Over the past century, the growing intrusion of the West and of modern secular culture into the Islamic world has prompted acute and highly visible debate among Muslims. Which ideas and influences flowing from the West could Muslims safely utilize, and which should they decisively reject? Are women's rights and democracy compatible with Islam? To what extent should Islam find expression in public life as well as in private religious practice? The sources that follow show something of these controversies while illustrating sharp variations in the understanding of Islam. 

A Secular State for an Islamic Society Modern Turkey emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, adopting a distinctive path of modernization, westernization, and secularism under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (see "Religion and Global Modernity" earlier in the chapter). Such policies sought to remove Islam from any significant role in public life, restricting it to the realm of personal devotion. They included abolition of the caliphate, by which Ottoman rulers had claimed leadership of the entire Islamic world. In a speech delivered in 1927, Atatrk explained and justified these policies, which went against the grain of much Islamic thinking.

MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATRK | Speech to the General Congress of the Republican Party | 1927 [Our Ottoman rulers] hoped to unite the entire Islamic world in one body, to lead it and to govern it. For this purpose, [they] assumed the title of Caliph [successor to the Prophet Muhammad].... It is an unrealizable aim to attempt to unite in one tribe the various races existing on the earth, thereby abolishing all boundaries....

If the Caliph and the Caliphate were to be invested with a dignity embracing the whole of Islam ... , a crushing burden would be imposed on Turkey.... [Furthermore], will Persia or Afghanistan, which are [Muslim] states, recognize the authority of the Caliph in a single matter? No, and this is quite justifiable, because it would be in contradiction to the independence of the state, to the sovereignty of the people.

[The current constitution] laid down as the first duty of the Grand National Assembly that "the prescriptions of the Shari'a [Islamic law] should be put into force...." [But] if a state, having among its subjects elements professing different religions and being compelled to act justly and impartially toward all of them ... , it is obliged to respect freedom of opinion and conscience.... The Muslim religion includes freedom of religious opinion.... Will not every grown-up person in the new Turkish state be free to select his own religion? ... When the first favorable opportunity arises, the nation must act to eliminate these superfluities [the enforcement of sharia] from our Constitution....

Gentlemen, it was necessary to abolish the fez [a distinctive Turkish hat with no brim], which sat on our heads as a sign of ignorance, of fanaticism, of hatred to progress and civilization, and to adopt in its place the hat, the customary headdress of the whole civilized world, thus showing that no difference existed in the manner of thought between the Turkish nation and the whole family of civilized mankind.... [Thus] there took place the closing of the Tekkes [Sufi centers], of the convents, and of the mausoleums, as well as the abolition of all sects and all kinds of [religious] titles....

Could a civilized nation tolerate a mass of people who let themselves be led by the nose by a herd of Sheikhs, Dedes, Seids, Tschelebis, Babas, and Emirs [various religious titles]? ... Would not one therewith have committed the greatest, most irreparable error to the cause of progress and awakening?

Source: A Speech Delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, October 1927 (Leipzig: K. F. Koehler, 1929), 377-79, 591-93, 595-98, 717, 721-22.

Toward an Islamic Society Even as Kemal Atatrk was seeking to remove Islam from the public life of Turkey, a newly formed Muslim organization in Egypt was strongly advocating precisely the opposite course of action. Founded in 1928 by impoverished schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), the Muslim Brotherhood argued in favor of "government that will act in conformity to the law and Islamic principles." As the earliest mass movement in the Islamic world advocating such ideas, the Brotherhood soon attracted a substantial following, including many poor urban residents recently arrived from the countryside. Long a major presence in Egyptian political life, the Brotherhood has frequently come into conflict with state authorities and briefly came to power in 2012. In 1936, it published a pamphlet, addressed to Egyptian and other Arab political leaders, that spelled out its views about the direction toward which a proper Islamic society should move.

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD | Toward the Light | 1936 After having studied the ideals which ought to inspire a renascent nation on the spiritual level, we wish to offer, in conclusion, some practical suggestions....

I. In the political, judicial, and administrative fields:

1st. To prohibit political parties and to direct the forces of the nation toward the formation of a united front;

2nd. To reform the law ... [to] be entirely in accordance with Islamic legal practice;

5th. To propagate an Islamic spirit within the civil administration ...

6th. To supervise the personal conduct of officials ...

9th. Government will act in conformity to the law and to Islamic principles; ... The scheduling of government services ought to take account of the hours set aside for prayer....

II. In the fields of social and everyday practical life:

2nd. To find a solution for the problems of women, a solution that will allow her to progress and which will protect her while conforming to Islamic principles.

3rd. To root out clandestine or public prostitution and to consider fornication as a reprehensible crime ...

