Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Part IV:

ISLAM IN HISTORY

Chapter 9.

HISTORY AS INTERPRETATION

Surely one of the deepest gulfs separating the modern Western perspective from the traditional Islamic world view lies in the understanding of history. In order to grasp the difference in perspectives, let us look at the wordhistory in English. The word has two sides to its meaning: In one respect, it is simply a narrative of events; in a second respect, the narrative is inseparable from an explanatory account.

We say, "That is history," meaning that something happened in the past, and that we know about it. Through this use of the term, we imply that events that occurred in the past had an objective reality about which we are informed; we discuss history as a dimension of reality; we think of past events as we think of places: They are there and they are fixed.

From the second point of view, we use the wordhistory while recognizing that there is a subjective element involved in its study. When we say, "History teaches us that . ," we have recognized, as least implicitly, that a certain perspective on the past allows us to perceive its meaning. If we ask why we should learn lesson x instead of lesson y, we

will soon realize that historians -- those who make it their profession to write about the past -- have points of views, presuppositions, and ideologies. Of course, this is no less true for the study of contemporary society, or psychology, or bacteria. When we find meaning, we do so on the basis of preconceived ideas about what can be meaningful; otherwise, we are left with a disconnected jumble of information.

In the modern world, we have witnessed the birth of the critical study of history. A host of new methods for studying the past have given many scholars confidence that human beings, for the first time, are able to look at the past "objectively" and "scientifically." The self-congratulation involved in this view of things should be obvious, and it should also be enough to put us on our guard.

This is not the place to investigate the belief systems of contemporary scholarship. One point, however, needs to be stressed: Historians and many philosophers consider history to have an enormous importance, and looking at history in this manner has no precedent in any previous civilization. As has often been observed, this attention paid to history is not unrelated to the nature of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Judaism was differentiated from other ancient religions partly by the significance that it gave to historical events. Following in Judaism's wake, Christianity situated its founding mythwithin history, not outside of it, thus giving a special character to the historical process. In modern times, many Western intellectuals, having lost religious faith, nevertheless have held on to certain Christian attitudes, including the divinity of history. Hegel is the grand example of a thinker who found the divine only in the historical process.

We do not mean to suggest that all modern historians are Hegelians, but we do think that the belief that has commonly been found among historians (though much less today than a few years ago) -- that they are able to find out whatreally happened in the past and to draw conclusions from it -- means that they have, in effect, assumed a prophetic role. In this view, the historians tell us of the significance of the past. They alone are able to understand the "signs" that have been recorded as occurring before the present. In an anthology of religious texts from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, one of our finest historians of the early Islamic environment, F. E. Peters, called attention to this prophetic role -- only partly tongue in cheek -- while disclaiming any similar role for himself:

I have made here almost no judgments about authenticity: these are the received texts, scriptural and otherwise. . Thus there are no traces here of the revelations of Julius Wellhausen or Ignaz Goldziher, no echoes of the prophetic voices of Rudolf Bultmann or Joseph Schacht, of Jacob Neusner or Patricia Crone. 1

It is not only historians who make claims that have prophetic implications. If religion involves establishing guidelines for right activity, right thought, and right intentions, any human enterprise that deals with one or more of these domains has religious significance. Many of our modern academic disciplines -- the hard sciences in particulardictate thinking and activity to the public: Their revelations are eagerly devoured in popular magazines, and people look forward to the establishment of paradise on earth.

We have already suggested the implications of the almost exclusive stress upon rationality in the modern world: To focus on reason is to focus on the quantitative dimension of reality; it is to divide, dissect, and take apart. Herein lies the genius and the power of modern civilization, but also its nemesis. The underlying thrust of all critical scholarship (not simply the school that has adopted the term as its own) is todeconstruct . The net result is the exponential increase of information, and the ever receding possibility of holding things together. In the midst of this world without acenter and without anorigin (as Eliade uses these terms), all sorts of claims are made for every subdiscipline of learning. Among historians, the claim is simply "We know better," whatever the specific methodology that is pursued.

