Consumers of mainstream news hear, from time to time, the term “Arab street” used to describe the mindset of those opposed to so-called Western values and, in particular, the policies of the United States, England and other nations involved in conflicts in the Middle East.
The “Arab street” is usually described in terms of great masses of people who are poor, oppressed and, other than their anger, powerless. But is that the reality in the debates we face today? What are the key issues and who cares about them?
A recent New York Times story by Jane Perlez offered a stunning look into the reality of the debates that are unfolding in England, focusing on a London event advocating a crucial concept in Islamic history — the return of the “caliphate” in the Muslim world. You know you are dealing with strong stuff when you see a headline in the Times like this one: “London Gathering Defends Vision of Radical Islam.”
Here is the heart of the story, as a “radical Islamic party” strikes back against its critics:
The party, Hizb ut-Tahrir, calls for the return of the caliphate in Muslim countries, the end of Israel and the withdrawal of all Western interests in the Middle East. In the aftermath of the botched terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow, there were renewed calls in Parliament for barring the group, on the ground that though it officially advocates change by peaceful means, its pronouncements can encourage Muslims to turn toward terrorism.
The conference was dedicated to the return of the Khilafah, or caliphate, the organization of Muslim power that held sway for centuries after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
Titled Khilafah: The Need and the Method, it was held at the Alexandra Palace, a 19th-century entertainment complex in grand gardens in northern London, and drew a largely professional audience — IT managers, bankers, teachers. For hours, speakers assailed the British government for linking the group to terrorism, and for too often treating Muslims as terrorism suspects, and drummed at the theme of the need for Muslim rule.
“There is no Islam as a way of life without a Khilafah,” said Kamal Abuzahra, an Islamic academic of Bangladeshi origin, earning a roar of approval and calls of “Allahu Akbar.”
Note the makeup of the crowd. Is this your usual picture of the “Arab street,” when you read reports about groups within Islam that advocate radical or even traditional forms of the faith? I think not. That is what makes this story so crucial.
The story even fills in some of the religious content of this debate and, here is the key, allows the people taking part in the conference to describe their own views. Why is the concept of a “caliphate” so appealing?
“If you look at the political structure in the Muslim world, it’s a police state,” said Mohammed Baig, 28, a second-generation British Indian who is an asset manager specializing in corporate governance and has been a Tahrir party member for seven years. “You have the public opinion underground, and then staged public opinion in the media.”
Most people in the Muslim world want Shariah, the code of Islamic law based on the Koran, he said.
“Our feeling is: what gives Western governments the right to impose a set of values on a people who don’t believe in them?” he said, referring to the United States and Britain pushing for democratic values in the Middle East.
And there you have it, according to the moderate Muslims I have talked with in recent months. Reporters who want to cover this debate must realize that, as one scholar told me: “It is all about Shariah.” Can Shariah come to the West? Will governments in the West allow that and, if they do, are the political leaders who back that development prepared to deal with its affects on public life?
Read this Times report. Twice. (Hat tip to Rod “friend of this blog” Dreher for spotting this story.)
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Comments (14) |
August 8, 2007, at 2:57 pm
Are you asking, “would Western governments opt for a separate set of laws for Muslims living in those countries?” Are there any precedents for such under any coountry’s laws? We do have some separation between Native Americans and other US citizens, and foreign diplomats. The article hints that this is not the current goal of this party, but we remain suspicious.
August 8, 2007, at 4:00 pm
[…] Read it. Islam is not a religion; it is a totalitarian ideology with a religious component. […]
August 8, 2007, at 5:16 pm
“What gives Western governments the right to impose a set of values on a people who don’t believe in them?” Perhaps the most unanswerable question of our time. Muhammad and his successors believe Deity gives them the right to impose Sharia on others. The West can no longer explain why its values are true, and that’s why we ultimately will not be able to withstand the advance of passionate Islam. If the Western concept of human rights is to prevail, it will be up to Christians in Africa and Asia to re-establish the biblical vision of God’s kingdom on earth and a rational basis for just, civilized society.
August 8, 2007, at 5:38 pm
A caliphate is appealing because of a romantic view of history. The last time any vestige of a caliphate existed was the Ottoman empire, which was a Muslim majority empire that wielded much much power.
