Aziz Ahmad

Problems of Islamic modernism with spcial rfrence to IndoPakistan Sub-continent

In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 23, 1967. pp. 107-116.

Citer ce document / Cite this document : Ahmad Aziz. Problems of Islamic modernism with spcial rfrence to Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent. In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 23, 1967. pp. 107-116. doi : 10.3406/assr.1967.2619 http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/assr_0003-9659_1967_num_23_1_2619

PROBLEMS with

OF

ISLAMIC

MODERNISM Indo-Pakistan

special

reference to

Sub-continent

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This article is part of research project under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs London) CANTWELL SMITH Islam in Modern History Princeton 1959 41 S.A KHAN 1817-1898) reformer educationist modernist and outstanding political leader of Muslim India is the author of number of theological works including commentaries on the an and the Bible SHIBLI Nu MANI 1857-1914 was moderate theologian who established school of Islamic historiography in India His more westernised contemporary AMIR ALI 1849-1928 is famous for his historical and apologetic writings including the Spirit of Islam 107

ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONS situation of Islam in history For Shibl it is the triumph of Ash arism and the traditional theology over the Mu tazalites under al-Mutawakkil and subsequently For Amir Al it was the failure of Arab advance against Constantinople and in France which he regards as tragedy not merely for the history of Islam but for its chdiizing mission in terms of the cultural history of mankind Of the two Shibl though much more conservative is closer to the core of the problem For the traditionalists and the hl-i hadth the interpretation of Islamic history has remained relatively simpler in theological terms The entire process of Islamic history is viewed as continuous decline from the perfection of the golden age of the Prophet With this half-acknowledged sense of the failure of Islamic history the Muslim intellectual in the Indian Sub-continent as elsewhere faces the problem of the decadence of Islamic peoples in the modern world Consciousness of this decadence is reflected in Sayyid Ahmad intellectual and political orienta tions and his programme of an attachment to the West and detachment alike from pan-Islamic universalism and potentially aggressive Indian nationalism Hali epitomized and popularised sensitivity to the consciousness of decadence through his verse It is interesting to compare his analysis of Muslim decline with that of the al-Manar group some years later Whereas Hall lays the respon sibility of this decline on the static lethargy of the Muslim community the al-Manar group blames the Muslim rulers who are ignorant of Islam and its laws and who have permitted evil-doing in the administration by substituting laws of human origin in the place of Divine laws the theologians who have neglected the an and the sunna as the sources of law and have preoccupied themselves with the minutae of law and sectarianism and the quietist and heterodox Sufis who have made religion sport and means of entertainment Tilis fundamentalist position is reiterated and considerably intensified by Mawdudi in Pakistan whose at-i Islami is concerned not merely with the intellectual debate of Muslim reformism but with the political platform of the restoration of original Islam as cure for the malaise of modern decadence His party calls itself party of renaissance and not of reformism Among the modern Pakistani intellectuals most conscious of Islamic decadence is Parwiz who recommends thisworldly materialism but whose terms of reference are again fundamentalistic based on an extremely extravagent interpretation of the an All the same modernists of varying backgrounds Khayr al-din Pasha 10) Hali Abduh 11) Iqb 12 and Parwiz see way out of the morass of decadence fundamentalist group of theologians in modern Islamic India who based their creed principally on the dicta of Muhammad A.II HALT 1837-1914) an oustanding poet and biographer in Urdu whose political poem the Musaddas-i madd-u jazr-i Islam steeped in pan-Islamic vitalism revolutionised the Urdu poetry Fundamentalist syrio-Egyptian contributors to the joui nal al-Manar in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Shaykh Muhammad ABDUH Ta/s n al-Hakm Cairo 1906-1927 II 8990 al-Manar 606 et seq. 722-30 A.A MAWDUDI is rigid fundamentalist and theoretician of religious control over politics in Pakistan 10 KHAYR AL-DIN PASHA 1810-1889 was prime minister of the Beylik of Tunisia and later of the Ottoman Empire He is one of the pioneers in Islamic modernism 11 Shaykh Muhammad ABDUH 1849-1905 was by far the most eminent modern Egyptian theologian reformer and fundamentalist modernist 12 Muhammad IQBAL 1875-1938 was dynamic Indo-Muslim poet and philosopher and the theoretician of Pakistan 108

PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISM only through the application of the principle of change Almost all of them have the anic injunction at XIII 12 as their starting point God changes not what is in people until they change what is in themselves. Nations are not condemned and destroyed by God only on account of unbelief if they otherwise follow laws of justice and progress Muslims are merely potentially and by no means necessarily the best among the peoples 13) Much of the modernist sensitivity to present decadence is counter-balanced by the complacency of the theologians traditionalist and fundamentalist alike For them retrogression rather than decadence is the key-word For the Ahl-i hadth the entire history of Islam is series of steps taken backward from given state of perfection The fundamentalist explanation of the retrogression is continuous drifting away from the early simplicity of Islam through centuries of innovations incorporating extra-Islamic elements in Muslim canon law 14) The basic difference of approach to the problem by the modernists and the theologians has had paralysing influence on the elements of law constitution and institutions in modern Pakistan Modernists there have been finding it difficult to break from the past to accept the modern world on its own terms and according to its own values Theologians on the other hand and especially tlie fundamentalist school of Mawdd have also found it difficult to break totally from the present and to take refuge in the past The result is confusion in terms of theory of change required for cultural adjustments and an attempted compromise between opposite stances which are not entirely polarised Pragmatic necessities of government and politics urge compromises from time in consti tutions and amendments to constitutions in double-edged machinery like the Council of Islamic Ideology and other formulae or institutions These compromises cannot in any case bring about the change which the modernists desire in theory but which they cannot bring about in practice due to the conservative pressure of the lower middle classes supported by masses on certain explosive issues and led by the theologians of all shades of opinion And so in respect to Pakistan as to many other Islamic countries von remark remains relevant Few culture areas have been subjected to so much and so violent change as that of Islam none perhaps has so consistently refused to accept the ontological reality of change 15) Much of traditionalist conservatism is rooted deeply in the arite theo logy 16 To some extent modern lack of resilience and real rather than theoretical or apologetic adjustment with the scientific conception of universe which is the basis of modern civilisation lies in the arite denial of the law of causality which is one of the primary sources of all rational knowledge

13 Cf RASHID RIDA Tr kh al-ustdh ul-imm al-Shaykh Muhammad Abduh Cairo 1908-1910 II 323-4 14 For parallel arguments in Egypt see al-Manar XXIX 1928) 63-4 15 Gustave von GRUNEBAUM Modern Islam Berkeley 1962 209 16 Based on the writings and on the school of Hasan al-Asha ari 873-936 who used scholastic method to affirm an externalist creed of Islam and profoundly influenced the subsequent growth of dogma in Islam 109

ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONS Instead of arriving at law of natural causality the arites have deduced only law of custom ada It is not law observes Goldziher but simply the habit laid upon nature by God that makes certain things follow others this succession is not however necessary 17 Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Chiragh 18 are perhaps the only few among Indo-Muslim modernists who have subscribed to the concept of natural laws as superseding the cult of d For Amr Al as it is easy to preach reform of the arit Islam but his own writings hardly reflect any trace of that reform arism is placed back at the very core of Islamic modernism by Iqbal while the elphasis on the value of power in thought is traceable to Ibn Taimiyya 19) Wal-All h 20 fundamentalism though it paved the way for the emergence of modernism by challanging much of the superficial polemical or divisive data in Islamic jurisprudence is when all is said and done movement aimed at reorganising future in terms of an idealised past Basically therefore it has great deal in common with Wahhabism 21 which as Goldziher bluntly observes has its gaze fixed on the past denying the justification of the results of historical development and recognising Islam only in the petrified form of the seventh century 22 This verdict is even more appropriate to fundamentalism today

