Liberalism as a tool against Islam and Muslims.

In the name of Allah the most Beneficent, the most merciful.

LIBERALISM AS A TOOL AGAINST ISLAM AND MUSLIMS. 

Introduction

I wrote this piece with the passion and hope to wake the minds of young Muslims to the reality of how they are being brainwashed against their religion by the enemies of Islam. They are the targeted population of Muslims because the future of Islam and Muslims lies on their shoulders.

We can trace the pathetic state of the Muslims to several things. From negligence by the Muslims to deliberate, systematic forces from the enemies of Islam. All these had contributed their quota which plunged the Muslims into a miserable state of affairs. Today, we are witnessing the outcomes in many configurations such as atheistic Tendency among young Muslims, high rate of moral decadence and the increase of De-muslimized Muslims and much more. While Many have contended that it is science that has influenced the minds of these Muslims, and is turning them away from their religion because they are not getting sufficient answers regarding things they believe in Islam are in contradiction to science, I beg to differ. If we look deeper and not simply observe the surface, we will understand that the Influence of science on these Muslims is less and a larger percentage is due to liberalism or liberal values. It is for this reason that Muslims need to be cognizant of the dangers of liberalism.

The use of liberalism as a tool to turn Muslims away from their religion didn’t start recently. It was a deliberate tool that was used during the colonial periods to Europeanize Muslims and to introduce secular democracy into Muslim societies. From the procedures they followed was to distance young Muslims from Islamic Knowledge through the introduction of Education to these societies. This process produced what Lord Cromer (A British Consul General of Egypt during the colonial era) called De-muslimized Muslims. In one of the chapters of his book Modern Egypt, He said, nominally, the Europeanized Muslim is in the majority of cases a Muslim. In reality, he is generally agnostic. In another place he explicitly mentioned that: ‘’The truth is that in passing through the European educational mill, the young Egyptian Muslim loses his Islamism, or, at all events, he loses the best part of it. He cuts himself adrift from the sheet-anchor of his creed. He no longer believes that he is always in the presence of his lord’’.

It is for this reason that if we hope to better the condition of Islam and Muslims, we must shift our focus on the young Muslims. We must educate them about Islam, let them be well-grounded in the fundamental of its doctrine. The enemies of Islam, are doing damage to our society through liberalism. We should know they are not relenting in this course. Hence Parent and scholars, students of knowledge and other Members of the society must redouble their efforts on the young Muslim and understand, the young Muslim is paramount for the future of Islam and Muslims if we hope to revive the lost glory days of Islam.  

I will be presenting to you historical records on how Liberalism was used during the colonial periods to reform Muslims precisely in Egypt from the work of the Academic professor  Joseph Massad(A professor at Columbia University), Islam in Liberalism and in the work of the already mentioned Evelyn Baring, popularly known as Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt. But before I present to you those historical records, I feel it is necessary to this discourse that I illustrate why Liberalism has demonstrated to be an effective tool. To do this, I will elaborate on the fundamental differences between Islam and Liberalism.

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Islam: The Great Islamic theologian, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah(RA) said in his book Al-Ubudiyyah: ‘’The word deen (religion) carries the meaning of submission, which means worshipping and obeying Allah, and being humble towards Him’’. This is the religion of Allah (i.e. Islam). He Defines ‘’Ibadah (Worship) as a word that includes everything that Allah loves and is pleased with, whether it be words or deeds, open or hidden. He also said: Ibadah (worship of Allah) is the ultimate goal which Allah loves and with which He is pleased. It is the purpose for which He created His Creation, as he said in the Qur’an: ‘’I have only created jinns and men that they serve (worship) Me.’’ (Al-Dhariyat 51; 56).

