Islam And The Cultural Accommodation Of Social Change

Bassam Tibi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780429718854
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Taking the perspective of anthropologist Clifford Geertz, Tibi re-approaches the problem of social change in Islam, arguing that religions represent cultural systems that both influence and are influenced by religion.

Part One
What Does the Notion of Cultural Accommodation of Social Change in Islam Mean? On the Relationship Between Religion and Culture

In this introductory part, the two central themes of this book will each be outlined in one chapter. In Chapter 1, the formulation of the question contained in the title of this study will be developed, both conceptually and with reference to Islam. Following Clifford Geertz's thesis, all religions, including Islam, are understood to be cultural systems. The categories of "religion" and "culture" will also be examined in more detail; at this point, however, we shall go beyond the social and cultural anthropological classifications of Geertz's approach, because, as we have already stated in a previous work,¹ since the time of the European penetration of the world through its colonial incursion into non-Western regions, the phenomenon of the religious as a cultural pattern can be adequately understood only in the context of the international society.

In the present period of the repoliticization of Islam, which began in the 1970s,² Islamic neofundamentalists, though unaware of the German theory of Kulturganzheit (cultural entirety), have been raising—in a similar vein—the claim that there is only one all-embracing culture, Islam, valid for all times, places, and peoples. In contrast to this monolithic understanding of Islam, even the uninformed traveler to some of the forty Muslim countries will have no difficulty observing just how diverse the cultures of those countries that call themselves Islamic actually are. In Chapter 2, therefore, we ask what Islam really is, if, in the Geertzian sense, we are to speak of the Islamic religion as a single cultural system.

1
Religion as a Model for Reality and the Interaction Between the Two: Islam as a Cultural System

The central hypothesis of this study is that religion consists of sociocultural symbols that convey a conception of reality and construe a plan for it. These symbols are concerned with reality but do not correspond to it, as is the case, for example, with symbols of nature. In this sense religion is understood here as a "cultural system"¹ as defined by Geertz.

There is of course an important distinction to be made between "models of reality" and "models for reality."² The former relate to the representation of objects, such as those in nature, whereas the latter apply to concepts of things, such as human activity. Models of reality are concrete, displaying structural congruence with the depicted object, whereas models for reality are abstract, that is, they are theories, dogmas, or doctrines for a reality with which they are not in structural congruence. On the contrary, they relate, either metaphysically or rationally, to human perceptions of reality and their character; they cannot be penetrated experimentally, only interpretatively. This is similarly the starting point of Geertz's anthropology.³ Religions are cultural, and therefore also symbolic, systems; as models for reality, they are likewise not penetrable experimentally but only interpretatively.

In religion, human conceptions of reality are not based on knowledge but on belief in an authority, which varies from one religion to another. In the monotheistic religions this authority is God and every revelation that proceeds from Him. In the "primitive" religions,⁴ it is represented by spirits and magic. Yet a process of becoming underlies every form of reality. The concepts for reality, then, undergo a parallel change: The adaptation of religiocultural concepts to changing reality thus forms a central component of the cultural assimilation of change, and of the way in which change is directed, inasmuch as people do not simply react to this process of change but also themselves direct it by means of cultural innovation. According to the orthodox Islamic conception, the revelation of the Koran, to the Prophet Muhammed, is the ultimate truth, valid for all times, all religions, and the whole of humanity.⁵ Within this interpretation, the Islamic religion is unalterable and cannot be adapted to any reality, for it is itself the ultimate religion, revealed by the Seal of the Prophets (Koran: "Khatam an-nabiyin," sura 33, verse 40); Muhammed is said to have proclaimed the final revelation of God. It is here that the question arises of how Muslims react to change, how they understand development and progress, or whether such concepts even existed before Islam's encounter with the West. In Islam, there is only one absolute truth, valid for all time and not at all conditioned by history. The tendency of every religion toward the Absolute is of course a universally observable phenomenon, but in Islamic theology it is manifest more intensely than in any other religion.

