Egypt: From Post-modernism to Post-secularism
By Eric Walberg - Cairo
作者首先描述埃及今日政局，穆斯林兄弟會透過選舉贏得國會以及總統選舉，但是國家眾多權力與資源仍是在軍方手上。然而作者認為這並不能阻止ㄧ個嶄新的埃及出現，他問到：穆斯林兄弟會這ㄧ年內，為何可以贏得勝選，克服媒體、法院與軍方對他們的偏見與破壞？這答案在於穆斯林兄弟會背後是由廣大的貧困階級以及按照伊斯蘭規範的眾多穆斯林所支持。
這邊作者引用兩位在英國任教與工作的穆斯林學者(Tariq Ramadan與Ziauddin Sardar)觀點，論述今日穆斯林社群該如何面對與回應以西方為主導的國際政治與金融秩序。
這邊摘要幾段文字，詳細內容請見連結全文。
「西方在中東地區推廣現代化與世俗化。在西方社會的世俗化=自由=宗教多元=民主。然而這不能適用於以穆斯林為主體的社會，從這ㄧ百年來，中東地區的發展與歷史經驗，西方的世俗化在中東地區=殖民主義=去伊斯蘭化=獨裁政體。」
「今日穆斯林必須持續檢視伊斯蘭基本原則，以及對信仰應負起責任。伊斯蘭不可避免會牽涉於政治，伊斯蘭是個和平的宗教，這已經由穆斯林兄弟會所展現，即使兄弟會過去遭受到強人政權的壓迫，但在忍耐中渡過，最終能開花結果。因此我們必須扛起責任，為了社會與為了個人，解決道德與倫理上的困境。我們不要只想適應這個不公義的國際秩序，而是設法去改變它。我們必須研讀【古蘭經】，這是ㄧ個方式讓我們思考與學習如何建立公正、平等與和平的環境。」
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This Ramadan is a historic one, celebrating the triumph of the
political vision of Egypt's legendary Muslim Brotherhood (MB): to take
inspiration from the Quran to regenerate Egyptian society. Gamal
Abdel-Nasser's socialist vision lies in ruins, dismantled in the 40 years since
his death, replaced by a neoliberal nightmare dreamed up in American
thinktanks.
The vision will not be realised by sticking to the
political and economic policies of the past 40 years, policies which turned
Egypt into a poor imitation of Western societies, with shocking disparities of
income and extreme poverty, environmental degradation and human degradation. Egypt was
shattered into fragments -- gated communities for the super-rich,
sprawling slums for the poor, traffic-choked streets for everyone, crowded jail
cells for thousands of innocent, devout people caught in the treadmill of a
justice system that produced little justice.
The West's vision once again brought Egypt to the point where
the quip by Muhammad Abduh, chief mufti of Al-Azhar 1899--1905, rings
all too true: "I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got
back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam."
The task
before the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Islamist president is
daunting beyond description. He begins office in a political and economic
straightjacket bequeathed to him by interim prime minister Kamal Al-Ghanzuri
and acting head of state Field Marshall Mohamed Tantawi -- a budget already
approved by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, without a parliament, with
the military supreme council holding almost all the cards.
But so far,
these road blocks haven’t stopped the forces of the new Egypt. We are left to
ask: How did the Brotherhood triumph against all odds, with the media,
courts and the all-powerful military doing everything to undermine them? The
answer is simple. It was the desperation of the poor and the quiet commitment
of devout Muslims among all classes of Egyptian society.
However, even as they struggle against the entrenched, corrupt
establishment, they can count on enthusiasts and a new spirit of reform
within Muslim intellectual circles to help navigate the rocky shoals of the
global secular establishment. Two such British Muslims, who washed up on
the shores of the Emerald Isles from British colonies Egypt and India, and who
have made important contributions to the debate about Islam and modernity, are Tariq Ramadan
and Ziauddin Sardar, who advocate not just "modernising Islam", but
"Islamising modernity", not just "adaptation reform" but
"transformation reform", as Ramadan writes in Radical Reform:
Islamic Ethics and Liberation (2009).
