CHAPTER XXI

THE VOCATION OF ISLAM IN A CONFLICTUAL WORLD

Khalid Durán

The Institute for International Studies

            Shortly after the Kuwait War I was called to speak at an interfaith meeting in Europe. Reading the report about the meeting in a newspaper I was exasperated to see as the heading a state-ment which I consider to have been the least perceptive statement made at the conference. It read: Once Again the Religions Have Failed, meaning that religions have failed to serve the cause of peace.

            No religion is immune against misuse. Buddhism has an image as a religion of peace. This has not prevented Burmese Buddhists from fighting Thai Buddhists and vice versa, each one destroying the other’s temples. To say that the religions have failed is an erroneous notion based on a peculiar understanding of religion as some kind of a weapon to be used on occasion, a kind of deus ex machina.

            Over the last 40 years I have been approached by hundreds of people wishing to convert to Islam, in different parts of the world. They did so for the most diverse reasons, reasons that were sometimes mutually exclusive. Some long to unite with other believers, others wish to separate from their social environment. Some believe Islam to be more authoritarian, and like it for this reason, others chose Islam because they believe that it is less authoritarian than their respective Church. And so on and so forth. I started to write a chapter on this topic, and it became a book by itself.

            For this reason we need to differentiate between theory and practice -- Islam as a set of doctrines and Islam as a social reality. The theological part is problematic enough, because the normative part is fairly small. Normative Islamic teachings are those on which there is a general consensus -- agreement of the largest number. A normative tenet is that of Al-Qur’an being divine revelation. There can be no two opinions on that. But what does revelation mean to Hasan and Husain, to Hamed and Hameed? And what does it mean to me? The differences in understanding are enormous. Anyhow, we can collect and classify major interpretations, ending up with a compendium larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica.

            Looking at the social reality we might sooner or later doubt both the usefulness and the legitimacy of the exercise. In Sri Lanka Muslims have been living among a non-Muslim majority harmo-niously for centuries. In the Philippines it has been the opposite. Accordingly, these two island communities in South Asia have a very different mentality, and a different perception of relations be-tween Muslims and non-Muslims.

            The position of women is very different from country to country, sometimes within one and the same country, as in Moro-cco because of different mores with different ethnic groups such as Arabs and Berbers, or in Pakistan between the urban and rural populations.

            Only after keeping all these differences in mind can we dare venture into a position paper. We will then have to muster the courage to strike a balance between what is purely personal and what is a majority opinion in that section of "Muslimhood" from which we hail or to which we are closest. I believe that ultimately it will be more personal, for we are not living in a void. We have had our religious teachers. In my case they constitute a wide variety of contributors, leading to a confluence of conceptions. I was taught Islam by teachers from Morocco, Syria, Bosnia, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sudan. All of them were Sunnis, but ranged from fundamentalists and tra-ditionalists via reformists to Sufis of both the orthodox and the radical humanist brand. Equally important is the fact that they belonged to different ethnic groups with their distinct cultures, no matter the general framework of Sunni Islam.

            Thinking of those teachers makes me realize how little originality I possess. Besides, there have been colleagues and companions-on-the-road. Last but not least there is a constituency -- brethren-in-faith who are in basic agreement, though all the time concerned that we remain on the ground of their realities. They go along, but frequently apply the brakes. In other words, what I am saying in the following may sound very different from some other Muslim positions on this subject. My position, however, though for various reasons less frequently articulated, is by no means indivi-dualistic or unusual.

            Apart from viewing the issue of religion and ethnicity in a theological perspective, I look at it through the glasses of the disciplines I have been trained in: history, sociology and political science. As a society, Islam has at times contributed remarkably to the mitigation of ethnic conflicts, at other times it has failed to do so. I am inspired by the fact that in times of the most blatant trans-gression, when Muslims flaunted the injunctions of their religion most cynically, there usually have been some believers sacrificing themselves in order to register a protest. It is not the glory of Muslim empires or high civilizations that provide inspiration for an advance toward the civitas dei we all wish to see established. The inspiration is provided by those who upheld Islamic morality in times of per-version. It is that legacy of jihád against tyranny that I identify with as a Muslim and which I happily bring along to any interfaith potluck.

