By Asif Hussain n considering change and action nine concepts are often used. (1)The nation state or the concept of state power, which has been imposed on us. It is like a vulture sitting on high and eating away at the roots of Islam. That occurs in almost any state. I come from Pakistan but it applies everywhere else. A lot of literature exists on this so I do not need to go into it.(2) Analytical tools,(3) Ideologies ranging from secular to fundamentalist ideologies, (4)Elites, from kings to military dictators, who are ruling our world today, (5)The masses, who constitute the majority of Muslim societies. They are the recipients of suffering and of all sorts of injustice zulums, (6) Modernisation, an ideal in the Muslim world which we must reach by 'hook or by crook'. The state is using its power for that, (7) History: This can be seen from the point of view of the sultanate or the khalifa, (8) The West: a powerful entity which is making hostile plans. As we are sitting in this room they could be making war plans for Iraq. Pakistan could be next because of its nuclear weapons, (9)Islam: The range of scholarship is enormous and there is a whole new range of writings coming up from the middle of this century, including Hassan Al Banna, Sayed Qutb, Khomeini, Turabi and Sherirati. There are various configurations of these eight concepts in the various contexts in which one analyses them. It seems to me that a polarised view is taken. In this view you have the West here, a very powerful civilisation, using elites, ideologies, state power and modernisation theories which in turn are converted into secularisation theories to turn the Muslim masses into a consumer society. On the other hand is Islam, with its various fundamentalist groups and non-fundamentalist groups. There is no such thing as fundamentalism. All Muslims are fighting for something. In the history of the present we are put upon, pressed on and imposed on, so we are almost powerless. But our instrument of change will be the masses. So we are talking about these configurations and the two polarisations. I am not a fan of Samual Huntington, the author of the Clash of Civilisations. But it seems to me that this is emerging quite strongly. Today they say to Saddam Hussein "let us check a few weapons". Tomorrow they can say the same thing to Pakistan. This hits at the sovereignty of the state. So where do we take a position. We also have some kind of weapons. Almost every state does. So this kind of polarisation will emerge with nationalistic orientations, and Islamic movements. This scenario is not a very good one. When I look at Muslim societies, in spite of the very powerful variable of Islam, I see that we have a political leadership which is not what is should be, the ulema are not what they should be, the states are not what we would wish them to be, our communities are not dynamic enough and we have 'an Islam' which is almost static. In this country there are a lot of Muslim groups and ideologies which come about and sometimes I wonder where they are leading the Muslim community. With this scenario it is very important to consider the step forward which we are going to take in terms of bringing about change. Islam is the variable through which change has to come about. As one of the sisters was saying, it has to come from within rather than without. We have to consider and evaluate it again. We have to develop a kind of thinking which has existed but which has not yet brought about the effect or the impact that we need to see to bring about change. If there is so much thinking going on in the world why is it not emphatic. It comes down to a number of re-interpretations of Islam. In some countries Islam is 'a privatised' sphere. In others it is a nationalised field so you can't have any other views. In Saudi Arabia you have the Wahabis and then you have the Pakistanis who probably hate that view. You have these kinds of state Islams. And you have a modernised form of Islam ranging from Oxford to the USA. You have all these god fathers of Islam who are sitting in universities writing all sorts of books which I think our friends here are very critical of, and quite rightly so. After 14 centuries, we still have not come to any form of agreement. On this table we have young Muslims but do we agree on certain basics so we can move forward. Until we do we are shooting at each other. When I look at models of the Muslim community here in Britain there is a simple model (number one), the privatised model of the faith. Does faith Iman lead to action amal? Muslims would say, "yes of course". I ask "how". They say I give £500 to a mosque every month because I am a rich man. I have been to haj five times. They will comply with the five pillars to their ultimate extreme limit and stretch them to project this holier than thou attitude. But they are not interested in the problem of this lady or that country or that society. They are doing it for themselves, for their personal salvation. This is one model which I have found very problematic. If there is anything which sums up my understanding of Islam, I take a very simple hadith from the Prophet : none of you has imman until one desires for your brother what one desires for himself. So if your impact is not on the horizontal level, there is a problem. So the second model comes along: imman with the five pillars. A lot of things have been written about the concept of unity tawhid. Yet a lot of people talk about tawhid and bow in front of kings and everybody. And that sijda which they do is nullified. But the model which we are talking about is not a personalised model. It is a personalised path through which we actually reach society. This is the kind of change which one can bring about. In the second model, faith imman must lead to action amal. The question is what is your amal. It is certainly not prayers, fasting, haj or zakat. I know Pakistani millionaires who throw money just like that and the very next second they are taking money, not entering it in their books and not paying income tax. We have to take up the concept on the level of justice adl vsv political, legal and social injustices. We have to agree on this. But what is the nature of your amal? Ok. We say he is Muslim. But that is not enough. Tell me what he is doing for his fellow Muslims. So basically in any kind of change we are talking about a model which looks at a social level. We must agree on a concept of adl (justice). The moment you talk of justice we are going to enter into an arena where people are going to say he is a fundamentalist or he is an activist. We should be prepared for it. I am prepared for it and I take the flack. And if adl is not granted the other concept of struggle jihad comes in: jihad al asagar or jihad al akbar. And there is the concept of offensive and defensive jihad which are being written about in the alternative scholarship. Muslims are concerned that there is something very wrong with Muslim society. Symptomatic of it are the Islamic movements of Talaban or movements like hezbollah. And we have to consider philosophy. But we can't just sit here thinking like Aristotle or Socrates and think in such high philosophical terms that we don't even reach the grass roots level. As an activist I know how to reach the grass roots. If you want to mobilise youth, I can mobilise the youth and lead them to Pakistan and talk in the context of one country. But what we are talking about is to communicate with the youth, with the ulema, with illiterate people, with other migrants. We have to filter that scholarship down to that kind of level where each one living in a bourgeois house can communicate with the person on the street. The mosque in the Muslim world becomes our instrument of change. We need to create a small community or nation, ummah which then becomes the unit of change and puts forward views of some kind of justice depending on the context of the situation. In this country it might be racism. In Muslim countries it may be state power itself. An injustice zulum sitting on top. So in terms of thinking of models of change we first have to look at the nature of the understanding of Islam that we have ourselves. I find the number one model is more popular as it is the softer option. I don't have to do anything. I just have to say my prayers and take care of my bank balance and I don't care about what's happening. So we have to put your necks on the line with the second model. And we Muslims must agree. So my analysis is that imman must translate itself into amal and amal into ummah and ummah as a unit of change must lead to adl and adl must lead to jihad. That is the model of change based on five concepts. And strategic thinking must be added to our dimension. We don't have strategic thinkers. As I am talking to you the Americans are very clear about their statements on Islamic activism and US policy. They are making it up. But the other side is making its position very clear. Is our side making its position clear? I think the same concern is being voiced. I am just putting it in a very clear cut, concrete, conceptual form for the average Muslim to understand. What will make us take up the communities problems as our own. If we don't do this we will have serious problems. My wife is the head of a school where you have a Muslim majority and she wonders how they are going to move forward when their concerns are about narrow insignificant issues. People either have to get out of that narrow form of thinking or become totally separate.
Kubba: I think you have raised a very important question as to whether there is a consensus over certain principles that would regulate our Islamic-based communal activities. We do not need to have consensus about what we do privately. But what we do in the name of Islam publicly, at least we should have some sort of consensus about how it should be done. saiyed shahbazi www.shahbazcenter.org
