May 13, 2005

Quantum Note

Winds of Change (I)

Winds of change are once again blowing throughout the lands of Islam. These winds are violent and they are tearing apart the social, political and economic orders that had come into existence through the emergence of independent Muslim states around the middle of the previous century. What would be the shape of the Muslim world in fifty years from now remains an open question, but the emerging pattern indicates that we are at the verge of a historical process that would result in the emergence of a new Islamic civilization.

At present, this possibility is in its embryonic stage, but through the great upheavals of our times, we can already see the initial casting of a global Islamic civilization. This process is taking place at several levels, but all of these simultaneous processes have Islam as their central focal point. To some, this assessment of our times may seem quixotic, even a mere figment of imagination, but if one were to compare the present time with the previous historical processes that gave birth to new social and political orders, one can find enough evidence in support of the inference that a new global civilization of Islam is slowly emerging.

What happened during the period between 1700 and 1900 was, in fact, the first stage of the present process. During this time, a huge number of forces operated on the Muslim world to produce changes that destroyed old institutions, disrupted centuries-old social patterns of life, and replaced the old economic and political structures. All of this led to a total collapse of the Islamic civilization as it was then known.

These changes were the product of a historical process that took place during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. At that time, Europe was taking a dynamic lead in the events that would eventually transform the world. In the course of two centuries, the three apparently powerful Muslim empires (the Mughal, the Safavid, and the Ottoman), which had come into existence on the ruins of the Abbasid state, were reduced to the status of European colonies. It was a dramatic and fateful reversal of world order that took place through a highly complex interplay between diverse factors including international commerce, politics, military techniques, science, technology, social customs, fashions and arts.

The most important feature of this period of Muslim history is an inner vacuum that characterized the Islamic civilization at all levels. As if it had been hollowed from within, the civilization that had created a grand infrastructure of legal, administrative and social organizational systems seems to be suspended in air without any support. It was this great inner vacuum that made it possible for any maverick general with finesse to rise and conquer large regions of the Muslim world. Likewise, there was an intellectual vacuum in which stray ideas, fashions, cultural symbols, and ad hoc power structures floated to create confusion and violence. Islamic civilization of these two centuries was a civilization that had been hollowed from inside and was left with no immune system to resist the onslaught of foreign aggression and infiltration.

Nothing is more significant for the understanding of the emergence of a new civilization of Islam than the process that led to its previous subjugation. The colonization of the Muslim world took place through several simultaneous processes. The first and the most important was the political transformation. Throughout their history, Muslim societies had functioned as units of a larger community. This concept of community (ummah) transcended national, tribal and regional barriers and worked as a basic operating entity, which provided the framework for a unique spiritual and ideological orientation. This is not to say that the individual states or empires did not function as independent political and administrative units at certain times or that these states had no rivalry with each other. What is important to note is the fact that the transnational notion of the Muslim community as a whole superseded these regional units. The institution of Caliphate was a symbol of this concept. Cities like Makkah and Madinah were held in great esteem by all Muslims in various parts of the world. There were certain centers of learning that were open to all Muslims and to which scholars came from all over the Muslim world. This provided an inner unity to the social fabric of the Islamic civilization.

Then, there was the tradition of traveling for the sake of knowledge which provided an intellectual unity and the most natural and stable means of dissemination of ideas throughout the vast region which made up the Muslim world. These centers of learning also provided a forum for discussing issues that affected the whole community. In addition, the trade routes which ran through a geographical region that stretched from the Arab heartlands to the Central Asian steppes formed a lifeline of economic, intellectual and cultural growth as well as a means for regular links among communities of Muslims living in diverse environments.

During the colonial era, this transnational concept of Ummah was replaced by another operating concept that was characteristically western in its origin. This new concept was that of nationalism which gave rise to the idea of state as a basic political unit, defined by concrete boundaries. This change was more than a mere theoretical reformulation of two political concepts; it had far‑reaching implications for the Muslim world.

The spirit of nationalism is based on cultural and linguistic grounds. In the West, this concept had given birth to distinct political units that were, by and large, defined on the basis of language, culture and geographical boundaries. These states demanded loyalty from their citizens in the name of patriotism. For instance, the foremost duty of a Russian was defined as loyalty to Russia, and for a German it was the loyalty to Germany. Islam does not recognize any fragmentation of humanity on the basis of culture and language.

The emergence of nationalism in the Muslim world during the colonial rule produced, for the first time in their history, an idea that divided the Ummah on national and regional grounds—a division from which they are still suffering. This division gave rise to numerous countries in the Muslim world and created nations and states, divided and at war with each other.

All of these states are once again under a threat that is forcing them to a new kind of bondage to the new colonizer of the world--the United States of America. But built into this very process of submission by the state is a powerful undercurrent of resistance anchored in the psyche of individual Muslim: the desire to achieve a new level of freedom from the existing power structures. This new wave of understanding is still nascent, but it is qualitatively different from the awareness that had generated momentum for breaking the yoke of colonization during the early decades of the twentieth century and therein lies the possibility of emergence of a new political order in the Muslim world.

             (To be continued)

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