In the early 20th century, Lenin – an exiled young Russian radical – observed: There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen. In 1962, Thomas Kuhn explained this phenomenon by coining the phrase ‘paradigm shift’: an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way.
The practice of Islam is going through a paradigm shift.
To understand this change, we need to understand its past.
The medieval timeline
The period of Nubuwat was guided. So not much to imagine there except to understand Hadith reports in terms of reliability and context.
The Umayyad century was an imperial period – a time of decades of strife to own something unique. Might determined the outcomes here.
The Abbasid period was an era of consolidation. Democratisation of knowledge also led to viral spread of misinformation and varied perception of the same source.
Seekers of knowledge took upon themselves to create institutions and methodologies to establish the truths, and rules on disagreements.
Then came the Mongols, and razed Baghdad in 1258. The long period of Taqleed began.
The cautious ‘following the precedent’ helped to tame the storm but also killed the appetite for enquiry and experiment, ushering in the protracted struggle of choosing the lesser of the two perceived evils.
Despite the start of downward spiral, Islam spread into the African Sahel, the Indian Subcontinent and the Malayan Archipelago on the merits of appealing equality, fairness and peace.
Advent of modern era
Rising from the ashes of religious wars of 1648, the Atlantic sea-farers of Europe took upon themselves to enquiry, and spread across the world. The monarchs and bishops were one step behind the curve.
By 1776, a part of the New World decided they will not need bishops to run the affairs of their nation. In war or in peacetime, their men of science and industry will lead them. The idea radicalised the Old Europe.
In a hundred year, many Europeans came to believe that religions were not really needed to organise society. By 1917, the radicals in Russia forced atheism in their part of the world. These sentiments were cherished by significant minorities all across the European world and its colonies.
Effect on Islam
While the rise of Czarist Russia arrested the influence and spread of Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century, the revolutionary Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798. The subsequent Battle of Nile proved that Muslims will need the help of one European power to dislodge another.
In yet another struggle of choosing the lesser of the two unpalatable choices, the era of colonisation began.
Just like the Napoleonic radicals, the 20th century communists believed and schemed that Muslims will eventually abandon all faith, and follow their version of progress.
This is in contrast to the English who were transparent and temperate in their goals.
In that vein, the colonised Muslim world got split into two:
1. the subjugated, under the French radicals and Russian communists, and
2. the protectorates, under the British liberals, with access to their religion.
The Cold War
During the Cold War, the Capitalist World invited Muslims to fill in the demands of expanding economy. The blue collar jobs and the Taqleedi mindset insulated the first generation from their hosts.
The second generation saw the contradictions. However, respect of parents inspired loyalty to traditions which prevented introspection. Where fundamental changes were needed, the tools used by their ancestors were meaningless in the new context.
Also, the minority movements (black rights and feminism) gravitated them towards their ‘Muslim Identity’, an entirely new concept for Muslims now living as minorities.
On the cusp of winning the Cold War, in 1989, the young Muslims were allowed to alienate themselves in the name of the ‘love of the Prophet’. Soon, Daughters of Another Path and Clash of Civilisations were being talked about loud.
The young children of blue collar migrants were happy with narratives of On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History.
Then came that September 2021.
Post-9/11
In the following 15 years, ‘Muslims were negatively framed in the media and that Islam was frequently cast as a violent religion’ by the Western newspapers.
Focus of a bright spotlight, lonely in a cold room, a young Muslim soul had no escape. A confused young individual was expected to carry the baggage of history, and sort out its contents.
‘Following the precedent’ was meaningless in an unprecedented territory, autocratic dictators were clearly tribal in a world going global, political parties used rhetoric and polemics instead of churning out policies in context of 21st century, while the local imams were convincing the young to be proud of their faith and act normal.
On their individual own – without a pope, without a priestly class, without a nation as defined by Peace of Westphalia – an individual Muslim response was varied.
A few became atheist, disappointed by religions in general. Some became agnostic while others called themselves cultural Muslims, following their 19th and 20th century European co-religionists – all effected by Modernity.
The other side of spectrum saw:
1. Revanchists: calling for open warfare against the former colonists and perceived tormentors, and
2. Islamists: wanting to establish Khilaafat by a more democratic means.
If the former were devious, the latter were romantics.
A large majority carried on by holding on to the rafts of the daily grind with their Imaan fluctuating from one end of spectrum to the other. Their daily experiences effected their deeds.
Globalised World
Now two decades of unbridled Muslim bias gave free licence for governments to show their bigotry in ways that resembled the communist atrocities and medieval persecutions.
The United Nations protests but to no avail.
In Myanmar, millions of Muslims were forced out as ‘Bengali’ while in Sri Lanka mobs were allowed to rampage Muslim dignity at a whim. In India, an attempt is going on to outcast this pauperised minority systematically.
While the sophisticated Chinese claims a moral high ground of ‘re-education’ of Muslims, Denmark and France almost hopped the bandwagon. Eastern Europeans remain petrified of Muslim migrants.
Just like the other Abrahamic faiths, Muslims too are fundamentally democratic whose behaviour is guided by higher human values that are entrenched in ideals of equality, fairness and progress.
This nice notion takes a dent when non-Muslim minorities are persecuted by Muslim majorities, both in the Middle East and in Africa. Yes, there is poverty and geopolitical pressures but the fundamental problem is the Muslim practice of Islam that belongs to the 13th century when the Mongol warlords invaded the cultural heartland of Baghdad.
So what change awaits us
In the coming decades, centuries will happen.
That important change: inclusion of science in Fiqh as one of the primary sources of Shariah, both as a differentiator and an arbitrator, along with Quran and Hadith.
The Quran appeals to ‘reason’, ’to reflect’, to ‘Haqq’ tens of times, in varied contexts and circumstances.
For millennia, religions have taken care of mental health of their communities and societies – from pulling people out by the dark abyss of depression to inspiring them to great endeavours.
And over these millennia, when one religion lagged behind the understanding of new concepts, a better narrative of life and beyond replaced it.
This process halted in the mid-19th century, due to stubborn refusal of religions – all religions – to comprehend the new emerging realities.
The new masters of information believed modernity was the end of all religions. However, they could not replace the source of Sakinah, that universal mental peace and certainty we all – all of humanity – craves for.
A mix of regimented personal freedoms, materialism and nationalism was a quick answer.
In times of stress, this created industrial scale massacres of the 20th century in the form of World Wars in Europe and Proxy Wars in the rest of the world.
The 21st century will have to pick up these pieces and its inevitable post-traumatic stress.
We need to find a way to channel finite energy-resources and fragile human capital-investments away from military-industrial complex to infrastructure and climate-sustainable networks all across the globe – our Village.
In our context, incorporation of science in Fiqh will finally close the era of Taqleed (when Islam stopped responding to real world needs in the 13th century), opens up paths ahead for partnerships in diversity and inclusiveness, and experiment with novel ways to achieve meritocracy and human progress – helping each Muslim and their societies to focus on solutions and agreed outcomes.
Indeed it is a challenging endeavour for the present and a worthy legacy for our children.
Such an aspiration has potential to inject sakinah into the souls and barakah into the daily grind of all kinds of lives.
The promise of Quran points to this – tens of times – for decades and centuries to come.
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