Whole Lotta Jahiliyyah Here Today

Here's an essay on Sayyid Qutb, Bernard Lewis, and why I think both of them are lame.

---

Islamism and Modernization:
Comparative Academic Perspectives

The apparently ‘denial of the West’ by the modern Muslim world has come to define conflict in the contemporary era. Ongoing calls for a return to Islamic fundamentals have come from scholarly sources such as the Pakistani political theorist Abu Ala Maududi and Iranian religious figurehead Ruhollah Khomeini; among these ‘Islamists’ was Sayyid Qutb, a leading proponent of reintegrating Islam into the political system who published a number of now significant commentaries on that very subject. Qutb’s thoughts, best summarized in his narrative Milestones, have been utilized by Islamist groups such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – a group to which Qutb belonged before his assassination for perceived treason against the secularizing Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser – as well as other movements ranging from the regional Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia to the global fundamentalist-terrorist structure of Al-Qaeda .

In an attempt to explain the motives behind the Muslim world’s turning away from the secular ideals and modernization of the West, academic sources in that very region have begun to address the topic and attempt to better understand the return to fundamentalism that the Dar al-Islam has begun to experience primarily in the last century. These figures including British-American Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis, the creator of “The Roots of Muslim Rage” – a 1990 lecture-turned-essay which attempts to analyze the hostility toward the West held by a growing number in the Muslim world – and the late Samuel Huntington, an American political scientist who authored the post-Cold War conflict theory titled “The Clash of Civilizations” – a 1992 piece which drew heavily from Lewis’s proposals and distinctly addressed the role of the Muslim world in global conflict.

Through an analysis of these academic views, it is evident that the less than pleasant relations between the West and the Dar al-Islam have had a major impact upon the rise of Islamism. Usually characterized as hostile and during times of relative peace as overtly suspicious, the Islamic world’s negative regard for the West not only encompasses the politicians and governments of that despised region but also the secular, modernizing fashion in which the West characterizes itself. As can be seen in “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, leading academic sources in the West chalk the Muslim world’s disregard for modernization and embracing of a return to fundamentals as potentially fueled by the touting of modernization as a Western ideal – giving further reason for the Dar al-Islam to deny it. On the other hand, Sayyid Qutb’s demand for a rebirth of political Islam and a revival of Qur’anic values explicitly mentions modernization and material innovation as “obligatory for us”; instead of denying modernization wholesale, the author believes that the Dar al-Islam need not be enveloped and defined by modernization but should utilize it in achieving the goals of Islamism . The encounter between Islam and modernization, characterized by conflict as it is, would not have necessarily been so if it had not been for the outwardly abrasive nature and perceived corruption of those ‘overly’ modernized Western powers observed by the Muslim world.

Bernard Lewis’s “The Roots of Muslim Rage” exemplifies the Western attempt at understanding the mindset of the anti-modern – and increasingly hostile – contemporary Muslim. Although dated, as Lewis states that “there is no Cuba, no Vietnam, in the Muslim world, and no place where American forces are involved as combatants or even as ‘advisers’” , this work is useful for a Westerner in their analysis of Islamist activity over the course of the last several decades. Lewis speaks from a distinctly secular, modern point of view: he states that “the idea that God has enemies, and needs human help in order to identify and dispose of them, is a little difficult to assimilate” and that, subsequently, any enemy facing off against these supporters of God is an agent of evil hoping to destabilize Islamic civilization . The world is divided into the Dar al-Islam (“house of Islam”) and the Dar al-Harb (“house of war”), two spheres that come into battle with one another due to the latter’s undermining of the Islamic faith. According to Lewis, the “pushing back” of the Muslims from their ‘conquered regions’ in parts of Southern and Eastern Europe signified the beginning of a “Western paramountcy” which the Muslim world has essentially rebelled against in an attempt to reassert the superiority lost in the West’s effective control of the world . The West came to be regarded as, initially, a center of wealth and success; after an increase in Western global hegemony, those hoping to reclaim the Islamic legacy pointed to the West’s growing secular sentiment and intensely technological – best exemplified through Soviet communism and American capitalism, both regarded as “soulless systems” – as harmful to the world and Muslims in particular. This view of Western political systems as inherently harmful to the faith and person of a Muslim is staunchly held by members of Al-Ikhwān Al-Muslimūn (“The Muslim Brotherhood”) as seen in the film Islam Is The Answer .