The trouble is, the West arrogantly demands that countries
such as Egypt adapt to the Western version of modernity -- the
neocolonial order based on the US dollar, dominated by large Western
corporations and a bristling military on hair-trigger alert around the world. It is
okay for the US to run huge trade and budget deficits decade after decade,
squandering its dollars on war, while forcing poor countries to "tighten
their belts" when the mysterious flows of "capital" and the
vagaries of the market result in even one year in the red. But this
modernity, with its manifest injustices, is not the only one, and it is
certainly not moral, as Egyptians have learned the hard way.
Tariq
Ramadan is a Swiss-Egyptian academic, whose father was a prominent MB member
exiled by Nasser and whose mother was MB founder Hassan Al-Banna's
eldest daughter. He has written about Islamic reform from a European
Muslim's point of view, rejecting the assimilationist position that Islam must
adapt to modernity. "The Western equation secularisation = freedom =
religious pluralism = democracy has no equivalent in Muslim-majority societies
where, through the historical experiences of the past century, the equation
would rather sound like secularisation = colonialism = de-Islamisation =
dictatorship."
He sees the very heterogeneous Western Muslims as playing a key
role in developing a new approach to their religion, taking advantage of the
West's high level of education to promote ijtihad -- independent
reasoning based on a thorough knowledge of the Quran and hadiths -- to adapt to
modern life. For instance, to bring zakat up to date, "establishing a real
system of collective solidarity and social security, woven into the very fabric
of society, that aims at freeing the poor from their dependence so that
eventually they themselves will pay zakat,” as he wrote in Western Muslims and
the Future of Islam (2004).
Already, Western Muslims have decided that a very
restricted use of interest -- for mortgages on private homes -- is acceptable, "a
need which ... becomes a constraining necessity", according to a fatwa
issued by the European Council for Research and Fatwas (ECRF) and the League of
Scholars of Sharia in the US, using Abu Hanifa’s terminology. Interest is
allowed for Muslims living in the non-Muslim societies in dealings with
non-Muslims, but only when used to protect the property of Muslims. But
tweaking the old laws to meet dire needs today is not enough for Tariq Ramadan.
He calls for alternatives to Western banking for the Muslims community in
Europe and America, based on banks sharing lenders’ risks – the intent of the
prohibition of interest in the Quran -- so that they become an integral part of
people’s economic concerns, not just parasites taking their "pound of
flesh".
The 8th--10th cc categories of dar al-islam (abode of peace),
dar al-harb (abode of war), dar al-ahd (abode of treaty), and dar al-kufr
(abode of unbelief, referring to Muhammad's early Mecca period) -- which do not
occur in the Quran but only in the much later hadiths but are now integral to
Islamic law -- must be redefined. Formally an abode of war, the West, with
its guaranteed civil rights, ironically allows more religious freedom these
days than many oppressive, nominally Muslim states (pre-revolution
Egypt being a prime example), where Muslims are in danger and unable to
practice their beliefs freely.
At the same time, mass migration and the
globalisation of economic, financial and political power means that the concept
of physical borders lose their meaning. Sheikh Faysal al-Mawlawi, a
founder of the ECRF, proposes the concept of dar al-dawa (abode of
invitation to God) to refer to the early Mecca period and the whole of the
Arabian Peninsula at that time, and, by inference, the world today.
Ramadan suggests his own characterisation of the West as dar
al-shahada (abode of testimony to the Islamic message). He argues that Muslims
are "witnesses before mankind". They must continue to
review the fundamental principles of Islam and take responsibility for their faith,
building on the maqasid (goals) movement within Islamic legal philosophy.
