Curing 1000 years of amnesia: Europe's (re)discovery of Arab Culture

Britain's venerable Royal Society (dating back to the 1660s) hosted Professor Charles Burnett of The Warburg Institute, University of London, for a talk entitled 'The European Discovery of Arab Culture'. A medievalist by training, Charles Burnett has been Professor of Islamic Influences in Europe since 1999 and is the founder of the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe (CHASE). Although there appears to be a cavalier conflation of 'Arabic' and 'Islamic' in these designations, in his introductory remarks, Professor Burnett took care to underscore the importance of making a clear distinction between the two.

The lecture, co-hosted by the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization, was held as one of the closing events celebrating an exhibition of Muslim contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge throughout the Middle Ages at the Royal Society's headquarters on Carlton House Terrace.

Bettany Hughes

The exhibition and lecture were conceived to cure what has been dubbed the collective 1000-year amnesia which has made the West forget the significance of Arab and Muslim achievements in science and knowledge in general for the development of European civilization. The event was MC'ed by the historian and renowned broadcaster Bettany Hughes, while the lecture was chaired by Jim al-Khalili, a Professor of physics at the University of Surrey and also a well-known TV figure actively engaged in the promotion of the sciences and the significance of inter-civilizational contacts for the development of human knowledge. Words of welcome were also spoken by Professor Lorna Casselton, the Society's Foreign Secretary, and Professor Salim al-Hassani, Chairman of the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization (FSTC) -- a British-based non-profit organization established to promote the contributions of Muslim civilization and its role in the advancement of humankind through scientific knowledge and its technological application. It seeks to promote awareness of Islam as a civilization and stimulate interest in the multicultural aspects of scientific progress through the centuries by supporting a wide range of activities including the online based initiatives, MuslimHeritage and the global 1001 Inventions Project.

Prof. Salim al-Hassani

In his talk, Charles Burnett sketched how, up to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, European scholars eagerly learned Arabic in order to access the Islamic depositories of knowledge. Meanwhile merchants were encouraged to carry manuscripts from the eastern bassin of the Mediterranean and from North Africa to the southern shores of Europe. What is remarkable about the exchange is that European curiosity was generally limited to the exact or natural sciences. However, by the 1300s, this interaction reached its conclusion as Europeans became of the opinion that also in these fields nothing new could be gained from Arab and Islamic scholarship. This closing of the mind lasted until the sixteenth century, when interest in the Orient was rekindled. In contrast to the earlier ages, now there was an expressed interest in Arab and Islamic culture and civilization. The first chairs in Arabic were established in Paris, Leiden, Cambridge and Oxford with the objective of expanding the knowledge of Semitic languages in order to come to a deeper and better understanding of Jewish and Christian scriptures. In this development, Arabic was treated as an auxillary to the study of Hebrew and the seeds for a polemical engagement with Islamic religious doctrine were laid as well.

Prof. Jim al-Khalili (L) and Prof. Charles Burnett

The evening's programme was closed by Dr Rim Turkmani, a Syrian-born astrophysicist at Imperial College, who helped curate the 'Arabick Roots of Knowledge'  exhibition. In her presentation she showcased some of the main exhibits. 

'Arabick Roots' Exhibition at the Royal Society

Dr Rim Turkmani

While it is debatable whether the scholars from the medieval Islamic world would qualify as critical Muslims in a contemporary sense, what becomes evident from both the Royal Society exhibition and Prof. Burnett's lecture is that these Muslims were certainly critical to the development of Western civilization and the subsequent emergence of modernity.

Arab Spring: Is there a critical Islamic discourse in Saudi Arabia?

On 17 October 2011, my colleague Madawi al-Rasheed, Professor of Social Anthropology at King's College London, gave a talk in the Middle East Seminar convened by the London School of Economics (LSE), under the title 'A Saudi Spring of Sand Storms; Signs of Domestic Turbulence'. The chair of the event, Fawaz Gerges, Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at LSE, introduced Prof. al-Rasheed as one the most renowned scholars on present-day developments in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, and certainly the foremost critical voices on current affairs in the Kingdom. She is the author of a number of books on Saudi Arabia.

