Westernization versus Muslims

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Contents

1. 1 Front matter
2. 2 WESTERNIZATION VERSUS MUSLIMS
3. 3 I
   • MARYAM JAMEELAH
   • MOHAMMAD YUSUF KHAN & SONS
4. 4 INTRODUCING THE AUTHOR pp. 6–14
   • INTRODUCING THE AUTHOR
   • An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections from the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406), compiled and translated by Charles Issawi, John Murray, London, 1950, pp. 53-54.
5. 5 WESTERNIZATION-A PANORAMIC VIEW pp. 15–66
   • WESTERNIZATION-A PANORAMIC VIEW
   • the last century is not in the least surprising because it is the end-result of a long historical process for which there are many analogies elsewhere. But while the Western historian may be satisfied, for us the problem remains acute since we are not merely disinterested, passive spectators watching the drama take place from outside but are the active participants in events which for us mean no less than our life or death as Muslims. In view of the thousand-year struggle between European Christendom and Islam for world-supremacy, it is no accident that Muslim territory became the main target for Western aggression but in order to understand our plight in its proper perspective, we must know that we are not unique. All non-European cultures and peoples—no matter how highly civilized or primitive—have shared the same fate.
   • The reaction to defeat at the hands of Western imperialism, the development of Westernization in its various stages and its end-products are the same story repeated with sad monotony everywhere among all non-European peoples.
   • The history of Westernization in Turkey portrays in bold relief the features characteristic of this movement everywhere else, only perhaps more clearly. It is typical that the impact of Western culture in Turkey was a direct result of internal decline and a series of military defeats. Sultan Selim III rightly concluded that a policy of isolationism and complacency was leading the Ottoman Empire to ruin; that in order to arrest the internal decay and strengthen its power, a reorganization of the armed forces on modern lines was essential. At first, it was correctly assumed that the
   • waging of Jihad in the cause of Islam justified and even required the use of all the powerful new weapons recently invented by the enemy. Tragically, those who opposed Sultan Selim’s reforms—namely the ulema and the Janissaries—did so not to promote Islamic regeneration on the basis of enlightened knowledge and personal conviction but merely to preserve as long as possible the status-quo, including all its decadent and corrupt aspects. Naturally this provoked the wrath of the educated youth who had contacts with Europeans and were strongly influenced by the ideals of the French revolution. The ulema reacted, not with calm, reasonable, persuasive refutations of this materialistic philosophy but contented themselves with angry denunciations of the heretics which only made the forbidden fruit more alluring and the rising generation more rebellious than ever against the established religious, cultural and social order. In the summer of 1807, Sultan Selim III was assassinated as a result of the intrigues of the Janissaries. The so-called “reactionary” period which followed was short-lived. In 1826, Sultan Mahmud instituted a series of Westernizing reforms, henceforth to be known as the Tanzimat. The first reforms were connected with the armed forces. Correctly it was assumed that a modern army required modern weapons. The Janissaries, a major symbol of the old order, were massacred wholesale, help was eagerly sought from English, French and German advisers to reorganize the Turkish army on purely European lines, establish modern naval and military engineering schools; a year later, in 1827, the foundation of a medical school and finally the opening
   • of the first European-type schools for the children of civilians.
   • Also, Sultan Mahmud was eager to send batches of young Turkish students to France for their advanced education which was destined to greatly accelerate the rate of Westernization in future decades. Finally, Western dress was declared compulsory for official purposes. All these reforms were imposed on the country by autocratic decree a century before Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Thus within a generation, the attitude of complacent superiority of the Turk over the hated infidel had been transformed into a blind, uncritical adoration of all things European. The original intention of these reforms—namely, to arrest and, if possible, reverse the internal decline, eradicate corruption and take over all useful knowledge from Europe as essential to strengthen Ottoman power and enable it to wage Jihad on a plane of equality and, if possible, superiority to the enemy had been forgotten.
   • Rather, Westernization was worshipped as the supreme end in itself. It was assumed by the modernizers that the humiliating defeats suffered at the hands of the Europeans were not caused merely by the superior physical force of the enemy but because something was inherently defective in Islam, its social order, its culture and institutions. Therefore the adoption of European culture was essential for Turkey’s acceptance into the so-called “fraternity of civilized nations.”
   • In 1831, Sultan Mahmud founded the Imperial Music School to promote European music, primarily for the benefit of the army, and clothed Turkish soldiers for the first time in Western-style uniforms. To
   • advertise this dramatic event, Sultan Mahmud had his portrait painted by a European artist before and after the destruction of the Janissaries. The first painting shows Sultan Mahmud on horseback in long, flowing oriental robes, turban, beard and horse decorated in a richly embroidered saddle. The second painting, after the destruction of the Janissaries, proudly displays Sultan Mahmud clad in tight-fitting European dress; even the saddle on his horse has changed! Both these paintings are on public exhibition at the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul.