This
movement was developed by the 12th century Islamic scholar Muhammad
Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), who established the Quran's goals as the
preservation of religion, life, lineage, intellect and property. As part
of the renewal of Islamic legal theory, scholars such as Tunisian Muhammad
Al-Tahir Ibn Ashur (d. 1973) and Ramadan have shown a renewed interest in the
maqasid in relation to maslahah (public interest).
As opposed to reading verses of the Quran in isolation, this
approach requires a comprehensive reading of the text as an integrated whole in
order to identify the higher objectives and then interpreting particular verses
on a given topic according to the maqasid's intent.
Sardar's Reading the Qur'an: The Contemporary Relevance of the
Sacred Text of Islam (2011) put flesh on this theoretical skeleton with his
careful analysis of Al-Baqara (the basis of much of Islamic legal theory) and
other suras, distinguishing between the circumstantial and the general
principles which the Quran reveals. For instance, the discourse on murder
(2:178) reveals two of the most important principles of Islamic law. Murder is
one of the worst sins, but there are boundaries (hudud) within which justice is
to be sought: the extreme punishment is “just retribution” (qisas), but there
is also compensation and even forgiveness.
The "law of equity" is the Quran's primary principle,
revealed here: the law must be applied equally to all -- man or woman, free or
not. This passage also reveals another important principle: punishment
must be proportionate to the crime. Yet another principle revealed is that
compassion and forgiveness are always preferable to harsh physical punishment. Human
life is sacrosanct, as eloquently revealed in Al-Maidah: "If anyone kills
a person unless in retribution for murder or spreading corruption in the land
-- it is as if he kills all humanity." (5:32) Capital punishment is a last
resort in exceptional cases.
Sardar criticises the blind application of sharia as accumulated
over the centuries after the death of the Prophet, as it has led in some cases
to the very opposite of Quranic principles: capital punishment
for apostasy, but recall: "There is no compulsion in religion."
(2:256) Recently, some countries reinstituted stoning for adultery (nowhere
mentioned in the Quran), and made hudud (extreme) punishments the norm, whereas
the Quran would avoid almost all capital punishment. Life is precious.
Sharia should
be a problem-solving methodology requiring reinterpreting the Quran and life of
Muhammad with fresh eyes, distinguishing between legal enactments
subject to change and universal moral injunctions. Sardar points out that
colonial regimes actually encouraged the petrification of sharia and then
limited it to personal and family matters.
The murder passage also shows how
Islam inevitably deals with economics, which, whether we like it or not, are
infused with moral issues. The murder of a family's breadwinner is not only a
family tragedy, but a severe economic blow. Compensation is in this situation
could well be preferable to lopping off the offender's head.
Following the discourse on murder, the next passage in Al-Baqara
abruptly switches to deal with inheritance and charity. Sardar argues this
abrupt change of topic is not in fact so abrupt, that the two topics are very
much related, linked via economics. Just punishment leads to a discourse on
just distribution -- of inheritance (for the family) and charity (for society
as a whole). He points out two more principles implicit here: women have a
right to inheritance and by corollary property (a radical proposition in
seventh century Arabia), and individual rights must be considered in a social
context, adjusted to guard against need.
This social principle accounts for the
different shares in inheritance which so obsess Western critics, with the men
(sole breadwinners at the time) getting more than the women. But those critics
may just have a point, infers Sardar. By implication, in a society where both
men and women work, sharing financial burdens equally, a son and daughter
should get equal shares in any inheritance.
And where there is poverty, everyone who is not
living in penury has a social obligation, including in their wills, to provide
for the poor. "Balance and equity apply across the whole range of human
life. The insights and lessons of spiritual discipline apply to and operate in
all the mundane aspects of our human nature and daily life."
This process
of ijtihad, which Sardar so deftly exercises, is exciting but also fraught with
danger. The reluctance of the Islamic scholars over the ages to allow its
exercise, and their preference for relying on existing legal decisions, is not
just a case of being self-serving.
