ISLAM AND THE MODERNISTS

The highly controversial article, “What Modern Muslims Think—A Reinterpretation of Islam” by Professor Asaf A. Fyzee, Vice-Chancellor of Kashmir University, which recently appeared in the January 1960 issue of The Islamic Review, deserves the careful attention of all Muslims who value the integrity of the principles of Islam.

In the author’s opinion, the central message of Islam is eternally true while the ordinances of the Shariah are out of date. Therefore religion and law conflict with each other. Because they are incompatible, religion and law must be permanently separated. He insists that Muslims must distinguish between such universal moral ideals as kindness, honesty, loyalty and marital purity which are valid for all times and places and discard such prohibitions peculiar to Islam such as the eating of pork, the drinking of intoxicating beverages, the giving and receiving of interest, etc., as no longer applicable to modern life.

Are not the existing evils of our modern society enough to convince any thinking Muslim that the abandonment of the latter leads to the abandonment of the former? The prohibitions of the Quran are no mere whim of some arbitrary deity. Rather, they eradicate evil at its source.

To Asaf A. Fyzee, one’s beliefs are strictly a private affair. However it is an indisputable fact that an individual’s behaviour is based on his beliefs. Can the author 77 deny that such actions have an impact on society? Like the Christian, he thinks that since ethics are purely a matter of individual conscience, attempts to enforce them by the Shariah are unnecessary.

Muslims, he says, should listen to their consciences rather than consult law books. But the individual conscience is no infallible guide. Human beings are not angels. Ethical behaviour without the sanction and force of law behind it soon degenerates into meaningless platitudes.

Asaf A. Fyzee thinks that Muslim law was suitable only for the bedu of seventh-century Arabia. He says that it is impossible to apply the Shariah to the Eskimos, the Australian Bushmen or even the Bengalis of India. Yet American law has been imposed on the Eskimos of Alaska and English law on the Australian Bushmen. That French law now rules the Arabs of North Africa, English law, the Muslims of India and Pakistan, Dutch law the Muslims of Indonesia and Soviet law the Muslims of Central Asia, Asaf A. Fyzee heralds as a sign of great progress. Since Western legal systems have been able so successfully to penetrate alien civilizations of Asia and Africa, why does he think that the Shariah is any less universal?

To Asaf A. Fyzee, the Islamic conception of God as the true sovereign of the world and the Divine law being supreme over the whims of human governments and that the law of God transcends geographical frontiers is unacceptable to him because it conflicts with the modern concept of nationalism. Nationalism is the curse of the modern world. It was responsible for both world wars and now threatens 78 to bring on a third. The supremacy of God has been exchanged for the supremacy of the state. This idea has been pushed to its logical conclusions in Fascist Italy, in Nazi Germany and now more ruthlessly than ever, in Communist Russia and China.

Asaf A. Fyzee agrees with the enemies of Islam that the Quran is directly responsible for the degraded position of Muslim women. Exactly like the Christian missionaries, he thinks that in the Muslim world “women are regarded as the mere playthings of men and seldom as a life companion, co-worker or helpmate.” To clinch his argument he quotes the Quranic verse which says: “Men are in charge of women because God has made one of them to excel the other.” (IV: 34) But he distorts the meaning of this verse by omitting the vital phrase, “and because they spend of their property for the support of women.” Even today in the most “advanced”, “progressive” Western countries, the husband remains the head of the house because on his shoulders falls the burden of supporting the family. Although the working woman’s wages may supplement the family income, her responsibility in this respect is still far less than of her husband.

The Holy Prophet never regarded his wives as mere playthings to gratify sensual lusts as his hostile critics suppose. They were no meek, submissive chattels but strong personalities in their own right.

The Prophet once told Ayesha: “God never gave any man a better wife than Khadijah. She believed in me when all the world were unbelievers. She comforted me when all denied my message.

79 She supported me with her wealth when everyone else avoided me and God gave me children through her.” Could any man pay his wife a higher tribute of loyalty and devotion than this? Young as she was, Ayesha’s alert, brilliant mind made her universally accepted as one of the most trustworthy sources of Hadith.

Islam’s condemnation of the immodest dress and the unrestricted mingling of the sexes that is so characteristic of modern Western society, is intended for the special benefit of the woman—not the man as the enemies of Islam would have us to believe.

Despite the invasion of corrupt influences from Persia and Byzantium, the spirit of Islam produced such outstanding women as the saint of Basra, Rabia al-Adawiya, Shuhdra, a famous professor of Hadith at the University of Baghdad and those two learned sisters, Maryam and Fatimah who founded Qarawiyin University.

Their achievements were in perfect accord with the Prophet’s teachings which considered the search for knowledge as compulsory for women as for men.

There is no need for substituting the attitude of women in the Quran for that of the modern West. If Asaf A. Fyzee would present the Quran in an accurate light, why did he not quote the following: “And when We created man, We created woman as his mate that he might find rest and peace with her and We ordained between them love and compassion.”

