A world Without Islam pdfdrive com

Euro-Muslims and Secularism
What of the frequently debated issue of Muslim problems with secularism? The
very existence of a “Muslim” identity, especially in France, challenges the
French notion of secularism, or laïcité. Laïcité does not imply strict legal
separation of church and state as in the United States, but rather state control of
religion. This strict secularism has caused France to clash with its Muslim
population in several areas, especially education, where the state does not
tolerate personal religious expression in public school; hence girls by law are not
allowed to wear headscarves—a major issue of concern, and cultural symbolism,
for the Muslim community. The presence of a large new minority to whom
religion matters a great deal—as a symbol of identity—has forced the French,
and Europeans in general, to rethink the meaning of laïcité when the imperatives
of multiculturalism now clash with French secularism. Europeans, who have a
generally low rate of religiosity, are now forced to reexamine the role of religion
in society and the life of the community. The issue is sometimes a painful one,
with the resurrection of an issue that Europeans believed they had put to bed
after the bloody “religious wars” of the past.
Ironically, the Catholic Church has noted this phenomenon, and not without
some approval. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Catholic Church’s
department for interfaith contacts, said religion is talked and written about more
than ever before in today’s Europe. “It’s thanks to the Muslims…. Muslims,
having become a significant minority in Europe, were the ones who demanded
space for God in society…. We live in multicultural and multireligious societies,
that’s obvious. There is no civilization that is religiously pure…. Religions are
condemned to dialog.”
Strong proponents of secularism—often explicitly nonreligious in their
private lives—tried to bring the issue to a head in the notorious Danish cartoon
incident, when a few liberal secular Danes resolved to damn political correctness
and demonstrate their freedom of speech and antireligious attitudes by
publishing cartoons demeaning the Prophet Muhammad. The reaction in the
Muslim world, to what was perceived as a calculated and deliberate act of
disrespect and blasphemy, was angry, hurt, harsh, and predictable.
What should we make of this incident that pits freedom of speech against
religious sensitivities? The Danes were utterly within their rights to exercise
freedom of speech, on any topic. But the real question perhaps should be, How
wise and how sensitive was it to mock the Prophet, simply to show it could be
done? And this at a time when the whole Muslim world felt itself under the siege

---

of war in the Global War on Terror. The cartoon incident did not pit believing
Danes against nonbelieving Danes, but rather nonbelieving Danes against the
supreme cultural symbol of a small, disadvantaged, and frightened minority that
lacks voice or status in Europe—in their eyes, a direct assault against their very
being and a mockery of their presence. Such events might be akin to mocking
Jews as the Chosen People of God, and making comedies and satires about the
Holocaust. (It is against the law in Germany to deny the Holocaust. And in
France, the National Assembly in 2006 passed a bill outlawing denial of the
Ottoman genocide against Armenians in World War I.)
At a minimum, this Danish exercise showed lack of judgment, sensitivity,
and social perception, even though entirely legal. Not all that is legal is wise. In
fact, the West is faced here with the irreconcilability of two sacred and quite
unchallengeable values: in the West, discussion of even the possibility of the
curtailment of freedom of speech is unthinkable—the right is sacred. Among
Muslims, even nonreligious ones, discussion of even the possibility of mocking
and blaspheming Islam and the Prophet is unthinkable—this is sacred turf. (One
positive note: Muslims are developing their own stand-up comedians in Europe
and North America who are able to start gently satirizing their own Muslim
societies in a way that does not directly stir Muslim fears of anti-Muslim hatred
and discrimination.)
The distinguished International Crisis Group perfectly encapsulated the
dilemma in its analysis of the 2006 rioting in Paris as follows:
Youthful radicalism and rioting, at least in France (and probably in the
UK too) reflects not the presence of political Islam, but its absence, its
failure…. Political Islam has signally failed to solve the problems that the
contemporary situation poses. As a result, youth have turned to Salafism,
a narrow, scripturally focused movement that stresses individual
adherence to Islam in a narrow interpretive base that encourages
withdrawal from non-Muslim society and an inward turn that rejects
French society and culture. The struggle thus gravitates towards a culture
war rather than a political one. This in turn creates a de-politicization of
social and economic problems, a dangerous political vacuum, an
unwillingness to engage the system through political channels to express
dissent and seek redress. This leaves a dangerously disillusioned, angry
and inchoate, unorganized mass of youth whose grievances are
“increasingly expressed through jihadi Salafism and rioting, fueled by
precarious living conditions, rampant unemployment, social

---

discrimination and, more recently, the perceived vilification of Islam.”
A UK Muslim convert writes:
We [Muslims] need a new agenda. And it is essential that this not be
defined as an Islamic liberalism. Liberalism in religion has a habit of
leading to the attenuation of faith. Instead, we need to turn again to our
tradition, and quarry it for resources that will enable us to regain the
Companions’ [of the Prophet] capacity for courteous conviviality.
It is no less evident that da’wa [missionary work on behalf of Islam] is
impossible if we abandon tradition in order to insist on rigorist and narrow
readings of the Shari’a. Our neighbours will not heed our invitation unless
we can show that there is some common ground, that we have something
worth having, and, even more significantly, that we are worth joining.
Radical and literalist Islamic agendas frequently seem to be advocated by
unsmiling zealots, whose tension, arrogance and misery are all too legible
on their faces.
There are other heartening signs. Open up a Muslim website, such as the very
popular Islam Online, based in Qatar, and look at its question-and-answer
section. This website is associated with one of the most authoritative clerics of
all, the Shaykh Yusif al-Qaradawi.
One recent exchange went as follows: