Abstract
Inalienable natural rights than on the notion that all
truth is relative, then perhaps mainstream Islamist
thinking will need to unhitch itself more explicitly
from the broadly Western paradigms which it
accepted for most of the twentieth century. Yet the
relation Islam/Enlightenment seems predicated on
simplistic definitions of both. Islamism may be an
Enlightenment project, but conservative Sufism (for
instance) is probably not. Conversely, even without
adopting a postmodern perspective we are not so
willing today to assume a necessary antithesis
between tradition and reason. The way forward,
probably, is to recognize that Islam genuinely
converges with Enlightenment concerns on some
issues; while on other matters, notably the
Enlightenment’s individualism and its increasingly
Promethean confidence in humanity’s autonomous
capacities, it is likely to demur radically.
What matters about Islam is that it did not
produce the modern world. If modernity ends in a
technologically-induced holocaust, then survivors will
probably hail the religion’s wisdom in not authoring
something similar. If, however, it survives, and
continues to produce a global monoculture where the
past is forgotten, and where international laws and
customs are increasingly restrictive of cultural
difference, then Islam is likely to remain the world’s
great heresy. The Ishmaelite alternative is rejected.
But what if Ishmael actually wishes to be rejected,
since the one who is doing the rejecting has ended up
creating a world without God? Grounded in our
stubbornly immobile liturgy and doctrine, we
Ishmaelites should serve the invaluable, though
deeply resented, function of a culture which would
like to be an Other, even if that is no longer quite
possible!
Muhammad Suheyl Umar . (2012) RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE: SOME OBSERVATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF ISLAM–WEST ENCOUNTER, Iqbal Review, Volume , Issue 1.
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