Aziz Ahmad_Problems With Islamic Modernism

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Aziz Ahmad

Problems of Islamic modernism with spcial rfrence to Indo-

Pakistan Sub-continentIn: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 23, 1967. pp. 107-116.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Ahmad Aziz. Problems of Islamic modernism with spcial rfrence to Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent. In: Archives des sciencessociales des religions. N. 23, 1967. pp. 107-116.

doi : 10.3406/assr.1967.2619

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PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISM

with special reference to Indo-PakistanSub-continent

HE fundamental malaise of modern Islam remarks Wilfred Cantwell Smithith great insight is sense that something has gone wrong withslamic history The fundamental problem of modern Muslims is how to rehabiitate that history This feeling has dominated the religious and politicalhought of Muslim India for over century as it has of other Islamic peoplesn other parts of the worldhe association of Muslim India with the West has been intimate throughhe British rule and longer than that of any other Muslim people In this givenistorical situation the nineteenth century Muslim intellectuals turned to reinerpret their own history Sayyid Ahmad Khan successfully followed theradition of Western scholarship in editing medieval Indian chronicles but whent came to the sensitive point of defending Islam at its very source against theemi-polemical historiographical approach of Sir William Muir he lost hisalance of historical objectivity and turned to imaginative apologetics which wasqually unacceptable to orientalists abroad and traditionalists at homessentially Sayyid Ahmad Khan was not historian his primary interestas theology But the movement he set in motion led to an intimate preoccupaion with history among some of his outstanding younger contemporaries Shibln and Amir Al in their mass of scholarship polemics and apologeticsrrive at two distinct and different conclusions on the crucial problem of the

This article is part of research project under the auspices of the Royal Institute ofInternational Affairs London)CANTWELL SMITH Islam in Modern History Princeton 1959 41S.A KHAN 1817-1898) reformer educationist modernist and outstanding politicalleader of Muslim India is the author of number of theological works including commentarieson the an nd the BibleSHIBLI Nu MANI 1857-1914 was moderate theologian who established schoolof Islamic historiography in India His more westernised contemporary AMIR ALI 1849-1928is famous fo r his historical and apologetic writings including the Spirit of Islam10 7


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ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONSsituation of Islam in history For Shibl it is the triumph of Ash arism and thetraditional theology over the Mu tazalites under al-Mutawakkil and subsequentlyFor Amir Al it was the failure of Arab advance against Constantinople and inFrance which he regards as tragedy not merely for the history of Islam butfor its chdiizing mission in terms of the cultural history of mankind Of the twoShibl though much more conservative is closer to the core of the problemFor the traditionalists and the hl-i hadth the interpretation of Islamichistory has remained relatively simpler in theological terms The entire processof Islamic history is viewed as continuous decline from the perfection of thegolden age of the ProphetWith this half-acknowledged sense of the failure of Islamic history theMuslim intellectual in the Indian Sub-continent as elsewhere faces the problemof the decadence of Islamic peoples in the modern world Consciousness of thisdecadence is reflected in Sayyid Ahmad intellectual and political orientations and his programme of an attachment to the West and detachment alikefrom pan-Islamic universalism and potentially aggressive Indian nationalismHali epitomized and popularised sensitivity to the consciousness of decadencethrough his verse It is interesting to compare his analysis of Muslim decline withthat of the al-Manar group some years later Whereas Hall lays the responsibility of this decline on the static lethargy of the Muslim community theal-Manar group blames the Muslim rulers who are ignorant of Islam and its lawsand who have permitted evil-doing in the administration by substituting lawsof human origin in the place of Divine laws the theologians who have neglectedthe an nd the sunna as the sources of law and have preoccupied themselveswith the minutae of law and sectarianism and the quietist and heterodoxSufis who have made religion sport and means of entertainment Tilisfundamentalist position is reiterated and considerably intensified by Mawdudiin Pakistan whose at-i slami is concerned not merely with the intellectualdebate of Muslim reformism but with the political platform of the restorationof original Islam as cure for the malaise of modern decadence His party callsitself party of renaissance and not of reformism Among the modern Pakistaniintellectuals most conscious of Islamic decadence is Parwiz who recommends this-worldly materialism but whose terms of reference are again fundamentalisticbased on an extremely extravagent interpretation of the anAll the same modernists of varying backgrounds Khayr al-din Pasha 10)Hali Abduh 11) Iqb 12 and Parwiz see way out of the morass of decadence

