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 PrintableVersion The West, Islam & IslamismIslam's closed mindTHE WEST, ISLAM & ISLAMISM In the Middle Ages, Islamic thinkers such as Averroes, Avicenna and al-Hwarizmi were at the forefront of work in mathematics, philosophy and science. Through the efforts of such people Aristotle was reintroduced to the West through Arabic translations. This in turn contributed to the development of scholastic theology which, whatever its faults, provided results of lasting importance in Christian theology. There were also intense debates between Jewish, Islamic and Christian thinkers over such topics as creation, divine and human action, and the character of divine law. Today Islam is largely an intellectually inert culture, stifling debate and reasoned enquiry and the development of independent judgement, and resting content with the dogmatic reissuing of standard Islamic teaching. What has happened?According to Baroness Cox and John Marks, who rely on the work of scholars of Islam such as Framer, Lewis, Mayer, those long years ago Islam turned its back on Greek standards of rationality and free enquiry. In Islamic culture taqlid (imitation or blind adherence to a tradition) has triumphed over ijtihad (the exercise of independent judgement). As a consequence, for example, Islam cannot countenance research into the history and literary composition of the Koran or into the way in which Islamic theology relates to the text of the Koran. Nor is it interested in the independent development of science, philosophy, medicine or law, or in promoting an intellectual environment in which academic research flourishes. More worryingly, there is a lack of openness to a view of society in which different groups and religions co-exist under a common system of law and of political checks and balances, a society of free speech, tolerance and pluralism. Though, here, it has to be said that the sources of the ''West's' enjoyment of these liberties lies less in Greek thought than in the effect of Dissent in England, and in the European Enlightenment, which together were exported to the infant USA. In the intellectually-closed environments of Islam it is little wonder that Islam has bred 'Islamism', the name given to radical militantly ideological versions of Islam, the Islam of international terrorism, of 9/11. Cox and Marks think that in its theory and practice of subversion the intellectual and political stance of Islamism mirrors that of ideological Marxism. Broad brushThe authors paint broadly, but the brush strokes seem to be in the right places. The book provides what it sets out to do, a framework in which adherents to a tolerant, open society (the nature of which, it has to be said, is expressed by them in somewhat ideal terms), Christian and Muslim together, can analyse and address militant Islam, and distinguish it from its benign relatives. The authors make sensible proposals for restricting the entry of Islamist ideologues into the UK and for assimilating bona fide Muslim immigrants into our society, as well as highlighting the need for reaffirming our own Judeo-Christian identity. If there is a flaw or a gap in the argument, it is in the way that the authors distinguish Islam from Islamism. They rightly wish to ward off Islamophobia, and instead to target Islamism. There is obviously a significant difference between the vast majority of Muslims, peaceable, law-abiding citizens, and the fanatics. Certainly, such people ought not to be bracketed with the terrorists of Islamism. This distinction is undoubtedly factually correct, but it is less clear from the evidence provided by Cox and Marks in their Chapter 3, 'Social and Political Structure', that there is any doctrinal difference between the Islam of the peaceable Muslim and that of Islamism. There is no evidence that the non-fanatics offer a repudiation or reinterpretation of those frightening texts in the Koran which provide the religious basis of Islamic militancy. Further, no explanation is offered of why certain countries with large and, in some cases, dominant Islamic populations (for example, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and Nigeria) have favoured versions of 'Western' human rights and enshrined them in their constitutions, while others (for example, Saudi Arabia, Sudan) have just as definitely not done so. It is a pity that the authors do not probe this issue. This a serious, informed study of a serious subject. It will be of value to any who are concerned to understand and to address the position of Muslims in our own society, as well as those who try to comprehend the nature of Islamist terrorism. A shorter version of this pamphlet is available as an Occasional Paper from the Centre for Islamic Studies, London Bible College, and a longer study, Conflict or Concordat? A Comparison between Western Societies and Ideological Islam, is in preparation. Paul Helm,
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