Friday's Read: Islam's Predicament with Modernity: Religious Reform and Cultural Change

Tibi, Bassam. Islam's Predicament with Modernity: Religious Reform and Cultural Change. (New York: Routledge, 2009)


_____

Political scientist Dr. Bassam Tibi’s Islam’s Predicament with Modernity: Religious Reform and Social Change (2009) is a sweeping, in-depth study, the result of three decades of research. At four hundred pages and printed in an unusually small font, its breadth and scope are difficult to summarize succinctly. Nevertheless, it is topically highly relevant, as it addresses the difficulties that Islam as a cultural system is facing in a “post bi-polar world” from the perspective of Muslims themselves. Tibi is not only joining the chorus of scholars rejecting the Clash of Civilizations thesis; he is also positing that, cross-culturally, Islam truly does struggle with modernity, as any cursory glance at the human rights records of majority Muslim countries will attest. Provocatively, he rejects the idea of a homo Islamicus, insisting it is unwise for Muslims to base their understanding of human rights solely on a Muslim cultural footing. He dismisses the “self-congratulating assurance” of contemporary Islamists as “defensive-cultural apologetics,” stating that Islamism and Salafism are not workable methods of achieving either a cultural renaissance or a cultural resuscitation.[1] He argues that there are two competing Islamist worldviews relating to Islam and globalization: one premised around the history of jihad and crusade, in which the present is viewed “in a defensive-cultural sense of self-victimization” because “Western globalization replaced Islamic dominance”; and the other a claim that Islam fell behind the West in terms of science and technological development. Both, Tibi explains, are centered on a self-justifying “blame game.”[2] Tibi argues that Muslims can locate within their own history an Averroist tradition of rationalism and humanism the predates and anticipates Western spheres of church and state, and that these strains of thought must be recaptured and adopted by Muslim cultures in order to resolve the problem of “Islamic backwardness.” Thus, Tibi’s book is an argument that Muslims must seek within their own heritage the basic humanist and rationalist principles to bring needed civil rights and balance to their societies, giving them the strength to compete globally.[3]

---

[1] 28.

[2] 175.

[3] There is some circularity and apparent contradiction in Tibi’s reasoning here: on the one hand he rejects the idea of building an understanding of human rights on Islamic principles and teachings alone; and on the other hand he claims a medieval precedent within Islam itself that serves as a model of contemporary human rights discourse and Enlightenment rationalism. It seems that his biggest concern overall is to refute the validity of specifically Islamist claims to Islam as a whole.