Chapter VI -  C o n c l u s i on

Modernism is often defined as a tendency in matters of religious belief to subordinate or harmonize tradition with modern thought. Modernism,  as opposed to medievalism, believes in the sovereignty of reason and repudiates every authority that cannot stand the test of reason. Modern knowledge relies upon a scientific, rational and empirical understanding of reality with a view to gaining greater control of the forces of nature for the betterment of life in this world. The rationalist and positivist spirit that symbolizes modernity would in turn give rise to a new kind of society subscribing to norms and values that run counter to traditionalism. Rational criticism has laid open many areas hitherto closed to knowledge. With the increase in the knowledge of man, new concepts like those of evolutionsim and utilitarianism have gained ground. Whereas medieval man took a static view of things, modern man sees things in their development.

One product of the idea of evolution is the concept of progress. Modern man has faith in progress, just as he has faith in reason. It is assumed that in spite of retardation and temporary set-backs, man will go on from progress to further progress. Nothing can turn back the wheel of time. The future of things is more important than their past. Good and evil are judged on the basis of their relevance to progress. Anything that retards progress is evil, anything that furthers progress is good. Religion is also judged on the basis of  how far it leads to the progress of man.74

However, a distinction should be made between modernization and modernism or modernity. Modernization theory was a dominant analytical paradigm in American sociology for the explanation of the global process by which traditional societies achieved modernity. (1) Political modernization involves the development of key institutions - political parties, parliaments, franchise and secret ballots - which support participatory decision-making. (2) cultural modernization typically produces secularization and adherence to nationalistic ideologies. (3) Economic modernization, while distinct from industrialization, is associated with profound economic changes - an increasing division of labour, use of management techniques, improved technology and the growth of commericial facilities. (4) Social modernisation involves increasing literacy, urbanization and the decline of traditional authority. 

The modernization theory has been criticized on two grounds: (1) modernization is based on development in the West and is thus an ethnocentric model of development; (2) modernization does not necessarily lead to industrial growth and equal distribution of social benefits, since it is an essentially uneven process resulting in underdevelopment and dependency. Many attributes of modernization, like widespread literacy or modern medicine, have appeared, or have been adopted, in isolation from other attributes of the modern Western society. Hence modernization in some spheres of life may occur without resulting modernity.

Technological modernity intrinsic to western civilization, it is said, allows ultimately no alternative to Muslims or anyone clinging to pre‑technical values. According to Daniel Pipes, "worldly success requires modernization; modernization requires Westernization; westernization requires secularism; secularism must be preceded by a willingness to emulate the West." The development gap made continuously wider by technological modernity places Muslims on the lower side of the gap, and presents them with the most difficult of all historical questions: can a traditional society achieve industrial development by importing technology which undermines its cultural heritage, opens a breach in its tradition and undermines its world view?    However, very few Muslims believed that the appropriation of modern technology would necessitate a change in ideological commitment.

The desire for religious reconstruction and moral regeneration in the light of fundamental principles of Islam has, throughout their historical destiny, been deeply rooted among the Muslims -- radicals as well as traditionalists. Both the sections seem conscious of the fact that the only way for the Muslims of today, for an active and honourable participation in world affairs, is the reformation of positive lines of conduct suitable to contemporary needs in the light of social and moral guidance offered by Islam.75

In their attempts to resolve the problem of the relationship of reason to faith and of science to religion, Muslim reformers turned in effect to the theory of the "dual truth" advanced by Ibn Rushd, known in the West as Averroes [1126-1198), the great Arab philosopher and free-thinker. The modernists were attracted, in particular, to the views of the Mu'tazilah: affirmation of God's unity and denial of all similarity between him and created things; reliance on human reason; emphasis on man's freedom; faith in man's ability to distinguish between good and bad; and insistence on man's responsibility to do good and fight against evil in private and public places.

Ibn Rushd held that religion and philosophy differed, if not in their content, at least in the expression of the common truth. The images of scriptural descriptions suitable for the common man are not taken to be the full truth by philosophers and conceptions of philosophers of perhaps the same truth are not comprehensible to the common man. Therefore it is best to keep them apart as two truths, and accept the position that something may be true theologically but not philosophically, and vice versa. Thus the realm of Grace was separated from the realm of Nature, the one for the theologian to pursue and the other for the scientist and the philosopher to know.

Ibn Rushd isolated science from religion, ascribing to the latter the realm of "divine things" that exercised no influence on the laws of nature. He separated the spheres of science, philosophy and religion, claimed that they were autonomous and more, the opposite of each other. In his "discourses, passing judgment on the connection between wisdom and religious law", Ibn Rushd wrote that he saw no harmony between faith and knowledge or between religion and philosophy. He allowed for disparities between science, philosophy and religion on specific and separate problems, but maintained that philosophy and religion must ultimately arrive at one and the same truth. the former by means of sensory and logical cognition, and the latter by means of intuition and revelation.

According to the "dual truth" theory there is a distinction not only between the object and method, but also the subject, philosophical and religious cognition. Ibn Rushd grouped people into three classes: the first and the most numerous were those who had blind faith in religious dogmas. He styled them "unsophisticated orthodoxes". The second consisted of those "whose understanding of religion reposed partly on discourse, but mainly on uncritical acceptance of certain premises from which the discourse follows". These were the class of scholasticists and theologians. And the third and least numerous class were those who attained a rational understanding of religion, their beliefs based on proofs following from carefully checked and confirmed premises. They were philosophers.

The "dual truth" theory holds an important place in the history of the clash between the scientific world outlook and the religious Idealism and omniscience of the Church both in the Eastern lands and in the West. Ibn Rushd and his followers advanced the "dual truth" theory to promote the independent development of scientific knowledge, to protect it from religious interference and dictation. This is why Ibn Rushd was condemned as "godless" and "heretical"; this is why he was banished and all his books on philosophy were burned. 

The domination of the West in the 19th century  hastened a tendency which had been launched in the eighteenth century in the  Arabian peninsula by Muhammad ibn Abdul Al Whahab  to 'purify' Islam by returning to the sources of the religion.  This movement  became more and more the rallying point for the well-known 'reformist' movement associated with the names of such personalities as Jamal al Din al Afghani (Iran),  Muhammad Abduh (Egypt) and Rashid Rida (Syria). The intellectual background of the reform of  Rashid Rida's Salafiyya movement was nearly the same as that of the Wahabis.  In both cases there was, along  a positive emphasis upon the Shariah, a bitter opposition to Sufisim and the mystical life. A 'rationalism' was developed which was combined with 'Puritanism' and based upon a juridical and theological attitude which drew much from the writings of the 13th century Syrian scholar, Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328).

The traditionalism of the late 19th century was essentially reactionary in character - its more articulate protagonists are what we have labeled the 'conservative' intellectuals. It derived its inspiration and strength from a historically evolved tradition and in its intellectual attitude always assumed a backward stance. For the traditionalists the past, rather than the future, was the locus of Golden Age -- to a certain extent it upheld the status quo. Closely allied with the traditionalists, and sometimes identified with them, were the ulema. Politically and intellectually conservative, they served as the strongest supporters of the status quo.

Much of Muslim religious thought took an apologetic turn from late in the nineteenth century and many Muslim religious thinkers  were now seeking only to defend their faith by showing that somehow every fashionable thought of the time had been Islamic before being adopted by the West. Even discoveries of modern science, which, of course, soon became stale and outmoded, were traced back to the Quran as if to show that the grandeur of the Quran resides in anticipating this or that discovery of physics or biology. The primary concern for the first generation of modernist thinkers was the need to reorient the direction of Muslim history, to reinterpret Islam in the context of modern science and learning. The intellectual challenge for modernists was to convince Muslims that the demands of both Islam and the West "were not incompatible with each other."

Another mode of thought was developed gradually from the beginning of the 20th century, which preached various degrees of secularism and ranged from mild defenses of western civilization to the writings of Salamah Musa and the early Dr. Taha Hussain, who preached the complete adoption of Western culture and a total break with the sacred ambiance of tradition of Islam.

