Being British Muslims: Beyond Ethnocentric Religion and Identity Politics

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Faith, reason and progress

1.1 The virtues of learning through questioning

If you don’t ask, you don’t get is as much applicable to learning about religion as it is about anything else in life. Yet, too often, whether it’s in relation to tradition, traditionalism,³ ethno-cultural idioms or other parochial discourses, there is a general lack of a questioning ethic. For one reason or another if we’re not already conforming to it, we succumb to unquestioningly accept what we’re told, not necessarily because it’s self-evident but because we assume that the person speaking knows it, or that it is how things have always been or ought to be. Unfortunately, this engenders a perception of familiarity, whose very lenses often veil our senses from the wondrous nature of any phenomena through which God’s attributes reveal. Yet, the Qur’an encourages us to cast aside the veil of familiarity to see the mundane or ordinary things anew, as signs of God.

There is also a presumed fear that if we ask too many questions, we risk opening up a Pandora’s Box containing all the evils of the world as it were. One question leading to another, and before we know it a juggernaut is unleashed seeking to unpick hitherto well-established assumptions of profound meaning from which we can’t seem to recover easily nor prepared to deal with its theological and intellectual complications. Understandably, a reactionary defence develops in the name of protecting us from asking such questions. But in doing so we unwittingly lock ourselves into a culture of learning that doesn’t require us to test the integrity of what we’ve learnt.

Yet, everything we know about the Qur’an would suggest that it teaches us how to think and what questions to ask. Asking questions is arguably a necessary path to being guided and being able to distinguish truth from falsehood, virtue from corruption, justice from injustice, ethics from hypocrisy and so on. A profound example of this is that God opened even the angels to question Him as to why He should place Adam on earth knowing that his progeny would spread mischief and bloodshed (2:30). It was to make God’s intention known to us.

We must of course keep in mind when reading the Qur’an that it is God Who is Divine, and is talking to us on a level that we can understand. Hence, God uses words like hal (is/has there…) and afala (do they not…) to make us think and reflect. As human beings we have a profound psychology when it comes to questions. Questions engage and compel us to seek answers. In God conversing with the reader, the reader is also building rapport with Him. Above all, through questions in the Qur’an, God invites us to self-discover, and helps us to examine or manage preconceived filters through which we see the world or process information.

This of course doesn’t mean that the Qur’an signifies only those meanings that we’re already familiar with, or we read from Qur’an exegetes (mufassirun) in which there can be quite diverse opinions in any case. A good example is our understanding of the word dukhaan (41:11) which is typically translated as smoke, something which the early Muslims would have been able to relate to. But unlike them, today we associate it to scientific theories about the explosion that set the universe up, a conceptualisation which wasn’t possible in earlier times. Evidently, we can only appreciate this if we ask the right questions.

However, being able to ask the right questions is only part of the story. In order to benefit, we usually need the help of someone capable of discerning well-reasoned arguments or positions. In this regard, as many scholars have said, we shouldn’t uncritically take religion from anyone who we simply come across. The age we’re in is, after all, one that celebrates the "da’wah man, televangelists" and highly adept social media activists and influencers, with thousands of followers, keen to publicise their opinions on just about everything. Unsurprising, the average Muslim is much prone, and unable to resist their populism as a definitive marker of credibility. All of which can be a recipe for confusion and chaos.

One scholar advised that we shouldn’t learn religion from anyone whose intelligence we haven’t tested. Another advised that we should seek out the knowledgeable with authority to teach or impart guidance. Or, it could be that there are multiple perspectives which in their own way go somewhere towards answering the question, but tend to leave the questioner seeking to reconcile for themselves. An enquiring mind will no doubt attempt to reconcile. Most, however, will settle for the easiest answer, where the bar of acceptability is often set very low, thus compounding the issue further.

Indeed, the Prophets also questioned. Abraham, for example, asked: My Lord! Show me how You give life to the dead? to which God replied, Do you not then believe? to which Abraham replied, Yes, but [I ask] in order that my heart may be at ease (2:260). This is an engaging discussion that God intends for us to learn from. The Companions of the Prophet also asked the Prophet probing questions to clarify matters. And the Prophet, in turn, often answered by asking the Companions a question to encourage them to think at a deeper level. One example which I find incredibly meaningful is the incident when seeing the Prophet pray at night until his feet swelled up, A’isha, his wife, asked the Prophet, Why do you do this…, [especially], …when God has forgiven your past and future sins? The Prophet replied with the question: Should I not be a grateful believer?⁴ recognising, perhaps, both the genuine nature of the question and the need to open up A’isha’s mind so that she could self-discover the link between gratitude (shukr) and prayer (salat).

