The Idea of an “Islamic Way of Life” and the Twentieth Century Islamic Movements

6. The Idea of an “Islamic Way of Life” and the Twentieth Century Islamic Movements

The world of Islam also received the impact of Western ideas in the field of social sciences, and Muslims began to propound Islam as a system of life. Islamic teachings were projected as an all-embracing “system of life,” and movements in different lands were launched to implement and put into practice this system of life.

These twentieth century revivalist movements started almost simultaneously in Muslim countries from Indonesia to Egypt. They were similar in a number of ways. Indeed it would not be far from true to say that they were all animated by a single conception of religion. It must be admitted, in all fairness, that these efforts imparted credibility to Islam as a code of life superior to other ideologies, and have weakened the influence of the West upon the young.

There were other factors which helped to limit the influence of Western ideas and culture. The sweeping military and political victories of the Western colonial powers were checked with the passage of time and in many countries were met with forceful and sustained nationalist freedom movements. Consequently Western countries were forced to withdraw their political hegemony from occupied lands.

Though political influence and economic domination in the form of defense pacts or military and monetary aid programs are still very much there, almost the entire Muslim bloc has got ride of the yoke of direct rule by imperialist powers. In many Muslim countries nationalist freedom and self-rule movements were launched, and these invariably appealed to religious sentiments of the people for sparking off feelings of nationalism. There was no alternative to this, as Muslim nationalism had no anchorage other than Islam. This appeal to religion, however, was more like a slogan than an existential concern for the Islamic faith. Yet it did strengthen the idea of the revival of Islam. 

At the same time, the hollowness of Western civilization has been clearly brought out by the two disastrous world wars, so that even the West has come to consider the foundations of its own culture as ill-conceived and misguided. Materialistic atheism reached its logical culmination in the forms of socialism and communism, and moral as well as religious values were reinterpreted in purely economic terms. This alarmed Western peoples themselves, and they began to propound a new philosophy of humanism which was quite sympathetic to spiritual values. 

In the realm of science new physical theories shook the very foundations of Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry. Matter was no longer considered as something permanent and tangible, and the former absolute faith in mechanical laws gave way to less rigid views of the universe. This made easier to affirm metaphysical beliefs, and gave support to religion.

Supported by these factors, movements for “Islamic Renaissance,” “establishment of government according to the Will of God,” and “enforcement of the Islamic system of life” were started in various Muslim countries. Of all these, the Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslemoon, which began in Egypt was the most prominent in point of quantitative strength and emotional fervor. The Indo-Pak subcontinent’s Jama`at-e-Islami however, occupies a distinguished place among these movements, based as it is on a solid and strongly defended thought-system.

These movements have been active in Muslim countries for more than thirty years and a substantial number of Muslim youth has been influenced by them. But it is an irony of history that practically none of these movements has achieved any remarkable success. Rather it seems as if they have outlived the span of their lives, and the moment is not yet ripe when the fond hopes for the renaissance of Islam can be realized. Egypt’s Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslemoon has met almost complete disintegration within the country, and its few remaining members are scattered all over the Middle East and Europe. The Indo-Pak subcontinent’s Jama`at-e-Islami fared no better, a greater portion of its potentialities having been spent up in the politics of Pakistan. At the moment it has hardly any program other than joining hands with various political parties in the struggle for democracy.

One may think that the real cause of the failure of these revivalist movements lies in the impatience of their leaders. That is to say, they perhaps hastily, without first changing the minds of a considerable number of the country’s intelligentsia, took part in active politics, which resulted in premature clash with the national leadership and the so-called “progressive” elements. But in truth their failure is a direct result of their misconceived notion of faith and the error in their view of Islam.

Source: Islamic Renaissance - The Real Task Ahead
To be Continued.... 

The Development of the Social Sciences - Islamic Renaissance

5. The Development of the Social Sciences

The fundamentals of Western philosophy, disguised as suspension of judgment or agnosticism, were in fact the denial of God and the life Hereafter. They caused the physical universe to replace the transcendental concepts of God and soul from the center of human concern and inquiry. 

Numerous scientific discoveries and inventions naturally followed from this exclusive emphasis on worldly interests. Eschatological doctrines of life-after-death were completely rejected as topics of research in favor of the immediacy of world existence. As a result of persistent and exclusive thinking about the multifarious aspects of worldly life, a number of sociological and politico-economic theories were conceived and put forward. These theories gradually developed into full-fledged ideologies and world-views. Confined to strictly academic discussion in the earlier stages, these world-views were later made the social, political, and economic basis of nations. 

The age-old political systems based on traditional feudalism were replaced by nationalism, dictatorship, and democracy, and ancient economic system by capitalism and socialism. A number of new political and economic movements emerged in the wake of these changes.

Source: Islamic Renaissance - The Real Task Ahead
To be Continued.... 

 

The Early Defensive Attempts and Their Achievements - Islamic Renaissance

4. The Early Defensive Attempts and their Achievements

The Islamic world made a number of attempts to meet the Western ideological onslaught, and many convinced and devout Muslims worked wholeheartedly to protect their faith and religion. These attempts to defend and safeguard Islamic values were of two types, the first being limited to mere protection but others sought apologetic compromise and attenuation.