For example, Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) argued in
his exegesis In the Shade of the Quran that Muslims must fight "to make
God's word supreme in the world" and that for the enemy to simply desist
from fighting was just not good enough. Enemies are "required to renounce
their denial of God and their rejection of His message." This directly
contradicts that great Quranic principle: "There is no compulsion in
religion." (2:256)
By looking afresh at these contentious issues, in light of the
Quran, such writers as Ramadan and Sardar strive to establish the
overall mindset, the outlook the Quran seeks to promote. They logically look at
both the text and the context of the text-within-the-text, so to
speak. For instance, the famous "sword verse" -- "Kill the
associators wherever you find them" (9:5) -- was a specific instruction, a
rally-the-troops call prior to the battle of Badr in 624, against "those
with whom you make an agreement, then they break their agreement every
time". (8:56)
Or the "terror verse" -- "We will put terror into
the hearts of the unbelievers" (3:149) – was addressed specifically to
Muhammad before the battle of Ujud in 625, when the Muslims' small ill-equipped
army was going up against a much larger, well-equipped enemy. These verses
cannot be taken as a principle for warfare, which is clearly stated in
Al-Baqara: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not
commit aggression." (2:195)
Islam inevitably deals with politics, too. That Islam is a religion
of peace has been amply demonstrated by the MB's patient endurance of injustice
over the years, which has finally borne fruit. Their participation
through the FJP in the legislative and presidential elections, gaining their
mandate from the people in democratic elections, is also in accord with the
revelations of the Quran about governance. "God grants rule to whomsoever
He wills" (2:247), but "Put your trust in those who are worthy of such
trust." (4:58) Rulers must govern via shura (consultation), which means
the people must not just passively follow their leaders, but active
understanding and holding leaders to account.
At the same time, "The head of state is not a deputy of
God; he cannot be, as he does not have the attributes of God. Rather, he is a
representative of the people who have chosen him; and like everyone else he is
responsible to God for his actions, including the exercise of authority,"
argues Sardar. And "while some aspects of a country's law may be based on,
or draw from Divine injunctions, not all law is Divine... The Prophet did not
declare that the Quran was his constitution, but framed the Constitution of
Medina through a process of consultation, involving negotiations, contested
arguments and the inclusion of both Muslims and
non-Muslims."
So Morsi’s rally-to-the-Quran cry, like the “sword verse”, must
be taken in context, in this case, the breathtaking elections, which required
MB supporters to stare down the nay-sayers and their powerful backers. No one
disputes that Egypt’s new constitution will be agreed “through a process of
consultation and the inclusion of both Muslims and non-Muslims”.
And don't
expect another prophet. In other words, it’s up to us from now on to take
responsibility for resolving our moral and ethical dilemmas, both as
individuals and as a society. No need to return to a seventh century
lifestyle, but we can use the Quran not so much as a constitution, but as the
inspiration for a present day constitution imbued with Quranic moral
principles. As the Justice and Development Party showed in Turkey, it is
possible to work within the rules that the imperialists have set up and still
make a go of it.
These two British writers, Ramadan and Sardar, might both
be thinking: True, the British didn't really encourage too much education of
the masses in either Egypt or India, and they nurtured sectarianism and other
evils, but it’s time to move on. Let's thank them for waking us Muslims up to
the challenges of the modern world, and at least leaving us with an electoral
system and a functioning economy.
And don't just sit back and wait for
heaven on earth. "God does not change the condition of a people unless
they first change their conditions themselves." (13:11) Each
generation must draw lessons from history and move forward by adjusting to
change.
Morality doesn't end with the Quran; rather, it begins with the Quran. We must not
just think in terms of adapting ourselves to an inherently unjust world order,
but to transform it. We must read the Quran, insists Sardar, as a
"way to think and learn about how to make peace, justice and equity
triumphant".
- Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. His Postmodern
Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games can be found here: http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html.
He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: http://ericwalberg.com.
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