The demonstration of the measure of support for Muslim fundamentalists in Algeria at the hustings last December and the virtual take-over by their counterparts in Sudan through the army should finally put an end to the theory that the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 was uniquely the product of conditions peculiar to that country. Predominantly Sunni countries are obviously not immune to the appeal of fundamentalists. They command enormous influence, for instance, in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.
The theory was, of course, not without some merit. The tradition of martyrdom among the Shias is much stronger than among the Sunnis; moreover, the Ayatollahs in Iran have not only enjoyed much greater autonomy vis-a-vis the state than the Sunni ulema in other Muslim countries but repeatedly played a significant political role since the last decade of the 19th century. But the theory ignored important developments over a long period in the Muslim world as a whole. Perhaps it was not convenient for Western scholars, who dominate the field of Islamic studies as they do others, to take note of them so long as the Western world was preoccupied, above all, with the struggle against communism.
Be that as it may, neither the sweep of Muslim fundamentalism nor the need to grapple with it can now be in dispute. The problem is not limited to a couple of countries or to fringe groups. Indeed, the appeal of fundamentalism extends to almost all Muslim countries and communities. It is also not the handiwork of some fanatics and ideologues. Indeed, it is a direct outcome of the impact of the West on Muslim societies over more than a century. Unlike Muslim orthodoxy and piety, Islamic fundamentalism is very much a modern phenomenon, though it is doubtless rooted in exclusivist Muslim claims for their faith and their prophet.
Two Distinct Styles
In order to appreciate this point, it is necessary to recall that under the cover of a single terminology, two distinct religious styles have persisted among Muslims. As the well-known sociologist and Islamicist, Ernest Gellner, has put it: “Islam traditionally was divided into a ‘high’ form – the urban- based, strict, Unitarian, puritanical and scriptural Islam and a ‘lower’ form, the cult of the personality-addicted, ecstatic, ritualistic, questionably literate, unpuritanical and rustic Islam of the dervishes and the marabouts”.
It would be an exaggeration to suggest that the two traditions have always been at war with one another. For a variety of reasons, Sufi Islam has generally been at a disadvantage and has had to accommodate itself to orthodox Islam. Most Sufis, for instance, have acknowledged that the Shariat is immutable and as binding on them as on ordinary Muslims. Revivalist movements from time to time such as the Wahabis have reinforced this disadvantage; Wahabis fought bitterly against the saint cult which is the core of Sufi Islam. Even so, there has not existed a social base till recent times for a permanent victory of orthodox Islam over Sufi Islam.
Unlike earlier times, the colonial and the post-colonial state has, however, been sufficiently strong to destroy the rural self-administration units or tribes that provided the base for the personalised, ecstatic, questionably orthodox ‘low’ Islam and thus provided the base for a definitive, permanent victory of orthodox Islam over the other. This, Gellner argues, is the great reformation that has taken place in Islam in the last 100 years and in some ways made its hold on believers even stronger than before.
Unavoidable Logic
Neither the colonial nor the postcolonial states need have set out deliberately to weaken rural or tribal societies. That is the unavoidable logic of modernisation by way of the growth of large urban centres, decline of rural communities and tribes in economic and political, if not in numerical, terms, and the spread of education, transportation and means of communication. Attempts to promote economic development, access to enormous resources by way of oil revenues, especially since the early seventies, remittances by emigrants to oil-rich Gulf states, and foreign aid were also bound to reinforce this logic.
The ascendancy of ‘high’ Islam also accounts for the failure of attempts at secularisation in the Muslim world. As Gellner has put it, the presence of this genuinely indigenous tradition has helped Muslim escape the dilemma which has haunted many other third-world societies: the dilemma of whether to idealise and emulate the West or whether to idealise local folk traditions and indulge in some form of populism. They have had no need to do either because their own ‘high’ variant has had dignity in international terms.
Not everyone will agree with this assessment. Muslims have sought to emulate the West. Turkey since the Tanzimat movement in the late 19th century is one example and so is Egypt which was virtually an autonomous province of the Ottoman empire since about the same time. That these attempts failed is, in fact, a critical issue, but that cannot be dealt with here. Broadly speaking, the assessment is valid; Turkey and Egypt too continue to struggle to contain the tide of Muslim revivalism and fundamentalism.
In India Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan proved a failure as a moderniser. Instead, his efforts to promote Western education among Indian Muslims produced an explosive mix of ‘nationalism’ and Islamic revivalism of which partition of India in 1947 was only the first disastrous result. Pakistan has yet to learn to cope with it. Islamic fundamentalism is making it extremely difficult for Pakistan to function as a normal nation-state. In ideological terms, fundamentalists dominate the scene; only ethnicity is able to offer some kind of resistance to them.
There is another aspect of the Western impact which deserves attention. Millions of those who have been uprooted from the countryside and pushed into crowded slums and/or have found themselves left out of the benefits of modernisation and economic development have sought and found solace in Islam. For them the language of Islam has become the means of coping with “moral anxiety, social disequilibrium, cultural imbalance, ideological restlessness and problems of identity produced by the economic transformation of the post-independence period”.
Thus in the heartland of Islam in West Asia, the concept of Arab nationalism could have acquired the influence it did at one stage only because its proponents added socialism (social justice) anti-imperialism and anti-zionism to their political armoury, and took care to maintain Islamic trappings. Nasser doubtless clashed with the Muslim Brotherhood and imprisoned and executed its leaders; Sayyid Qutb, successor to Hassan Banna, founder of the Brotherhood and perhaps the most influential ideologue of Islamic fundamentalism after Maulana Madaudi of India and Pakistan, was, for example, executed by Nasser in 1966. But Nasser too had to present himself as a good Muslim.
Debatable Issue
While it is a debatable issue whether Arab nationalism was essentially a secular movement, it is not particularly pertinent to discuss it in the present context. The language of Arab nationalism lost much of its resonance with the Arab defeat by Israel in 1967. Nasser survived the disaster he had largely brought on Egypt and its Jordanian and Syrian allies but only as a ghost of his former self. Arab nationalism has not regained its position ever since. It has not even found a new leader. Col Gaddafy and President Saddam Hussein have tried but failed to step into Nasser’s shoes with consequences that are well known. In Egypt, President Sadat settled for an “Egypt first” policy after the Yom Kippur war in 1973 when he made peace with Israel.
As it happens, the economic policies pursued by ‘radical’ regimes have not been successful either in promoting development or in reducing the gap between the haves and the have-nots. This would have left the language of Islam in occupation of the political space in the Arab world even if communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself had not collapsed. Their ignominious end has settled the issue at least for quite some time. Islamic fundamentalism has, thus, no worthwhile ideological rival in the central lands of Islam. In our region, Indonesia alone can be said to have resisted the appeal of fundamentalism so far.
The Times of India, 13 February 1992