by Ahmed Keeler
This world was changing, however; towns were forming around the monasteries and trade was quickening; kings were consolidating their lands and their power. The papacy split with Byzantium over doctrine in 1054 and launched the First Crusade against Islam in 1095. Western Christendom was growing in power and confidence. The encounter with the Islamic world was critical to Western Christendom’s cultural and intellectual evolution. The Crusades were taking place in Spain and the Holy Land. As soon as cities were conquered by the Crusaders, captive engineers and craftsmen were sent back into Christendom and their skills contributed to a building programme of incredible scale within the Church. Hundreds of magnificent cathedrals and abbeys and tens of thousands of fine parish churches in the new Gothic tradition appeared across Europe. Their size, which dwarfed all that was around them, manifested the absolute dominance of the sacred over the secular.
However, the Church was increasingly becoming a temporal power with its vast land holdings and fabulous wealth in treasure. Many cardinals and bishops were hardly distinguishable from their temporal lords. Cracks began to form between the power of the Church and the monarchs. The murder of St Thomas a Becket in 1170 was an early sign in England. King Henry II attempted to bring the Church under the jurisdiction of the Crown. St Thomas resisted and his martyrdom turned him into one of the greatest saints of Western Christendom. This event contributed to ensuring that the Church would remain the supreme authority for another three hundred years.
Finally, however, the authority of the Church was usurped by the power of kings. In England, Henry VIII became head of the Church and took his revenge on St Thomas a Becket; his remains were exhumed and burnt, and a royal proclamation announced that, henceforth, he was to be regarded as a traitor rather than a saint. Once Henry VIII had assumed control of the Church, he dissolved and destroyed nearly a thousand great abbeys, priories, convents and friaries. A third of the wealth of England was taken into the Royal coffers. The shrines of the saints in abbeys, cathedrals and churches were dismantled and their bones scattered. Entire social networks of education, labour and support for the poor and sick were destroyed along with the buildings. There had never been a destruction committed by a society on itself to compare with it. The thousand-year contemplative heart of Christianity in England was ripped out.
The beneficiary of the transfer of the vast accumulated wealth of the monasteries was the newly ennobled, rising merchant class, who would acquire their lands. In Christendom, merchants were somewhat despised and occupied a lowly place in the Vocational Triad, but now, banding together and forming companies, they were ready to take full advantage of this fast-developing new age. Meanwhile the kings, overstepping their rightful place, drew more and more power to themselves until absolute monarchies emerged. Charles V in Spain, Charles I in England, Louis XIV in France, and Peter the Great in Russia all rose to claim this status. The power of these new sovereign rulers and the triumph of the secular over the sacred rested on a new political entity that emerged out of the conflict that engulfed Christendom during the Reformation, namely the sovereign state.
The most intense warfare between Catholic and Protestant took place in the Germanic lands which were divided into many principalities and bishoprics, and at the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years War, a formulation was put together that allowed each state to choose which form of Christianity it would adopt, and for their decision to be accepted by the other states. Judicial recognition was now given to a new kind of state that had been developing for more than a hundred years: the sovereign nation state. This ushered in a fundamental change in the identity of the individual. For a thousand years the primary unifying identity of the individual was Christian; after that came the relationship and obligations between subjects and their rulers, the local attachment to place, and other factors. With the collapse of Christendom, the primary unifying identity was subsumed into the newly-formed sovereign nation state. What had been a Christian identity became a kind of quasi-sacred national identity.
An artificial structure was being created in the wake of the collapse of Christendom. In this new framework, single cultures sharing a common language, religion and history, with stable geographical borders, fared best. As the power at the centre increased and communication systems developed, a process of homogenization took place, and the diversity within regions began to fade away. Portugal, Spain, France, England and the Netherlands were the first sovereign states to appear and between them would conquer and transform the world. But the world they conquered was multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious and highly complex. The imposition of the European model of the nation state would become a recipe for unstable and irrational political entities and continuous conflict and oppression.
The tyranny of the absolute monarchs finally led to rebellion and revolution, and either the elimination of monarchy or its reduction to an ever-weakening symbolic role. Sovereignty was now transferred to, and vested in the people, with democracy becoming the new ideal. In the euphoria of revolution, the philosophers and thinkers of what came to be known as the Enlightenment, envisioned a world where humanity would live in a state of equality, brotherhood and freedom.
But it was Luther who paved the way for what was to become the defining characteristic of Western civilisation with the vesting of sovereignty in the individual. This is explained in Richard Rex’s book, The Making of Martin Luther:
[Luther’s] central doctrine, ‘justification by faith alone’, was meant to give each individual believer absolute certainty of enjoying the grace and favour of God… The underlying individualism of what would later be termed ‘the personal relationship with God’ passed into the DNA of liberal Protestantism and from there into most facets of Western culture.