The merely defensive efforts to protect religious values and beliefs can be described, to quote Maulana Manazir Ahsan Gilani, as the following of Ashab-e-Kahaf’s Attitude. They fled from the mainstream of social life in order to hold fast to faith. Even though this might appear to be sheer escapist in motivation, it was in fact based on the realistic acceptance of the truth that the Muslim world was not able to mount a direct frontal offensive on the West. The only was that remained open was to keep away from the flood tide of secularism and hold fast to religious faith, caring little for those who derided this approach. 

As a matter of fact, whatever meager success was achieved in the defense of faith was made possible through this approach. The faith of a section of the Muslim community was saved from atheistic influences and a few candles of faith were left alight in the darkness of crass materialism. The structure of the faith and religious law was maintained through sermons and the teachings of the Quran and Hadith. The most important phenomena of this type of struggle in the Indo-Pak subcontinent was the establishment of a Dar-ul-Uloom at Deoband. In name a mere scholastic institution, it was in reality the harbinger of a great revivalist movement.

The fundamental principle of the more aggressive approach was to keep up with the changing times without loosing faith. To achieve this they undertook to sift the sound from the fallacious in modern ideas and to construct a modernist version of Islam in order to prove its veracity as well as its capacity to meet modern challenges effectively.

At first, sings of defeatism were manifest in those who took up this work. A number of pseudo-scholastic thinkers of India and Egypt started to test the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith in the light of the new rationalism of the West. As a result of this, religious beliefs were attenuated and their metaphysical concepts were reinterpreted in purely scientific terms. Sayyid Ahmed Khan in the Indo-Pak subcontinent and Mufti Muhammad Abduh in Egypt and their acolytes attempted to formulate a modern interpretation of Islam to save it from anachronism and allow believers to make headway on the path of scientific progress like the Europeans. 

Their motives may have been sincere and their dedication genuine, but through these attempts Islam undeniably lost its very spirit and élan. The influence of Western materialism resulted in a non-religious version of Islam. Thus these attempts served only a negative purpose: saving of those who were already completely Europeanized in culture and life-style from being called “un-Islamic.” Their inclusion in the fraternity of Muslim brotherhood remained unchallenged, and this new version of Islam was presented to the West on their behalf as an “apology.”

Source: Islamic Renaissance - The Real Task Ahead
To be Continued.... 

 

Political and Ideological Onslaught of the West on the Islamic World

3. Political and Ideological Onslaught of the West on the Islamic World

The newly acquired scientific knowledge and technical know-how gave to the West tremendous superiority in arms and military equipment. Its political power swept across the world in a very short time. Eastern nations and their governments crumbled before it like sand castles. Since the Muslim states of the Near and Middle East bore the brunt of this attack, the onslaught of the West struck Islam and Muslim nations the severest blow. The whole Muslim world was subjugated by Western imperialist powers in a matter of a few decades.

The West’s occupation of the Islamic world was two-fold, military and political as well as ideological and cultural. But since the European attack was primarily and initially political, the reaction against it in the Islamic world contained in its early stages a sense of revolt against political repression only. The painful realization by the Muslim world of the fact of European domination and the fragmentation of its own strength, either in the form of direct political rule and annexation or in the guise of indirect involvement and support of puppet governments, was expressed in heart-rending poems. The nostalgic memory of the glorious past and the passionate desire to regain the old strength and solidarity, indeed the desire to set the clock backward, expressed itself at one time in the volatile personality of Jamaluddin Afghani and at another in the form of Tehreek-e-Khilafat. But reality prevailed over emotions and the political domination of the West became an established fact.

Immediately after consolidating its political hegemony, Europe started disseminating her ideological principles and point of view with a missionary zeal so as to capture and control the ideas and thoughts of Muslim nations. The material and scientific progress of the West had already dazzled the eyes of the world’s conquered people. Moreover any superior nation must have some fundamental human qualities which help her to achieve her expansionist goals. 

The apparent evidences of Europeans’ superiority contributed greatly to infuse defeatism in the minds of Muslims, and a vast majority of them began to appropriate Western ideas and values uncritically. Since the Europeans had themselves many schools of thought in the field of philosophy and social sciences, there was some scope of debate, counter position, and selective adoption in these fields. But as the findings of science had an element of certainty and its results were practical and tangible, they were not open to dispute. Science was therefore received with as much enthusiasm as should be accorded to Divine Revelation, and a large number of educated men in the Islamic world consciously or unconsciously accepted a secular and materialistic point of view. The entire Islamic world, including its deeply religious core, started giving more importance to material existence and worldly life, and less importance to God, the spirit, and the life Hereafter. A radical change of emphasis from transcendental themes to material and worldly pursuits occurred not only in Islamic society in general, but also in its religious leaders and scholars.

Source: Islamic Renaissance - The Real Task Ahead
To be Continued....