To Daniel Pipes
I disagree
with your article on the possibility to reform Islam
A)
Confusion
At first
lacks a definition of "Islam" : What do you call precisely "Islam"? The
Texts? Their meaning (s)? Their application at a particular time and place? The
Muslims? One or an other particular
Muslim movement? Islamic civilization? If the "Islamism" distinguish it
self from from "Islam": what is it? Another "religion", another
"cult", a separate Muslim movement? ..
Then, lacks
a definition of "essentialism."
Confusion
between the doctrine of Islamic ideology on the one hand and its application
through history, the "History" of Muslims.
Confusion between
doctrine and the people who have applied it. The Constitution of the United
States is an ideology like Islam. It is not a country, nor is "Islam"
a country.
Confusion
between properties proper to people, and properties proper to texts and to the meaning
of texts.
The word
"essentialisation" is a critique of the theory that human beings of
the same group are determined by their genes, that they have an essence and are
not free to make in their lives. This is a strong word that is synonymous with
racism. It was applied to conscious beings.
It does not
apply to texts. The texts are not living beings, "conscious",
autonomous. The texts have a meaning, a definitive meaning for the most when
they have been written and finished. This sense is really their "essence".
To deny the existence of this meaning, one must fall into two errors.
1)
The first
is to deny that the notion of "language" means that the texts have a
common sense understable by everyone, to deny that it is impossible to give “ what
ever meaning “ to a text, impossible present
it as if it meant exactly the opposite of what it says. The margin of
interpretation is a "margin" only, unless for texts which are totally
obscure, which have no sense, and therefore can be "interpreted"
anyhow.
The
philosophy of language underlying this idea, is the formula often used that
"everything is interpretation." If a text is just an interpretation,
there is no law and there is more language because there is more common sense
understood by everyone.
If one could
to give “ what ever meaning “ to a law, to a normative term, there would be no
law, there would be no rule of law, because no one would understand the meaning
of "the law ", it would not be no longer a" law ".
This vision
of the texts as infinitely flexible relate to two conceptions that do not have
their place in the political debate on Islam. The first conception concerns the language : this conception , as
I have just shown, is incompatible with the concept of law. This is the
"subjectivist" conception of the "language": the meaning of
a text or statement exists only in the mind of every reader, it would be
impossible to agree on a common sense for all speakers. At it extreme, it is
the negation of language itself.
The second
conception is an "autonomy" of the text, of the language, which is assimilated
to a living being, who would have a "own life". It is a magical and anti-human thought. Humans
no longer would manufacture a common language and the history, they would be
"acted" by "thetongue/language" ( “ lalangue” in French,
expression of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan), by the "sense of history", without
even being able to think this language and history. In this conception, one
could reproach the will to "essentialise" a text by empeaching it to
have a free story. But then one can not at the same time say that this text
would be "what Muslims do of it" because this text escapes them too, his
"existence" is his own ... If the text is religious, then the
reproach of essentialization means that the "true meaning" of
religion is unknown by men and evolutionary, because only God would know and
would let it be known, because "God knows best", but again, then, Islam
is certainly not what Muslims do of it, but only what God wants.
2)
The second
mistake is to believe that the elements of an ideology can be separated and
studied independently of each other, regardless of their consistency and their
converging influences on the reactions of their followers.
Islamic
ideology is immutable for most of its worst provisions, for two reasons: these
provisions are clear and sacred, and they form a system, a coherent system.
Islam is a
doctrine totally oriented toward war and conquest. This is why it is sexist and
violent. That is why it is opposed to reflexion, to the progress of reflexions.
This is why it has "mad" aspects, aspects of "double-bind". That is
why it uses terror and guiltiness. That is why it flatters the lowest instincts.