   • The self-hatred of the West-worshipping oriental is not only cultural but includes race as well. In the same book as the above quote, under an illustration advertising Coca-Cola in Cairo, the caption reads:
   • With the Communist take-over of the whole of mainland China in 1949, the official slogan was: “Destroying the old world: Building the new.”
   • One is the Confucian code of ethics that controlled Chinese society for more than two thousand years with inflexible laws.
   • Mao Tse-tung stated the aim of his Communist revolutionaries:
   • “We wish to completely eradicate the old Chinese culture.”
   • The fate of the distinct and unique Jewish culture, which flourished in the ghettos of medieval Europe for many centuries, should also serve as a lesson and a warning for us.
   • Judaism emerged
   • During the 1920’s under the rule of Ataturk, a parallel movement was at work among our own modernizers with exactly the same implications:
   • Chairman of the committee was Professor Mehmed Fuad Koprulu; its members included professors of psychology and logic as well as a number of theologians.
   • Characteristically, these “reforms” were loudly applauded by an Indian modernist:
   • In his book, Islam in Modern History, the orientalist, Dr. Wilfred Cantwell Smith insists that “the intention of such reforms does not involve the question of adopting Christianity but rather of being modern instead of medieval.”
   • Although by the grace and mercy of Almighty Allah, “reformed” Islam never emerged as a successful organized movement, as did its counterpart in Judaism, and if a “progressive” Muslim wishes to offer his Salat, he is compelled to worship in a “traditionalist” mosque
   • What does the “modern”, “progressive” hurricane of “change” have to offer the contemporary Muslim? Here is an intimate portrait of two rather typical Turkish-Cypriot families living today in London:
   • The modernized upper-class in Pakistan share the identical feelings towards their less-favoured countrymen of the villages and slums who lack the financial means and resources to ape the Western mode of life:
   • The Arabs share the same feelings:
   • Characteristic of the ethnocentricity of the Westerner which breeds these feelings, is the emotional reaction of an American who visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan:
   • All this shows how feeble is the moral sense of the contemporary West—so weak, in fact, that the Palestinians can expect to appeal against the injustices inflicted upon them for the restoration of their usurped lands solely on the degree of westernization they have achieved. The great unasked question remains unanswered; Must a person be “modern,” speak the “polished English of British and American universities,” dressed in smart Western clothes and look like a white man in order to qualify for his human rights?
   • Western superiority and domination over the earth is due to the following reasons only:
   • What is the result of universal westernization? Is the future bright with “progress” in its true sense?
   • What sort of human being can be expected to emerge as the end-product of our “modern” era?
   • Is this what we want—for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren? This is the fruit of the tree—what we shall certainly get if we continue in the same thoughtless ways.
   • Most hippies, beatniks, juvenile delinquents and hardened criminals are psychopathic. They fill the prisons throughout the world. They also fill the pages of Western history—Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler being recent examples of psychopathy in its most extreme form.
   • Psychopathy is not a unique product of the modern age, having no precedent in the past.
   • Roman emperors like Caligula, Claudius, Domitian and Nero clearly showed the same tendencies. So did many of the Western explorers, exploiters and imperialists down through the centuries.
   • Cortez, who destroyed the Aztecs, Pizzaro, who exterminated the Incas, Clive who conquered India for the British empire and such imperialists as Kitchener, who vanquished the Mahdists of the Sudan, were of the same type.
   • So was Peter the Great and Ataturk and probably even the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
   • Those who strive for Islamic regeneration must appeal to the nobler self in man which is as universal as his baser inclinations. Today almost everyone living in the giant urban centers subconsciously feels an intuitive emptiness in his days, a lack of purpose, direction and meaning in his existence which no amount of material goods and the frantic chase after “happiness” or enjoyment of sensual pleasures can satisfy.
   • This is the province of religion and entirely beyond the sphere of science, at least in its present form.
   • The present century can rightly be described as the age of the predominance of Western philosophical
   • our adversaries. Islamic history provides the most effective refutation of this wide-spread fallacy.
   • To the sophisticated Persians and Romans of the days of the Holy Prophet and the Sahabah or Companions, the early Muslims of Arabia must have appeared hopelessly “backward” and “primitive.” Though grossly inferior in numbers and poorly equipped, often ragged and half-starved, they successfully vanquished infinitely more “civilized” foes. They were never ashamed of their material poverty nor did they regard it as any obstacle for the propagation of their mission.
   • The following Hadith is eloquent testimony to the contempt of the Holy Prophet for worldly advantages:
6. 6 MUSLIMS AWAKE!

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