Asaf A. Fyzee claims that he believes the Quran to be the word of God; he is deeply moved by its beautiful 80 language, yet to him the descriptions of Judgment Day, Paradise and hell are not reality but mere poetic imagery. Yet the Quran says:

“These are no words of a poet! This is the revelation from the Lord of the Worlds!”

Generally speaking, Asaf A. Fyzee accepts the early Meccan Surahs but does not like the Medina Surahs. The Meccan Surahs reveal the spiritual truths while the Medina Surahs illustrate their practice. One is meaningless without the other. If the author claims to accept the Quran, then he must believe all of it. He cannot pick certain verses out of context that happen to please him and discard the remainder.

According to Asaf A. Fyzee, rituals because of their emphasis on outward observance rather than inward reverence, retard spiritual development. The beauty of fasting on Ramadan, he says, can be emphasized without insisting on its hidebound prescriptions. He says that he believes in prayer but not in the obligation to observe the Salat which he claims has become “a soulless ritual having no meaning left in modern life.”

The danger that ritual can become an empty lifeless formality is not as Asaf A. Fyzee implies, a peculiarity of modern times. It has always existed. It is in recognition of this danger that the Quran says: “It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces to the East and the West but righteous is he who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and the Prophets and giveth his wealth for love of Him to kinsfolk and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and to those who 81 ask and to set slaves free and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due. And those who keep their treaty when they make one and the patient in tribulation and adversity and in time of stress. Such are they who are sincere. Such are the God-fearing.” (II: 177) In more concise language the Prophet said, “God does not listen to a prayer where the heart does not accompany the body.”

In no way can the Quranic verse and the Hadith quoted above be used as a pretext to justify the abandonment of Salat and fasting during Ramadan. Faith withers without an expression of that faith. Beliefs are meaningless without practice.

The purpose of the Salat is for each individual to stop in the midst of his daily activities for the remembrance of God. Once the Muslim abandons his Salat, he naturally becomes so engrossed in the struggle to earn his livelihood that he will tell you he has no time for worship. In other words, making money has become more important for him than the remembrance of God. How can it be denied that the abandonment of Salat has resulted in the deterioration of his faith?

Finally Asaf A. Fyzee wishes to impress his readers with his broadmindedness. Islam, he says, is only one religion, one way of life among many others. He does not assert its superiority over Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism. If he does not regard Islam as better than any other faith, then why is he a Muslim? He might just as well become a member of another religion!

Yes, he might just as well become a member of a reform Jewish temple because all his arguments for the “liberalizing” and the “modernizing” of Islam are taken directly from the statements of reform Jewish leaders. In fact, he even quotes from the books by reform Jewish rabbis to support his views. True to reform Judaism, he regards the discarding of all laws, rituals, customs and ceremonies foreign to Western civilization as essential for the survival of religion. Only by harmonizing Islam with Western civilization, as reform Judaism has attempted to do, can genuine spiritual life be maintained.

But he forgets, as did those rabbis, that modern Western civilization is secular to the core and hostile to all spiritual values.

Does Asaf A. Fyzee really wish his “liberal Islam” to share the same fate as reform Judaism? I happen to have been born a reform Jew.

Both my parents were raised as reform Jews.

Both received only the scantiest of Jewish training.

Consequently neither know Hebrew.

Neither are familiar with the Talmud or Torah.

They observe no Jewish customs or ceremonies.

They know little of Jewish history or culture.

It is not surprising that the insipid, uninspiring philosophy of reform Judaism is powerless to hold the younger generation.

My sister has just joined the Unitarian Church.

My parents are not unique among reform Jews.

All of our reform Jewish friends share the same spiritual vacuum.

None has any religion worthy of the name.

I must take issue with Asaf A. Fyzee when he asserts that modern orthodox Islam is spiritually bankrupt. Such 83 brilliant personalities as Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab, founder of the Wahabi movement, Shah Waliullah whose creativeness as a theologian rivalled al-Ghazzali, Muhammad ibn Ali Sanussi, founder of the Sanussi movement, his grandson Sayyid Ahmad, the Grand Sanussi, Rashid Rida, leader of the Salafiya movement and talented editor of Al-Manar, Shaikh Hassan al-Banna, founder of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, Prince Said Halim Pasha, the last Grand Vizier of Turkey and author of that splendid book defending the Shariah—Islamlashmaq, and Allama Muhammad Iqbal, poet and philosopher as well as spiritual father of Pakistan—all these great leaders are convincing proof that the vitality of Islam continues to this day.

These men had the strength of character and the conviction to preach and practice Islam as the Holy Prophet intended. They knew well that because the spirit of the modern West and Islam are irreconcilable, to compromise with the former means defeat for the latter. For this reason, it is upon the progeny of these men and not those of Asaf A. Fyzee, that the future of Islam depends.