I have proposed the thesis that religions, as cultural systems, are in fact symbolic systems offering a way to perceive reality. If these conceptions are unalterable per se, as in the case of Islam, even though reality is changing continually, then we are bound to ask whether Islam represents an obstacle to change, as it would seem, in light of the above interpretation, to obstruct rather than facilitate the cultural reception of change. We cannot answer this question yet; some informative exploration will first be necessary. Only on the basis of this solid ground do we wish to venture an answer.⁶ I may point out here, however, on the basis of comparative religious research, that the Reformation in Christianity was a process that at once both assimilated and made possible the rise of modern society. A similar substantively renewed understanding of Islam has so far not been forthcoming.

Some sociology-oriented religious researchers tend toward a reductionism that denies the partial autonomy of religions by unhesitatingly placing them as cultural systems in a virtually causal relationship with the level of development of the respective society. Religious content, always equated with cultural patterns, has, according to Geertz, a dual aspect: It conveys for its adherents meaning to current social and psychological realities, thereby acquiring "an objective conceptual form"; they are both shaped by reality and at the same time shape reality to themselves.⁷ Within this preliminary interpretation, religiocultural symbols form part of reality but are not mere reflections of it, as they also affect it. It follows from this that the reduction of the position of a religion to the stage of development of a society is inadequate. Geertz calls attention to societies with comparable levels of development in which the "degree of religious articulateness"⁸ is nonetheless very different. This is of course not intended to refute the notion that religious ideas can be correlated with social evolution; it is simply their reduction to a social structure that is criticized here. Every idea both "belongs to the continuity of a society and is at the same time autonomous."⁹ This is especially true of religious ideas, which correlate with reality but at the same time are able to make themselves independent of it.¹⁰ The history of Islam and Islamic ideologies offers ample material to support this statement, which reduces to absurdity the conventional superstructure-basis mode of thought.¹¹

After these general remarks and the dennition of a religion as a "cultural system," the categories of "culture" and "religion," which are central to this study, should now be more precisely delineated.

Both in the now more independent field of cultural science, as well as in cultural sociology and anthropology or the study of literature, the reader is faced with a veritable plethora of studies in these categories. An evaluation of this literature has become virtually a task in itself.¹² After a preliminary look through most of the available cultural analyses, however, I have no difficulty stating along with Geertz that there are ways to escape the difficulty of defining culture in "turning culture into folklore and collecting it, turning it into traits and counting it, turning it into structures and toying with it. But there are escapes." The only defense against this kind of cultural analysis, Geertz continues, is "to train such analysis on such realities and such necessities in the first place ... to place these things in some sort of comprehensive meaningful framework"¹³—by which Geertz means the symbolic dimensions of social behavior. In those countries where there is not yet an existing sociostructural equivalent of secularization, these dimensions are articulated in a religiocultural way. In Muslim countries in particular, the "production of meaning"¹⁴ out of which these religiocultural symbols spring is still to a large degree based on the Islamic world view. Even the world view of the secular- and Western-educated social strata of these forty countries, distributed between Asia and Africa and having a population of roughly 800 million, still has its roots in the Islamic world view.¹⁵ Existing Western approaches to the sociology of religion contribute little to an understanding of this phenomenon. Apart from a few exceptions (for example, Niklas Luhmann), it consists of a repertoire of already somewhat hackneyed conceptual forms, borrowed from Max Weber and Emile Durkheim among others, which are of only limited use in trying to penetrate the subject at hand.¹⁶

Geertz's attempt, in the context of his interpretative anthropology, to conceive of religion as a system consisting of symbols that convey meaning, would seem to be of use here. According to Geertz, a religion is "[1] a system of symbols which acts to [2] establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men [3] by formulating concepts of a general order of being and [4] clothing these concepts with such an aura of factuality that [5] the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."¹⁷ Let us now unravel this comprehensive definition into its individual components and attempt in the process to ascertain the validity of the statements made in it for our analysis of Islam as a cultural system.

First, religion is described as a system of symbols, the prevailing symbols interfusing to form cultural patterns, which in turn constitute models. It is important here to call to mind the difference between "models of reality" and "models for reality." The former relate to objects they depict, making it important to distinguish between symbols and objects. "Models of reality" thus consist of symbols that correspond to real objects, whereas "models for reality" convey concepts or doctrines for reality. In this sense, a religion is a model for reality and not a model of it; religion has a dual character. It is now easier to understand, but for this reason it can only be comprehended adequately in an interpretative way.

