Representative Of The People: Egypt's new President, Mohammed Morsi, candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been hailed as that country's first democratically elected leader. But early Islamic history manifested a strong impetus towards political representation and equality within the community of the faithful. The great hope of the so-called "Arab Spring" is that these traditions will undergo a powerful revival.
IS MOHAMMED MORSI Egypt’s first democratically elected
leader? Though many journalists are insisting he merits that distinction, it’s
just possible the journalists may be wrong.
Among the first peoples to be conquered by the followers of
the Prophet Mohammed, Seventh Century Egyptians discovered earlier than most
that membership of the community of the faithful (the Ummah) conferred radical new rights. Among the most important of
these was the right to elect representatives. These upright citizens (the Shura) were, in their turn, collectively
charged with determining upon whose shoulders the responsibility for leading
the peoples of Islam should fall.
The chosen one, known as the Caliph, was of necessity both a religious and political leader.
Islam, unlike Christianity, draws no clear distinction between the things that
belong to Caesar and the things that belongs to God. The Caliphate, at least in
its original form, was, therefore, a proto-democratic republic of faith, ruled
over by a person in whose supreme office the powers of President and Pope were
combined. It’s at least arguable that, fourteen hundred years ago, Mr Morsi had
a predecessor.
Given the political traditions of the era, it is hardly
surprising that the Caliphate became the prize of a succession of dynasties.
Even so, the core religious-political principle of the fundamental equality of
all believers made possible the dazzling and extraordinarily tolerant culture
of Islam’s “Golden Age” (750-1250 AD).
The Great Mosque of Cordoba, in Spain. In the islamic Golden Age (750-1250 AD) the best scientific minds were to be found in Egypt, Syria and Iraq.
Weakened by successive Christian assaults from the West (the
Crusades) the Abbasid Caliphate was finally laid low in 1258 by the Mongol
armies of Genghis Khan. The West, however, had reason to be grateful that
before the beautiful cities, towering mosques and celebrated universities were
destroyed, most of the scientific, mathematical, medical and philosophical
achievements of Islamic civilisation had already, by fair means and foul,
passed into the hands of Christendom.
Though the Caliphate would rise again under the Ottoman
Turks, it would never again attain the extraordinary confidence and poise of
Islam’s golden age. Hugely impressive (not to mention militarily dominant)
though the Ottoman Caliphate may have been, there was something missing. That
vital spark which had lit the fires of creation and inquiry for so long was,
for some reason, no longer being struck.
Scholars of Islamic history called that missing spark ijtihad – the spirit of independent reasoning. Today, we’d call it critical
thinking. The loss of confidence which followed the slaughter and devastation
of the Mongols, combined with the authoritarian military-bureaucratic culture
of the Ottomans, saw ijtihad replaced
by taqlid – reliance on the tested,
following established practice, deferring to the teachings of those who had
come before.
At the same moment that the knowledge passed to Christendom
began fostering the intellectual forces that would result in the Renaissance,
the Reformation and the Enlightenment, the Islamic world was beginning its slow
but remorseless decline into insularity and orthodoxy.
The real question to be asked about the so-called “Arab
Spring” is whether or not it signals a reaffirmation of the fundamental
equality of all believers, and a rebirth of the democratic spirit of the shura? If so, then the world can hope
that the spirit of independent thought, of ijtihad,
will similarly be born again and the Islamic world will recapture the glories
of its golden age.
But, if the revolts taking place across the Middle East end
up being hijacked by the upholders of taqlid:
if Mr Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood are only interested in the
re-establishment of orthodoxy and the extinguishing of freedom, then spring
will become winter and the Ummah
will, once again, be robbed of the summer they deserve.
As we watch these events unfold across the Islamic world, we
should resist the temptation to celebrate our historical escape from the clutches
of taqlid. The global financial
crisis harrowing the West may not mirror the mayhem of the Mongols, but all
around us there is evidence of a very similar loss of confidence and
intellectual agility.
Looking at our own caliphs,
are we struck by their ability to engage in independent reasoning and creative
thinking? Or have they, too, fallen victim to the false promises of orthodoxy?
What now lies before the West: a golden light, or gathering
darkness? In the words of the Fifteenth Century Syrian scholar, Ahmad ibn
Arabshah: “If the future is hidden, yet you should guess it from the past.”
This essay was
originally published in The Otago Daily Times, The Waikato Times, The
Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru
Herald and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 29 June 2012.
