Critiquing Islamism and Maududi

Article by Yogi Sikand follows my commentary;
http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/05/critiquing-islamism-and-maududi.html

Yogi, Thanks for posting yet another piece that opens the windows to “exploring” the truth. Finding the truth is one’s own responsibility.

I am glad to see Muslims unhesitatingly critiquing the revered Muslims scholars of the past, we need to sort out the truth from the bunk and there is plenty of it, that is being unraveled now and Insha Allah, in the next decade we must be able to take out the additives by reverend Maududi, Qutub, Hilali and their likes who sought political gains through religion. Political Islam is a human endeavor to dominate, influence and control others, possibly out of fear of being run over or to cash in on the fear. It is the same story with Zionism, Hindutva and Neocons, agents of fear and war mongering.

Truthfully following the religion comes when we have the freedom to question what is given to us. When we lose that freedom, we fall into the trap of distancing ourselves from the truth. Prophet Muhammad did not assign any one to run the religion for Muslims; it was up to the individual to follow the guidelines enshrined in Qur’aan which is the only thing he left to the followers in his last speech. Respectfully the Shia version assigns an interpreter of religion and it was taken as a hereditary Imamat – it works for them and the other system works for the Sunni traditionalist. Prophet Muhammad completed the religion and no one needed to carry it forward, it was the finality of the message, there was no more delegation of religious authority.

Neither the Prophet assigned the governance of the state to any one that would have led to a monarchial form of governance. The consultative form was adopted for the political governance of the state and it was followed with the first four Leaders. Abdul Aziz Sachedina calls it the roots of democracy.

Religion is a private matter between an individual and God, as no one, not even the Prophet is responsible for one’s good and bad deeds, it is the individual responsibility, he or she alone faces the consequences on the day of Judgment, as such no state has the right to regulate one’s faith matters. As a civil society we honor the general guidelines and rules of the society, and can regulate those acts that affect others in terms of crime and punishment.

“Thus, he (Nadwi) accuses Maududi of wrongly equating the Islamic duty of 'establishing religion' with the setting up of an Islamic state with God as Sovereign and Law Maker. At Maududi's hands, he says, 'God', 'The Sustainer', 'Religion' and 'Worship' have all been reduced to political concepts.”

“Thus, he (Nadwi) argued, Maududi's insistence that to accept the commands of anyone other than God, including of an elected government, was tantamount to shirk, the crime of associating others with God, as this was allegedly akin to 'worship', was not in keeping with the teachings of Islam.”.

The above idea seem like etched in stone… it will take a lot of time and research to undo this set notions among a few Muslims, who are in-charge of running the affairs of Muslim communities, oddly the majority of Muslims will not subscribe to it in the privacy of their hearts and minds. Prophet lived in a pluralistic society, and he was sensitive to other humans that God wanted us to understand and live with, he took the initiative of Madinah pact and examples abound of his respect (not agree) for others. Where as some of the Islamic scholars did not live in such an environment and their views are certainly biased, although Maududi lived in such a society; India, perhaps he ignored Allah’s instructions given in Al-Hujurat, Surah 49:13.

“Further, Maulana Nadwi asserted that Maududi's argument that God had sent prophets to the world charged with the mission of establishing an 'Islamic state' was a misreading of the Islamic concept of prophethood.”

“In Maududi's understanding of Islam, he wrote, prayer and remembrance of God are seen as simply the means to an end, the establishment of an Islamic state, whereas, Maulana Nadwi argued, the converse is true.”.

If Maududi meant Islamic state to mean just governance, then it is fine, but if he meant suppression of those who differ and make them second class citizens, then it is dangerous and militaristic, and goes against the very grain of Islam – that is to create peaceful and just societies. We have to undo this thought.

“Maulana Nadwi's critique of radical Islamism points to the rich theological resources contained within traditional Islamic thought that can be used to fashion alternate understandings of the relationship between Islam and politics in a far more sensible way than most Islamists have articulated hitherto and which have caused untold havoc in the name of Islam.”

Yogi has concluded this very well with the above thought. Indeed that is the basis for Ijtihad. We should not settle for the opinions of scholars from yesteryears, and revisit them and re-affirm or re-evaluate in present context. Islam is for all times.