Islam has
for purpose to conquer to the benefit of God and his Ummah. This is why the
woman has no value because if one bursts (dies), it can be replaced by a prize
of war. This is why the strength is enhanced and not love. That is why love is
repressed because men must be frustrated and badly loved so they have the taste of blood. This
is why compassion is repressed. This is why the dream of Muslims is merely a
brothel of re-inflatable dolls. This is why it is forbidden to understand that
acts of sadism of Muhammad are acts of sadism and not normal. This is why are needed
the discipline of fast, the prayer in tight ranks, the control of all by all,
the fear of hell for beginnings of reflexion. This is why is needed the bait of
loot and details on the rights of men to rape women ...
Everything
is so consistent, that any attempt to progress in one area is understand as an unbearable
deviance away from the primary goal, unbearable because it is guilty, or unbearable
because it deprives a pleasure that was taken for granted. This is why these
attempts have failed repeatedly, this is why "Islam", that is to say
the overall understanding of Islamic texts is "non-reformable"
Liberal "reforms" exist but are incomplete, unstable and
inconsistent, so they do not persist over time, anywhere.
The
adaptation of Islamic law to the realities of a particular time does not change
the key feature of Islam, which is a doctrine of war.
As a
doctrine of war, it is quite realistic indeed, and for this reason, widely
adaptable to circumstances. If adaptations achieve the basic purpose of the
jihadist expansion, they will not be challenged, even by the
"purists", largely on the
contrary. But as soon as the toughest laws prove themselves useful to
expansion, they are reactivated.
Being a war
doctrine, Islam is compatible with the borrowing of weapons, including weapons
of propaganda to opponent : so are the borrowing 0to fascism. But fascism is
not the "essence" of a new "religion" or "cult"
that would be "Islamism": it only provides new tools for observant
Muslims. The totalitarian aspect, that is to say, the global and terrorist
aspect, exist from the beginning of Islam, it is not specific to the
“islamists” movements. These “Islamists” movements have the flexibility that Muslims have always
have in accordance with the principle of deception, and realism that prevails
in the texts of Islam.
So is the
center, the meaning, the "essence" of the Islamic system, since it is
this system that Muhammad and the four caliphs have exploited and that is the
eternal model. The center of the doctrine, it purpose is well defined, it is
the sense of the sacred texts of Islam and can not be "reformed",
unless one pretend to present the texts as meaning the opposite of what they clearly
mean both in their parts and as a whole.
I do not
agree with your comparison with slavery and usury in Judaism and Christianity.
First, because to put on the same level "law" in these two religions
do not make sense. The problem of the interpretation of texts as
"standard" arises only for the Jews. Then, because the texts were far
from unequivocal on these two subjects. Then, and most importantly because
these two issues are not central points or Judaism or Christianity. One can be
Jewish or Christian, with or without interest or with or without slaves. While
jihad and caliphate and discrimination against non-Muslims, slaves, women are
crucial points of Islam, and are linked, they form a coherent system,
undissociable elements.
B) Hell
There are
debates in the Muslim world, so much the better: they will lead to the same
conclusion that all those who have studied the texts of Islam do : when the
central points of doctrine are bad and not marginal points, and when the most of the texts are bad and not
only a little part, when each reform faces major taboos, such as saying (or
just thinking) that the words of Allah and most of behaviors of Muhammad are repellent, this doctrine is not "reformable",
one have to replace it completely.
What does
the phrase "Islam is what Muslims do of it ?" mean ? Does it mean
that Muslims can give any meaning to the sacred texts, but then, as I just
explained: a text would not have a
meaning ? Does it mean that they can act no matter how, despite the texts? But then what is "Islam",
if this "doctrine" no longer has any connection with the sacred
texts?
It is
absurd to ask the anti-Islamists Muslims
to develop a coherent ideology opposed to "sharia, the Caliphate and the horrors
of jihad “.
