refugee intellectuals and minorities of Europe and Muslims who pioneered international banking and commerce systems. Finally, it was Muslim scholars who preserved ancient Greek knowledge, including the Athenian experience of democracy, that was later transmitted to Europe. Truly thinking freely involves asking tough questions about ourselves: what is the future of Muslims in the West? Why is it that Muslims form the poorest, least educated strata of world society? Where do your loyalties lie in a conflict between the West and a Muslim country? How can we protest the ban on the hijab (headscarf) in France when Muslim countries force women to wear it? A tough road lies ahead for the Muslims of the present age. On the one hand is the hostility of some non-Muslims who fear and despise us; on the other are those within our faith who would hold us hostage to violence, condemn us as heretics and blame others for problems that have internal solutions. All I ask is that each individual keep an open mind, be sceptical of world conspiracy theories, learn the value of history, especially that concerning our forebears and the application of Sharia, and never stop asking questions. This article first appeared in the Muslim Voice, a non-profit magazine published by the Muslim Students’ Association at the University of Toronto. Kashif Pirzada is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Toronto. This website: Copyright © 2005 Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in Urban Mozaik Magazine are not necessarily those of Urban Mozaik Magazine and the publisher cannot be held responsible for them. This website/publication, in whole or in part, may not be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.