Between conservative traditionalism and totally westernized modernism there was a middle ground occupied by what may be best termed as the reformist position. Reformism is also referred to by some writers as 'endogeious' modernism as opposed to 'westernized' modernism. Reformism at heart was tradition bound. Although its primary goal was to safeguard Islam and some of the institutional structures upholding it, reformism was anxious to free Muslims of the stultifying interpretations to which they had been bound before the 19th century. For example, reformers may not have wanted to get rid of the status-quo vis-à-vis the ulema, but they certainly would have liked to make some changes to what the ulema had been teaching, such as blind obedience or taqlid.

Sometimes reformism has also been described as a revivalist movement equipped with a more rational awareness of the Muslims' situation and needs. Although the reformist position, in its fundamental premise and ultimate conclusion, opposed outright secularization and westernization,'at the same time it opened the doors to modernization especially in the scientific aspects of the process. Reformism was especially the movement of the younger educated Muslims who knew that Islam, as it was to be properly defended, had to overcome its inertia and be revitalized. In this respect, therefore, they were also modernists of Muslims and in their efforts, they inevitably collided with the established traditional hierarchy of the ulema.

Another reaction began among the Arabs, mostly after the Second World War, which has modified greatly the effect of these earlier movements. This new reaction was the disenchantment with the West and the realization of its moral bankruptcy, made so evident by the atrocities of the World War and later in the Palestine war and its aftermath. The blind admiration of the West espoused by so many of the 'leaders' of the previous generation gave way to doubt about the value of the civilization for whose sake the Arabs were asked to forsake their own religion and way of life. Some men, like Taha Hussain, even recanted openly in their later writings and expressed serious misgivings about Western civilization and its fruits.76

In the final analysis, the modern reformist thought in Islam may be classified in general terms as conservative (including orthodoxes, reformists and revivalists) and modernist (including secularists and westernizers).

Conservatives believe that Islam in its full articulation in history achieved its zenith somewhere in the past in the Medinian society under the guidance of  Prophet Mohammad and the time of the four rightly guided caliphs, and whether or not it also encompasses the laws of the faith as developed during the early centuries of Islam when the "door of ijtihad" was open. Thus Islam is conceived as a closed cultural system that allows for no change. Modernists, in their attempt to make Islam relevant to modern society, deliberately attempt to provide a contemporary Western ethos to Islam. They reinterpret its fundamental teachings in such a way that it provides a sanctioning forum for the introduction of new ideas and authenticates the adoption of Western legal, social and economic institutions. Modernists (like Taha Hussain,  Khalifa Abdul Hakeem and Fazlur Rahman) perceive that the closing of the door of ijtihad was an error and that Islam is always to be seen as open to reinterpretation.

The discussion among conservatives and modernists has focused not on the adequacy and validity of Islam for modern life, but on the definition of what constitutes true Islam. Both groups agree that Islam must continue to provide the purpose of the Umma for the future, although they disagree on the scope and content of this Islam. To some modernists (Fayzee) religion is perceived as something that deals with the spiritual aspects of life, and as such must not be intricately involved in the shaping of the social order. The conservatives (like Maulana Maududi, Sayyed Qutub and Imam Khomeni), on the other hand, have insisted that Islam is a total system that is constantly molding and shaping all aspects of life to conform to divine guidance.

The conservatives and modernists both are unhappy with the situation of Muslims in the present. They share a pride in the glory of the past and have confidence in the prospective of a better future, but their views of past, present and future vary greatly. The tension between conservatives and modernists stems from the fact that both deal with the same basic facts concerning the life of the community. They are both concerned with specific ideas, dates, and events, but from different vantage points.77

The conservatives find the authority of the past valid for the present and the future. The past is ideal, and if Islam were to reappropriate it, it would regain its ascendancy in the world. For the conservatives, religion is not only the central part of life, it is the totality of life, that from which all the reality proceeds and has its meaning. For the modernists, on the other hand, the past is crucially important because of the element of pride it gives the individual. Dignity is appropriated from a glorious past where the community has provided the world with leadership in the intellectual, technological, artistic, and ethical fields among others. Thus Islam, which has provided the world with excellence, endows the Muslim with the ability to function in the modern world. Among the modernists are some who seek a thoroughgoing Westernization. They are willing to ascribe to religion a personal status that has bearing only on the individual life divorced from the social and cultural context.78

