The Ottawa Citizen – Saturday, April 19, 2008
On the topic of Islam in the modern world, there is no expert more recognized than Ali Mazrui. Now 75, he has published more than 20 books, including Islam Between Globalization and Counterterrorism.
He holds appointments at three universities, has been guest lecturer at more than 20, and has been named by the American journal Foreign Policy as one of the world’s top 100 intellectuals.
The birthday of the Prophet Muhammad is being celebrated this week, and on Wednesday Mr. Mazrui spoke at the National Arts Centre to members of Ottawa’s Muslim community, including representatives of 20 diplomatic missions, sponsored by the Ismaili Council of Canada. His topic was Muhammad: The Birth of a New Civilization. Earlier he talked to Charles Enman on the larger topic of contemporary Islam and civilization.
Related: Milad-un-Nabi Commemoration Events – Legacy of our Prophet (peace be upon him and his progeny)
Q: Some westerners assume that Islam and “civilization” are at loggerheads. Do you agree?
A: Anyone who says that must know very little about Islam. Islam is an alternative civilization which had its pinnacle and then its decline. The big question now is whether there is potential for a kind of renaissance.
Q: Can you describe the full flowering of Muslim civilization?
A: From the 8th century to the 14th century and perhaps a bit beyond, the leading edge of civilization was Muslim. And part of it was in Europe, as you know, there were seven centuries of Muslim rule in Spain. Muslims were dealing in issues like medicine and astronomy and mathematics, and people were coming to Muslim centres of learning. One must remember that the first order that Muhammad had received was not to kneel and worship or sing and pray. The first command was “Iqra!” which means “Read!”
Q: And then there was a decline?
A: Yes. The Muslim world fragmented badly, with a loss of the sense of one community as a vanguard of the human species. Secondly, Islam became more dogmatic.
Islam became less prepared to learn from others, as Muslims had already learned from the Persians, the Egyptians and the Indians.
Q: What do you see correcting the decline?
A: I see three things — first, the blessing of petroleum, the biggest reserve of which is in the holiest land of Islam. Is that wealth being used creatively? In a narrow, sphere, yes. Among other things, it is being used to set up chairs at universities to teach the world what Islam is really about.
Second is the possibility that globalization and the movement of Muslims into the western world — the United States, I should point out, now has six million Muslims — is going to produce new Muslim thinkers who may better look at Islam in the light of changing history. We have to convince Muslims that among the messengers of God is history itself.
The third force is the information revolution, which will enable the Muslim diaspora to communicate with traditional Muslim communities.
Q: How much resistance to change is there in the Muslim community?
A: More conservative Muslims may be quite resistant. In English, the word “innovation” has a positive connotation. In Arabic, the corresponding word, “bid’a,” has a negative connotation, stemming from the early days of Islam, when people were afraid that others would change doctrine and claim that it originated from the beginning of the faith. This attitude became a stumbling block to interpreting scripture in ways compatible with changing circumstances.
Q: Do you see a loosening of opposition to change?
A: There is considerable variation. Four Muslim countries — Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Turkey — have had women as the head of state or the head of government, long before the United States, for example, has even had a female vice-president.
These four Muslim countries are of course non-Arab. So it may be that some of the innovations may not come from the Arab vanguard of Islam but from outlying Muslim cultures with different cultural configurations.
Q: Do you see a tendency towards more democratization?
A: There are relatively good signs in Malaysia, where the stranglehold of the ruling party has been loosened just this year. In Africa, the most interesting example is Senegal, which is 94 per cent Muslim. Leopold Senghor, a Roman Catholic, was head of state for 20 years, and his Muslim successor, Abdou Diouf, had a Roman Catholic wife. Nowhere else in the world would a country, so overwhelming of one religion, have a leader of another religion.
It is a healthy sign of democracy when an overwhelmingly Muslim electorate will freely choose a leader of another religion. Unfortunately, Muslim countries like Malaysia and Senegal get zilch for media attention.
Q: Are western concerns about the rights of women in Muslim societies based in reality?
A: There have been extreme restrictions in places such as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban, but there is general recognition of this extremism in the Muslim world.
Elsewhere, women enjoy freer ways of life. Women in countries like Egypt and Algeria have much more freedom than in Saudi Arabia. And in Tunisia, you will hardly see a woman wearing a hijab. In Canada, a woman may wear a scarf anywhere, but in Turkey, as we have recently seen, wearing one can cause a constitutional crisis. In Iran, since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women have doubled their numbers in the universities.
This aside, people forget that women have not always been free in the West. American women only got the vote in 1920; in Switzerland, their enfranchisement came as late as 1971. Muslim societies have catching up to do, but they are not centuries behind, merely decades.
Q: Are you describing a hope for change that is in process, without westerners realizing it?
A: Changes are truly happening, though they vary in speed. I want my grandchildren to live in a self-confident Muslim community where Muslims no longer feel under siege and are able to address other civilizations without abandoning their own. Some of this will happen even during my children’s time.
And some Muslim countries I believe will be there even before I cross over to the other side. We’re talking about nearly 60 countries in the Organization of the Islamic Conference. They won’t change in lockstep.
Ismailimail 