Decisive Words

With the purported voice of Osama bin Laden now seemingly championing ecological activism and citing Noam Chomsky, one can almost make out the dim roar of 10,000 neo-conservatives and other proponents of the status quo squealing in delight. Who better to discredit the left than Osama bin Laden?

I heard this latest bit of news at a timely moment, having just finished reading Simon Critchley’s fantastic work, Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, which includes some reflections on the nature of al-Qaeda’s “activism.” According to Critchley, al-Qaeda is a “covert and utterly postmodern, rhizomatic quasi-corporation outside of any state control” that represents the “quintessence of active nihilism.”

For Critchley, as for Nietzsche before him, nihilism — the realization that previously legitimizing grounds of meaning and norms of conduct are now incapable of performing their former functions — represents the defining question of the modern world. Nihilism manifests itself in both the religious and the political realms, but it is the latter that Critchley is concerned with in this work. One possible response to the specter of nihilism in the arena of politics is to acknowledge the truth of nihilism and simply give up any attempt at effecting meaningful change. This is passive nihilism. On the other hand, “The active nihilist also finds everything meaningless, but instead of sitting back and contemplating, he tries to destroy this world and bring another into being.” This is the impulse he finds represented in al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda is not alone. Active nihilism is also reflected in Bolshevism, Situationism, and the Weather Underground in the US, amongst many others.

He goes on to say:

“In my view, one should approach al-Qaeda with the words and actions of bin Laden resonating against those of Lenin, Blanqui, Mao, Baader-Meinhof, and Durruti. The More one learns about figures like Sayyid Qutb, who was murdered by the Nasser government in Egypt in 1966 after a period of imprisonment when he wrote many texts that would later influence intelectuals like al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s mentor, the more one sees the connection between Jihadist revolutionary Islam and more classical forms of revolutionary vanguardism. Although bin Laden’s language is always couched in terms of opposing the ‘Zionist-Crusader chain of evil’ and ‘global unbelief’, the political logic of jihadism is an active nihilist revolutionary vanguardism which is far more deeply committed to martyrdom and the rewards of the hereafter than the establishment of any positive social programme.”

Infinitely Demanding provides a more than adequate response to both passive and active nihilism, and I highly recommend it. But, rather than rehearse Critchley’s fine arguments, I’d like to cite a response to such movements (also referenced by Critchley) that was articulated by Subcommandente Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation: “I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of the planet.”

What stands out most in Marcos’ communique is a strong faith in “the word.” Against the vanguardism and violence of the Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) organization, Marcos proposes only a faith in the efficacy of truth. He writes:

“We know you are angry because we haven’t taken you seriously, but it is not your fault. We don’t take anyone seriously, not even ourselves. Because whoever takes themselves seriously has stopped with the thought that their truth should be the truth for everyone and forever. And, sooner or later, they dedicate their force not so that their truth will be born, grow, be fruitful and die (because no earthly truth is absolute and eternal) rather they use it to kill everything that doesn’t agree with this truth.”

The Zapatistas have at times taken up arms, but only to win their right to the word, to speak the truth. Marcos explains: “Our weapons are not used to impose ideas or ways of life, rather to defend a way of thinking and a way of seeing the world and relating to it, something that, even though it can learn a lot from other thoughts and ways of life, also has a lot to teach.”

In the Muslim community there are often discussions about takfir. I remain uninterested in such discussions. But I am interested in faith, and so I will say that whether or not bin Laden is a kaafir in the juristic sense of the term, he lacks the faith in truth that Marcos describes. And may God save this ummah from such a lack of faith.

This evening Abu Noor pointed out a possible problem with something I said in my previous post: “Religious symbols … are meaningless unless they are used to transform relationships between the individual and his or her neighbors and between the individual and his or her Lord.”

