Quantum Note
July 14, 2006
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal
For the past three centuries the Muslim agenda has been defined by others. This is perhaps not surprising, given the enormous power and wealth accumulated by European nations in the wake of the Scientific and Industrial revolutions which allowed them to conquer almost the entire middle belt of the globe, including some of the most resource-rich lands where Muslims have lived for centuries. The dominant position of Europe was such that the “mere presence of a European amidst natives was enough to strike terror”, as Marshall Hodgson writes in his The Venture of Islam. This terror has lately turned around.
This “turning around of terror” can be viewed simply as a process which reflects the custom of the One Who truly governs. That would, however, immediately alienate the educated reader, whose rationality does not admit any such cause for events on this planet; such is the dictate of the rationalism which insists that even mega-processes such as human history must remain within the limits defined by the scientific worldview which does not allow the Hand of God, as it were, to play any role in human affairs.
Fortunately, even within this narrow view of history there is now ample evidence
to suggest that the three-hundred-year old darkness of Muslim subjugation is
coming to an end; the first rays of light may not yet be obviously visible, but
the terror of night has been broken and, as with the strike of dawn, there are
sounds emerging from the abysmal depths—sounds which are harbingers of dawn.
The terror which the white man used to strike in the natives has turned around;
no one is afraid of them anymore. A short stroll on any street in Gaza, Baghdad
or Qandahar is enough to confirm this. Men and women laden with iron and laced
with technological gadgets of all kinds walk down the road trembling in their
uniforms, whereas unarmed, poor, and disheveled natives have little left to
fear.
What has really happened on the ground, however, has yet to happen in the mind of many an educated Muslim. The reconstruction of Islamic thought is a far easier task, as Iqbal knew well, than the reconstruction of the broken spirit which has lived in chains for so long that it has forgotten how to be free. But with the appearance of this new dawn, even the most sleepy minds are stirring: where are we heading? Who is controlling our agenda? What do we need to do?
That Muslims are waking up is, ironically, due to the cruelty they have recently received. But this is their habit; they did the same after the Tatars left a million dead on the streets of that fabled “City of Peace” of al-Mansur, which has never witnessed peace since its remote beginning in 750; perhaps there was something wrong in the estimate of the astrologers who advised the Caliph to start the construction on such-and-such day. Whatever the reason of their stirring, the fact is that the terror that had gripped their hearts for so long is disappearing.
At the dawn of this new era, there is no leader yet; only the preparation for the appearance of one. The stage is being set, conditions are ripe, a reversal of roles has taken place in the most deadly encounter ever experienced by Islamic civilization. For the first time in their long history, Muslims now have the entire globe as their theatre of action, and that too not because of their efforts but thanks to the One who has His ways to get the Pharaoh to lead to his own drowning. (But that is beside the point, for no amount of such historical evidence is admissible.) All that can be admitted are the clear-cut admissions of men like Rumsfeld and women like Rice, who now understand that the quick route to oil wells and the restructuring of the Middle East they envisioned merely three years ago is not so quick after all. Likewise, it would not be out of place to draw attention to some numbers here: 68% of men and women living in the most powerful country of the world (in purely material terms) say they have no faith left in their leaders.
This is not the moment of rejoicing, for there is too much blood, too much suffering all around us; corpses have not been buried, scars of Abu Ghuraib are still raw, the memory of the sister in faith recently raped and then shot dead with her family in Baghdad by US soldier Green and his comrades is still painfully vivid. And there is an enormous amount of work to be done, and there are enormous resources needed for the task ahead. These resources, however, are those of the poor and the middle class; not the resources of the rich, for there is no blessing in them.
What is needed now is the coming together of the traditional middle
class—traders, teachers, students—who have always been Islam’s real living
embodiment. A large number of men and women, with just enough material resources
to spare one piece of bread from their meager meals, need to join together to
make an effort to transform their view of life and death. This will allow them
to change the way they live. All they need to see clearly is that this life of
short span in this world has a real dimension other than that of bread and
butter. This opening of the heart, as it were, will be just the thing they need
to clearly see their own agenda, which has been dictated by others for the last
three hundred years. Once they take this agenda into their own hands, with a
clear perception of its goals, details will automatically be worked out. And
then, what Iqbal really wanted to do with his sublime poetry, emerging from the
deepest springs of poetic imagination fired by the message of the Qur’an, will
become a reality.
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