Review of Akbar Ahmed book Islam Under Siege
by Douglas Johnston,
President, International Center for Religion and Diplomacy,
Washington DC
August 26, 2003
For all the scholarship and pseudo-scholarship that has been
written about Islam in the two years since September 11th, there
are many fundamental questions about the state of the world
and the cause for the violence of that day that remain unanswered.
Perhaps no question has been more tortured than President Bush’s
now famous rhetorical muse: “why do they hate us?”
The plethora of answers from all corners has provided little
solace, and even less peace.
In the United States, otherwise uninterested citizens turned
to cable news and government officials for explanations of the
source of this unprovoked violence that emanated from the Middle
East. The problem is that the newfound interest in the Middle
East by average Americans was fed with stories of genocidal
dictators, religious terrorists and humanitarian atrocities.
There was little reason to hope for peace when the new enemy
seemed to be reared on violence and fanaticism driven by the
kind of insurmountable passion that only religion can impart.
But there certainly were reasons to hope, and more often than
not, these reasons were due to the hard work of the real experts
often missing from discussion panels on Hardball and Crossfire.
While “instant experts” gave their apocalyptic analyses,
the real scholars and diplomats advocating dialogue and understanding
were talking to small audiences in think tanks and at religious
services, out of the limelight but clearly onstage.
One such expert is Akbar Ahmed, a name probably unfamiliar
to many Americans, but nonetheless a well-recognized advocate
of understanding between the West and Islam. A regular on the
BBC and C-SPAN, Ahmed is a prolific writer and commentator on
Islam, and currently teaches at American University in Washington,
DC after having served a stint as Pakistan’s High Commissioner
to the United Kingdom. His latest book explains the post-September
11th world as he sees it, and there are few experts who can
claim to see through the same side of the prism that he does.
The unique vision presented in Islam Under Siege
(Polity, 2003) could only be the product of years as a diplomat
and scholar – as a Westerner and a Muslim.
In the opening pages, the reader is tempted to believe that
this is yet another hastily written book about Bush and Bin
Laden, filled with ominous quotes but empty of insights. But
Professor Ahmed’s ability to relate both personal stories
and cultural narrative dispels this rather quickly, and the
reader finds himself or herself following Ahmed’s hijra
(pilgrimage) to the “Meccas” of America –
like Dearborn, Santa Fe and Toledo – with page-turning
curiosity. In what looks like a diplomat’s memoir or a
current events travelogue, Ahmed’s ideas in Islam Under
Siege are as prescriptive as they are descriptive, and the book
develops into another well-crafted attempt by Ahmed to bring
the West and Islam together.
Though many Americans will find some of his assertions contentious,
Ahmed’s place in the debate on “why they hate us”
is clear, and it is easy to recognize the importance of his
work as a result of his particular experience as both a Muslim
and a Westerner. He ably discusses questions about today’s
world from a Muslim’s point of view for the West, and
a Westerner’s point of view for Muslims. As such, Islam
Under Siege is the perfect complement to one of the most popular
books written about September 11th, Thomas Friedman’s
Longitudes and Attitudes. Both books try to answer the fear
and anger that inundated ordinary Americans. But where Friedman
writes for a decidedly Western audience, Ahmed tries to address
everyone involved from ordinary people in the Midwest to ordinary
people in the Middle East – diverse and difficult audiences
to say the least. It is telling that he finds himself at odds
with prominent Western scholars like Huntington and Fukuyama
while simultaneously eliciting the anger of fellow Muslims for
not “leaping across [a] studio table and doing Rushdie
in.”
Ahmed presents his subjects and ideas with a style that makes
them inherently approachable, even to novice Middle East observers
– which we have all become of late. He relates his arguments
through such familiar American icons as Frasier and The Simpsons
on one page and such abstract Islamic ideas as asabiyya (group
loyalty) and adl (justice) and ihsan (compassion) on the next.
We find ourselves engrossed in the saga of the Babri Mosque
in India and in the plight of refugees in Kosovo, both with
a new awareness of the kinds of tragedy religious fanaticism
can conjure.
Islam Under Siege, then, is not necessarily about casting blame
or fueling cultural animosity, but is instead an attempt to
explain “the world that created Bin Laden...and the world
he has helped to create.” Going further, it is about laying
the groundwork for a dialogue among Islam and the West, two
civilizations that Ahmed insists are not clashing.
Understanding that can only be achieved through dialogue is
Ahmed’s prescription for the post-September 11th world,
and he makes no attempt to hide the fact that this book is part
of that dialogue. For example, Ahmed honors the namesake of
his current position as Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies.
Ibn Khaldun is a classic Islamic scholar who many consider to
be the “father of modern social science,” not another
terrorist or oil sheik as Ahmed wryly comments. The work of
Ibn Khaldun has provided scholars in many fields with concepts
and analyses of social cohesion that Ahmed says can be used
to define the problems of the post-September 11th world and
thus lead to workable solutions. Clearly these are beloved notions
to Ahmed the anthropologist, especially the concept of asabiyya,
which takes center stage in Islam Under Siege. Most closely
translated from Arabic as group loyalty or social cohesion,
asabiyya is the constructive effect an individual’s sense
of belonging can have in a society. From the frequency of its
use its clear that Ahmed would have us add this piece of Arabic
to our vocabulary to balance the overused jihad.