            Example: At the time when Christian Spaniards went to South America as conquistadors, ravaging legendary kingdoms of gold, Muslim Spaniards did the same to comparable kingdoms in Africa. The Moroccan Sultan Almansur sent an army to conquer the fabled kingdom of Timbuktu in what is now Mali -- which means wealth in Arabic. The army that was sent to rob the gold of Timbuktu consisted mainly of Spaniards in the service of the Sultan.

            Before the military expedition was sent South, the Sultan had to quell the opposition of the religious scholars. Almansur wanted his rapacity to be legitimized by having the expedition declared as a jihád, a war in defense of the faith against infidels seeking to eliminate monotheism. The leading ‘ulamá [Islamic scholars] refused, arguing that most of the people of Timbuktu were Muslims and that no one there had attacked Islam. To fight them and rob them would be an unforgivable sin.

            The Sultan had his way by executing several of those recal-citrant scholars. Timbuktu was reduced to a miserable village, like the Inca capital Cuzco in Peru. Masses of Africans were taken North as slaves. This is one of many utterly shameful chapters in our history. Among other negative aspects it belies our claim that we stand for racial equality. At the same time, however, the ex-ample of those steadfast men of the faith has added a golden page to Muslim history. They performed what the Prophet called "the noblest form of jihád," to wit, "to confront an unjust ruler with a word of truth."

            So much for history. We are dealing here with an ongoing pro-cess. Southern Sudan has been subjected to the rule of Nor-thern slave traders for several centuries. The antagonism between some of the Muslim Northerners and some of the Christian South-erners is abysmal. Some sections of the Arabized Northerners have an attitude as if they were dealing with animals, as if the Southerners were not human beings. They accuse the non-Mus-lims in the South of "Negro fanaticism." The revolt of African Muslims against their Arab slave masters on the island of Zanzibar has never been accepted as a liberation struggle. Islamist pro-paganda projects it as a war against Arabs and Islam, conveniently overlooking that those who rose to free themselves were all Muslims.

            Only a few weeks ago a Tuareg rebel in Mali assured journa-lists that they -- the white men of the Sahara -- would never allow to happen what the whites in South Africa allowed to happen. They, the Tuareg, would never submit to black rule. Both, the Tuareg and the black population of Mali, are overwhelmingly Muslim. In Sudan we witness undescribable horrors of a war fought by Islamists from the North against the non-Muslims in the South. This war follows the guidelines of "ethnic cleansing" as devised in Croatia in 1941: one third of the enemy population is to be killed, one third be made to flee, and the remaining third be forced to convert.

            Worst of all is the fact that Islamists with their branch parties in many countries and their well-greased international propaganda machinery portray this genocidal war as a jihád for the defense of Islam against a Christian-Jewish conspiracy.

            However, here too we have a shining example of "the noblest jíhád" striking out against tyranny, regardless of the risk. Ustadh Mahmud Muhammad Taha was not only a saint, he also was the most outstanding Islamic theologian of this century. At the age of 77 he sacrificed himself while opposing this lack of humanity in Sudan, this distortion of Islam. For demanding an immediate end to the war and a peaceful solution to the conflict he was tried for sedition. A day later the accusation was changed: instead of sedition he was accused of heresy, then of apostasy - and publicly hanged on January 18, 1985, the Black Friday of Islam, in Khartoum’s Kobar Jail.

            Ustádh Mahmúd was given the chance to "recant," and thus he could still be alive. Like his wife and daughters he could be in the United States. His supreme sacrifice brought about the fall of a tyrannical government. A few years later this was followed by an even more tyrannical government and the war got worse.

            Nonetheless, the example of the "African Gandhi," as Ustádh Mahmúd was often called, remains a source of inspiration for tens of thousands of Sudanese, both Muslims and Christians. For Muslims he provides an identification, like the ulamá of sixteenth century Morocco. It is this kind of jihád that helps overcome ethnic conflict. It is a jihád akin in spirit to the emancipation struggle of American leaders such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

            Seen against this background, it is pointless to debate whether Islam has been more successful or less successful than Christianity in solving the racial question and tackling ethnic con-flicts. We could aver both, that Islam has failed and that Islam has succeeded. But that would be turning religion into a tool instead of viewing ourselves as servants of the faith.

