Tradition

“...Consider how, beginning on September 12, 2001, the pundits began working in earnest to distance so-called authentic Islam – the ‘enduring values’ found in the ‘heart of Islam’...that comprise timeless ‘principles’ communicated by means of an apparently thing we call ‘tradition’ – from those accused of carrying out the previous day’s attacks...”  (McCutcheon, Religion and the Domestication of Dissent, pg. 29)

This week’s readings reminded me of a phenomenon I’m looking at in my own research – The tendency for groups to define themselves against a sort of ‘golden age’ as a means to both promote their own ideas and differentiate themselves from others.   This is a similar affect to that which was described in the Thomas article.  When faced with an overwhelmingly dominant political force, like the pacific denizens coping with a colonizing force, groups will accentuate the traditions that are accentuated by, or differentiate themselves from the oppressors as a form of identity building (like in my last entry).  The traditions they fall back on fit Hobsbawm’s definition of an “invented tradition” , which is a “set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past” (Hobsbawm, 1).  I didn’t read ‘invented’ to imply a fabrication, but rather a more-or-less deliberate creation of a tradition based on the perceived past of the creator.  Contemporary religious groups, when faced with a challenger or oppressor, legitimize their traditions by creating a connection to a perfect past.

Above, McCutcheon discusses the developments in discourse on Islam after September 11^th.  Professors and ‘experts’ appeared on the 24-hour news stations espousing the tenants of a ‘true Islam’ that had been perverted by the extremists that were responsible for the attacks.  The Islam they described was a religion of peace and social justice, which in the beginning promoted pluralism, freedom and individualism.   This is what is in the Qu’ran, and this is what the original tradition was intended to be.   Only after the time of Muhammad (or the Rashidun, depending on who is speaking) did Islam become corrupted by the cultures it found itself in. This is Islam that has been pushed by the pundits is designed to be acceptable to a secular, multicultural audience.  This same sort of argument has been pushed by big name Islamic reformers such as Tariq Ramadan as a means of creating an Islam that ‘fits’ within Europe.  These reformers are creating their view of Islam by historicizing certain parts of the Qu’ran and promoting certain hadith over others.  In this way they adapt the past to fit their ideal tradition, but of course their opposition does the same thing.

Sayyid Qutb was an interesting man. Qutb, an Egyptian, was educated in Colorado, but became disgusted with the lack of morality and consumerism that plagued the West.   He was involved in Egyptian politics in the 1960s and was an active opponent of General Nasser, the socialist president largely supported by ‘Western’ nations.   Nasser, being the dictator sort, didn’t take kindly to opposition and had Qutb arrested and tortured.  It was in prison that he wrote his book Milestones, which would heavily influence both the philosophies of the Muslim Brotherhood and later Al-Qaeda.   In Milestones, Qutb looks back to the ‘golden age’ of Islam, which he believed was the time between Muhammad and the Abbasid Caliphate.  It was only after the fall of Baghdad that Islam lost its way through corrupt leaders, a process which had become increasingly worse since colonialization and the coming of ‘Western values’.  He did not historicize the Qur’an, but instead focused on the violent episodes as proof that conflict to protect the true Islam was justified.   In order to allow for the killing of corrupt Muslims, Qutb invoked the tradition of jahilliya or an ‘age of ignorance’.  The world before Muhammad was in a state of jahilliya, and Qutb argues that since the true Islam has been usurped by corrupt Muslims the contemporary world is as well.  The self-proclaimed Muslims are therefore not true followers, and are infidels.  This argument has more or less been adopted by most revivalist groups, and is a direct contrast to the Islam promoted by the reformers.

Islam is not a monolithic entity, and there is no ‘true’ version of it.  Different groups with different political aims will adopt certain aspects of the tradition as a means of promoting their cause.  To do this, they’ll read the Qu’ran is certain ways, use certain traditional commentaries or hadith, and invoke traditionally loaded terms like jahilliya.  All these groups do this to both justify their own ideas and to differentiate themselves from the other, especially when they feel like they are under attack.  Reformers believed that they were under attack from the misconceptions that arose from 9/11, and revivalists feel like Islam is under attack from a morally bankrupt ‘west’.  Their ‘invented traditions’ helped them argue against these attacks.