Islam and the West

 
“Islam is part of our past and present, in all fields of human endeavour.
It has helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart”

- The Prince of Wales

Today Europe is home to some 13 million Muslim immigrants; 5 million in France, 3.2 million in Germany and 2 million or more in Britain, augmented by immigration to Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and Scandinavia.

The achievements of the Muslims of Europe from the 8th century to the 16th century have, in large part, been left out of Western historical records. This neglect was fostered by Christian rulers, and has led to the present demonisation of Islam, though Islamic fundamentalism and associated acts of terrorism, are propagated by countries and individuals who deviate for their own perverted purposes from the word of the Koran.

Despite the marginalisation in history of the contribution of Muslims to modern-day Europe, Islam is inextricably linked with the progress of Europe and can, indeed, be traced back as far as the Muslim advance to Tours in 732, with Arab Muslims remaining in Spain until 1492, when they were driven from Granada. In Spain Granada, Seville and Cordoba remain to this day as a monument to the civilisation which they brought to Europe.

While historians have written many books on the high level of sophistication and learning of the Muslims, compared to the Europeans of those ages, few have thought to make the connection between Muslim science and the scientific explosion that was to occur later in Europe. The dependence of the latter on the former is immense.

It would not be unreasonable to say that the scientific revolution that took place in 17th century Europe could not have occurred without the help of the Muslims

As The Prince of Wales recently said, we have underestimated the importance and significance of 800 years of Islamic society and culture, especially in Spain, between the 8th and 15th centuries. During this period, not only did Muslims in Spain gather and preserve the character and content of the ancient Roman and Greek civilisations which form the bedrock of modern society, they also played a significant role in revolutionising western understanding of science.

Among the contributions made by the Islamic elements of European society are the introduction of algebra - itself an Arabic word - by Muhammad bin Mousa Al-Khawarizmi, the concept of zero, the introduction of what we now know as ‘Arabic numerals’ without which mathematics would be impossible. The theory of Pascal’s Triangle, which assists in factoring equations in the form of (a+b)n, was developed by Al-Karkhi. The mathematician Ghiath Edden Al-Kashi approximated pi to 16 places past the decimal point. The mathematicians who followed made ever more impressive contributions.

In medicine too, the input of the Muslim world was revolutionary. Averroes and Avenzoor, like their scientific counterparts Avicenna and Rhazes in the East, laid the foundations of the way that medical treatment is practised and researched today. One need only look at the work of Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi, Ali Abbas and Ibn Sina whose theses on surgical procedures started the trickle and then torrent of enlightenment in surgery.

In Optics - the basis of the science can be attributed directly to the Muslims - Al-Hassen bin Al-Haythem is considered the founder of this field. He and Al-Beirouni came to the conclusion, in disagreement with Aristotle, that the speed of light is constant and that light is composed of extremely small particles moving at extremely high speeds, which is the basis of the quantum nature of light as understood today.

Whilst modern literature, such as Matthew Gregory Lewis’ ‘The Monk’ seeks to glorify the Renaissance period of gothic monasteries and catholicism, the foundation of the scientific and cultural renaissance of the period was the diligent work of Muslim scholars during the Dark Ages with Greek, Sanskrit and Chinese ideas being fed directly into the lifeblood of European culture.

When considering the thirst for learning that swept the western world during the period of what we now refer to as the ‘Renaissance’, one cannot overlook the input of Islamic Spain whose entire society was based upon the traditional Muslim principle that "the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr”. This is today too often subverted in the eyes of many in favour of images of Islamic extremists.

During the tenth century, most philosophers, scientists and indeed musicians would agree that Cordoba was the most civilised city in Europe. The Library contained more than four hundred thousand books – more than the rest of Europe put together. This is because the Islamic world, by technological foresight and disciplined philosophy, acquired and practised the skill of paper-making from the Chinese more than four hundred years before then dark and Godless England. In this city scholarly clerics experimented with the written word and practised the art of story-telling and record-keeping - which orders the western world today. How can these men be equated by media association with the extremists who preach outside the Finsbury Park Mosque in London?

Many of the characteristics on which Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, the techniques of academic research, anthropology, etiquette, fashion, alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from this great civilisation.