fundamentalist group of theologians in modern Islamic India who based their creedprincipally on the dicta of MuhammadA.II HALT 1837-1914) an oustanding poet and biographer in Urdu whose politicalpoem the Musaddas-i madd-u jazr-i Islam steeped in pan-Islamic vitalism revolutionised theUrdu poetryFundamentalist syrio-Egyptian contributors to the joui nal al-Manar in the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuryShaykh Muhammad ABDUH Ta/s n l-Hakm Cairo 1906-1927 II 89-90 al-Manar 606 et seq. 722-30A.A MAWDUDI is rigid fundamentalist and theoretician of religious control overpolitics in Pakistan10 KHAYR A L-DIN PASHA 1810-1889 was prime minister of the Beylik of Tunisia andlater of the Ottoman Empire He is one of the pioneers in Islamic modernism11 Shaykh Muhammad ABDUH 1849-1905 was by fa r the most eminent modern Egyptiantheologian reformer and fundamentalist m odernist12 Muhammad IQBAL 1875-1938 was dynamic Indo-Muslim poet and philosopher andthe theoretician of Pakistan108


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PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISMonly through the application of the principle of change Almost all of them havethe anic injunction at XIII 12 as their starting point

God changes not what is in people until theychange what is in themselves.Nations are not condemned and destroyed by God only on account ofunbelief if they otherwise follow laws of justice and progress Muslims are merelypotentially and by no means necessarily the best among the peoples 13)Much of the modernist sensitivity to present decadence is counter-balancedby the complacency of the theologians traditionalist and fundamentalist alikeFor them retrogression rather than decadence is the key-word For theAhl-i hadth the entire history of Islam is series of steps taken backward fromgiven state of perfection The fundamentalist explanation of the retrogressionis continuous drifting away from the early simplicity of Islam through centuriesof innovations incorporating extra-Islamic elements in Muslim canonlaw 14)The basic difference of approach to the problem by the modernists and thetheologians has had paralysing influence on the elements of law constitutionand institutions in modern Pakistan Modernists there have been finding itdifficult to break from the past to accept the modern world on its own terms andaccording to its own values Theologians on the other hand and especially tliefundamentalist school of Mawdd have also found it difficult to break totallyfrom the present and to take refuge in the past The result is confusion in termsof theory of change required for cultural adjustments and an attemptedcompromise between opposite stances which are not entirely polarised Pragmaticnecessities of government and politics urge compromises from time in constitutions and amendments to constitutions in double-edged machinery like theCouncil of Islamic Ideology and other formulae or institutions These compromisescannot in any case bring about the change which the modernists desire in theorybut which they cannot bring about in practice due to the conservative pressureof the lower middle classes supported by masses on certain explosive issues andled by the theologians of all shades of opinion And so in respect to Pakistan as tomany other Islamic countries von remark remains relevantFew culture areas have been subjected to so much and so violent change as thatof Islam none perhaps has so consistently refused to accept the ontologicalreality of change 15)Much of traditionalist conservatism is rooted deeply in the arite theo

logy 16 To some extent modern lack of resilience and real rather thantheoretical or apologetic adjustment with the scientific conception of universewhich is the basis of modern civilisation lies in the arite denial ofthe law of causality which is one of the primary sources of all rational knowledge

13 Cf RASHID RIDA Tr kh al-ustdh ul-imm al-Shaykh Muhammad Abduh Cairo1908-1910 II 323-414 For parallel arguments in Egypt see al-Manar XXIX 1928) 63-415 Gustave von GRUNEBAUM Modern Islam Berkeley 1962 20916 Based on the writings and on the school of Hasan al-Asha ari 873-936who used scholastic method to affirm an externalist creed of Islam and profoundly influencedthe subsequent growth of dogma in Islam