Immanuel Kant then cemented the idea of individual autonomy in his definition of the Enlightenment.
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding.
This abandonment of authority was a reaction to the abuse of power by despotic kings and the endless religious disputes engulfing Christianity. Kant’s investing the individual with an essentially subjectivist rational sovereignty would have far-reaching consequences further down the line. Being himself a Pietist Lutheran, he could not imagine what would happen when faith was taken out of the equation and religion, with its moral prohibitions, parked in a siding. A hundred years later Friedrich Nietzsche could see it:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?
Nietzsche prophesied that in the 20th century humanity would experience wars of unimaginable horror, and in the 21st century the machines of his invention would turn on him and the crisis of nihilism would come to a head. His crazed solution was for man to transcend himself and replace God by becoming Superman. Ironically, the consequences of this idea gave credence to the megalomaniacs who, in the 20th century, plunged the world into the horrors he had prophesied.
Over the last five hundred years, the West has gone on a journey that began with absolute sovereignty being vested in God, then with it passing into the monarchy and the sovereign nation state, then being vested in the people through democracy, and finally ending up with the sovereignty of the individual.
2
CIVILISATION
ISLAM
FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, before the rise of the European empires, the two civilisations that dominated the Afro-Eurasian world were those of China and Islam. They both represented powerful examples of
the criterion of balance but were very different manifestations. China was an ancient world with a continuous history stretching back millennia, where balance depended on the establishment of the just empire with the Emperor as the mediator between Heaven and Earth. The cycles of the rise and fall of empires followed a course of order, disintegration and then order once again. But each time, fundamental characteristics remained the same; the presence of the Emperor, the Chinese language and script, the continuous wisdom of Confucius and the concept of Yin and Yang ensured that in each iteration balance was re-established and maintained through the force of dynamic equilibrium. This force guaranteed the unchanging, permanent character of the civilisation, which would be misread by the Enlightenment as stagnation. Each new dynasty had a particular character and would emphasize certain traits, but the core remained constant.
Whilst China was bound by its geography, what is known as Dār al-Islām (the Abode of Islam) had taken root from West Africa to China, binding together a myriad of different races, language groups and cultures into one civilisation. In the early 14th century a scholar from Tangiers, Ibn Battūta, spent 27 years travelling to every part of the world of Islam. Not only could he practise his profession as a qādī (judge) in India and the Maldives, he could converse with scholars in Timbuktu, Konya, Tabriz, Delhi, Malacca and Hangzhou. The Islamic system of governance, education and the sharia supported a civilisation unlike any that had appeared before.
But let us begin with the birthplace of this new civilisation. In the early part of the 7th century, the Arabian Peninsula was strategically placed to connect into the civilised worlds of Afro-Eurasia. By land, it buffered the warring empires of Byzantium and Persia, whilst it was linked by sea both to India, which was divided into many states, and to China, which was being unified under the Tang Dynasty. To the north, the Eurasian Steppes were dominated by the Turkish nomads whose empire had stretched from Manchuria to the borders of Hungary, but was now breaking up. To the North West, Christian monks were converting the Germanic tribes that had conquered the Western Roman Empire, and far to the East, Buddhism was entering Japan. The emergence of Islam out of the deserts of Arabia would, over the following centuries, utterly transform this world.
Mecca, the birth place of the Prophet, was a trading station on the route that connected the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and was the sacred centre for the Arab tribes who would come together in their annual pilgrimage to the Holy Kaaba. In this closely-knit society of warriors and traders, the Qur’an was transmitted through the person whom Muslims believe to be the last of the prophets and the ‘Seal of Prophethood’. For thirteen years, Muhammad and his companions were in Mecca, enduring extreme hardship and persecution. In this hostile environment, the nascent community was sustained and encouraged by suras that were revealed during this time, and by the example and guidance of the Prophet; thus they were taught patience and trust in God, and compassion for their persecutors. In this period of trial, the Muslim inner life of submission and serenity was formed.
With the Hijra, the migration to Medina in the year 622, the Islamic calendar and era began. For ten years the Prophet led, governed and guided his community in the light of the revelations that continued to be transmitted, providing the framework of how to live as a society in a state of submission to the will of God. After these twenty-three years had passed, the Qur’an was complete and the Prophet departed this world, leaving a community immersed in the religion and ready to carry Islam onto the world stage.
