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Retreat from the Secular Path? Islamic Dilemmas of Arab Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Ibrahim Abu-Lughod
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Extract

It is readily recognized that the basic relationship between church and state within Euro-American political systems is relatively stabilized. This recognition prevails, even though that stability may be disturbed slightly and intermittently when older norms are reexamined by responsible public authorities. The result of such a reexamination may give rise to public outcry, such as occurred in connection with the recent Supreme Court decision on school prayers. But what is essentially a “resolved” issue in Western politics remains a problematical dilemma in many other parts of the world. It has been widely assumed that the future of all political systems lies in the same direction: namely, that political systems the world over will be secularized as much as possible and that religion, as a normative system or as a set of institutional arrangements, will have only tangential influence in the determination of public policies and the shaping of future societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , October 1966 , pp. 447 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1966

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References

1 A Study of History

2 Smith's, Donald E.India as a Secular State (Princeton, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar is a welcome contribution. It should be examined along with the interesting critiques of Marc Gallanter, “Secularism, East and West” and Flint, John F., “India as a Secularizing State,” in Comparative Studies in Society and History, VII (01, 1965), 133–165Google Scholar. Smith suggests, p. 40, that Islamic societies are especially hostile to secularizing tendencies.

3 Readers of this essay may wish to consult a recent contribution by Sharabi, H. B., “Islam and Modernization in the Arab World,” Journal of International Affairs, XIX (1965), 16–25Google Scholar, in which somewhat different conclusions are reached.

4 It will be evident to the reader, that no rigid conception of secularism or a secular state governs our discussion of Arab secularism. No prototype of a completely secular state that will meet all objections is available. The United States is a secular state, yet manifestations of nonsecularism are not lacking, for example, enforcement of certain Blue Laws. England is a secular state, yet it has a state religion. Canada is a secular state, yet its elementary education is church-directed. In our discussion we have tried to deal with the issue of secularism in terms of law, in terms of politics, and in terms of culture and society. And it will be apparent that an increase in secularization in an area may be more than offset by retrenchment in another area.

5 Text of the Nationality Law is available in Flournoy, R. W. and Hudson, Manley O., A Collection of Nationality Laws of Various Countries (New York, 1929), pp. 568–569Google Scholar. Text of the Ottoman, Constitution is available in “Supplement” to The American Journal of International Law (1908), 367–387Google Scholar. For background information on the functioning of the constitutional era, see Devereux, Robert, The First Ottoman Constitutional Period (Baltimore, 1963)Google Scholar.

6 Dilemmas of secularism in prerepublican Turkey, intellectual, social and political are ably presented by Berkes, Niyazi, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal, 1964), esp. pp. 253–324Google Scholar.

7 The Turkish intelligentsia naturally suffered from this contradiction. Niyazi Berkes' introduction to the thought of Gokalo, Zia in Turkish Nationalism and Western Civilization (London, 1959), pp. 13–31, brings out quite clearly some of the intellectual contradictions of an important member of the intelligentsiaGoogle Scholar.

8 Davison, Roderic, Reform in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, 1964)Google Scholar.

8 The views of the various proponents of secularism in the Arab countries are surveyed in, among others, Ahmed, J. M., The Intellectual Origins of Egyptian Nationalism (London, 1960), pp. 85–112Google Scholar, and Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (London, 1962), pp. 170–181 and 245–259Google Scholar.

10 Though out of date, Davis, Helen M., Constitutions, Electoral Laws, Treaties of States in the Near and Middle East (Durham, 1953)Google Scholar, contains texts of constitutions of the Arab States then independent. Subsequent amendments or constitutions of the Arab States that became independent afterwards have been published in various issues of the Middle East Journal, Washington, D. C.

11 See Toynbee, Arnold, Survey of International Affairs, 1925, I, The Islamic World (London, 1927), esp. pp. 25–91 and Appendices 3 and 4, for a contemporary account of the Islamic reaction to the Turkish destruction of the Caliphate and the Caliphate Congress of CairoGoogle Scholar.