Such an approach is discernable as we go through school and as we move into our professional lives. In high school, in order to prove Pythagoras’ theorem (a²+b²=h²) we cut out squares and counted their area. We were encouraged not to simply take our Math teachers’ word for granted, but to empirically test it for ourselves. Similarly, in our professional lives we don’t just accept new proposals, especially without critically evaluating them in light of evidence, standards and alignment to strategy. This isn’t scepticism for its own sake. As we gleam from Qur’anic lessons it’s about asking the right questions to make sense of things. Asking questions allows us to create greater order in how we approach things and to prioritise effectively. In fact, in itself, it does great service to filter out weak and untested ideas.

However, some argue against asking tricky questions on the basis that God mentions, O you who have believed, ask not about things which, if they are shown to you, may cause you trouble (5:101). Yet, this verse of the Qur’an is referring to the futility of unnecessary questioning, which serves the purpose of prying into things, to split hairs or to make things needlessly particular and restrictive. The background to this revelation (asbab al-nuzul) makes it clear that the Prophet didn’t wish to obligate Hajj every year and that it was sufficient to leave it as the Prophet had explained. Unfortunately, hair-splitting, minutest questions in the fields of ‘aqidah (creed) and fiqh (Islamic law) has become widespread today - something which many scholars even in classical periods frequently spoke out against. In the grand scheme of things not only do they have little significance, the reality is that we’ll never be able prove them one way or the other, nor remove them of their intrinsic neuro-linguistic variation.

It seems, as the world around us changes, our engagement with religion has become so simplistic that we’ve become disconnected to the reality of our wider lived experiences. I am wondering how much of this is because we don’t ask the right questions? Have we created a culture where we shut down or ignore people who ask questions, conveniently pushing them aside as wayward, deconstructive, modernist or unorthodox perhaps? Isn’t the pursuit of truth, enquiry and meaning integral to scholarship leading to holistic and nuanced understanding of reality? And why is it that we prefer to tread on paths that are least taxing to our minds? Does it really have to be like this? Is this really the legacy of Islamic thought and scholarship?

1.2 Faith demands lean problem-solving

Spending some time studying communities and institutions, one of the first things one notices is the need for more problem-solving skills. Seemingly good initiatives that set out to address problems of society often turn out to be far too unfocussed or fringe attempts. Usually, it’s our inability to transcend existing cognitive filters, or our lack of emotional intelligence to mutually co-operate with others that trip us up. Worst still, despite evidence to the contrary, we often escalate commitment towards sub-optimal, indeed in their most egregious, false paths that harden into dogma. Before you know it, an industry or movement is born whose entire raison d’être relies on such sub-optimal or false paths. It then turns out like a self-fulfilling prophecy, as if, as Abraham Maslow famously said, …it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.⁵ Of course, there are politics involved in all of this; people have underlying positions or philosophies that they’re committed to, for good or bad reasons. Whilst these are challenges one generally encounters in the art of problem-solving, the prudent thing to do as a starting point is to at least equip oneself with the necessary skills and training on how to problem solve.

After all, the problems of communities and institutions generally don’t have easy fixes, as with many things in life. As a Muslim I would even argue that embracing problem-solving is an integral feature of being Muslim to God. All Prophets were after all problem-solvers in one way or another. What God reveals in the stories of the Prophets (qasas al-ambiya) are a myriad of ways and insights into what and how to solve seemingly inevitable problems of human behaviour and institutions. Hence, it’s not surprising that among nobility and scholars of Islam there is a unifying attitude and cognitive focus on real life problem-solving. The meta-narrative Sunnah is to take ownership of one’s own problems, not to blame others, and doing what one can to get the best outcomes, appropriate to one’s space, context, situation, abilities and sphere of influence.

So where do we start? The first thing is to define a problem properly. A well-written problem statement, concisely and specifically, clarifies a situation by identifying a problem and its severity, impacts and when it happens etc. In other words, it’s easily grasped by others and serves as a point of communication about what one is trying to achieve. As a Muslim, a few relevant guiding principles become relevant here.