4th. To prohibit all games of chance (gaming, lotteries, races, golf)

5th. To stop the use of alcohol and intoxicants

7th. To develop an educational program for girls different than the one for boys

8th. Male students should not be mixed with female students

10th. To close dance halls; to forbid dancing;

11th. To censor theater productions and films;

12th. To supervise and approve music;

14th. To confiscate malicious articles and books as well as magazines displaying a grotesque character or spreading frivolity;

16th. To change the hours when public cafes are opened or closed

19th. To bring to trial those who break the laws of Islam, who do not fast, who do not pray, and who insult religion;

21st. Religious teaching should constitute the essential subject matter to be taught in all educational establishments and faculties;

24th.... Absolute priority to be given to Arabic over foreign languages;

25th. To study the history of Islam, the nation, and Muslim civilization;

27th. To combat foreign customs

29th. To safeguard public health ... increasing the number of hospitals, doctors, and out-patient clinics;

30th. To call particular attention to the problems of village life (administration, hygiene, water supply, education, recreation, morality).

III. The economic field:

1st. Organization of the zakat tax [an obligatory payment to support the poor] according to Islamic precepts

2nd. To prevent the practice of usury [charging interest on loans]

3rd. To facilitate and to increase the number of economic enterprises and to employ the jobless ... ,

4th. To protect workers against monopoly companies, to require these companies to obey the law, the public should share in all profits;

5th. Aid for low-ranking employees and enlargement of their pay, lowering the income of high-ranking employees; ...

7th. To encourage agricultural and industrial works, to improve the situation of the peasants and industrial workers[.]

Source: Hassan al-Banna, "Towards the Light," in Robert Landen, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970), 261-64.

  Two Images of Islamic Radicalism By the late twentieth century, the most widely publicized face of Islam, at least in the West, derived from groups sympathetic to the views of the Muslim Brotherhood  Iran's revolutionary government, Saudi Arabia, and radical Islamist organizations such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Boko Haram, and Hamas. These photographs illustrate two dimensions of Islamic radicalism. Its violent face is horrifically expressed in Source 23.3A, which shows a group of teenage Islamic State militants preparing to execute twenty-five Syrian prisoners in a Roman amphitheater in Palmyra in May 2015. That execution was carried out. On the other hand, Source 23.3B illustrates the kind of social services often provided by radical Islamist groups, such as the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which governs the small territory of Gaza on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The computer classroom pictured was part of a school established by Hamas, which was later destroyed in fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces. 

A The Violent Face of Islamic Radicalism | 2015

  The Peaceful Face of Islamic Radicalism | 2015

  The Sufi Alternative In sharp contrast to the Islamic secularists like Atatrk or Islamic radicals or fundamentalists such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sufis represent the more spiritual or mystical dimension of Islam. While most Sufis participate in conventional Islamic practices, they are generally more sharply focused on interior spiritual experience than on the precise prescriptions of the law. Thus they have resisted the legalistic prescriptions of Islamic radicals. And so Sufis have often been persecuted, their practices suppressed, and their places of worship attacked.

Others, however, view the Sufis as counteracting the appeal of Islamic radicals committed to violence. According to the prominent Iranian Sufi scholar Seyyed Nasr, "Sufism is the most powerful antidote to the religious radicalism called fundamentalism.... Its influence is immense; Sufism has kept alive the inner quality of ethics and spiritual virtues, rather than a rigid morality ... and it provides access to knowledge of the divine reality."33 This was the message that India's prime minister Narendra Modi delivered to the Sufi World Forum in Delhi in 2016. That it came from a prominent Hindu figure in India made the message all the more striking, given the historical tension between Muslims and Hindus.

NARENDRA MODI | Sufism and Islamic Radicalism | 2016 At a time when the dark shadow of violence is becoming longer, you [Sufis] are the noor, or the light of hope.... And, you represent the rich diversity of the Islamic civilization that stands on the solid bedrock of a great religion.... It is a civilization that reached great heights by the 15th century in science, medicine, literature, art, architecture and commerce.... It set, once again, an enduring lesson of human history: it is through openness and enquiry, engagement and accommodation, and respect for diversity that humanity advances, nations progress and the world prospers.... And, this is the message of Sufism, one of the greatest contributions of Islam to this world.

From its origins in Egypt and West Asia, Sufism travelled to distant lands, holding aloft the banner of faith and the flag of human values, learning from spiritual thoughts of other civilisations, and attracting people with the life and message of its saints.... In the different settings of Saharan Africa or in Southeast Asia, in Turkey or in Central Asia, in Iran or India, Sufism reflected the universal human desire to go beyond the practice and precepts of religion for a deeper unity with the Almighty....

For the Sufis, therefore, service to God meant service to humanity.... And, its humanism also upheld the place and status of women in society. Above all, Sufism is a celebration of diversity and pluralism.... Sufism is the voice of peace, co-existence, compassion and equality; a call to universal brotherhood.

Sufism became the face of Islam in India, even as it remained deeply rooted in the Holy Quran, and Hadiths.... Just as it once came to India, today Sufism from India has spread across the world.

 

Indeed, when terrorism and extremism have become the most destructive force of our times, the message of Sufism has global relevance.... Every year, we spend over 100 billion dollars on securing the world from terrorism, money that should have been spent on building lives of the poor.... [W]e must reject any link between terrorism and religion. Those who spread terror in the name of religion are anti-religious.... And, we must advance the message of Sufism that stands for the principles of Islam and the highest human values. 