These words of Ibn Taymiyah tell us that the ultimate aim of a Muslim is to please Allah through the various acts of worship. Which begins by affirming his Oneness and all other requirements. And that a person directs all forms of Ibadah to him alone. The central focus of a Muslim is Allah, by this, you are required to obey him at all times and even act contrary to your desires if they are things Allah prohibits. Liberalism, on the other hand, places a great emphasis on Individual Freedom. John Locke (1698) in his book ‘’Two Treatise of Government’’, asserted that ‘’all men are naturally in the state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man’’. The fundamental difference between Islam and liberalism is that Islam emphasizes greatly on the concept of ‘’Submission and Obedience’’ to Allah, while liberalism emphasizes greatly on maximizing individual freedom. The concept of Submission and obedience or true servitude to Allah in Islam are in contradiction with the concept of freedom in Liberalism. While the later calls for individual gratification, the former is about pleasing the Lord. With these fundamental differences between Islam and Liberalism, what the enemies did was to make Liberalism as the ideal or a Global way of thought to the extent that anyone who rejects it was label a retrograde. Joseph Massad in His book ‘’Islam In liberalism’’ said: The establishment of differing forms of liberalism as the reigning political, social, and/or economic system in parts of Western Europe and the United States since the late eighteenth century and its main deployment thenceforward as the ideological weapon of choice against the “internal” and “external” others of Europe, is what marks its current legitimation as a global ideological system. 

He also said quoting the words of Toula Nicolacopoulos that: “Today Anglophone political philosophy is generally conducted in the light of the perceived triumph of liberalism. That is, it typically proceeds on the assumption that it is unreasonable, if not irrational or pathological, to resist liberalism, whether as a mode of thought or as a social order.” This is hardly a condition confined to Anglophone political philosophy but encompasses the dominant political discourse across Western and Northern Europe and beyond. The hegemony of liberalism is such that “to resist” it “would be unreasonable to deny the moral and/or political superiority of (the values governing) liberal societies as compared with their historical and contemporary social alternatives (Islam in Liberalism, p10).

These words of Toula Nicolacopoulas tells us that the idea that it is irrational to resist liberalism whether as a mode of thought or social order is not only confined to Anglophone political philosophy but it is almost a global thought or Idea.

Joseph Massad, quoting the words of ‘’Talal Asad’’ in his book said; the liberal mission is to have the Islamic tradition “remade in the image of liberal Protestant Christianity.” He Joseph Massad continues to say: Muslim resistance to this benevolent mission is represented as a rejection of modernity and the liberal values of freedom, liberty, equality, the right-bearing individual, democratic citizenship, women’s rights, sexual rights, freedom of belief, secularism, rationality, etc., in short as a pathology and a form of neurosis that must not only be vanquished, but also, and as we will see, psychoanalyzed. Thus if Muslims refuse to convert willingly to liberalism or at least to forms of Islam that liberalism finds tolerable, then they must be forced to convert using military power, as their resistance threatens a core value of liberalism, namely its universality and the necessity of its universalization as globalization. Talal Asad understands this project thus: if the European Enlightenment’s “secular redemptive politics” condemns religious forms of violence, pain, and suffering as non-emancipatory of sinners, “there is a readiness [on its part] to cause pain to those who are to be saved by being humanized (Islam In liberalism).”

Today this is exactly what is happening in our society. Muslims are manipulated and told that their religion is retrogressive and oppressive. Those who embrace these ideas of liberalism are now left with two detrimental choices, Islam or liberalism. The category of Muslims that embraced liberalism can be classified into two groups. The first group are those who believe that Islam is retrogressive, oppressive and is against progress. These set usually leave Islam for atheism because to them, God is the cause, and to free themselves from the shackles of religion is to declare that they no longer believe in the existence of God. The second are those who have also internalize these ideas of liberalism but say what Islam needs is reformation or modernization to make it compatible with Liberalism. This category is a westernized Muslim response. Because to them things like Proper Hijab, the Niqab, Polygamy, Laws of Inheritance etc. are all open to a new Interpretation. What is astonishing about this group is that those who were the pioneers of this trend ‘’Islamic Modernism’’ are products of colonialism and Europeanization.

Now let’s take a look at some historical records.

In Egypt, the colonizers took several measures to achieve their aim of Europeanizing Muslims in several ways, such as Education, women’s right and calling for reform in Islam.  

