Muslim loyalty and belonging
some reflections on the psychosocial background
© Abdal-Hakim Murad, January 2003
Our silence in the face of evil differs from that of secular people.
For traditional theists, the sense of loss which evil conveys, of the
fearful presence of a void, comes with a personal face: that of the
devil. But the devil, being, in the Qur'an's language, weak at
plotting, carries in himself the seeds of his own downfall. The very
fact that we can name him is consoling, since understanding is itself
a consolation. The cruellest aspect of secularity is that its refusal
to name the devil elevates him to something more than a mere
personalised absence. The solace of religion, no less consoling for
being painful, is that it insists that when we find no words to
communicate our sense that evil has come and triumphed, our silence is
one of bewilderment, not despair; of hope, not of finality.
The world is at present in the grip of fear. We fear an unknown
absence that hides behind the mundanity of our experience; perhaps
ubiquitous and confident, perhaps broken and at an end. Symbols of
human communication such as the internet and the airlines have
suddenly acquired a double meaning as the scene for a radical failure
of communication. Above all, the fear is that of the unprecedented, as
the world enters an age drastically unlike its predecessors, an age in
which the religions are fragmenting into countless islands of opinion
at a time when their members - and the world - are most insistently in
need of their serene and consistent guidance.
At a time such as the present, a furqan, a discernment, between true
and false religion breaks surface. Despite the endless, often superbly
fruitful, differences between the great world religions, the pressure
of secularity has threatened each religion with a comparable
confiscation of timeless certainties, and their replacement by the
single certainty of change. Many now feel that they are not living in
a culture, but in a kind of process, as abiding canons of beauty are
replaced with styles and idioms the only expectation we can have of
which is that they will briefly gratify our own sense of stylishness,
then to be replaced by something no less brilliantly shallow.
Postmodernity, anticipated here by Warhol, is occasionalistic, a
series of ruptured images, hostile to nothing but the claim that we
have inherited the past and that language is truly meaningful.
In such conditions, the timeless certainties of religious faith must
work hard to preserve not only their consistent sense of self, but the
very vocabularies with which they express their claims. The American
philosopher Richard Rorty offers this account of the secularisation
process:
Europe did not decide to accept the idiom of Romantic poetry, or
of socialist politics, or of Galilean mechanics. That sort of shift
was no more an act of will than it was a result of argument. Rather,
Europe gradually lost the habit of using certain words and gradually
acquired the habit of using certain others. [1]
What has happened over the past century, in a steadily accelerating
fashion, is that the series of mutations in values, often grounded in
popular perceptions of scientific paradigm shifts, has placed the
traditional vocabularies of religion under unprecedented stress.
Against this background, we can see three large possibilities amidst
the diversity of the world faiths. Firstly, the `time-capsule' option,
often embedded in local ethnic particularities, which seeks to
preserve the lexicon of faith from any redefinition which might
subvert the tradition's essence. The risk of anachronism or
irrelevance is seen as worth running in order to preserve ancient
verities for later generations that might, in some hoped-for time of
penitence, return to them. Secondly, there are movements, usually
called `liberal', which adopt the secular world's reductionist
vocabulary for the understanding of religion, whether this be
psychological, philosophical, or sociological, and try to show how
faith, or part of it, might be recoverable even if we use these terms.
In the Christian context this is an established move, and has become
secure enough to be popularised by such writers as John Robinson and
Don Cupitt. In Islam, the marginality of Muhammad Shahrur and Farid
Esack shows that for the present a thoroughgoing theological
liberalism remains a friendless elite option, despite the de facto
popularity of attenuated and sentimental forms of Muslimness...
see http://www.masud.co.uk for full article.
some reflections on the psychosocial background
© Abdal-Hakim Murad, January 2003
Our silence in the face of evil differs from that of secular people.
For traditional theists, the sense of loss which evil conveys, of the
fearful presence of a void, comes with a personal face: that of the
devil. But the devil, being, in the Qur'an's language, weak at
plotting, carries in himself the seeds of his own downfall. The very
fact that we can name him is consoling, since understanding is itself
a consolation. The cruellest aspect of secularity is that its refusal
to name the devil elevates him to something more than a mere
personalised absence. The solace of religion, no less consoling for
being painful, is that it insists that when we find no words to
communicate our sense that evil has come and triumphed, our silence is
one of bewilderment, not despair; of hope, not of finality.
The world is at present in the grip of fear. We fear an unknown
absence that hides behind the mundanity of our experience; perhaps
ubiquitous and confident, perhaps broken and at an end. Symbols of
human communication such as the internet and the airlines have
suddenly acquired a double meaning as the scene for a radical failure
of communication. Above all, the fear is that of the unprecedented, as
the world enters an age drastically unlike its predecessors, an age in
which the religions are fragmenting into countless islands of opinion
at a time when their members - and the world - are most insistently in
need of their serene and consistent guidance.
At a time such as the present, a furqan, a discernment, between true
and false religion breaks surface. Despite the endless, often superbly
fruitful, differences between the great world religions, the pressure
of secularity has threatened each religion with a comparable
confiscation of timeless certainties, and their replacement by the
single certainty of change. Many now feel that they are not living in
a culture, but in a kind of process, as abiding canons of beauty are
replaced with styles and idioms the only expectation we can have of
which is that they will briefly gratify our own sense of stylishness,
then to be replaced by something no less brilliantly shallow.
Postmodernity, anticipated here by Warhol, is occasionalistic, a
series of ruptured images, hostile to nothing but the claim that we
have inherited the past and that language is truly meaningful.
In such conditions, the timeless certainties of religious faith must
work hard to preserve not only their consistent sense of self, but the
very vocabularies with which they express their claims. The American
philosopher Richard Rorty offers this account of the secularisation
process:
Europe did not decide to accept the idiom of Romantic poetry, or
of socialist politics, or of Galilean mechanics. That sort of shift
was no more an act of will than it was a result of argument. Rather,
Europe gradually lost the habit of using certain words and gradually
acquired the habit of using certain others. [1]
What has happened over the past century, in a steadily accelerating
fashion, is that the series of mutations in values, often grounded in
popular perceptions of scientific paradigm shifts, has placed the
traditional vocabularies of religion under unprecedented stress.
Against this background, we can see three large possibilities amidst
the diversity of the world faiths. Firstly, the `time-capsule' option,
often embedded in local ethnic particularities, which seeks to
preserve the lexicon of faith from any redefinition which might
subvert the tradition's essence. The risk of anachronism or
irrelevance is seen as worth running in order to preserve ancient
verities for later generations that might, in some hoped-for time of
penitence, return to them. Secondly, there are movements, usually
called `liberal', which adopt the secular world's reductionist
vocabulary for the understanding of religion, whether this be
psychological, philosophical, or sociological, and try to show how
faith, or part of it, might be recoverable even if we use these terms.
In the Christian context this is an established move, and has become
secure enough to be popularised by such writers as John Robinson and
Don Cupitt. In Islam, the marginality of Muhammad Shahrur and Farid
Esack shows that for the present a thoroughgoing theological
liberalism remains a friendless elite option, despite the de facto
popularity of attenuated and sentimental forms of Muslimness...
see http://www.masud.co.uk for full article.
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