The current state of most Arab countries is rule by de facto dictators, most of which were designated or stay in power due to Western interests.
So if you hate who’s running your homeland, and they weren’t actually elected, and they are in power because of the West, it’s pretty natural to find people who will preach the rejection of all things western and look back to the last time they felt their “people” were in a position of power (in this case the Caliphate).
Of course it should be pointed out that this is not in any way a belief that is required by Islam, and there are quite a few Muslims around the world that are happy with their non-Caliphate governments, and some of those governments are even democratic (e.g. Indonesia, India, Turkey).
August 8, 2007, at 6:46 pm
To some of us, this party and its beliefs are nothing new. For example, look at this discussion from a couple of years ago.
http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/235/Sajjad-Khan-and-Farooq-Khan-New-page01.html
For example, as why the concept of an Islamic state is so appealing to some, this answer is key:
The well.com discussion illustrates the critical need to understanding some of the root issues. Nowhere in the story is any pointer to why the group believes what it does nor what it really wants to do. As the Well discussion illustrates, we actually share an understanding of the problem - closed, backward societies in the region. Couple that with a nostalgia for the imagined much more ideal past and a refusal to understand how much things have changed and you have organizations like Hizb ut Tahrir.
The problem with the NY Times story, as I’ve complained about endlessly, is that it does not give people the background information they need to have a well rounded understanding of the motivations of Islamists, diversity of their aims and how best to frame a debate with them.
At least for some members, it might be more worthwhile to have a debate. For example, later on in that article I cited, this statement was made:
Rather than argue that Islam needs a western-style reformation, I think it would be much more interesting to engage in a debate about “Islah” and “Ijtihad” in Islam. Some might consider this too subtle a difference, but I think it matters if we use a Muslim frame of reference in the debate rather than a Christian one.
August 9, 2007, at 12:18 am
At the risk of fanning the flames of Islamophobe paranoia (as evidenced by some other comments), it is worth mentioning that the desire of a pan-Islamic ummah is perhaps the religious inheritance left by Nasser and the secular pan-Arabism that was vanquished by the Six-Day War. Given the political dystopia that has defined much of the Middle East (not all of Dar al-Islam, to be sure) in its post-WWI neocolonial wanderings in the wilderness, its not surprising that utopian visions should be popular, as they were in the 19th century U.S. during times of cultural upheaval, or that the utopian reaches of the Enlightenment would have a religious counterpart in global Islam.
But without sufficient journalistic training in Islamic methods and understandings, members of the secular and Christian media are hard pressed to understand how Sharia or a “Caliphate” works. This is why grave misunderstandings occur among people who think the issuance of a fatwa somehow “ends debate,” when examining Islamic media shows that nothing could be further from the truth—since different jurists and Ulema often do not agree with each other. To merely point out that Shia Muslims would hotly resist any such “Caliphate” (with good historical reason) alone would be a farcical understatement.
This problem also promotes a monolithic view of Sharia, which is also incorrect and unfortunate. There are perhaps as many “Sharias” as there are interpretations of Islam, and the nature and scope of legal authority, theology, and politics has been hotly debated across Islam since its birth.
While I would agree with the popular sentiment here that the fixation on Candidate Romney’s Mormonism is unhelpful and journalistically unhealthy, I would say the same thing for the seemingly ubiquitous attention paid to the role of violence in Islam, as opposed to other religious traditions.
August 9, 2007, at 5:05 am
there are quite a few assumptions in this article and also in the comments of the readers.
firstly there is the complete misunderstanding of the writer as to the intentions of Hizb ut-tahrir. Hizb ut-Tahrir calls for the khilafah in MUSLIM LANDS - HT has never called for shariah in secular non-muslim majorit nations like Britain or the US or any other western nation. To suggest that they have only highlights the complete ignorance of the media and most non-muslims regarding HT - but more broadly, Islam.
secondly there was the comment that that muslim nations these days constitute Dar al-Islam. the house or land of Islam. Unfortunately this another display of ignorance. Since Islam in its entirety is not being implemented as a political model in any nation, these nations can hardly be classified as Dar al-Islam, regardless of whatever their rulers may say or believe.
