A number of friends have pushed and probed, wondering if I’m not being overly simplistic when I say that Islam is largely irrelevant to the future of America.
First of all, I am being overly simplistic. Islam and America—these are extraordinarily complex cultural realities. When I wrote about the mosque controversy here in New York, I asserted that Islam is relatively dysfunctional. I should have been more precise. By my reading, whatever its strengths, Islam has a relatively dysfunctional relation to modern political realities, not so much in the West, but rather in Islamic countries themselves.
As an example I point to the recent news that the ruling elite in Iran is currently embroiled in a controversy about the role of clerics in the theocratic vision of an Islamic state, with allies of President Ahmadinejad arguing that clerics are not necessary.
Whatever one makes of the political infighting in Iran, or the theological details if Shi’a theology, the conflict—which is very likely far more important than most Western journalists realize—suggests the central fact I am trying to emphasize. There is an unstable relation between Islam and the modern forms of state power, forms that, as the West discovered to its horror in the modern bloodbaths of nationalism, have a logic of their own.
The situation in Iran has a familiar feel to me. I’m reminded of the agonies of the Catholic Church from the French Revolution through the Spanish Civil War. My point is not that Islam cannot achieve a stable relation to modern political realities. Many thought Catholicism intrinsically incapable, and they were proven wrong. Instead, my point is that Islam, whatever its spiritual and cultural strengths, is presently both a source and victim of political turmoil, not, I hasten to add, for or in America or European nations, but rather for and in Islamic countries.
(I want to anticipate readers eager to pen a doom and gloom notes about Europe. Switzerland, France, Sweden—these and other countries are experiencing cultural strains that have political consequences, but they are not teetering on the edge of disintegration or revolution. It is imperative that we recognize how deeply the roots of post-war democratic institutions have gone in Europe.)
I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’ll muse about the future nonetheless.
I don’t think Islam will end up taking over Europe, or even exerting a sustained influence in the near future. The dangers there (as here in America) are largely Western in origin, e.g., a soft nihilism.
To exercise influence, Muslims need a theology of secularity and the legitimacy of secular authority. Smart Muslims in America are trying to think this through, for example at the Zaytuna College in Berkeley, which I’ve highlighted in the past.
I’m hopeful that they succeed.
Christianity of course is in a better position, not the least because it was forced to grapple with secularity over the last three hundred years, and longer if one goes back to the investiture controversy in the eleventh century.
But perhaps more important are the resources for imagining faith at the margins rather than center. Christianity sees political and cultural rejection as part of its Christological core. A catacomb view of the relation of faith to society is, in some ways, the most obvious reading of the New Testament, as Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder have pointed out again and again.
What this means is that, even abstracting from the sophistication of its political theology, Christianity has a self-image that allows it to flourish in a secular society that pushes (sometimes aggressively) to the margins. And not just flourish but also influence and leaven.
August 27th, 2010 | 1:11 pm
“I don’t think Islam will end up taking over Europe, or even exerting a sustained influence in the near future.”
What planet are you living on again?
August 27th, 2010 | 2:43 pm
That first link is behind the Financial Times’s subscriber firewall.
August 27th, 2010 | 2:52 pm
Uhm, didn’t Iran go nuclear in just the past few days?
August 27th, 2010 | 9:51 pm
Turkey, Iran and Egypt were all significantly more secular in the 1970s than they are today. Dennis Prager cites the movement away from secular government in Turkey as one of the more worrisome signs in the “clash of civilizations”.
An interesting article concerning mosque controversies in Europe:
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1476/europe-mosque-wars
Best of luck to Muslims discussing how to confer legitimacy on secular governments – especially duly elected secular governments.
August 28th, 2010 | 12:29 am
Bananarepublican, I can see where you would be coming from in making that argument, but I think the author has something important to say as well; namely that even if tons and tons of muslims come to Europe, most of them drift into the same soft nihilism of the west. They may go to mosque more, but they are anything but radical about their beliefs by and large due to the forces of secularization (satan? is it okay to say that?).
I think back to the catacombs is a great thing for the Christians of our age. This time though we bring 2000 years back in with us. The next revolution will be ours, again, and its about time.
August 29th, 2010 | 10:17 am
Hving had the advantage of talking to real people of Muslim background, law students at a European university, I found the values they admired and valued in Western culture were, in this order, (1) Secularism (laïcité) (2) Tolerance (3) Liberty (4) Social solidarity.
Their principle quarrel with Western governments was their failure to put these principles into practice. on which they were precise and passionate.
The discussion took place in 2007, about the time that the socialist and feminist, Fadela Amara, a lady of Muslim and North African Berber parentage, joined Sarkozy’s cabinet as Secretary of State for Urban Policy
August 29th, 2010 | 5:47 pm
Chris Stewart,
I’m not so sure that Muslim “Soft Nihilism” is a really great alternative to Islamism.
As Mark Steyn said in 2002 about concessions made to Muslim gangs in the West: “What we’ve seen since September 11th is that multiculturalism trumps everything. Its grip on the imagination of the Western elites is unshakeable. . . .
. . . in the case of those Muslim ghettoes in Sydney, in Oslo, in Paris, in Copenhagen and in Manchester, multiculturalism means that the worst attributes of Muslim culture — the subjugation of women — combine with the worst attributes of Western culture — licence and self-gratification.”
Steyn also agreed at that time with the author that: ” The ‘Muslim world’ — the arc stretching from North Africa through South Asia — is economically, militarily, scientifically and artistically irrelevant. . . ” But read the whole thing. Ignore the comment about Charles Johnson, who has, of course, given up on monitoring “Islamic tidbits” in the news.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0802/steyn1.asp
We also have the current phenomenon of radical Muslim youngsters who surprise their more “westernized” parents. The well-to-do father of the “underwear bomber” bravely tried to warn officials not to allow his son on an airplane.
And if westernization automatically leads to less Islamization, how do you explain the movement away from secularism in Turkey?
Still, the percentage of the U.S. population which is Muslim is still small. So the author may have a point about Muslim insignificance here.
Meanwhile, I’m rooting for the opposition to the current government in Iran, where the author correctly notes that the relationship between clerical authorities and government is unstable. And where the president imagines himself bringing enlightenment (aided by Divinity) to the United Nations and working toward the return of the 8th Imam by hastening the reign of chaos in the world (or something like that). I’m not real wild about his new “Ambassador of Death” missile. The relationship between the government and the population in Iran is also unstable. But the Russians are helping the Iranian government.
August 30th, 2010 | 11:19 am
“I found the values they admired and valued in Western culture were, in this order, (1) Secularism (laïcité) (2) Tolerance (3) Liberty (4) Social solidarity.”
But how much influence do these law students have in their countries of origin? More importantly, how much influence do they have on the interpretation of Islamic principles?
I can find many people who have rejected Islam who support Western principles. Where are the devout Muslims who also believe that Muslims should be free to convert, non-Muslims should be permitted to proselytize in Muslims countries, and non-Muslims should be able to build houses of worship in Saudi Arabia?
August 31st, 2010 | 2:03 pm
Brian English – Their country of origin was France; some second, but mostly third generation
August 31st, 2010 | 2:30 pm
There are only five Arabic words the western mind needs to know if the Islam of today and 14 centuries ago is to be understood and intelligently dealt with. The words are Nakesh, Takkiya, Ijma’, Dhimmitude,and Jizya. Anyone who tries can find their meanings and perhaps add to the scholarship of Oriental studies and help solve some big current world problems. One source would be the “Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (Brill Academic Publishers, 1953)”.
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