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It has taken a few good weeks for me to gather my thoughts and conceptions on this acutely convoluted topic, and the gobs of intellectual confusion which surrounds its discussion, and so it was obvious that the subject demanded much speculation for it to result in something writable and tangible which makes sense.
This post will lay out some of the frameworks, which will help us answer some very important questions on the topic, and depending on the audience’s background, might aid us spark some debate as well.
The conversation about secularity and the Muslim world, is not new. It did not emerge recently, or out of thin air. In fact, many academicians and writers in the Muslim world have actively engaged themselves in recording the apparent political and religious hypocrisies of their respective countries and nations, some of whom I will mention here. And so, it would be foolish to assume that a continuing struggle for a democratic secular State is absent or non-existing, as that is what most social minorities and some writers and political commentators living in Islamic countries have been trying to push for.
Then, what explains the inability of the Muslim world to establish a stable long-form democratic State as Huntington had rightly inquired in his book, 'The Clash of Civilizations'.
Well, firstly those unorganized movements are extremely unpopular among the masses, the individuals who form the majority. And that is, frankly speaking very understandable. After all, their privileges and dispensations rests on their State, sponsoring their faith, which pretty much explains the eon back resistance to any attempt at disassociating religion from State. A very predictable, group dynamics behavior. And secondly and also most importantly, the presence of extremist factions in society which have always successfully managed to silence such voices before they even make it on public foregrounds. A problem, which remains widely ignored and unacknowledged by not only the Western intellectuals but also the academicians, writers and intellectuals in Muslim world. This is, then, no surprise that most of the serious dialogue and writings on these topics happen in West. In fact, most of the Muslims who have been vocal about their religious position happen to be based in West. And those living in Muslim countries, have to think a few times, before they open their mouths or write with their hands. And, so the ‘conversation’ in its truest sense, never actually happened in that it has not reached mainstream public discourse and also does not seem to happen anytime soon. The little ounces of dialogue which do happen in West, soon turn themselves into an orchestra of their own dynamics and histories, and their own political spectrum, from which you cannot expect decently fruitful outcomes, even though it is a great space for voicing ideas and a lot of significant work has emerged and flourished on the topic.
What will follow, from here, are some of the arguments and cogitations which many of the former and present works highlight in response to the evolving theological basis for a theocracy, or a State declaring its official religion. Only when one bothers to dive deep into these waters, then one realizes how sorely muddy and mushy the whole business is with a palate full of variations and subtle adaptations.
Religious Secularity or argument from theology is a book, which I mentioned as a single idea even though it’s not limited only to this particular work, where Naser Ghobadzadeh begins by stating quite accurately the theological arguments commonly used for an Islamic State and even though he only touches the case of Iran and Shiite orthodoxy, his work still compiles many important points.
For a long time, the Islamic State and the idea behind it had claimed that religion is capable of offering solutions to governance and State in the modern age, just like it is capable of governing spiritual, social and economic lives of the believers. Modern ways of governance, it claims are insufficient and untrustworthy especially when they are run by human agency.
Not only, has this bombastic claim assumed unrealistic expectations of religion, but also seems to somehow ignore the hegemony and abuse by those who pretend to speak for God. The wrapping idea behind religious secularity is to protect religion from the exploitation by State. It is to keep the State out of religion, rather than keeping religion out of State.
This works fine, unless we realize the whole point of secularism, in its traditional sense, which is to keep religion out of State is to protect the lives and rights of people rather than to protect religion, which frankly speaking, already enjoys a whole lot of protection in the Muslim world. But, he has a good reason to make this point, especially when he argues that deliberate top-down Islamicization has done nothing to improve the religiosity of people but rather it promotes hypocrisy and outward show which is a grave sin. And so, Islamic State fails in its intention to restore or improve the religiosity of people, rather it exploits, abuses, and make gross use of religion for its own purpose.
Above all, the lived experience of theocracy, mainly Iran has kicked some sense into the Muslim scholars and theologians, and even the growing number of public that it did not turn anything as rosy and heavenly as some have previously oh-so strongly claimed.
And so the swarming idea of religious secularity, aims to highlight the limitations of religion (something which will be outrageous to many) in socio-political realms, mainly the institutional separation between Islam and State, but not between religion and public life, which is true since you can never really disassociate religion from public life, even in the traditional sense of secularism. So far, so fine, but this surely would not convince someone who believes that religion is unbounded and limitless, mainly that it has answers to everything even to matters of governance.
Arguments from history.
These refer to the set of arguments from both history and practice of religion historically. Mainly, that theological principles and ideas have themselves gone through many changes, through the contribution of different schools and scholars. And so codifying and implementing the laws of particular interpretation by a particular school, is a horrendous business. For, the very laws and principles have been arrived at by human speculation. Therefore the ‘sacred laws’ are themselves not free from human faculties.
Most Sunni puritans are of the view, that there once existed a ‘golden’ time, mainly the period of early Islam after the Prophet, in which they strongly insist, that the political, administrative and legal frameworks as upheld by the first Caliphs were of high reproducible standards. And so the institution of Caliphate, in theory and even in practice, can and should qualify as a viable way to rule a Muslim land. However, diving into Islamic history would reveal that it was nowhere near the case. Not only the early Caliphate states and their expansion dove into huge administrative chaos, but the leaders or the Caliphs in political power took many decisions of questionable religious nature. Neither their State was ideal from any sensible angle, nor did it confirm to highest standards of administrative and judicial realms. Instead, the whole business resulted in gigantic inter-faith conflicts among the Muslims, which continue in their crude forms today, which later saw some of the bloodiest events in history, climaxing with the brutal murder of Imam Hussain. The incident of Karbala, which has been fervently romanticized and remembered, was but a boggling act of terror. A prime example of the group dynamics, ideological splits and theological conflicts in the Muslim world. And so, it was never really golden, as many of the puritans strongly insist.
