Is Islam Accept Secularization? Part One

Prof. Hasan Yahya, Professor of Sociology

 Is Islam Secularizable? To answer this question, we need to say that Islam is one of the world's oldest religions is also one of the world's most adaptable -- even to a secularist society." Sadik J. al-Azm, an intellectual Arab dealt with this  issue, he wrote:"The question of whether Islam can be secularized has been on the agenda of modern Arab and Muslim thought and history since Bonaparte's occupation of Egypt in 1798.  In fact Arabs have been attempting to settle the issue since at least the last quarter of the nineteenth century; and part of the twentieth century. For example; since what Arabs often refer to in our recent past as the Arab Renaissance, or  Arab Awakening, or  Islamic Reformation, or what the late expert on the period, Albert Hourani, an Arab Historian, aptly called the "Liberal Age" of Arab thought."

 As response to change in his attempt to formulate a realistic answer to the question Is Islam secularizable?, He started by raising another question: was the simple, egalitarian, and unadorned Islam of Mecca and Medina (known as Yatherb in Arabic) at the time of the Prophet and the first four Rightly-Guided Caliphs (chosen by the then-emerging Muslim community as his successors) compatible with the dynasties of such complex empires as Byzantium and Sassanid Persia at the time of their Arab-Muslim conquest? He answered negatively and positively together to the question: "Yes, the two became very compatible in an incredibly short period of time. But the early Muslim purists were absolutely right at the time of the first Arab conquests to insist that nothing in the Muslim orthodoxy of the day could make the Islam of Medina, Mecca, and the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs compatible with hereditary monarchy."  Then he explained movements in Christianity such as the Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre movement and his followers in Europe and the United States and described it as "an excellent example of the Church's persistence in response to purism evolving into secular humanism, religious pluralism, mutual tolerance, freedom of conscience, a scientifically based culture, and so on. The Second Vatican Council, convened by Pope John XXIII, is an equally excellent example of triumph over classical dogmatism."  This type of movements are needed in the Muslim and Arab world. By the same token, he  argued that the accurate answer  is a twofold: "dogmatically, No; historically, Yes." Then he contended  that "without a good grasp of the gains and losses and ups and downs of the secularization process of contemporary Islam, he confirmed that no explanation of the ferociousness of the current fundamentalist reaction can be adequate". Then he described Islamic doctrines as a religion, it is a coherent static ideal of eternal and permanently valid principles, is of course compatible with nothing other than itself. Which I believe it's true, because Islam practices today lead to hatred and dogmatism. While  Islam should accept  and practice secularization. Not to reject it and to deny it. Islam is a dynamic faith and has responded to widely differing environments and rapidly shifting historical circumstances, proving itself highly compatible with all the major types of polities and varied forms of social and economic organization that human history has produced.

 The question why Muslims acted the way they do these days toward the Western world, and the USA in particular.? He gives some explanations by saying: "Islam as a world-historical religion stretching over 15 centuries has unquestionably succeeded in implanting itself in a variety of societies and cultures, from the tribal-nomadic to the centralized bureaucratic to the feudal-agrarian to the mercantile-financial to the capitalist-industrial." Al-Azm, brought an example of Iran,  I don't know why? Because Iran is much dogmatic than the Sunni in terms of secularization.  He explained his point by saying:"Doubters that Islam can be secularized should consider the evidence coming from the most unlikely quarter of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The Iranian Ayatollahs, in their moment of victory, did not proceed to restore the Islamic Caliphate-and there was a Shi'i Caliphate in Muslim history-nor did they erect an Imamate or vice-Imamate, but proceeded to establish a republic for the first time in Iran's long history."  In this manner I accept the argument of not returning back to Ali's Age fourteen hundred years ago. Other than this I would disagree.  But in terms of popular elections, a constituent assembly, and creation of a parliament,  a president, a council of ministers, political factions, a constitution (which is a clone of the 1958 French Constitution), a kind of supreme court and so on, I would agree. But still Iran is dogmatic traditional mentality, nonetheless, all of which has absolutely nothing to do with Islam as history, orthodoxy, and dogma, but everything to do with the practices and institutions of modern Europe.

Later in his article, Al-Azm return to the point where,

 "in spite of the Islamic idiom, the politico-ideological discourses of the Iranian clerics and guardians of correct belief are substantively dictated by the historical "Yes" of the present socio-economic-political conjuncture rather than the exigencies of the dogmatic "No" of orthodoxy."

He brought examples of economic planning, social reform, re-distribution of wealth without forgetting such issues as identity and modernization were similar to the secular leader examples such as President Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia, and/or the very early Fidel Castro of Cuba. What happened in Iran, was a clash between traditional dogmatism and new ideas tend  to work itself out in human affairs. This clash was observed in other countries as Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Algeria, and Turkey. Where Islamic Shari'ah (Law) was ignored and put aside in modern government rulings and   receded to the periphery of public life. Including economic and social and political institutions. (factories, banks, market places, officer corps, political parties, state apparatuses, education-school, university, and laboratories. Even the  courthouse, arts organizations, and media had very little religion left in them. That was forming secular forms of  governing people. If this was happening what then this type of hatred and selfishness among Arabs and Muslims alike when it comes to the USA and Europe?  (Go to Part 2.)