Madawi al-Rasheed

In her preliminary remarks, Prof. al-Rasheed already foreshadowed a more pessimistic account when compared to seismic shifts which have occured elsewhere. Alluding to the metaphoric associations employed by Egyptians and Tunisians, who refer to the Spring as the season of blossoms and jasmine flowers respectively, in Saudi Arabia the arrival of Spring is accompanied by often vicious sand storms. Accordingly, the trajectory of the Arab Spring in the Arabian Peninsula in general has been less than promising. The Sunni-controlled government of the neighbouring miniature island state of Bahrain has clamped down, without mercy, on expressions of dissent by its disenfranchised majority Shi'a population -- rapidly and readily assisted by Saudi troops in armoured vehicles sent across the strategic King Fahd causeway by the government in Riyadh. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia' s southern neighbour Yemen teeters on the brink of civil war as the protests against Abdullah Ali Saleh are turning increasingly violent and bloody.

Saudi Arabia itself, like many other Arab kingdoms (Jordan, Morocco, Oman), makes every effort to present the monarchical system in the most benign ways, alleging it offers a favourable contrast to the nasty republican regimes that seem to be falling like dominoes. As a critical note, Prof. al-Rasheed observes that this rosy image is swallowed without question, and even spread further, by external stakeholders in regional Gulf stability. these interested parties are no longer confined to America and Western Europe, but now also include Russia and China. Their willingness to side with the incumbent regime is motivated by the need for access to Saudi oil reserves and the prospects of lucrative arms deals.

But, the sand storms of the Spring of 2011 are harbingers of growing domestic turbulence, Prof. al-Rasheed insists. As one of her informants has it: 'The events of early 2011 have propelled Saudi Arabia ten years ahead of its own pace of development'.

There is widespread dissatisfaction in Saudi Arabia, but Saudis express their grievances and frustrations differently than elsewhere. Again, al-Rasheed refers to the explanation offered by a disaffected activist within the Kingdom she is in contact with: If Saudis would be confronted with the kind of humiliation suffered by Egyptians or Tunisians at the hands of security forces, their temperament and cultural conventions would force them to respond in kind. In a country where weapons are readily available, violence would rapidly spirall out of control. So instead, critics of the regimes and opponents of the present political order have taken recourse to their conventional way of addressing complaints to the government: sending petitions.

Since the mid-1990s, when foreign troops taking part in Operations 'Desert Shield' and 'Desert Storm', assembled on Saudi soil to fend off the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Saudi opposition has issued a dozen or so petitions demanding reforms and change. In general, these addresses studiously avoided any direct criticism of the king or other members of the royal family. And whereas, the ruling monarch, the crown prince, and the grand mufti -- as leader of the religious establishment -- still retain near sacred status, the latest petitions contain thinly veiled criticisms of the highly umpopular minister of interior, Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz. Heading a vicious security apparatus and himself an epigone of political conservatism and authoritarian repression of any democratic reforms, Nayif is nevertheless best positioned to succeed the aging king and ailing crown prince -- both of whom have spent extended periods of time in hospital during the last few years.

The government, in turn, has responded with its time-tested counteroffensive: financial mumificence. This time around the key beneficiaries were, first of all, the armed forces. All serving members were promoted one rank, while also receiving the cocomitant rise in pay. In addition, another 60,000 new positions will be created. Whereas this will only lead to a further militarization of Saudi society, Madawi al-Rasheed took care to note that the armed forces are by no means a united front. In fact, the loyalty of the various branches is fragmented and divided between key senior members of the royal family. The religious establishment too benefited from royal generosity, receiving additional budget for its activities. Combined with the third strategy: a further curtailment of the press, the Saudi regime has -- for now -- taken the sting out of the protest movement.

But aside from a combination of repression and largesse on the part of the government, there is another reason why protests in Saudi Arabia have remained relatively subdued when compared to other Arab countries. Calls for a 'day of rage', scheduled for 11 March, were generally ignored because there is no consensus among the protesters on the agenda for reforms. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has no tradition of civil activism. In order to prevent the development of such a sense of civil society or the articulation of shared citizens' concerns, the government also plays up tribal belonging and sectarian divides: pitching regions and tribes, and Sunnis and Shi'ites, against each other.

Saudi Arabia's 'day of rage' (11 March 2011)

However, it cannot be denied that Saudi society is sick, and the key ailments include not just the repression of the Shi'ite minority (not only 'Twelvers' or 'Imamis' in the Eastern Province, but also the often forgotten Ismaili community in the southern border province of Najran). Then there is the denial of equal rights to women; the continued detention of large numbers of political prisoners; and -- above anything else -- the rampant unemployment of the Saudi youth. According to some estimates, the level of joblessness in Saudi Arabia is only topped by Gaza and Iraq. In the face of such challenges, Saudi society increasingly resembles a pressure cooker ready to explode.