Moreover, given the seething sectarian and religious plurality in present-day nation States, if they are ever to co-exist under one roof peacefully, then the futility of the whole project of theocracy should very well become obvious, considering there have been marginalized Muslim communities who being brutally persecuted in their own home countries, have thrived and grown in West. Any discussion concerning secularism cannot exclude the long going sectarian conflicts, inter-faith violence and oppression of other Muslim sects and communities, mostly at the hands of majority.
Why secularism has such a bad name in the mainstream Muslim thought?
Mainly because of what secularism means, and what most Muslims think it means, which is anti-religiosity, or moving away from religion, as liberal academics of West define it. And the absence of a good translation of the word “secular:” in other languages explain the irrational hysteria which many of them exhibit, which illuminates why the concept remains alien to Muslim societies. Secularism, in its essence, does not mean move away from religion, as many think, rather it means, which I define it, as “being religious without being an asshole”. That is to practice religion without encroaching on the rights of others to practice their faith. It is this simple idea, which is at the heart of all secular discourse, and which took centuries of battle and blood, for the Christendom to realize and understand, the today’s West.
So what explains the inability of the Muslim world to establish stable long form democratic States?
Well, nobody can answer it better than Ahmed An-Na’im in his “Islam and the secular state: negotiating the future of Shariah”. There are several religious and political reasons behind it, mainly that there are many parts of theology itself which should be deemed as problematic by the Muslim communities, and debate should ensue regarding them. This includes some of the ways in which historical Islam, sees human reasoning and faculty. The inferior status of human reason in comparison with God’s knowledge which mandates the superiority of Shariah laws over man-made laws and the notion that human legislation will lead to social disorder because it is incapable of achieving an all-embracing grasp of the true needs of human beings. Thus the latter must inevitably submit to Shariah and to the sacred lawgiver if a genuine peaceful society is to be established.
“As long as the idea of an Islamic state is allowed to stand, societies will remain locked in stale debates about issues such as whether constitutionalism or democracy is “Islamic” and whether interest banking is to be allowed or not, instead of working to secure constitutional democratic governance and pursuing economic development. These fruitless debates have kept the vast majority of Islamic societies locked in a constant state of political instability and economic and social underdevelopment since independence”.
Furthermore, the widespread belief that secularism is a Western imposition, has rendered many to be skeptical, as if that’s a good enough argument in its self. However that perception is the result of propaganda of Islamist groups based upon the views of Abul Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb in the 20th century.
But there have been a few instances, where a secular government did rule and attempted to secularize society. Well, they might be secular, but they were not democratic. Rather it was secularism under authoritative or dictatorial government, something which kills the whole point of secularism. The Pahlavi dynasty in Iran, the Musharaf’s rule in Pakistan, and several other instances where a ‘secular’ dictator has adopted a top-down policy. And from that, the Muslim world has been constantly changing hands from an authoritative secularism to authoritative Islamisization, from one kind of imperialism to another kind. It is then, no surprise that the Muslim countries have failed to maintain stable democratic institutions.
Democracy, is not simply a political system, rather it is a culture based on some common values and attitudes which take decades to inculcate and entrench in a society. It includes respect for individual freedoms, rights and liberties, equality of everyone before constitution, justice and fairness. And probably the most over-looked one, tolerance for debate, freedom of thought, opinion and speech, the very fuel for evolving and pushing societies forward, whose absence is one of the major reason why dialogue concerning secularism and religion only sees the air in limited academic and intellectual circles.
Arguments from Human Sovereignty.
You cannot possibly talk about freedom of religion, ideas and speech without brushing some of fundamentals of beliefs, which are contrary or at odds with human sovereignty. And this leads us back into the Enlightenment era and some of its most valuable ideas, which the West takes for granted today.
The idea that human rights and sovereignty supersedes the rights of Divine. That the respect for sanctity of human life comes above the sanctity of any ideology, religion or principle. And so the resources reserved should be spent on the protection and security of individual lives, rather than on protection of Divine rights, which is preposterous if you reason around it for an All-powerful, All-sovereign agency ought not to require it. And thus, it makes the need for heresy and apostasy laws completely irrelevant, from a constitutional sense as well as from a theological perspective, for Islam itself originated as a heresy to previous Abrahamic religions. Most of its religious offshoots, also started off as ‘heresies’ to its mainstream theological school, and still continue to be considered so.
However, this seems to be a far-fetched hard-to-digest scheme for someone who really and truly believes that God’s rights supersedes the right to live of humans. And above all, it is extremely difficult to dissect the dogmatic fringes of someone’s beliefs, which partly explains the failure of liberal folks to engage in careful arguments and convince the extremist factions of society. A task in which moderates too, fail rather miserably mainly because they themselves happen to harbor and even entertain similar ideas in their subtleties. You cannot really expect to have a dialogue with someone, whose first instant is to declare you a heretic, and thus invalidate all your arguments, as if damning the source automatically makes your arguments vile.
Nevertheless, a few have proposed on building a counter-narrative in response to Wahhabism or political Islam, to engage with and target a chunk of majority. This seems a handsome proposition, considering the ineffectiveness of other theological schools. It requires oodles of patience and time, but I am optimistic because dogma and self-righteousness can never hold the pillars of a healthy, functioning and thinking society. They make extremely shallow building blocks, plagued by insecurity, fear and ignorance.
However, that demands engagement with public, especially with the moderates, who form the over-whelming majority, and whose silence or rather ignorance, at the view-screen of horrific events carried out by the extremist factions, and their States in the name of Divine rights, seems to be extremely disappointing. But they are our only hope, which makes my fingers remain crossed.