First,
because opposing "Sharia" and Islam has absolutely no sense. The
"Sharia", the way of Allah, is the "norm" of Allah, Fiqh is
the formulation of this standard, as Islamic law is inseparable from
"Islam," submission to God itself . What sense may have the sentence
"Being obedient to God without being subject to the law of God"? It
is possible that the formulating (wording) of the standard (Fiqh) is bad, but
not whole. If it was bad as a whole, it would mean that all scholars would have
been wrong since the beginning ? This would imply that Muslims should
"follow the path of Allah" without being able to formulate it ? That
would be absurd because if God must be obeyed it must be understood at least a
minimum. The Quran itself speaks of clear verses ..
Then, to ask
the anti-Islamist Muslims to develop a coherent and opposing "Sharia and
the Caliphate to the horrors of jihad" ideology, is to ask them to think
completely contradictory, against the meaning of texts. It is to ask them the Impossible,
it's almost sadistic ...
What
"trick" "Hyjal" may they invent? Follow the path of the Sudanese engineer who
claimed to give precedence to the verses from Mecca on the those of Medina ? It
is against all logic of any lawyer. Any lawyer knows the last law is the enacted law and repeals the previous
law on the same subject.
It is true
that we can "invent" everything
"in the language". It is true
that human beings can make of any doctrine "what they want to do". Being
illogical, act on the basis of
"conventions", of "legal fictions" or moral fictions,
pretending not to see the contradictions, is not a problem when it comes to
social conventions. But Islam is not whatever doctrine, it is a faith, a dogma.
Muslims are believers, they are afraid to disobey, they are afraid of Hell. It
is impossible to ask them to invent conventions that go against the clear
commands of Allah and would make them fear hell. Hell and the torments of the
grave are a terrible fear. It is strictly unthinkable to risk going there.
So when a
job is “not done nor to be done”, one have to throw it all over and do it again
by beginning ...
Ayaan Hirsi
Ali is not only right when she says
that'' Islam is not reformable”, but also when she says that feminists (like
me) must join forces with Christian, and that human solution to help Muslim
believer is to "evangelize" (Judaism could be used as it is too
complicated). The only way to convince a believer to reject the barbaric
aspects linked to orders of his god according to his faith, is to prove him that
his is mistaking himself about God, about conception of God, that there are
other, more soft, and that his will even go to Hell if he follows the orders,
not if he refuses to follow them.
Elisseievna
Can
Islam Be Reformed?
History and human
nature say yes
Islam currently represents a backward,
aggressive, and violent force. Must it remain this way, or can it be reformed
and become moderate, modern, and good-neighborly? Can Islamic authorities
formulate an understanding of their religion that grants full rights to women
and non-Muslims as well as freedom of conscience to Muslims, that accepts the
basic principles of modern finance and jurisprudence, and that does not seek to
impose Sharia law or establish a caliphate?
A growing body of analysts believe that no,
the Muslim faith cannot do these things, that these features are inherent to
Islam and immutably part of its makeup. Asked if she agrees with my formulation
that "radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the
solution," the writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali replied,
"He's wrong. Sorry about that." She and I stand in the same
trench, fighting for the same goals and against the same
opponents, but we disagree on this vital point.
My argument has two parts. First, the
essentialist position of many analysts is wrong; and second, a reformed Islam
can emerge.
Arguing
Against Essentialism
To state that Islam can never change is to
assert that the Koran and Hadith, which constitute the religion's core, must
always be understood in the same way. But to articulate this position is to
reveal its error, for nothing human abides forever. Everything, including the reading
of sacred texts, changes over time. Everything has a history. And everything
has a future that will be unlike its past.
Only by failing to account for human
nature and by ignoring more than a millennium of actual changes in the Koran's
interpretation can one claim that the Koran has been understood identically
over time. Changes have applied in such matters as jihad,
slavery, usury, the
principle of "no
compulsion in religion," and the role of women. Moreover,
the many important interpreters of Islam over the past 1,400 years—ash-Shafi'i,
al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiya, Rumi, Shah Waliullah, and Ruhollah Khomeini come to
mind—disagreed deeply among themselves about the content of the message of
Islam.
