[lbo-talk] Islam: The New York Times Book Review version

sharif islam sharif.islam at gmail.com
Sun Jan 6 16:48:41 PST 2008


While it is hearting to see your last name in the cover of the New York Times Book Review, you suddenly realize that this is another attempt to understand the issue of 'Islam' ('issue' is a much more politically correct term that combines threat, crisis, problem etc.) as preached by the mainstream media. As if the magic potion of understanding the faith of 1.3 billion people will provide the solution to all the problems of the world. Therefore, we can anticipate a cover story next week that will define the American electoral politics – "Mormon vs Southern Baptist". But alas, it won't be the case, because we know that faith and religion while an important aspect, does not necessarily define the whole spectrum of humanity perhaps for those problem ridden countries of the world and obviously the immigrants that are flocking towards the West for a better life. Cynicism aside, the books reviewed in NY Times can be looked at as a survey of current political landscape where the rhetoric of understanding Islam is prevalent. But we need to closely look at such rhetoric.

The editors acknowledge that the books selected are not comprehensive, instead, they are a sampler of what is now available. The selection does cover different aspects of Islam, from theology to politics, yet it is heavily leaning towards the best seller sections. Books such as, _The Flowering of Muslim Theology_ by Josef Van Ess or _Missing Soluch_ Mahmoud Dowlatabadi should have made it to the list and thus moving little closer to so called understanding. In any case, some of the books are definitely worth reading and it is commendable that there was at least an attempt for a balanced list.

The review starts with Tariq Ramadan's essay _Reading the Koran_ where he emphasizes the complexity of studying Koran. He also emphasized the universalist and pluralist interpretation of the Koran:

"Above and beyond these distinct levels of reading, we must take into account the different interpretations put forward by the great Islamic classical tradition. It goes without saying that all Muslims consider the Koran to be the final divine revelation. But going back to the direct experience of the Companions of the Prophet, it has always been clear that the interpretation of its verses is plural in nature, and that there has always existed an accepted diversity of readings among Muslims."

While not all will agree with his above statement that there could be pluralistic interpretation of any divine revelations, he makes a solid argument: history shows there has been significant effort in developing methodological tools to understand and interpret Koran, therefore, the claim that multiple interpretation are impossible is a baseless conclusion. However, he failed to connect the complexity of reading Koran with the fact that the majority of Muslims (or any other followers of a religion), are not involved in such rigorous studies. They will rely on the interpretations provided to them that could either be deemed as pluralistic or literal and such interpretations depend more on social, political, and cultural than theological factors.

The second essay that is worth pointing out is by Fouad Ajami where he acknowledges his mistake that he doubted Samuel Huntington and his clash of civilizations theory:

"I had questioned Huntington's suggestion that civilizations could be found "whole and intact, watertight under an eternal sky." Furrows, I observed, run across civilizations, and the modernist consensus would hold in places like India, Egypt and Turkey. Huntington had written that the Turks — rejecting Mecca, and rejected by Brussels — would head toward Tashkent, choosing a pan-Turkic world."

Ajami's realization that there needs to be a "redefinition" Huntington's prophesy is based on the recent election result of Turkey:

"The Islamists have prevailed, but their desired destination, or so they tell us, is still Brussels: in that European shelter, the Islamists shrewdly hope they can find protection against the power of the military. "

It seems according to Ajami, whose other Prophet is Bernard Lewis, Turkey, where it is too soon to announce that Islamists have prevailed, will lead the clash of civilizations. The Huntington syndrome is still strong after all these years and Ajami does not realize that the situation of secularism and Islamism in Turkey is much more complex than just simple rejection of Keamalism and win of Islamism. And the decision to enter the EU, which is contested by most of Europe, is more to do with economics than ensuing the clash. Aijaz Ahmad, in his recent article provides a cure to such Huntington syndrome. Ahmad points out that the main attraction of Huntington's theory is that it perpetuates the state of permanent warfare, which ultimately supports the military industrial complex, be it in Turkey or United States:

"In the clash between Christianity versus Islam, the Orthodox Church and China, America must lead and the West must unite to defend itself. The problem with the West has been that it has had the universalist pretensions. Repudiation of universalism thus yields, in Huntington's vision, not mutual accommodation or respect among the diverse cultures but a state of permanent warfare. (p. 22)."

Ajami's conclusion is that we have failed to pay attention to Huntington's vision -- Islam is remaining true to it's ideology, West is not. Capitalism and World Wide Web failed to retain the civilization. So the doom is imminent.

I am pretty sure, a bearded man in some cave having similar conclusion: "Invert Huntington and you get Osama bin Laden" (Ahmad, 2008).

References: Ahmad, Aijaz, 2008. ISLAM, ISLAMISMS AND THE WEST, Socialist Register. New York Times Book Review: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/review/index.html

-- sharif islam http://www.sharifislam.com



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