CHAPTER XIV
TRUE AND FALSE PLURALISM IN
RELATION TO
THE WEST AND ISLAM
RICHARD
K. KHURI
Why has “pluralism” become such an important word? Some assert that
people have lost the sense of who they are and, thus, have become insecure among
neighbors affiliated with other groups. The Romans knew who they were and so
could draw a bewildering variety of peoples into their empire. The greatest
Roman philosopher came from Upper Egypt and wrote in Greek and an Arab enjoyed a
brief reign as emperor. The United States itself has yet to attain such depth of
integration or assimilation. It is quite difficult for a Catholic of Western
European ancestry to become president, let alone someone of non-European origins
whose family has lived here for generations. It is at present inconceivable that
this country's leading intellectuals have anything other than a European
background. But is the need to assert ones identity the main reason why
discussions about pluralism have come to the fore?
People have been exposed to world views other than their own for
thousands of years. In ancient Greece, Xenophanes wondered about the
implications of each culture having its own image of the divine. He contributed
in no small measure towards the expression of a purer form of transcendence. The
Phoenicians were well aware of civilizational diversity through trade and
travel. It left them unperturbed. The same kind of exposure, far from forcing
retrenchment, impelled the ancient Greeks towards the development of a cultural
framework that in Hellenized form would spread throughout the Mediterranean
basin and t, thence, eastwards to Mesopotamia, Persia and India. That framework,
contrary to the wishes of nineteenth-century European philologists and
historians eager to reinforce their belief in the West's superiority, is now
known to have gathered extensive Eastern and Egyptian sources into itself. The
Hellenism that would eventually be adopted by a confident
Islam was no stranger to the lands then ruled by Muslims.
It is also true, however, that it was far easier before our time to live as
though there were no other world views. There were many more pockets of
homogeneity1 all over the world, many more people who could lead
their daily lives in the bliss of stable creeds, without dozens of intrusions
that politely or rudely exposed them to other ways. Beliefs cannot sink deeply
enough if they are constantly questioned. Life would become unbearably tenuous
were one to treat its guidelines and inner thread as subject to change at a
moment's notice. Ours is an oasis of intensity
of juxtaposition: too many people, too many world views on top of each
other, physically and mentally, propelled towards the absurd theoretical limit
where every person is potentially exposed to every possible world view (or
pseudo-world view) at all times. If one must take a world view seriously in
order to live, then it is life itself, life lived fully, that is at stake. The
identity crisis of which many speak is but a symptom of the threat to life
itself.
Pluralism is nothing new. One can even argue that it is necessary at a
fundamental level, given that humanity is faced with the need to interpret
something infinite in finite terms and so must live with the incompleteness and , thence, multiplicity of whatever interpretations take hold.
The novelty lies rather in the intensity with which pluralism must be lived --
an intensity more and more obvious in our physical environment and mental
landscape. The large question here ought to be how one copes with and overcomes
such pluralistic intensity. Alas, this would lead us too far from the thematic
concerns of the discussions of which this paper should form an integral part.
Nevertheless, as we become acquainted with the distinction between true and
false pluralism, some refracted light may illuminate some of that large
question's nearer reaches.
Pluralistic intensity is corrosive. When too many world views are hurled
at too many people for too long, they soon seem to have the same value, be they
wrought with toil or born half in jest, divinely inspired or the nightmares of
madmen, timeless traditions or today's fashions. This corrosive process is
accentuated by the demands made by pluralistic intensity on cultural and
political life, especially the creation of a framework for the management of
that intensity. This framework alone gains consensus, so it exceeds any
particular world view in apparent importance. The meaning of “democracy,”
“free-market economics,” “free choice,” empowerment,” and the nexus of
terms built around them are now deeply interwoven with such developments. The
framework for the management of pluralistic intensity becomes the sole absolute
in which every world view is relativized. Thus pluralism collapses into
relativism.
The difference between relativism and pluralism is worth remembering,
given what has just been said. Relativists deny that there is any reality that
transcends personal whims, tastes and preferences. If some people believe that
no harm should come to children, others might not. The first belief may be
better than the second, but this does not rest on universal grounds. A close
examination of relativist methodology will show that the problem is set up in a
manner so as to preclude the very possibility of transcendence, in part by
confusing it with objectivity, as though moral beliefs with universal import
could only gain their status through a process more suitable for highly
litigious societies. There is the further problem that relativism becomes
incoherent when its own logic is pushed to its limits. But these neither seem to
extinguish the appeal that relativism continues to hold for certain people nor
alter the fact that its moral subversiveness is perfectly suitable for further
expansions of the marketplace.
