Islam and Arab Nationalismаааааааааааааааааааа
Although it is commonly known that
Islam is a militant creed, few take seriously Islam's latent ambition to
transform the world--which it did to no small extent within a hundred years of
its founding.а All the more need to
emphasize the fact that the one billion Muslims on planet earth render the
Islamic religion a transnational and growing force in global affairs.
To be sure, tensions exist between
ethnic identity and religious loyalty among various non-Arab Muslim minorities,
such as the Kurds of Iraq and the Berbers of Morocco.а One should also recall that Sunni-Muslim-Arab Iraq not only
initiated a long, drawn out war with Iran, a Shiite-Muslim and non-Arab state,
but also invaded Sunni-Muslim-Arab Kuwait.
It is also true that Egypt and Syria
joined the US-led coalition against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War.а Yet neither of these Islamic regimes engaged
Iraq in actual combat.а Neither Egyptian
president Hosni Mubarak nor the late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad wished to
see the infidel West topple a fellow-Muslim ruler--and not only to prevent the
destabilization of their own regimes.а
It remains a pregnant fact that Egypt
and Syria, along with such non-Arab states as Iran, Turkey, and Indonesia, are
part of the Islamic bloc in the United Nations.а Because they take enormous pride in their common religion, they
consult with each other on international affairs.а The point to bear in mind, however, is that Muslim leaders regard
the West as a threat to the religious and political structure of Islamic
civilization.а
Unlike the (Christian) West, Islam does
not separate religion from politics.а
Various Muslim intellectuals do not hesitate to define Islam as a
"political religion."а One
such Muslim is 'Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz (1913-197?), a former Dean of the Law
School at Baghdad, who became Iraqi prime minister 1968 (but subsequently fell
out of favor and died in exile).а
Bazzaz rejects the Western concept of
religion.а He rightly observes that the
West "restricts religion within narrow limits not extending beyond worship,
ritual, and the spiritual beliefs, which govern a man in his behavior, in
relation to his G-d and to his brother man, in his capacity of an individual
independent of society."а
In contrast, Islam "is a social
order, a philosophy of life, a system of economic principles, a rule of
government, in addition to its being a religious creed in the narrow Western
sense."а Moreover, for Bazzaz,
Islam cannot be true to itself unless it extends its domain (dar-al-Islam) through the world.
Sharing Bazzaz's pan-Islamic vision is
Abu-'Ala-Mawdudi (d. 1979) of Pakistan.а
In 1941, Mawdudi founded the Jama-at-i-Islam
(the Islamic Association), which is committed to the establishment of an
Islamic world order or society.аа
"Islam," he writes, "presents to all mankind a social
system of justice and piety based on creed and morality and invites all towards
it.... Be it in the sphere of economics or politics or civics or legal rights
and duties or anything else, those who accept Islam are not divided by any
distinction of nationality or race or class or country.а The ultimate goal of Islam is a world-state
in which the chains of racial and national prejudices would be dismantled and
all mankind incorporated in a cultural and political system, with equal rights
and equal opportunities for all..."
The same attitude will be found in
former minister of education Michel Aflac, who received a licentiate in history
at the Sorbonne.а Aflac is dazzled by
the vastness or potential unity of the Arab Lumma--the
Arab nation.а "The Arabs," he
argues, "are singled out from other nations by this characteristic:а their national consciousness is joined to a
religious message; or more precisely, this message is an eloquent expression of
that national consciousness."
Like other Arab writers, Aflac's view
of Arab history is tendentious, to put it kindly.а The Arabs, he contends, did not "conquer countries and rule
merely for economic motives, for reasons of race or for the desire of
dominating and subjugating ... but to fulfill a religious duty which was truth,
guidance, mercy, justice, and sacrifice.... As long as the tie between Arabism
and Islam remains strong and as long as we see in Arabism a body whose soul is
Islam, there is no reason to fear that the Arabs will go to extremes in their
nationalism.а It will never attain the
fanaticism of injustice and [European] colonialism."
Yet it is precisely because of its
fanaticism that various Muslim modernists would like to see a "Protestant
Reformation" in Islam.а These
reformers are confronted by two perhaps insurmountable obstacles.а One is the Koran itself, which is not only
sacrosanct, but permeated by bellicosity.а
The other obstacle is the Muslim masses, whose fervid attachment to the
Koran is the very basis of Islamic dictatorships.
Nevertheless, a review of Muslim
modernists is in order.а This will be
provided in the next article of this series.