One cannot object to the idea that modern methodologies have uncovered information that has heretofore been unknown or ignored. One can object, however, when a historian speaks of significance in terms that have religious or cosmic repercussions.

To discuss the meaning of history is to discuss what it means to be human. Some historians may declare that they are simply recording events, but in this day and age, most are willing to admit that objective history is an illusion: It is impossible to record an event without making judgments about its significance. When information has been handed down from the remote past, such judgments are made at every stage. The historians set for themselves the laudable goal of uncovering the actual event under the accumulated layers of interpretation, but this simply means that they present us with their own interpretations: To conceptualize is to interpret.

The self-congratulation that too often accompanies the academic mindset has led to the rejection of the plausibility of all nonmodern ways of looking at history, in particular those that are found in religious civilizations. Lawrence E. Sullivan alludes to this fact while speaking about the eschatological meanings that religions typically find in historical events:

Our own historical visions of time haw often served to eliminate the relevance of our contemporaries' proposed solutions to the enigma of our common historical condition. We shrink from these visions of the end because they relativize history, the mode

of time that has licensed the accumulation of symbolic currencies in the forms of wealth, land, labor, written word, and science. 2

Islamic Interpretation of the Past

Muslims have always exhibited interest in the past. Understanding the Koran and the Sunna -- the twin foundations of the religiondemands that the present traces of past events have a critical importance for human life. Some Muslim scholars made it their profession to record past events, whether or not they had any direct relevance to the Koran and the Prophet. They often wrote "universal histories," from Adam down to their own time, not to mention other kinds of historical accounts.

Modern historians have often employed the writings of the Muslim historians. Typically, they have noted the interpretative stance of the author, tried to discount the resulting distortion, and taken whatever passes through their own methodological sieves as grist for their mills.

We are not interested here in the history of historiography in Islam. We note that historical writing has played a role, but we do so simply to emphasize that, for the vast majority of Muslims, academic history -- or what passes for such in a given epoch -- was of no concern. Their sensibilities toward the past were largely shaped by the Koranic world view. Everything that happened in the past was a sign of God. Hence, thesignificance of the past was already established before people learned anything about the details.

Not that the situation has really changed in the modern world. Most historians have already limited the possibilities of meaning before they begin their research. However, in the Islamic case, it is very clear that significance depends upon signs, and signs depend upon God. In other words, significance is determined bytawhid .

The Koran repeatedly admonishes people to learn the lessons of the past. We saw how much attention it pays to the prophets: In practically every case, the Koran recites the trials and tribulations undergone by the prophets to illustrate that people have not changed. The Meccans were treating Muhammad the way that the Israelites had treated their prophets. Moreover, the point is clearly universal. In other words, it is not simply a question of Muhammad's time; it is a question of all times and all places, because heedlessness of God and his messages is rooted in the human condition. In the Islamic view, people are always missing the significance of history, and they always have to be reminded.

The Koran does not simply take the tales of the prophets as signs of God's work in history; it takes all the lore that has reached its listeners as signs of the past, and it takes the omnipresent ruins of previous cultures and civilizations as signs. "Everything is perishing but His face" (28:88). Human civilizations are fleeting and illusory; God alone is

real; refuge from time's disasters must be sought in God, not in the ephemeral fabrications of human minds and hands. The Koran speaks about the outcome or ultimate end ('aqiba ) of past peoples in some twenty verses. It asks its readers to think about how many past peoples and civilizations God has destroyed because of their wrongdoing. In this context, it recommends "traveling in the earth" as a means of widening one's horizons and coming to understand the vanity and ephemerality of local ties and local issues. Only by opening themselves up to a broad view of things can people begin to see the simultaneous nothingness and grandeur of the human race:

Many ways of life have passed away before you. So travel in the earth and consider what was the end of those who cried lies. (3.137)

