Give reason a chance

A.B. Shahid
Dawn, 5 November

RECENTLY, William Dalrymple wrote a critique of Bernard Lewis’s book From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East, a collection of 51 essays that he wrote over the years. Many were criticised for their historical inaccuracies.

But, after 9/11, Lewis’s limping reputation soared again. His recent books (What Went Wrong? and The Crisis of Islam) propelling the neo-con philosophy, became bestsellers, and Dick Cheney and Richard Pearle his ardent disciples.

Articles by Lewis appearing in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal began influencing the White House. His ‘doctrine’ linking Al Qaeda with Iraq’s secular Ba’athist regime and the premise that Saddam Hussein’s removal could fulfil a secret wish of the Middle Eastern regimes convinced the administration that US forces would be welcomed by the Iraqis who sought freedom from Saddam. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lewis’s doctrine became US policy.

Dalrymple’s extensive research has convinced him that the neo-con view masterminded by Lewis is flawed because it relies on erroneous assumptions. Dalrymple conclusively establishes that humanity progressed during periods when people of all faiths and races combined their intellect to resolve the riddles humankind has grappled with over the centuries contradicting Samuel Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilisations that itself relied on Lewis’s views.

An undeniable truth that Dalrymple revisits is the discovery by historian George Makdisi of the Islamic contribution in the emergence of the first universities in the mediaeval West, showing how terms such as having ‘fellows’ holding a ‘chair’, or students ‘reading’ a subject and obtaining ‘degrees’, as well as practices such as inaugural lectures and academic robes, can all be traced back to Islamic concepts and practices. That the idea of a university in the modern sense — a place where students congregate to study a variety of subjects — is as an Arab innovation developed in Cairo, and replicated in Toledo and Baghdad, that later gained world fame for their universities.

Another convincing fact that Makdisi established is that it was in cities bordering the Islamic world — Salemo, Naples, Bologna, Montpellier and Paris — where the first universities in Christendom were established.

The capture of Toledo (capital of Visigothic Spain) by Alfonso VI of Castille was a significant moment in history as also the fact that Gerard of Cremona — a visionary — was appointed canon at the Cathedral of Toledo. In spite of Toledo’s fall, many Muslims chose to stay back including the scholar Ghalib ‘the Mozarab’. Soon Gerard entered into a friendship with Ghalib to translate scientific books from Toledo’s Arabic library that survived the looting after Toledo’s conquest.

During the next 50 years, Ghalib and Gerard translated 88 Arabic works of astronomy, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and logic, the very branches of learning that underpinned the revival of scholarship in Europe during the 12th century renaissance because the tolerant pluralistic civilisation of Muslim Spain inherited by the Christians encouraged fruitful interaction between scholars of all faiths.

Of particular significance was a group that included Muslim scholars such as Ibn-e-Juljul, who composed a commentary on Dioscorides; a distinguished Jewish physician, Hasday ibn Shaprut; and bishop Recemund, who had earlier served as the last caliph’s ambassador to the court of German Emperor Otto I, and also developed the calendar of Cordoba. This group represented a truly international and inter-denominational gathering of scholars.According to Dalrymple “it was a crucial but sometimes forgotten moment in the development of western civilisation: the revival of mediaeval European learning by a wholesale transfusion of scholarship from the Islamic world”. Neo-cons distort historic realities by belittling the fact that it was through Muslim Spain that basic facets of ‘western’ civilisation passed into Europe that later successes of science relied on.

While Dalrymple has done a commendable job of uncovering distortions of history, and accusations based thereon that neo-cons have spun, what should concern Muslims is the fact that, during the last century, their revered schools of learning lost their focus. Instead of imparting all-around knowledge, they focused only on religion defying the divine command that requires them to acquire knowledge in its widest sense — not just religious.

Ironically, religious scholars failed even in bringing closer the scores of Muslims sects to unite the ummah — the aim the Holy Prophet (PBUH) emphasised in his last sermon. Misguided scholars fuelled dissent that was rooted in myths, and sanctified terrorism as a religious activity ignoring the fact that, in the perception of the world, a terrorist profile would undermine even the just causes pursued by Muslims.

As early as 2001, Pakistan’s government was advised by a reputed journalist that a wise approach to mollifying the terrorists was not the use of the gun but the conversion of their terrorist nurseries into ‘real’ places of learning by requiring that madressahs teach not just the Quran but all disciplines that children need to acquire to discover the secrets of life, and to perform their role as humane, compassionate, unbiased and productive citizens of society.

It is unfortunate that this advice wasn’t taken seriously when the government had access to the madressahs and the clout to impose on them the true Islamic profile. The cost of this error has been enormous, and we pay it everyday when we bury the victims of terrorism in Waziristan. To dilute the poison Osama and his cronies were spreading a visionary strategy required that we confronted them with an intellectual argument rooted in the essence of our faith and humanism.

Although it may be late to give this strategy a chance, it alone will work, not the gun. The ordinary, ill-informed terrorist — key weapon of the terrorist outfits — must be convinced to adopt the way of the Prophet, which was reason and compassion, not the gun. Leaving this to the traditional maulvis or the so-called ‘moderates’ would be a grave error; the job should be entrusted to intellectuals and researchers that the government despises.

We need a powerful propaganda campaign to establish that forcing religious tenets on others (especially those based on concocted divisive doctrines) is an unforgivable sin. F-16s and gunship helicopters can’t achieve that aim.