            Many conquistadors visualized themselves as servants of Christ. We may say that they were perverts. I would not hold that against Christianity; I would not argue that Christianity is a weaker faith than Islam. If I were a Catholic, I would not fault religion with having failed, because I would derive my religious identity from Bar-tolomeo de las Casas, as an example of the victory of the Christian conscience over distortions of the faith.

            This brings us to a crucial point -- the similarity of fate, or the similarity of experience, of our different religious communities. No matter the highest degree of perversion, the light of the just has never been extinguished, neither among Christians nor among Muslims, nor among Jews. From this I derive the firm conviction that the light of the just shineth forth and forth until the perfect day. I am not going to count how many of the just are Jews, or Christians, or Muslims.

            I see us on a train together, a train which I boarded at a station in the realm of Islam, with a lot of luggage, containing many things only Muslims carry around. There is a variety of reasons demanding greater togetherness from us, as followers of major religions, and members of Adam’s Family, and especially Abra-ham’s Family. I even doubt if it is still correct to speak of a demand for togetherness. If I am not mistaken, such unity of pur-pose is imposed upon us by a variety of factors. Given the close-ness of our world and the standard of knowledge attained by hu-manity only ignorance to an extraordinary degree would not realize that we have a common destiny. To my mind, that is where the major problem lies. Many, if not most, of the setbacks suffered by inter-religious harmony are evidently due to such ignorance. For instance, a chief characteristic of our "Anarcho-Islamists" -- ex-tremists resorting to terrorism -- is precisely their appalling igno-rance of Islamic teachings.

            Surely, the people who ignite the flames of communal hatred are generally not so ignorant. In Serbia they are mostly university professors. But this little crowd of egotistic self-promoters suc-ceeds only because of a mass of largely illiterate followers whom they can easily instigate.

            The explosion of knowledge in our time makes togetherness imperative. One of the features that drives this point home with ever increasing frequency is the progress of historic research. Every year we have to revise some of our history writings because of new findings. Aerial photography has led to the discovery of ancient cities buried under the sands of Arabian deserts. Sooner or later this will provide us with important insights not just into Biblical and Qur’anic history, but into the history of monotheism as such. We now possess the means to scan the entire ocean, even at its greatest depth. No more Bermuda Triangle and no more Nessie. Whatever ships and ancient treasures used to lie hidden at the bottom of the sea, they will be brought to light.

            Genetics tell us who is related to whom. Barbers in Morocco and Pashtuns in Afghanistan were said to be descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Today we are in a position to distinguish fact from mythology. We are in for a lot of demystification. Genetics reveal that many a Jew is more Aryan than many a German, and many a German more semitic than many a Jew. This is one of the most challenging sciences. Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the Serb occupants in Bosnia, calls Bosnian President Izetbegovic a Turk. A genetic test might well reveal that Izetbegovic is a pure Slav, and Karadzic 75% Turkish in origin. It may also turn out that both of them are neither this nor that. They may both be of the same Albanian stock. Against mythologists, genetics is a merciless weapon, allowing no KKK member to hide his African, Irish (Catholic) or Jewish share.

            Abraham’s Family will have to acknowledge its indebtedness to earlier forms of monotheism, especially Zoroastrianism. Thanks to improved scientific tools we know now with certainty that Zoroaster lived in 1700 BC, much earlier than previously thought. In other words, old speculations that Judaism owes much to Zoroas-trianism stand confirmed.

            A group of Israeli scientists has arrived at the conclusion that the entire Exodus story is a myth. There never was a parting of the sea, and no 40 years of roaming about in the Sinai. Something similar, on a miniature scale, might have taken place elsewhere. In all likelihood some inspired story-teller enlarged the experience of a little tribe. The event that might have taken place across a river and a desert, was placed into the magical land of Egypt, beyond the Red Sea. To magnify the experience even more, the hostile chief of the other tribe or clan was turned into Pharaoh. Maybe the original narration was enlarged upon by successive generations of grand-parents relating it to their kids.

            We are sure to know more about the evolution of this theme, as well as about other fables in the Bible and the Qur’an. The crucial point is that all of us -- Jews, Christians, and Muslims -- will have to accept that we are dealing here with symbolisms, not necessarily with historical facts. Where our scriptures narrate accurate history, this may be more accidental. The essential thing is the moral vision that is being conveyed, the message delivered.