Pluralism entails neither the denial nor the affirmation of
transcendence. A pluralist who holds transcendent reality dear merely concedes
that it is extremely difficult to embody it in a definitive interpretation. One
readily acknowledges the presence of several world religions and the stable
equilibrium that they approach in their global spread. But one need not conclude
from such multiplicity that Truth is itself multiple -- just that it defies
invariant linguistic formulation. A moral pluralist will point out, furthermore,
that many situations present us with genuine dilemmas, so that it is hard to
imagine moral strictures for which there are no exceptions. For instance, is
capital punishment always wrong, even if the guilty person were a serial killer
of children? Is honoring abusive parents right? Should Muslims fast by daylight
north of the Arctic Circle when Ramadan occurs in the summer (or winter for that
matter)? Is one bound to a promise the keeping of which might endanger ones
life?
The foregoing allows us to distinguish between true and false pluralism.
False pluralism obtains when there are several choices to be made within the
same framework, so that the framework reigns supreme and all choices have equal
value within it (“status” becomes “value” in no time at all). This is
not pluralism at all, but a kind of monolithism. No one dares criticize
democracy or capitalism in the United States, whereas the most vulgar
blasphemies are permitted. (The reader ought to keep in mind what was mentioned
earlier about the shift in the meaning of “democracy” -- democratic practice
can either set the tone for true or false pluralism but in itself cannot decide
the issue.) Nothing illustrates more poignantly that democracy and capitalism,
neither of which is a world view or even pretends to be, are valued far more
than the most resonant, far-reaching world views.
True pluralism, in contrast, involves coexistence between profoundly
different world views valued and acknowledged for what
they really are. Its topography is varied, as opposed to the flat terrain of
false pluralism. Transcendence is given its due, as is the chronic difficulty of
reducing it to a single embodiment, however sacred, inspired and ingenious. A
sense of urgency surrounds the personal choices made in the context of true
pluralism. Indeed, the inappropriateness of “choice” for how one pursues a
certain path is recognized in order to emphasize that personality is not to be
regarded as casually as dress. Some urgency also surrounds political choices.
For in the context of true pluralism, contesting parties have significantly
differing visions of the polity in question.
The distinction between true and false pluralism has some bearing on the
large question hovering over this paper, namely, how we deal with and overcome
pluralistic intensity. One way would be for us not to lose sight of the
variegated topography of our intensely pluralistic world, not to be tempted by
the simplicity of the flat terrain of false pluralism and forget the hard work
it takes to keep what really matters in view.
We shall presently turn to the Arab Muslim world. But it may be fruitful
to first briefly examine where pluralism stands in the United States. After all,
it is with the United States in mind that we bring the discussion of cultural
diversity to bear on the Arab Muslim world.
True pluralism no longer thrives in the usual domains in the United
States. Those who have lived here long enough will readily notice that major
elections no longer present voters with meaningful choices. The system is set up
so as to practically exclude third parties and the nontrivial divide between the
two persistently dominant parties grows ever narrower. Voter apathy is a symptom
of political uniformity, exacerbated by victory in the Cold War and the
pervasive sentiment that no better political alternative is even conceivable.
The uniformity has spilled over into the domain of those for whom
meaningful democratic practice had been vouchsafed. The press reports and
comments on major political, economic and cultural developments with a chilling
sameness. No conspiracy or overt totalitarianism would succeed in attaining the
same level of uniformity as that which spontaneously bedevils the media in the
United States. That the media have been integrated into larger corporate
structures that have similar interests does not explain the whole story. It
remains to be determined how a society self-consciously founded to maximize
opportunities for individual expression and religious freedom has become hostage
to commercial forces. Part of the answer lies in the ascendancy of the framework
for the management of pluralistic intensity at the expense of the competing,
juxtaposed world views that originally justified its presence. When the
framework is all that matters, all news and analysis become the same. When all
news and analysis become the same, business becomes the business of most people.
The danger is that it may devour everything else.
The universities would ordinarily be islands of true pluralism in such
bleak intellectual and spiritual surroundings. But they have not been spared.
Students in the natural and applied sciences, as well as at business schools,
are taught from the first day to exclude themselves from their work, let alone
express their opinions about anything, to a degree that would have exceeded the
expectations of Marx and Lenin. The use of the first personal pronoun is
strictly forbidden. The social sciences, ill-conceived as sciences in the first
place owing to conditions specific to the dominant culture of late
nineteenth-century Europe, try as hard as possible to imitate the natural or at
least applied sciences. To the extent that they fail, they join the humanities
in their predicament.