12 The press of the period accommodated the protagonists. Two books of the period representing the conflicting views may be noted anew: al-Raziq, Ali Abd, al-Islam wa usul al-Hukm (Cairo, 1925)Google Scholar, representing the view of the political secularists and Yusuf al-Dijwi, al-Islam wa usul al-Hukm wa al-Radd Alayhi (Cairo, n.d.), representing the antisecularist views.

13 These represented the two offshoots of the movement of Afghani and Abduh; one was liberal and progressive led by the moderate secularists such as Abd al-Raziq and Lutfi al-Sayyid, and the other Fundamentalist led by Rashid Rida. For background and exposition of ideas of the original movement, see Adams, Charles C., Islam and Modernism in Egypt (London, 1933)Google Scholar. For the offshoots, Hourani, , op. cit., pp. 222–244Google Scholar and Gibb, H. A. R., Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago, 1947)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The complex politics of the Caliphate Congress and the motivation of the principal actors are very much in need of study. Kedourie, E., “Egypt and the Caliphate,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Parts 3 & 4 (London, 1963), pp. 208–248, should be used with cautionGoogle Scholar.

15 Insofar as the principal types of Arab nationalism are concerned it is evident that I have accepted Hourani's distinctions (pp. 341–43), but attached greater significance to the religious type in certain regions and not in others. An examination of the type of nationalism emerging in the Arabian Peninsula would undoubtedly reveal a closer identification between Arabism and Islam and in that it would be similar to the North African type. The literature on Arab nationalism is replete with discussions concerning the relationship of Arabism and Islam and their mutual adjustments; practically all of these discussions have in mind the Fertile Crescent and to a lesser extent Egypt. See for example, Nuseibeh, H. Z., The Ideas of Arab Nationalism (Ithaca, 1956)Google Scholar, or Haim, Sylvia, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley, 1962)Google Scholar.

16 For the various reform movements of North Africa and their politicization see Ziadeh, Nicola, Origins of Nationalism in Tunisia (Beirut, 1962)Google Scholar; L. C. Brown's contribution in Micaud, Charles, Tunisia: The Politics of Modernization (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, and his “Islamic Reformism in North Africa” The Journal of Modern African Studies, II (03, 1964), 55–64Google Scholar. Halstead's, John P. “The Changing Character of Moroccan Reformism, 1921–1934” Journal of African History, V (1964), 435–447CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Abun-Nasr, Jamil, “The Salafiyyah Movement in Morocco: The Religious Bases of the Moroccan Nationalist Movement” in St. Antony's Papers, No. 16: Middle Eastern Affairs, ed. by Hourani, Albert (London, 1963), pp. 90–105Google Scholar are valuable references for Morocco; no such work is available for Algeria.

17 Titles of organizations—political or otherwise—and publications are very suggestive in this context. For example, the North African Students' Association in France identified itself as Association des Etudiants Musulmans Nord-Africains whereas the Eastern Arab organizations identified themselves as Syrian or Egyptian or Arab but not Moslem. On the other hand, the French more frequently referred to Musulmans nord-Africains in their publications and to Syriens or Egyptiens.

18 The catalytic functions of these edicts are discussed in, among others, Gallagher, Charles, The United States and North Africa (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 84–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hahn, Lorna, North Africa: Nationalism To Nationhood (Washington, 1960), pp. 6, 12–14, 66 ffGoogle Scholar. See also al-Fasi, Allal, The Independence Movements in Arab North Africa (translated by Nuseibeh, H. Z.) (Washington, 1954), passimGoogle Scholar.

19 For illustrations of North African intellectual pressure on the states to move in this direction, see Ghallab, Abd al-Karim, Hadha Huwa al-Dustur (Rabat, 1962), pp. 3–4Google Scholar, Al-Mu'tamar al-Sadis Li Hizb al-Istiqlāl (Rabat, 1962), pp. 49 ffGoogle Scholar., and repeated discussions in the Algerian periodical al-Ma'rifah issued by the Ministry of Waqf.

20 The Islamic Congress of 1931 held in Jerusalem, attended by delegates from various Arab and Islamic countries, had the above purpose among others. See Nielsen, Alfred, “The International Islamic Conference at Jerusalem,” The Moslem World, XXII (Hartford, 1932), 340–354Google Scholar.

21 See Heyworth-Dunne, J., Religious and Political Trends in Modern Egypt (Washington, 1950)Google Scholar; the recent study by Harris, Christina P., Nationalism and Revolution in Egypt (The Hague, 1964)Google Scholar; Mitchell's, R. P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Unpublished Princeton University Ph.D. thesis 1960) is of course the most comprehensiveGoogle Scholar.

22 This poses a number of intellectual dilemmas which organized political groups must resolve. The Ba'ath in Syria illustrates the degree to which even secularist parties must intellectually allow for the presence of the Islamic element in society. See Binder, L., The Ideological Revolution in the Middle East (New York, 1964), esp. pp. 116 ffGoogle Scholar.

23 Kerr, Malcolm, “Arab Radical Notions of Democracy,” in St. Antony's Papers, op. cit. pp. 9–40Google Scholar.

24 It has been, suggested, especially but not exclusively by Leftists, that President Nasir and his collaborators have incorporated a good deal of the Islamists' program while destroying the Society of the Muslim Brothers and other Islamist political groups. See for example, Abdel-Malek, Anouar, Egypte: Société Militaire (Paris, 1962)Google Scholar, and the more cautious comments of Issawi, Charles, “The Arab World's Heavy Legacy,” Foreign Affairs, XLIII (1965), 510–511Google Scholar.

25 The Salafiyyah movement played an important role in effecting the rapprochement; detailed studies are not available except in the case of the Ibadis. See Shinar, Pessah, “Ibadiyya and Orthodox Reformism in Algeria” in Scripta Hierosolymitana, IX, Studies in Islamic History and Civilization, ed. by Heyd, Uriel (Jerusalem, 1961), 97–120Google Scholar.

* The actual case is somewhat more complicated. It is true that Arabs as Muslims did not participate in economic ventures that could have been construed as modern during that early period. Nor did they undertake activities that would, in the long run, have ushered in an era of economic growth. By the time they had awakened to the lucrative nature of these activities, they were confronted by an established entrepreneurial class composed of foreigners and foreign-protected minorities who, because of the political situation, were not easily to be dislodged.

26 These were principal intellectual premises of all Muslim reformers from Tahtawi in Egypt, Khayr al-Din in Tunis down to Presidents Nasir and Bourguiba. Muhammad Abduh's Transvaal Fatwa concerning interest-taking reflects the important shift in the value system later to be translated into more concretely changed legal norms. See Adams, C.C., “Muhammad Abduh and the Transvaal Fatwa,” in Macdonald Presentation Volume (New York, 1933), pp. 12–29Google Scholar.

27 See the suggestive comments of Berque, Jacques, The Arabs and Their Future, translated by Stewart, J. (London, 1960), p. 129Google Scholar.

28 This latter designation represented the compromise reached in the Syrian Constitution of 1950 (article 3) and reaffirmed in the 1953 constitution. See Winder, R. B., “Islam As The State Religion,” The Muslim World, XLIV (1954), 215–226Google Scholar.

29 For example, Jordan. It is perhaps relevant to point out that whereas Lebanon has no state religion, the entire parliamentary system is based on confessionalism.

30 Sometimes the state may act in an opposite way and thus may destroy traditionally Islamic norms; for example, legislation against polygamy, permitted by Islam, has been successfully adopted in Tunisia. A valuable discussion of changes in the legal norms, especially as they affect personal status, in various Arab and Islamic countries is that of Borrmans, M., “Codes de Statut Personnel et evolution sociale en certains pays Musulmans,” IBLA, No. 103 (Tunis, 1963), 205–259Google Scholar.

31 Writings by Muslim Arabs proposing this theme abound; some are slightly apologetic, others are more serious. As an illustration of the more serious type, Bennabi, Malik, Vocation de L'Islam (Paris, 1954)Google Scholar, and the more recent Lahbabi's, Mohamed A.Le Personalisme Musulman (Paris, 1964), esp. pp. 99–101 may be citedGoogle Scholar.

32 Although B. Lewis' reasoning is different, his conclusion is the same. See The Middle East and the West (Bloomington, 1963)Google Scholar.