            Someone may ask why I bring up a topic that has little news value at faculties of Catholic theology or other religion depart-ments. Demythologizing was a hot issue a hundred years ago. I do believe, however, that recent scientific advances have endowed it with a new urgency. Moreover, we Muslims are lagging somewhat behind in coping with this issue.

            We used to take delight in anything proving that the Bible was inaccurate somewhere, somehow, as that would reinforce our belief that the original divine revelation on which the Bible is built has been tampered with. Now the issue has acquired much larger dimensions. It is no longer a question whether a certain detail is narrated more correctly in the Bible or the Qur’an. We can see now quite clearly that those stories can be narrated in a dozen different ways, exchanging numerous details, because the issue is not one of actual history. It is a matter of edification and moral lessons. Once this is fully realized by a larger number of believers, we Muslims might feel less of a necessity to display our super-sessionist attitude toward Jews and Christians. Many phrases in Al-Qur’an will appear to us in a new light.

            If all goes well we may succeed in distilling those messages together, and then use the concentrate to produce a juice that is equally agreeable to all of us. Probably we will have to produce a variety of drinks because of different tastes. But we shall do so with the awareness that it is all from the same concentrate. As a joint enterprise, the process of production and consumption should keep us together, in a way unseen before.

            This will bring us close to the Sufi vision of one essential truth that people express differently, each one according to his capacity and natural disposition. Leonard Swidler, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Raimundo Panikkar and others call this a Universal Theology of Religion. I hope I do not vulgarize this concept beyond repair, but I broach the issue with a deep felt sense of urgency. I am fully aware how shocking such relativism is to many who seek solace in the mysteries of faith enshrined in their respective tradition. At the same time, however, I believe that we can no longer afford to brush relativism aside as inadmissible. There are two major reasons com-pelling us to open up to relativism and to find more responsive ways of coping with it.

            First, on the level of faith, or intimate religious belief, we may not be truly at peace with ourselves as long as we stick to dis-tinctions known to be construed. I believe that most of us need some congruency between the tenets of our faith and our academic discernment.

            Second, religious relativism, as part of cultural relativism, is a potent weapon against ethnic conflict. We are living in the midst of increasing ethnic conflict. Many times such conflicts take place between members of the same faith. Hutus and Tutsis are Catho-lics and slaughter each other preferably in churches. Muhajirs and Sindhis are Muslims and slaughter each other preferably in mos-ques. Elsewhere, however, religion is a major factor in ethnic con-flict, for instance between Muslims and Christians in Bosnia and Chechnya, in the Philippines and Nigeria. It is the major cause of conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India, between Buddhists and Muslims in Burma.

            One way of combating such communal frenzy is to create an awareness of the relativity of our religious practices -- and even beliefs. Can we afford to desist from emphasizing this relativity in order to safeguard our uniqueness?

            The improvement of communication leads to an increase of conversions. In my study on the Muslim Diaspora in the West I dedicated a chapter to the analysis of the conversion of Westerners to Islam -- in Western Europe and North America. It then occurred to me to add a few pages on the phenomenon of the conversion of Muslims to other religions. That developed into another chapter. It is a huge and fascinating subject. For one reason or another this is much less talked about than conversions from Christianity to Islam.

            The crux of the matter is that we live in a time that is not so much characterized by the advance of one religion against the others. The real chief characteristic is that conversions are taking place with greater frequency than probably at any time before. There is an enormous coming and going between the religions.

            Illustration: At my home here in Washington presently a lady from Kenya is staying with us, a devout Catholic. As her name indicates, Salima was born and reared a Muslim, but converted to Catholicism out of conviction. There was no missionary effort in-volved. Every other day she comes across my sister-in-law, who was raised as a Catholic and had her four children raised as Ca-tholics, but recently converted to Islam. Both ladies are of the same age, come from the same city and social milieu. They have more or less the same ethnic origin, their mothers belonging to the same tribe and they were socialized as Kikuyus.