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ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONSInstead of arriving at law of natural causality the arites have deducedonly law of custom ada It is not law observes Goldziher but simplythe habit laid upon nature by God that makes certain things follow othersthis succession is not however necessary 17 Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Chiragh18 are perhaps the only few among Indo-Muslim modernists who havesubscribed to the concept of natural laws as superseding the cult of d ForAmr Al as it is easy to preach reform of the arit Islam but hisown writings hardly reflect any trace of that reform arism is placed backat the very core of Islamic modernism by Iqbal while the elphasis on the valueof power in thought is traceable to Ibn Taimiyya 19)

Wal-All h 20 fundamentalism though it paved the way for the emergenceof modernism by challanging much of the superficial polemical or divisive datain Islamic jurisprudence is when all is said and done movement aimed atreorganising future in terms of an idealised past Basically therefore it hasgreat deal in common with Wahhabism 21 which as Goldziher bluntly observeshas its gaze fixed on the past denying the justification of the results of historicaldevelopment and recognising Islam only in the petrified form of the seventhcentury 22 This verdict is even more appropriate to fundamentalismtoday

It is significant that Pakistan chose to call itself under pressure of theologicalgroups allied tactically to political factions an Islamic state in its First Constitution 1956) and in the Amendemnt 1963 to its Second Constitution Tunisiaon the other hand chose to describe itself as an Arab Muslim State in its Constitution The difference between the concepts of an Islamic state and Muslimstate is noteworthy An Islamic state commits itself in its very conception tothe continuing and developing of the historical process of law as developed byclassical jurists On the other hand Muslim state can be secular or secularisedstate the majority of whose citizens are Muslims of varying degrees of observance or non-observance but attached to Islamic culture and history to theethics of the an nd the many considerable achievements in all fields of humanendeavour 23 This is precisely the sense which modernists in Pakistan wouldascribe to their concept of an Islamic State But the modernists are confinedto class i.e higher or upper middle class and to particular kind of trainingand education i.e Westernized The creative minority which they constitute is

17 Ignaz GOLDZIHEH Muhammed and Islam Engl tr K.C Seele) New Haven 191713818 speculative modernist of Islamic India and close associate of Sayyid AhmadKlian19 Taq al-dn Ahmad ibn Taimiyya 1263-1328 is eminent fo r his theological dialecticawhich influenced the growth of subsequent schools of Islamic fundamentalism Cf LAOUSTLe trait de droit public Ibn Taimya Beirut 1948 173-74 also GARDET La Cit musulmane Paris 1954 10720 SHAH WALI-ALLAH was the great eighteenth century fundamentalist Islamic Indiawho influenced the later fundamentalist and modernist movements alike21 Th e creed of the fundamentalist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab of Nejd whichoriginated in the eighteenth century and is still the state religion in Sa ud Arabia22 GOLDZIHER op cit. 31123 E.I.J RosENTHAL The role of Islam in modern national state The Year Book

of World Affairs London) 1962 vol 16110


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PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISMchallenged by another creative minority of the lower middle classes led by thefundamentalists and supported by the traditionalists closer to the souls of themasses because of the rich emotional appeal of religion In the rural areas especiallythe fundamentalists seem to be consolidating their position In Survey carriedout in 1963 through Pakistani students 45 1 villagers from 52 villages in WestPakistan were questioned on the treatment to be meted out to those who did notconform to the religious ritual 45 thought the delinquents should be severlypunished 168 were of the view that they deserve some punishment 125 held thatthey should be persuaded by argument and instruction only 66 were in favourof laissez-faire and only 47 did not express any opinion 24)Fundamentalism is by no means the exclusive misfortune of Islam AsMarthelot points out

On se plat au contraire en gnral dresser la liste des prceptes islamiquesen apparence peu favorables au dveloppement conomique certains en effetfondamentaux se rfrent affirmation de la Toute Puissance de Dieu maislaquelle des trois grandes religions juive chrtienne ou islamique pas cemme principe en tte de son credo De mme thique impose la vi e conomique notamment interdiction du riba du prt intrt est-elle pas communeIslam et au Christianisme Enfin le refus de la novation avec cettesurprenante ide que le progrs est dans le pass ne se retrouverait-il pas dans lerflexe souvent enregistr en Chrtient et pas seulement sur le plan religieuxqui opposait les Anciens aux Modernes. 25)

And yet the Report of the Constitution Commission of Pakistan is historically wrong in arguing on this basis the liberal secularism of the West. isitself based on the traditional discipline which was developed when religion wasforce in those countries 26 This view has to be weighed against the point madeby H.A.R Gibb one of the most sincere friends of Islam in the West..while the constitution of Islamic society was still based on medievalconceptions and its outlook governed by medieval ideas Western Europe hadswung right away from its medieval moorings and that between the two civilisations once so uniform in spite of religious antagonisms the gulf had graduallywidened until their common elements and principles seemed insignificant incomparison with their difference 27)

If not in the Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent elsewhere in the Islamic worldthere have been categorical rejections of theocracy or as Mawdud would like tocall it theo-democracy Turkey has been for generation secular Muslimbut not an Islamic state Khalid Muhammad 28 views form the veryanti-thesis of the thought and programme of Mawdud or even Ala al-Fs 29He rejects theocracy for its lack of clarity regarding the source and location of

24 As reported by A.W EISTER Islam au Pakistan Arch. 15 1963 39-4025 MARTHELOT Islam etle dveloppement Arch. 14 1962 13426 Report of th e Constitution Commission of Pakistan Karachi 1961 12127 H.A.R GIBB Introd to Whiter Islam London 1932 48-4928 young Egyptian theologian who is an advocate of the separation of politics fromreligion29 Cf ALA AL-FASI Al-harka al-istiqlaliyyah fVl Maghrib Arab Cairo 1945 Engtr H.Z Nuseibeh Washington D.C. 1954 113)Ill


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ARCHIVES DL SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONSauthority for its distrust of human reason for its appeal to weaknesses of emotionalism for its hostility to all reform for its totalitarianism for its static naturefor its inquisitorial suppression of all opposition and for its brutality whichthrives upon the confusion as to the proper limit of authority 30)Idealisation of the Orthodox Caliphate of the first four holy Caliphs ofIslam alike by the traditionalists fundamentalists and some of the modernistsincluding Shibl and Amr Al but not Sayyid Ahmad Khan or Iqbal is funda-mentalistic trend crystallised in historical revivalism Tilis idealisation shared bythe Indo-Pakistani Islam with similar emphasis in other parts of the Muslimworld 31 is aptly described by von Grunebaum as the classicism of returnits object is in part at least decrease in cultural complexity it is retractilemovement advocating consolidation through shrinkage movement of thisorder characteristically overlooks the fact that the period of apostolic simplicitywhich is chosen as authoritative and exemplary was actually period of experiential expansion 32)

Pan-Islamism and the Caliphate Movement of the later nineteenth andearly twentieth century was juxtaposition of Rashidun-ciassicism 33 onmodern circumstances and was therefore essentially revivalistic Pan-Islamismitself is modern development influenced like pan-Turanianism and pan-Arabismlater by and analogous with sudi movements as pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism 34 But something like feeling of the solidarity of the entire Muslimumma is discernible at crucial periods in medieval Islamic history Al-Brn wasconscious of Islam as cultural unity in comparing it with Hindu religion andculture 35 Ibn al-Athr 1234 shows consiousness of the Muslim world assingle unity in dealing with the Mongol onslaughts in North-east Persia whichhe regards as calamity suffered by the entire world of Islam 36 Yqt regardsMongol invasion as an unparalleled calamity for Islam 37 Ibn Arab1165-1240 efforts in the direction of combined effort on the part of the Muslimprinces of Syria and Anatolia to repel the Crusaders have an element of whatcame to be described as pan-Islamism in modern times 38)Revival of emphasis on the concept of universal Caliphate begins in theIndian Islam with Shah Wall-Allah 39 though he only theorises about it in theabstract and does not identify it with the Ottoman monarchy for which he had