Those cities We relate to thee tidings of, their Messengers came to them with clear explications, but they were not the ones to have faith in what they had cried lies to before. . So consider what was the end of those who worked corruption! (7:101-103)

What, have they not traveled in the earth and considered what was the end of those before them? Those were more intense than they in strength, . and their messengers came to them with clear explications. And God would never wrong them, but they wronged themselves.(30:9)

The Koran makes clear that God has frequently brought down destruction on cities and towns, and that this stems from people's rejection of the prophetic messages:

Like Pharaoh's folk, and the people before him, who cried lies to the signs of their Lord, so We destroyed them because of their sins. (8.54)

Have they not seen that We have destroyed before them many a generation that We had established in the earth, as We have never established you? (6:6)

We destroyed many generations before you when they did wrong, and their Messengers came to them with the clear explications, but they would not haw faith. (10:13)

How many a city We have destroyed in its wrongdoing, so it has fallen down on its roofs! How many a deserted well, a tall palace! (22:45)

We never chastise, until We send forth a messenger. And when We desire to destroy a city, We issue commandments to those who live there in ease, and they perform acts of transgression there. Then the Word is realized against it, and We destroy it utterly. How many generations We have destroyed after Noah! (17:15-17)

This destruction of towns and cities for wrongdoing is not simply a matter of past history, it is also a promise for the future:

No city is there, but We shall destroy it before the day of resurrection, or We shall chastise it with a terrible chastisement. That is inscribed in the Book. (17:58)

In threatening the Prophet's enemies with destruction, the Koran says plainly that God holds back because of the presence of Muhammad among them, or the presence of those who seek nearness to God: "But God would never chastise them, with thee among them; God would never chastise them while they asked forgiveness" (8:33). For later thinkers, this sets down the principle that God will not destroy the world so long as even one faithful Muslim remains, doing therein what is beautiful. They cite in support the hadith, "The Hour will not come as long as there is someone on the earth saying, 'God, God'."

The Marks of the End

With this brief introduction to Koranic teachings about human history, let us turn to the last part of the hadith of Gabriel. The text reads:

The man said, "Tell me about the Hour."

The Prophet replied, "About that he who is questioned knows no more than the questioner."

The man said, 'Then tell me about its marks."

He said, "The servant girl will give birth to her mistress, and you will see the barefoot, the naked, the destitute, and the shepherds vying with each other in building."

We have seen that the Koran declares that God alone knows when the Last Day will occur, and that anyone else who claims to know is a liar. Apparently, the Prophet took Gabriel's question about the Last Day as asking for specifics about the time of the Hour's occurrence, and he answered that he knew no more than the questioner did, since none knows about it except God. But the question does not necessarily refer to the time of the Hour. In any case, the Prophet's answer can have another significance, once we recognize that he knew all along who the questioner was. He can be saying, "You, Gabriel, know as much about that as I do, but it is neither my place nor yours to reveal this know-

ledge, since it is not part of the message that God has commanded us to reveal."

As for the marks (amarat ) of the Hour, this was a topic of major interest for the Prophet and his companions. The books on Hadith devote a good deal of space to the many sayings of the Prophet relevant to the signs that will presage the end of time. The Koran frequently talks about the terror of the Hour, and in a few instances it mentions events that are taken as its precursors. For example, a beast will appear shortly before the final destruction: "When the Word falls on them, We shall bring forth for them out of the earth a beast that shall say to them that people had no faith in Our signs" (27:82). Another verse warns that the barbarian tribes Gog and Magog will be unleashed to do their work:

When Gog and Magog are unloosed, and they slide down out of every slope, and the true promise draws near -- then the eyes of the truth-concealers will stare: "Woe to us, we were heedless of this! No, we were wrongdoers." (21:96-97)

In the hadith of Gabriel, the Prophet mentions two marks that would tell people that the end of time is near. The first is that "the servant girl will give birth to her mistress." Like many sayings referring to the last times, this sounds like a riddle, but it is not too difficult to understand: The basic meaning is that the social order will be disrupted.

