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What Is "Islam"?

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What Is What Is "Islam"? Do I contradict mYself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes). -Walt Whitmanl Sour yrens eco, I attended a dinner at Princeton University where I wit- nessed a revealing exchange between an eminent European philosopher who was visiting from Cambridge, and a Muslim scholar who was seated next to him. The Muslim colleague was indulging in a glass of wine. Evi- dently troubled by this, the distinguished don eventually asked his dining companion if he might be so bold as to venture a personal question. "Do you consider yourself a Muslim?" "Yes," came the reply. "How come, then, you are drinking wine?" The Muslim colleague smiled gently. "My family have been Muslims for a thousand years," he said, "during which time we have alwaysbeen drinking wine." An expression of distress appeared on the learned logician's pale countenance, prompting the further clarification: "You see, we are Muslím wine-drinkers." The questioner looked bewildered. "I don't understand," he said. "Yes, I know," replied his native informant, "but I do." cfi$¡ci*¿þi* some non-Muslim friends of mine spent a long afternoon at the magnificent "New Galleries of the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia" at the Metropolitan Musuem in New york City. They gushed at the dazzling richness and variety ofthe artifacts on display, and expressed the hope that, after seeing first-hand that Muslims were capable of such ex- quisite expressions of beauty, Americans and others would emerge better disposed towards Islam. "But there is just one thing I didn't understand,,, one Whitman, "Song of Myself," Leares of Grass, New york: Modern Librar¡ 1993 (being .,tne :.y"t, Death-bed Edition ' of r89z), rr3. 4 . What Is Islam? of them, an executive at tine New York Times, said to me. "If it's not an inap- CHAPTER T propriate question: what did these objects actually mean to the people in the societies where they originate? What is this art actually about? What does it Six Questions about Islam have to do with Islam?" èå+è&.&*4+Xå Islãm, submission, total surrender (to God) masdar [verbal noun] of the IVth form of the root S L M.The "one who sub- ,{n Arab friend of mine tells the story of her engagement to her South Asian mits to God" is the Muslim. future husband. The prospective fathers-in-laq who had never met, had to -Encyclopaedia of IsIøm1 speak to each other by means of an international telephone call to formalize the matter. Neither spoke the other's native language, both spoke some En- glish-but not especially well-and neither was familiar with the other's cul- ture. The Arab gentleman was a self-declared agnostic, while the south Asian After their Prophet, the people disagreed about many things; practiced a semi-observant sort oftraditional piety ofthe variety I once heard some of them led others astray, while some dis$ociated them- "He characteúzed by the expression says his prayers just often enough to selves from others.Thus, they became distinct groups and dis- keep his wife happy!" Needless to say, given this state of mutual foreignness, parate parties-except that Islam gathers them together and my friend was more than a little apprehensive as to how the conversation encompasses them all. would unfold. "what happened?" she asked her father as soon as it was over, "Did -Abù al-$asan al-Ash'a17 (874-y6 A.D.)' you understand each other?" "of course we understood each other," he replied, "We are both Muslims." I a¡n snn¡<rrqc ro sAy rHE woRD "Islam" in a manner that expresses the åls- torical and human phenomenon that is Islam in its plenitude and complexity of meaning. In conceptualizing Islam as a human and historical phenome- non, I am precisely nol seeking to tell the reader what Islam is as a matter of Divine Command, and thus am nof seeking to prescribe how Islam should be followed as the means to existential salvation. Rather, I seek to tell the reader what Islam has actually been as a matter of human fact in history, and thus am suggesting how Islam should be conceptualized as a means to a more meaningful understanding both of Islam in the human experience, ¡ L. Gardet, "Islam i. Definition and Theories of Meaning," in Ë. van Donzel, B. Lewis, and Ch. Pellat (editors), Encylopaedia of Islam (New Edition), Volume IV, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978, t7t-t74, al ryL. 