30 KHALID MUHAMMAD KHALID Min huna nabda Eng tr I.R al-Faruqi) WashingtonD.C. 129-34 H.Z NusEiBEH The Ideas of Arab Nationalism Ithaca 1956 172-331 Cf fo r instance al-Manr IV 210 215-632 Von GRUNEBAUM op cit. 8133 Expression used by some Western orientalists to denote the idealisation by modernMuslims of the pietistic institutions of government under the first four Orthodox Caliphs ofIslam 632-661)34 Hasan TAGHIZADE Le Panislamisme et le Panturkisme Revue du Monde musulmanXX 1913 19235 E.C SACHAU Introd to AlerunVs India London 1910 9-10 AL-BIRUNI Kitabal-saidana Eng tr Meyerhof in Islamic Culture XI 1937) 27)36 IBN - al-Kmil Leiden C.J Tornberg 1851-76 XII 233-35 Cf GABRIELIStoria della letteratura araba Milan 1951 232-437 YAQUT Mu jam al-buldn Leipzig ed Wstenfeld 1866-73 IV 85938 Miguel ASIN PALACIOS El Islam cristianasado Madrid 1931 93-9539 SHAH WALI-ALLAH zala al-khaf vol. Karachi n.d. passim Hujjat All al-

bligha Karachi n.d. II 422-29112


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PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISMscant respect 40 This identification was however made in the by hisgrandson Shah Muhammad Ishaq an immigrant to the Hij z and subsequentlyinfluenced the theologians and the elite of Muslim India from 1870 onwards Thedevelopment is paralleled by similar trends in the world of Islam elsewhere1873 qub Beg the revolutionary leader of Chinese Turkestan sent his nephewHaj Tur to the court of the Ottoman Abd Azz who invested qub Begwith the title of Amr On qub coinage the name was engravedon one side and his own on the other 41 Pan-Islamic and pro-Caliphate trendsmade their first appearance in Tunisia in the with the French occupationand culminated in the career and activities of l Bash Hamba and lib 42during the first two decades of the twentieth century In this very period conflict between the pan-Islamic and nationalist groups developed in Egypt and wasreflected in the controversial articles in the al-Manar 43 on the one side andAlam and al-Siyasa on the other 44)Like the Indian Muslim elite the al-Manar had strongly supported theYoung Turkish Revolution of 1908 45 but unlike them it regarded Mustafaabolition of the Caliphate and introduction of certain drastic reformsas acts of apostasy from Islam 46 Like the Indian Muslims the al-Manarplaced high hopes in the rise of Ibn ud but unlike them upheld even theWahhab repudiation of such innovations as pilgrimages to sacred tombs 47Al Abd advocacy of the abolition of the Caliphate is not very different from that of Khuda Bakhsh in asserting that the institution of the Caliphatehad been and continued to be misfortune for Islam and the Muslims andsource of corruption 48 There is similarity in his argument and that of Iqbal whenhe points out that the Caliphate was not an integral part of the Muslim creedneither the an nor the authentic hadth have anything categorical to sayabout it and that the Muslim consensus has never been solidly or consistentlybehind it 49 Iqbal however avoids l Abd apologetics whoasserts that the Prophet exercised religious but not civil authority and as hedid not exercise the latter the question of its succession in the form of Caliphatedoes not arise 50 Iqbal Zia Gkalp and Al Abd al-R ziq reflect in varyingdegrees an intellectual trend spreading over the greater part of the Muslim worldin the advocating family of Islamic nations independently organisedunder civil governments but all conscious of the heritage of Islamic culture. anIslamic commonwealth 51)

40 SHAH WALI-ALLAH Fuyud al-Harmayn tr Lahore) Urdu 1947 297 ff41 D.C de KAVANAGH ouLGER Life of Yakob Beg Athalik ghazi and Badaulat Ameerof Kashgar London 1878 The Times March 16 1874 TSING YUAN Yakub Beg 1820-1877 and the Moslem Rebellion in Chinese Turkestan Central Asiatic Journal VI 1961134-6742 Tunisian political leaders who struggled against the French for the freedom of theircountry and were also supporters of pan-Islamism and the theory of Ottoman Caliphate43 Al-Manar VIII 478 XIV 1911) 36 XXVII 1926-27) 11944 Tw o modern Arab journals45 Al-Manar XIV 4346 Ibid. XXVIII 58147 Ibid. XIV 43 C.C ADAMS Islam and Modernism in Egypt London 1933 18548 ALI ABD Al-RAZiQ Al-Islm wa usul al-hukm Cairo 1925 3649 NusEiBEH op cit. 15350 ALI ABD AL-RAZIQ op cit. pp 64-5 69 79 8451 GIBB op cit. 36452 Von GBUNEBAUM op cit. 19113