It does not seem unreasonable to see this assertion as a contradiction of the orthodox Sunni teaching of the eternal nature of the Holy Qur’an, itself a constellation of religious symbols, or of the idea that the name ‘Allah,’ which was the specific topic of my post, was indeed chosen by God for Himself, rather than arising as a result of arbitrary designation.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, to work out whether or not there is a contradiction here, we must reflect on what “meaning” means in the context of religious symbols or the Qur’an itself. According to a long-standing tradition, the meaning of a symbol is just that which the symbol is intended to represent. Ludwig Wittgenstein opens his Philosophical Investigations by citing an account of this traditional understanding via Saint Augustine:

“When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shown by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples; the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of the voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires.”

The Investigations are in large part dedicated to deconstructing this traditional understanding of how language works. As Wittgenstein writes, “That philosophical concept of meaning has its place in a primitive idea of the way language functions. But one can also say that it is the idea of a language more primitive than ours.” The problem is that the way in which we use language is often far more complicated than simply “pointing out” various objects or ideas.

A central concept in Wittgenstein’s conception of language is the “language game.” To begin, the very idea of a “game” illustrates the ambiguous way in which language functions. Wittgenstein asks whether we can think of some characteristic that all games have in common, on the basis of which we call them all ‘games.’. It is a tall order. What exactly is the similarity between, say, basketball and chess? We may attempt to identify competition as the defining characteristic, but then we leave out, for example, the games of small children that don’t appear to have any element of competition in them at all. In the end, we cannot offer any single defining characteristic. Instead, we have a series of “family resemblances,” with some objects in the category sharing no obviously common characteristics whatsoever but perhaps connected through their similarity to some other object in between.

But the concept of language games itself highlights the importance of the way in which we use words, rather than simply the objects or ideas to which they refer. A single word can take on many different meanings in accordance with the various situations, or games, in which it is employed. Thus, the process of learning what a “word” means is not defined by learning what object it refers to, but by learning how to use it in various language games.

This may all sound even more problematic with regard to religious orthodoxy, but I would suggest that it may in fact offer us a deeper way of understanding religious symbols. For, if we couple the traditional understanding of language with the eternity of the Qur’an and other Islamic symbols, we are left with a kind of crude Platonism. Our pale, finite interpretations will remain ever alienated from the pure, eternal meaning of the Qur’an. Of course, we have the Sunnah of the Prophet – salallahu aleyhi wasalaam – to assist us, but this leaves us in the position of the maligned artists in Plato’s Republic, producing replicas of replicas.

If, on the other hand, the meaning of words and symbols is intimately entwined with their use, then we can avail ourselves of the possibility of instantiating the Qur’an itself in our own lives and activities and we have in the Sunnah of the Prophet (saws) not a replica of the Qur’an, but the Qur’an itself made manifest. This may be a bold suggestion, but I don’t think it is any more radical than the hadith qudsi in which we are told that God said: “My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks.”

So where does this leave my claim that religious symbols “are meaningless unless they are used to transform relationships between the individual and his or her neighbors and between the individual and his or her Lord”? If meaning is as tied to use as I have argued, then I think the meaning of religious symbols becomes a kind of intrinsic potential for action, rather than mere signification. It is true that this potentiality is not destroyed simply because the symbol has been abused, but it is also true that this potentiality is in some sense lost when a symbol is used in a radically inappropriate context.

“In the spectacle’s basic practice of incorporating into itself all the fluid aspects of human activity so as to possess them in a congealed form, and of inverting living values into purely abstract values, we recognize our old enemy the commodity, which seems at first glance so trivial and obvious, yet which is actually so complex and full of metaphysical subtleties.” — Guy Debord

This week at least three Malaysian churches were subjected to arson attacks following a recent court decision allowing Catholics to use the word ‘Allah’ for God in their local newspaper. This violence is shameful regardless of the reasons behind it and as a Muslim I regard it as particularly abominable in light of the Qur’anic reminder that, “Had God not driven back the people, some by the means of others, there had been destroyed cloisters and churches, oratories and mosques, wherein God’s Name is much mentioned.” But I would like to look more closely at the implications of the reasons behind these attacks to see what deeper problems may be at play.