It is significant that Pakistan chose to call itself under pressure of theological groups allied tactically to political factions an Islamic state in its First Consti tution 1956) and in the Amendemnt 1963 to its Second Constitution Tunisia on the other hand chose to describe itself as an Arab Muslim State in its Consti tution The difference between the concepts of an Islamic state and Muslim state is noteworthy An Islamic state commits itself in its very conception to the continuing and developing of the historical process of law as developed by classical jurists On the other hand Muslim state can be secular or secularised state the majority of whose citizens are Muslims of varying degrees of obser vance or non-observance but attached to Islamic culture and history to the ethics of the an and the many considerable achievements in all fields of human endeavour 23 This is precisely the sense which modernists in Pakistan would ascribe to their concept of an Islamic State But the modernists are confined to class i.e higher or upper middle class and to particular kind of training and education i.e Westernized The creative minority which they constitute is 17 Ignaz GOLDZIHEH Muhammed and Islam Engl tr K.C Seele) New Haven 1917 138 18 speculative modernist of Islamic India and close associate of Sayyid Ahmad Klian 19 Taq al-dn Ahmad ibn Taimiyya 1263-1328 is eminent for his theological dialectica which influenced the growth of subsequent schools of Islamic fundamentalism Cf LAOUST Le trait de droit public Ibn Taimya Beirut 1948 173-74 also GARDET La Cit musul mane Paris 1954 107 20 SHAH WALI-ALLAH was the great eighteenth century fundamentalist Islamic India who influenced the later fundamentalist and modernist movements alike 21 The creed of the fundamentalist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab of Nejd which originated in the eighteenth century and is still the state religion in Sa ud Arabia 22 GOLDZIHER op cit. 311 23 E.I.J RosENTHAL The role of Islam in modern national state The Year Book of World Affairs London) 1962 vol 16 110

PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISM challenged by another creative minority of the lower middle classes led by the fundamentalists and supported by the traditionalists closer to the souls of the masses because of the rich emotional appeal of religion In the rural areas especially the fundamentalists seem to be consolidating their position In Survey carried out in 1963 through Pakistani students 451 villagers from 52 villages in West Pakistan were questioned on the treatment to be meted out to those who did not conform to the religious ritual 45 thought the delinquents should be severly punished 168 were of the view that they deserve some punishment 125 held that they should be persuaded by argument and instruction only 66 were in favour of laissez-faire and only 47 did not express any opinion 24) Fundamentalism is by no means the exclusive misfortune of Islam As Marthelot points out On se plat au contraire en gnral dresser la liste des prceptes islamiques en apparence peu favorables au dveloppement conomique certains en effet fondamentaux se rfrent affirmation de la Toute Puissance de Dieu mais laquelle des trois grandes religions juive chrtienne ou islamique pas ce mme principe en tte de son credo De mme thique impose la vie cono mique notamment interdiction du riba du prt intrt est-elle pas commune Islam et au Christianisme Enfin le refus de la novation avec cette surprenante ide que le progrs est dans le pass ne se retrouverait-il pas dans le rflexe souvent enregistr en Chrtient et pas seulement sur le plan religieux qui opposait les Anciens aux Modernes. 25) And yet the Report of the Constitution Commission of Pakistan is histo rically wrong in arguing on this basis the liberal secularism of the West. is itself based on the traditional discipline which was developed when religion was force in those countries 26 This view has to be weighed against the point made by H.A.R Gibb one of the most sincere friends of Islam in the West ..while the constitution of Islamic society was still based on medieval conceptions and its outlook governed by medieval ideas Western Europe had swung right away from its medieval moorings and that between the two civili sations once so uniform in spite of religious antagonisms the gulf had gradually widened until their common elements and principles seemed insignificant in comparison with their difference 27) If not in the Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent elsewhere in the Islamic world there have been categorical rejections of theocracy or as Mawdud would like to call it theo-democracy Turkey has been for generation secular Muslim but not an Islamic state Khalid Muhammad 28 views form the very anti-thesis of the thought and programme of Mawdud or even Ala al-Fs 29 He rejects theocracy for its lack of clarity regarding the source and location of