In order to better analyze the different distinctions held by the Muslim world toward separate Western entities, Lewis compares the views of the Dar al-Islam toward the former Soviet Union and the United States. The author begins with a discussion of the issue of Azerbaijani independence: the Muslim world did not rise up in support of this movement due to the perceived liberalism of its ideology and, in addition, the Soviet authorities – unlike the American authorities in their dealing with its own minority rights movements – did not move against the Azerbaijanis publicly and disseminate such actions within its own media . Accusations of mistreatment of women, imperialistic policies and racism are all leveled at the US, a fact which Lewis regards as puzzling due to the fact that much of the West outside of America engages in the same behavior or even worse . The specific Muslim interpretation of imperialism – namely, the ruling of the truly faithful (Muslims) by nonbelievers (which in this case includes the West, despite the predominance of Christianity and thus a special status within Islam) – is most certainly applicable to nations other than the United States, specifically the former Soviet Union. Lewis cites Russia as a prime example of a nation who has historically employed a heavy hand in dealing with its Muslim subjects in accordance with their faith ; indeed, Russia’s use of forced orthodoxy and its manipulation of Islamic clergy within its Central Asian hinterlands exemplifies the sort of behavior against which Lewis would assume the Muslim would lash out . On the other hand, Lewis observes that despite the state doctrine of atheism imposed by the Soviet Union, “they were not godless” and instead imposed an austere cult of personality that was in no way attractive or misleading to the Muslim subject in the same way that Western secularism and capitalism has shown to be . To Lewis, the threat of the West seems to be that it is a more tantalizing and ultimately more corruptive direction for the Muslim public to follow in comparison to the lesser evil of Soviet authoritarianism.

As Lewis notes, relations between the Muslim world and the West had not always been very hostile. Indeed, earlier regard by Muslims for modernization had been one of hope as brand new technologies may have assisted in the regaining and retaining of the Islamic legacy. The Dar al-Islam early regard for modernization was acclaim and even emulation as Muslim entities observed the successes of the West, specifically in regard to its economic and industrial matters; generations of Muslim reformers, admirers of the new Western methods, attempted to utilize modernization as a means of attempting to achieve “equality with the West [,] and perhaps restore their lost superiority” .

Historic documents support the Islamic tradition of appreciation (and even emulation) of modernization. Mustafa Reshit Pasha’s Hatt-i Şerif Gülhane, issued in Istanbul in 1839 to an audience which included European diplomats, contained many “Western” reforms for the Ottoman Empire and initiated the “Tanzimat Period”, a period of increased bureaucratization and an erosion of the absolute monarch’s power. Up to this point, interactions between the Ottoman Porte and modernizing European powers had been limited mostly to hostility as the hinterlands of the Ottoman Empire became targets for Western and Northern European powers – powers that eventually represented a major threat to the Empire. The French had begun to act antagonistically toward Ottoman possessions in North Africa and in 1830 began seizing territory in Ottoman Algeria, a process which they would eventually complete in their domination of the region. Russian forces had engaged in constant clashes with the Ottomans in Eastern Europe over key strategic locations such as Varna in Bulgarian territory and Azov in the Crimea. Most striking would be the support given by the French and Russians as well as the continent-spanning British Empire to the Empire’s rebellious Greek subjects. Viewing the Greeks as a deserving Christian power under the yoke of hateful Islamic rule, all three powers supported Greek partisans monetarily and militarily. Through interference in Ottoman affairs, modernizing European entities overpowered the Islamic state and, by the potential standards of the contemporary Islamist, forced it to capitulate to jahiliyyah.