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker, Writer and a Moderator. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing Pluralism, politics, Islam, Religion, Terrorism, India and civic issues. His comments, news analysis, opinions and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@aol.com
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Maulana Nadwi has rightly criticized Maulana
Nadwi on Maududi: A Traditionalist Maulvi's Critique of Islamism

By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net

The late Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi (or Ali Miyan as he was also known) was one of the leading Indian ulema of modern times. A noted writer, he headed the famous Nadwat ul-Ulema madrasa in Lucknow from 1961 till his death in 1999. He was associated with several other Indian as well as international Islamic organisations, a mark of the high respect that he was accorded among Muslims all over the world.

Maulana Nadwi's wrote extensively on a vast range of subjects, including on Islam and politics. On this issue, his views underwent a gradual process of change and maturation, beginning with his early association with a leading Indian Islamist formation and later making a forceful critique of some crucial aspects of its understanding of Islam. His views in this regard point to the little-known yet rich internal debate among Indian Muslim scholars about the relationship between Islam and politics, particularly on the question of what Islamists describe as an 'Islamic state'.

In 1940, Maulana Nadwi came under the influence of Sayyid Maududi, the founder of the principal Indian Islamist outfit, the Jamaat-i Islami. Maududi, along with the Egyptian Syed Qutb, may be said to be among the pioneers of contemporary Islamism. Soon after joining the Jamaat, Maulana Nadwi was put in-charge of its activities in Lucknow. This relationship proved short-lived, however, and he left the Jamaat in 1943. He later wrote that he was disillusioned by the perception that many members of the Jamaat were going to what he called 'extremes' in adoring and glorifying Maududi as almost infallible, this bordering on personality worship'. At the same time, he felt that many Jamaat activists believed that they had nothing at all to learn from any other scholars of Islam. He was also concerned with what he saw as a lack of personal piety in Maududi and some leading Jamaat activists and with their criticism of other Muslim groups.

Maulana Nadwi's opposition to the Jamaat's understanding about Islam and politics, which it shared with most other Islamist formations, comes out clearly in his Urdu book Asr-i Hazir Mai Din Ki Tahfim-o-Tashrih ('Understanding and Explaining Religion in the Contemporary Age') which he penned in 1978, and which won him, so he says in his introduction to its second edition published in 1980, fierce condemnation from leading members of the Jamaat. Here, Maulana Nadwi takes Maududi to task for having allegedly misinterpreted central Islamic beliefs in order to suit his own
political agenda, presenting Islam, he says, as little more than a political programme. Thus, he accuses Maududi of wrongly equating the Islamic duty of 'establishing religion' with the setting up of an Islamic state with God as Sovereign and Law Maker. At Maududi's hands, he says, 'God', 'The Sustainer', 'Religion' and 'Worship' have all been reduced to political concepts. In this way, Maududi, Maulana Nadwi says, sought to incorrectly suggest that Islam is simply about
political power and that the relationship between God and human beings is only that between an All-Powerful King and His subjects. However, Maulana Nadwi says, this relationship is also one of 'love' and 'realisation of the Truth', which is far more comprehensive than what Maududi envisages.

Linked to Maulana Nadwi's critique of Maududi for having allegedly reduced Islam to a mere political project was his concern that not only was such an approach a distortion of the actual import of the Quran but also that it was impractical, if not dangerous, in the Indian context. Thus, he argued, Maududi's insistence that to accept the commands of anyone other than God, including of an elected government, was tantamount to shirk, the crime of associating others with God, as this was allegedly akin to 'worship', was not in keeping with the teachings of Islam. God, Maulana Nadwi wrote, had, in His
wisdom, left several areas of life free for people to decide how they could govern them, within the broad limits set by the
Islamic law or shariah, and guided by a concern for social welfare.

Further, Maulana Nadwi asserted that Maududi's argument that God had sent prophets to the world charged with the mission of establishing an 'Islamic state' was a misreading of the Islamic concept of prophethood. The principal work of the prophets, Maulana Nadwi argued, was to preach the worship of the one God and to exhort others to do good deeds. Not all prophets were rulers. In fact, only a few of them were granted that status. Maulana Nadwi faulted

Maududi for what he said was 'debasing' the 'lofty' Islamic understanding of worship to mean simply 'training' people as willing subjects of the Islamic state. In Maududi's understanding of Islam, he wrote, prayer and remembrance of God are seen as simply the means to an end, the establishment of an Islamic state, whereas, Maulana Nadwi argued, the converse is true. The goal of the Islamic state is to ensure worship of God, and not the other way round. If at all worship
can be said to be a means, he added, it is a means for securing the 'will of God' and 'closeness to Him'.