24 As reported by A.W EISTER Islam au Pakistan Arch. 15 1963 39-40 25 MARTHELOT Islam etle dveloppement Arch. 14 1962 134 26 Report of the Constitution Commission of Pakistan Karachi 1961 121 27 H.A.R GIBB Introd to Whiter Islam London 1932 48-49 28 young Egyptian theologian who is an advocate of the separation of politics from religion 29 Cf ALA AL-FASI Al-harka al-istiqlaliyyah fVl Maghrib Arab Cairo 1945 Eng tr H.Z Nuseibeh Washington D.C. 1954 113) Ill

ARCHIVES DL SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONS authority for its distrust of human reason for its appeal to weaknesses of emo tionalism for its hostility to all reform for its totalitarianism for its static nature for its inquisitorial suppression of all opposition and for its brutality which thrives upon the confusion as to the proper limit of authority 30) Idealisation of the Orthodox Caliphate of the first four holy Caliphs of Islam alike by the traditionalists fundamentalists and some of the modernists including Shibl and Amr Al but not Sayyid Ahmad Khan or Iqbal is fundamentalistic trend crystallised in historical revivalism Tilis idealisation shared by the Indo-Pakistani Islam with similar emphasis in other parts of the Muslim world 31 is aptly described by von Grunebaum as the classicism of return its object is in part at least decrease in cultural complexity it is retractile movement advocating consolidation through shrinkage movement of this order characteristically overlooks the fact that the period of apostolic simplicity which is chosen as authoritative and exemplary was actually period of expe riential expansion 32) Pan-Islamism and the Caliphate Movement of the later nineteenth and early twentieth century was juxtaposition of Rashidun-ciassicism 33 on modern circumstances and was therefore essentially revivalistic Pan-Islamism itself is modern development influenced like pan-Turanianism and pan-Arabism later by and analogous with sudi movements as pan-Germanism and panSlavism 34 But something like feeling of the solidarity of the entire Muslim umma is discernible at crucial periods in medieval Islamic history Al-Brn was conscious of Islam as cultural unity in comparing it with Hindu religion and culture 35 Ibn al-Athr 1234 shows consiousness of the Muslim world as single unity in dealing with the Mongol onslaughts in North-east Persia which he regards as calamity suffered by the entire world of Islam 36 Yqt regards Mongol invasion as an unparalleled calamity for Islam 37 Ibn Arab 1165-1240 efforts in the direction of combined effort on the part of the Muslim princes of Syria and Anatolia to repel the Crusaders have an element of what came to be described as pan-Islamism in modern times 38) Revival of emphasis on the concept of universal Caliphate begins in the Indian Islam with Shah Wall-Allah 39 though he only theorises about it in the abstract and does not identify it with the Ottoman monarchy for which he had

30 KHALID MUHAMMAD KHALID Min huna nabda Eng tr I.R al-Faruqi) Washington D.C. 129-34 H.Z NusEiBEH The Ideas of Arab Nationalism Ithaca 1956 172-3 31 Cf for instance al-Manr IV 210 215-6 32 Von GRUNEBAUM op cit. 81 33 Expression used by some Western orientalists to denote the idealisation by modern Muslims of the pietistic institutions of government under the first four Orthodox Caliphs of Islam 632-661) 34 Hasan TAGHIZADE Le Panislamisme et le Panturkisme Revue du Monde musulman XX 1913 192 35 E.C SACHAU Introd to AlerunVs India London 1910 9-10 AL-BIRUNI Kitab al-saidana Eng tr Meyerhof in Islamic Culture XI 1937) 27) 36 IBN al-Kmil Leiden C.J Tornberg 1851-76 XII 233-35 Cf GABRIELI Storia della letteratura araba Milan 1951 232-4 37 YAQUT Mu jam al-buldn Leipzig ed Wstenfeld 1866-73 IV 859 38 Miguel ASIN PALACIOS El Islam cristianasado Madrid 1931 93-95 39 SHAH WALI-ALLAH zala al-khaf vol. Karachi n.d. passim Hujjat All albligha Karachi n.d. II 422-29 112

PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISM scant respect 40 This identification was however made in the by his grandson Shah Muhammad Ishaq an immigrant to the Hij z and subsequently influenced the theologians and the elite of Muslim India from 1870 onwards The development is paralleled by similar trends in the world of Islam elsewhere 1873 qub Beg the revolutionary leader of Chinese Turkestan sent his nephew Haj Tur to the court of the Ottoman Abd Azz who invested qub Beg with the title of Amr On qub coinage the name was engraved on one side and his own on the other 41 Pan-Islamic and pro-Caliphate trends made their first appearance in Tunisia in the with the French occupation and culminated in the career and activities of l Bash Hamba and lib 42 during the first two decades of the twentieth century In this very period con flict between the pan-Islamic and nationalist groups developed in Egypt and was reflected in the controversial articles in the al-Manar 43 on the one side and Alam and al-Siyasa on the other 44) Like the Indian Muslim elite the al-Manar had strongly supported the Young Turkish Revolution of 1908 45 but unlike them it regarded Mustafa abolition of the Caliphate and introduction of certain drastic reforms as acts of apostasy from Islam 46 Like the Indian Muslims the al-Manar placed high hopes in the rise of Ibn ud but unlike them upheld even the Wahhab repudiation of such innovations as pilgrimages to sacred tombs 47 Al Abd advocacy of the abolition of the Caliphate is not very diffe rent from that of Khuda Bakhsh in asserting that the institution of the Caliphate had been and continued to be misfortune for Islam and the Muslims and source of corruption 48 There is similarity in his argument and that of Iqbal when he points out that the Caliphate was not an integral part of the Muslim creed neither the an nor the authentic hadth have anything categorical to say about it and that the Muslim consensus has never been solidly or consistently behind it 49 Iqbal however avoids l Abd apologetics who asserts that the Prophet exercised religious but not civil authority and as he did not exercise the latter the question of its succession in the form of Caliphate does not arise 50 Iqbal Zia Gkalp and Al Abd al-R ziq reflect in varying degrees an intellectual trend spreading over the greater part of the Muslim world in the advocating family of Islamic nations independently organised under civil governments but all conscious of the heritage of Islamic culture. an Islamic commonwealth 51)

40 SHAH WALI-ALLAH Fuyud al-Harmayn tr Lahore) Urdu 1947 297 ff 41 D.C de KAVANAGHBouLGER Life of Yakob Beg Athalik ghazi and Badaulat Ameer of Kashgar London 1878 The Times March 16 1874 TSING YUAN Yakub Beg 18201877 and the Moslem Rebellion in Chinese Turkestan Central Asiatic Journal VI 1961 134-67 42 Tunisian political leaders who struggled against the French for the freedom of their country and were also supporters of pan-Islamism and the theory of Ottoman Caliphate 43 Al-Manar VIII 478 XIV 1911) 36 XXVII 1926-27) 119 44 Two modern Arab journals 45 Al-Manar XIV 43 46 Ibid. XXVIII 581 47 Ibid. XIV 43 C.C ADAMS Islam and Modernism in Egypt London 1933 185 48 ALI ABD Al-RAZiQ Al-Islm wa usul al-hukm Cairo 1925 36 49 NusEiBEH op cit. 153 50 ALI ABD AL-RAZIQ op cit. pp 64-5 69 79 84 51 GIBB op cit. 364 52 Von GBUNEBAUM op cit. 19 113

ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONS The quest for the rationalisation of Muslim law antedates the quest for the modernisation of the classical concept of Muslim statehood In Muslim India it began with Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his colleagues The two focal points of modernisation in the Aligarh system of thought are reason and nature In so far as its use of reason is concerned von general remark is quite pertinent ..human reason is charged not so much with discerning unknown areas of facts as with uncovering the insights and the directions implied in the divine or prophetic pronouncements 52 This is what Shaykh Muhammad Abduh also affirms by remarking that reasoning has to be applied in examining and explaining the messages of the prophets in the light of the laws of nature as ordained by God 53 Sayyid Ahmad premiss on this problem is even more categorical Between the word of God scripture and the work of God nature there can be no contradiction 54 Abduh unlike Sayyid Ahmad Khan forecasts distinction between intuitional and dialectical reason by admit ting the incompetence in certain theological spheres such as the inter pretation of the Attributes of God or even full understanding of the nature and quality of human soul 55) Through rationalistic approach to the sources of Muslim law Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Shaykh Muhammad Abduh both concentrate on the first one the an and both as well as Azad do so by neo-exegetical re-orientation of the Muslim scripture In detail they arrive at very different conclusions but the argument of approach is closely similar In relation to the second source of law the hadth Sayyid Ahmad and Chiragh approach is sceptic and close enough to the scientific criticism developed later by Ignaz Goldziher and Joseph Schacht though unlike them the two Muslim modernists do not hesitate to quote hadth uncritically when it suits them approach to the sunna is more cautious recognising small section of the hadth-coTpvis relating to matters of practice as an essential part of the basic data of law 56 On the whole the Islamic modernism in India followed rather than Sayyid Ahmad orien tation in this respect 57 Ijtihd use of individual reasoning as substitute for the third classical source of law qiyas analogy finds the greatest emphasis in Indian Islam in the writings of the Aligarh group 58 and Iqbal as well as in Arab Islam in the writings of Abduh there is no limit to what may be done within its limits and there is no end to the speculation that may be conducted under its standards 59 Despite its fundamentalism the al-Manar group emerges more progressively modernist than Iqbl in suggesting that civil law which should be subject to change from age to age should be separated from religion which is sacrosanct eternal and immutable 60) as Sayyid source of Ahmad law He Khan was is conscious solitary inof his it total only denunciation in the classical of sense jma consensus i.e that of the consensus of the theologians Outside India Abduh was perhaps the first to 53 ABDUH -Islm Nasraniyyah Cairo 1923 51 54 Cf Al-Manr VII 292 GOLDZIHER Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung Leiden 1920 352-8 ADAMS op cit. 136 55 ABDUH Risala al-tawhd Cairo 1926-7 52-4 117 56 Ibid. 224 57 Risala was prescribed text-book at the Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College as well as several theological schools in the Sub-continent 58 The associates and co-workers of Sayyid Ahmad Khan in his modernist reformist movement in India 59 ABDUH Risala 177 Eng tr quoted from ADAMS 131 60 Al-Man IV 859 and passim 114

PROBLEMS OF ISLAMIC MODERNISM see in it an extended concept of consensus as applicable to all Muslims the seeds of something like modern democracy when he observed that representative government and legislation by the chosen representatives of the people was enti rely in harmony with the spirit of Islam 61 In the Sub-continent the theory of popular consensus as the basis of democracy was developed by Iqbal Soon it seems to have gained general currency in the entire world of Islam in most cases developed locally An Afghan writer Niaz Ahmad Zikriya regards the role of the consensus of the theologians in the classical Islam as manifestation of delegated power proving the sovereignty of the people to whom the direct right of consensus has reverted in modern times 62)