In normal times, there are acknowledged social relationships that preserve order. The Koran provides indications of these relationships through the great attention it pays to the necessity of honoring and obeying one's parents. Another normal relationship is that between rulers and the ruled: Certain people give instructions, and others obey. "Obey God, and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you" (4:59). We have already cited the hadith, "Each of you is a shepherd, and each of you will be held responsible for your sheep. . ."

The proper relationship of mistress to servant girl is for the mistress to issue commands and the servant girl to obey (there may of course be other relationships as well, but this specific relationship is at issue here). One of the places where this relationship holds is mother and daughter. The mother raises and nurtures the daughter, and the daughter in turn obeys the mother. However, if the "servant girl gives birth to her mistress," then mother has become servant and daughter has become mistress: This is a reversal of the right social order; it is a profound disequilibrium, and its seriousness in the Islamic consciousness can perhaps best be judged by the fact that in several verses the Koran makes reverence to one's parents the first practical application oftawhid , as we have already noted. If the mother-daughter relationship is upset, and if that is one of the most fundamental relationships of society, then surely the relationship of tawhid , not to mention other relationships, will also be upset: Religion and society would fall apart.

The second mark mentioned by the Prophet is simply another example of social disintegration. In Islam, poverty is paid great respect. The Prophet said, "God loves His servant who is faithful, poor, chaste, and father of a family." The hadith of Gabriel is clearly not talking about people who lack material possessions. Rather, the reference is to those who have the moral qualities and character traits of the meanest and most despicable members of society: They may be Muslims in appearance, but inwardly they are truth-concealers and workers of corruption. In a normal society, such people live at the peripheries and are powerless. Toward the end of time, they will be the designers and builders of grandiose structures, and they will be very proud of their accomplishments.

There is no reason to suppose that "building" in the hadith refers only to physical structures. Koranic usage of the term suggests that it may just as well refer to anything that humans can build, including houses, machines, societies, nations, philosophies, and ideologies.

Why, is he better who founded his building upon wariness of God and His good-pleasure better, or he who founded his building upon the brink of a crumbling bank that has tumbled with him into the fire of Gehenna? (9:109)

Those who were before them contrived, then God came upon their building from the foundations, and the roof fell down on them from over them, and the chastisement came upon them from whence they were not aware. (16:26)

In short, this last part of the hadith of Gabriel suggests that when the last times draw close, every social order instituted by the prophets will be disrupted and overthrown. Human life and society will be ruled by fabrications of human cleverness that grow up out of the basest instincts of the soul.

We pointed out earlier that from the beginning of Islam many Muslims thought that the end of the world was imminent. The Prophet himself held up his thumb and forefinger with a tiny space between them and said, "I and the Hour are like this." But we also pointed out that one of God's days may last one thousand or fifty thousand years, or even more. The only thing that Muslims can say for sure about the time of the Last Day is that it is 1400 years nearer than it was when the Prophet warned of its imminence and that many of its marks are apparent for all to see. They can also be sure that the religious order of things will not improve before the return of Christ. In other words,islam , iman , and ihsan will be increasingly difficult to actualize within the individual and society.

Chapter 10.

THE CONTEMPORARY SITUATION

Practically every introductory book on Islam provides details of the historical unfolding of the Islamic community and its situation in the modern period. There are far more studies of contemporary political events in Muslim countries than there are of classical Islamic civilization or Islam's religious teachings. Our purpose here is not to repeat what others have said or to describe the modern scene from within a framework that makes sense to contemporary sensibilities. Rather, we will try to throw light on how history can be read as signs from the perspective of a world view still dominated bytawhid . What, in short, does Islam's vision of itself tell us about contemporary history?