Fundamental to the structure of Islamic society, as it would grow into its civilisational form, was the vocational triad that was manifested in the person of the Prophet. Firstly, he represented the scholar as the transmitter of revelation and the fount of wisdom; secondly, he was the ruler of his community and a warrior who led them in battle, and finally, he lived in a community of merchants and engaged in trade. Moreover, the Prophet is also regarded as having realised the perfect balance between inward and outward, between the life of the contemplative and the active life of family and society. All the various types of humanity could identify with the Prophet and seek to follow his exemplary conduct or sunna, which was preserved and transmitted through the Hadith, the corpus of sayings passed down from him. The all-encompassing character of the Prophet dissolved the rigidity of caste and vocation, allowing for a fluidity to exist, so that sultans might practise crafts, merchants become learned, and scholars engage in trade.
What came to be known as the Five Pillars of Islam formed the foundation for the religious life of all Muslims for all time. First amongst them is the attestation of faith (shahāda), that is, bearing witness to the Unity of God, and the prophethood of Muhammad. Then come the canonical prayers (salāt), to be performed five times each day. This is followed by the zakāt which is the annual tax paid by every wealthy Muslim and used to assure an equitable society. Fourthly, we have the month-long fast of Ramadan, a festival that combines ascetical self-denial, the celebration of giving, the communal partaking in the breaking of the fast, and a sacred commemoration of the revelation of the Qur’an, which began during the month of Ramadan. Finally, there is the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, incumbent upon a believer if he or she is able, which brings together Muslims from across the globe in a visible testimony to unity.
These Five Pillars provide the framework for the Islamic way of life; they are common to all Muslims, and have never changed. Accepted by mainstream Sunnis and Shia alike, they provide a simple unifying structure that guides believers through the cycles of the day and year, and can be practised in any environment and terrain. The testimony of faith grounds all human experience in an affirmation of the oneness of God and of the prophethood of Muhammad. The five prayers ensure that all of human life, at home, in the market, even on a journey or in battle, is permeated by a living connection to, and dialogue with, God. Zakāt blesses the wealth of the rich, and provides succour to the poorest in society. The fast of Ramadan unifies the community during the sacred month, encouraging all believers to practise self-restraint and experience privation. The Hajj brings together believers from all corners of the Islamic world. It is a great leveller, with everyone leaving behind their wealth and status and donning simple white clothing, and it is a reminder of the gathering that is promised at the Resurrection.
The Qur’an, the Hadith of the Prophet and the Five Pillars of Islam would provide the unchanging kernel out of which the civilisation would evolve. When this stable, permanent sacred core engaged with the great civilisations of Afro-Eurasia, a dynamic process of transformation took place as the knowledge required in order to move from the tribal world of Arabia to a fully developed civilisation was assessed and assimilated. The rapid conquest, which produced an empire stretching from the Atlantic in the west to the borders of China and India in the east, called for the knowledge of statecraft and complex administration. This was acquired from Byzantium and Persia, ensuring a smooth transition of authority. The unity of Islamic civilisation was guaranteed by its sacred core, and its diversity by the way in which Islam was able to sift and embrace the different cultural forms and knowledge systems that were encountered.
Over a period of some five hundred years, the various aspects of the civilisation emerged and were refined, until at every level it was fully formed. The intellectual sciences were unified, the hierarchy of knowledge was established, the sharia reached its maturity, colleges and educational institutions were founded, craft and merchant guilds set up, and tarīqas (spiritual orders) to regulate the Sufi path came into being. Islamic civilisation had now reached a state of mīzān, that enabled each and every Muslim to live their lives in a spiritual, intellectual, moral and material environment that reflected the divine unity.
We have become used to believing the famous saying ‘change is the only constant in life’, and the idea that what doesn’t change is stagnant and dying. However, when viewed from the perspective of mīzān, maint
ained through dynamic equilibrium, the opposite is true. At this point, it may be useful to use the analogy of the game of chess. The rules governing chess, once established, have remained the same for hundreds of years. It is difficult to imagine how they could be improved. The form is perfect. There have been millions of players of the game who have derived great pleasure from playing, but very few grand masters. However, the grand masters can never exhaust the possibilities that the game affords.
The sharia formed the backbone of Islamic civilisation and is a term that has been thoroughly misunderstood in the West. It is usually referred to as Islamic Law and tends to be viewed simply as a penal code. But this is only one aspect of a vast all-encompassing spiritual, moral and ethical system of how to live on this earth as a Muslim. It defines the relationships and obligations that obtain between the Muslim and his Creator, his fellow human beings and the creation. It is a comprehensive framework for the maintenance of mīzān. It was produced by scholars, and came into being through the process of instructing, guiding and counselling the community. Only when it was breached were legal sanctions applied.
The sharia was faithfully maintained by the scholars and was universally applied throughout the world of Islam. It took time to be formed, but after some five hundred years scholars could survey a system that had grown organically, and were able to draw out universal principles that facilitated the flowering of the developed sciences of the Maxims of Sacred Law (qawāʿid al-fiqh) and the Principles of Sacred Law (usūl al-fiqh) and with it, the maturity of the system.