It is easy, when hearing reports of Islamic fundamentalism, bombing plots and training centres for terrorists, to forget that the open and peaceful society that we appreciate so much in Europe today was founded on one of the most glorious, yet undervalued civilisations ever seen in the world – Islamic Spain.

The ideals of democracy, open borders, scientific enlightenment, medical treatment and free trade agreements all originate from the great cities of this society.

Islam was and for most part remains a religion of magnanimity, which allowed, for example, Jews and Christians to live peacefully and respectfully alongside Islamic culture in sharp contrast to the ridicule, and worse, suffered until very recently by religious minorities in Europe.

Traditional Islamic theology divides the world into two zones: the dar al-Islam, or house of Islam, and the dar al-harb, or house of war. This world view assumes that Muslims will never be able to practice their religion properly in non-Muslim lands and so should not settle there. But second- and third-generation Muslims in Europe quickly discovered that this was a false assumption. Fresh ideas were needed, such as the dar ash-shahada, or house of testimony: a new concept referring to any place where Muslims can profess their faith and live according to the precepts of their religion

Now is the time to redefine Islam in the context of Muslims as believers who were born and bred in Europe. The result is a kind of Euro-Islam, the traditional Koran-based religion with its prohibitions against alcohol and interest-bearing loans now inevitably influenced by the "Western" values of democracy and civil liberties. This new vision has already begun to influence the world which the grandparents of these young Europeans left behind.

The integration of Europe's Muslims depends on the adoption of a form of Islam that embraces Western political values, such as pluralism, tolerance, the separation of church and state, democratic civil society and individual human rights. "The options for Muslims are unequivocal," says Bassam Tibi, professor of international relations at the University of Göttingen, who first used the term Euro-Islam. "There is no middle way between Euro-Islam and a ghettoization of Muslim minorities." "If there is a sociological change there will be a theological change as well," he says. "In Islam, law and ethics are the same thing. If you change the ethics, you change the law. There will be a new interpretation of Islam."

In Europe, Muslims must also confront social questions — such as euthanasia, abortion and sexuality — that are suppressed in many Islamic countries. Nowhere is this confrontation more obvious than in the assertive roles being claimed by women. After all, the 7th century doctrines of the Prophet Muhammad considerably improved their lot, forbidding the then common practice of female infanticide and making the education of girls a sacred duty. "It's not the religion that holds back women but the culture — and the men," says Fatma Amer, head of education and interfaith relations at the London Central Mosque. "It's up to the women to organize themselves and not accept everything their communities tell them they must do."

One area in which both women and men are asserting themselves more vigorously is marriage. In Britain, increasing numbers of young women are resisting arranged marriages to cousins back in Bangladesh or Pakistan. In France, too, young people are clashing with parents who always assumed their children would marry someone from their own village in Morocco or Algeria. "We want to choose the person we marry," says Fouad Imarraine, who runs the Tawhid Cultural Center in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. "It doesn't matter what colour their skin is as long as we're of the same faith."

Imarraine describes how the attitudes of Europe's Muslims have changed. "When we went back to North Africa on holiday, we realized we had deeper ties in France," he says, sipping coffee in a café nestled at the foot of a concrete tower block. "Very few of my generation made it to university and Islam provided us with a refuge from failure at school and feeling shut out of society. But there's now a younger generation using Islam as a way of establishing the universal values they have in common with those around them. Defining their own identity as Muslims is a way of interacting with the rest of society."

Although non-Muslims often view Islam as a monolithic bloc, the religion is characterized by its diversity. With over a billion believers scattered across every continent, as well as separate Shi'ite and Sunni traditions, the Muslim community (or ummah) has long been a philosophical construct rather than a demographic reality. That's true in Europe, where Muslims are divided by country of residence as much as by country of origin. "The problems Muslims are facing here are deeply influenced by the institutions of the countries where they live," says Farhad Khosrokhavar, a professor at Paris' School of Post-Graduate Studies in Social Science. "But the influence of democracy and religious tolerance is bringing about a meeting of minds."

And that influence could well spread to the Muslim world as a whole. For Zaki Badawi, chairman of the Imams and Mosques Council of Britain, Muslims in the West are helping to answer the question that has haunted Islam for the past century: how to reconcile tradition and modernity. "Islam, like any other society, finds modernity challenging," Badawi says. Although that challenge is felt more acutely in the developing world, intellectuals in those countries don't have the freedom to analyze the problem and find effective solutions. "The tension between Islam and modernity will be answered by thinkers in the West," Badawi says, "and transferred back to our countries of origin."