However central the Koran and Hadith may
be, they are not the totality of the Muslim experience; the accumulated
experience of Muslim peoples from Morocco to Indonesia and beyond matters no
less. To dwell on Islam's scriptures is akin to interpreting the United States
solely through the lens of the Constitution; ignoring the country's history
would lead to a distorted understanding.
Put differently, medieval Muslim
civilization excelled and today's Muslims lag
behind in
nearly every index of achievement. But if things can get worse, they can also
get better. Likewise, in my own career, I witnessed Islamism rise from minimal
beginnings when I entered the field in 1969 to the great powers it enjoys
today; if Islamism can thus grow, it can also decline.
How might that happen?
The
Medieval Synthesis
Key to Islam's role in public life is Sharia and
the many untenable demands it makes on Muslims. Running a government with the
minimal taxes permitted by Sharia has proved to be unsustainable; and how can
one run a financial system without charging interest? A penal system that
requires four men to view an adulterous act in flagrante delicto is
impractical. Sharia's prohibition on warfare against fellow Muslims is
impossible for all to live up to; indeed, roughly three-quarters of all warfare
waged by Muslims has been directed against other Muslims. Likewise, the
insistence on perpetual jihad against non-Muslims demands too much.
To get around these and other unrealistic
demands, premodern Muslims developed certain legal fig leaves that allowed for
the relaxation of Islamic provisions without directly violating them. Jurists
came up with hiyal (tricks) and other means by which the
letter of the law could be fulfilled while negating its spirit. For example,
various mechanisms were developed to live in harmony with non-Muslim states.
There is also the double sale (bai al-inah) of an item, which permits
the purchaser to pay a disguised form of interest. Wars against fellow Muslims
were renamed jihad.
This compromise between Sharia and reality
amounted to what I dubbed Islam's "medieval
synthesis" in my book In
the Path of God (1983). This
synthesis translated Islam from a body of abstract, infeasible demands into a
workable system. In practical terms, it toned down Sharia and made the code of
law operational. Sharia could now be sufficiently applied without Muslims being
subjected to its more stringent demands. Kecia Ali, of
Boston University, notes the dramatic contrast between formal and applied law
inMarriage and Slavery in Early Islam, quoting other specialists:
One major way in which studies of law have
proceeded has been to "compare doctrine with the actual practice of the
court." As one scholar discussing scriptural and legal texts notes,
"Social patterns were in great contrast to the 'official' picture presented
by these 'formal' sources." Studies often juxtapose flexible and
relatively fair court outcomes with an undifferentiated and sometimes harshly
patriarchal textual tradition of jurisprudence. We are shown proof of "the
flexibility within Islamic law that is often portrayed as stagnant and
draconian."
While the medieval synthesis worked over
the centuries, it never overcame a fundamental weakness: It is not
comprehensively rooted in or derived from the foundational, constitutional
texts of Islam. Based on compromises and half measures, it always remained
vulnerable to challenge by purists. Indeed, premodern Muslim history featured
many such challenges, including the Almohad movement in 12th-century
North Africa and the Wahhabi movement in 18th-century Arabia. In
each case, purist efforts eventually subsided and the medieval synthesis
reasserted itself, only to be challenged anew by purists. This alternation
between pragmatism and purism characterizes Muslim history, contributing to its
instability.
The
Challenge of Modernity
The de facto solution offered by the
medieval synthesis broke down with the arrival of modernity imposed by the
Europeans, conventionally dated to Napoleon's attack on Egypt in 1798. This
challenge pulled most Muslims in opposite directions over the next two
centuries, to Westernization or to Islamization.
Muslims impressed with Western
achievements sought to minimize Sharia and replace it with Western ways in such
areas as the nonestablishment of religion and equality of rights for women and
non-Muslims. The founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938),
symbolizes this effort. Until about 1970, it appeared to be the inevitable
Muslim destiny, with resistance to Westernization looking rearguard and futile.