Students and professors (particularly junior members among the latter)
are required either to follow the prevalent orthodoxy, often modeled along
pseudoscientific lines, or join a faction of the official “rebel” coalition
(some fashionable “-ism,” or other), in either case to the serious detriment
of the pursuit of knowledge and truth for their own sake, not to mention the
cultivation of creativity and independent thought in their light. The
universities have also become victims of the commercial invasion: More and more
brand name products are now advertised and sold openly on campus, particularly
those of the purveyors of fast foods, whereas none were to be seen a mere
generation ago.
A situation has spontaneously arisen wherein the political
order, the media and the universities, which drive and are driven by an ever
stronger and louder economic engine, systematically combine to expunge true
pluralism from the horizons of a generation of young people. Wherever the United
States seeks to promote or impose more pluralistic ways, from Mexico to Nigeria
to Iran to Russia, China and Indonesia, the door is therefore simultaneously
forced wide open for false pluralism. The search for true pluralism in the
United States, hence, has global implications.
Where in the United States do we find true pluralism? For all the noise
generated by the forces of false pluralism, human nature and cultural traditions
are such that we remain a long way off from the monstrosity of an entire
populace herded into uniformity. Let us begin at the university, where we ended
our gloomy provisional portrait. One always finds the odd professor here and
there, more often than not from the older generation, who is an inspiration. At
a time when the University of California at Berkeley was, in the words of its
own chancellor, turning itself into an education factory, Czeslaw Milosz and
Paul Feyerabend became professors there. So long as large numbers of students
have to read Plato, Aristotle and Shakespeare, there will be enough whose
natural intelligence and astuteness will show up much that passes for culture
today -- including much that has infiltrated many of the courses they must
enroll in -- as rubbish. Many good universities have become a magnet for
off-campus activities that sometimes offer better opportunities for cultivation
than the universities themselves. Students who take the initiative and find the
time thus have other means to overcome uniformity.
The foregoing may seem to have little to do with Islam and cultural
diversity. In fact, it has everything to do with it. The internal forces that
endeavor to place diversity on a firmer footing in the Arab Muslim world would
do well to become acquainted with its fate where it is believed to have its
strongest and best expression. And those that pressure the Arab Muslim world in
the same direction, from without ought to look at themselves in the mirror and
see what they are and what it is precisely that they are after. And so we
continue with our perforce quick survey of true pluralism in the United States.
It might as well be said at this stage that true pluralism is more genuinely
there informally than formally. Other informal signs of true pluralism in the
United States are:
(a)
In neighborhoods (usually ethnically based), small towns
and among various community organizations, one encounters attitudes and rhythms
of life that fall well outside of the aforementioned uniformity.
(b)
There are growing numbers of small reading groups that
quietly sustain the ability of individual members to think for themselves.
(c)
Around a million people have removed television sets from
their homes.
(d)
Movements have formed such as the Promise Keepers, who are
not fundamentalists. They simply reject the dominant culture and wish to uphold
time-honored moral values. Other movements, such as the Black Muslims, are
taking matters into their own hands in certain urban areas in order to rid them
from crime and drugs and provide social services. This is not to say that the
Black Muslims themselves are pluralists, but that their very existence is
confirmation that true pluralism continues to thrive in the United States.
It is a rather surprising result that the United States, conceived as a
champion of pluralism, should end by harboring it mainly informally. But the
informality in this case is not to be compared with the clever ways in which
Hungarians under Kadar or Egyptians under Nasser could express themselves, for
it is constitutionally guaranteed. True pluralism lies at the heart of the
self-image with which generations of North Americans have grown up: it is deeply
resonant. It would take a tremendous exercise of sustained usurpation to bring
citizens to the point where they are unable to distinguish between the true and
the false. There are enduring legal and moral grounds for rebellion against such
usurpation. What is at present informal may become formal in the not too distant
future. We just happen to live at a time when the formal expression of pluralism
in the United States has become bankrupt. But it also happens that the United
States has reached the apogee of its power at precisely this time.
How Islam stands in relation to pluralism depends on how Muslims regard
morality. Morality informs public life more explicitly in the Arab Muslim world
than it does in the secularized West. No doubt, the ruling elites frequently
depart from that morality. But this only deepens the resentment among the ruled,
for their expectation is that the example set be radically otherwise. It would,
therefore, help us to contrast “outer” with “inner” morality. These turn
out to relate respectively to monolithism and (true) pluralism.
Self-aware and self-critical persons run into many occasions that afford
them the opportunity to discover their limitations. The discovery of moral
limitations is usually a powerful and often painful experience. A swell of good
fortune comes crashing down if allowed to grow into hubris. The broad interior
expanses with which one may be graced contract excruciatingly through indolence
or some other inability to sustain them. Confidence crests and falls. Devotion
to something valuable leads to the neglect of another. Ideals that seem so sound
to our minds demand physical and emotional exertions that turn out to be beyond
us. Above all, those who are keenly aware of a divine presence know just how
limited humanity is. This is no more apparent than when humans try to act as
though they were gods and promptly visit a catalogue of horrors upon their
brethren.
