Chapter Twelve
The Problem of the Term of "Secularism"
One of the problems of the relationship with the other at the regional and international levels, a problem which is a source of security deficiency on both levels, is that of the term “secularism” and its concept. Therefore, I find it necessary to offer an insight into this question. I offer it for contemplation and discussion, in the hope that one of our most prominent intellectual crises in the modern world may be brought to an end.
To that end, it might be useful to offer a brief account of how I believe the term “secularism” appeared and became common in human culture in the medieval and modern ages. To be precise, the term “secularism” appeared in the sixteenth century, when the Christian West rebelled against the Church and declared a reformist revolution against church instructions, because of their restrictions on life, which itself was imprisoned in clergy instructions. Those instructions had kept followers of the Church from the fields of life and its development, from the exploration of the universe in all its depth and subjecting its resources to serve human beings and their needs. They were instructions that placed science as the opposite of religion and its concepts. The reaction was a scientific, industrial revolution that rebelled against the Church and set its authority apart from the progress of life on earth. The concept of the separation of religion and the state emerged. This concept holds that the West would not have progressed and liberated itself from the restrictions of backwardness and torn through the covers of darkness surrounding it without the separation between religion and the state. This is an actual and evident fact, which Western intellectual strongly believed in and looked at as a compass to guide their life and the progress of their civilization.
Non-Westerners also fell in love and were overjoyed with the concept and took it to be a rational course to follow. They turned it into a cultural and national hymn. They failed to contemplate another reality and another fact. On the basis of the complementarity and inseparability of religion and the state, Muslims made their progress in history, built lofty monuments of civilization, and probably accomplished some of the positive aspects of their contemporary situation. Yes, this fact from the history of Islamic civilization has been overlooked by those people. They have not attempted to solve the puzzle that a group of people held fast to their religion and managed to move forward and succeed in their life, and another group separated themselves from religion and achieved progress after a period of backwardness.
What is the true role of religion in the fields of life?
Here is a nation which claims that its religious commitment was the cause of its progress and refinement and another which claims that removing religion from its life was the cause of its progress and elevation!
Where does the truth lie?
Seeking guidance and assistance from God, the most Glorious, I answer that the claim of the West regarding the separation between religion and the state needs, in my estimation, to be reconsidered by its advocates. As I understand it, people of the West have not separated religion and the state, but rather removed and rescinded the religious obstacles introduced into God’s religion and obstructing progress and the needs of life. These are obstacles introduced by the state without any justice or justification, at that particular stage, and added to the divine instructions brought by Christ, peace and blessings be upon him. The Church came up with a definition of religion unacceptable to any one with a power of reasoning. It said:
- Religion is the method by which man accomplishes his ties with the higher metaphysical powers.
- Religion is what includes all that is known and every authority that is not within the realm of science.
It is clear from such a definition that the Church restricted religion to the metaphysical world and regarded it as being in conflict with science and scientific research. The Church resorted to this unacceptable definition on the assumption that it is the best way to tie people to the Church and ensure their continued allegiance and submission to the approach of clerical domination. Thus, it erected a wall between religion and the progress of civilization in the lives of people attached to that negligence. The response came in the form of the Industrial Revolution, which rebelled against the theological values introduced by the Church. In that manner, the West removed the burden of this odious heritage from its back and shattered the clerical chains that had isolated it from life and the fields of progress and development. However, it remained tied to the Church through its affection, spiritual values, and general traditions.
The clerical authority, meanwhile, reconsidered and rectified the mistake it had made through the erroneous clerical concepts that it had introduced and put into practice, having realized that they clash with human nature and natural law and that they were the cause of its isolation from the fields of civilized progress. It also realized how a great many of its followers had moved away from its authority, which caused it to be deserted and isolated from church congregations, who had jumped on the bandwagon of science and industry that met their aspirations and the challenges of the time. Those people called themselves “secularists,” distinguishing themselves from the “children of the dark” among the clergy, as those secularists called them.
The Church started to look for methods to make up for its mistake, and it reconsidered its attitude towards secularists, and began to court them and hold panel discussions with them. Some secularist leaders welcomed the Church’s reversion of its anti-secularist teachings and its opposition of development and progress. On its part, the Catholic Church took some practical measures to correct the greatest mistake in its history. It held its international clerical conference, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, to rectify its mistake in its view of the universe and the movement of science. After two years (1960-62) of preparation, the council held successive sessions up until the end of 1965, when it issued its resolutions, constitutions, and attitudes towards other religions and towards secularism. The council declared reconciliation between the Church and secularism.
On this point, the council’s report says:
The Second Vatican Council calls to mind God’s People and the (Church) Group of Believers, which does not include the clergy alone, but also and in particular includes secularists. The Council appreciates their mission and restores to them their prominent and basic role in the life and history of the Church. This is the first council that gives such great and unique attention to secularists, devoting to them a chapter in the (Church) ideological constitution, a considerable section in the (Church) pastoral constitution in today’s world, and a full resolution that restores the esteem due to them and confirms their distinguished mission.… The apostolic work of secularists and pastoral service complement each other.