But that resistance proved deep and ultimately
triumphant. Atatürk had few successors and his Republic of Turkey ismoving back toward Sharia. Westernization,
it turned out, looked stronger than it really was because it tended to attract
visible and vocal elites while the masses generally held back. Starting around
1930, the reluctant elements began organizing themselves and developing their
own positive program, especially in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, and India. Rejecting
Westernization and all its works, they argued for the full and robust
application of Sharia such as they imagined had been the case in the earliest
days of Islam.
Though rejecting the West, these
movements—which are called Islamist—modeled themselves on the surging
totalitarian ideologies of their time, Fascism and Communism. Islamists
borrowed many assumptions from these ideologies, such as the superiority of the
state over the individual, the acceptability of brute force, and the need for a
cosmic confrontation with Western civilization. They also quietly borrowed
technology, especially military and medical, from the West.
Through creative, hard work, Islamist
forces quietly gained strength over the next half century, finally bursting
into power and prominence with the Iranian revolution of 1978–79 led by the
anti-Atatürk, Ayatollah Khomeini (1902-89). This dramatic event, and its
achieved goal of creating an Islamic order, widely inspired Islamists, who in
the subsequent 35 years have made great progress, transforming societies and
applying Sharia in novel and extreme ways. For example, in Iran, the Shiite
regime has hanged homosexuals from cranes and forced Iranians in Western dress
to drink from latrine cans, and in Afghanistan, the Taliban regime has torched
girls' schools and music stores. The Islamists' influence has reached the West
itself, where one finds an increasing number of women wearing hijabs, niqabs,
and burqas.
Although spawned as a totalitarian model,
Islamism has shown much greater tactical adaptability than either Fascism or
Communism. The latter two ideologies rarely managed to go beyond violence and
coercion. But Islamism, led by figures such as Turkey's Premier Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan (1954-) and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), has explored
nonrevolutionary forms of Islamism. Since it was legitimately voted into office
in 2002, the AKP gradually has undermined Turkish secularism with remarkable
deftness by working within the country's established democratic structures, practicing
good government, and not provoking the wrath of the military, long the guardian
of Turkish secularism.
The Islamists are on the march today, but
their ascendance is recent and offers no guarantees of longevity. Indeed, like
other radical utopian ideologies, Islamism will lose its appeal and decline in
power. Certainly the 2009 and 2013 revolts against Islamist regimes in Iran and
Egypt, respectively, point in that direction.
Toward a
Modern Synthesis
If Islamism is to be defeated,
anti-Islamist Muslims must develop an alternative vision of Islam and
explanation for what it means to be a Muslim. In doing so, they can draw on the
past, especially the reform efforts from the span of 1850 to1950, to develop a
"modern synthesis" comparable to the medieval model. This synthesis
would choose among Shari precepts and render Islam compatible with modern
values. It would accept gender equality, coexist peacefully with unbelievers,
and reject the aspiration of a universal caliphate, among other steps.
Here, Islam can profitably be compared
with the two other major monotheistic religions. A half millennium ago, Jews,
Christians, and Muslims all broadly agreed that enforced labor was acceptable
and that paying interest on borrowed money was not. Eventually, after bitter
and protracted debates, Jews and Christians changed their minds on these two
issues; today, no Jewish or Christian voices endorse slavery or condemn the
payment of reasonable interest on loans.
Among Muslims, however, these debates have
only begun. Even if formally banned in Qatar in 1952,
Saudi Arabia in 1962, and Mauritania in 1980, slavery still exists in these and
other majority-Muslim countries (especially Sudan and Pakistan). Some
Islamic authorities even
claim that a pious Muslim must endorse slavery. Vast financial institutions
worth possibly as much as $1 trillion have developed
over the past 40 years to
enable observant Muslims to pretend to avoid either paying or receiving
interest on money, ("pretend" because the Islamic banks merely
disguise interest with subterfuges such as service fees.)