Both the conservatives and the modernists feel that the conditions of the Muslims needs reform. To the former reform means renovation, since Islam is perceived as a living organism to which alien bodies have attached themselves, draining the life out of the faith. The only way to save Islam is to eliminate, "surgically" if necessary, all these foreign bodies. The modernists, on the other hand, perceive reform as creative innovation; to them Islam as a living organism is suffocating because it has not adjusted to changing realities. It has not kept up with the march of history and has been arrested in its growth and development. To progress in health, it needs new substance and changes in its stultifying habits.

 All thinkers agree that it is not Islam that is the cause of the retardation, but the Muslims themselves and what they have practiced in place of pure Islam. Secularists, while willing to grant that Islam in its pristine purity may not be an impediment to progress, are anxious to relegate it to the realm of the personal in order to proceed with the necessary task of development. For the conservatives, the decline set in when Muslims slackened in their efforts to maintain pristine Islam, when they allowed alien accretitions to alter the basic tenets of the faith, when they lost their zeal and became apathetic, allowing others to take over the leadership of the world.

One of the important aspects of Islam in contemporary life has been the appearance of movements which stand for the re-establishment of the full and complete reign of the Shariah over the every day life of Muslims. These parties range from the Istiqlal party in Morocco, Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan, which have also definite political and social programs, to the Ikhwan Al Muslimin (Islamic Brotherhood), the most important movement of this kind to appear after the Second World War. Along with the growth of all these tendencies one can notice a marked renewal of interest in religion, especially among the youth. The rise of religious interest in the Muslim World in the recent decades is a phenomenon of central importance which can hardly be brushed aside as a momentary emotional reaction before the inevitable onslaught of complete secularism, as secularist historians would wish to do.79

In reality, what has happened during this period is that on the one hand the blinding glitter of Western civilization has begun to fade and its innate faults and present difficulties have become more evident, and, on the other hand, the false gods for whose sake the modernized Muslims sought to brush Islam aside have failed them in the worst way imaginable. The defeat in the 1967 war and the humiliations before and after cannot possibly be blamed in any way upon traditional Islamic institutions. For many Muslims, , recent events have only strengthened their serious disillusionment with the program of simply aping the West. Rather, they see recent tragedies as a divine punishment for their having forsaken Islam. They have also come to realize that in order to return to Islam they must re-discover Islam in all its fullness, not in its atrophied and apologetic form as presented by so many of the modernist 'reformers' during the last two centuries.80

Christian Missionaries and Orientalists in writing about Islam in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ascribed the cause of the retardation of Arab countries vis-à-vis Europe to its religion. The West would love to hear Muslim intellectuals condemn the religion of Islam for the failures of Muslims and their nations. However, very few Moslems believe that the appropriation of  technology would necessitate a change in ideological commitment, although Westerners have continued to insist that unless the Muslims can shed their own ideologies and appropriate Western technological commitments they would not be able to prosper. Much of the Western opinion has continued to insist that a technological orientation is by definition a secular, and by extension western one since it seeks an ever-increasing rational control of human activity which, once initiated, is very hard to contain since it is a catalyst of change in the political, social and economic as well as the religious area.81 While Daniel Pipes argues that worldly success requires modernization, secularusn and Westernization some Christian missionaries believe that by simply adopting Western technology, Arabs have taken a major step towards Westernization and thus by definition towards Christianization.82   

In his famous lectures on philosophy of history, the German philosopher Hegel wrote that Islam was departing from the erna of world history. This contention, made in the beginning of 19th century, looked valid for his time. But in the subsequent years, new trends in the development of the Muslim countries showed that its validity is no more than relative. With the inception and invogoration of the anti-colonialial movement, Islam regined its lost vigor.83  Inasmuch as it is impossible for men to remove the imprint of the Divine upon the human order, Islam continues today as the most powerful and enduring motivating force within the Muslim soul and mind, and an ever present factor in Muslims' life.