Until recently, most Westerners simply took it for granted that progress was a fact of human existence, and that the non-Western world would have to follow on the heels of the West to survive in the modern world. Given the events of the twentieth century, more and more reflective people have come to doubt whether progress is indeed an intrinsic good. Many people now ask if the course of technological development pursued by Western society was a wise choice. Scientists in all sorts of

fields ask whether the present course of progress is not the quickest way for the human race to commit suicide.

The wordprogress itself begs many questions. It implies a direction, a goal, and standards whereby it can be judged. But when we look at human affairs, the only domain within which undeniable progress has been made is in the accumulation of power through technology: Our computers and our bombs are definitely better. In practically every other field of human endeavor, even those in which popular opinion takes progress for granted -- such as medicine and scientific learning in general -- serious doubts about the reality of progress are being raised.

As soon as the human side of the historical process is taken into account, skepticism toward self-congratulatory claims of progress is only natural. Do people become better through the technological concentration of power? Are those who live in the First World better people than those who live elsewhere, or who lived in former times? Here we need standards by which to judge our humanity, standards that modern academic approaches -- whether the hard scientific, the sociological, the psychological, or the philosophical -- have practically abandoned.

As soon as the contemporary situation is considered from within the value system of a traditional religion such as Islam, it becomes easy to conclude that "the barefoot, the naked, the destitute, and the shepherds are vying with each other in building."

We pose these issues to remind the reader of the presuppositions that go into judgments about the nature of history, society, and human welfare. When we decide that a particular political process or a specific event is good or bad, we are judging on the basis of preconceived ideas whose truth is not self-evident. If we want to judge the contemporary Islamic world, we should make clear from the outset which standards we are employing. Most books, especially those that deal with contemporary affairs, take popular prejudices about the purpose of human life as the unquestioned ground from which judgments can be made. That progress is a good thing is simply one example of these unquestioned presuppositions.

The Declining Fortunes of Islam

Western scholarship has typically read Islamic history as the story of rise and decline. In what is commonly called Islam's "Golden Age" -- the high period of the Baghdad caliphate -- apax islamica had been established throughout most of the civilized world; scientific, philosophical, literary, and artistic endeavors reached peaks that had few precedents in human history. Gradually, however, because of a decline in creativity and a steady stream of barbarian invaders, Islam lost its creative power. By the eighteenth century, it was ripe for conquest by the European nations, whose scientific and technological revolution was just getting off the ground.

This, by and large, has been the received wisdom in modern times. More recent historians, of course, are questioning every finding of earlier generations. For example, since the idea of decline is intimately tied up with the ideology of progress, once progress is called into question, what appears to have been a decline may simply be a peaceful equilibrium that is highly efficacious for achieving a civilization's goals. The goals of Islamic civilization have never been scientific and technological progress, but rather perfection of the human soul. How has Islamic civilization fared in terms of its own standards? That is a question that few historians have ever asked.

A Western-educated intellectual class began appearing in Islamic countries in the second half of the nineteenth century, and it has continued to gain in influence. These Muslims, who have been familiar with modern ideologies and presuppositions, have taken a variety of positions on the situation of the Islamic world. The initial reaction of most of those who gained a Western-style education was an enormous sense of inferiority in the face of political domination by Western powers; this domination was, of course, powered by technology. Muslims wanted to be free of domination by the colonial powers, and the only course of action that appeared possible to the modern educated classes was to learn modern science and technology in order to gain political power. Many Muslims felt that traditional Islam was nothing but a hindrance to this goal, and so they adopted two basic courses: abandoning the religion, and reforming it.

Those who abandoned Islam are not our concern. As for those who set out to reform Islam, they were of course reforming it in accordance with their own ideas of how political independence could be achieved in an era of concentration of power in the hands of the technologically endowed.