Reformist Muslims must do better than their
medieval predecessors and ground their interpretation in both scripture and the
sensibilities of the age. For Muslims to modernize their religion they must
emulate their fellow monotheists and adapt their religion with regard to
slavery and interest, the treatment of women, the right to leave Islam, legal
procedure, and much else. When a reformed, modern Islam emerges it will no
longer endorse unequal female rights, the dhimmi status, jihad, or suicide
terrorism, nor will it require the death penalty for adultery, breaches of
family honor, blasphemy, and apostasy.
Already in this young century, a few
positive signs in this direction can be discerned. Note some developments concerning women:
- Saudi Arabia's
Shura Council has responded to rising public outrage over child
marriages by setting the
age of majority at 18. Though this doesn't end child marriages, it moves
toward abolishing the practice.
- Turkish
clerics have agreed to let menstruating women attend mosque and pray
next to men.
- The Iranian
government has nearly banned thestoning
of convicted adulterers.
- Women in Iran
have won broader rights to sue
their husbands for divorce.
- A conference
of Muslim scholars in Egypt deemed clitoridectomies contrary to Islam and, in
fact, punishable.
- A key Indian
Muslim institution, Darul Uloom Deoband, issued a fatwa against
polygamy.
Other notable developments, not
specifically about women, include:
- The Saudi
government abolished jizya (the practice of enforcing a poll
tax on non-Muslims).
- An Iranian
court ordered the family of a murdered Christian to receive the same
compensation as that of a Muslim victim.
- Scholars
meeting at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy in Sharjah have started
to debate and challenge the call for apostates to be
executed.
- All the while, individual
reformers churn out ideas, if not yet for adoption then to stimulate
thought. For example, Nadin al-Badir, a Saudi female journalist, provocatively suggested that Muslim
women have the same right as men to marry up to four spouses. She prompted
a thunderstorm, including threats of lawsuits and angry denunciations, but
she spurred a needed debate, one unimaginable in prior times.
Like its medieval precursor, the modern
synthesis will remain vulnerable to attack by purists, who can point to
Muhammad's example and insist on no deviation from it. But, having witnessed
what Islamism, whether violent or not, has wrought, there is reason to hope
that Muslims will reject the dream of reestablishing a medieval order and be
open to compromise with modern ways. Islam need not be a fossilized medieval
mentality; it is what today's Muslims make of it.
Policy
Implications
What can those, Muslim and non-Muslim
alike, who oppose Sharia, the caliphate, and the horrors of jihad, do to
advance their aims?
For anti-Islamist Muslims, the great
burden is to develop not just an alternative vision to the Islamist one but an
alternative movement to Islamism. The Islamists reached their position of power
and influence through dedication and hard work, through generosity and
selflessness. Anti-Islamists must also labor, probably for decades, to develop
an ideology as coherent and compelling as that of the Islamists, and then
spread it. Scholars interpreting sacred scriptures and leaders mobilizing
followers have central roles in this process.
Non-Muslims can help a modern Islam move
forward in two ways: first, by resisting all forms of Islamism—not just the
brutal extremism of an Osama bin Laden, but also the stealthy, lawful,
political movements such as Turkey's AKP. Erdoğan is less ferocious than Bin
Laden, but he is more effective and no less dangerous. Whoever values free
speech, equality before the law, and other human rights denied or diminished by
Sharia must consistently oppose any hint of Islamism.
Second, non-Muslims should support
moderate and Westernizing anti-Islamists. Such figures are weak and fractured
today and face a daunting task, but they do exist, and they represent the only
hope for defeating the menace of global jihad and Islamic supremacism, then
replacing it with an Islam that does not threaten civilization.
Daniel Pipes is president of the Middle
East Forum.
July 7, 2013 update: Jeff
Jacoby does an excellent job of summarizing this article in his Boston Globecolumn today under
the title "What
Is Islam?"
Mise au point à propos d’un blog
sur Caroline Fourest et Gazon Maudit
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