Sami Zubaida: An Islamic Reformation? There have been Many

Sami Zubaida queries the need for An Islamic Reformation? There have been Many.

Liberal, reformist Islam enjoyed wide public favour in the earlier twentieth century, till the 1970s, with the prevalent nationalist and developmentalist projects and ideologies often articulated to leftist ideas. The collapse of the credibility in these projects and of leftist ideologies gave rise in many parts of the world to identity politics, in which ethnic and religious affiliations are central. Identity politics demands an emphasis on difference from the Western other. Adherence to religion among Muslims in their majority countries and in Western diasporas is commonly based on affiliations and sentiments that do not favour liberal reformism. In much of the Muslim world, the precarious conditions of security and livelihood for many drive people to seek protection in communal networks of kin, tribe and patronage, in which religious authority plays an important role. Patriarchy and communal authoritarianism are buttressed by religious rules and disciplines. Mosques, madrasas and charities, many financed by Saudi donations and personnel reinforce these communalist formations. While many Salafis are not violent militants, these ideas and institutions do mutate into Jihadism: the Taliban were initially the product of Saudi financed madrasas in Pakistan.

Muslims in the West comprise many social, ethnic and class groupings, with religion playing varying roles in their lives. The vocabulary of liberal reformism appeals to many educated middle class and professional Muslims, alongside outright secularism. Conservative and fundamentalist religion includes different constituencies. Patriarchal and communalist elements are keen to maintain social and moral controls, and are worried about the contaminations of Western personal liberties for their women and children, and seek remedies in assertion of religious disciplines. Identity politics, what may be called ‘Umma nationalism’, the idea of a universal Islamic community confronting Western/Christian and Jewish challenge or hostility, also feeds into more fundamentalist orientation. These sentiments are fed and feed into rising racism and anti-Muslim ideas and movements in the West. The attraction of Jihadism for some of the young Muslims are part of this trend.

Islam, then, has had many ‘reformations’, including liberal and rationalist reforms. Only, under the conditions outlined above, these ideas have little appeal to many Muslim constituencies at the present time. Those inclined to liberal ideas are more likely to be secular or nominal Muslims.

Emphasis Mine

Islam is not alone in succumbing to identity politics. Feminism, LGBTI, etc have done so as well.

All of these projects have followed the same trajectory from leftist mass movements into a retreat into the self apart from the world, instead of the self situating within the world.

This probably relates to the success of alienation of the individual under Capitalism. As the worker becomes less human through work, the worker must assert an identity through other means.

We must revive the leftist project of interjecting ourselves back into the world through control of our work. By becoming self-directed workers contributing to the common good, we regain our humanity and realise our identity as part of the world, not apart from it.

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