In such familiar experiences, we find the basis for our responsiveness to
moral commands, particularly those that express strictures. The "Thou shalt
not,” even if given through revelation, would meet with contemptuous
indifference were it not in harmony with the very fabric of human moral life.
There are limits (huciud) because
humanity is grounded by limits over and over again -- limits that seem to touch
on the essence of what it is to be human. It would be silly to think of this as
a problem. It is just the way things are with humanity. The problem begins when
it is forgotten that morality has a positive source, that morality is also to be
propelled by values before it doubles up as a warning that we not exceed our
limitations, that it is a transcendence of nature even as nature keeps it
earthbound. The problem begins when those who see morality only as hudud
want to see to it that all are held to the same hudud,
for only thus can they be satisfied that morality is respected. The problem
is compounded when those unable to see beyond morality-as-hudud, owing to that
very limitation, inflate the list of hudud
to an absurd degree, so that morality, originally a source of freedom,
metamorphoses into the worst kind of slavery -- for those in need of strictures
for everything are incapable of anything.
Very roughly, then, outer morality has to do with our limitations. It has
to do with the “negative” source of our moral observances. Moral strictures
matter because we are all too aware of our fallibility. What then is inner
morality? Inner morality has to do with the mystery of our affinity for
transcendent values. We are deeply moved by goodness, generosity, charity, mercy
and justice. These have intrinsic appeal. Were it not for this, we would again
be indifferent to what has been brought to us from the heavens. As difficult as
the definition of transcendent values may be -- a difficulty at the core of the
Socratic and Platonic corpus -- Plato saw quite clearly that we respond to those
values, that we walk around as though filled with otherworldly deposits, given
that nothing natural (in the traditional and modern sense) suggests them. This
has always been the inner force of the best moral philosophy, namely, that it
can count on our ability to discover the direct presence of positive values
through illumination, inspiration or some other kind of gift -- gifts that
revelation itself must count on in order to spread in a spirit of mercy rather
than fear.
Without undue oversimplification, it can be stated that whenever and
wherever outer morality reigned supreme in the Arab Muslim world, there was no
pluralism to speak of; whereas a keen sensitivity to inner morality usually led
to the acceptance of otherness in a manner that would at least correspond with
our contemporary notion of true pluralism. The Arab Muslim world has not yet
reached conditions that would give rise to false pluralism, although, as we have
said, it is likely to sweep in with changes that so many anticipate with fully
understandable eagerness. Besides, a mentality unable to pass beyond the
strictural aspect of morality can easily come to rest in an absolutized
framework and vice versa, which is why millions in the United States have become
fundamentalists. But the strange equivalence between monolithism and false
pluralism is worthy of our attention on another occasion.
Scholars and others familiar with the history of the Arab Muslim world
may object that whatever approximates our notion of true pluralism often
obtained for purely pragmatic reasons. In this, they would be largely correct.
But the problem lay with pragmatism itself. It simply does not form a solid
enough foundation for the acceptance of the other. Pragmatic considerations make
one a pluralist today, a monolithist tomorrow. Consider the case of the late
Anwar Sadat, often regarded as the paradigm for acceptance of otherness in the
Arab world. It is now almost forgotten that the same man unleashed the forces of
Muslim extremism for several years in order to consolidate his rule, which
required that Egyptians be purged from the aftereffects of the Nasserist epic.
Nearly twenty years after his assassination, Egyptians continue to bear the
burden of Sadat's pragmatism.
Whether we are Muslims or not, it must be acknowledged that the prophet
of Islam had a sustained encounter with the infinite, with divine presence. The
embodiment of that encounter is testimony to the impossibility of
interpretational permanence. The Qur'an is a book forever capable of generating
new interpretations that differ significantly from the old. It also refers
explicitly to other ways towards the infinite, for other monotheistic faiths are
recognized. If one seeks it, one may even find implicit acceptance of every
striving for the divine, because there is a primordial Islam that refers to
humanity's general and natural religious disposition.
In short, the Mohammedan experience, its embodiments and immediate consequences, provide a solid foundation for true
pluralism, which as was stated at the outset is fundamentally derived from the
inadequacy of the finite before the infinite, from the extusiveness of Truth to
linguistic expression. •Were the whole world to exclaim “God is great!”
there would still be no way to fix the meaning of “God” for every place and
time, not even for a single place and time. What is inwardly beheld as the
deepest truth can never be made linguistically transparent.