It would be symbolically and historically fitting if the next great reform of Islam came from the diaspora in the West. After all, the starting point of the Muslim calendar is not the year of Muhammad's birth but the day 1,379 years ago when the Prophet led his followers from his birthplace in Mecca to found a new community in Medina. "The very foundation of Islamic civilization was built on diaspora, on the move from Mecca to Medina," says British Muslim writer Sardar. "This is where the diaspora is very important: in creating a truly moderate tradition for the future." The new diaspora of Muslims in Europe already has that task in hand.

What's different now is that for the first time in their 14-century history, Muslims are living as minorities in secular societies.

Tariq Ramadan is one of the most prominent exponents of this new thinking. "As a Muslim I can be at home anywhere I'm safe, and where the rule of law protects my freedom of conscience and my freedom to worship," he says. "In this new environment, my responsibility is to bear witness to the message of my faith."

European Muslims don't necessarily differ from other Muslims when it comes to the basic tenets of their faith, but according to Dilwar Hussain, a research fellow at the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, they do have "greater flexibility, greater awareness of the wider society and more liberal attitudes." Witness the growing number of Muslim girls contacting the Rutgers Women's Health Foundation in the Netherlands for advice on abortion and reproductive health.

Hussain says that Europe's liberal attitudes are forcing the faithful to reassess their own beliefs. "The younger Muslims are going back to the text and asking: 'What my parents used to do - is that really part of my faith or is that part of their cultural tradition?' Drawing that distinction between faith and culture is very important. You may find some things in the Islamic texts, and the cultural setting can lead to a particular interpretation. When the cultural setting changes, those interpretations will naturally change" says Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France: "We're forging our own way of practicing Islam, and it's going to be different from the way it's done in Morocco, Algeria or Saudi Arabia. Islam needs to free itself from imported customs."

For Yakob Mahi, 36, a Moroccan imam living in Belgium, adapting Islam to new environments has been central to the development of his faith. He cites the concept of Shari'a, the way of life ordained by God for mankind, which he says many countries have turned into a code of punishment — even though less than 1% of the Koran consists of penal rules. In Europe, Mahi says, "We can see Shari'a not as law, but as a path to be understood in its context. When we transform it into daily European life, we see that Shari'a doesn't mean cutting off the hand of a thief. Rather it's a spirit present in many things we enjoy in Europe: the principles of democracy, the rule of law, the freedoms of expression and association." That innovative interpretation makes Muslim law compatible with its Western secular counterparts. So Mahi advocates a doctrine of "spiritual citizenship" in which Muslims "respect the laws [of the secular state] but try to give a spiritual impulse to everything they do."

The present generation has grown up thinking of Europe as home, even if it has often seemed inhospitable. Schoolgirls have been expelled for wearing the hijab in France, while in British Islamic communities like the one in Luton, Muslims are twice as likely to be unemployed as other townsfolk. But for this new generation, being Muslim and European means their faith has become a matter of individual choice rather than social constraint.

"Younger Muslims are far more individualistic in the way they interpret the Koran, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're any less devout," says Mustapha Oukbih, a 36-year-old journalist who lives and works in The Hague. "They want to decide for themselves how to live their lives," Oukbih says. This emphasis on personal choice is providing many Muslims with a new vision of politics too.

"Strictly religious problems are becoming more marginal," says Hakim El Ghissassi, editor of France's La Médina, referring to the widespread availability of mosques and religious instruction. "Young people today are more concerned with resolving the social issues facing Muslims: employment, equality in the labour market, political representation and the way that history is taught in schools. Muslims are going to make their voices heard more and more on these issues. They're going to want to take part in government at the local, national and European level."

However a political anomaly exists insofar as, at the moment, Muslim political representation is small. The Netherlands with a Muslim population of 800,000 has seven Muslim MPs, but Britain has only two, and France none!

Islam should be, to the intelligent mind, a friend to the western culture which Islam played such a crucial part in creating - as distinct from the distant, alien and frankly rather dangerous religion it has come to be thought of today.