Muslims and the West, Encounter and Dialogue
In October 1997, amidst gloomy prophesies of an imminent clash between Islamic and Western civilizations, some forty scholars, thinkers, and opinion-makers from different parts of the world came together in a seminar in the idyllic surroundings of Islamabad, to thrash out the problems pertaining to the relations between the Muslims and the West. This seminar, held under the joint auspices of the Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., focused itself on exploring the Western perceptions of Muslims and Muslim perceptions of the West. The subject was not only academically challenging, but also a necessary step toward building bridges of understanding and friendship across the two civilizations.
Muslims and the West: Encounter and Dialogue is a collection of twelve select papers of that seminar [edited by Zafar Ishaq Ansari and John L. Esposito]. These papers represent a serious attempt to understand the complex relationship of the Muslims and the West spanning over fourteen centuries. In these papers, twelve highly distinguished scholars from across the globe address the subject with depth of understanding and sharpness of perception, in a style strikingly candid yet sober and balanced.
Brief explanation printed on the cover of the book IIIrd reprint 2006.
[Following paragraphs from the cited book and other scholarly books are arranged in sequence to have a better understanding of the Muslims and the West]
1. When I teach these principles- this notion of progress- to my students in North America, they are immediately impressed. They find it fascinating that the Qur’an is not so much concerned with the direction of prayer as with the well-being of the weak and the suffering:
“It is not piety that you turn your faces to the East or the West but pious is the one who believes in God and the Last Day and the angels and the Book and the prophets, and spends money for love of Him, on relatives and orphans and the poor and travelers and those in need, and for captives; and who pays charity, and who fulfills promises when they are made, and who is patient in poverty and suffering and in time of war; it is these who are true in faith, who are pious”. (Surat al-Baqarah, 2:178)
They [the students] find these values utterly in keeping with their own. Indeed, many feel that perhaps the expression here is a bit more articulate, more direct, and very timely – P.230
Modernity, Islam, and the West , Tamara Sonn
It distresses me that so many people seem to think that the next period of history will be a fight between your part of the world and mine. It is true that we live elbow to elbow with each other … it is also true that our elbows have banged painfully together many times in the past. But almost two thousand years after the birth of your Jesus, and more than 1400 years after the birth of our Muhammad, let me start by asking whether it really has to happen all over again. P.18
“Islam and the West”, The Economist, London December 22, 1990, The Book Preface P.XVII
3. This Muslim tolerance had a solid basis in Islam, which recognized Christians and Jews as distinct religious communities with the right to practice their religions. The Qur’an proclaims clearly, “there should be no compulsion in religion”. In fact, for the first time in history, the state that the Prophet established in Madinah enshrined the principles of religious tolerance – in its written constitution. Consequently, religious tolerance- has been one of the hallmarks of Muslim civilization. P.8
[Islam ] stressed belief in the one God, but rejected such crucial Christian doctrines as the Incarnation [a living being embodying deity or spirit], the Trinity [the union of three persons (father, son, holy ghost) in one Godhead or the threefold personality of the divine being], the Crucifixion [ to put to death by nailing or binding a person to a cross] and the Redemption [ deliverance from sin ; salvation]. Yet it share many teachings with Christianity: it accepted all biblical prophets, emphasized moral responsibility and believed in the Last Day. P.9
In Muslim Spain itself there followed some four centuries of religious and ethnic coexistence among Christians, Muslims and Jews, among Arabs, Berbers and Europeans. This coexistence resulted in an unparalleled flowering of literature, music, science, trade, architecture and comparative religious studies. Dazzling remainders of some of the cultural achievements of what amounted to an amalgamated culture have survived in an original architecture that fused the best of Muslim and Byzantine styles: Cordoba’s Great Mosque, Seville’s Alcazar and Granada’s Alhamra. P.10
– Muslims and the West in History, Isma’il Ibrahim Nawwab.