It is, therefore, no accident that (a) there are several schools of
jurisprudence for the drafting of laws, (b) Muslims were able to engage in
Qu'ranic interpretation in a wide diversity of ways for many centuries, even
occasionally departing from the notion that it was never created or that it is
literally the word of God, and (c) they have managed to coexist with Christians,
Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians and pagans (especially in Africa) in many
places and over several eras. Above all, many Muslims have awakened to the
spiritual reality of the Mohammedan experience and have sought to recapture it
in their own lives. Many orders were built around that quest. It is because
Sufis have had access to the inner aspect of religion and , hence, morality,
that they have frequently been at peace with others in a manner untouched by the
vicissitudes to which pragmatists must submit.
And yet, just as the role of imperial politics in the establishment of
Christendom distorted its relationship with Christianity, so did the fact of the
prophet Mohammed's political leadership permanently justify the pragmatic visage
of Islamdom. And since those who have overseen pragmatic politics have rarely
enjoyed the founder of Islam's qualities, they were bound to have allowed their
pragmatism to be governed by baser ends. A selective review of how pluralism has
been undermined within Islamdom should suffice for our purposes.
Intra-Islamic pluralism has receded in many ways. It is most visible in
the suppression or absorption of Sufism throughout North Africa and in Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Central Asia outside of Tadzhikistan. In Fatimid
times, Isma’ilism extended from the Maghreb to the domain of the Samanids in
and around what is now Uzbekistan. Al-Azhar and the city that hosts it were
founded by the Fatimids. Today, Isma'ilism is confined to tiny minorities in
Syria, Iran, Pakistan and India, and is refracted by the small Druze and `Alawi
sects. The suppression of Shi'ism often had pragmatic motives. When the Turks
were in the ascendant, for instance, they saw fit to promote Sunnism because
they believed it offered them the best chance for establishing a stable polity
and gaining the allegiance of non-Turkish Muslims.
Even among Sunni Muslims, mostly outside of the Near East, one school of
jurisprudence or another predominates. As a result, it has been possible to form
habits that have helped some regard the shari'a in its entirety as divinely
inspired. For when generations of Muslims grow up with a single method for the
derivation of laws, and those laws themselves remain constant, it is not long
before their constancy is confused with the eternity of lslam's divine origins.
Sufism is also suppressed in many areas of the Arab Muslim world and is
otherwise often regarded with suspicion. This is primarily because those who
confuse morals and religion with their outer aspect have become so distant from
the inner aspect that it greatly disturbs them to see that others have access to
it. It is a timeless human failing: Whether it be in American education or in
the practice of a world religion, there will always be those who cannot rest
until everyone else is brought down to their level. In a similar vein, some
people can see religious practice endure only through the imposition of its
outer forms. For them, emphasis on its inner dimensions is the province of
collaborators and other kinds of traitors and weaklings. Such jaundice has done
Sufism so much harm that its current revival veers dangerously towards Islamism.
It seems that many contemporary Sufis, mindful of the accusations leveled at
them, wish to assure skeptics that they too are at the forefront of the militant
defense of Islamdom. The projection of Islam abroad as an adversary does not
help the cause of authentic spirituality either.
The most delicate issue that is relevant to our discussion of pluralism
is the potential controversy surrounding the Qur'an itself. After centuries of
exempting the Qur'an as such from any serious discussion, Muslims have brought a
crisis upon themselves. If to discuss the Qur'an as such is to deny its divine
status, which is what many Muslims believe, and if such discussion is
inevitable, as it seems to be, then Muslims will be split between those accused
of denying the Qur'an's sacredness and those who defend it ever more
vociferously and, perhaps, violently. This dialectic will pressure those who are
willing to resume such serious
discussion into weakening their allegiance to Islam.
It is not for a non-Muslim to suggest to Muslims, let alone tell them,
how they might deal with the Qur'an so as to assure the viability of how Muslims
regard it in the long run. It certainly does not help to assign too much
importance to the Mu’tazilites, who were willing to consider the Qur'an as a
created work. In the present circumstances, Western enthusiasm for the
Mu'tazilites will only serve to intensify the scorn heaped upon them by many
Muslims. One must also recall that, when the Mu'tazilites were officially
recognized as the leading school by the `Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun, they promptly
quelled all dissent. If the Hanbalis, now influential in the Sudan and Saudi
Arabia, have shown themselves to be monolithic, this is in no small measure due
to what they had suffered under the supposedly enlightened Mu'tazilites.
