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May 2, 2004
REVIEW: Interpreting history
A Modern History of the Islamic World is a book of good, solid historiography, avoiding the term “class” like sin. But it is German scholarship (the author is professor at the Berne University). So, once the framework is defined, it is adhered to. Its subject is modernism or the process of the transition of the Muslim societies from a pre-European to a European way and the various routes taken or recommended for the purpose.
A Modern History does not inspire the kind of awe that Von Grunebaum’s works do. It has nothing of Rodinson’s socio-economic analysis either. Indeed it is strange that the European society, which lives by capitalism and reduces all relations to money relations, is yet shy of using certain categories in both historical and social analyses. But when writing about a longer period, say a century or so, as Schulze does here, one has to identify the various historical trends with concrete social groups. The author has chosen the categories like urban society, rural-liberal culture, colonial society, etc. And the contradiction between them is the basis of the movement.
Since, however, he started writing the book in response to what has come to be referred to by the catchy term “9/11”, he has also found it necessary to trace the strand of modern “Islamicism”. Here he begins with Jamaluddin Afghani’s (who had nothing to do with Afghanistan) salafya preaching and the modernist stirrings in the Muslim world before the First World War aimed at adjustments within the Ottoman Empire and the western colonial system. In fact, the urban middle class (and salafya) preferred the colonial state to the native pre-capitalist nationalist. After 1918 and formal independence of some Arab countries, usually the urbans succeeded in gaining the upper hand over the rurals and the tribals.
The salafya, whom the author assigns more importance than they had, tended to side with the urbans except that they “had a foot in the traditional society too”. Kemalism, which gave up the empire to give the Turks a homeland, had an impact over the whole Muslim world. However, republicans in the Arab east looked to establishing republics based on the civil power. The Indian Muslim support to the caliphate was an aberration and had no influence outside India. Of greater import was the Basmachi revolt in Central Asia against the Soviets. But no Muslim state was in a position to assist it.
Colonial rule was basically re-consolidated after 1918 and even the great depression did not shake it. The basic problem for the Muslims in the inter-war period was Palestine, where Egypt was more intent on thwarting the Hashemites than saving the Arabs.
The post-Second World War period brought political independence but, by and large, the Muslims failed to gain economic independence, because of their own class structure. Nasser’s putsch was the final victory of the urban nationalists over the rurals. But the civilian nationalist movement in Iran, led by Mossadegh, was crushed by the Shah’s army, helped by the US.
The emergence of the world’s biggest Muslim country does not seem to have impressed Schulze. His knowledge of non-Arab Muslim countries seems to be hazy. He knew that the neo-Salafi Jamaat-i-Islami had opposed Pakistan but did not discern sufficiently the purely secular character of the Pakistan movement. Thus, while compelled by the Indian pressure, Pakistan joined the Baghdad Pact in January 1955, a few months later it was at Bandung.
Pakistan could perhaps have found some security in an Islamic bloc. But it never took off in the teeth of Egyptian and Arab nationalist opposition.
The Suez crisis was a manifestation of the Anglo-American rivalry rather than a basic question of anti-colonialism. Here we also have the Arab nationalism’s choice of putschism, rather than a mass struggle, to attain its aims. The Arab governments feared their own masses more than they feared the colonial powers. Pakistani putschism was purely a reaction to Indian pressure. There was no danger of a radical movement within the country. The Algerian Aclafi Bennebi saw Islam as the ideology of the Third World’s liberation and thought a “new man” would arise in Pakistan and Indonesia. (Obviously he had never visited these countries.)
The modern period is a familiar story. The nationalist elan subsided. Nasserism is replaced by Sadat’s speculators and wheelerdealers. The Iranian revolution is genuine but constricted by its class character. It liquidated the compradors. However, it refused to change the society fundamentally. Afghanistan is haemorrhaging, though even that has not been able to break its rural social structure. The gas companies will have to come to terms with the “warlords”.
The attraction of Islamic Utopia has diminished since 1985, according to the author. He adds: “Eventually Islamic ideologies represent no more than an Islamic interpretation of global ideologies.” Islam itself threw up a left, in the shape of Syed Qutb and Ali Shariati. But their influence was confined to a part of the intelligentsia. Anyway, Qutb had stayed in the USA for two years after writing his Social Justice. However, his justice never went beyond the distribution. Shariati’s thought was more comprehensive. But he too could not cross over from the role of the hero to the masses.
The modern day Muslim world has known only revolutions, those of Algeria, South Yemen and Iran. None of them could change the social relations radically. It is true that South Yemen tried but its effort was Utopian in its backward conditions.
The book has a lot of information, some of it wrong, such as the statement that Abdullah (should have read Obaidullah) Sindhi founded the Deoband school. But it is not over-burdened by analysis. It is fluent without being racy and it is sympathetic to its subject.
A Modern History of the Islamic World
By Reinhard Schulze
Translated by Azizeh Azodi
I.B. Tauris, London. Availablewith Vanguard Books, 45 The Mall, Lahore. Tel: 042-7243783
Email: vbl@brain.net.pk
ISBN 1-86064-822-3
384pp. Price not listed
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