KARACHI, Feb 4: “In the West, we talk about democracy as you talk about Islam. But where is it? People are questioning if democracy is really working. Democracy is a state of grace – just as Islam is – beckoning us to go beyond what we have achieved.”

Thus spake acclaimed writer, British scholar and former nun Karen Armstrong at the Aga Khan University’s auditorium here on Monday in her lecture titled ‘Lessons from Islamic history in facing contemporary challenges.’

This was the last stop on Ms Armstrong’s lecture tour of Pakistan, as she was invited here to celebrate the golden jubilee of the ascension to the imamate of Prince Karim Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims.

She spoke at length and with great verve about what she reckoned were the pluralistic roots of Islam, as well as the entrenched notions and mutual suspicions that exist in the West and the world of Islam.

“We are living in interesting times; our economic fortunes are bound together. No one is immune to insecurity. I don’t subscribe to the ‘clash of civilizations’ theory,” she said.

She used Egyptian religious reformer Shaykh Mohammad Abduh’s example to illustrate her point that when Islam and western modernity first touched base in the early 20th century, relations were quite cordial.

“Mohammad Abduh hated the British occupation but got on well with Europeans. After he visited France he said that ‘in Paris I saw Islam but no Muslims; in Cairo I see Muslims but no Islam.’ However, western foreign policy, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Suez crisis and the Arab-Israeli conflict have soured the relationship between Islam and the representatives of western modernity,” she said.

Karen Armstrong said Islamophobia was rife in the West, yet concurrently there was a great desire to learn more about the faith, particularly in the United States, while within the Muslim world there was conflict about how to interpret Islam.

“We need to change the entrenched stories we have about each other. It is not impossible to find a solution,” she observed.

She suggested that the way Islam was treated today was very static and rigid, just as democracy was treated in the West, almost like a dogma, departing from the revolutionary roots of the faith.

‘A clarion call’

“Islam has come to refer to historical, institutional Islam, not existential surrender. Islam was a clarion call for action, change and compassion, for the creation of a just society. It preached equality, which was quite shocking to the Christian world at the time. The Crusaders were shocked when they saw Muslims treating menials such as slaves with respect,” she said.

Ms Armstrong claimed that quite opposite to rigid formalism, “Islam had been marvellously creative in the past. Muslims were the pioneers of theology. People like Ibn al-Arabi, Mullah Sadra and Suhrawardy were asking amazing questions. After the fitna (internal conflict within the Muslim Ummah following the Holy Prophet’s [PBUH] passing away), people went and discussed methods of making society more Islamic in reaction to Umayyad luxury and deviations. New spiritualities emerged – Sufism, Shiaism’s divine protest against oppression, the falsafis.”

She cited various events from early Islamic history to back up her argument in favour of Islam’s dynamic, pluralistic nature.

“The hijra was revolutionary. In 7th century Arabia this act was unthinkable. In Arabian society the tribe had sacred value, and to leave your tribe permanently and take up residence with another was unheard of. The root of the word itself suggests painful separation. There was a notion of change and experimentation. The Muslims had to adapt to the customs of Madina, which were different from the Makkan customs. For instance, the women of Madina were far more outspoken than the Makkan women. That is why the Muslims adapted themselves to Persia, Byzantium and Africa,” she said, adding that the emancipation of women was very dear to the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) heart.

She claimed that the divine commandment to change the Qibla from Jerusalem to Makkah in mid-prayer showed that “Muslims were dedicated to God, not to an older religion. It was a declaration of independence.”

Victory of non-violence

She also praised the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) pragmatism and opting for non-violence at Hudaybia, as the Messenger (PBUH) sued for peace rather than taking up arms against the belligerent Quraysh of Makkah, which many of the Muslims accompanying him saw as a defeat. “But it was a manifest victory. The strategy worked and in two years, the Muslims entered Makkah victorious,” she said.

Ms Armstrong also praised Hazrat Umar’s decision not to pray at the site of a revered Christian church when he entered Jerusalem, as he did not want to set a precedent for future Muslims of destroying the sacred places of others, which, she said, was due to the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) training.

But she did not stick to pure history alone, and used a metaphysical symbol to make the case for Islam’s pluralism.

“The Mairaj (ascension) of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) showed that all the Prophets were a family. It was a mystical, pluralistic expression of Tawhid (monotheism). This is your heritage. Instead of the vision of sword-wielding Muslims that has prevailed in the European mind for a millennium, you have a Prophet who embraced non-violence and pluralism. This is the message that needs to get out to the world; Muslims must bear testimony to their faith with more than their mouths,” she said.

In the question and answer session that followed, referring to the blasphemous Danish cartoon controversy, she lambasted both the “secular chauvinism of the champions of free speech” as well as the “extremists who wanted to crucify the cartoonist. Both sides wanted to cut out the middle ground, the reality,” she claimed.

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