The examples of al-Ghazzali and al-Maturidi are perhaps much more
promising. Both religious thinkers have been widely revered by Sunnis,
especially followers of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. Both suggested that
the Book of God lay permanently in Heaven. The Qur'an happens to be an Arabic
translation (or version) of that Book. This is a subtle reference to what
happens when the eternal is embodied in a human language. Hanafis today may find
it hard to believe that such thoughts were openly expressed and regarded as
entirely legitimate. How they find themselves, as such, removed from al-Ghazzali
and al-Maturidi (both unquestionably devout Muslims of the first order) may
constitute the beginning of a fruitful process of self-criticism.
There is also the practical matter of the circumstances under which the
verses of the Qur'an were gathered into a definitive edition. Some Muslims like
Muhammad Arkoun point out that those circumstances were controversial. It is
said that those who had recited the Qur'an before it was written down walked out
of the meetings that would make it lapidary. It is said that other Muslims with
great standing in the community were disturbed by the process of selection. If
this is true, then it will not be possible to simply wish the controversy away.
Muslims may have to face the challenge one day of disengaging the sacredness of
the Qur'an from the exact same text that was put together during the caliphate
of ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan under conditions highly charged with competing
political interests.
Again, the situation is complicated by Western attitudes towards Islam.
It is highly unlikely that Muslims will even contemplate serious discussion of
the Qur'an while they feel under assault. It is quite easy to accuse any Muslim
who wishes to resume that discussion, after a hiatus of more than eight hundred
years, of undermining Islam at its core in its hour of need. The dynamics of
global politics may be such as to necessitate monolithic Islamic governance that
will gradually, with confidence somewhat restored, come to the realization that
the sacredness of the Qur'an does not depend on every word gathered into the
written ‘Uthmanic text. In this connection, one observes the current
transformations in ban's Islamic government with great interest. However, we are
anticipating the restoration of pluralism before we have sufficiently considered
how it has been undermined.
The other kind of relapse into monolithism that concerns us here relates
to how Muslims treated other communities under their rule. However, let it be
remembered that it took six centuries for the population in the Near East to
shift from its Christian majority to one that is Muslim. This shows that Muslims
by and large eschewed forced conversions. They had enough confidence in
themselves and their faith not to require that it be universally followed. For
long periods of time and in many places, their treatment of other communities
was unprecedented in its openness and generosity. One need only contrast this
with what happened to non-Christians, apart from small numbers of Jews and to
dissenting Christians, throughout most
of Europe after it became Christianized.
Alas, prolonged dominance has its own temptations. Eventually, the
social, economic and political pressures created by Muslim rule were such that
conditions favored the conversion of all but the staunchest adherents to other
faiths (which may account for why their remnants are often hostile towards
Islam). By the middle of the ‘Abbasid caliphate, for instance, it was almost
impossible for a Christian to reach a decent station in life. Social services,
education, professional occupations and bureaucratic positions became
exclusively available to Muslims. When the Seljuq Turks came to power, they
consolidated that tendency by effectively establishing the first Islamic state
(in the quasi-modern sense) and building institutions designed only to promote
Islamic interests. It is under these conditions that the majority of the
population in the Near East finally became Muslim.
In the Middle Ages, Islamic rule would , hence, lead to the disappearance
of Buddhism from Iran and its drastic contraction in Central Asia. Anatolia
shifted from being entirely Christian to having a large Muslim majority in a
very short time. Christianity has vanished among the native peoples of the
Maghreb. The traces of Hinduism that survive in Indonesia are so vague that
anthropologists continuously debate their extent, and Indonesian Muslims are
able to deny that there is any syncretism at all.
Non-Muslim communities that survived were periodically subjected to
humiliating regulations far from the spirit of the Qur'an and what its letter
calls for. For example, non-Muslims were required to walk on a different side of
the street than Muslims and walk on foot or, when Muslims could use horses,
restricted to donkeys and mules. In the Balkans, Christians were forced to build
churches so that the roof would be lower than the line of sight of Muslim
passersby. They were also disarmed and left at the mercy of local Muslim
militias whose excesses were not reported to the Sultan. Such practices
continued until well into the nineteenth century and, thus, persisted under the
millet system, introduced by the Ottomans, which Western and many scholars in
the Arab Muslim world look up to.
The nadir of Muslim relations with other communities under their rule was
reached when it became clear that the European colonial expansion could not be
stopped. Between the middle of the nineteenth and the end of the twentieth
century, the horrific conjunction of nationalism and religious fanaticism has
led to the massacre, deliberate starvation and/or mass deportation of
non-Muslims in Nigeria, the Sudan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and East
Timor. Except for the Hindus who lost out through the creation of Pakistan in
1947, all the affected communities were Christian. This is no accident, for amid
the madness that gives rise to wanton violence, it is impossible to distinguish
between the colonial project conceived by secular and thus only nominally
Christian forces in Europe and very different kinds of Christian communities
scattered throughout much of the Arab Muslim world. The confusion dissolves the
latter into a mere extension of the former.