Shi'ites protesting in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province

External factors also play a role in defining the future prospects for a Saudi Spring. According to Prof. al-Rasheed the world is rapidly moving, if it has not already, from a one-super power post-Cold War order to a multipolar world, in which varies powers are vying for influence, including orchestrating developments in the strategically so important Persian Gulf Region. On a global level these include the USA, Russia, China and India, on the regional level Saudi Arabia itself, Iran, and Turkey. Each of these players tries to direct developments into a direction that serves its own interests.

Whereas some Arab countries are looking to Turkey for inspiration, it is highly unlikely that this will be a useful model for Saudi Arabia, at least in the short term. Its lack of a sense of civil society and tradition of feminist activism currently deprive it of the necessary preconditions. This lack of civil action also severely limits the likelihood of a 'facebook' or 'twitter' revolution -- which al-Rasheed also considers a misnomer in the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria.

However, what is not an unlikely scenario is that continuing turbulence and the persistence of critical questions being directed at the government could destabilize the regime to such an extent that a fragmentation of the Kingdom is not entirely inconceivable. Most likely candidates for a breakaway would be the oil-rich Eastern province and the Asir and Najran provinces on the border with Yemen.The lack of a tradition of civil disobedience also makes a violent turn of events a very likely option.

According to Prof. al-Rasheed the current initiatives of the government to respond to the demands of the protesters are insufficient. Although Saudi Arabia's economy continues to expand it has never managed to absorb the country's rapidly growing population; for that the government has always relied on expanding the civil service, which is seen as inefficient and corrupt. Women's issues are primarily addressed in response to foreign criticism, but Madawi al-Rasheed is adamant that the kind of emancipation introduced by the Saudi regime will not undermine its authoritarian grip on power. Playing up sectarianism often expressed by pandering to a sense of 'Iranphobia' will also not contribute to the creation of a sense of nationhood. However, according to al-Rasheed there are signs that leading figures among the citizenry in the Western Hijaz province, a more cosmopolitan region with a historical tradition of plurality where also the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina are located, are trying to build bridges between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Even though the Saudi government has been pushing for years for a military intervention in Iran, al-Rasheed thinks that in the current multi-polar world a sustained military campaign against Iran is highly unlikely, and Saudi Arabia definitely lacks the means to go it alone.

King Abdullah

However, the key to any future scenario for Saudi Arabia is the succession question. At present there are five key princes, representing various factions within the royal family. Aside from the King and Crown Prince, and their sons, there is the governor of the Eastern Province, Prince Muhammad bin Fahd, the oldest surviving son of the late King Fahd (1982-2005), and the governor of Mecca, Prince Khalid bin Faisal, as the most senior member among the descendants of King Faisal (1964-1975). However, as she mentioned earlier, at present Madawi al-Rasheed considers the powerful interior minister, Prince Nayif -- a half-brother of King Abdullah and full brother of Sultan, the ailing crown prince and defence minister -- as the most likely future king. This does not bode well for the prospects of any drastic reforms.On the other hand, it is never certain what the 33 most senior members of the royal family will decide. What is certain is that the opportunities for a horizontal succession -- for brother to brother -- will soon be exhausted. How this will play out the next level, the sons of the leading royal members of government, is anybody's guess.

Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayif

In Madawi al-Rasheed's mind, for any drastic change to occur -- and this is only likely in the long run -- it will be absolutely vital that freedom of expression and organization are widely expanded; without the creation of a viable public space any attempts for real political reforms are doomed. That is exactly why the regime continues to stress tribal and sectarian affiliations;why it makes sure to kepp foreigners away from the native population by confining them to their walled compounds and labour camps; and why universities are closed enclaves keeping young Saudis isolated, under strict surveillance, while exposing them to skills training rather than an education which would enable them to articulate their critical faculties. Critical Muslims are the nemesis of a regime composed of a well-entrenched royal family and collaborating religious establishment as the self-appointed custodians of a narrow-minded intolerant interpretation of the Islamic tradition.
 

Refashioning the Study of Islam: Muslim contributions

Kristian Petersen, the new host of the Islamic Studies and Religion section of New Books Network (NBN) interviewed this blogger about the contributions of three Muslim intellectuals to finding new approaches to the study of Islam. The talk is based on the book Cosmopolitans and Heretics examinations of the writings of Indonesian Islamicist and public intellectual Nurcholish Madjid, the Egyptian philosopher Hasan Hanafi, and the French-Algerian historian of Islam Mohammed Arkoun.