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ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONSThe quest for the rationalisation of Muslim law antedates the quest for themodernisation of the classical concept of Muslim statehood In Muslim India itbegan with Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his colleagues The two focal points ofmodernisation in the Aligarh system of thought are reason and natureIn so far as its use of reason is concerned von general remark isquite pertinent ..human reason is charged not so much with discerning

unknown areas of facts as with uncovering the insights and the directions impliedin the divine or prophetic pronouncements 52 This is what Shaykh MuhammadAbduh also affirms by remarking that reasoning has to be applied in examiningand explaining the messages of the prophets in the light of the laws of nature asordained by God 53 Sayyid Ahmad premiss on this problem is evenmore categorical Between the word of God scripture and the work of Godnature there can be no contradiction 54 Abduh unlike Sayyid Ahmad Khanforecasts distinction between intuitional and dialectical reason by admitting the incompetence in certain theological spheres such as the interpretation of the Attributes of God or even full understanding of the nature andquality of human soul 55)Through rationalistic approach to the sources of Muslim law SayyidAhmad Khan and Shaykh Muhammad Abduh both concentrate on the first onethe an and both as well as Azad do so by neo-exegetical re-orientation ofthe Muslim scripture In detail they arrive at very different conclusions but theargument of approach is closely similar In relation to the second source of lawthe hadth Sayyid Ahmad and Chiragh approach is sceptic and closeenough to the scientific criticism developed later by Ignaz Goldziher and JosephSchacht though unlike them the two Muslim modernists do not hesitate to quotehadth uncritically when it suits them approach to the sunna is morecautious recognising small section of the hadth-coTpvis relating to matters ofpractice as an essential part of the basic data of law 56 On the whole the Islamicmodernism in India followed rather than Sayyid Ahmad orien

tation in this respect 57 Ijtihd use of individual reasoning as substitutefor the third classical source of law qiyas analogy finds the greatest emphasisin Indian Islam in the writings of the Aligarh group 58 and Iqbal as well asin Arab Islam in the writings of Abduh there is no limit to what may be donewithin its limits and there is no end to the speculation that may be conductedunder its standards 59 Despite its fundamentalism the al-Manar group emergesmore progressively modernist than Iqbl in suggesting that civil law which shouldbe subject to change from age to age should be separated from religion which issacrosanct eternal and immutable 60)Sayyid Ahmad Khan is solitary in his total denunciation of jma consensuss source of law He was conscious of it only in the classical sense i.e that of

the consensus of the theologians Outside India Abduh was perhaps the first to53 ABDUH -Islm Nasraniyyah Cairo 1923 5154 Cf Al-Manr VII 292 GOLDZIHER Die Richtungen der islamischen KoranauslegungLeiden 1920 352-8 ADAMS op cit. 13655 ABDUH Risala al-tawhd Cairo 1926-7 52-4 11756 Ibid. 22457 Risala was prescribed text-book at the Muhammedan Anglo-OrientalCollege as well as several theological schools in the Sub-continent58 The associates and co-workers of Sayyid Ahmad Khan in his modernist reformistmovement in India59 ABDUH Risala 177 Eng tr quoted from ADAMS 13160 Al-Man IV 859 and passim

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PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISMsee in it an extended concept of consensus as applicable to all Muslims the seedsof something like modern democracy when he observed that representativegovernment and legislation by the chosen representatives of the people was entirely in harmony with the spirit of Islam 61 In the Sub-continent the theoryof popular consensus as the basis of democracy was developed by Iqbal Soon itseems to have gained general currency in the entire world of Islam in most casesdeveloped locally An Afghan writer Niaz Ahmad Zikriya regards the role of theconsensus of the theologians in the classical Islam as manifestation of delegatedpower proving the sovereignty of the people to whom the direct right of consensushas reverted in modern times 62)

However liberal or radical the modernist interpretation of the basic classicalsources of law may be as long as the Divine word rather than human reasonexperience and requirement is regarded as the ultimate source of law an Islamicstate cannot be sovereign in the modern sense of the wordAbsolute restriction on the legislative power of State is restriction on thesovereignty of the people of that State and if the origin of this restriction lieselsewhere than in the will of the people then to the extent of that restriction thesovereignty of the State and its people is necessarily taken away In an IslamicState sovereignty in its essentially juristic sense can only rest with Allah 63)