Of course, the absurdity of the reasoning of these Malaysian extremists is highlighted by the fact that ‘Allah’ has never been a unique Muslim possession. The pagan Arabs of the pre-Islamic period also recognized the existence of ‘Allah,’ as the Qur’an itself makes clear on repeated occasions. And Arab Christians who lived under Muslim rule since the early expansion of the religion have also used the name ‘Allah’ to refer to God.

But, aside from historical ignorance, I believe the extremists here are exhibiting a deeper problem that exists in many Muslim communities. I will refer to this problem as the problem of fetishism, borrowing from Karl Marx in a rather ironic manner. Marx uses the concept of fetishism, originally used to describe religious conceptions of sacred objects, to characterize the bizarre nature of the commodity under capitalism. As commodities, objects are invested with the quality of value independently of their origin in human labor. Marx writes, “A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour.” Through commodity fetishism, the exchange of the products of human labor, which ought to be understood as a social relation between the people who created these products, is transformed instead into a social relation between inanimate objects.

A similarly bizarre transformation occurs in Muslim cultures (and probably elsewhere, too, but I will restrict myself to criticizing my own co-religionists for the time being). Religious symbols, which are meaningless unless they are used to transform relationships between the individual and his or her neighbors and between the individual and his or her Lord, become invested with mysterious powers independently of their role in such concrete relationships. In the case of Malaysia we have the word ‘Allah,’ which in truth is as meaningless as any other word except insofar as it is used in the context of establishing a genuine relationship with God and our fellow human beings, takes on a sacred significance that is to be reserved only for Muslims.

Though this fetishism has led to recent terrible developments in Malaysia, it has parallels throughout the Muslim world. It is most visible in the fetishization of the Qur’an. The Muslim holy book is a book of guidance, a book of ’signs’ that direct the individual on the path to self-transformation. If the individual fails to follow this path, he or she might as well have picked up a copy of the latest Dan Brown novel. It is only in the transformation of human beings that the Qur’an has religious significance. But through fetishization it becomes a religious commodity, invested with value independently of what we individuals choose to do with it. As the late Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic observed: “The Qur’an is recited, interpreted and recited, then studied and recited again. One sentence is repeated thousands of times in order not to have to apply it once. … Ultimately the Qur’an has been turned into naked sound without visible sense or meaning.”

I recently happened upon this article on the causes of poverty. Admittedly, it is a bit simplistic insofar as it tends to neglect the fact that in many non-Western societies the appropriation of the goods of the commons by the few at the expense of the many did not start with the Industrial Age or Western colonialism. Nevertheless, I think it suggests a rough outline of certain basic principles that accord with the Islamic view of human nature and the natural world that have important consequences for economics.

The author criticizes two “myths” about the origins of poverty:

First, the destruction of nature and of people’s ability to look after themselves are blamed not on industrial growth and economic colonialism, but on poor people themselves. Poverty, it is stated, causes environmental destruction. The disease is then offered as a cure: further economic growth is supposed to solve the very problems of poverty and ecological decline that it gave rise to in the first place. This is the message at the heart of Sachs’ analysis.

The second myth is an assumption that if you consume what you produce, you do not really produce, at least not economically speaking. If I grow my own food, and do not sell it, then it doesn’t contribute to GDP, and therefore does not contribute towards “growth”.

People are perceived as “poor” if they eat food they have grown rather than commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made from ecologically well-adapted materials like bamboo and mud rather than in cinder block or cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear garments manufactured from handmade natural fibres rather than synthetics.

Yet sustenance living, which the wealthy West perceives as poverty, does not necessarily mean a low quality of life. On the contrary, by their very nature economies based on sustenance ensure a high quality of life—when measured in terms of access to good food and water, opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, robust social and cultural identity, and a sense of meaning in people’s lives . Because these poor don’t share in the perceived benefits of economic growth, however, they are portrayed as those “left behind”.

The crux of his argument, then, is this: “Poverty is not, as Sachs suggests, an initial state of human progress from which to escape. It is a final state people fall into when one-sided development destroys the ecological and social systems that have maintained the life, health and sustenance of people and the planet for ages.”

