Some Problems of Our Cultural Research

 Some Problems of Our Cultural Research

Dr. Burhan Ahmad Faruqi M.A. Ph.D. (Alig.)

The Former Principal Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies Islamic Centre Karachi

WE are a world nation, an ideological group and a party. As a nationa our sanction is Islam. As an ideological group our mission is supremacy of Islam—of God’s Revealed Law on Earth. As a party our loyalty is centred in the person of our supreme leader and Allah’s last Messenger, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ).

The sanction, the mission and the loyalty are not mere theological fundamentals, but facts of history. They have fed the streams of Islam since its very beginning.

But like the individual, every social organism is also subject to the phonomenon of decay and disease, to perversion of moral vision and distortion of the outlook on life and loss of the spirit.

Although we have, in this part of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, risen to the status of a sovereign State, yet intellectually and economically we stand bewildered and aghast. Feeling our way in the darkness of confusion and not possessing a sufficiently sharp vision, we are unescapably led to absorb the un-Islamic and anti-Islamic values (if values they could be called).

We have almost lost the consciousness of our sacred mission. We feel shy of our great heritage. We look to the West to regenerate our decadent society. Some of us go even to the extent of asserting without a blush that the law of Islam is out of date and unsuited to the requirements of modern age. Thus indirectly they are supporting our enemies who say that Islam is a “spent up force”. We are innocently forgetting the role of Islam in giving to the world a civilization which was materially at least as brilliant as the Western. And most unfortunately we are ignoring the truth that even today Islam alone is capable of creating and sustaining a civilization morally wealthy, socially sound and economically just.

The chief cause of this attitude is our moral and intellectual defeatism, which has brought about  a rift between our moral and physical existence.

Add to this the fact that no nation can thrive or survive on the basis of physical struggle alone. Beneath the surface of physical existence there must exist an idealism to impart a moral dynamism to it.

Combined with these two facts is a third one which necessitates a bond of unity between the inner foundation and the outer manifestations of a social organism. Any change in the moral world within should at once be apparent in the physical world without. With these facts in mind, what remedy can we devise to stem this rot, which has resulted more from the crisis of character than anything else?

An unbiased study of Muslim history reveals the remedy in the example of the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) whose glorious life, comprehending as it does in the most sublime way the moral and the practical, the individual and the social manifestation of unanimity is a living illustration of Islam. Indeed we can act up to Islam in no better way than by following the greatest Muslim to whom Islam was revealed. The Holy Quran emphasizes this truth in the clearest terms thus:

But nay, by thy Sustainer they will not become believers until they make thee judge of what is in dispute between them and find within themselves no dislike of that which thou decidest and submit with full submission. — (4: 65).

Verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who loaketh to Allah and Last Day and rememberth Allah much.—(33: 21).

It is this true Islam exhibited in the life of the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) in which the differences of the Ummah and the possibilities of different interpretations are reduced to the minimum, and then that is the real, Islam which can act as the source of inspiration for bringing about our moral regeneration and is the surest bulwark against all anti-Islamic influences. On this basis alone it is possible to immunize our culture and ideology against the impact of alien cultures and ideologies. And on this very basis lesson is consolidation of Pakistan possible. What was needed from the very inception of this country was to arouse a keen consciousness of the Islamic problems which face its peoples in order to solve them, for Islam is more deeply ingrained in the unconscious of the Muslim masses than is manifested on the conscious level of their Psyche. A large majority of those who demanded Pakistan, has the conviction that Islam is thoroughly workable, though a very narrow group to whose hands the political power was transferred, having lived under the direct impact of colonialism, has lost the confidence that Islam was workable and was at all capable of yielding the desirable consequences.

In order to revive this confidence it was essential that the solution of our problems should have been sought through research which could emancipate us from the mimicry of the West. Because so long as we do not fulfill this condition we can never outgrow the intellectual serfdom o the West.

The historical background in which this need of ours has originated and the socio-cultural conditions that have withheld us from seeking the solution of our problems through research must needs be analyzed without which the need of earnest thinking shall never be fulfilled.

In our society there are Muslim masses on the one side and the intellectuals on the other representing the orthodox and the modern. The loyalty of the masses is beyond all doubt, for Islam is more deeply ingrained in their unconscious than that finds expression at the conscious level. This fact is revealed at particular occasions. In every crisis and at every juncture in history there has risen a leadership up to the mark from amongst these masses which has not only felt its responsibility with all earnestness but has always fulfilled the duty that it owed to the nation, with fullest responsibility; and has adequately and successfully met the obligation towards Islam. The Muslim masses do have the urge even to lay down their lives for the sake of Islam. But in the collective life they have no consciousness of a realizable and inspiring objective. The reason for this deficiency is that they feel that they are deprived of a leadership up to their expectations. Hence the present drift. Why this crisis in leadership? The reason is that there are two groups which aspire after the leadership of Muslim masses, namely, the so-called orthodox and the so-called modern.