At another point, the report says about secularists, “The field of pastoral work is very vast on the national and international level, where secularists serve as agents of Christian wisdom.” It also says, “Secularists are soldiers of the church using different methods.”
The report concludes by saying, “Let the pastors thankfully and with relief welcome these secularists and make sure that their living conditions meet the requirements of justice, equity, and love. Let them also make sure to make available to these secularists the necessary implements for their education, spiritual structure, and encouragement.”
In this manner the clergy authority of the Catholic Church put an end to its isolation from its followers and to the era of bitter struggle with a large number of secularists, who had earlier rebelled against the Church’s clerical restrictions, and it regained its religious position which it had forfeited. It even recommended secularists to its clergymen. This confirms that secularism did not divorce itself from the Church, whether affectively, ideologically, or spiritually. It was rather the church which had confined itself in seclusion from life and from the needs of human nature. Secularists, meanwhile, only exercised their right to rebel against erroneous concepts introduced by the clerical authority to serve the Church’s dominance at the expense of the maintenance of life and the rights of people to achieve progress and refinement.
The Catholic Church, as mentioned above, ended the problem it had with a large number of secularists. Still, there were some of these who refused to reunite with the church, because they firmly believed that it would remain a force of inaction and backwardness. Therefore, they believed, there was no chance of coexisting with it, and it was very necessary to stay away from it and formulate a way of life different from that of the Church and from its philosophy. They coined the term “modernism,” as opposed to traditionalism and as a challenge to the conservative philosophy of inaction and confinement to all that was old and belonged in the past.
Thus secularism reappeared under a new hat and with a new name: the school of modernism. Intellectuals in the West hastened to adopt this new term; they were happy with it and pleased with its propositions. Modernism gained popularity and its influence spread everywhere. People from the orient, including Arabs and Muslims, arriving in Europe to pursue their studies, were received in Europe, particularly in France, the center for modernist activities.
The Church’s problem with secularists was renewed with modernists, and we in the Arab and Muslim East received modernism the same way as we had received secularism earlier. Arab and Muslim Occidentalists adopted the philosophy of modernism in its most hideous and extreme form, with the exception of a wise few, who retained their balance and coped with it on the basis of renewal and development of life trends, without embracing its ideological, atheist substance. Extreme modernism went through the same stages as its mother and wet nurse, extreme secularism. It flourished for a while then its glitter began to fade and its figure to bend, and here it is, fading away and on the decline. I believe it is in the throes of death.
As for enlightened modernism – which has retained its faith and is based on the principle of renewal, development and elevation in the fields of life, within the framework of the inseparability of human nature and affective and spiritual needs and the framework of integration with religious values, principles, and ideals – it is I believe gaining increasing popularity and expanding influence. It will find itself in alliance and innate and actual harmony with God’s religion and its immortal message, which advocates revolutionizing the earth, exploring its treasuries, and utilizing its hidden resources in the interest of human life and dignity.
We, Muslims, when we progressed, activated the values of religion and life, and the principles and objectives of the message of Islam, which urged us to engage in research and be creative, and called upon us to work in order to harness the resources of the universe to carry out the responsibilities of settling the earth. Islam ties all this to the basics of belief and introduces it into the spheres of reward and punishment, emphasizing the inseparability and certain complementarity of the niches of spiritual worship and those of constructional worship. Islam is the only religion and the unique way of life that rewards a mistaken researcher for his work, encouraging him to go on with his research and study of everything that contributes to the settlement of the earth and brings good and comfort to mankind. As for a successful, creative researcher, Islam gives him a double reward in appreciation of his creativity and as an encouragement for him to continue his work in the fields of research, creativity, and refinement.
A person who works hard on something and is right has two rewards, and a person who works hard and is wrong has one.[1]
Later, we lagged behind and stopped to make efforts to activate the values of Islam and its mission in life, feeling content with ties of affection, faith, and spiritual worship to Islam. We followed the same way that the Church followed with its subjects in the past; we suspended religious motivation and the divine invitation to undertake scientific and technological research. In consequence, we suffered, as it is well known, what we will not be envied for.
Say, “Work, for God will witness your work, and so will His messenger and the believers” (Al-Tawbah IX: 105).
For God shows favoritism to no one.
Whoever does an atom's weight of good shall see it then, and whoever does an atom's weight of evil shall see it then also (Al-Zalzalah 7-8).
Whoever seeks the harvest of the Hereafter, We will increase his harvest, and whoever seeks the harvest of this life, We will give him some, but in the Hereafter he will have no share (Al-Shoora XLII: 20).
Those who care for earthly life and its embellishment, We shall pay them for their work in it, and they will not be underpaid there (Hood XI: 15).
It is He Who made the Earth submissive to you. So, walk around its regions, eat of His provision, and to Him is the resurrection (Al-Mulk LXVII: 15).