If the 'Islamic state' should then simply a means for the 'establishment of religion' and not the 'total religion' or the 'primary objective' of Islam, it opens up the possibility of pursuing the same goals through other means. Maulana Nadwi
refers to this when he says that the objective of the 'establishment of the faith' needs to be pursued along with 'wisdom of the faith', using constructive, as opposed to destructive, means. Eschewing 'total opposition', Muslims striving for the 'establishment of the faith' should, he wrote, unhesitatingly adopt peaceful means such as 'understanding and reform', 'consultation' and 'wisdom'. Critiquing the use of uncalled for violence by some groups calling themselves 'Islamic', Maulana Nadwi stressed the need for 'obedience', 'love' and 'faith' and struggle against the 'base self' (nafs). Muslims
should, he wrote, make use of all available legitimate spaces to pursue the cause of the 'establishment of religion', such as propagating their message through literature, public discussions, training volunteers, winning others over with the force of one's own personality and establishing contacts with governments.

Maulana Nadwi's critique of radical Islamism points to the rich theological resources contained within traditional Islamic thought that can be used to fashion alternate understandings of the relationship between Islam and politics in a far more sensible way than most Islamists have articulated hitherto and which have caused untold havoc in the name of Islam.

Book Info: Sayyed Abul Hasan 'Ali Nadwi, 'Asr-i Hazir Mai Din Ki
Tahfim-o-Tashrih, Dar-ul 'Arafat, Lucknow. 1980 edition.

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Illusions of an Islamic State

Illusions of an Islamic State
A book by Tarek Fatah.

The book review by Ali Eteraz follows my comments;
http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/book-illusions-of-islamic-state.html

If you are content with the status quo of your knowledge, this book is not for you, but if you’d like to be challenged, check this out.

At the World Muslim Congress, we take the middle path, we analyze and discuss the right wingers as well as the ultra-liberals, but our focus is on moderation and one of the qualities of moderate Muslims is “listening to” and pondering on different points of view. Moderates seldom reject a view outrightly without giving a thought. No one every agrees 100% with the other.

I am delighted to share Ali Eteraz’s review of Tarek Fatah’s book “Illusions of an Islamic State.” I have not read the book yet but I intend to read and hope the following items are included in the book.

- The Madinah pact is an example of separation of Church and State; it was initiated by the Prophet as a head of the City State and had signatures from other communities. If it was a religious government, I seriously doubt he would have taken the initiative or even get the others to go along with the freedom to practice their own religion. He Cherished that value and believed that there is no compulsion in faith, one has to believe in it to accept it.

- Prophet Muhammad’s time was pluralistic and all the work and examples generated were indeed sensitive to people of other faiths. He asked the visiting Christians from Najran to pray in his mosque when the time for prayers was up; he had walked up to a Jewish procession and kissed the Torah Scrolls they were carrying.

- Democracy was guarded by the prophet and the successive rulers of the state at that time. Prophet did not pass the mantle of state administration to the most deserved candidates at the time; his Son-in-Law Ali. Had he done that the administration would have been monarchial, passing on from relative to relative. That was not the case; each successive leader was chosen with consensus. There was campaigning and there were differences, roots of democracy some 1400 years ago as Abdul Aziz Sachedina has noted in his book.

- Prophet in his last sermon added a strong item – he said to the followers, I am leaving this book (Qur’aan) to you to follow, he did not assign an interpreter or established the clergy to be the guardians of the knowledge. As part of the individual responsibility he told his own daughter Fatima that she has to earn her way with God, through her deeds and she ain’t going to get a free pass to paradise because she is the daughter of the prophet.

- The First leader (ok, Caliph) Abu Bakr gave an acceptance speech, that I believe is one of the best examples of giving the people freedom to keep or drop the ruler. “I have been given the authority over you, and I am not the best of you. If I do well, help me; and if I do wrong, set me right. Sincere regard for truth is loyalty and disregard for truth is treachery. The weak amongst you shall be strong with me until I have secured his rights, if God will; and the strong amongst you shall be weak with me until I have wrested from him the rights of others, if God will. Obey me so long as I obey God and His Messenger. But if I disobey God and His Messenger, ye owe me no obedience. Arise for your prayer, God have mercy upon you.

Broad definitions of a few terms;

Right wingers – a broad description would be the literalists, as the evangelicals in the Christian tradition. They do not give depth and essence to the words; it is what appears to them and nothing more.

Moderate Muslims: Majority of the Muslims fall into this category, they get along with all, they do not negate other peoples way of life nor do they have a problem with other faiths and life styles. People know they are Muslims but they do not wear neon signs on their forehead. http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2007/04/moderate-muslims.html

Liberals: Want to stretch the guidelines and test it out. Most of the changes we witness today are efforts of this group. They are not content with the status quo, they want to dig and check out the possibilities.

Mike Ghouse
http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/

Illusions of an Islamic State
Ali Eteraz
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-eteraz/illusions-of-an-islamic-s_b_96698.html


Tarek Fatah, a pacifist, a controversial leftist activist and founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, recently published a book challenging Islamism, which he refers to as Islam's right-wing. The book is called Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State.

Fatah argues that since Islam's advent, there have been two parallel strains of the religion that are in clash.

The first, "state of Islam" is a person's moral compass; the way Islam governs an individual's personal life. Fatah has no issues with this Islam. In fact, he says that whether one is ultra-conservative or a secular Muslim should be no one else's concern.

In contrast, the second -- "Islamic State" -- occurs when a political entity uses Islam to govern and control society. Fatah has a great problem with this phenomenon, as he believes it connected to terrorism, fundamentalism and subjugation of women. His book is a sustained critique of the historical, political and theological bases upon which the idea of an Islamic state is premised.

As case studies, Fatah looks at Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Palestine, and reveals how in each place Islamist ideas found their genesis, how they were promoted, how they were actualized and how they have fared. He shows how leaders of dubious character have used the utopia of an Islamic state to acquire illegitimate dominance and demand cult-like obedience. The sections on Pakistan -- where Fatah was once a prominent student leader -- and Palestine -- a cause which he has supported since the 60's -- most ably demonstrate Fatah's thesis: the Islamist impulse leads to a retardation of civil society, leads to the subjugation of women, minorities and expression, and foments unnecessary crisis with external groups.

In order to diagnose the Islamist malaise, Fatah engages the intellectual argument upon which the Islamist narrative is built: the assertion that the Islamic state represents the most authentic vision of Islam. Fatah questions this vehemently. He points out that neither Muhammad nor the Quran provide for a political model, an assertion he shares with numerous other Muslim thinkers, including the current Mufti of Egypt (who takes this silence to mean that personal Islam is compatible with liberal democracy).

However Fatah goes further and shows that it was not Muhammad's intent to establish an Islamic state. Fatah's argument is novel. He says that if Muhammad had wanted to establish an Islamic state, then when he took over Mecca he would have provided for an Islamic constitution; after all, for ten years Muhammad was the de facto ruler of the city-state of Medina and there he had sought a constitution. Fatah argues that the lack of a political document in Mecca, taken in conjunction with one of Muhammad's assertions in his last sermon -- "I have completed the religion for you" -- means that Mecca was not an Islamic state, just a state ruled by a man named Muhammad where Muslims were free to establish a personal relationship with God based on their individual judgment on what constituted piety.

Fatah then delves into the lives of the Four Caliphs that followed Muhammad, painstakingly detailing how the idea of an Islamic state slowly came to prominence - not as a result of the Prophet's Companions fulfilling some religious obligation, but as a way to dominate their political opponents. Here again Fatah demonstrates ingenuity. He reveals that the title that Abu Bakr, the first caliph, took for himself, was not "Caliph of God" as later day caliphs, sultans and kings took on, but something akin to "Representative of Muhammad." Fatah believes that this fact undermines the Islamist idea of linking political power with God; after all, Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, Muhammad's closest friend, a figure that Islamists purportedly follow, didn't even take such a dramatic step. Fatah also notes that the second caliph, Umar, also celebrated among Islamists, also didn't take the mantle "Caliph of God." It wasn't until the third caliph, Usman, that the term became acceptable.

Fatah ends up taking his analysis of Muslim states all the way to the end of the Abbasid Empire in the 13th century. Along the way his basic assertion is corroborated repeatedly. The states that Muslims were running were just political entities, and weren't focused on their Islamic flavor. Had that been the case, then these formative states wouldn't have made a distinction between Muslims as they did. Fatah wonders, for example, how Islamists can assert that the early Muslims lived in an Islamic state when there were classes of Muslims who had to pay the jizya (minority tax), or classes of Muslims that couldn't legally marry Arab women, or classes of Muslims based on when they had converted to Islam? If these previous states were truly Islamic states, then they wouldn't have made distinctions between Muslims -- which they readily did.