The so-called orthodox group cannot renounce the Islamic values, and because they have held positions of importance in the international situations in the past, they believe themselves to be a better political party and hence the rightful aspirants for the political power. But its utter incapability to hold any position in the international situation, is tantamount to preaching to the world that ‘Haq’, the truth, stands defeated and ‘Batil’,—the falsehood, has prevailed. The effect of this situation on the mind of the so-called moderns is that of utter disenchantment. Truth must prevail, they believe and that which has failed to prevail is not the Truth. They, therefore, are in a mood either to renounce Islam or to have it reinterpreted so that it might not prove a hindrance in their way while adopting the modern cultural pattern. This is a crisis for our social and cultural pattern.

The orthodox group retains its leadership only in the religious field. In other walks of life they have lost all impact; for this reason we are confronted with a socio-cultural lag.

Our most fundamental problem, therefore, is how to resolve this lag and meet this crisis.

Apparently it seems as if there are differences between the orthodox and the so-called modern, but there are many significant points which are common to both. For instance, both are, barring exceptions, over-awed by the advancement of the West; both are despaired of the future of Islam; both are devoid of any realizable inspiring objective; both are immersed in their vested interests, both are disorganized and disintegrated in their respective spheres; both of them are lacking in systematic and consequential “thought-pattern’; for both of them economic interest is the highest; for both of them economic hindrance is the greatest hindrance. According to both of them there is no relation between morality and economy, morality and politics; both are inconsistent in their professions and actions; both of them have individualistic outlook; the lives of both of them are determined by their immediate past; no member belonging to either group agrees with the other on any issue whatsoever; both of them are pitched in their conviction that whatever they are unable to do in their respective domains, is not at all essential.

Given the confusion and disintegration actually found amongst us from the viewpoint of thought and action, knowledge and faith, let us inquire if we are at all competent to face our problems? And given the attitude that we cherish towards Islam, can we successfully counteract the disintegrating impact of the materialistic culture on our lives? Can we resist the onslaught of Communism without organizing ourselves on the basis of Islam?

At present the world is torn into two extremely hostile groups equipped with the most fatal armament. Is either of the two patterns acceptable for us? Is it possible to solve our problems through our commitment as to which of the two groups we choose? And is it possible for us to give any direction to our struggle at the international level unless we know who is to what extent with us? Have we ever tried to understand the causes of the failure of our struggle in history? Is there any guarantee of our reaching the desired consequences of our efforts with indubitable certitude? Given the attitude we have towards life, can we acquit ourselves of the obligation we owe to posterity?

If the answer to every question is in the ‘negative’, let us analyze the entire situation afresh after the exact thesis, because, for the sake of a creative struggle, the assessment of the problems must be based on the analysis of historical forces, and this analysis should be sought in the light of the framework of reference without which it is not possible to interpret the forces of history.

The forces of disintegration in the present structure and pattern of Muslim society had been working continuously for a very long period. During the course of incessant changes and counter-influencing forces the Muslim society had to face the clash and contact of cultures and ideologies opposed to the original cultural mentality of the Muslims and their social order. Invariably at every clash, the Muslim society had to offer a counter-resistance which emanated from within itself as a result of the process involved in historicism, The leadership that emerged from the Muslim society has often proved somewhat equal to the task at each crisis. It, however, failed to realize what more problems would continue to arise on account of this partial success. It is necessary therefore, to meet the following questions:

What were the different elements constituting the structure of the Muslim Society?

What were the forces of disintegration the Muslim society had to encounter and since when they were at work?

What were those different alien cultures and their respective ideological bases involved therein which had the disorganizing and disintegrating influence on the Muslim society?

Having lost our political supremacy in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent what were the causes that led to drift and disintegration in religious, social, political, economic, moral, educational and intellectual fields of our national life?

Why counter-influencing efforts proved fruitless?

What new interpretation of Islamic ideology was necessary to counteract the constantly recurring forces of disintegration in the light of which advancement was possible? What were the efforts made in this direction and with what results?

What were the causes of our being deprived of the leaders and personalities required to counteract the forces of disintegration and what were the causes thereof ?

For the sake of re-orientation and reformation it is indispensable to bring about harmony consciously between knowledge and faith. And it was necessary to resolve the conflict between religions, sciences, humanities and natural sciences, in order to over-come the contradiction or polemical opposition involved in the categories of different scientific disciplines and their respective hypotheses that are adopted as valid within their restricted fields. The firm grounds to harmonies various branches of knowledge could not be discovered, because exactitude as to problems, method of inquiry, limits of the validity of various hypotheses, import of distinctive categories of thought in various disciplines could not be determined.

