Status
Call number
Publication
Description
Islam as a religion is central to the lives of over a billion people, but its outer expression as a distinctive civilization has been undergoing a monumental crisis. Buffeted by powerful adverse currents, Islamic civilization today is a shadow of its former self. The most disturbing and possibly fatal of these currents-the imperial expansion of the West into Muslim lands and the blast of modernity that accompanied it-are now compounded by a third giant wave, globalization.These forces have increasingly tested Islam and Islamic civilization for validity, adaptability, and the ability to hold on to the loyalty of Muslims, says Ali A. Allawi in his provocative new book. While the faith has proved resilient in the face of these challenges, other aspects of Islamic civilization have atrophied or died, Allawi contends, and Islamic civilization is now undergoing its last crisis.The book explores how Islamic civilization began to unravel under colonial rule, as its institutions, laws, and economies were often replaced by inadequate modern equivalents. Allawi also examines the backlash expressed through the increasing religiosity of Muslim societies and the spectacular rise of political Islam and its terrorist offshoots. Assessing the status of each of the building blocks of Islamic civilization, the author concludes that Islamic civilization cannot survive without the vital spirituality that underpinned it in the past. He identifies a key set of principles for moving forward, principles that will surprise some and anger others, yet clearly must be considered.… (more)
User reviews
Rightfully so though the sultanate and the caliphate are endemic to Islamic civilization hence their incompatibility to the nation-state (p. 20). Even more regressive along these lines then is the retarding force of sharia law as advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood (p. 66).
One Islamic thinker or intellectual movement after another was repressed or did not lead to productive results. One progressive element, the science of tafsir, re-interprets the Koran in the light of modernity. Tafsir, coupled with Mu'tazila, might be an enlightened path away from the confines of the Koran. Although tafsir interpreters vary in their political goals it is a promising development to update the Koran. Muhammad Asad, in The Message of the Quran, was "an innovative attempt to convey a rationalist interpretation of the the Quran in a more accessible and persuasive way to modern readers" (p. 79). Although the work has been influential in many circles Asad did run afoul of Saudi authorities. ISTAC, an attempt to produce credible Islamic academic work, ending up repressed and in fact never developed beyond sectarian thinking in any case (p. 100). Mahmoud Muhammad Taha developed an interesting notion of fardiyya, the individual (p. 129). He questioned the applicability of sharia law, and split the Koran into prescriptive and non-prescriptive elements which may have liberated modern Muslims from the past (pp. 129-131).
The content of this book is too rich to cover all aspects of it in this review. For clarity's sake: Allawi rigorously distances himself from the traditionalist and fundamentalist movements within Islam that only rely on a narrow interpretation of sharia and jihad. Very striking is his visceral aversion to the Wahhabist-Salafist movement with which Saudi Arabia has poisoned the entire Islam world (his words). But Allawi is also clear in his analysis that it is the confrontation with Western imperialism and the secular modernity that has brought the civilization of Islam into a deep crisis; for him the secularity is just ravaging. In that sense, he rejects any concession and adaptation to that modernity. The most interesting part is where he gives an overview of the various thinkers and movements that have tried or are still trying to give shape to "modern Islam"; they are many more numerous than I thought and some of them have worked out really valuable views, but from Allawi's argument I can conclude that almost all of those attempts have failed (in most cases, the thinkers involved lost their lives or have been marginalized).
For Allawi, any attempt to modernize Islam will inevitably end with the elimination of the essence of Islam itself. So you can safely say that his argument is fairly pessimistic. He tries to counter that by constantly underlining the need to reconnect with the true spirituality of Islam; with that he automatically ends up in Sufi domain, that is the rather mystical movement within Islam. This connection is strange, because Sufism has a strong tendency to focus on individual spirituality and thus seems to be inclined towards an Islam that withdraws into private life . And that is exactly what Allawi rejects time and time again, because according to him the uniqueness of Islam is precisely that faith, inner spirituality and social order are inextricably linked, which means that Islam must also have a public character in all cases. What he writes about this is particularly fascinating, but at the same time you notice the constant ambiguity that is present in this book, his insisting on a religiously inspired social order but at the same time knowing well that it is not compatible with secular modernity (or at least not to the extent that Allawi would like). By the way, it is a problem that all established religions face.
As mentioned, Allawi is actually very pessimistic: according to him, the Muslim faith in itself is still very thriving and alive, but the chance that someday a genuine Islamic civilization will resurface is very small. He makes some suggestions in that direction, but you constantly notice that he actually no longer believes in it himself. Remarkably, at the end, he refers to the Tablighi Jamaat and the Fethullah Gülen movements as the most promising attempts to rebuild an Islamic society. This are two very divergent movements with sometimes controversial points of view and activities, which confirmed my suspicion that islam still has a long way to go.
This book may be somewhat dated (it’s 10 years old now), and it sometimes suffers from a lack of editing, but it contains a wealth of information and opinions, and foremost it bears witness to the sincere quest of a deeply religious Muslim to find a way out of the severe crisis the Muslim world is going through.