Reformist Islam typically appeals to those dimensions of Islamic teachings that can be harmonized with modern science and technology. This means that the reformers stress rationality and devalue imagination and unveiling. The apologetic works of this group, English versions of which began appearing in India in the nineteenth century and continue to be written, never tire of telling us how rational, scientific, and humane Islam is. In brief, the thrust of their message is as follows: The whole program of modern science is simply the logical development of the Koranic teachings. On the level of human values, the United Nations charter was simply plagiarized from the Koran and the Hadith. Muslims, because of outside influences and internal decadence, lost sight of the true goal of the Koranic teachings -- that is, technological progress and a democratic society (again, defined UN style) -- and as a result, the West picked up the Muslim birthright and ran with it. It is now time for Islam to reclaim its own heritage. (We may be guilty of a bit of caricature here, but not much.)

The net result of this kind of thinking has been that the power elites in the Islamic countries -- and these have typically been educated in the Western mold, for a variety of reasons -- have set out to emulate the West. Even today, the "Islamic" revolutionaries have not lost faith in science and technology: They know perfectly well that keeping political power demands technological control over the masses, and they justify their own claims to technological power with any means at their disposal, including appeal to the Koran and the Hadith.

Reading the Signs of History

We have just made certain implicit judgments about those who have sought out political power in the Islamic world in modern times. We suggested that many of them have lost sight of authentic Islamic teachings: Those among them who are called "fundamentalists" are no exception. Let us now suggest why we feel that the vision of Islam demands skepticism about modern Islamic political movements.

We have proposed from the beginning of this book that Islam's selfvision requires that human affairs be considered on three different but interdependent levels:islam ,iman , andihsan (submission, faith, and doing what is beautiful; or activity, knowledge, and intentionality). What does Islamic history look like when we judge it from this point of view?

Answering this question in any detail would require writing another book; we can only suggest very briefly how the contemporary situation might be judged. Before doing so, however, we need to point out a fact that is self-evident for Islam's vision: The only time in history when an optimum balance was established among these three dimensions of human existence was when the Prophet was ruling the community at Medina; from then on, it was downhill (with occasional upswings of course). As the Prophet said, "No time will come to you which will not be followed by one that is more evil until you encounter your Lord."

Muslims in general recognize that the institution of the caliphate -the political rulership of the community -- was in decline as soon as it became hereditary with the Umayyads in the first/ seventh century. The first four caliphs have traditionally been calledal-khulafa' al-rashidun , the "rightly guided caliphs," or perhaps better, the "caliphs of moral integrity." The political fortunes of Islam rose with the Umayyads and Abbasids, but the moral integrity of both the community leaders and the community as a whole declined. Innumerable pious people over the centuries have pointed to this decline of Islam and urged the community to reform. Until recently, the reform of Islam was envisaged within a world view such as that we have been describing.

In the traditional view, reform of society depended upon reform of the individual, and reform of the individual depended upon observance of Islam in all three of its dimensions. Individual perfection was always connected with nearness to God, or actualizing the divine form within

each and every person. Only in modern times has reform been taken to mean the remaking of human beings, not in the form of the God of the Koran, but rather the form of the gods of progress and democracy (as revealed to the modern West).

Islam is still very much alive, but it is not difficult even for outside observers to see that, in most of those who vocally acclaim their Islamic affiliation, the three dimensions of Islam are not kept in balance. Almost without exception, those groups that are labeled fundamentalist by outside observers are typified by stress upon the Shariah without a corresponding emphasis upon intentions, moral attitudes, and spirituality.Islam is typically discussed as if it were the whole of Islam, whileihsan is at best given lip service. At the same time, a utopianism that flies in the face of the traditional understanding of history animates fundamentalist political activities.

Islam, in the broad sense we have in mind, has been and still remains both an individual and a social ideal. Individuals who want to be good Muslims must strive to observe the Shariah carefully, deepen their iman, and develop the divine and human virtues that make up a balanced human personality, such as wisdom, generosity, patience, gratitude, justice, and love. Any one of these three tasks is difficult, especially in today's world. It is all the more difficult to devote attention to all three tasks at once.