The question then is to walk or not walk, to work or not to work. It is a question of competence or no competence, skill or no skill. It is not, as some imagine, a matter of fearing God and being upright only. Inferiority, backwardness, and the loss of civilized and technological weight have their source and their cause in the failure to sow in the various fields of life. A tradition of the prophet’s says:
“Nations will almost call each other against you as eaters call each other to a bowl.”
Someone asked, “Will we be too few then, God’s messenger?”
God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “No, You will be numerous on that day.”
The trouble that causes this weakness and humiliation among nations is not the small number, for they “will be numerous on that day.” We are actually numerous today, praise be to God. But the trouble exactly is as it was expressed by God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him:
“But you will be scum, like the scum of a flood.”
The malady then is our inferiority, in the absence of our creative and productive weight in the walks of life. The malady is in closing up and abandoning the niches of constructional worship in the flanks and horizons of the earth. The malady is in the failure to exploit what is placed at our disposal and invest the resources deposited for us in the treasuries and horizons of the universe, which God makes available for human beings to own and use to meet the needs of human life and the challenges of his time, through science, skill, and creativity. The malady is also in our cultural and behavioral performance which is flawed and erroneous, in spite of the material abilities and potential we have.
Have they not gone through the land and seen what the end of earlier nations was, who were mightier than they and tilled in the land and built it up even better than these are doing. Their messengers brought them all evidence of the truth, for God would not wrong them. It was rather they who wronged themselves (Al-Room XXX: 09).
The malady and the issue are that of a flaw in and inferiority of performance. The problem of backwardness in our lives is one of a flaw in our performance and our dealing with Islam’s values and principles. It is a problem of a discrepancy between our performance in the niches of spiritual worship and performance in the niches of constructional worship. Because of this discrepancy, our position among nations is inferior, and because of this inferiority God has inflicted on us two penalties:
1. He removed any fear of us from the hearts of other nations:
God will remove from the hearts of your enemies all fear from you.
2. He cast feebleness and frailty in our hearts:
“He will cast feebleness into your hearts.”
He was asked, “What is feebleness, God’s Messenger?”
He said, “Feebleness is love of this life and hating to die.”
These are two penalties that we suffer from today, because of the inferiority of our performance in the walks of life and because we have closed up and abandoned the niches of constructional worship the flanks and horizons of the earth.
The solution for the problem of backwardness and progress then is not contingent upon the separation between religion and worldly life. To solve it and overcome it is dependent upon the activation of a balanced relationship between the spiritual make-up and the material make-up of the human culture and the affective constitution of human beings. To neglect or overlook this equilibrium in the educational constitution of human beings leads to one of the cases of extremism in the progress of human civilization. This is, in fact, what has been taking place throughout human history. It has been taking place in modern history, for this neglect of the affective and religious aspect of human education led to the emergence of an atheist political empire, which officially professed atheism and described religion as the opium of peoples. Likewise, there developed a parallel cultural extremism towards secularism. Secularist and atheist schools and inclinations appeared, and they completely rejected religion.
Thus, two official secularist schools crystallized in the world, an atheist secularist school led by the former Soviet Union, and a believing secularist school led by the United States and the West in general. Through these two schools run two great secularist popular currents, an atheist one and a believing one. The atheist secularist empire have collapsed, and one reason for that is, as stated by its former leader President Mikhail Gorbachev in his famous book Perestroika, “the neglect of the affective and spiritual dimension in the make-up of individuals.” Its collapse has negative effects on the continuity and progress of the atheist secularist popular current, which I believe to be in the throes of death today. Atheism is contrary to the nature of things, and it is in conflict with the human innate constitution. As for the believing secularist current, it has no problem with religion, except in the remaining area of imbalance between the affective, religious make-up and the materialistic make-up of the culture and educational constitution of an individual, and in the failing of some extremists, both secularist and religious, in their confusion of the concepts of positive relationship between religious and worldly aspects of all fields of life.
That is the general situation at the international level. At the Arab and Islamic level, I believe that the problem is no longer significant, except for the few Muslim extremists who still insist on using the adjectives “Islamist” and “secularist” to categorize people who belong to the same nation and share the same identity, destiny, ends, and objectives. Yes, the secularist problem is no longer a serious one and is on its way to disappear. It is only a matter of time. It will take some wise contemplation on the part of both misguided sides, the “Islamist” and the “secularist.” I say “misguided” because, to my mind, it is a matter of moodiness and stubbornness..
A religious young man was waging a vehement campaign against a certain person, describing him as a secularist who has strayed away from religion, and calling him a ----. I said once to him, “Take it easy, dear brother, I know this person you are calling a ----. He is a professor and a thinker, and he is religious and never misses a prayer. If compared to well-known atheist secularists, he will be fit to lead prayers at a mosque in this town.”
This leads to an important question which is a source of security failure on the regional and international level, and which I will discuss in the following chapter.
From His Book (Partners ... not Guardians) Part Four / Chapter Twelve
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To the Nation’s leaders - To the Nation’s scholars and intellectuals - To leaders of the world |
All Rights Reserved For The Author Prof. Dr. Hamid Al-Rifaie