With early Islam, social justice theory and practices peaked at the start of the revolution in Macca and Madina and began the cycle of growth and decline with reforms interjecting to renew and sustain the purpose of the revolution for centuries until the process of decay took its toll with no consequential reforms introduced in the twentieth-centuries to breath new life into a viable modern day Islamic social justice system. As Muslims prepare to enter the twenty-first century what we have is an awkward religious system of antiquated thought and conflicting practices out of touch with the challenges and complexity of the modern world.
Contrast that with original Islamic ideology and its strict safeguards for the individual and the community and with Islamic guardians who, unlike today’s, were the embodiment of the ideology and a living proof of its applicability. The striking disconnect between Islamic theory and practices today must raise the eyebrows of many around the world and cause Islam’s message harm. Islam deserves better Muslims and a true social justice agenda which not only calls for an end to despotism, human rights violations, and illiteracy but an agenda which establishes the original moral advantage Islam enjoyed for centuries.
With Western enlightenment, the liberal discourse began centuries ago but lacked the widespread practices to sustain it as a credible universal social justice system. Initially, the Western enlightenment domain of interest was the West. After World War II (and to some extent following the end of the Cold War) the benefits of Western values were no longer reserved to white Europeans and limited to the confines of national boundaries. Today, it is fair to say, that Western values of justice are finally becoming a universal model which inspires new generations even in Islamic states. Why? The power inherent in the message of justice has universal appeal. That was Islam’s power then and the Western message today. Only a second Islamic leapfrog would set Islam ahead as the model of the twenty-first century and that takes courage and foresight only few possess.
The key ingredient spurring the rapid expansion of Islam was the presence of a significant disparity between Islam’s revolutionary social justice system and what indigenous systems of that era lacked. In marketing nomenclature, this is referred to as “differentiation”. Unlike the West, the founding fathers of the Islamic nation then did not posses neither technology nor a body of knowledge which in the West developed gradually and continuously through the present time. Islam was a moral revolution first and foremost which was trailed centuries later by technological and literary progress. There lies the original Islamic advantage. And given the comparable circumstances of modern day Muslims, Islam can offer a liberation ideology to the world and Muslims included if modern interpretations can be liberated of obsolete and harmful baggage acquired along the way. It is this moral advantage which Muslims need to recapture in light of the very positive challenges posed by Western social justice systems.
Early Islam introduced two revolutionary primary core values: the first detailed the ideal relationship between man and God, the second describes the rules governing the interaction between man and fellow man. On both fronts, the disparity between what was before Islam and what Islam offered was drastic. Hence the revolutionary nature of Islamic thought. From concrete and tangible gods to a conceptual omnipresent One. This radical departure from the conventional redefined the relationship between creature and creator. And from an entrenched system of social injustice and extreme tribalism to that of a uniform and liberal social justice and accountability amongst man and fellow man. Without delving into historical details, little wonder what Mohammad (SAW) introduced became a new world order which resulted in intense initial resistance but forever reshaped the fortunes of billions of Muslims and non-Muslims.
Presently, there is a gap but with the West in the lead. Few Muslim intellectuals and scholars residing in the West find reinventing Islam irresistible to accommodate Western norms and values not in contradiction with Islam’s core values such as democracy and human rights. But such efforts, while well-intentioned, may seem reactionary and defensive at best. Also, a serious rift may result if Western Muslim scholars embark on an isolated discourse to bring Islam into the modern world while leaving non-Western Muslims entrapped in an antiquated framework for Islamic discourse unaware of or impervious to the world around it. Any modern day Islamic renewal must include Western and non-Western Muslim scholars.