If I take this suggested procedural method as my starting point, adequate for the study of my theme, I should point out, with regard to German Islamic studies in particular, that by "interpretative method" I mean one representing the social facts of reality—the fait social in the Durkheimian sense—and not the relevant text. German Islamic studies, in contrast to anthropological Islamic studies in the United States, as represented by Geertz¹⁸ and Dale Eickelman¹⁹ consist mainly of researching sources, that is, the quotation and interpretation of texts as a means of comprehending reality. Reality as such does not form the focus of interest. "Critical text analysis" thus does not differ in method from the procedure of Islamic fundamentalists, differing at most only in its intention to comprehend reality in a scholarly way, whereas fundamentalists perceive the concept of reality contained in the texts and reality itself as one and the same thing. Reality is measured by the model for it that is documented in the text. Religious symbols thus, for example, shape the conception of the unified Islamic community (umma), which has never had an objective equivalent, the objective reality always having been the cultural diversity within Islam. Even the open-minded Islamic scholar Gerhard Endress (University of Bochum) falls prey to this error, stating that this albeit symbolically characterized but nonexistent entity, the umma, was not destroyed until the impact of Western influences, the manifold changes brought about by "industrialization, the division of labor and mobility" no longer permitting an all-embracing definition of "Muslim society."²⁰ Endress insists on retaining this method of "textual deduction and source criticism" as an instrument for the study of Islam, responding to the call for more attention to social science methods with the polemic, "And anyone who cannot read the sources will often have to make do with half-measures and half-truths."²¹ Of course it is important to read religious scripture—not in order to stop at source criticism, however, but rather to observe how people perceive these texts and how they create their religiocultural symbols in this context, so as better to understand the Islam of today as a social reality and a cultural system. As is widely known, the majority of Muslims are illiterate, which means that they are acquainted with the content of these texts (in the first instance the Koran and Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet) only in the form of oral tradition—which changes with history and cultural development.

According to Geertz, the symbols for reality that are offered by a religion as a cultural system produce pervasive and long-lasting motivations that cause people to act. These actions should be in harmony with religious scripture, but in reality they are not so. With regard to Islam, I can cite here the example of the strict proscription on interest charges Muslims accepted subjectively in the Middle Ages, although their actions objectively contravened this proscription. At that time, what were known as hiyal (legal dodges and tricks) were developed to enable people to circumvent the proscription on interest and at the same time to spare the consciences of the pious Muslims.²² Geertz's interpretation of the motivations and moods evoked by a particular symbolic system is able to explain this circumstance fully: "To be pious is not to be performing something we would call an act of piety, but to be liable to perform such acts."²³ It thus becomes clear that interpretative anthropologists will not be able to find piety in the form of motivation and mood by looking for their literary sources in religious texts, although they must be acquainted with these; their task consists rather in understanding the perception and practice of religious scripture— which are considered Islamic by those concerned, although they vary to a great extent in practice—in the prevailing historically and culturally diverse situations.

The third part of Geertz's interpretation rests on the assumption that religion as a cultural system contains concepts of a general order of existence that are essential to the believers of a particular religious community. Geertz regards the existence of concepts of order in religious symbols as their life force. In this respect, "man depends upon symbols and symbol systems with a dependence so great as to be decisive for his creatural viability."²⁴ The "disquieting sense that one's moral insight is unequal to one's moral experience"²⁵ is present in all religions and can bring about a crisis. The crossregional resurgence of orthodox or neofundamentalist Islam is very closely linked to a growing consciousness of the discrepancy between moral insight (internalized symbol) and moral experience.²⁶

Taking Egypt as an example, I shall show in Chapter 9, on the basis both of my ow...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Contents
• Preface to the U.S. Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART ONE What Does the Notion of Cultural Accommodation of Social Change in Islam Mean? On the Relationship Between Religion and Culture
• PART TWO Culture—A Catalyst of Change, a Reflection of Change, or a Stumbling Block? Ascertaining the Position of Islam
• PART THREE Social Change and the Resistance of the Islamic Sociocultural System: Law, Language, and the Educational System
• PART FOUR The Politicization of Islam as a Cultural System and the Topicality of Islamic Revivalism: Islam Today
• PART FIVE Conclusions and Future Prospects: Asymmetries in the International Society, "Demonstration Effects," and Globalized Intercultural Communication as the Structural Framework for Rapid Social Change in the Islamic Middle East
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index