It is customary to ascribe the retreat from pluralism in the Arab Muslim
world to the decline of Islamicate civilization and the acceleration of this by
European ascendancy, a process continued by contemporary American hegemony. But
many of the unfortunate developments mentioned in the foregoing two sections go
back much further, as should be already apparent. The suppression of Shi’ism
and Sufism have long had a dynamic strictly internal to Islam. They were,
respectively, the consequence of political expediency and endemic suspicion or
literal-mindedness. For example, before the Ottomans engaged in a long conflict
with Safavid Persia, the Shi'a and several heterodox sects enjoyed broad
tolerance. The exigencies of the Ottoman-Safavid rivalry combined with pressures
from provincial religious leaders in the conquered Arab lands to force the
imposition of a more narrow-minded Sunnism. All this had nothing to do with
Europe.
The Ottoman turn against Shi'ism, most violently expressed in the
systematic attempt to destroy Shi'a culture in South Lebanon late in the
eighteenth century, is but one in a long series of actions taken by
pragmatically minded Sunni rulers who had no time for the seriousness with which
the Shi'a often took the ideal of maintaining a leadership in the image of the
purity of the House of the Prophet, if not within members of that House itself.
The logic of and motives for the establishment of Islam as a state religion
under the Seljuq Turks were independent from the activities of foreign powers.
The waves of puritanical movements that sprang forth from the Maghreb had only
the collective expression of Islamic zeal in mind. Their leaders were far more
interested in banishing music, song and dance from the halls of Andalusia and in
brutally imposing the fast and the veil, than in the relentless
Castillian-Aragonese drive southward. Puritanical movements came to life in
Arabia and elsewhere later on because some Muslims were concerned with the
degree to which Islam had become emaciated.
When Western powers intruded upon the Arab Muslim world, the forces that
would cause a steady retreat from pluralism had already been set in motion. The
fuel for the defense of the realm was simply poured onto the fire of religious
reform (and thanks to the example set by pragmatists, religious reformers and
revivalists have found ample precedent for the establishment of Islamic states).
The FIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and the Jamiat Islami, different as
they are in their programs and methods, must be viewed in that light.
For all that, we have yet to uncover the grounds for the retreat from
pluralism adequately. Once more, we must turn to a persistent human failing. Among
human beings, the line between monotheism and monolithism is exceedingly
thin. Those who appreciate the implications of monotheism, strict or otherwise,
understand that Oneness entails an infinite capacity for generating and holding
all things together, with full regard for the integrity of the individuals thereby unified. If
this were not so, just to produce one among many possible arguments, it would
make no sense to exhort people towards some action rather than another. They
would have no choice but to do what is right. They would in effect be
programmed.
It is sad but true that too many people are unable to understand Oneness
except so as to entail conformity and even uniformity. Too many people are
unable to grow sufficiently with and into their beliefs and to no longer demand
that everyone around them show the identical outward signs that are imagined to
attach to those beliefs. Too many people fail to distinguish between the fact
that hydrogen can always be represented by the symbol “H” (although this is
misleading in many situations, but the story of such a fascinating turn of
events belongs to a paper on the philosophy of chemistry) though the truth of
which is far deeper than that of a chemical element and the fact that true
beliefs are not so easily represented. Indeed, a belief, in the proper sense of
something that one holds dear to ones heart and soul, something to which one is
devoted and owes allegiance, cannot be represented at all. Beliefs relate to a
Presence and not to something represented. Too many people are nevertheless
limited by the ridiculous choice between the uniform “representation” of
Oneness and its denial. Such people are the prisoners of elementary logic. If
they happen to be religious zealots, then they commit the worst offense against
themselves, for in holding Oneness to the level of elementary logic, they
blaspheme against It.
There never seem to be enough human beings who can live with the
paradoxes of monotheism. To accept these paradoxes means to forgo the childish
"proofs" that so many seem in need of to assure themselves of the
soundness of their beliefs. It means to forgo any proof whatsoever in the usual
sense. It means that one must attain, through gift or effort or both, awareness
of what monotheism really entails, namely, to say it again, the acknowledgement
of an (that is ONE) infinite capacity for the generation and gathering of all
things. That this defies all logic should hardly trouble the monotheist, for
logic, like all things, must bow before the Root of monotheistic faiths.