            To my mind this poses numerous challenges to all of us. Will we be able to accept any conversion, no matter from what to what (within the Abrahamic Family at least) as a turning toward God? As such we would have to value it positively, even if it means a nu-merical "loss" to our ancestral community. Many of the converts I know had little commitment to their religion before. When they converts converted, be it as Muslims to Christianity or as Christians to Islam, they became committed. Often the conversion is a dis-covery of religion where there was a void before. Sometimes con-versions of Christians to Islam are hardly different from Christ-ian’s turning toward religion within his inherited Christian faith, or, for that matter, a Muslim turning from irreligiosity to religiosity -- within his inherited Islamic faith. In truly pluralistic and increasingly multi-cultural societies we are bound to witness a further increase of such voluntary choice of religion and change from one com-munity to another. Despite all the bitterness between Muslims and Jews as a result of the Palestinian conflict, there exist a couple of thousand Jewish converts to Islam, mostly intellectuals who have chosen the path of the Sufis, and say many of their prayers in Arabic.

            Does this not demand intense interaction within the Family of Abraham? If we do not come to a new understanding of each reli-gion’s uniqueness, this phenomenon of conversion will turn into a disruptive force in society. Simmering ethnic antagonisms, always on a lookout for pretexts, will be stimulated into eruption.

            Example: In Egypt a myth prevails that Muslims are Arabs in origin, whereas Copts are Pharaonic. Many regard the antagonism between the two communities as an ethnic conflict. Genetic tests would reveal this to be utter nonsense. Under the present circum-stances, however, conversions are seen as a betrayal of one’s nationality, as high treason.

            As Muslims we ought to be more humble and learn to accept that mere adherence to Islam by birth is no special qualification. In the eighties, while working in Germany, I used to be consulted by the courts in hundreds of cases of Muslims who claimed to have converted to Christianity as a means of obtaining a permanent residency permit. They came from all nationalities in the Muslim world, clearly demonstrating that no religion has a magical hold on its adherents. Religious tenets have to be judged on their own merit.

            The belief that it would be beneficial for all people to join one and the same religion is ill-founded. When prohibition was enforced in Pakistan, tens of thousands of Muslims tried to pass off as members of minority communities, that is, they posed as non-Muslims for the sake of a drink. The same happened when zakát was introduced as a kind of church tax. Similar examples can be adduced from many parts of the world.

            Does this not teach us that the values that we uphold as truly Islamic are sometimes more manifest among non-Muslims than among Muslims? Sometimes it is the other way round. I know a number of clergymen in Europe who harp on the theme of "the Turk as the better believer," causing their parishioners remorse by admonishing them to carefully observe the Muslim minority as the surest way of learning what religion is all about. Those men of the church avail themselves of the presence of Muslim neighbors the way I call AAA to jump start my car. But elsewhere it is the Christian or the Jewish neighbor whose faith is intact.

            I do not wish to frighten believers away from inter-religious dialogue by pleading for an amalgam of monotheistic faiths or by proposing a synthesis. Historical experience shows that this is not a very promising enterprise anyhow. Islam started with the primor-dial impetus of providing a common platform for all monotheists. In India the Sikh religion grew out of an attempt at synthesizing Islam and Hinduism. Baha’ism, to my mind, picked up the original as-piration of Islam. In each of these cases the proposed new platform turned into yet another religious community, increasing the number of competing doctrinal systems rather than reducing it.

            The requirement seems to be oneness without effacing in-dividuality. Is this a contradiction in terms? To prove that it is not we need to pray together. For the last forty years I have been praying together with believers of many religions. Back in 1958 a Jesuit friend of mine joined us in prayer in a Pakistani village mosque, kneeling in his Catholic style, but in one row with us Muslims -- every day. People loved it. On one occasion I had forty Jews reciting Al-Qur’an with me, aloud. True, for a moment I felt like Ali Baba. But in retrospect that was one of the great days in my life -- like a vision of the future.

            For this reason I feel bewildered on hearing, occasionally here in the United States, that we, Jews, Christians,and Muslims, do everything together, except pray jointly. Without joint prayer I see little hope for overcoming religious strife, and especially ethno-religious conflict. If we pray together more frequently, or even regularly, this need not prevent us from praying also separately, community-wise, following the rituals of our respective tradition. I feel greatly encouraged by a number of Jewish efforts to devise ecumenical prayers. My own spiritual home in Spain is a group called CRISLAM. We have published several such prayer books, following the motto of the 13th century mystic Muhyuddin Ibn ‘Arabi of Murcia: