THE ENEMY FROM WITHIN

Islam is far more seriously menaced from within than from without. The deadliest of its enemies are the growing numbers of renegades from the faith. Those who hold positions of leadership in the governments of Muslim countries have the power to inflict the worst damage. Were they only to declare their apostasy openly, they would receive the condemnation they deserve.

Instead, they take advantage of the loyalty of their people who hesitate to criticize any of their activities so long as they remain nominal Muslims.

Perhaps no idea has done Islam more harm than the modern concept of nationalism.

That men should be artificially divided according to race and language and owe their supreme allegiance to a geographical entity is absolutely irreconcilable with Islam which teaches that the only genuine bonds of unity between peoples are common moral and spiritual values.

The first articulate crusader for the western concept of nationalism in the Muslim world was the Turkish sociologist, Ziya Gokalp (1876-1924).

In his writings, he argues that there is no incompatibility between Islam and Western civilization. He rejects the idea that Islam is a civilization and that modern Western civilization is connected with Christianity.

In other words, civilization and religion are two separate things.

Therefore he claims that the adoption of Western civilization by Muslims will not 39 interfere with their faith.

He writes :

Now the mission of the Turks is nothing but to uncover the pre-Islamic Turkish past which has remained with the people and to graft Western civilization in its entirety onto it.

In order to equal the European powers militarily and in the sciences and industry, our only road to salvation is to adopt Western civilization completely!

Ziya Gokalp rejects the idea of the supremacy of the Ummah because it conflicts with the Western concept of nationality. He says :

Among the pre-Islamic Turks, patriotism reached its highest levels.

In the future, as in the past, patriotism should be the most important area of morality for the Turks because the nation and its soil is ultimately the only self-existing unit.

Loyalty to the nation must take precedence over loyalty to the family or to religion. Turkism should give highest priority to Nation and Fatherland.

How can any Muslim reconcile this to the verse in the Qur’an which says, “Hold fast all of you to the cable of Allah and do not separate,” or to the Prophet’s Farewell Message, “Know that every Muslim is a brother of every other Muslim and that you are all one brotherhood?” The Prophet expressed the attitude of Islam towards the whole subject in clear, unambiguous language when he said; “He is not of us who calls men to patriotism; he is not of us who fights for patriotism and he is not of us who dies for patriotism.”

40 Kemal Ataturk derived the inspiration for his anti-Islamic reforms directly from the philosophy of Ziya Gokalp.

In the September 1957 of The Islamic Review (Woking), Jean Paul Roux, author of the article, “A Study of Islam in Turkey”, says that Ataturk did not want to break away from Islam but merely relieve Turkey of the control of the Muslim religion over the political and social life of the country. In transforming Turkey into a modern Western nation, his reforms were not directed against Islam as such, but only in so far as it hindered the achievement of the desired goal. Apologists for Ataturk pursue this sort of devious reasoning. But we shall presently see that whenever Islam is attacked in the political sphere, personal piety is also profoundly affected.

Kemal Ataturk’s measures were not designed to separate religion from the state so much as for the destruction of Islam by the state. Kemal Ataturk’s decrees:

1. Closed many major mosques like Aya Sophia, converting them into museums.

2. Closed down religious schools and universities, replacing them with purely secular institutions.

3. Banned all religious organizations and imprisoned their leaders.

4. Prohibited pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Only in recent years has the Hajj once more been allowed.

41 5. Made the wearing of the Western hat with brim obligatory by law. This was purposely designed to make it difficult for Muslims to pray in the prescribed manner as in prostration, the forehead could not touch the ground.

6. Substituted the Latin alphabet for the Arabic script. This was designed to produce a cultural gap between Turkey and the neighbouring Muslim countries. The Latin alphabet was also designed to produce a new generation ignorant of the Islamic classics in the Arabic script thus severing their link with the past.

It is often argued that nationalism is of value in preserving the unique identity of different peoples, thus adding richness to the cultural variety of the world, but in studying the development of nationalism in Muslim countries, I have found quite the opposite to be the case. Although the struggle against Western political domination is universal, there seems to be no corresponding resistance to an indiscriminate imitation of Western modes of life based on materialistic philosophies.

One would imagine that the Tunisian and Moroccan nationalists who strived so valiantly to achieve freedom from French rule, would take advantage of this opportunity to assert the cultural and religious identity of their people. Instead, what do we find? Scorning the Shariah, they zealously copy French laws, French customs and French systems of education.

In the July 5th, 1959 issue of The New York Times appeared an article explaining that the main idea behind 42 the creation of the University of Morocco was to absorb all existing Islamic institutions of higher learning and Westernize them.

The major reform involved was the establishment of a programme of Western secular studies at the Qarawiyin University Mosque in Fez which for centuries has been a centre of Muslim education. The reorganization of the curriculum at Qarawiyin will subordinate Muslim law and instead stress the training of lawyers for actual practice under the modern Moroccan code based on French law.

In future the ulema will be required to take standard Western legal training before they could qualify for office.

So long as Qarawiyin University remained true to Islam in the search for knowledge and truth, it produced such geniuses as Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Baja, Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn Tufail.

In abandoning its great heritage, Qarawiyin and the world will have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

The influence of Islam in the modern world has weakened to such an alarming extent that the President of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, [^10] in a nation-wide speech delivered over the radio on February 18, 1960, dared publicly attack the fast of Ramadan, blaming it for hindering Tunisia’s economic development.

“Fasting may be intended to purify the spirit by enfeebling the body, what I need are strong bodies to revolutionize this country and raise us to the Western standard of living!” President Bourguiba argued that the struggle for economic development excuses workers from the Ramadan fast.

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