4. Transmission of learning from the Islamic world [Muslim Spain], then a centre of a more advanced culture and richer civilization, to Europe is the most remarkable feature of this process. A host of Europeans scholars have attempted to identify the nature and extent of the influence of the Islamic world on Europe in fields as diverse as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, logic, metaphysics, technology, music and other arts and science. Through the acquisition of Islamic knowledge there came about C.H. Haskins call “the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century”. P.53/54
Another important factor was the popularity of the Arabian Nights, of which the first English translation was published in 1706. As to its reception in England, Mushin J. Ali aptly remarks: “Very few books have cast such a spell on the reading public as the Arabian Nights”. This contention [struggle in opposition] is firmly corroborated [made more certain] by numerous reprints, complete editions and ‘new translations’ and ‘careful revisions’ of the Arabian Nights during the century. Its popularity is evidenced also by its serialization over the years in London News, Churchman’s Last Shift, General Magazine, Lady’s Magazine, Monthly Extracts and Novelist’s Magazine. Addison’s response was equally warm in that he published several Oriental pieces in The Spectator. P.61
Apart from being a unique amalgam of the informative and the delightful, the Arabian Nights was much admired for its exoticism, its depiction of strange social manners, and its machinery of such enthralling figures as jinns, fairies, magicians and talismans. “These stories”, holds E.F. Bleiler “appealed…with a wide range of opportunities, delicacies of style, elaborices of construction, adventure, moralism, sensibility, fantasy, philosophy and irony”. Some of the legends permeating these stories had their parallels in the Celtic, Teutonic [natives of Germany] and Greek traditions – hence their appeal for a larger readership. Along with their exoticism and the charm of pure adventure, these stories are grounded in solid value systems and deal with such issues as the sinfulness of pride and greed and the vanity [worthlessness] of human wishes. Numerous Oriental tales, often pseudo-Oriental imitations and adaption, appeared in the wake of their popularity, of which a masterly analysis is made by Martha P. Conant. According to her, this phenomenon “might be called as episode in the development of English Romanticism. P.61/62
– Perceptions of Islam and Muslims in English Literature, Abdur Raheem Kidwai.
5. Kenneth Cracknell, in his excellent survey of early mission thought in relation to the other world religions, introduces the reader to Frederick Denison Maurice, whom he identifies as one of the greatest of the 19th century Anglican theologians. Maurice was prophetic of the increasing tolerance and appreciation of Islam that was to characterize missionary interpretation later in the 20th century. Clear in his stance that Christ universal has been present in all ages, Maurice even sees Muhammad as a witness for God. Islam, he contests, in its intense belief in the power of the one God, is a clear denial of the 19th century claim that religions are the creation of a religious principle in man rather than a response to the reality of God. Maurice was one of the first mission theologians to admit that Islam might serve as a challenge to Christianity, going so far as to call the Muslim conquests part of God’s presence and activity, not “a testimony against the Gospel but for it; a testimony to one necessary, forgotten portion of it [namely God’s overlordship of the earth]” P.151/152
In a marked change from his earlier rhetoric, he [ i.e. The Missionary Samuel Zwemer who founded and edited for 36 years the journal The Moslem World (later The Muslim World)] began to stress the importance of recognizing that Islam has elements of strength, vitality and truth, that it is a rich and strong religion, and that the notion of God as omnipresent and omnipotent is greatly to be admired.
P 160/161
In a somewhat different vein, but also looking for ways in which to find reconciliation between Islam and Christianity, Edwin Calverly says that mutual declarations of monotheism should encourage sympathetic rather than unfriendly relations; this might for example be accomplished by mutual appreciation of Surah 112 in the Quran which it would be proper and right for Christians to recite along with Muslims. In this process each side would see how the other understands the content of that surah. E.F.F. Bishop agrees that while it is necessary to avoid both syncretism and “appeasement, “there is no reason why Christians should not seriously examine their own attitude toward Islam, at the same time letting Muslims know that we would appreciate the same from them. It is high time, for example, that Muslims stop assuming that the phrase “Son of God” carries any connotation [to have significance only by association with another word] of human generation. P.165