The Hatt-i Şerif Gülhane’s call for modernization and reform of the ‘backward’ Ottoman state – indeed, “Westernization” – prompted a reaction from the European powers which had always regarded the Ottoman state efficiency and military ability as less advanced than those possessed by Western powers. In addressing the ills of Ottoman society, the Empire was attempting to reach out to European powers for aid in bolstering their state; effectively, the Hatt-i Şerif Gülhane’s presentation to European diplomats was an open request for help and potential acceptance from European powers. The Ottoman Empire, in the views of Lewis’s Islamists, had been corrupted and interfered with by Western powers.

Lewis blames the rejection of Western modernization and other ideals on the relations between the Muslim world and the West: humiliation at the submitting of the Muslim world to Western hegemony – including the enforcement of Western politics and secularism by corrupted officials within the Muslim world, seen as a result of Western interference into the Dar al-Islam – and a disgust at the self-destructive, mechanical nature of a world that regards itself most predominantly by its own modernized nature . As Lewis states, the United States is the “legitimate heir of European civilization and the recognized and unchallenged leader of the West”; thus, the US is the target of the Dar al-Islam’s centuries-old frustration toward the West . In an attempt to strike out against this corruptive polity, the Muslim World has adapted some of its aspects – political freedom, Western military technology – and modified it in a way to best suit its Islamic world and better assist in the spread of fundamentalism.

The views of Sayyid Qutb, as published in his Milestones narrative, are an interesting companion piece to Bernard Lewis’s “Roots of Muslim Rage”. In his Introduction Qutb denies the legitimacy of the two major political systems put to use by the West – Soviet communism and Western democracy – for their inability to serve the world’s population properly as well as their lack of regard for the important morals to which the human race must adhere. Qutb claims that the failings of these systems are indicative of a need for the return to Islam, as it is the only “system” (in Qutb’s view, not only religiously but also politically) which encompasses the true importance of morals into its governance . The Egyptian political theorist promotes the revival of an Islamic political tradition in order to combat the secular, “man-made” methods utilized by those who have fallen under Western influence and thus attempt to corrupt the inner-workings of the Dar al-Islam; Qutb goes on to state that, while the Western world is alluring in its production and distribution of “marvelous things” within the fields of science and material matters and that the Islamic world has little to compare to these things, Islam as a political system must be revived to ensure a measure of competition with the West . This is most certainly in accordance with Lewis’s belief that the fundamentalist movement has gained strength due to the imposition of Western political and ideological methods upon fields within the Muslim world.

Rather than outwardly deny all aspects of the modernized West, Qutb points out the importance in material innovation for the Dar al-Islam. In his Introduction, he states the following.

“…Islam itself, which elevates man to the position of representative of God on earth, and which, under certain conditions, considers the responsibilities of this representative as the worship of God and the purpose of man’s creation, makes material progress obligatory for us.”

Qutb’s belief is that, in harnessing material innovation, the Muslim world has the potential to regain what it had lost to the West. He claims that while Europe’s “creative mind” has far surpassed what the Islamic community is able to accomplish contemporarily, it is not in a way that dissuades jahilliyah (“ignorance” – as well as secularism, in Qutb’s regard). To Qutb, the West’s material innovations and non-Islamic progress in general are only a reinforcement of this jahilliyah and has even taken the form of attempts at ruling the world through man-made values as opposed to those that are passed down to the Muslims – in the author’s words, “a corollary of rebellion of God’s authority and the denial of the dignity of man given to him by God” . Qutb’s statements on the subject of European achievement surpassing that of the Islamic civilization is very reminiscent of the claims by Lewis that deep-seated within the Islamic frustration against the West is a jealousy against the perceived superiority of those who utilized modernization.

The jahiliyyah described as plaguing contemporary society also plagued the world in which the original Qur’anic Generation of Muhammad lived. Qutb analyzes why that generation is of any impressive quality, querying as to if the appearance of the Prophet Muhammad was the only reason as to why they were considered so pious. The author’s belief is that the Prophet’s appearance within the Qur’anic Generation was not the deciding factor in their piety; rather, the purity of their faith and their use of Islam as more than just a religious doctrine but as a way of life made them truly admirable . They were largely untouched by cultures best defined through their ignorance, such as the Romans; their sole form of guidance was through the Prophet and, as a direct conduit of God, the message delivered to them was pure and arrived as necessary instead of being available as a guide to life like the Qur’an is today. Qutb goes on to state that the holy message which has passed down through the ages, while still divine in origin, has been intermingled with other sources including theories from other faiths as well as even secular scholarly work; thus, contemporary Islam – influenced by foreign sources and no longer adhered to as a way of life but as a piece of literature or history – is an aspect of the all-encompassing modern jahiliyyah.

One of the most important things to take from Qutb’s analysis of the Qur’anic Generation is its very important role in defining Islamic identity. As noted by Lewis, the impact of the West upon Islamic society and civilization is perceived as eroding the foundation of the basic identity of the Muslim World. This is due to the fact that the identity of Islam has little to do with the traditional Westernized form of modernization and has little real chance to mesh smoothly with some of its secular ideals. Even the historical roots of the two identities, Western and Islamic, are completely separate: although they mingled briefly from time to time, the Western (in this case Roman) identity and the Islamic (in this case Arabian) identity drew extremely little from each other and interacted very rarely. Within Qutb’s view of the Islamic identity, an adoption of Western modernization would be quite painful: by adding aspects to it that are not inherently tied to the Islamic past, the legacy of the Islamic civilization would be effectively corrupted and rendered ignorant. This very viewpoint is held by many members of the Muslim Brotherhood as seen in the film Islam Is the Answer: those members of Egyptian Islamic society who adhered to foreign culture (in this case, the speakers blamed the Western culture of Israel) assisted in the erosion of Islamic identity and the faith itself . In order for a Muslim to act appropriately and work to their full potential, the Islamic state is the ideal structure.

In order to combat ignorance, Qutb advises a “cutting off” of the true Muslims from the world of jahiliyyah. In his stating of this, the author refers to the methods put to use by Muhammad in his removal of the original Qur’anic Generation from the pagan sphere, remarking upon its usefulness in purifying a modern Muslim in its reflection of the efforts of the early Muslims; Qutb even goes on to suggest that today’s ignorance is stronger than it has ever been and that the removal of a Muslim from a heathen (or secular) environment, despite still having ties to it by necessity, is essential to allow true faith . By following a proper Islamic life and denying a life of jahiliyyah, believes Qutb, the proper Muslim will begin to impact the ignorant society around himself and the non-Muslim society will begin to change fundamentally as a result of exposure to such faith. Qutb sees such an oppositional existence as a major struggle, regarding it as a front in the battle directly between the forces of good and evil, which extends past earthly existence and into the afterlife . The author also sees the elimination of foreign influence into the life of a Muslim community as useful in the fostering of an ideal state – namely, one dictated by shari’ah law. This idea is in line with the beliefs of Bernard Lewis, namely in his regard that Islamists view those who combat the existence of Islam in its purest forms as its worst enemies .
The impact of jahiliyyah upon an existing Muslim community can be seen readily in the aforementioned example of Mustafa Reshit Pasha’s Hatt-i Şerif Gülhane. The proclamation regards the faith of its subjects quite differently in comparison to the older Turkish legal documents – a point most prominent in regards to the attempt to appeal to Europeans. The proclamation was not issued alongside a fatwa (Islamic legal proclamation) as was formal with Ottoman declarations. This decision, one that undoubtedly irritated the Ottoman ulama, was a step away from the traditional Ottoman practice of associating the Sultan’s rulings with approval from shari’ah scholars – it was a move toward removing power from the Porte’s religious figures in favor of a more secular centralization of authority. In addition, religious equality was promoted alongside the safety of all Ottoman subjects . This ruling is in drastic contrast to Sari Mehmed Pasha’s “Ministers and Bribery”, a piece which demanded the submission of the Sultan’s subjects to the will of Allah and the Sultan himself as the representation of Islam’s highest terrestrial authority; it is also a display of the sort of behavior which would be explained by Lewis’s Islamists and Qutb himself as a corruption of Muslims due to the interference of the West . For the world’s greatest Islamic power to promote a step toward secularism – a blasphemously Western ideal, by Qutb’s and Lewis’s writing – would be a direct denial of Islam’s legitimacy within the form of a state .