There is, Fatah believes, only one conclusion to be drawn from this: the historical Islamic states were not organized around Islam, but ethnicity (Arab over non-Arab), power (vis a vis Persians and Byzantines), and expansion (both through conflict and conversion).

In other words, Fatah concludes, the Islamist idea of an Islamic state is just a mirage. It is neither corroborated in the original sources of Islam -- the Quran and the Prophet's practice -- nor in the actual practice of the first generations of Islam.

Fatah's ideas represent a formidable intellectual challenge to Islamism.

I did, however, find some shortcomings in this book. While the first half of the book -- focusing on the case studies -- reads easily, the discussion about Muhammad and his companions becomes incredibly dense. The conclusions aren't always fleshed out and have to be inferred.

In addition, throughout the book, the sourcing is shoddy and inconsistent. On reading many assertions, I found myself wishing there were better footnotes. This is especially important when the discussion shifts to the contentious historical narrative.

Also, the book attempts an interesting synthesis -- by bringing together Sunni and Shia sources, using both to illuminate the discussion. This approach can be successful, such as when Ayatollah Modarresi used both the Sunni and Shia account to look at the history of Quranic compilation. However, the two pronged critique also has its down-side because of the historical enmity between Sunni and Shia, and the vast amount of polemics that infect this area of Islamic scholarship.

Further, throughout the book, one issue I kept wondering about was whether Fatah advocated opposing Islamists to such an extent that he would accept a secular dictator over democratically elected Islamists. There is no conclusive answer to this, but at one point in his life Fatah did consider General Nasser of Egypt his hero, which is troubling. He also seems to suggest that in Palestine, Abbas' Fatah Organization is presumptively better than Hamas because the former is secular and the latter is Islamist -- whereas experience suggests that Abbas' secularism hasn't made him any less violent.

In addition, the book contains a passing reference to the idea that anyone who calls himself a Muslim is a Muslim. Secular Muslims often like to stress this point but I have never understood why. If religion doesn't matter to you in the public sphere, then you aren't all that likely to be publicly affirming your Muslim identity anyway; so why bother with this point?
Finally, there is the figure of Fatah himself. Formerly a Marxist leader and activist for Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan, ever since his arrival in Canada he has had a love-hate relationship with the Muslim communities. He has accused CAIR, ISNA, MSA and ICNA of being shadow-Islamists, which has earned him little love. His own efforts to create a North-America-wide Muslim group called Progressive Muslim Union of North America, were a failure largely because many progressive Muslims, like Muqtedar Khan and Omid Safi, were put off by Fatah's confrontational style and left the group. Further, even as he fought against Sharia in the Canadian legal system, he had a public falling out with Irshad Manji (though he thanks her in the acknowledgments). In other words, there are few Muslim figures who generate negative vibes from both the conservative and liberal side of Islam and Fatah is one of them.

I, personally, don't agree with many of Fatah's positions -- having criticized him in the past.

I, personally, come from the contingent of activists who thought that Fatah did create some of the tension that led to the downfall of the Progressive Muslim Union of North America (I say that as an observer as I was not a member). Unlike him, I don't think Islamic finance as practiced by Western banks strengthens Islamists, rather it forces the entire scheme to be more beholden to international regulation. Unlike him, I don't find any thing particularly threatening about the free and consensual wearing of the hijab. Unlike him, I believe that the theologian Ghazali and segments of Islamic traditionalism are not natural allies of Islamism (of clericalism, certainly).

Having said that, I think this book is a positive contribution to the discussion about contemporary Islam and certainly a valuable addition to the voices that are critically looking at Islam's right-wing. Fatah speaks about Islamic leaders with familiarity and respect, while engaging their ideas critically. He comes from the left so has vehemently opposed American interventionism for decades -- he says he writes to wake up his Muslim brethren, not attack them. He deconstructs Islamic history to separate it from the political reading that dictators, tyrants and fundamentalists have given it. Fatah writes well, has novel ideas, participates in the Islamic tradition, and he is clearly passionate about his private practice of Islam (he has made the hajj twice). Agree with him or not, I don't think there is any other public intellectual in the North American arena -- Muslim or other -- who could have written this book.

Get your copy of:
Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State
• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• ISBN-10: 0470841168
• ISBN-13: 978-0470841167