 Progressive Islam All across the Islamic world, many Muslims argued that they could retain their distinctive religious sensibility while embracing democracy, women's rights, technological progress, freedom of thought, and religious pluralism. Such thinkers were following in the tradition of nineteenth-century Islamic modernism (see "Reform and Its Opponents" in Chapter 19), even as they recalled earlier centuries of Islamic intellectual and scientific achievement and religious tolerance. That viewpoint was expressed in a pamphlet composed in 2009 by a leading American Muslim scholar, translator, and teacher, Kabir Helminski. He was listed then as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world.

KABIR HELMINSKI | Islam and Human Values | 2009 If the word "Islam" gives rise to fear or mistrust today, it is urgent that American Muslims clarify what we believe Islam stands for in order to dispel the idea that there is a fundamental conflict between the best values of Western civilization and the essential values of Islam....

Islamic civilization, which developed out of the revelation of the Qur'an in the seventh century, affirms the truth of previous revelations, affirms religious pluralism, cultural diversity, and human rights, and recognizes the value of reason and individual conscience....

[One issue] is the problem of violence.... Thousands of Muslim institutions and leaders, the great majority of the world's billion or more Muslims, have unequivocally condemned the hateful and violent ideologies that kill innocents and violate the dignity of all humanity....

Islamic civilizations have a long history of encouraging religious tolerance and guaranteeing the rights of religious minorities. The Qur'an explicitly acknowledges that the diversity of religions is part of the Divine Plan and no religion has a monopoly on truth or virtue....

Jerusalem, under almost continuous Islamic rule for nearly fourteen centuries, has been a place where Christians and Jews have lived side by side with Muslims, their holy sites and religious freedom preserved. Medieval Spain also created a high level of civilization as a multi-cultural society under Islamic rule for several centuries. The Ottoman Empire, the longest lived in history, for the more than six centuries of its existence encouraged ethnic and religious minorities to participate in and contribute to society. It was the Ottoman sultan who gave sanctuary to the Jews expelled from Catholic Spain. India was governed for centuries by Muslims, even while the majority of its people practiced Hinduism....

 

[The acceptance of Islam must be an act of free will. Conversion by any kind of coercion was universally condemned by Islamic scholars.... There are many verses in the Qur'an that affirm the actuality and even the necessity of diversity in ways of life and religious belief.

 

In general, war is forbidden in Islam, except in cases of self-defense in response to explicit aggression. If there is a situation where injustice is being perpetrated or if the community is being invaded, then on a temporary basis permission is given to defend oneself.

 

[In recent decades ... an intolerant ideology has been unleashed. A small minority of the world's one and a half billion Muslims has misconstrued the teachings of Islam to justify their misguided and immoral actions. It is most critical at this time for Muslims to condemn such extreme ideologies and their manifestations. It is equally important that non-Muslims understand that this ideology violates the fundamental moral principles of Islam and is repugnant to the vast majority of Muslims in the world.... So-called "suicide-bombers" did not appear until the mid-1990s. Such strategies have no precedent in Islamic history. The Qur'an says quite explicitly: Do not kill yourselves [4:29]....

 

Islam and democracy are compatible and can coexist because Islam organizes humanity on the basis of the rule of law and human dignity.... The only principle of political governance expressed in the Qur'an is the principle of Consultation (Shura), which holds that communities will "rule themselves by means of mutual consultation" [Surah 42:38].

An American Muslim scholar, Abdul Aziz Sachedina, expresses it this way: "Islam does not encourage turning God into a political statement since humans cannot possess God...."

 

[There is nothing in the Qur'an that essentially contradicts reason or science.... Repeatedly the Qur'an urges human beings to "reflect" and "use their intelligence."

 

Islam is not an alien religion. It does not claim a monopoly on virtue or truth. It follows in the way of previous spiritual traditions that recognized One Spirit operating within nature and human life. It continues on the Way of the great Prophets and Messengers of all sacred traditions.

Source: Selections from Kabir Helminski, Islam and Human Values, unpublished pamphlet, 2009.

SOURCE 23.6 Debating the Burqa Among the contested issues in the Islamic world, none have been more prominent than those involving the lives and the bodies of women. The revolutionary Islamist government of Iran, for example, insisted on and enforced "good hijab" for women, which meant compulsory head covering and very conservative and modest attire. But the issue has surfaced in Europe as well. A prominent British Muslim woman, Saira Khan, called for banning the burqa, the head-to-toe covering worn by some Muslim women, in public places. "The veil is simply a tool of oppression," she declared. "The burkha is the ultimate visual symbol of female oppression."34

When the French government in 2011 began to enforce a law forbidding the concealment of the face in public, it was widely understood to be a prohibition of the burqa. To many French people, the burqa represented a security risk and violated the secularism of French life, while banning it prevented women from being forced by their families to wear it. But the new law prompted considerable protest in many places. One such protester outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris said: "We view this ban as an assault on our human rights."35 Source 23.6 shows a group of Muslim women in Britain, clad in black burqas, protesting the law outside the French embassy in London.

What accounts for the very different understandings of Islam that are present in the documents in the "Working with Evidence"