Islamic thought on human nature centers on the principle of fitra. Fitra is the natural disposition of human beings toward each other, the world, and God. There is a natural harmony between human beings and the good. When asked about righteousness, the Prophet said: “”Consult your heart. Righteousness is that about which the soul feels tranquil and the heart feels tranquil, and sin is what creates restlessness in the soul and moves to and fro in the breast.” By nature, human beings are just toward each other, sensitive toward the world, and reverent toward God. Where human beings fall short of these characteristics it is a deviation from their true nature. A similar conception of human nature was expressed by the great Chinese sage Mencius, who said:

The trees of the Niu mountain were once beautiful. Being situated, however, in the borders of a large State, they were hewn down with axes and bills. Could they still retain their beauty? And yet, through the regenerative powers of the vegetative life, day and night, and the nourishing influence of the rain and dew, the plants were not without buds and sprouts springing forth. But then came cattle and goats, and browsed upon them. To these things is owing the bare and stripped appearance of the mountain which, when people see it, they think it was never finely wooded. But is what they see the nature of the mountain? And so also of what properly belongs to man: shall it be said that the mind of any man was without benevolence and righteousness? The way in which a man loses his proper goodness of mind is like the way in which the trees are denuded by axes and bills. (Mencius, Book VI, Chapter 8)

An important complement to this idea of fitra is the notion of “the balance.” The Qur’an repeatedly mentions a balance that exists in the natural world and in human affairs that must be attended to carefully. The 55th chapter of the Qur’an, for example, begins:

The All-Merciful has taught the Qur’an.
He created man
and He taught him the explanation.
The sun and the moon to a reckoning,
and the stars and trees bow themselves;
and heaven – He raised it up and set the balance.
(Transgress not in the balance,
and weigh with justice, and skimp not in
the balance.)
And earth – He set it down for all beings,
therein fruits and palm trees with sheaths,
and grain in the blade, and fragrant herbs.
O which of your Lord’s bounties will you and
you deny? (55:1-13)

The balance is from amongst God’s favors. It is the natural counterpart to the human principle of fitra. So long as we protect it, we ourselves will be protected from want. It is when we disregard this balance that poverty and injustice arise. The prophets were not sent simply to make sure everyone was saying their prayers. They were not sent just to end idol worship. Rather, the Qur’an says, “Indeed, We sent Our Messengers with the clear signs, and We sent down with them the Book and the Balance so that men might uphold justice” (57:25).

However, it is important to note that the balance clearly implies moderation. Nothing in the Qur’an suggests that the balance has been established so that humans can live out their years in indulgence and material splendor. Rather, the Qur’an warns, “Whoso is guarded against the avarice of his own soul, those — they are the prosperers” (59:9). And this seems to be born out by the realities of the natural world and the finite resources that it is capable of providing. If the earth can sustain us, it will be in moderation, not in unchecked acquisition.

It seems to me that this has important ramifications for economics, but not as an economic system as such. Rather, it calls our attention to something prior to economics.  It asks us to focus on the basic, underlying themes of society, rather than its explicit organizational principles.

This is an important distinction, one that is subtly alluded to in Plato’s Republic. The governmental system laid out in this text is often criticized or dismissed as unbridled authoritarianism. And certainly we cannot be blamed for balking at some of the stringent requirements of this hypothetical society. However, what is often overlooked is the fact that the bulk of this dialogue is taken up describing not simply “the ideal state,” but rather the ideal state of luxury:

Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war.

But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.

True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish-salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.

Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?

But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.

Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking. (Republic, Book II)

This passage marks a major turning point in the dialogue. It is only as a result of the decision to accommodate the desire for luxury that the need for the compulsive power of the state comes on the scene. As such, the state itself is organized around this basic theme of indulgence. It should be clear by now that this is in direct opposition to both the balance and the state of fitra, both of which are reflected in the simple state that Socrates describes as “the true and healthy constitution of the State.” And it is equally clear that, as a matter of fact, the vast majority of civilization, East and West, is organized around a similarly unnatural theme.

