A world Without Islam pdfdrive com

The Antihierarchical Christianity of John Calvin
Again, parallels with fundamentalist Islam abound in the strict interpretation of
religious text as the basis for legislation and social organization. Wahhabism, in
its insistence upon a return to the basic texts of the faith, bears considerable
resemblance to both Lutheranism and Calvinism. The movement in later forms
advocated the priesthood of all believers. Wahhabism also denounces blind
adherence to earlier clerical interpretations of texts and practices, and even
reflexive perpetuation of family and traditional religious practice. Instead, it
insists that each Muslim has a responsibility to seek a personal understanding of
the texts.
It would surely seem to be a feature of enlightened modernism to stress the
individual’s responsibility in seeking a personal, reflective understanding of his
own faith and moral values, as opposed to uncritical acceptance of inherited
tradition. But the experience of the Reformation—and fundamentalist Islam—
demonstrates that when individuals believe themselves empowered and able to
interpret sacred texts, then alternative, unauthorized, and even bizarre views may
emerge and possibly run rampant. Senior theologians, Catholic or Islamic, then
lose control over what the “correct” meaning of the texts is. Indeed, in
Lutheranism the clerics are very much supposed to lose control and relinquish
authority to the individual believer. We return here to the permanent dilemma of
revealed texts in the Abrahamic faiths: To whom is understanding vouchsafed?
Who can determine genuine orthodoxy? No single source can ever be viewed as
authoritative, and a theological free-for-all can easily ensue, with irresponsible
and even dangerous consequences. That is exactly what has happened in both the
Reformation and some fundamentalist Islamic movements. Fundamentalist Islam
does not reveal here some strange or unusual characteristics but is instead
moving along predictable lines in the evolution of revealed religions.
The issue is as vital now as it was during the Reformation or the emergence
of Wahhabi thought. Today, many clerics outside Arabia seek to denigrate trends
toward independent thinking as “Wahhabi,” suggesting they represent a “foreign
import” contrary to local tradition and understanding. As in Christianity, there is
genuine tension between centralized “authoritative” understanding of religion,
and local, traditional, or “unauthorized” personal views. Individual interpretation
may lead to a deeper understanding of scripture, but it may also grant license to
ignorant radicalism.
In the Reformation, fears of possible “religious ideas run wild” were quickly
justified: early Protestantism witnessed a sudden proliferation of sects, with

---

often wildly diverse understandings of biblical texts. Ideas have consequences.
Many new interpretations created radical new political and social groupings that
turned to violence and were often exploited by local powers as weapons against
other powers.
The (Protestant) Dictionary of Christianity estimates that 20,800 different
Protestant denominations are in existence today; the World Christian
Encyclopedia places the total at a staggering 33,820. While the precise figure
can be debated, these numbers undeniably represent the fruits of the seeds sown
by the Reformation. They fully validate Catholic fears about the consequences of
loosened centralized control over church doctrine and hierarchy.
And in Islam, the Sunni branch in particular is characterized by a lack of
centralized theological control or even of a single authoritative voice like a pope.
So, in one sense, it shares the same dilemma as Protestantism. There is no one
figure in Sunni Islam who can speak with absolute or binding authority on
questions of interpretation of Islam. The rector of the religious faculty at al-
Azhar University in Cairo enjoys some respect, but even his voice owes more to
tradition and Egyptian state power than to any real authority. A leading Muslim
Brotherhood resident scholar in Qatar, Yusif al-Qaradawi, enjoys perhaps more
respect than any other figure due to his weekly TV program on al-Jazeera, in
which he tries to clarify orthodox Islamic perspectives on religious issues under
contemporary conditions.
The Reformation spawned numerous radical groups several centuries ago.
But apart from some historical fringe groups in Islam, not until the twentieth
century did more-sweeping radical interpretations emerge in political and social
thinking. These ideas planted seeds that were later carried to far greater extremes
in such radical groups as al-Qa’ida. The radical group Takfir wa’l Hijra in Egypt
—literally “to denounce others as Unbelievers and to seek refuge for oneself
from an impure world”—parallels Calvinist thinking, although Calvinism did not
practice terrorism. This sect preaches that there is little true Islam in this world
and that the only option open to the individual is to denounce contemporary
Muslim society as “ignorant” or nonbelieving and to take refuge, either in a
special righteous community (like Calvin’s City of God) or, more commonly,
within oneself, to find purity of belief and action against the corrupting
influences of society.
And who is the target of all this preaching? Strikingly, in both the Christian
and Muslim cases the goal is not to create converts from other religions. For the
majority of Islamists, da’wa, or missionary work, is aimed at changing other
Muslims whose understanding of Islam is seen as flawed or incorrect; they seek

---

to call them back to the true faith. In the eyes of many of these fundamentalists,
contemporary Muslim society is deeply corrupted, has lost its moral path, and is
even referred to as jahili, or “ignorant”—a term originally applied to pre-Islamic
Arabian society, a state of ignorance before Islam. The term was reinterpreted by
Egyptian Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb in the mid-twentieth century to refer to
the overall state of contemporary Muslim society as he saw it—that is,
wallowing in ignorance of the true faith.
Perhaps the most radical of the three main Protestant trends during the
Reformation were the Anabaptists, who share with many Islamists a strong
commitment to missionary work. Anabaptism literally means “baptism anew,”
the idea that baptism is meaningless unless it represents a conscious adult
decision to establish a new and personal relationship with God. Anabaptists
called for “rebaptism” of adults, who this time would be fully conscious of the
nature of their decision to embrace their personal God. Central to Anabaptists,
too, was empowerment of the individual and the rejection of routine, often empty
acceptance of inherited faith via family tradition. And similarly, for many
Islamic fundamentalists, inheritance of faith through the social environment does
not suffice; only Muslims who personally understand their newly found
commitment as a Muslim, through personal study of the texts, can be considered
a true Muslim. And like Islamic fundamentalists, Anabaptists were known for
their formidable knowledge of scripture. The Anabaptists reached the pinnacle
of radicalism in the eighteen-month Münster Rebellion described at the outset of
this chapter.
Similar social conditions help spawn similar religious reaction in diverse
societies. For all of the period’s intense focus on theology, it was its political and
social forces that drove the Reformation. This was a time of great change: the
crumbling of a feudal order associated with social and economic injustice, the
emergence of cities and a new urban life free of the norms of feudalism, an
environment which fostered the emergence of new bourgeois values and
conscious assertion of rights for the individual. These changes were resisted by
feudal forces, sometimes by princes but sometimes not, depending on their
interests. The newly emerging states sought to seize control of church finances
and take them over. Above all, the Reformation carried huge and deliberate
political implications for the German princes and other northern European rulers.
Where you stood on Reformation theology depended on where your economic
and political interests lay.
We have seen this in the turmoil of a changing Mecca, the shift from tribal to
more mercantile values, and the loss of more traditional tribal safety nets and the

---

emergence of Muhammad; Jesus, too, was emerging in a new social environment
in which, among other things, Galilee was hostile to the economic and religious
power of Jerusalem.
The common theme through all of this is the relationship of the state and state
power: what happens when the state loses control over doctrine. We see it almost
invariably releases popular participation in political and social events, often
unleashing radical activism, especially when conditions are bad.

---