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The Challenge of Secularism
Despite continuing opposition from various religious movements,
and in spite of the presence of a few pockets of resistance here
and there, the idea of secularism still enjoys the status of the
dominant ideology of our times. Essentially, secularism does not
involve any absolute rejection of religion and religious
doctrines, its primary claim being that religion has no right to
interfere in the matters of the temporal and the mundane world.
In other words, all matters concerning social organization,
economic norms, legal practices, and political affairs should be
decided and executed in terms of liberal, democratic, and
non-religious criteria, while religion is to be treated as a
personal and individual concern. The secular state is willing to
patronize religious sentiments whenever these can be used to
gain subservience to the state authority or to achieve the goals
set by the state. Thus, religious values and imperatives are
often invoked to justify and legitimize political actions, to
gain support for political struggle, and to influence voting
behavior. At the same time, however, the secular state does not
tolerate any reference to religious teachings when it comes to
the process of legislation or development of public policies.
Secularism as a doctrine implies that public policies should be
based exclusively on this-worldly criteria, i.e., the main
concern should be the welfare of humanity in the present life
with total disregard for any belief in a supernatural being,
salvation of the human soul, dependence on heavenly guidance, or
concern for the life-after-death. The fundamental issue in a
secular state is the attainment of material prosperity and
well-being in the life of this world, as this is thought to be
the only road to human happiness and bliss -- the ultimate
highway to a worldly Heaven. The hedonistic materialism inherent
in the secular mode of life continues to gnaw at the roots of
the religious sentiments, till there is nothing left but sheer
greed and debauchery.
The
degree of religious freedom that a secular state is willing to
grant its citizens varies greatly. The French are reluctant, and
the Turks openly hostile, to the idea of allowing Muslim women
to wear a head-scarf in government offices and on the campus;
they fear that this would dangerously undermine their modern and
secular values. The Americans are relatively magnanimous in this
respect, although we continue to come across incidents
reflecting a more rigid and less tolerant attitude on their part
too. The main issue, however, is that even the secular state
requires its citizens to act morally, to abide by the law, to
live according to the accepted rules and norms, and such a
mindset cannot be cultivated among the citizens by any of the
purely utilitarian ethical philosophies. The fact of the matter
is that public morality cannot sustain itself without a powerful
private religiosity. Religion, therefore, is needed by the state
for its own survival, simply because it is impossible to
inculcate goodness of character without the support of religion,
and also because all moral values are, in the final analysis,
derived from the religious tradition. A growing number of
Western thinkers are realizing this truth.
Zbigniew Brezezinski,
who has served as the National Security Adviser to President
Carter, maintains that the out-of-control secularism contains
within it the seeds of cultural self-destruction. He argues that
without the development of a moral consciousness and adoption of
an ethos of self-restraint instead of self-indulgence, the
Western society would be left with no operational criteria for
defining what is right and what is wrong, and thereby will slide
into self-destruction. Charles W. Colson, founder of the Prison
Fellowship, asseverates that there has never been a case in
history in which a society has been able to survive for long
without a strong moral code, and that there has never been a
time when a moral code has not been informed by religious truth.
He warns that rejecting transcendental truth is tantamount to
committing suicide, as a secular state cannot cultivate virtue.
Thus, the secular
state needs its citizenry to act righteously, yet it is not
willing to permit religion to come out of its bounds of privacy
and encroach upon matters relating to the collective life. This
produces a quandary: the restriction and confinement of religion
within the boundaries of the individual consciousness inevitably
leads to its shrinkage and gradual decline, adversely affecting
the moral standards of the society and, in turn, that of the
state apparatus itself. The destruction of the traditional moral
order in the West at the hands of secularism is a case in point,
which has led to an immense amount of suffering, wreckage, and
misery in the shape of widespread violence, soaring juvenile
crime, rising drug addiction, skyrocketing rates of venereal
diseases, and the rapidly growing sense of futility and
aimlessness among the youth, leading to the most alarming sign
of moral bankruptcy -- teenage suicide. All the rhetoric which
one comes across in the Western world about "family values" and
"back to the basics" is actually a manifestation of this very
quandary.
