Los 3 modelos de gestión de la última década

My basic argument in this section will be that, precisely with references to the ‘idealised’ versions of modern and Islamic projects, observers discuss modernity and Islam as being irreconcilable in terms of their understandings of life.62 No doubt, if one compares socialism and liberalism, for instance, it would have to be noted that there are incompatibilities rather than consensus between them. Nevertheless, this cannot be argued by saying that liberalism represents modernity, while socialism is a rejection of such. On the contrary, liberalism and socialism express two different versions of modernity. By this I want to insist that by referring to western liberal modernity as the standard model of modernity, and to the Koran as the provider of a ‘closed’ way of Islamic life, one cannot analyse the present conditions of Islamic societies. To make this argument plausible it must be stressed that the relation between Islam and modernity cannot be one of total exclusion.

Islamism’s current rise to the fore in Islamic societies, led to the development of two basic views: first, Islamism is seen as decentralising the West, that is, the postmodern era is bringing modernity to an end (Ahmed, 1992; Sayyid, 1997). Second, Islamism is taken to be the manifestation of pre- modern traditional phenomena (see Watt, 1988; Lawrence, 1995). When these arguments are

looked at closely, it is striking that an argument cannot be developed without a consideration of the West. What I mean here is that discussions of Islam’s relations to modernity are, indeed, centred on the ‘equivalence’ between modernity and the West. So, one either needs to reject modernity - because it is the Christian West - or is forced to accept the advance of another civilisation. Thus, an argument for or against Islam’s compatibility with modernity cannot be maintained without considering the West.

However, there is a way of showing Islam and modernity to be compatible without centring the argument on the West. Viewing Islam as hostile to modernity has its roots in the uniform, unchanging definitions of Islam. In other words, it is argued that there has always been one Islam, ordered by the Koran and exemplified by the Prophet (see Nasr, 1988). This understanding neither allows one to argue for a plurality of Islams nor does it credit modernity. This is exactly the point from which Islam is viewed as anti-modern, as a traditionalist world-interpretation (see Watt, 1988; Gellner, 1992). However, the facts should no longer be ‘manipulated’ so as to reveal that there is no singular, uniform Islam, but different Islams. In other words, the Islamic East should not be viewed as a totality; rather the plurality of cultures in the region needs to be recognised.

Islam was a project of the ‘good life’ which emerged in a tribal society in 611. The first practiser and, so the exemplar, of this project was the Prophet Muhammed. Because of this, the ‘sunna’ and ‘hadith’, the sayings and practices of Muhammed, is one of the two sources of Islam, in addition to the Koran. Islam was what the Prophet did. In other words, what the Prophet did was Islam. So, under his authority, disputes could be resolved. The death of the Prophet, however, marked an important event: the dispute over the interpretation of Islam came to the fore. First, succession gave rise to conflicts within Islam. The first division, known as the Shia-Sunni Islam divide, was born out of discussions as to who was able to interpret the law, since the death of the lawgiver, the

Prophet. For the Shia part, the successor should be one of the first Muslims and close to Muhammed. But, for the Sunni part, succession could be solved by election. Since then, different interpretations of Islam have emerged and spread around the geographical space of the Islamic East. The multiple interpretations of Islam were due to differences in ‘cultures’: Islam was not accepted without any revision or question in the cultures outside the birth place of Islam.

Nevertheless, some argue that Islam was always the master signifier in all Islamic societies regardless of their particularities (Gellner, 1992). This argument is maintained by viewing the caliphate as the centre around which global Muslim identity was structured (Sayyid, 1997). One wonders how it is possible to generalise the views of people who lived within the radical plurality of Islams. However, what history tells us is that the caliphate had lost its ‘unifying’ capability, long before its abolishment by the Turks in 1924, precisely because none of the specific interpretations of Islam could assimilate its other multiple interpretations.63 It should not be surprising then that the Ottoman sultans did not place importance on the caliphate, although it had been passed to the Ottomans in 1517 after the conquest of Egypt.

In brief, the plurality of Islams needs to be considered in understanding the relations between modernity and Islam. As the equivalence between modernity and the West must be problematised, so too must the equivalence between Islam and the Arab world. So far, I have argued that both modernity and Islam must be thought as possible to be lived in different configurations. However, what happens when Arabocentric Islam and Eurocentric modernity are compared needs to be considered. Thus, from now on I shall look at some of the comparisons between Islam and modernity which have been carried out with references to the ‘idealised versions’. The space is insufficient for an extensive discussion of this theme, therefore, I shall choose a few of the most important realms seen as creating crucial oppositions between Islam and modernity.

The principle of the “individual autonomy” of the liberal project of modernity has been looked at as a catalysing element in tensions between Islam and modernity (see Nasr, 1988). An idealised version of a community-oriented Islam neither knows nor recognises a principle such as individual autonomy whereas, in the liberal project of modernity, for the sake of decollectivisation, the emancipation of the individual as a self-reliant master of his life is overemphasised. This means that, under conditions of liberal modernity, the ties between human beings are supposed to be thin with rationality supposed to operate life.