'z ikhtalafa al-nas ba'da nabiyyi-him fi ashya' kathlrah dallala ba'du-hum ba'dan wa barraa ba'du-hum'an ba'Qin fa-çaru firaqan mutabayyinln wa ahzaban mutashattitln iIIa anna al-islam yajma'u-hum wa yashtamil 'alay-hìm; Abú al-Hasan 'Ali b. Ismá'il al-Ash'ari, Maqalat al- islamiyyln wa ikhtilaf al-musallln (edihedby Muhammad Mubyi al-Din 'Abd al-Hamid), Beirut: al-Maktabah al-'Asriyyah, 7ggs, 34. about Islam 7 6 Chapter 1 Six Questions .' and thus of the human experience at large.3 If I hold sects and the variations in practice from region to region?"s out a salvific prospect, ers the various it is the altogether more study of religion, Wil- modest but, perhaps, no less elusive one, of analyti- órr. of tn. most important figures in the comparative cal clarity. observed: " 'Islam' could perhaps fairly readily be under- fred Cantwell Smith, This book stems from a certain dissatisfaction existed in such abundant actuality, at differing times with the prevailing con- stood if only it had not ceptualizations of "Islam" as object, "Islam" and hearts of differing persons, in the and of as categor¡ which, in my and in differing areas, in the minds vieq critically evolving of different impair our ability to recognize central and crucial aspects of institutions and forms of differing societies, in the the historical reality of the very object-phenomenon "Islam" scale and nature of the phenomenon of ttariety in that our concep- stages."é In considering the tualizations seek to denote, "any religion"), it is well to bear in mind but fall short ofso doing.a By "conceptualizationj' Islam (in comparison to that of other I mean a general "object" "Islamic as world history"T Mar- idea by which the Isram may be identified and clas- that, as the pioneer of the study of history sified, such that "Islam" "Islam among the religious tradi- the connection to of a[ those things purportedly shall G. s. Hodgson pointed out, is unique encompassed is also helpful to by, consequent upon or otherwise related to the concept-what tions for the diversity of peoples that have embraced itl'8 It is to "civilization" has be expressed by the word "Islamic"-may coherently be known, charac- bear in mind that, as a leading scholar of the concept of terized and times, Islam was valorized. Any act ofconceptualizing any object is necessarily an noted, "among the major civilizational worlds of premodern attempt to identify a general theory or rule to which all phenomena affiliated no doubt the most emphatically multi-societal."e As one political scientist with that object somehow cohere as a category for meaningful analysis- computed, "There are at least three hundred ethnic groups in the world today whether we locate that general rule in idea, practice, substance, relation, or whose populations are wholly or partly Muslim."1o It is thus not surprising process. A meaningful conceptualization of "Islam" as theoretical object and that, already in rg55, in a volume entitled LJnity and variety ín Muslim civili- analytícal category must come to terms with-indeed,be coherentwith-the zation comprising essays authored by the orientalist luminaries of the age, capaciousness, complexity, and, often, outright contradiction that obtains Gustave E. von Grunebaum posited "The Problem: unity in Diversityi' asking, .,what within the historical phenomenon that has proceeded from the human en- does, say, a North African Muslim have in common with a Muslim gagement with the idea and reality of Divine communication very question that the acclaimed anthropologist clifford to M 'hammad, from Java?"ll-the the Messenger of God. It is precisely this correspondence and coherence be- Geertzwould in 1968 address in his /s/am Observed: Religious Dewlopment in tween Islam as theoretical object or analytical category and Islam as real his- Morocco anillndonesia.l2 Twenty-five years later, in a study entitled Islam and toricøl phenomenon that is considerably and crucially lacking in the prevalent the Heroic Image: Themes in Literature and the Visual Arts,John Renard set out conceptualizations of the term "Islam/Islamicj' It is just such a coherent con- by underlining that "One must ask . in what sense one can apply the term ceptualization of Islam that I aim to put forward in this book. The greatest challenge to a coherent conceptuarization oflslam has been s W. Montgomery WaIL What Is Islam? London: Longman, ry68' 152-153' 6 End of Religion, San Francisco: Harper and Row, posed by the sheer diversity of-that is, range of differences between-those Wilfred Cantwell Smifh, The Meaning and r962, and Minneapolis: Fortress Press, r99r, r45. societies, persons, ideas and practices that identify themselves with "Islamj' ? The phrase is that of Edmund Burke III, "Islamic History as World History: Marshall G. S. This S. analytical dilemma has regularly been presented in terms of how, when Hodgson and the The Venture of Islam," published as a "Conclusion" to Marshall G. Hodgson, on Europe, Islam, and World History, Cambidge: Cambridge conceptualizing Islam, to reconcile the relationship between "universal', and Rethinking World History: Essays "local," University Press, 7993, 3o7-328.
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