1
The clash of civilisations
Background to the debate and work outlined
This book has two interconnected aims. First, it sets out to demonstrate that, contrary to many perceptions on the matter, Friedrich Nietzsche is not the standard bearer for atheism. In fact, it shall be argued, both the man and his philosophy are imbued with a deep religiosity. Second, I will argue that Nietzsche's philosophy has particular relevance for how Islamic identity is perceived in the modern world. Whilst Nietzsche rarely spoke specifically on Islam, his admiration for it as a religion is in sharp contrast to his criticism of Christianity. What I set out to determine is why Nietzsche felt inclined to be so generous towards Islam and, in the process of this determination, what this tells us about Nietzsche's own views on the importance of religion.
In the light of current events, particularly the âpost 9/11â debates with much focus on aspects of the âclash of civilisationâ thesis, the issue of Islamic identity is a crucial one. Whilst Nietzsche was addressing an audience of a different culture and age, I aim to show that his philosophy can make an important contribution to this ongoing debate.
In achieving these aims, I want to focus on what is considered to be Islam's key paradigms: that of the Qur'an, Muhammad, Medina as the first âIslamic stateâ, and the four âRightly-Guidedâ (Rashidun) caliphs. The focus is on these paradigms as they tend to dominate in terms of Islamic identity amongst Islamic revivalist scholars. In that respect, âreturningâ to Islam in what is perceived as its Golden Age is nothing original nor would be seen by Islamists as unorthodox. However, the originality lies in how one is to approach a study of these paradigms. It is in this respect that, I will argue, Nietzsche's own originality, creativity, psychological, philological and historical insights allows for a fresh and enlightening understanding of the Islamic paradigms within the context of our modern era.
The clash of civilisations thesis
The West as a concept of civilisation has seen its centre of gravity move from Western Europe to America to Eastern Europe. Israel represents the projection of this centre into the East to wipe out its specific character, its spiritual wealth, and humankind's hope for a new renaissance.1
The above quote by the exiled leader of the Islamist movement in Tunisia, Rashid Ghannushi, is typical of a concern amongst many Muslims that there is a growing civilisational conflict between Islam and the West. Rather than being presented with the theological view of Islam as a member of the same family as the Judaeo-Christian tradition, we have conflict and difference. Such a perception, of course, does not lie only with Islamist commentators, but many Western writers are just as guilty, if not more so, of portraying Islam as an âOtherâ.
Edward Said's well-known study, Orientalism,2 has recounted how images of the Other have often been created to confirm one's own sense of racial and cultural superiority, or to provide justification for the conquest and abuse of other people's territory. From the eighteenth century, when the West was at its economic and military apex, Islam was perceived as, not a threat, but as decadent, irrational, inefficient, lazy, barbaric, false and Satanic. Therefore, the Others became âobjectsâ that were defined not by their own discourses, but by a discourse imposed upon them by the West. The results, of course, were a grossly biased view of Islam that still continues to reverberate in contemporary discourse. Said's later study, Covering Islam,3 provides an incisive account of Western media treatment of Muslims and Islam following the Iran hostage crisis of 1979â80 and it is certainly still not too difficult to detect similar media treatment in the Western press of the twenty-first century. Said's contribution is important for any study of contemporary Islam for it warns us to be wary of making quick judgements within the context of our own Wittgensteinian âlanguage gameâ, as, in the past, much Western understanding of Islam âhas less to do with the Orient than it does with âourâ worldâ.4 However, although Said's concept of Orientalism is more important than a 'straw manâ invented to be knocked down,5 there is some justification in Albert Hourani's criticism that Said constructed an âideal type of Orientalistâ and âideal types must be used with careâ.6 We can, in fact, learn much from Western scholars of Islam from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Albert Hourani noted:
There isâŚrunning through the work of the great [Western] Islamic scholars one central strand of concernâŚwhich attempted to articulate what Muslims believed to be the revelation given to mankind through the Prophet Muhammad: tradition, law, theology, mystical thought. A hundred years of study of these matters have produced a body of work which cannot be regarded as badly done.7
Charles Lindholm rightly states that:
Contemporary Western enmityâŚis not simply a consequence of modern conflict. It is a reflection of the thousand-year rivalry between the Muslim Middle East and Christian Europe for economic, political and religious hegemony over the Western hemisphere and beyondâa contest dominated until recently by Islam.8
Initially, through the encounters of the Crusades, Western reaction to Islam was a fear of a Muslim invasion and a return to the days when Islam spread as far as Spain and southern France. The Ottoman challenge that, in 1529, led to Suleiman's army at the gates of Vienna, was a genuine concern and fear for the world of Christendom, and this was reflected in the Western literature at the time. Norman Daniel has treated the subject of these Christian perceptions in detail in his book Islam and the West: The Making of an Image.9 Daniel shows how popular themes that are still with us today first emerged. For example, accusations of Muhammad instigating revelation to justify sexual indulgence; or that âMuhammad had made up his doctrines from the Old and New Testaments on the advice of an Arian monk who instructed himâ10 and, therefore, Muhammad's claim that he had received divine revelation was spurious. In Daniel's earlier book, The Arabs and Medieval Europe, he notes that in medieval Christian accounts of the Prophet, âhe was subjected to gross abuse which, however shocking in itself, we must understand as rooted in folklore. The Qur'an was seen as the product of the events of the life of the Prophet, rather as a deliberate contrivance than as God's revelation, in response to particular needs.â11 Although modern Western scholarship no longer engages in such fanciful stereotypes, the roots of medieval folklore have survived in the Western psyche; most notably in popular literature, âbestsellersâ, and journalistic pieces, as Said's Covering Islam illustrates.