1. Education

Lord Cromer said: In dealing with the Question of Introducing European civilization into Egypt, it should never be forgotten that Islam cannot be reformed: that is to say, reformed Islam is Islam no longer; it is something else; we cannot as yet tell what it will eventually be. “Christian nations," Sir William Muir says,” may advance in civilization, freedom, and morality, in philosophy, science, and the arts, but Islam stands still. And thus stationary, so far as the lessons of history avail, it will remain." But little assistance in the work of reform can, therefore, be expected from the steady orthodox Moslems, who cling with unswerving fidelity to their ancient faith, and whose dislike to European civilization often increases as that civilization advances’’. He continues to say: Having regard, therefore, to the disqualifications of his competitors, the ‘’Europeanized Egyptian’’ naturally becomes, if not the only possible, at all events the principal agent for administering the country, except 'in so far as it is administered by Europeans (Modern Egypt, p228-229).

Now, who is the Europeanized Egyptian? 

Lord Cromer answers: ‘’Nominally, the Europeanized Egyptian is in the majority of cases a Moslem. In reality, he is generally an Agnostic. The gulf between him and the Alim of the El-Azhar University is as great as between the Alim and the European. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the gulf is not, in reality, greater in the former than in the latter case. For a thoughtful European will not only look with interest at the Alim as the representative of an ancient faith, which contains much that is highly deserving of respect ; he will, if the "Alim" is a worthy specimen of his class, sympathize with him because he is religious, albeit his religion is not that of Christ. The Europeanized Egyptian, on the other hand, will often look on the Alim” with all the pride of an intellectual parvenu. From the pedestal of his empirical knowledge, he will regard the “Alim” as a social derelict, who has to be tolerated, and even occasionally, for political purposes, to be utilized, but who need not be Respected’’.

Reading the above words of Lord Cromer gives me goosebumps. According to Cromer, the Europeanized Muslim is nominally a Muslim, but in reality an Agnostic. Secondly, the gulf (Wide separation) between the Europeanized Egyptian and the Alim in Azhar is great as the gap between the Alim and the European. These means that the gap between the Europeanized Muslim and Alim is not a physical gap between the two, but rather the wide gap between the Europeanized Muslim and Islamic knowledge. Because knowledge is learned from scholars, distancing yourself from scholars means distancing yourself from Knowledge. Also In other to know the distance between the Europeanized Muslim and Islamic knowledge, Cromer says it is the same as it is between the Alim and the European. In short, we can say the Europeanized Muslim is Ignorant of his religion just as the European from Europe is ignorant about Islam. Furthermore, he said the Europeanized Muslim no longer have respect or regard for the Alim due to his pride of Intellectual parvenu. He thinks with his Education now, he is better than the Alim. Today the category of those who show lack of respect for religious scholars in our society today are those categories of Ignorant Muslims who have gained western education and now think he/she is better than a religious Scholar.

How does the Young Muslim Egyptian lose his Islam?

Lord Cromer answers: The truth is that, in passing through the European educational mill, the young Egyptian Moslem loses his Islamism, or, at all events, he loses the best part of it. He cuts himself adrift from the sheet-anchor of his creed. He no longer believes that he is always in the presence of his Creator, to whom he will someday have to render an account of his actions. He may still, however, take advantage of the least worthy portions of his nominal religion, those portions, namely, which, in so far as they tolerate a lax moral code, adapt themselves to his tastes and his convenience in the affairs of this world’’.

All we need to understand from the words of Cromer is that Islam was an obstacle to their mission and Islam cannot be reformed. And since only little assistance can be expected from the steady orthodox Muslim on reforming Egypt, their best option was the Europeanized Muslim who through the educational Mill will lose his Religion and no longer believes he is always in the presence of God. Hence their step was to remove Islam in young Muslims by distancing them from Islamic knowledge and scholars through the use of education. He said: ‘’the new generation of Egyptians has to be ‘’persuaded’’ or ‘’forced’’ into imbibing the true spirit of Western civilization’’.

Astonishingly, if you read modernization theory of development it is all about westernization.

2. Women’s right and the unveiling of Muslim Women.

Lord Cromer said: Look now to the consequences which result from the degradation of women in Mohammedan countries. In respect to two points, both of which are of vital importance, there is a radical difference between the position of Moslem women and that of their European sisters. In the first place, the face of the Moslem woman is veiled when she appears in public. She lives a life of seclusion. The face of the European woman is exposed to view in public. The only restraints placed on her movements are those dictated by her own sense of propriety. In the second place, the East is polygamous, the West is monogamous (Modern Egypt, p155).

He also said: The Moslem, on the other hand, despises women; both his religion and the example of his Prophet, the history of whose private life has been handed down to him, tend to lower them in his eyes (p, 157). In a different chapter he said: The position of women in Egypt, and in Mohammedan countries generally, is, therefore, a fatal obstacle to the attainment of that elevation of thought and character which should accompany the introduction of European civilization, if that civilization is to produce its full measure of beneficial effect. Providing a solution, Cromer said: The obvious remedy would appear to be to educate the women. (Modern Egypt, p539).

What will surprise you is the double standard of Lord Cromer. Joseph Massad said lord Cromer, was an ardent anti-feminist in Britain who opposed women’s suffrage and who obstructed women’s education and the training of women doctors in Egypt, would champion unveiling as the way to modernize Muslim societies. 

In Another paragraph he said: The British strongman and ruler of the British-occupied country Lord Cromer championed the unveiling of Egyptian women, denigrating “Islam’s oppression of Muslim women and extolling both Christianity and “Western civilization” for their treatment of women. But if John Stuart Mill was a democrat at home and a despot abroad, Cromer was, in fact, a misogynist at home and a feminist abroad. As Egyptian Muslim feminist Leila Ahmed observes, “This champion of the unveiling of Egyptian women was, in England, founding member and sometime president of the Men’s League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage. Feminism on the home front and feminism directed against white men was to be resisted and suppressed; but taken abroad and directed against the cultures of colonized peoples, it could be promoted in ways that admirably served and furthered the project of the dominance of the white man (Islam in Liberalism, p86-87). We can see that one of the things the colonizers carried out towards modernizing Muslims in Egypt was unveiling, and the person who championed the unveiling of Egyptian women was a misogynist (as Joseph Massad said) at home and a feminist abroad.  

3. Reforming Islam

Joseph Massad said: After the British occupied Egypt in 1882, they began to push for new Islamic theological understandings of governance, not to mention sociality. The rise of one of the most principal reformers of Islam in the late nineteenth century, Muhammad ʿAbduh, was not independent of British colonial power (it is also rumoured without concrete evidence that ʿAbduh wrote one of the chapters of Qasim Amin’s book: The Liberation of Women). ʿAbduh would be appointed by the British occupation authorities as to the Chief Mufti of Egypt in 1899. Whereas he was on bad terms with the ruling monarch of Egypt, the khedive Abbas Hilmi, ʿAbduh was on very good terms with Cromer. The latter would lavish praise on ʿAbduh’s reforms in his Annual Report in 1905, the year of ʿAbduh’s death, though he would criticize him in later years (Islam In liberalism, p58).

If you have read about the origins of Islamic Modernism and even Islamic feminism you will have come across these names, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Qasim Amin. In the Book, clash of civilization by Bilal Philips, he said: The leader of this trend was Jamaal ad-Deen al-Afghani (1839-1897 CE) who travelled throughout the Muslim world calling for reform and Pan-Islamism. Jamaal ad-Deen travelled to India, Makkah, and Constantinople, settling finally in Egypt. He called for free political, religious and scientific thought and denounced Taqleed and state corruption. Jamaal ad-Deen taught these ideas at the University of al-Azhar and influenced many who studied under him. Unfortunately, some of Jamal ad-Deen’s ideas were extreme. For example, he elevated the human mind and its logical deductions to a level equal to that of Divine Revelation. His intentions also became suspect due to his involvement with the Masonic movement which was at that time establishing new branches in the Middle-East. Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905 CE) was among Afghani’s most famous students. 

He also mentioned that: the effects of Afghani’s extremist views caused Muhammad Abduh to lean toward extreme modernism, and he also eventually deviated in some of his interpretations and legal rulings. For example, in his Tafsir of the Qur’an, he apologetically explained away all of the miracles attributed to the prophets directly and performed by God through the forces of nature. To him, the flocks of birds which dropped clay pebbles on the Yemenite army of Abrahah and his elephant during their attack on the Ka’ba, mentioned in the Qur'an, were simply airborne microbes which spread disease among them. Likewise, he made a Fatwa allowing Muslims to be involved in business transactions involving interest. He based this ruling on the Fiqh principle that dire necessity makes the forbidden allowable. The fallacy of his ruling lay in the fact that Fiqh specially defines dire necessity as involving matters of life and death or loss of limb, and this was simply not the case where business transactions are concerned. Muhammad ‘Abduh’s main student, Muhammad Rasheed Ridaa (d. 1935), carried on his mentor’s attack on Taqleed but rejected most of his teacher’s excesses. However, other students of Muhammad ‘Abduh became the nucleus of the extreme modernist movement and deviated in many areas even more than their teacher. For example, his student Qasim Ameen (d. 1908) was the first to make a vehement attack on polygamy, the simplicity of Islamic divorce and the use of the veil(Clash of civilization, p54-55).

Joseph Massad also said:  Egyptian intellectual Qasim Amin’s 1899 book The Liberation of Women, which borrows much of Cromer’s Orientalism and lavishes praise on the British while condemning anti-imperialist Egyptians, among others, was not only a work about modernization but also a theological exegesis on the question of the hijab for women, where he delves into theological interpretations. According to rumours at the time, the book was said to have been written at Cromer’s urgings and in conversation with him. 

Today many Muslims draw inspiration from the likes of Muhammad abduh and Qasim Amin. Some Muslim feminist who want to make their feminism look like it has an Islamic origin, say that their type of feminism is from the works of these people and not a western version of feminism. But this claim is out of sheer ignorance and it is erroneous because as we’ve seen, the pioneers themselves were not free of western influence and it as nothing of Islamic origin to it.

This is just a little account of how liberalism was use against Muslims during the colonial periods. Most of the historical facts cited above were on Egypt and how to reform the Egyptian Muslim, but we can see how relevant it is today in analyzing what is happening with many Muslims today. We’ve huge descendants of liberal thought today. From Islamic Modernism, down to Islamic Feminism and all other trends including those of human rights. If you look at all these trends or groups one thing is unique among them all which is liberal values and their criticism of religious values. Many Ignorant Muslims who don’t know what these things are, labelled themselves with it. 

From the effects of these trends is that they have confused young Muslims. Today we’ve Muslims who think that it is okay to be a Muslim and not wear hijab. It is okay to be a gay, a lesbian and be a Muslim. For example, we’ve people like ‘’Mona Elthahawy’’ who called for the ban of niqab globally. This is what liberal thought is doing many Muslims. Even those leaving Islam for atheism you will find that many of their argument has to do with liberal ideas and values, not science. You will see them making arguments like why should the hand of the thief be cut off? Why should the married man/woman who engages in adultery be stoned? They also say it is child abuse to tell a child that a person who doesn't believe in God will burn in hell. They also argued along the lines of Slavery, and that Islam has the worst record of human rights. For this reason, you will agree with me that atheism itself has more to do with liberalism than with science.

Also one of the emerging effects of liberalism is that even science itself is beginning to suffer at the hands of liberals. This is because liberalism wants to dismiss anything that poses to be a barrier to individuals from becoming whatever they want. If you look at what the transgender movement, feminist movement and other people on this line do about the idea of gender in other to promote their evil agendas, they try to disconnect gender from sex. They argued that all the characteristics which distinguish a man from a woman are a social construct and has nothing to do with sex. But basic Biology tells us otherwise. Hence in other to dismiss scientific facts that are not in favour of their argument, they have started to say even science is a social construct. Hence If the society begins to believe that science is a social construct it means scientific facts won’t hold any water in verifying the truth. 

As I draw to the conclusion, I believe it is relevant to point out the solution to the current pathetic state of the Muslims. It is not more than what the great Imam Malik said: that the latter part of this nation will not be able to reform itself successfully except by using what reformed its early part’’. The way we can do this is by shifting our focus on the young Muslim like I pointed out at the beginning of this article. A collective effort is needed from both parents and scholars and other members of the society towards making sure that young generations of Muslims are well-grounded in Islamic knowledge. The efforts parents put in making sure their children attain western education, they need to put similar or more efforts in making sure that their children gain authentic Islamic knowledge.

I pray may this piece be beneficial and may Allah grant us the ability and all that it takes to adhere to the straight path, and may Allah uplift the Muslims all around the globe from this pathetic state.

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References 

Al-Ubudiyyah- Ibn Taymiyah(RA)

 Two Treatise of Government- John Locke (1698)

Modern Egypt- by Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer)

Islam in Liberalism- Joseph Massad

Clash of Civilizations - Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips