On Theologically-Negotiated Activism
(Some) Quarters of social media have been active the past few weeks meditating on a panel at ISNA debating the role of activists and scholars in the public life of Muslims (at least insofar as it is represented in the media, civic advocacy, social media activity of popular figures, etc.). At issue was the subject of political alliances (formal or otherwise) and commitments that contravene religious conviction, alongside the pressing question of living in a society that continues to make antireligious advances. Though the artifacts of the debate were somewhat new, its essence is age-old. How to construct an abundantly pluralistic society, accommodate ideological dispositions and expressions in direct conflict, and provide for mutual civic respect and recognition in any political order is not a trivial task. Liberal society, from its inception, has promised to accomplish this and has lauded its ability — rather obstinately, I might add — to resolve this problem more efficiently than any religious enterprise could of its own accord. Its legitimacy, in fact, rests in many ways on this directive, namely, a negotiated settlement thru which various polities, ideologies, and peoples coexist. And yet, this negotiation is increasingly achieved by summoning the prevailing cultural order as the way things will go moving forward. It is a politics of contemporary fashion, underwritten by cultural institutions enriched by the social elite, and instantiated into law through an adjudicative mechanism that confers little opportunity for dissent. And so the scope of acceptable debate narrows, and the goalposts of debate shift.
Not long ago, holding that the world was comprised of two genders, both extensions of objective biological, physiological, and genetic reality, and that these two genders were fundamentally distinct and thus required a sustained complementarity for harmonious existence was taken as axiomatic. Today, it is naked bigotry. Families once taught abstinence, encouraged marriage, and endeavored to raise God-fearing children. These are now objects associated with religious fundamentalism. The “rights” of women today include, among other things, the right to have a relationship with another woman, to terminate a pregnancy at any stage pre-delivery, and to acknowledge as woman a ‘transitioned’ male — it is through these, we are told, that Patriarchy will be absolved. This social deterioration is now construed as liberating and consistent with a proper understanding of individual freedom.
To stand on the wrong side of this contemporary liberal order is to become a pariah in the public square. Few fates are less desirable to the modern man. And yet if Muslims are to take their scripture seriously, if they are to uphold the objectivity of Truth — Truth as expressed in revelation in the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh) — then they must take seriously the proposition of being a countercultural ummah. The agitations of the sexual revolution, feminism, and gender constructionism are not simply a matter of public policy, but about metaphysical assumptions that speak to the anthropology and creative nature of man, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, and right and wrong. Allah informs us that the deterioration of moral probity is a harbinger to rapid civilizational decline. This is His Sunnah. In the Quran, community after community, people after people, empire after empire, is described as having achieved great heights, amassed bounteous wealth, and accomplished stunning feats, but to no avail — civilizational hubris, an obsession with the ephemeral over the eternal, and a deliberate disregard for God’s law was the death knell for an otherwise promising people.
As Muslims, we have an opportunity to offer a moral voice in a world in desperate need of moral mediation. Drawing wisdom from the past, we can defy those who idolize the present and propose an alternative. We can demonstrate and preach a life of dignity, self-respect, family, and obedience to God. We can offer submission to Allah, a triumphant light of honor far greater than the false soteriology of liberal politics. This is a political program ill-suited for the op-ed section of the NY Times or Huffington Post, granted. But if popular acceptance is all we are after, then I am not sure how we can claim to be carrying out any greater responsibility or to be living with any semblance of concern for those around us.
The Prophet of Allah (pbuh) once expressed the fate of a community that abandoned its responsibility to mutually encourage righteousness by stating the following: “The parable of those who respect the limits of Allah and those who violate them is that of people who board a ship after casting lots, some of them residing in its upper deck and others in its lower deck. When those in the lower deck want water, they pass by the upper deck and say: If we tear a hole in the bottom of the ship, we will not harm those above us. If those in the upper deck let them do what they want, then they will all be destroyed together. If they restrain them, then they will all be saved together.”
And it is this, in reality, that is at stake. Negotiating our theology at this moment is not a political program worth getting behind. Undeterred, this boat will sink — make no mistake. In his recent work America: The Farewell Tour, Chris Hedges exposits in piercing terms what has come to define this society:
Soren Kierkegaard argued that it was separation of intellect from emotion, from empathy, that doomed Western civilization. The “soul” has no role in a technocratic society. The communal has been shattered. The concept of the common good has been obliterated. Greed is celebrated. The individual is god. The celluloid image is reality. The artistic and intellectual forces that make transcendence and the communal possible are belittled or ignored. The bases lusts are celebrated as forms of identity and self-expression. Progress is defined exclusively by technological and material advancement. All that is human is obliterated. This creates a collective despair and anxiety that is fed by glitter, noise, and false promises of consumer-culture idols. The despair grows ever-worse, but we never acknowledge our existential dread. As Kierkegaard understood, “the specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair.”
There is more to be said about this topic (much, much more, in fact). The seemingly obvious and inevitable impact of a compromised theology in the public square on our youth. The carefully crafted falsehoods of oppression, undergirded by materialistic, secular, and atheistic presuppositions that are marshalled to justify these negotiations. The prizing of “identities” and the self above all else. The abandonment and distrust of the sacred. The dissolution of community. It is all there to see.
May Allah protect and guide us in these times. Ameen.
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Other Musings:
Muslims would be wise to review literature and articles being written by Jewish and Christian authors addressing communal challenges that reflect our own struggles. A recent article at The Jewish Review of Books entitled “The Melting Pot” by Allan Arkush is a case in point. Arkush writes:
“I can’t believe in the long-term survivability of any form of Judaism in our modern liberal democracy that isn’t rooted in solid convictions and consolidated by a disciplined and more or less segregated communal life.
The Modern Orthodox possess both of these things in good measure, and the ultra-Orthodox do so to an even larger degree, and will go on, for the most part, doing what they do. Some Jews who are much less rigorously religious may yet manage to sustain a strong presence on the scene, but it is undeniable that their overall numbers are shrinking. Those Jews who cannot quite say yes to God but cannot say no to Jewish peoplehood will fit, a little uncomfortably, into some of these communities, perhaps coming to shul infrequently and late, but, like Walzer, participating enthusiastically in the Jewish conversations at the kiddush. And the large majority of the rest of America’s Jews will in all likelihood (although not inevitably, as I must remind myself), like millions of their predecessors, disappear in the great American melting pot that continues to bubble away.”
This dynamic is not at all limited to American Jews. Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Methodist churches (among others) are in steep decline.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — There have been a number of encouraging and thoughtful reflections on the aforementioned ISNA panel. One worth reading was authored by Hebh Jamal on the subject of fatwa-making and the role of activists:
https://www.facebook.com/hebhj/posts/10212905820302964
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Shaykha Fatima Barkatulla offers an important response to an advertisement commercializing hijab:
https://www.facebook.com/FatimaBarkatulla/photos/a.534571619988217/1696831237095577/
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — And Allah Knows Best.
