Emir Shakib Arslan discussed the thorniest issue in the history of the Arab – Muslim world, namely: “Why are Muslims lagging behind whereas others have progressed?” More than a century has passed, and this issue is still topical. In this context, several questions arise: Is the retardation hitting the Arab- Muslim world structural or cyclical? Isn’t Islamic fundamentalism the product of a democratic, educational and cultural failure of our society?

Is eastern despotism eternal?

A historical overview of the evolution of European societies could, perhaps, dissect this issue and draw some ideas to put an end to obstacles that hinder evolution in the Muslim Arab societies.

The scientific and philosophical progress achieved in the Western world was certainly the result of a fierce battle led by scientists and philosophers against the Church and its representations, since Galileo, Newton, passing through Descartes, Kant, Darwin, Freud and others. This struggle steered by these daring philosophers and scientists was fundamentally based on the role of science and philosophy in the representations of the world. Finally, scientific knowledge has defeated the traditional representations of the Church. Since then, the scientific and critical spirit has prevailed and the separation between Religion and the State has become accepted as a fact by western societies.

This development was also the result of the Church’s reform and the birth of Calvinism in the sixteenth century, thus paving the way to modernity and to the development of a human being freed from religious rule. Calvinism preached a new model different from that of the Old Testament, or even a new representation of the human being’s salvation. According to this model, each individual is alone with God. The sign of salvation and of divine election is no longer in the hands of the church or its representatives, but lays in the “material success”. Hence, the latter becomes a prerequisite in the name of an ethical worldview. The German sociologist Max Weber went even further by saying that there is a kind of “spiritual affinity” between the Protestant state of mind and that of the capitalism. For his part, Philippe Bernoux argues that “this famous analysis of the Protestant ethic and of the spirit of capitalism vindicates the birth of the industrial society in the form of capitalism that was its own.” In addition, Max Weber’s argument, as opposed to the Marxist analysis, has demonstrated that the religious phenomenon has preceded the economic phenomenon. Calvinism has therefore been presented as a religious model able to reconcile with modernity and science, and its contribution in the cultural change and evolution of Western society was undeniable.

The history of the evolution of these societies also shows the leading role of the Renaissance and the intellectual movement born in the eighteenth century. The latter has given birth to the idea of the social contract and the emergence of individualism. The substitution of the idea of the social contract to that of theocracy opened the way for the emergence of the modern state and the principle of citizenship. According to John Locke, the preacher of the idea of the social contract, “men join forces and are subjugated to governments in order to keep their property, acquired by work. The society was born of a harmonious combination between citizens, in the form of a contract. “

It is also certain that the industrial society in Europe was born of technical progress, but above all, of an intellectual movement and ideas that are embodied by more rational organizations. We can mention, in particular, the current of thought that has developed with industry in the nineteenth century and that praised Science. According to this current, “whatever the material consequences of advances in scientific knowledge, science remains the most efficient and most capable way of making humans happy.”

Therefore, it should be noted that these new thoughts imposed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have created a cultural, social and political change, paving the way for a new model based on science, rationality and citizens’ free choice.

Thus, a question arises: why was the Arab – Muslim world doomed to follow a different path? Certainly, our analysis does not aim at emulating the European experience, but rather to focus on the elements necessary for any development. In this context, reasoning involves the review of any significant step being at the origin of the suggested issue.

The Ottoman presence in our region as well as colonialism have certainly held back any changes necessary to the development of the Arab world for centuries. Moreover, the cutoff that occurred in the Arab-Muslim world with the scientific and philosophical heritage of El Khawarzmi, Averroes, AL Farabi, Avicenna, and Abu El Alaa El Maari, has unfortunately led to a one-dimensional interpretation of Islam and the dissemination of a culture refusing diversity and any use of rationality and science. Religious schools that thrived in early Ottoman times have inculcated the rule of religious text, hence condemning all currents that have used a philosophical and scientific discourse. Reason has no place and the rule of religious text has undermined any possibility of creating an enabling context for the development of critical and scientific thinking.

We can evoke as well another cutoff which occurred with the ideas conveyed at the time of the Renaissance and modern Islam whose leading figures were Jamal Eddin el Efghani, Abed el Rahman el Kawakibi, Rifaa Tahtawi, Muhammad Abduh, Shakib Arslan Rashid Rida and others. This cutoff has revived ignorance, close-mindedness and the denial of evolution. It was later accompanied by the emergence of totalitarianism and militarism, covered and supported for decades by the US, the Soviet bloc and the West in general.

Since these two cutoffs with the scientific and philosophical heritage in Arab and Muslim societies, responses to political and social issues are always mass-produced answers. The answers to philosophical questions such as “who am I”? and “where does the world come from”? were and continue to be religious answers. The prevailing cultural model is not far from that of the Middle -Ages and the human being is not free in his political and social choices. The ethical worldview shaped by Islam associates both religious and secular spheres forever. In addition, the cutoff with the scientific and philosophical heritage has consistently reproduced the same cultural model, thus refusing openness, scientific discourse, and rationality. The prevailing paradigm is still archaic and closed, and epistemological questions have no place in the Arab-Muslim world.

In recent years and due to the open battle between Shiites and Sunnis, the prevailing language calls for fanaticism, and for the rejection of the other and of modernity. Each religious fraction seeks its “divine order” and its ethical worldview and defends them. Religious from both sides are the masters of the political and religious scene and the boundaries between religious and secular fields are completely blurred. Religious polarization remains a central point in the societal process of both sides, so it is very difficult to consider in this context the establishment of a social contract necessary for the establishment of a modern state and the emergence of “individualism” being the basis for any freedom of choice and citizenship. We can argue that the biggest beneficiary of this cultural failure is the eastern despotism which reemerges in different forms, and that the Arab Spring has not completely managed to crack down.

At present, the sacred alliance between Bashar Assad and the mullahs of Iran represents a new model of eastern despotism that is a political-religious conjunction model. This screws every possibility of achieving social progress, forming a free citizen, and separating the political sphere from the religious one. The way is certainly open to consolidation of the role of religious in politics and the excessive use of religion in making political and social choices. It seems that the “secular Baath” is relegated to the background.

Indeed, traditional representations in the Arab –Muslim world continue to format the spirits and to convey an archaic model, unable to come to terms with modernity. Even worse, some obscurantist and fundamentalist currents, being the product of a closed culture, only apprehend Islam in a one-dimensional aspect, thus drawing definitive demarcation lines with other cultures. These closed trends are also fed by the US policy towards the Middle East and the conflation of Islam and terrorism carried by several Western countries.

Finally, I believe that the main remedy for the advancement of a real change in the Arab –Muslim world was advocated by the Egyptian sociologist Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid. In fact, he argued that “the Arab and Muslim world will only witness real progress when the power of reason will prevail over the power of the religious text.” I would add that this world will only experience real progress the day an “Eastern Calvinism ” emerges, putting an end to this extremely dangerous obscurantism, and when an educational reform will happen to form citizens with critical and scientific minds . A cultural change is needed; otherwise the Arab-Muslim world will always be facing a crisis preventing it from evolving and from bringing into being a free citizen, able to make choices and to install modern political regimes.

Many people share a bitter vision of the reality of the contemporary Middle – East and no longer believe, neither in the willingness of Westerners to help with the emergence of a new model, nor in the ability of Arab and Muslim elites and scientists to modernize the spirit of the Arab-Muslim world. Hence, do we have to look to el Azhar, el Cherif, and el Najaf in the hope of a renewed perception of Islam? Or should we wait for an Arab Kamal Ataturk?

Published on 3/9/2016 in l’orient le jour

 Lecturer at the Lebanese University*