WHY is Islam so misunderstood today, that followers of the faith no longer feel safe wherever they go?
Perhaps, we have allowed ourselves to be divided and used by others. We have strayed from the Book and offered something else as justifications of the faith. In the end, we are left to wander around the world, waiting for a Saviour to appear.
In sorting out these three issues facing Islam, we have to look back at history, politics and culture for answers to why these things have happened.
Firstly, the history of Islam has seen good and bad times, peace and prosperity, and divisions and unity within the ummah.
Since the establishment of the seat of an Islamic government in Medina by the Prophet, when Islam’s rules and regulations of governance were developed, the management of relations between the Islamic state and the “Others” had been refined.
The details of this understanding have been passed through the years and accepted as the core of Islamic teaching and jurisprudence today.
As the faith began to spread to Africa and Europe, Islamic civilisation, as we knew it, was not able to dig in for long.
In fact, the faith became mired in decay and decrepitude, very reminiscent of past empires at their zenith of glory.
In modern times, the Islamic faithful started to differentiate between aspects of the faith and traditions of society.
This was necessitated by the rise of religious radicalism in Christianity, Eastern religions, and the traditions of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism, which all worked to strengthen their hold on people.
Unable to respond effectively to the challenge, Islam was torn apart by ideology and politics, everywhere.
In its midst, the state of Israel was created out of Palestinian territory. In the Soviet empire, the state ideology had no place for Islam. Likewise, communism in China outlawed the Muslim population.
In Turkey, Spain, Egypt and elsewhere, Islamic places of worship were turned into Christian churches, and its practices and traditions were under suspicion.
Such was the fate of Muslims. But, survived they did, but at what cost to the faith?
Secondly, the ummah, as a whole, reacted in a dualistic manner: gradually moving away from the Quran and justifying their actions in the name of “jihad”.
What made it worse was Samuel P. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations” article published in 1993, which provided the United States with a prescription of policy towards the rise of Islam in the former’s pursuit to hold on to power in its remaking of the world order after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.
The timing of the article’s appearance was thought of as a “revenge” among many quarters, especially in the wake of the seizure of the US embassy in Teheran by Iranian students in 1979, following the Iranian Revolution that placed the Islamic clergy in power in the country.
The cultural paradigm of the clash of civilisations between politics and religion discussed above was further tested in 2001 with the al-Qaeda-perpetrated act of bombing the World Trade Center in New York on Sept 11, believed to be sponsored by Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islamic holy sites in Mecca.
To top it all off, extremism met with extremism from both sides, Islam and the West, as responses were made to show “who is right”.
The Western alliance moved to rid the world, as stated by US President Barack Obama, of the so-called “strong man” in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
In turn, Obama launched, in 2012, the era of the “Arab Spring” as a transformative instrument for these countries to become fully fledged democracies.
Last year, what followed was the radicalisation of Islam in these countries and around the world through extremist groups, including the Islamic Brotherhood, Taliban, Islamic State, Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf and Boko Haram.
Finally, fast-tracking to the present. Thirdly, we are seeing the phenomenon of the faithful being evicted from their own places of birth, sent to wander as migrants seeking refuge in countries that were responsible for their plight in the first place.
Meanwhile, for countries that were spared the radicalisation process in its entirety, their responses have varied from a defensive attitude, calling for global moderation and a return to “Maqasib al-Syariah”, thus, moving the ummah from hopelessness to hopefulness.
Insyaallah.
Email: info@drazharikarim.com
Dr Azhari-Karim, is a retired Malaysian Ambassador, educator, trainer, scholar, consultant and futurist thinker.