Firstly, as individuals we’re not responsible for everything that merely comes to our attention. The scope of our responsibility is entirely determined by our own competencies and the roles we play (duties and rights - huquq), say, within an organisation, in our families, communities, in civic life etc. Every soul, God reminds us, is not burdened by more than what they can bear (2:286). In the Prophet’s life, too, you can see examples of how he solved problems differently depending on whether he was asked to arbitrate as a judge (where the nature of the dispute and the wider implications of the decision were also relevant variables), in his role as a husband or a friend, or as a leader etc. The second thing to note is the need to focus on things that concerns one,⁶ and generally not trying to fix some other problem out there as it were. The point is to keep things real.

Analysing a problem to better characterise it becomes the next step. Most problems of human behaviour or institutions have multiple root causes. Causes can be disconnected or connected to each other, stacking horizontally on top of each other or vertically, and together make up the holistic experience of the problem. Putting in the detailed work upfront to identify and understand underlying causes and their relative contribution to a problem is crucial. Whilst it would be ideal to quantify the contribution of factors using robust data (quantitative or qualitative), in the event that this isn’t possible, inductive reasoning⁷ is still a useful tool.

A good way to start analysing is by laying out what we know and what we don’t know. We can then build on this by gathering information to fill in gaps and identifying what goes wrong in a fuller, more structured way. The rule of thumb here, as C. S Lewis famously said, is that … only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on⁸ can you characterise the fuller dimensions of a problem. There are many techniques for this, the macro-pattern of which can be applied to any problem, whether in the home, at work, in the community or in institutes. For example, asking the question why repeatedly (known as the 5 Whys) can help one trace back to the source of a problem. Moreover, clustering relevant factors appropriately, for example into push and pull or into structural, internal and external categories etc. can also help draw out insightful, common themes and interconnections.

Robust analysis should lead to greater focus on the specifics of a problem and prioritising the most important and doable things to resolve it. Not least because we’ll always be restricted by the range of options available to us, and constraints of resources, buy-in by stakeholders, expertise and time. A problem may have multiple root causes, some of which may be easily fixable, others may not be, or they may need different treatments, short- and long-term etc.

Prioritisation also applies to the next step, which is to identify options for fixing the cause(s). Here, seeking advice from others with experience or expertise is good practice, not least to reasonably check if at least all the known angles have been covered and evaluated. Evaluating options is in essence arguing and scoring the pros and cons of each option. Another way is to look at the impacts of each option and the effort needed to put them into practice. It should be a habit of the believer to continually evaluate and optimise for continuous improvement even after actions have been put in place (muhasabah).

In problem-solving there are always falsities and red herrings that can be quite easily distracting and prevent us from effectuating lasting change. Delivering change in any domain of life can be quite tricky at times, and to succeed a great deal of commitment and motivation is required, which means that we can easily lose focus. At the other end, we overinflate our own abilities and pursue options that seek to solve complex problems of human behaviour and institutions in grandiose steps, boiling the ocean as it were. Often, these intentions, while made in good faith, are reflexes of sorts to a seemingly runaway world, confusions in modernity, or self-complexes and not necessarily focused on the specifics of a well-understood problem. It can also be a lack of holistic understanding of the co-operative and competitive contexts, when the two get mixed up because we try to address both internal Muslim issues as well as perceived and real external threats to Muslim identity, but do it in a high-handed or one-dimensional way. In this scenario, the us and them exclusivism gains favour, whilst internally it takes the veneer of speaking up for truth. Another frequent failure point is our poor use of language. Inaccurate, overly-emotive, pessimistic or cynical language can be enough to demotivate people or become yet another barrier to creating the right positive can do attitude and mindset necessary to embrace problem-solving properly.

Admittedly, whilst these skills are lacking in far too many Muslim activists, scholars, institutes and initiatives, one thing is for sure, faith demands lean problem-solving

1.3 The constriction of ‘alim and ‘ilm?

The word ‘alim/‘alima is typically used to describe someone who’s completed an ‘alimiyyah degree at a specialised institution of learning,⁹ or someone who’s earned authorisation (ijazah) to teach to a requisite level by his/her teacher(s). Similarly, the word ‘ilm takes the meaning of knowledge of Islam. However, after a long line of discussions on this, including with a Professor of Physics,¹⁰ I’m led to believe that we’ve constricted their definitions far too much. To the extent that, today, it’s become a sorry reflection of a crisis of intellect in how Muslims do religion.