A series of events in the seventeenth century, however, proved to be important turning points in the Western view of Islam. In 1606 the Sultan deigned to treat a European power as an equal by signing a treaty with the Hapsburgs that ended a costly 150-year stalemate on the Danube. In 1683, a quarter of a million Ottoman soldiers besieged Vienna, but the overconfidence and slowness of the Turkish general to press a military advantage allowed the Christians to prepare and gather resources, resulting in the besieging army being routed and chased down the Danube all the way to Belgrade. The sixteen years of war that followed were a series of military disasters for the Ottomans, and at the treaty of Karlowitz, signed in 1699:
The empire which barely a generation earlier had challenged Vienna lost half its European dominions at a stroke; and what perhaps was worse, her cover was blown, her weakness revealed, and her importance, in the world's eyes, was now almost wholly diplomatic.12
Until the nineteenth century, the military (as distinct from the commercial) advance of the West into the Islamic world was limited to the areas of the Balkans and along the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea. The further turning point came with the occupation of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798: âthe first armed inroad of Europe on the Arab near East since the Crusadesâ.13 The event is significant in that it began the period of Western intervention in the Islamic world and completely shattered any remaining illusions of the superiority of Islam:
The great Ottoman Empire, which had aspired to convert the world to Islam, now was obliged to look to the West for inspiration; instead of being Europe's nemesis, it soon would be its 'sick manâ.14
The psychological impact for the Muslim world of such a decline cannot be overestimated and must be a factor in the residual collective memory of the contemporary Islamic world; especially considering the confidence, wealth, efficiency and technology that the Ottoman Empire possessed compared with frightened, fragmented and superstitious Europe. Further, the seeming ânaturalâ triumph of the West over Islam must contribute to the justification of Orientalism as a concept. It is not surprising, therefore, that Islam refers to its own Golden Age as its justification for the ânatural triumphâ of Islam over Jahiliyya; the unbelievers. The fact that Islam has suffered under the Western dominance also, for many, brings into question the validity of Islam as superior to other civilisations and ideologies. This collective memory on both sides (the Muslims versus the Christians) continues to be evident in contemporary events; most recently following the events of 9/11 with the attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Similarly the concern that Islamic âfundamentalismâ is a threat has its basis in the fear that was prevalent in Western Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Since Islam was perceived as a threat by the West, the Muslim empires have been depicted as vast tyrannies, compared with an enlightened, liberal Europe. As Hegel famously wrote in Reason in History, âthe Orientals knew only that one is free, the Greeks and Romans that some are free, while we know that all men absolutely, that is, as men, are freeâ.15 As the fear of Islam receded to be replaced by patronage, Western commentators, such as Max Weber, perceived the Islamic nations as arbitrary, personalised kingships with inefficient and corrupt bureaucracies. In the case of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan was conceived as lacking any kind of moral purpose, other than the pursuit and retention of power. Authority was cruel, inefficient and irrational and based purely upon the ability of the leader to coerce.16
The rhetoric against the Muslims could fill thousands of pages, but it is sufficient here to cite some of the renowned remarks of Lord Cromer, who was the British consul- general of Egypt from 1882 to 1907. It is typical of the confident conqueror who, despite living and researching amongst a people for fifteen years, still succeeded in presenting a complacent and disparaging picture of the conquered. In his hefty work Modern Egypt, he notes: âthe want of mental symmetry and precisionâŚis the chief distinguishing feature between the illogical and picturesque East and the logical Westâ,17 and further he states that 'somehow or other the Oriental generally acts, speaks and thinks in a manner exactly opposite to the Europeanâ.18
The turning point in terms of perceiving Islam was the 1979 Iranian revolution, demonstrating just how politically motivated Islam can be. For the secularising West, a âgood religionâ is one that keeps itself pretty much separate from political concerns, a âbad religionâ is one that is politically motivated. Islam encroaching upon politics is perceived as theocratic and, by implication, totalitarian, xenophobic, backward and illiberal. The Iranian revolution has resulted in Shi'a Islam being labelled âbad Islamâ as opposed to what is perceived as the more democratic Sunni. Partly this is due to the presence of a powerful clergy in Shi'a, whereas Sunni Islam does not have such a prevailing religious body. Theoretically, Shi'a political theory is not as totalitarian and anti-democratic as the West might conceive and, historically, many examples of anti- democratic Islamist movements in Sunni countries can be provided. Therefore, Islamic extremismârepresented by Shi'a Islamâis regarded as an aberration of orthodox, mainstream Islam, as represented by Sunni Islam.