Human beings, however, by their very nature, are communal beings: 'all human activities are conditioned by the fact that men live together' (Arendt, 1958: 34). Without community or society, individuation cannot be spelled out and, thus, modernity, as a human condition, has to be based on ‘sociability’ rather than on ‘isolated’ individuals. In the cultural program of 'original', western modernity, individualism is a purer identity that has is to do with being an individual before being French, Russian, a worker or a Muslim. As Wagner (1994) has considered, an essential ambiguity of Enlightenment lies in the relations between individual autonomy and reason, the common good and human nature that are not individual realities. And, not least due to the fact that moral order and social control imply that individual identity formation be related to social identities, therefore, every identity formation is necessarily a social process. Thus, atomistic social philosophy seems to fail, because individual identity is not free from cultural contexts. Islam, on the other hand, cannot be generalised as strictly communitarian in all the socio-historical experiences where Islam has been present. Rather, Islam is open to interpretation in terms of the relations between individual and society. First, the Koran, as the mere source of knowledge, is always open to interpretation. Therefore, the unity of individuals under the divine intellect seems problematic. In other words, since the Koranic verses do not constitute a unity, rather most of them were solutions to given

socio-historical situations during the prophet’s life time, Muslims take particular verses as guides to life, finding enough room for their 'own' understandings of Islam. This could be argued as opening up an opportunity for a sort of individuation. For instance, Ibn Rushd (known in the West as Averroes) could not be easily seen as a mere member of the Islamic umma, in this respect. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, in Islam in contrast to Christianity there is no clergy through which individuals relate to God. When individuals are not guided by clerical authority, an individual perspective of religion should be a greater possibility. Thus, it may be argued that this position of Islam opens up opportunities for a sort of individual life perspective.

What then must be stressed is that the degree of individual autonomy could take various forms depending on the social settings in which modernity is present. For instance, Arnason (1997) in his scholarly work on Japanese modernity, does not give central importance to individual liberty as a distinguishing characteristic of modernity, although I think it would be objectionable to talk about modernity without considering the degree of individuation. However, it should not be understood that I try to make Islam’s view of the individual and community compatible with western understanding. On the contrary, I insist that the ‘liberation’ of individuality cannot be seen as unique to the West, but that, in Islamic communities, there have been ‘highly different’ processes of liberation.

In understanding the ‘world’, the thoughts of Islam and modernity are contrasted in another opposition (see Nasr, 1988; Gellner, 1992). The holder of knowledge in Islam is ultimately the divine intellect, therefore, ‘true science’ is based at a supra-human level. That is, intelligence is a divine gift to human beings; the divine intellect is superimposed on the human intellect. So, the criterion of reality is God. The book is the only source of true knowledge and the basis for arriving at perfection. Modern thought, in contrast, is anthropomorphic, that is, there is no principle higher

than man. Modern thought can be seen as ‘all that is merely human’ and, therefore, it is essential for it to diverge from the divine source of knowledge. Thus, modernity’s ‘true science’ is based on human reason. The ultimate criterion for reality is the individual human being. Perhaps, this is best expressed in Descartes’s well-known phrase: ‘I think, therefore I am’.

The above observation concerns Islam’s relation to modernity in terms of ‘thought’, if looked at without taking an historical approach. It may readily be interpreted from this observation that Islamic sciences are incompatible with rational sciences.64 However, reality does not prove this. In the emergence of modern science in the West, Islamic scholars were the main figures to teach advanced science and philosophy to westerners. Ibn Sina, Ibn Rusd, Farabi and Ibn Khaldun were not less important than Newton, Descartes, Locke or Kant. These Islamic scholars carried ancient Greek philosophy and an advanced science to the West in the thirteenth century.

In fact, in the Koran, knowledge, ilim, is the second most pronounced word after Allah. The emphasis on knowledge allow some to emerge as important figures in world thought. In contrast to those westerners who argue that Islam did not give rise to great men in human history, there are many exemplary figures.65 Not only the Koran, but also the ‘Sunna’, Muhammed’s sayings and practices, provide the interpretation that science is central to life. For example, a phrase from Muhammed could be used to interpret Islam as placing essential importance on science: ‘search knowledge even if it is in China’. However, this should not be taken to mean that Muslims should consider ‘modern science’ in the same way as westerners. This question depends on how modern science is interpreted: some social contexts might see it as the instrument for achieving mastery over nature, as westerners generally have done, while some other contexts might view modern science as the way to reach the knowledge of the world without mastering it completely.

Another crucial opposition is found in modernity’s differentiation process against Islam’s equilibrium. The separation of realms of human activity is overemphasised by modernist social theories (see, for instance, Parsons, 1971). Islam, in stark contrast, is regarded as a perfect equilibrium of community, that is, no fragmentation is allowed to take place (Ahmad, 1983). Islam achieves this unity with its unique framework of the ‘final judgement’. In other words, Islamic morality operates all activities and is, thus, a unifying element. This is indeed questionable because differentiation and integration could take various forms depending on contexts where modernity is present. Rather than readily accepting Islam’s equilibrium as incompatible with modernity’s differentiation process, the degree of integration and differentiation could be taken to explain distinctions between western modernity and Islamic modernities.