Often when we read about new Muslim intellectuals we are offered a presentation of their politicized Islamic teachings and radical interpretations of theology, or Western readings that nominally reflect the Islamic tradition. We are rarely introduced to critical Muslim thinkers who neither abandon their Islamic civilizational heritage nor adopt, wholesale, a Western intellectual perspective.

Click here to listen to the whole interview. And the the image below to buy the book.

This year's Arab Spring in London (2) - Internet entrepreneur

In the wake of the epochal changes that are currently affecting North Africa and the Middle East, London was the scene of the launch of a new website advocating freedom of expression in the Arab world.

Arabs.com  is an initiative of Thunayan Khalid al-Ghanim. Although he had already built up a reputation as one of the most prolific and expansive buyers of  online domain names, the Kuwaiti-born internet entrepreneur was a bit of enigma. In late June, the once secretive internet pioneer, also known under the alias elequa, stepped out of anonimity. A member of a prominent Kuwaiti business family, which is also active in politics, often in opposition to the ruling family, Thunayan al-Ghanim was educated in Europe and the United States. Before turning to exploring and exploiting the opportunities offered by the internet revolution, he pursued an artistic career as a painter and sculptor.

Art work by Thunayan al-Ghanim

Future Media Architects (FMA)

Through a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands named Future Media Architects (FMA) he has managed to take control of literally tens of thousands of domain names. Although he professes no interest in politics, the Arabs.com initiative does make a political statement, as its website's subtitle reads 'Freedom of speech is a human right'.

Arabs.com launch

 Taking place in 40/30, the top floor  bar & restaurant in the Swiss Re Building, better known as 'The Gherkin', the launch of Arabs.com was given an appropriate allure. The event was organized by Orient Consulting Services and hosted by its CEO Lina Tayara.

Lina Tayara with Arabs.com founder Thunayan Khalid al-Ghanim

 The evening also featured Chris Cobb Smith, a  former military officer turned press security consultant, as keynote speaker. Not long ago he made headlines during the recent troubles in Libya, when he -- together with BBC Arabic Service journalist Feras Killani and cameraman Goktay Koraltay -- were captured by Gaddafi's forces and subjected to torture and coercion. Subsequently, the trio was awarded the 2011 MBI Award for Press Freedom.

Keynote speaker Chris Cobb-Smith

In the fringes of the launch, which attracted representatives of the media, the world of publishing and communications, as well as publicists and academics working on the Middle East and the wider Muslim world, there was a screening of a brief documentary film, entitled 'A Story Seldom told' and produced by the Zenith Foundation.

The launch was also covered on the  technocrati website.
Follow Arabs.com on Twitter

This year's Arab Spring in London (1) - A Syrian contribution

The next few posts will present a number of events that have taken place this Spring and Summer in London, confirming that the city is still in many respects at the centre of critical developments in the Arab and wider Muslim world.

Aziz al-Azmeh at AKU

On 21 June the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilization (ISMC) at the Aga Khan University (AKU) hosted the renowned Syrian Scholar of Islam Aziz al-Azmeh, who delivered a lecture under the title The Relevance and Irrelevance of Muslim Political Traditions. Beginning with an unexpected quote from Paul's Epistle to the Romans that there is 'no authority but God' and other references to the view of the Gospels that we must obey God rather than man, he provides some contrast with the perhaps more often cited statement in Matthew of rendering unto Caesar in order to challenge the generally held assumption that , unlike Islam, Christendom clearly separated State and Church.

His objectives in this talk were not to compare Islam and Christianity or oppose them to each other, but to reflect critically and present some purposeful discriminations. Al-Azmeh declared the argument that Scripture prescribed Europe's political system absurd, because it flies in the face of sociological evidence: Dogma and practice have always differed.

Sociological thinking insists that political systems cannot be reduced to cultures and that cultures cannot be reduced to Scripture. The great transformations of modernity have made social, political and cultural diversity and complexities only greater. This observation, al-Azmeh insists, that applies as much to the Muslim world as it does to the West.

However, regarding the latter, al-Azmeh discerns the same disinterest and lack of analytical rigour among Muslim and Western observers when studying Muslim societies. The prevailing presumption still is that the Muslim world in the 21st century is only just emerging from the Muslim traditions which require a religious legitimation for political structures. Muslims are 'frozen' into their traditions and the what he terms as 'Super Muslims' like to perpetuate this stultified view.

