|
|
|
September 12, 2004
REVIEW: Not a place of arrival
THE world of Islam is facing a very uncertain future. As Muslims we are experiencing an assault by the western powers in the so-called fight against terrorism with Afghanistan and Iraq under brutal occupation and an underlying threat of more to come in countries like Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and even Pakistan. Apart from these external threats, there is also the factor of deep divisions within the Muslims themselves — not in terms of sectarianism alone, but in understanding the true meaning of Islam and its teachings in the age of modernism and globalization.
The book Desperately Seeking Paradise by Ziauddin Sardar, one of the prominent Muslim intellectuals, seeks to grasp the meaning and contemporary relevance of Islam and hopefully find “paradise”.
Born in the backwaters of Punjab, Sardar migrated to Britain as a child. Even before leaving school, he threw himself into the world of Muslim activism by joining FOSIS, the Students Islamic Society of Britain. His first encounter with Muslim revivalist movements came with the Tableeghi Jamaat in 1972. The experience was short and somewhat hilarious — the Tableeghis stressed the observance of ritual but had nothing to offer about the rampant injustices and sufferings being undergone by a vast majority of Muslims. To the author it seemed that the obvious way was to try “and make the present existence a paradise for all”.
Through their magazine The Muslim, they were courted by all Islamic movements, in particular the Jamaat-i Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. At first Sardar was impressed by Maulana Maudoodi, but his portrayal of Islam as a total system “seemed a touch utopian”. He was also disturbed by Maudoodi’s views on women and his grasp of the modern world. The Jamaat he concluded was “uninformed”, its reasoning “rather shabby” and most of its members “positively ignorant”.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s struggle was greatly admired in the Muslim world, but its stress on jihad and armed struggle was to Sardar a recipe for totalitarianism. The Brotherhood saw themselves as perfect — Islam to them allowed no imperfections, no deviation “and in the final analysis no humanity”.
Since the revivalist movements did not provide the sustenance he was seeking, Sardar embarked on a serious study of traditional Islamic disciplines — the Quran, Hadith, Islamic law and philosophy. His quest for paradise took him to the path of mysticism and he enrolled himself as a disciple of two famous Sufi masters in Britain. But his mystic encounters were far from enlightening — Sufism he discovered had been made into a business of masters and mystery and in any case did not produce a “viable and equitable social order”.
Following the example of Al Ghazali, he resolved on a path of travel as an essential component of belief. Safar to him was not just a physical outward journey, but also a matter of an inner liberation and attainment. His first extensive tour of the Middle East and Iran in 1974 was depressing — “a ruined dream”. But everywhere there was the determination to recover “the inner core of ideals, the values and spiritual ethos that created the golden age of Islam”. He could detect the first stirrings in Iran where the first Islamic revolution in history was bubbling away.
But before this event, Sardar spent four bitter and sterile years in Saudi Arabia at the Haj Research Centre. His views of the kingdom and Wahhabism are scathing. To the Wahhabis, there is no real past or a notion of an alternative future. The history and culture of Muslim civilization in all its greatness is totally irrelevant. Everyone in the world of Islam who was not of their persuasion was a hostile dweller in the domain of unbelief. By rejecting diverse, pluralistic interpretations of Islam, “Wahhabism has stripped Islam of all its ethical and moral content”.
Sardar along with his friends in a study group now resolved to build an “intellectual foundation” for an Islamic civilization — and he hoped that the Islamic revolution in Iran was a watershed. Here was a nation ready to opt for a moral agenda. But as always, Sardar began to have serious doubts with the revolution’s excesses and the hounding of prominent leaders such as Bani Sadr and Mehdi Bazargan. His opposition led to a furious row with the Muslim Institute founder Kalim Siddiqui — who was a fervent champion of Islamic Iran. The author’s thesis was that Islamic revival could also take place in a democratic framework — not necessarily through revolution. A dispassionate reader would conclude that Sardar is on weak ground here — his knowledge of Shia theology was scanty, and it was very naive of him to expect that such a momentous event in Islamic history could occur in an orderly manner.
The fledgling revolution was from day one besieged by open American hostility — this ultimately culminated in Saddam Hussain invading Iran with covert American support.
While paradise still awaited him, Sardar continued along with other Muslim intellectuals to try and forge a middle humane way between western secularism and Islamic teachings. He took part in dozens of Islamic conferences — mere window dressings by the organizers. Sardar also had the opportunity to meet Ziaul Haq in late 1986. He heard the president loudly praising a man called Osama bin Laden and wished to thank the Saudi leadership for “this gift”. Sardar recalls Zia describing in great detail the Islamic punishments he would impose. But Ziaul Haq was suspicious of Sardar and at a dinner the president asked him whether he really thought he (Zia) was “a deranged dictator”. This was a reference to a passage from Sardar’s book Islamic Futures.
Desperately Seeking Paradise is an earnest memoir of a devout and critical Muslim living in perhaps one of the most tumultuous decades for Islam. The book is frank, passionate and brilliantly written. For what is essentially a book on a religious theme, the text is devoid of dogma, but loaded with research, debate and rare scholarship. Sardar’s great quality is also his fine sense of humour — perhaps indicative of growing up in Britain. His Islamic journey led him to one conclusion — “the Muslim paradise is not a place of arrival but a way of travelling. The journey requires constant attention, observation and questioning to ensure that the right path is being taken”.
This book is recommended reading because it gives an incisive background of Islamic teachings and their relevance in the modern world.
Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim
By Ziauddin Sardar
Granta Books. Available with Paramount Books, 152/O, Block 2, PECH Society, Karachi-75400
Tel: 021-4310030
Email: paramount@cyber.net.pk
Rs795
Also available with Liberty Books (Pvt) Ltd, 3 Rafiq Plaza, M.R. Kayani Road, Saddar, Karachi
Tel: 021-5683026
Email: libooks@cyber.net.pk Website: www.libertybooks.com
Rs625
ISBN 1-86207-757-6345pp
|
|
|
|