The changes—political, social moral and intellectual-—the impact of alien Western culture: the inefficiency of the agencies of cultural convenience hitherto robbed of their financial resources as the result of the Land Resumption Act, the confused mass of ideas communicated, consequently the blurred vision of the ideal, cultural norms, and the subsequent loss of the consciousness of the need of organized effort led to create a deadlock in the struggle of cultural advancement. This further led to create such conflicts in our socio-cultural life as cannot be traced in our past and we seem at a loss to find even a uniting l.ink in our socio-cultural order and it appears as if the historical unity is disappearing between ourselves and our past.

Under these circumstances it is necessary that the multivariant problems of our present-day society as a whole should be patiently and persistently subjected to critical analysis so as to base the efforts of national reconstruction on the foundation of the uniformity of the pattern of knowledge which is at the same time inherently compatible with Islamic faith.

To work out the problems (raised in the earlier installment of the series) the following principles must be axiomatically assumed:

1.     That in the absence of any inspiring ideal and without the consciousness of a realizable objective no organizing effort and no struggle can prove fruitful and consequential. Because without reference to any ideal neither the need of discipline and organization can be felt nor struggle can be meaningful except that it becomes synonymous with drifting and is bound to end in deviation from the original cultural pattern and its ideological base.

2.     That development and progress means only gradual advancement in the direction of the end; while retardation consists in getting farther and farther away from the ideal.

3.     The collective death consists in loss of the consciousness of ideal and want of faith in its reliability.

4.     That every successful domination leads to create certain vested interests in the dominant group who wants to preserve its interests. Success in preservation of the vested interests is proportionately determined by closing the avenues of the fulfillment of the interests of people at large and this is the process of decline and downfall.

5.     That every social order involves two conflicting and contradictory forces simultaneously working viz. (i) the creative forces of opening the avenues of common good and fulfillment of general interests and (ii) the destructive forces i.e., the forces directed to preserve the vested interests and block the avenues of the fulfillment of the common interests.

6.     That every society in its positive creative struggle has to counteract twofold negative forces viz., (i) the force of external origin and (ii) that of internal origin, and the counter-resistance on both the fronts constantly goes on. But the creative struggle can last only so long as the subversive activities within are kept under control.

7.     That no group can survive or thrive except through striving on the basis of its own ideology and as consistent with its own cultural pattern. Deviation from them alone leads to disintegration, decline and downfall.

Hence, the Muslims generally anywhere and particularly in Pakistan cannot survive after deviating from the direction of the ideal for the achievement of which Pakistan was demanded as a means. We should be vigilant and powerful enough to withhold successfully the association of the internal forces of disintegration with those of the external origin; for the downfall is accomplished only when the internal and external forces of disintegration join hands to paralyze the positive and creative struggle.

In order to grasp fully the forces of disintegration and the consequences thereof and to adequately counteract the negative forces, and to launch the struggle necessary for consolidation and development of Pakistan to its full stature it is indispensable to divide the historical process into various stages, from the period of our unquestionable political supremacy in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent, and study them in the light of the following questions:

1.     What was the structure of the Muslim society in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent and what different classes constituted the Muslim social system Whose actions and reactions affected the then existing society?

2.     What were the forces of disintegration that emanated from within the Muslim society and what were the forces of counter-action that emerged from the Muslim society itself?

3.     To what extent the forces of disintegration could be successfully counter-resisted?

4.     What were the shortcomings in the efforts of counter-resistance and what were their causes?

5.     What further problems emanated for want of adequate counter-resistance, and how did they influence the subsequent stages?

6.     What are the most vital problems of our cultural life today and what is the research methodology whereby they can be solved to bear upon the struggle for the development of Pakistan towards its full stature?

The following are the stages of the history of the Indo-Pakistani culture; they have to be studied in the light of the fore-going questions which constitute the framework of reference for the present study.

1.     From the Turkish Sultans of Delhi up to the end of the Lodi Dynasty.

2.     In the Mughal period from Akbar to Jahangir—the conflict in the Doctrine of the millennium and the struggle of Islamic revival in the second millennium.

3.     The Regin of Alamgir.

4.     Post-Alamgir era—the stage of decline.

5.     The period of the struggle of Shah Waliullah.

6.     The Fatwa of Shah Abdul Aziz of Delhi and the jihad movement.

7.     From the beginning of the influence of the British till 1857.

8.     The War of Independence of (1857) and its assessment.

9.     Since the complete domination of the British over the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent up to World War II.

10.  The Pakistan Movement and the creation of Pakistan.

11.  From the Pakistan Movement up to the Revolution of 1958.

12.  The Martial Law regime and after.