One might suppose, therefore, that the West would be more prone to work with Sunni Muslims than with what are perceived as radical Shi'a Muslims. Of course, this has not been the case in the past. The West had a very close, longstanding relationship with Iran before the revolution and other examples of Muslim countries that certainly are not within the mainstream can be cited; Saudi Arabia19 comes to mind. In terms of the West's relationship with Muslim countries it seems to come down to talking to those countries that have power, and those that do not are seen as âanti-Westernâ; regardless of ideology. As Hunter points out:
the underlying but largely unspoken and unacknowledged cause of the dichotomy between Islam and the West is the question of power and the consequences of its exerciseâthat is, influence at the regional and global levels.20
Consequently, the West may not be so concerned with Islamic revivalism as such, but rather the effect it may have on the power balance. Many Islamic countries are important both strategically and economically, especially in terms of oil. Appeal to ideology might be used as a blanket for more materialistic concerns: âWestern leaders justified the Persian Gulf War of 1990â1 on the basis of punishing aggression and restoring democracy to Kuwait rather than securing Arabian oil fields.â21 Thus, much of the language that comes from the West referring to Islamâespecially the âpoliticalâ kindâas a threat is nothing more than rhetoric. As Graham Fuller wrote in 1995, âa civilisational clash is not so much over Jesus Christ, Confucius, or the Prophet Muhammad as it is over the unequal distribution of world power, wealth, and influenceâ.22 Therefore, in examining the extent to which Islam is an ideological Otherâor at least perceived as suchâwe must also take account of the use of power, its use in terms of legitimisation, and the function of the belief system as an instrument for that legitimisation. Ultimately, we are getting to the roots of how authority is perceived; by those subject to authority (the citizens of an Islamic state), those in authority (the rulers of an Islamic state), and those outside of that authority (non-Muslimâprimarily âWesternââideologies).
It was the Persians who first conceived of the world as having a beginning: a cosmic battle between good and evil that will ultimately lead to the end of the world and the Day of Reckoning. Zoroastrianism was a huge influence on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For these religions, the end to this battle will be due to divine intervention. This denouement has not, of course, happened yet if you are a Christian, Jew or Muslim. However, in Francis Fukuyama's popular and controversial book The End of History and the Last Man,23 history has already come to an end with the triumph of Western liberal democracies. According to Fukuyama, other ideologies do still exist, of course, but they are no competition for the West and, indeed, it is up to the West to maintain a league of civilised nations to police these non-compliant nations until, eventually, they enter the global community of liberal democracy. Such a proud assumption occasionally takes a battering. With the decline of Communist power it is perhaps understandable that there exists a new-found confidence in Western superiority. However, other ideologies seem reluctant to enter the fold. The Iranian revolution of 1979 was a defining moment in this respect. Why, the West wondered, would a wealthy materialist nation like Iran want to throw it all away and embrace what, in the eyes of many Western commentators, is a backward, totalitarian system of radical Islam?
A point needs to be made as to what the terms âWesternâ or âWestâ mean. Political scientist Samuel Huntingdon's well-known article in Foreign Affairs,24 for example, places Japan as âWestâ and it is not uncommon to take a religion course in âWestern Religionsâ, studying Judaism, Christianity and Islam (as opposed to âEastern Religionsâ of Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism). Although, generally, we might say that the US and Western Europe are âWesternâ we must wonder about, for example, Mexico or Turkey; and then we have such apparent anomalies as Australia and New Zealand. Therefore, it cannot be said that âWestâ is merely a geographical term. Although, in the case of Turkey, the term âone foot in the West and one foot in the Eastâ may be taken as a geographical reference, what is also meant is ideological.
Likewise, one often speaks of âWestern ideologyâ and âWestern civilisationâ (or Islamic ideology/civilisation) as if the two terms are synonymous. Certainly, Huntingdon's work suggests this. Thus we have âWestern civilisationâ, âIslamic civilisationâ, âConfucian civilisationâ and so on.25 However, this ignores the fact that within any one civilisation there are also cultural and ideological clashes. As already briefly noted, it is not so easy to speak of âWestern civilisati...