Consequently, we cannot simply attempt to fix the organizational principles of our current economies. Rather, our goal must be to rewrite the very theme of society, thereby moving away from the state of avarice toward a state that, in the words of the late Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic, is “without either misery or luxury.” To do so will certainly require some degree of state intervention, but such intervention will be insufficient, since what is really in question is the state of our souls. This cannot be forgotten, particularly in light of the Qur’anic reminder, “God changes not what is in a people, until they change what is in themselves” (13:11)

Tonight was the annual iftar of the Bilim ve Sanat Vakfı (Science and Art Foundation). The foundation was created by (among others) my father-in-law and Ahmet Davutoğlu, who is now Turkey’s foreign minister. Its mission is essentially to provide an arena for the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition in dialogue with modern academic perspectives. I hope I have the chance to really learn Turkish someday so I can participate there.

But tonight Rumeysa generously translated the speeches of the evening by my father-in-law and Foreign Minister Davutoğlu. The focus was on Professor Davutoğlu’s transition to the political world, a transition he has long avoided and only now made quite reluctantly. For the past few years he had already become the backbone of Turkey’s foreign policy as the prime minister’s top foreign policy advisor and he had always hoped his time in this role would come to an end and he would be able to return to his academic work. But this year they finally asked him to be the foreign minister. His speech was in part an explanation for why he felt he did not have the luxury of rejecting that request.

Hearing him describe his vision of Turkey’s future in the international arena was quite inspirational. He advocates an embrace of Turkey’s Ottoman heritage, not in any Utopian fashion, but in recognition of its very real historical connections with much of the Muslim world. But he also seems to acknowledge the advantages of the country’s headlong rush into modernity and “Westernization” in the 20th century. And, in his view, the synthesis of these two factors places Turkey in a pivotal position for both East and West. In sum, if Turkey plays its cards right neither side of the alleged civilizational divide will be able to do without it.

The evening came at an appropriate moment, as my current time in Turkey draws to a close. It has been a fascinating experience. I have, of course, had my share of complaints about the vicissitudes of life outside of the United States. And I have also been quite critical of Turkey’s turn away from it’s Islamic heritage at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. But, in the final analysis, I have to say I am truly impressed by what Turkey has done since then. I may even have to begrudgingly admit that Turkey’s republican, secular turn was, retrospectively, a truly fortuitous event.

Looking at the recent history of the Muslim world, it becomes clear that the confrontation of Islamicate cultures and modernity entails some degree of force. Because modernity is not an organic development, it is difficult to imagine this confrontation not resulting in at least some violence, if not always of the physical variety.

On the level of governance, many Muslim countries have surely seen their share of violence at the hands of secular regimes. But largely this has been for the end of securing political domination over society.  Thus, the confrontation between Islam and modernity has taken place relatively unchecked both in secular countries and in “Islamic states.” And, because Islam remains the stronger factor in Muslim societies, this violence has been directed primarily against incursions of modernity. But modernity is not, of course, a self-sufficient being. It only exists where there are people in whose lives it can be manifested. Thus, this violence has ultimately been directed at actual people.

However, where modernity encroaches on the genuine territory of religion, it only does so because of spiritual weakness. Consequently, when violence is directed against modernity, it is directed against people at their weakest. Religion thereby becomes a form of oppression.

This is not, however, how things have played out in Turkey. Here it was Islam that was subjected to violence with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the introduction of the Turkish Republic. But precisely because Islam is the stronger factor in Turkish society, this violence could not be genuinely oppressive. As Socrates said, “The good man cannot be harmed in life or in death.” Nor can Islam itself ever be truly damaged. So, whereas other Islamicate cultures must negotiate a way to confront modernity without oppression, Turkey has only had to recover from a temporary setback in that part of itself that has always been essentially strongest.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I advocate the violent imposition of secularism on other Muslim societies. But perhaps the results of the Turkish experience, together with the varied outcomes of the other Muslim societal experiments of recent history, will provide sufficient material for other societies to successfully navigate the Scylla and Charybdis of religious and secular violence.