The individual ideal of a balanced Islam producing a balanced personality runs parallel to the social ideal of a community functioning organically in mutual harmony. Muslim authorities have been perfectly aware from the beginning of Islam that not everyone will be able to actualize all three dimensions of the religion. Human beings represent a bewildering variety of capacities for growth, perfection, and deviation. The Koran stresses the idea that "God charges no soul save to its capacity" (2:286). Not everyone can be expected to devote his or her life to learning or to spiritual practices, though people must do so "to their capacity." In a healthy Islamic society, people will follow the Shariah with a maximum degree of sincerity, devote themselves to the Islamic sciences and arts, and undertake the rigors of the spiritual life to the extent of their individual gifts. If such a society has ever fully existed, it was at the time of the Prophet; since then, most societies in the Islamic world have participated in this ideal to some degree, at least until very recent times.

Though it is difficult to judge from the outside the health and wholeness of Islam in this broad sense, there are many criteria which would point to it, such as observance of the Shariah without coercion by government or religious officials, cultivation of both the transmitted and the intellectual sciences, and a flowering of beauty through calligraphy, architecture, poetry, and music.

One of the saddest signs of the dissolution of Islamic norms over the past fifty years is the loss of a sense of beauty. No one who has visited

the cities of the Islamic world can help but be struck by the extraordinary contrast between the remaining traditional structures and the monstrosities of contemporary architecture. That the sense of beauty has disappeared in architecture (with a few exceptions of course) is simply one symptom of the fact that a sense of beauty has disappeared from everyday life. People think nothing of tossing exquisitely handwrought copper and wooden utensils into the garbage to replace them by gaudy plastic goods.3 This outward "plasticizing" of society is a symptom of a much deeper parallel process on the mental and spiritual planes.

There are many other signs of the distortion of integral Islam in modern times. One is the tremendous stress placed upontanzih and the almost total eclipse oftashbih , at least among those who speak up vocally for Islamic values, especially those with political agendas. In some cases, the celebration of God's wrath and anger is used to justify methods of warfare -- such as mass killing and terrorism -- that are explicitly forbidden by the Shariah.

Modernist Islam typically rejects the intellectual understanding of the tradition, unless it is posed in political terms. Islam does have its own political teachings, but these have always remained peripheral: To place them at the center is to break with the tradition. Of course, the political ideologies of contemporary Muslim movements are seldom rooted in Islamic teachings; rather, they are reinterpretations of the Koran and the Hadith based on modern presuppositions concerning democracy or other "good" forms of government, though of course, as elsewhere, Marxist interpretations are now on the wane.

To the extent that modernist Islam appeals to the schools of faith, it limits itself to the most rationalistic of the theologians and the philosophers. Rationalism is easy to harmonize with love for science and technology, but a stressing of imagination, beauty, and unveiling immediately brings forward issues of human nature that few people feel comfortable with in the modern world.

Kalam, especially in its Mu'tazilite version, is easy to pose in terms that do not question the legitimacy of modern science. Stress ontanzih allows the theologian to disengage God from anything but specific commands; reason establishes God's difference from the cosmos and the human world, and then it gives the theologian relatively free rein to set up a "rational" program of human improvement. So long as God is not present within the cosmos itself -- astashbih teaches us that he is -human beings are free to deal with it as they like: There are no reasons not to follow the West in raping nature. Massive economic development and industrial pollution become God's approved way to establish the "Islamic" goal of a rational society.

Islam is a great religion. We do not mean to imply that nothing is left but deviation from the harmonious balance ofislam , iman , and ihsan . There are Muslims throughout the Islamic world who know that Islam

needs to be lived on all levels. If they are not apparent before the public gaze, this should not surprise anyone. We all know what is important in the eyes of the modern world, and we all know that the very nature of the modern media demands noise and tumult. Peace, harmony, and equilibrium do not make news.