In and of itself, asabiyya is an admirable quality in society
since it embodies compassion and brotherhood. But while asabiyya
can strengthen societies through such bonds of solidarity, exaggerated
it becomes a pathological obsession with tribal loyalties that
trumps justice and balance, an affliction Ahmed terms “hyper-asabiyya”,
leading to chaos and oppression. Enter the Taliban. In a thought
Americans will find completely alien to logic, Ahmed says that
the Taliban did a fantastic job of governance because they combined
the needs and beliefs of certain villages in Afghanistan when
they first came to power. But upon moving to the larger arena
of national power, their strict interpretations of Islamic law
and uncompromising rule became oppressive and were seen to be
highly exclusive in the face of a diverse community. There was
no room for accommodation built into their rule, and as such,
they came to blows with the rest of the world over such acts
as the destruction of Buddhist statues and, secondarily, the
inhumane treatment of the Afghan people. The Taliban became
extremely defensive and oppressive as external pressures increased.
The mullahs began to look less at policies that would ensure
their own survival and more to defending policies defined in
terms of honor. Ahmed says that this tribal mentality is what
forced the Taliban to continue sheltering Osama Bin Laden in
the face of imminent destruction by the United States military.
They were not protecting Bin Laden because they were in fact
evil, but they could not give him up because their tribal code
of honor would not allow it.
This may be tough to swallow to the extent that it defies Western
sensibilities. Indeed, Ahmed’s controversial statements
offer Americans a bitter pill when he stingingly asserts that
the United States has begun to exhibit signs of hyper-asabiyya.
With a longing tone, he notes that before the fateful day of
September 11th, the United States was the most Muslim-friendly
country since Andalusia, the historic Spanish model for inter-religious
cooperation and understanding. But the new siege mentality griping
the United States since September 11th, exemplified by the restrictions
on free-speech and civil liberties that the Bush administration
has put into affect, has changed America not just for Muslims,
but for all citizens. The implied similarity between Afghanistan
and the United States is disconcerting.
Since groups displaying hyper-asabiyya necessarily do not exist
in a vacuum, and with the impact of globalization, the possibility
that small and determined groups will come to blows with the
reigning superpower is increasing. We just have to look at the
small group in Iraq called Ansar al-Islam and how much consternation
they cause the Pentagon on a daily basis. Hyper-asabiyya is
the vehicle that has driven us into what Ahmed terms the “post-honor”
world, a world where honor loses its meaning as a humanistic
goal and becomes instead “an exaggerated expression of
group loyalty defined through violence against the other.”
Compassion is lost as the other is portrayed to be cruel, a
terrorist and “knowing no honor.” This is the post-September
11th world that no one can escape, from “people living
in the supreme hegemon, the United States, to the not-yet-born
state of Palestine.”
The post-honor world is a frightening one indeed, filled with
Hobbesian anarchy only made slightly comfortably by the knowledge
that we are not the cause of the violence “they make us
do.” The problem is this works for everyone. The suicide
bomber is defending the honor of his people just as logically
as the Airforce bomber pilot. In the ensuing apocalypse, only
the most violent and hideous acts against the other will be
victorious. No longer is honor like a knight rescuing a damsel
in distress, but more like a knight who slays the dragon to
show that damsel his devotion.
So where is the hope in this apocalyptic forecast of the post-September
11th world? Besides the stories of the unsung hero and seemingly
mundane successes that pass for triumphs of the human spirit,
the core of the hope Ahmed offers lies in the final chapter,
titled “Toward a Global Paradigm.” Doubtless a call
to action affected by his diverse experience, Ahmed indicates
that the global order can be changed by inclusive, compassionate
and just thinking on the part of world leaders – and this
is best achieved through a dialogue among civilizations. He
admits that dialogue garners the least attention in the media,
and he warns that it can seem extremely futile to speak of the
small achievements of dialogue in the face of charismatic spokesmen
such as Osama Bin Laden. Nonetheless, helpful activities do
exist and are necessary to prevent a bleak human experience
filled with violence and hate. He points to people like Dr.
George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury; Jose Maria
Figures, former president of Costa Rica; and even rock star
Bono of the band U2 as playing important roles in bringing the
world together. In the post-honor world we are doomed if we
let these inspirational humanitarians play second fiddle to
fanatics like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
Ambassador Ahmed sees lack of understanding as the biggest
hurdle to overcome in bringing the world closer together, but
he should be encouraged by the warm reception he has already
received for Islam Under Siege – clearly an admirable
first step. He does not play nice with serious issues and does
not shy away from challenging the status quo in international
relations. The subtle irony of this work is that while Ahmed
is clearly aware of the ill affects of hyper-asabiyya, he falls
victim to its exclusivism and determination in the face of attacks
on the credibility of dialogue. Even as the bombs explode, he
casts Osama bin Laden and his lot out of Islam. The justice
and compassion of his progressive Islam help Ahmed to fulfill
his religious duty to serve God in spite of those who would
have his ideas destroyed. Islam Under Siege counters the calls
for violence by religious zealots in its call for dialogue as
the key to bringing peace: “The events of September 11th
appeared to push the world toward the idea of the clash of civilizations,
but they also conveyed the urgency of the call for dialogue...[it]
will be the challenge human civilization faces in the 21st century.”
On a final note, it is important to recognize that dialogue
is not a dry term suggesting a sterile exchange of views, but
rather a dynamic process that over time can build relationships
and, in turn, trust – at which point all things become
possible.
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