The profound changes in Muslim societies in the course of the last few centuries are still 'bracketed', in spite of the fact that -- although they may be unevenly distributed -- are very real. These changes may have been of European provenance, but they have been indigenized and adapted to local contexts.

Through his analysis of the characteristics of these changes in Muslim societies, al-Azmeh wants to transcend the tendency of coining the description of Muslim society and the history of the Muslim world in dogmatic terms.

In his responses to various questions, al-Azmeh rejected the contention that there are textual prescriptions for the organization of Muslim society or depiction of Islamic history in the Qur'an, as if Muslims are afflicted with some congenital nomocratic disposition . He wants to contest and break-down the 'logocentric clichés' which hold the analysis of Muslim societies captive. Prior to the nineteenth century, such articulations were unknown to the Muslim mindset, and al-Azmeh contends they are the result of the influence of both Catholic and Protestant traditions. 

In this respect, he argues that the Islamic concept of ijma' -- the consensus of the community of religious scholars -- was as multilayered as early Christian Patristics. Islamic theological traditions have been very diverse and were often in conflict with each other. Muslim history manifests different caliphates, Sultanic traditions, and other political systems.

He does not deny that the emphasis on scripturalism has been enormously influential, but, to further clarify the point he wants to make, this must be seen as a 'Protestant inflection' -- which can in turn be explained through  its disenchantment with Catholicism. Subsequently, this view has been transplanted and transposed into analyses of the Muslim world.

Pushing his argument even further, al-Azmeh maintains that there is no evidence of a specific political reading of the Qur'an prior to the twentieth century. In his view, the fuqaha' or legal scholars were practical men, and only ideologically disposed in a secondary sense. This demands a rethinking of Islam as jurisdictional and nomocratic -- at least in the reductionist fashion in which it is generally presented. The praxis of law in the Muslim world was complex, and very distinct from classical Islamic legal theorizing. Consequently, he dismisses the notion of Shari'ah as an 'artificial gloss'

The violence involved in imposing Islamic law in the way the Islamic Republic of Iran has tried to do it is at odds not only with standards of equity and justice in the contemporary world, but also at variance with both Islamic historical practice and legal theory. The way in which Islamists are implementing Islamic law makes for what al-Azmeh calls a 'bizarre spectacle'

Aziz al-Azmeh

Commenting on Muslim reformism, al-Azmeh does not deny that it tends to be apologetic and that there is a lot of 'social engineering' going on on the basis of an Islamic variety of scripturalism which some perceive as 'authentic'. In addition, aside from the emergence of political islamism along 'intellectually rudimentary' Salafi lines, social conservatism has also grown. The social salience of Salafism has pushed genuine reforms to the margins. Al-Azmeh dismisses its claim of being representative of the tradition as false, rejecting the 'scripturalist' reshaping of Islamic tradition as an unnecessary interpretational mode.

Interpretations such as those put forward by the likes of Abu'l-Ala al-Maududi or Sayyid Qutb would have been inconceivable to the medieval scholars who were truly intertextual in their outlook. Maududi and Qutb are products of modernity and their ideas do not reflect a revival of Islamic authenticity. In fact, there is no univocal answer to that constitutes a genuine 'Islamic tradition'. It was never fixed for all times, on the contrary: tradition has to be understood in the context of spatio-temporality. 

 It can be taken as a self-description, it can constitute religiosity as a personal belief and participation in certain rituals, it can be regarded as adhering to a 'minumum of social practices', or a more rigorous modification of personal behaviour and language reflecting a deeper piety. Finally, when the latter is reflected in political and social behaviour it can become stuck in a political framework and leading to a complete resocialization.

The same applies to the term 'Muslim' as used by al-Azmeh in the title of his lecture. This also requires a 'situational' understanding.

In this presentation al-Azmeh positioned himself in a discourse shared by other Syrian intellectuals such as Sadiq Jalal al-Azm (1) and Bassam Tibi (even though the latter and al-Azmeh himself have been working for decades in the West as 'exilic intellectuals'). Their work calls into question the overeasy pigeon-holing of Western thinking as somehow more susceptible to secularity than the Muslim intellectualism. Hopefully, it will be not for too long, before these kind of ideas are allowed to flourish again in Damascus and elsewhere in long-suffering Syria, ansd beyond.

(1) For an earlier appeal by al-Azm, dating back to 2005, calling on the Baath Regime to allow a 'Damascus Spring', click here.