The tone of the meeting [Asmara, Eritrea in 1959] was conciliatory, acknowledging the responsibility of Christians for building and maintaining barriers of separation between the religions which have seriously handicapped the work of mission. Eight principles were identified as particular obstacles in Christian mission to Muslims, including Christian pride and complacency leading to disrespect of Muslims, emphasis on discontinuity between Christian and Islam (“Rather than ‘shouting down from the balcony’ at the Muslims,” said Kenneth Cragg, “we must go down into the dust of the street together and find God walking with us”), the inadequacy of Christian conviction and witness, Christian fear and defensiveness in the face of Muslim opposition, and an inadequate understanding of Islam on the part of most missionaries. Even Hendrik Kramer after this meeting testified to the necessity of a new Christian attitude toward Muslims. Noting the objective change in the relationships between the West and the Muslim world he says that “we are led to the conclusion that the past, age-long relationship of antagonism, unilateral closeness of mind, and communication by monologue [a prolonged talk by a single speaker], has turned in the possibility and the necessity of a new relationship of mutual interdependence (material and cultural) and of genuine human encounter and open dialogue… P.166/167
Mennonite missionary Mike Brislen, among a number of others, argues for the importance of developing a Muslim-culture church. In his vision the “Isa muezzin” ascends the minaret and gives a call to prayer following the Muslims adhan as closely as possible, with such alterations as “I bear witness that Isa is the Word of God who sends forth the Spirit proceeding from the command of my Lord…” P.171
Parshall [Presbyterian missionary Phil Parshall deeply influenced by his friendship with Muslims] advocates that missionaries dress as much like Muslim religious men as possible, live simply, remove shoes before worship (which takes place on the floor without chairs and involves, prostrations [ to lay as on the ground]), and even fast in Muslim style. P.172
Although they [The Missionaries] are not willing to compromise their conviction of the ultimacy of salvation through Jesus Christ, most appreciate the Islamic stress on God’s oneness (though not what they see as the rigidity of the law) and see in its mystical piety common ground with Christian practice. Many have come to believe that Muhammad was a genuine prophet, and a few are even willing to acknowledge that he is “our’ prophet as well as “theirs”. P.176
– Christian Missionary Views of Islam in the 19th-20th Centuries, Jane I.Smith.
6. One day a Brahmin [‘The All’; the whole of reality; the essence of existence; the foundation of everything that exists; Being itself; the power that holds the cosmos together and enables it to grow and develop. The supreme reality of Vedic religion] priest came across the Buddha sitting in contemplation [thinking meditation] under a tree and was astonished by his serenity, stillness and self-discipline. The impression of immense strength channeled creatively into an extraordinary peace, reminded him of a great tusker elephant. ‘Are you a god, sir? The priest asked. ‘Are you an angel… or a spirit?’ No, the Buddha replied. He explained that he had simply revealed a new potential in human nature. It was possible to live in this world of conflict and pain at peace and in harmony with one’s fellow creatures. There was no point in merely believing it; you would only discover its truth if you practiced his method, systematically cutting off egotism at the root. You would then live at the peak of your capacity, activate parts of the psyche that normally lies dormant, and become fully enlightened human beings. ‘Remember me,’ the Buddha told the curios priest,‘ as one who is awake.’ P.316
The Case for God, 1999 edition, Karen Armstrong
7. In [the year] 632 shortly before his death, [Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him] made what has been called the Farewell Pilgrimage in which he Islamized the old Arabian pagan rites of the hajj and made this pilgrimage, which was so dear to the Arabs, the fifth ‘pillar’ of his religion.
All Muslims have a duty to make the hajj at least once in a lifetime if their circumstances permit. Naturally the pilgrims remember Muhammad, but the rites have been interpreted to remind them of Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael rather than their prophet. These rites look bizarre to an outsider – as do any alien social or religious rituals- but they are able to unleash an intense religious experience and perfectly express the communal and personal aspects of Islamic spirituality. Today many of the [hundreds of] thousands of pilgrims who assemble at the appointed time in Mecca [also include non-Arabs] but they have been able to make the ancient Arabic ceremonies their own. As they converge on the Kabah, clad in the traditional pilgrim dress that obliterates [take away] all distinctions of race or class, they feel that they have been liberated from the egoistic preoccupations of their daily lives and been caught up into a community that has one focus and orientations. They cry in unison; ‘Here I am at your service, O al-Lah’ before they begin the circumambulations [walk, go] around the shrine…. The essential meaning of this rite is brought out well by the late Iranian philosopher Ali Shariati:
“As you circumambulate and move closer to the Kabah, you feel like a small stream merging with a big river. Carried by a wave you lose touch with the ground. Suddenly, you are floating, carried or by the flood. As you approach the centre, the pressure of the crowd squeezes you so hard that you are given a new life. You are now part of the People; you are now a Man, alive and eternal… The Kabah is the world’s sun whose face attracts you into its orbit. You have become part of this universal system. Circumambulating around Al-lah, you will soon forget yourself… You have been transformed into a particle that is gradually melting and disappearing. This is absolute love at its peak.”