While Islam is rooted in Koran and Hadith tradition, modern day Islam has acquired a massive shell of antiquated Ijtihad and Keyas deposits accumulated along centuries of haphazard legislative activism resulting in some useful laws but others outmoded or misguided. These accumulations are massive enough to render the core Islamic value system indiscernible. Attempts to bypass the outer layers provoke the orthodox establishments’ scorn and restrains efforts at preserving Islam’s core values. Today, ancient Islamic interpretations of bygone eras and very dead scholars are held sometimes as sacred as Mohammad’s (SAW) word or the Koran’s resulting in a web of ancient Islamic legislative precedents precluding further interpretations. The resulting Islamic ideological mammoth when contrasted with the lucidity of early Islam serves to undermine the core values and the success factors which launched Islam into historical prominence as the liberation ideology of centuries ago.
The catalyst behind the spread of Islam in regions where Muslim military campaigns did not reach cannot be attributed to coercive factors be it fear of financial loss exacted by the Jizyah or physical harm resulting from Harb. Islam then, was not yet burdened from within nor was it challenged by external intellectual forces enlightened enough to pose a serious dialectic threat to any of Islam’s core value. For centuries, the novelty and nobility of a conceptual and omnipresent God combined with a sophisticated system of social justice which leapfrogged prevalent ideologies of that era, set Islamic thought and practices apart and ahead while garnering more supporters along the way.
But this advantage would soon arrive at a gradual end with the coming of Western enlightenment and liberal thought. Soon the world would compare evolving Western democracy, human rights, and freedom to what seems to be faulty practices attributed to Islam ranging from despotism, oppression, and violence all supported by some amazingly nonsensical interpretations of Islam which fly in the face of its core value.
As Europe ushered in the Renaissance era, the Islamic world was already poised for an intellectual reversal both actual and relative to the West. Burdened by massive anchors of antiquated Ijtihad and Keyas , the early Islamic advantage was lost in what is akin to an Islamic intellectual quagmire sustained by a religious bureaucracy which invested a lifetime in an antiquated body of knowledge. Calls for serious reforms where deemed a threat to its livelihood and its dominant role as the legislative body of Islam. The Islamic "church" continues to live until the present. Albeit unstructured, the power of self-preservations inherent in the present day Islamic orthodoxy leaves little room for maneuvering and shuts voices of reason with threats of excommunications and apostasy.
Commonsense dictates the need to peel off obsolete layers of Islamic interpretations to bring to life Islam’s core values. The goal is the removal of historical baggage absent during Mohammad’s (SAW) era and a return to Islam’s baseline values and a new set of Ijtihad and Keyas. After all, it was the freedom to legislate from the core values which enabled Muslims then to arrive at a brilliant synthesis which sustained Islam’s moral and intellectual vigor for centuries. Muslim scholars today should accept nothing less.
But caveat emptor, anything not exceeding the West’s system of equality and social justice is deemed to fail. Islamic scholars today must lead the West by the same distance Mohammad (SAW) led all prevailing ideologies in his unwavering commitment to justice. Anything less is cheap imitation. The task is not difficult since Islam’s inherent subordination of ethnicity and commitment to the welfare of the underclass and oppressed have given it an intrinsic appeal as a liberation ideology for those who felt excluded from Western enlightenment such as Africans and other third world nations.
The challenge posed to Western Islamic scholars living in a free and non-threatening environment is to leverage their close encounter with Western thought and environment to arrive at a new Islamic agenda by influencing the discourse in the Islamic world to promote a return to the core Islamic values unencumbered by harmful baggage. And via the privilege of Ijtihad and Keyas reestablish the significant moral lead and not just aim for basic parity with the West. This can be attained by devising a more credible social justice system that serves all of mankind without the price imposed by excessive Western materialism and potentially explosive nationalism. It is a system that was introduced by Mohammad (SAW) and evolved throughout the Islamic civilization until the West took the initiative and Muslims lost it. The challenge to Western scholars is to sustain the universality of their liberal values in practice too.
In case we are destined to live a clash of civilizations between East
and West or North and South, let it be a scholarly one and for the benefit
of humanity. And if the West thinks of Islam as the successor to the communist
threat, let it be a threat to exclusion, exploitation, and materialism
but a boon to truly universal social justice.
Let the competition begin.