Nor can under the circumstances that state be democratic or even theo-democratic whatever broad meaning may be given to the termThe crux of the problem is humanistic In its larger sense humanism isdefined by Pierre Mesnard as toute conception thorique toute attitude pratique

qui affirment la valeur exceptionelle de homme 64 Its starting point in theWest is an anthropocentrisme rflchi an attitude unknown to classicalIslam 65 In classical Islam in the totality of the traditionalist and fundamentalist stances of today and in all Indo-Muslim modernist thought except in IqbalGod and not man remains the key-figure of the universe dominatingpolitical social economic and cultural life Iqbal alone takes position whichis not very different from Jacques concept of humanisme intgralwhich tends..essentiellement rendre homme plus vraiment humain et manifestersa grandeur originelle en le faisant participer tout ce qui peut enrichir dans lanature et dans histoire ...) il demande tout la fois que homme dveloppe lesvirtualits contenues en lui ses forces cratrices et la vi e de la raison et travaillefaire des forces du monde physique les instruments de sa libert 66)

61 RASHID RIDA Tr kh 71 et seq62 Niaz Ahmad ZIKRIYA Les principes de Visl et la dmocratie Paris 1958 41-563 MUNIR and M.R KAYANI Report of th e Court of Inquiry constituted under PunjabAct II of 1954 to enquire into th e Punjab disturbances of 1954 Lahore 1954 21064 Pierre MESNARD humanisme chrtien Bulletin Joseph Lotte juin 193965 Louis GARDET Humanisme musulman hier et aujourdhui Elment culturels debase Ibl 194466 Jacques MARITAIN Humanisme intgral Paris 1936 10

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ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONSThe humanism of Iqba thought is what Gardet describes as humanismeavec Dieu 67 vicegerency of God is within certain moral bounds autonomous in the abstract in the thought of Iqbal but when it comes to the theoryof the government of an Islamic even Muslim state he too harnesses religionwith politics Gardet is right in asserting that in the view of Iqbal and MuhammadHusayn Haykal if the humanistic renaissance in the world of Islam accumulatesanthropocentrism and an absolute naturalism it would do itself considerabledamage for which the West would also be responsible 68 Thus positionthough more radical than that of other Indo-Pakistani modernists in assertingthe creative autonomy of man remains fairly close to the consensus which favoursmaintaining the traditional balance between spiritual and material values andto affect the conquest of nature with this balanceThis fine theoretical position has not worked out so well in practice anywhereThis is the tragedy of modern Islam From within itself it has been able to recreate elements of renaissance but not of reformation Much of the contentof Islamic modernism is Westernisation of the given data of Islamic juristiclaw and custom In this Westernisation the process of apologetics blurs the historical perspective As von Grunebaum describes the psychological logic of apologetics it is characterstic tendency on the part of the receiving communityto interpret heterogenetic change usually experienced as achievement or advanceas orthogenetic 69)In the modern Islamic reactions to the West the opposites of attraction and repulsion have been working simultaneously and continuously Westernliberalism is the cause of attraction western colonialism neo-colonialism andparochial insularity the reason for repulsion Comment concilier commentsMuhammad Husayn Haykal les deux esprits contraires la libert et la colonisation est difficile concevoir 70)Though the initiative for real reformation of Islam has to continue to comefrom within it and has to be thought out and translated into practice by theMuslims perhaps the West may eventually help One may conclude onoptimistic note

..Islam cannot deny its foundations and in its foundations Islam belongsto and is an integral part of the large Western society It the complementand counterbalance of European civilization nourislied at the same springsbreathing the same air In the broadest aspect of history what is now happeningbetween Europe and Islam is the reintegration of Western civilization artificiallysundered at the Renaissance and now reasserting its unity with overwhelmingforce 71)Aziz AHMAD

University of Toronto

67 GARDET op cit. 5-6 also La Cit musulmane 273-9468 GARDET Humanisme musulman 38-969 Von GRUNEBAUM op cit. 1470 -L Les causes de incomprhension entre Europe et les musulmanset les moyens remdier Islam et Occident Cahiers du Sud Paris 1947 5571 GiBB op cit. 376116

Aziz Ahmad_Problems With Islamic Modernism

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