In the well-known example of an ‘alimiyyah course, the Dars-i-nizami, students are put through studies in the traditional Islamic sciences (Arabic, qira’a, Qur’an, tafsir, fiqh, sirah, hadith, usul al-fiqh, ‘aqidah and so on). Syllabuses have in some places evolved to include subjects like critical thinking and history, and vary between institutions in their teaching methods and texts studied. On the face of it, it’s not too dissimilar to a Classics or Theology course at university; common to both is the study of, in essence, literary texts, law and theology. Though of course, the content and emphasis in their application to the modern world differs greatly. As well, one presumes, the Godly-intention and learning the stuff of growing close to God, and helping ordinary Muslims fulfil their basic obligations. In the UK, the ‘alimiyyah course is taught alongside the national curriculum too.

At the end of their studies, if they pass their exams, students gain the ‘alimiyyah certification, attaining the title Mowlana or Shaykh to distinguish them as learned in the religion or ‘alim. Fortunately, we have many institutions that offer the ‘alimiyyah, supplying communities up and down the country with a steady stream of men and women acquainted with some level of Islamic knowledge.

That said, the traditional ‘alimiyyah has its fair share of critics. Some argue that most ‘alimiyyah courses have become overly institutionalised into the ethno-cultural, sectarian and school-based process by which God’s words are filtered. The texts, too, are not critically studied it is argued, and hence fail to be integrated and contextualised to the modern world. There are also those who argue that the so-called Islamic universities are "not really Islamic universities because they teach the Shari’ah, Arabic and Islamic History but other subjects are not integrated."¹¹

Keeping these discussions aside, there is an even more basic question of who we can call ‘alim which I would argue goes to the crux of the problem. I say this because it seems a little odd that in the English language we don’t constrain the word scholar to someone who’s only completed the ‘alimiyyah course. Instead, we use scholar in a broader sense, to describe anyone who’s spent some time studying any field and reaching a level of technical and practical knowledge. If we want to be specific, we use the term Islamic scholar in English to mean an "Islamic ‘alim." You would think that it’s entirely reasonable, then, to interchangeably use ‘alim for scholar to call someone a "Physics ‘alim or a Geography ‘alim." After all, ‘alim in Arabic, linguistically, is someone who has knowledge about a particular matter which need not be confined to ‘alimiyyah courses. But this linguistic definition usually remains unexplored.

In earlier Muslim societies the learned were people who didn’t just learn the religious sciences, they were also well-acquainted with a broad range of subjects, like mathematics, astronomy, medicine, geography, philosophy, chemistry etc. What existed among the elite centres of learning was a much more dynamic and, arguably, superior knowledge culture or ethic, which grew out of Qur’an texts commanding Muslims to contemplate creation, and to place a culture of inquiry and learning at the heart of faith and civilisation.

For example, references to Crescent Moons (ahilla) in the Qur’an as signs to mark fixed periods of time for mankind and for the pilgrimage (2:189) had strong implications for Muslims to understand the knowledge of Moon phases. Similarly, Read in the name of the Lord … Who taught man through the use of the pen what he did not know (96:1-5) accorded, says Umer Chapra, a high place to reading and writing in order to learn what one did not know.¹² These indications (and there are many others), and the opportunities that they opened up, led early Muslims to establish multidisciplinary research academies like the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) by Harun al-Rashid (763-809), for research and education in fields such as agriculture, astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, medicine etc. Over time, knowledge in these fields led to scientific and technical development, for instance in building hospitals, public baths, guest houses, roads, water supply systems, bridges, navigation tools, mosques with multi-dome complexes and so on. The purpose, says Charles Le Gai Eaton (1921-2010), was concerned on the one hand with discerning the ‘signs of Allah’ in natural phenomena, and on the other with observing the forces and laws of nature … [to better] co-operate with them, so that the human family might be more comfortably fitted into its God given environment.¹³

Incidentally, despite this explosion of discoveries and thinking, earlier Muslims didn’t seek to Islamicise subjects, as many attempt today using labels such as Islamic astronomy, Islamic chemistry etc. There is a subtle and humbling lesson in this for us. That, whilst Islamic texts might have in some way pointed Muslims, or triggered their interest, in a specific direction of curiosity, it was still up to human ingenuity to discover and to seek out truth. And this ingenuity is a quality inherent to human beings themselves. The role of Islamic texts is simply to remind Muslims of that.

There were clear reasons for this, which relates to how earlier societies understood the term ‘ilm, which, arguably, much like the term ‘alim we’ve narrowed far too much. Mining the Qur’an, it becomes apparent that the various terms used to describe those who know or those who use their intellect (2:164) doesn’t limit it to the study of Islamic texts per se. Instead, it focuses on contemplating and investigating creation as a path to glorifying