However liberal or radical the modernist interpretation of the basic classical sources of law may be as long as the Divine word rather than human reason experience and requirement is regarded as the ultimate source of law an Islamic state cannot be sovereign in the modern sense of the word Absolute restriction on the legislative power of State is restriction on the sovereignty of the people of that State and if the origin of this restriction lies elsewhere than in the will of the people then to the extent of that restriction the sovereignty of the State and its people is necessarily taken away In an Islamic State sovereignty in its essentially juristic sense can only rest with Allah 63) Nor can under the circumstances that state be democratic or even theodemocratic whatever broad meaning may be given to the term The crux of the problem is humanistic In its larger sense humanism is defined by Pierre Mesnard as toute conception thorique toute attitude pratique qui affirment la valeur exceptionelle de homme 64 Its starting point in the West is an anthropocentrisme rflchi an attitude unknown to classical Islam 65 In classical Islam in the totality of the traditionalist and fundamen talist stances of today and in all Indo-Muslim modernist thought except in Iqbal God and not man remains the key-figure of the universe dominating political social economic and cultural life Iqbal alone takes position which is not very different from Jacques concept of humanisme intgral which tends ..essentiellement rendre homme plus vraiment humain et manifester sa grandeur originelle en le faisant participer tout ce qui peut enrichir dans la nature et dans histoire ...) il demande tout la fois que homme dveloppe les virtualits contenues en lui ses forces cratrices et la vie de la raison et travaille faire des forces du monde physique les instruments de sa libert 66)

61 RASHID RIDA Tr kh 71 et seq 62 Niaz Ahmad ZIKRIYA Les principes de Visl et la dmocratie Paris 1958 41-5 63 MUNIR and M.R KAYANI Report of the Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab disturbances of 1954 Lahore 1954 210 64 Pierre MESNARD humanisme chrtien Bulletin Joseph Lotte juin 1939 65 Louis GARDET Humanisme musulman hier et aujourdhui Elment culturels de base Ibl 1944 66 Jacques MARITAIN Humanisme intgral Paris 1936 10 115

ARCHIVES DE SOCIOLOGIE DES RELIGIONS The humanism of Iqba thought is what Gardet describes as humanisme avec Dieu 67 vicegerency of God is within certain moral bounds auto nomous in the abstract in the thought of Iqbal but when it comes to the theory of the government of an Islamic even Muslim state he too harnesses religion with politics Gardet is right in asserting that in the view of Iqbal and Muhammad Husayn Haykal if the humanistic renaissance in the world of Islam accumulates anthropocentrism and an absolute naturalism it would do itself considerable damage for which the West would also be responsible 68 Thus position though more radical than that of other Indo-Pakistani modernists in asserting the creative autonomy of man remains fairly close to the consensus which favours maintaining the traditional balance between spiritual and material values and to affect the conquest of nature with this balance This fine theoretical position has not worked out so well in practice anywhere This is the tragedy of modern Islam From within itself it has been able to re create elements of renaissance but not of reformation Much of the content of Islamic modernism is Westernisation of the given data of Islamic juristic law and custom In this Westernisation the process of apologetics blurs the histo rical perspective As von Grunebaum describes the psychological logic of apolo getics it is characterstic tendency on the part of the receiving community to interpret heterogenetic change usually experienced as achievement or advance as orthogenetic 69) In the modern Islamic reactions to the West the opposites of attrac tion and repulsion have been working simultaneously and continuously Western liberalism is the cause of attraction western colonialism neo-colonialism and parochial insularity the reason for repulsion Comment concilier comments Muhammad Husayn Haykal les deux esprits contraires la libert et la coloni sation est difficile concevoir 70) Though the initiative for real reformation of Islam has to continue to come from within it and has to be thought out and translated into practice by the Muslims perhaps the West may eventually help One may conclude on optimistic note ..Islam cannot deny its foundations and in its foundations Islam belongs to and is an integral part of the large Western society It the complement and counterbalance of European civilization nourislied at the same springs breathing the same air In the broadest aspect of history what is now happening between Europe and Islam is the reintegration of Western civilization artificially sundered at the Renaissance and now reasserting its unity with overwhelming force 71) Aziz AHMAD University of Toronto

67 GARDET op cit. 5-6 also La Cit musulmane 273-94 68 GARDET Humanisme musulman 38-9 69 Von GRUNEBAUM op cit. 14 70 -L Les causes de incomprhension entre Europe et les musulmans et les moyens remdier Islam et Occident Cahiers du Sud Paris 1947 55 71 GiBB op cit. 376 116