In fact, modernity can never be seen to provide autonomy for human realms to the same degree in all contexts. Taking civil society as an example: it cannot be argued that civil society means one and the same thing for all modernities. For instance, in the Japanese and Russian experiences, state and society have been much more closely integrated than in the western experience (Arnason, 1997; 1993).66 This observation should refer to the fact that, in terms of integration and differentiation, a modernity within an Islamic society would not resemble the modernity of a Christian society.

In terms of the discussions about the (in)compatibility between Islam and modernity, the economy occupies a crucial place. Economic activity comes to the fore in modernity as a driving force in the development of the conditions of life. Islam is assumed to resist the centrality of the economy in human life (Berkes, 1976). The economic model of Islamism is often emphasised as an anti-modern economy. However, it could be shown that Islam is compatible with modernity in terms of economic activity as well, although it does not have to accept the western way as its model of

economy. In Islamic countries, both liberal and socialist models of economy have found home despite the fact that these countries have added their own characteristics to them. I shall briefly show that both liberal and socialist models have not met resistance from Islam.

The practices of the prophet Muhammed provide sources for liberals to conclude that Islam encourages competitive economic activity. Muhammed was a merchant himself and he had proclaimed: 'commerce is the basic activity for the survival of the Islamic community'. Not only the life of the prophet but also some verses in the Koran provide ways of showing Islam as compatible with the liberal economic model. For example, the Koran grants the right of individual, private property. Some liberal observers, like Mehmet (1990: 77), could go further: 'In terms of market relations Islamic economic doctrines are most compatible with perfect competition based on private property ownership and private enterprise'.

Socialists emphasise the communitarian characteristics of Islam. It seems that Islam promises equity, rejects profit and delegitimise interest. Therefore, socialism seems, to some observers of Islam, to be a more compatible model. It was no accident that Muammer Kaddafi emerged as the political leader of Islamic socialism, or 'socialist Islam'. Perhaps more importantly, the most influential ideologue of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Ali Shariti, was using socialist tones in his lectures across the country, after completing his Ph.D. in sociology in Paris. Thus, it is clear that Islam is open to interpretations in terms of the economic model as well. It is not that the modern economy cannot be accepted by Islam, but that it could take a different shape in Islamic societies.

For some, the incompatibility between Islam and modernity is unavoidable, especially because secularisation does not apply in Islam (Gellner, 1992). A strong adherent of Enlightenment

rationalism, Ernest Gellner believes that ‘to say that secularisation prevails in Islam is not contentious. It is simply false’ (Gellner, 1992: 5). To show that the opposite could be quite true, it is useful to argue against Gellner’s central reason for regarding Islam as incompatible with modernity. The main feature which is assumed not to allow for secularisation is found, by Gellner, in the absence of clergy. In Islam, Gellner (1992: 8) wrote, ‘no distinct sacramental status separates the preacher or the leader of the ritual from the laity... There is no clerical organisation.’ What Gellner wants to say is that, since in Islam there is no clerical institution such as the church, it is not possible to see Islam and the state as two different institutions.

Secularisation should mean that the single individual can relate directly to God and not through a priesthood and, I think, Gellner would agree with this. Theoretically, it is, therefore, possible to argue that secularisation is in fact much more compatible with Islam, in comparison with Christianity. In other words, since, in Islam, believers are already ‘free’ in their relation to God because there is no clergy through which believers relate to God, it should be much easier for secularisation to take place. A huge effort was made amid much difficulty to separate church from the state in Christian societies, whereas there is no need for such an effort to be made in Islamic societies.

However, for Gellner (1992), since there is no clergy, it is impossible to separate Islam from the socio-political sphere. Without taking an historical approach, as is the case in Gellner, it would be very difficult to judge Islam’s relation to secularisation. History would prove that the opposite is true: it is difficult to find a theocratic state in Islamic history. For example, as we shall see, the Ottoman Empire was never shaped by religious men but, in contrast, it formed its Islamic institutions.67 Thus, plurality in Islam was at stake from the beginning. That is, Islam did not have to wait for the Renaissance/Reformation. Apart from a lack of historical perspective, Gellner lacks

another crucial point: secularity may refer to something different in Islamic societies. Since Gellner believes in the coherence of modernity, secularisation, for him, must follow the same process everywhere. It should be observed, however, that a version of secularisation is possible in Islam. As Turkey shows, the state does not need to found a separate institution for religion, rather it needs to provide religious services without legitimising itself with religious principles.

Up to this point, I have considered some realms of human life which have been considered most difficult in terms of the reconciliation of Islam with modernity.68 However, this should indicate the following: modernity and Islam cannot easily be seen as two standard world-interpretations. Both the plurality of forms in Islam and the plurality of configurations in modernity must be seriously