The retreat from pluralism in its Arab Muslim context and the West's
lapse into relativism express similar human failings. Both feed on an endemic
intolerance for paradox. From a logical point of view, of course, it is not easy
to sustain paradox, particularly when this concerns the center of ones life. One
cannot always bear the burden of the elusiveness of life's ultimate meaning to
standard forms of representation or objectivization, nor is one always able to
withstand an incessant assault on ones conception of that meaning in a milieu of
pluralistic intensity. The temptation to deny the Center or reduce it to
uniformity is at times overwhelming. Neither pluralistic intensity nor a painful
sense of decline and defeat are congenial for the patient attainment of levels
of awareness that help one become assured in ones beliefs and transport one
beyond the infantile limits to which such assurances are routinely bound. Both
demand oversimplification. Each generates a frenzied atmosphere in its own way.
Ours is thus mostly a world that does not favor true pluralism. But while
we must, therefore, be satisfied with pragmatic support for acceptable levels of
pluralism, it does not hurt to remind ourselves of its deeper foundation,
namely, in the problem of the finite in relation to the infinite (and the
temporal to the eternal). True pluralism arises when those who care about the
infinite (and the eternal) simultaneously
acknowledge that the finite can never exhaust the infinite (nor the
temporal, the eternal). All other pluralisms will inevitably decline into
relativism or monolithism, which from a metaphysical point of view are the same
thing. To deny transcendence is to cultivate diversity for its own sake, the
management of which will eventually require a framework that will itself be
treated as an absolute. To affirm transcendence, but to deny the plurality of
ways in which it can viably dwell among human beings, is to impose a monolithism
that before long will habituate humanity to a fatal confusion between the
meaning of life and the standard ways in which one is forced to express it. The
song of transcendence, monolithically viewed, will conjure images of the Chinese
masses singing the praises of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward. And just as this
misbegotten project led many millions to their starvation, so does religiously
motivated monolithism leave in its wake a trail of contorted or desiccated
souls.
To maintain the metaphysical grounds for true pluralism in our sights
will at least ensure that whatever pluralism we do have is always nudged towards
a better level of implementation and is somewhat more protected against the dual
dangers of monolithism and relativism. Just as the qualifications for the ideal
caliph were spelled out in Islamic political philosophy and were upheld by many
scholars and Sufis, so might they have played a part in making bad caliphs and
local despots a little less inclined to do evil.
The discussions in this collection are centered around the subject of
Islam and cultural diversity. This serves as the backdrop for my chosen emphasis
on pluralism. In both the Arab Muslim and Western worlds, even though the
problem has arisen from opposite historical directions, it is nevertheless the
same: the restoration of (true) pluralism. What really matters, however, is not
pluralism itself, but its transcendent foundation. Pluralism and cultural
diversity are not ends in themselves but, at their best, signs of something more
profound. This is the deep sense of the eternal, infinite and sacred, whence
flows our awareness that the embodiment of these always has a provisional
character. Without such provisionality, we would not be free to grow in our
faith. We would routinely follow formulae that lead us away from it.
Given the degree to which my readings over the years have made their way
indirectly into this paper, I did not think it necessary to annotate it. With
the exception of the reference to Muhammad Arkoun, my text contains no
paraphrase or other requirement for footnotes (For that single reference, the
reader may consult Arkoun's Tarikhiyyatul-Fikril-'Arabil-Isiami
[The Historicity of Arabo-Islamic Thought], pp. 288-291). However, I shall
list some references for those readers who seek inspiration for the further
pursuit of themes that have been introduced here. Today's databases are good
enough for the names of the authors and the titles of their works to suffice.
Among works that relate to the Arab Muslim world, the reader may consult
all three volumes of The Venture of Islam (Marshall
Hodgson), A History of Islamic Societies (Ira
Lapidus), Albert Hourani's collected papers, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey (Serif Mardin) and
William Chittick's books on Ibn ‘Arabi
and Rumi.
As for works that relate to modern Western thought, Kant's Critique of practical
Reason is important. So are the Concluding
Unscientific Postscript (Søren Kierkegaard), The Sleepwalkers (Hermann Broch), The Mystery of Being (Gabriel Marcel) and Faith and Belief (Wilfred Cantwell Smith).
The reader will also benefit tremendously by paying some
attention to the pre-Socratic philosophers, especially Anaximander (for instance
as presented in Paul Seligman's excellent and justly forgotten book The
Apeiron of Anaximander) as well as to Plato, Aristotle and, above all,
Plotinus, for whose extremely difficult thought Pierre Hadot's splendid Plotinus
or the Simplicity of Vision offers the best introduction.
Acknowledgement
As a result of several years of interaction with John Kromkowski at the Catholic University of America, I have learned a lot about where to find pluralism in the United States. This is but one of many ways that I have benefited from my work at the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, which under the stewardship of George McLean has ensured that those attentive to transcendence, however idiosyncratically, are in good company.