Abu Dhabi: Islam should be taken as a unifying factor rather than a tool for disruption and split, a leading scholar said yesterday.
“Islam has always been a unifying factor against foreign invasion. It has been the custodian of nationalism. But it can be used as a tool for destruction when it’s brought as a factor into internal conflicts, which is against the tenets of Islam which came to the world as a unifying factor,” Dr Abdelilah Belkeziz, a Moroccan thinker and writer, told the majlis of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.
Belkeziz stressed that religion should be taken out of any political and economic conflicts.
Shaikh Mohammad attended a lecture titled the ‘Tradition, Extremism and Religious Discourse in the Arab World’ held at Al Bateen Palace in Abu Dhabi.
Dr Belkeziz, who is a professor of philosophy at King Hassan II University, called for Islamic and Arabic tradition to be viewed in a critical manner that takes into account the “interest of people in our age and the historical context of the tradition”.
He said Islamic history showed that the state should be the source of power as the Quran and Sunna made no mention of the mechanism of creating a political system, leaving this open to interpretation.
“The creation of the state was one of the most important human inventions because it ensured the survival of people,” he said.
He said as a result national interest, as defined by the state, was the main reference for deciding the nature of political systems that existed throughout Islamic history.
Dr Belkeziz, who wrote 48 books on Islamic thought, said: “There are two views to tradition, although they appear to be opposing, they are in fact complementary,” he said.
Nihilist view
“The first, which looks down upon tradition in some parts of the Arab thought, media and even social outlook. This is a view that calls for disconnecting ourselves from tradition and argues that getting rid of tradition lessens our weight and drive us forward towards progress.
"This view is espoused by what are termed westernised or liberal thinkers. I don’t agree with that because Arab liberals were the [ones] who paid [most] attention to Arab tradition, including Goergy Zidan, Shawki Daif and Taha Hussain.
"This means we can’t accuse the Arab liberals of calling for that. The people behind this call are the nihilists," he explained.
Prisoners of the past
“The other view is the one that views tradition as sacred. This is also an unvirtuous view because this glorifying view of the past makes (us) prisoners of the past,” he said.
“As opposed to these two views of tradition, I call for a positive view of Islamic tradition. A view that looks at this tradition within its historical context, without treating it as being above history, time and place.
"This is a view that avoids looking at tradition without taking it as a reference point,” Dr Belkeziz explained.
Richness of tradition
He said tradition is not only related to religious texts but includes grammar, language, philosophy and sufis, jurisprudence and exegesis and other religious sciences.
“All of these disciplines and sciences emerged in the periphery of the sacred texts of Islam. These are human sciences. The problem starts when we drop the human nature of these sciences. The glorifying view of tradition mixes between the divine and the human.
"The problem emerged when the early scholars wrote the founding books of Islam such as Al Shafei, Malik, Al Tabari and Al Ghazali and others.
Forms of interpretation
"These people wrote their works as forms of interpretation, they added no sacredness to their texts, they thought of their writings as opinions, as interpretations and that’s why they argued with their opponents and debated with them.”
He pointed out that “the problem began with the students of the students, of the founders of early texts, who started to strip their masters’ views from their historical contexts, they started looking at them in a sacred manner, and elevated them in some cases to divine sacredness,” he said.
“All of these thoughts, we cannot take them out of their historical contexts, including the writings of Ibn Taymiya, whose books are sought after by Islamist groups. The historical Ibn Taymiya is not the same as the one who is being interpreted by Islamists,” he said.
Tradition as capital, source of dispute
“The problem began when we turned Islamic and Arabic tradition from a common property of the Muslim nation into the property of a particular group.
“This created a phenomenon of conflict over tradition; this conflict treated tradition as a form of capital that can be disputed over.
Shallow view
"We reached this stage," he argues, "because we prepared the ground in the Arab world for the spread of shallow religious culture, starting from religious madrasas to schools and universities.This shallow view of religion is stripped of tolerance and other values espoused by our religion.”
The Ramadan series of lectures is part of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed’s efforts to spread the spirit of knowledge and learning in the United Arab Emirates, by inviting renowned scholars, experts, officials and entrepreneurs to speak at his majlis at Al Bateen Palace in Abu Dhabi.
The lectures are attended by senior government officials, diplomats, business leaders and others.