The birth and
development of secularism in the West was intimately linked with
the contemporaneous shift of allegiance from God to man, from
faith in revelation to that in science, and from reliance on
religious authority to freedom of thought. These constituents of
the modern mind emerged during Renaissance, were empowered by
the Scientific Revolution and solidified during Enlightenment,
finding their full realization in the secular nation state which
developed during the nineteenth century. It must be stressed
that the process of the secularization of state was essentially
a European historical experience, basically related to the
reaction against the merciless rule and venality of the Roman
Catholic Church, and subsequently against the hatred and
violence that was perpetuated in the name of religion. Prior to
the industrial revolution, secularization in Europe had the
support of the Protestants, who had sought to achieve a
separation between religion and state in order to purify
Christianity by removing it from the realm of worldly
corruption. After the decline in the political power of the
religious hierarchy, and especially after the industrial
revolution, the process of secularization made inroads in the
realm of society and social institutions, followed by a general
acceptance of liberal humanism.
It
is often claimed that secularization of the state was
accompanied by a positive rise in religious faith and practice
at the private and popular levels. This may be true for the
Christian Europe, but it cannot be true for Islam and Muslims.
The reason can be understood either in terms of the difference
between a mere religion (madhhab) and a total system of human
existence (Deen), or by appreciating the fact that the main
emphasis in Islam is upon obedience to Allah (SWT) and His
Messenger (SAW), and not just on the creed, spiritual
enlightenment, or the performance of specified rituals. This is
not to say that these elements are absent in the Islamic way of
life, but to argue that whereas Christianity primarily aims at
attaining salvation through faith, Buddhism stresses the
achievement of enlightenment, and Judaism emphasizes the
performance of ceremonies and rituals, the fundamental thrust of
the Islamic teachings is on observing the commandments of Allah
(SWT) and following the example of the Prophet (SAW). The
preoccupation with intricacies of creed, attainment of higher
spiritual stations, and the performance of spotless rituals are
quite useless if they are not accompanied by a total and
unconditional adherence to all injunctions of the Shari´ah.
Islam asserts that the entire human existence is one unified
whole; it cannot be bifurcated into the religious or spiritual
on the one hand and the secular or mundane on the other. The
kind of obedience that is accepted by Almighty Allah (SWT) is
the one that encompasses all realms of a person´s life. Dividing
up human life into numerous compartments and obeying Allah (SWT)
in one of these domains and disobeying Him in the others, is a
sure way to earn the Divine Wrath. In sharp contrast to the
European Reformation, therefore, all reform movements throughout
Islamic history had aimed at reviving the purity of the original
teachings of Islam by removing the heretical or alien accretions
and by establishing or reinforcing the authority of the Divine
Guidance over all aspects of life, including the state.
The
rise of secular ideology in the Muslim world was essentially a
matter of imposition from outside, instead of being an
indigenous development as happened in Europe. The secularization
of modern Turkey presents an obvious example. The new state of
Turkey emerged under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in
the aftermath of the defeat and dismemberment of the Ottoman
Empire following World War I. Ruthless and stubborn, Atatürk
embarked upon a comprehensive mission of Westernization and
secularization of Turkish government and society. With the
abolition of Khilafah, Islam was effectively divorced from state
authority and relegated to the private affair of the individual.
Arabic script was replaced by Roman script, history was
rewritten to suppress Turkey´s Islamic heritage, wearing of
clerical garb was proscribed, religious seminaries were closed,
the traditional fez was replaced with European hat, the wearing
of veil by Muslim women was forbidden, co-education was imposed,
and Shari´ah was replaced by Swiss, Italian, and German laws.
The state-sponsored process of secularization, however, did not
succeed in erasing Islam as a political force, and the conflict
between Islamic fundamentalism and stark secularism still
continues today, even after 73 years.
This conflict is
also alive in Pakistan, albeit under circumstances which are
very different from those in Turkey. Even in the 50th year of
independence, the debate is still going on as to whether
Pakistan is supposed to be an Islamic state or a secular one. It
is an undeniable historical fact that Pakistan was created in
the name of Islam, as no other slogan could have united the
millions of Indian Muslims. The proponents of secularism argue
that the Indian Muslims had rejected Islam when they renounced
the religious leadership of the Jami´yat Ulama-e-Hind in favor
of the All India Muslim League. It is indeed true that the
movement for independence was not religious in character,
neither were the majority of its leaders practising Muslims.
These verities do not, however, indicate any rejection of Islam;
in fact, the exact opposite is true. The religious leadership of
that era was, in general, alienated from the true feelings of
the Indian Muslims, hence their failure to appreciate the common
Muslim´s perception of the threat of Hindu majority. The real
motivating force behind the movement for independence, instead
of pure religious fervor, was the burning desire on the part of
the Indian Muslims to preserve their separate nationhood and to
cultivate their distinct identity. But the crucial question is:
what was the basis of the separate nationhood and distinct
identity of the Indian Muslims? Their sense of being a unique
nation was neither racial or linguistic in origin, nor based
upon any common homeland, but was, in fact, founded upon their
ideology and religion. According to W. C. Smith, it was not a
territorial or an economic or a linguistic or even, strictly
speaking, a national community that was seeking a state, but a
religious community. This is precisely the reason why the All
India Muslim League, during the years 1940-47, appealed to the
religious sentiments of the Indian Muslims and, as a result,
emerged as the embodiment of their love and devotion for Islam,
in addition to being the defender of their political rights.
Thus, we find that the motifs of Islam, Islamic state, and
Islamic Law were quite prominent in the speeches and statements
made by the Muslim League leaders during the height of the
freedom movement, including those made by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad
Ali Jinnah himself.
In
addition to the dominant current of Muslim nationhood, there was
also a relatively weaker current of Islamic revivalism
underlying the ebullience of the movement for independence. Both
of these apparently distinct currents can be traced back to the
personality of Allama Iqbal who, on the one hand, persuaded
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah to return from Europe and lead
the Indian Muslims in their struggle for freedom, and, on the
other hand, invited Maulana Sayyid Abul A´la Maududi to migrate
from Deccan to the Punjab and lead the Islamic revivalist
struggle on an intellectual plane. Again, it was Allama Iqbal
who, while working for the Muslim League in the Punjab,
endeavored -- though unsuccessfully -- during the 1932-36 period
to establish an Islamic revivalist group on the basis of Baiy´ah,
to be called Jamiy´at Shubban-ul-Muslimeen Hind. Therefore, we
find in the personality of Allama Iqbal a rare blend of the
highest idealism along with pragmatic realism. While envisioning
the renaissance of Islam and the revival of the Muslim Ummah in
the distant future, Iqbal was fully aware of the problems being
faced by the Indian Muslims in the here and now. Attempts to
portray Iqbal as a supporter of secularism are, therefore, a
travesty of truth. Indeed, his Presidential address to the
Annual Session of the All India Muslim League at Allahabad, on
December 29, 1930, is very revealing as far as the Islamic
dimension of the Pakistan movement is concerned. Here are some
excerpts:
Is religion a
private affair? Would you like to see Islam, as a moral and
political ideal, meeting the same fate in the world of Islam as
Christianity has already met in Europe? Is it possible to retain
Islam as an ethical ideal and to reject it as a polity in favor
of national polities, in which religious attitude is not
permitted to play any part?... The proposition that religion is
a private individual experience is not surprising on the lips of
a European. In Europe the conception of Christianity as a
monastic order, renouncing the world of matter and fixing its
gaze entirely on the world of spirit, led by a logical process
of thought to the view embodied in this proposition. The nature
of the Prophet´s religious experience, as disclosed in the
Qur´an, however, is wholly different.... It is an individual
experience creative of a social order. Its immediate outcome is
the fundamentals of a polity with implicit legal concepts whose
civic significance cannot be belittled merely because their
origin is revelational. The religious ideal of Islam, therefore,
is organically related to the social order which it has created.
The rejection of the one will eventually involve the rejection
of the other....
The demand for an
independent Muslim state, therefore, must be understood in its
proper context. In addition to his view that a Muslim state in
this region will defend the rest of India against any foreign
invasion, Allama Iqbal firmly believed that the revival of
pristine Islam will be possible only after its centralization in
a specified territory:
... I therefore
demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim State in the best
interest of India and Islam. For India it means security and
peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam an
opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian imperialism
was forced to give it, to mobilize its law, its education, its
culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own
original spirit and with the spirit of the modern times.
No
discussion of secularism in the Pakistani context can be
concluded without referring to the famous -- or notorious? --
speech made by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the
Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947. He said inter alia:
...you will find that in the course of time Hindus would cease
to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the
religious sense, because that is personal faith of each
individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.
On the face value,
this statement is clearly a negation of the Two-Nation theory, a
denial of the separate nationhood of Muslims, and a rejection of
the ideas expressed by Allama Iqbal in his Allahabad address. As
such, a plethora of interpretations have been offered to explain
this statement. Was it simply a reference to his promise that
there would be no victimization of minorities in Pakistan? Does
this statement represent a serious lapse on his part due to the
stress he was undergoing? Was it only a temporary strategy to
appease the secular powers of the world? Does it represent his
effort to cool down the tempers in the background of
Hindu-Muslim riots? Irrespective of the exact interpretation
that you choose to accept, the very fact that this statement was
considered to be in need of interpretation speaks volumes about
the matter at hand. The need for interpretation arose because
this statement is diametrically opposed to the innumerable
speeches made and statements issued by the Quaid-e-Azam prior to
August 11. Either you seek to explain this statement differently
from the way it sounds, or you try and reconcile yourself with
the fact the founder of Pakistan was a hypocrite -- a man who
gave the impression to his devoted followers that their promised
homeland would be an Islamic state, but who was actually
endeavoring for a secular one. If you are not inclined to
conceive of the Quaid-e-Azam as a hypocrite -- and neither am I
-- then the only solution is to read this statement in a manner
that takes into account all of the multitudinous statements made
by him during 1940-47, which indicate that an Islamic state was
what he had in mind, not a secular one.