Jews and Christians have also emphasized the spirituality of community. The hajj offers each individual Muslim the experience of a personal integration in the context of the ummah [Muslims], with God at its centre.
P.182/183
8. The Koran does not condemn other religious traditions as false or incomplete but shows each new prophet as confirming and continuing the insights of his predecessors. The Koran teaches that God has sent messengers to every people on the face of the earth: Islamic tradition says that there had been 124,000 such prophets, a symbolic number suggesting infinitude. Thus the Koran repeatedly points out that it is not bringing a message that is essentially new and that Muslims must emphasize their kinship [kin; a group of persons descended from the common ancestor, or constituting a family, class, tribe or race] with the older religions:
“Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation otherwise than in the most kindly manner- unless it be such of them as are set on evil doing- and say: ‘We believe in that which has been bestowed upon us, as well as that which has been bestowed upon you: for our God and your God is one and the same, and it is unto Him that we [all] surrender ourselves.’ “.Koran 29:46, P.177/178
A History of God, Karen Armstrong
9. But the First World War revealed the self-destructive nihilism that, despite its colossal achievements, lurked at the heart of modern Western civilization. It has been described as the collective suicide of Europe: by slaughtering a generation of young men, the war so damaged European society at its core that arguably it has never fully recovered. The utter futility of trench warfare, fought as it was for no adequate social, ideological or humanitarian cause, defied the rationalism of the scientific age. The most advanced and civilized countries in Europe had crippled themselves and their opponents with their new military technology simply to serve the national ego. The war itself seemed a terrible parody of the mechanical ordeal [trial]: once the intricate mechanism of conscription, troop transportation and the manufacture of weapons had been switched on, it seemed to acquire its own momentum and proved almost impossible to stop. After the Armistice [temporarily suspension of hostilities by agreement of a truce], the economy of the West seemed in terminal decline, and the 1930s saw the great Depression and the rise of fascism and communism. By the end of the decade, the unthinkable had happened and the world was embroiled [involved] in a second global war. It was now difficult to feel sanguine [hopeful, confident] about the limitless progress of civilization. Modern secular ideologies were proving to be as lethal [deadly, fatal] as any religious bigotry [stubborn and complete intolerance of creed, belief or opinion that differs from one’s own]. They revealed the inherent destructiveness of all idolatry [excessive or blind devotion], once the finite reality of the nation had become an absolute value, it was compelled to overcome and destroy all rival claimants. P.252/253
Karen Armstrong, The Case for God
10. But yoga also had an ethical dimension. A beginner was not allowed to perform a single yogic exercise until he had completed an intensive moral programme. Top of the list of its requirements was ahinsa, ‘harmlessness’. A yogin must not swat a mosquito, make an irritable gesture or speak unkindly to others but should maintain constant affability to all, even the most annoying monk in the community. Until his guru was satisfied that this had become second nature, a yogin could not even sit in the yogic position. A great deal of the aggression, frustration, hostility and rage that mars our peace of mind is the result of thwarted egotism, but when the aspiring yogin became proficient in this selfless equanimity, the texts tell us that he would experience ‘indescribable joy’……So when a man venerates [commanding respect because of great age or impressive dignity] another deity, thinking, ‘He is one, and I am another,’ he does not understand, P31
The Case For God , Karen Armstrong
11. Basil Mathews, a missionary who travelled throughout the Muslim world in the second decade of this century, wrote a book in 1926, with a title almost identical with the title of Huntington’s famous “The Clash of Civilizations” article. In this book, which was entitled Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations, Mathews tried to analyze civilization transformation in the Muslim world immediately after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate. There is a very interesting imaginative continuity between basil Mathews and Huntington’s approaches towards other civilizations. Mathew’s denomination of the modernization attempts in the Muslim world as process of conversion at the beginning of this century and Huntington’s “West-Rest” polarization at the end of the century, are reflections of the same civilization self-perception which represent an “egocentric illusion” as described by [ the British historian] Toynbee:
“But apart from illusion due to the worldwide success of the Western civilization in the material sphere, the misconception of ‘the unity of history’ – involving the assumption that there is only one river of civilization, our own, that all others are either tributary to it or else lost in the desert sands – may be traced to three roots: the egocentric illusion, the illusion of ‘the unchanging East’, and the illusion of progress as a movement that proceeds in a straight line.” P.103/104
Civilization Self-Perception and Pluralistic Coexistence: A Critical Examination of the Image of the ‘Other - Ahmet Davutoglu
12. Secularism is even more maligned in contemporary Islamic discourse than rationalism. It is generally taken to be an ideology, and construed in such a way as to make it utterly objectionable. In an article entitled “Toward a More Comprehensive and Explanatory Paradigm [model, mold] of Secularism,” for example, ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri rejects the standard description of secularism as the “separation of church and state,” although he acknowledges that this definition has “gained currency.” In fact, he claims, secularism, “if defined in a complex way,” is “a total world outlook, a weltanschauung, a comprehensive paradigm” that “operates on all levels of reality through a large number of implicit [included but not expressed] and explicit [precise, exact] mechanisms:” it is “the underlying and over-arching paradigm in modern Western civilization, and in all modernities for that matter.” Ultimately, he says in a lecture delivered at the University of South Florida, Spring 1995, secularism is the paradigm accounting for a staggering array of problems which he characterizes as “the crisis of modern civilization.” There are:
“…the price of progress, quantification, mechanization, standardization, instrumental value-free rationalization, alienation [to transfer or divert, isolate] , the crisis of meaning, the domination of utilitarian values, the spread of moral and epistemological [a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods and limits of human knowledge] relativism [in philosophy, theory holding that criteria of judgment are relative with individuals and their environments], anomie [a state of condition or society characterized by a breakdown or absence of social norms and values as in the case of uprooted people], disintegration of society, increasing contractualization, the problem of the Gemeinschaft versus the Gesellshaft, the tightening of the grip of the state over the individual through its various apparati, the hegemony of companies and bureaucracies, the decline of the family, the atrophy of identity, the minimal self, the decentering of man, the rise of anti-humanist philosophies, philosophical nihilism [total and absolute destructiveness especially towards the world at large and including one self] , internationalization or globalization, the subversion of individuality and privacy, the Americanization of the world, Cocacolization, commodification, reification [robbery, plunder, loot], fetishism [blind devotion], the cult of progress, the cult of change and fashion, consumerism, the culture of disposable-instantaneous gratification, the culture of narcissism [ego centrism], post-ideology, the modern world as an iron cage, disenchantment [disillusion] of the world, the rise of ethnicity, racism, pornography, deconstruction (and a number of verbs with the prefix ‘de’: dehumanize, debunk, demystify.)” P.222/223
Modernity, Islam and the West, Tamara Sonn
13. Once the West recognizes that Muslims are not anti-rationalist or theocratic, and once Muslims accept that the West is not anti-religious or atheistic, I believe we can engage in a very productive dialogue on both the values and pitfalls of technological development. P. 231,
Modernity, Islam and the West, Tamara Sonn
14. Few have given themselves with such serious intent to this task [of trying to reconcile Christian convictions with a deep and genuine respect for the religion of Islam] as has Anglican [ of pertaining to the church of England] Bishop Kenneth Cragg, with whom it may be appropriate to conclude. Cragg, who has written prodigiously [enormously, extraordinary in quantiy] for nearly half a century about the theological relationship of Christianity and Islam, consistently tries to help Christians to grasp the greatness of Muhammad as a religious leader, and to understand and appreciate the depth of spirituality to be found among Muslims. He puts forth a monumental effort to see the commonalities between the two faiths, although he does not hesitate to voice his judgments about elements of Islam when he feels it is appropriate. Never willing to compromise his own persuasion of the saving power of Christ, because of which he has been a leading light of the Protestant missionary movement for many decades, he nonetheless continues to strive to find ways of Christian-Muslim rapprochement. “It is not that right relationships are asking Muslims , or others to capitulate has resulted from Christians generally assuming that the ‘salvation’ question is the right, or only, one to ask… The invitation… only to think realistically about themselves and their world, and to open to perhaps ‘unthinkable’ perspectives about God”. P.176-/177
– Christian Missionary Views of Islam in the 19th-20th Centuries, Jane I.Smith.