Some nations, like saudi arabia, make some pretence at implementing parts of shariah, particularly parts of the laws regarding criminals and punishment, however this is far from a compelte implementation of sharia in accordance with the Prophet Mohammed’s example or that of his successors such as Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al Khattab, Uthman Ibn Affan and Ali Ibn Abu Talib.
The simple fact is that as these nations do not rule in accordance with Islam, they are more rightly described as Dar al-Kufr (the house or land of disbelief) then as Dar al-Islam.
The last major misconception as elucidated by one of the commenting readers is that the establishment of the khilafah is not mandated within Islam.
This is easily refuted by the fact that all four of the orthodox sunni madhabs (schools of Islamic Law) all consider the establishment of the khilafah to be Fard Kifaya. Fard Kifaya means a religious obligation upon the community, that if fulfilled by the few does not become obligatory upon the many. If however it is not fulfilled by the few it then becomes an obligatoin upon all muslims and all muslims recieve sin until the obligation is fulfilled.
There are many many evidences from primary documents within Islam, I.e the Quran itself and from the Sahih Hadith (authentic narrations of the Prophet Mohammed) which conclusively prove that.
August 9, 2007, at 5:44 am
Since Islam in its entirety is not being implemented as a political model in any nation, these nations can hardly be classified as Dar al-Islam, regardless of whatever their rulers may say or believe.
I’m having flashbacks to the ’70s … where you couldn’t point to the failings of any actual communist nations, because of course they weren’t “true” communists …
August 9, 2007, at 6:40 am
Simon writes:
Responding:
While some other corrections offered there were well-justified, this was simply an example of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. In fact, many Muslims do regularly refer to the areas in which Islam popularly predominates as Dar-al-Islam. In fact, insurgent groups such as Al-Qaeda use this exact same logical fallacy to justify attacking other Muslims in this part of the world (such as Iran and Saudi Arabia) since they aren’t true Muslims in a “true Muslim” society anyway. The notion of what constitutes a -true political model- of Islam is highly debated and debatable, from the utopian models of the Caliphate to the democratic models of Abdulaziz Sachedina to the Twelver Shia model of juridical authority during the occultation of the Twelfth Imam and many inbetween all these.
August 10, 2007, at 9:25 am
[…] There is no Islam … without a Khilafah […]
August 10, 2007, at 10:22 am
thats not really true, the 4 schools of thought that comprise sunni islamic law and theology are pretty clear on what constitutes the khilafah and thus the islamic political model. Anything that is outside of that isnt within the bounds of islam and if muslims mistakenly think that they are - then unfortunately they are not very well verse in their own religion. The shia have their own political ideas, but this is a discussion about the khilafah and a sunni muslim group, so bringing the shia into the discussion isnt not really relevant as the vast majority of muslim nations are sunni muslim and most of the dont even have signifigant shia populations.
August 12, 2007, at 5:59 am
It’s funny that out of all the Muslim sects in the world there is one that actually has this system of caliphate in operation. It is known as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Although declared as “non-muslims” by other Muslims, the Community is unique in that it operates with a system of caliphate, and it has millions of followers in more than 150 countries of the world, who all adhere to the caliphs every word. You can find more info at http://www.alislam.org. If only these Muslims realised, the Caliphate already exists….
August 13, 2007, at 12:16 am
the ahmadiyya are declared non-muslims for very obvious reasons, further.. the caliphate is not a spiritual, the caliph is the leader of the muslims in the temporal world. You cant have a caliph unless he is the head of state. The caliph’s Amir (i.e general commander in chief) would have to be the head of the army. Everyone is aware that no nation exists without having control over the armies. This was the case at the time of the prophet mohammed and the time of the khilafah rashidun. (righteous caliphs i.e abu bakr, umar, uthman and ali). It is also the case now among non muslim states. There is no ahmadiyya caliphate that exists in the form of a nation state with an ahmadi caliph, and an ahmadi army or anything close to that nature.
August 14, 2007, at 6:55 am
In response to Simon’s first comment (7), specifically,
please refer to the following from Hizb ut-Tahrir’s website:
Frankly, it’s the part about Islam encapsulating and governing the world that concerns me.