The
main reason for the confusion prevailing about the ideology of
Pakistan is that statements are often quoted to suggest that the
Quaid-e-Azam wanted Pakistan to be a modern Socio-democracy and
not a theocracy. True enough. But these statements do not prove
that he had a secular polity in mind. What most people do not
realize is the fact that socialism -- in the sense that economic
justice must prevail and grossly unequal distribution of wealth
must be eradicated -- is an altogether Islamic imperative.
Similarly, democracy -- in the sense that the affairs of the
state should be run in accordance with the will of the people,
and that they should be free to make their own laws within the
boundaries set by the Qur´an and the Sunnah -- is again an
Islamic imperative. That is why Allama Iqbal, the real ideologue
of Pakistan, has said that Socialism can be turned into Islam if
you add to it the Islamic concept of God, and that the
republican form of government is perfectly harmonious with the
Islamic political teachings. As for theocracy, it is best
defined as the rule by a particular ecclesiastic or priestly
class, and since there is no such category in the Islamic scheme
of things, it is patently obvious that Islam and theocracy
represent two entirely different forms of governance.
The
sovereign in an Islamic state is Almighty Allah (SWT) and all
Muslims are His vicegerents (Khalifah); the ultimate authority
rests with the Qur´an and Sunnah; the affairs of the state are
to be decided and executed with the spirit of democracy and
mutual consultation (Shura); the legislature is bound by the
injunctions of the Qur´an and Sunnah which it cannot transgress;
the judiciary makes sure that no law is formulated, and no
decision is taken, which is repugnant to the Islamic teachings;
the Ulama are there to educate the masses and to guide the
parliament and the courts, but they have no real authority. The
provision of the basic necessities of life to all citizens
(whether Muslim or non-Muslim) -- including food, shelter,
security, education, and health care -- is among the foremost
responsibilities of the state. Thus conceived, there is no
similarity between an Islamic state and a theocratic one.
As a matter of
historical fact, the movement for independence was energized and
the Indian Muslims were galvanized into action when the Muslim
League leaders started to invoke the name of Islam in their
speeches and statements. They appealed to the Indian Muslims´
perception of being a community unlike any other. The invocation
of an emotional and hereditary religiosity served the purpose
quite well under those circumstances, but such an approach
cannot suffice now. We gained our independence and separate
existence as a country in the name of our distinct nationhood,
the basis of which is Islam. This makes Islam the only
justification for our continuing existence and stability -- the
very rationale for our being. Paying lip-service to Islam,
however, is not going to help us anymore. What is needed is the
fulfillment of the promises made during the struggle for
independence -- the implementation of the teachings of the
Qur´an and Sunnah in their totality, so as to make Pakistan an
Islamic state rather than a mere Muslim "nation" state.
The conflict between
Islamic fundamentalism and secularism is intensifying throughout
the Muslim world. The danger is that the various Islamic
movements, after failing in their efforts to realize their goals
through political and democratic means, would increasingly turn
to violence and even terrorism. We know from the experience of
Egypt, Algeria, and other countries that such an approach could
bring nothing but disaster for both Islam and Islamic
fundamentalism. What is urgently required on the part of all the
workers and well-wishers of Islamic revivalism is to take a step
back and consider dispassionately the issue of methodology. The
process of an Islamic Revolution, its derivation from the Seerah
of the Holy Prophet (SAW) and its application in the modern era,
has been one of the major themes of the lectures and writings of
Dr. Israr Ahmad, the Ameer of Tanzeem-e-Islami. The present
issue of "The Qur´anic Horizons" contains the first of the
series of articles based on his Friday sermons on this very
topic. These discourses were made in 1984, and subsequently
printed as an Urdu book, Manhaj-e-Inqbalab-e-Nabawi. It is hoped
that the points elucidated in these lectures would provide the
adherents of various Islamic movements and groups with valuable
insights vis-à-vis the correct methodology of Iqamah Al-Deen.
Written By: Dr. Ahmed Afzaal (Tanzeemi Islami) |