Despite the fierceness with which Islamists decry the West, it is evident that the at least some aspects of modernization are applicable to Islamism. On the one hand, the issuing of a document such as the Hatt-i Şerif Gülhane would be seen as an abandonment of the Islamic ideal in an attempt to join in with the legacy of the secularizing, nigh-faithless West. Those nations best defined as modernized or even defined through their modernization have been the ones who have enacted policies of imperialism – in Lewis’s loose definition, control over Muslims by non-Muslims – and abuse toward the non-modernized and predominantly Islamic world for the last several hundred years . The West has largely been in control of the world’s affairs for quite some time and, naturally, the Islamic world chafes under this hegemony. In addition, ‘modern’ systems such as Western governments and banks do not function appropriately within Islamic societies, drawing the ire of both the Islamic elite and the common Muslim . On the other hand, Qutb displays in Milestones – a work widely considered indicative and influential within Islamist thought – has great regard for human material innovation; he extolls the importance of regaining the Islamic legacy lost to that civilization’s rivalry with the West and claims that modernization is the path which Islamism must follow in order to reclaim its purity of faith . In addition, Lewis makes special note of the adaptation of Western technologies and political systems by Islamic institutions and states – regardless of their relations with Western powers – in order to fulfill an Islamic goal, within the framework of a largely unchallenged Islamic identity .

In comparing and contrasting the sources, it becomes clear that “Westernization” – the secular, self-absorbed modernization touted by the imperialists of Europe and the United States – is not a goal favored by modern Islamists due to their view that it can only lead to the corruption of an individual and eventually an entire society. On the other hand, modernization is not a force completely in opposition to Islamism: the hostility directed at modernity is more of a lashing out against the hegemonic, faithless West than it is a rejection of progress. At their roots, Qutb and Lewis support the concept that Islamism does not deny the usefulness – and in Qutb’s case, necessity – of modernity in the face of Western opposition. It is very evident that the modernization put to use by Islamists must be quite different from the model provided by the West: it must assist in the preservation of Islamic fundamentals and conserve the essential aspects of the Muslim identity.

---

Works Cited
1. Crews, Robert. "Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth-Century Russia.” The American Historical Review 108.1 (2003): 50-83.
2. Lewis, Bernard. “The Roots of Muslim Rage.” The Atlantic 266.3 (1990): 47-60.
3. Marchal, Roland. “Islamic Political Dynamics in the Somali Civil War Before and After September 11” in de Waal, Alex (editor). Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
4. Mustafa Reshit Pasha, Halil Inalcik (translator) and J.C. Hurewitz (editor). The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record. Yale University Press: New Haven, 1975.
5. Qutb, Sayyid. Milestones. Kazi Publications: Chicago, 1993.
6. Sari Mehmed Pasha and Walter Livingston Wright, Jr. (translator/editor). Ottoman Statecraft: The Book of Counsel for Vezirs and Governors. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1971.
7. Islam Is the Answer. Film. USA/Egypt: Landmark Media, 1988.