To whom shall we give Access to Our Water Holes? - Islam and international relations

Cross Currents, Wntr, 2002 by Farid Esack

How much of this fear of Muslims and of Islam by ordinary and decent non-Muslims is well founded? Much of this fear is focused on a growing tide of what is described as "Muslim fundamentalism." This is not the occasion to go into the various local and international factors responsible for this phenomenon or the inappropriateness of applying a term rooted in Christian theological developments to Islam and Muslims.

However one wants to describe it, there is a phenomenon in the world of Islam akin to what other religions experience and describe as "fundamentalism." It is a phenomenon that many do find threatening. This is a fear that is shared by numerous sensitive, open, and deeply committed Muslims--especially women--throughout the Muslim world.

Whatever its origins, much of fundamentalism is characterized by racism and misogyny. The former, in Muslim fundamentalism, is particularly marked by an intense hatred of the Jews and casually ascribes all the ills of the world -- ranging from the depletion of the ozone layer to constipation -- to Jewish conspiracies. Many Muslims will protest, "How can a Muslim hate Jews or women, given that Islam is a universalist religion that acknowledges the Jews as 'People of the Book' and given that Islam has elevated women?" As I said in the beginning, "Interpreters are people." The problem is not so much Islam, as it is Muslims who, presumably, have to give shape to its principles. There is little in our attitudes toward the other -- especially Jews and women -- to indicate that we are serious about the universality and justice of Islam. The point is not how well Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) treated women and what rights they have "under Islam." Nor is the point how badly Jews were treated in non-Muslim land s centuries or decades ago and how comparatively well they were treated in Muslim lands. The point is: what do we make of justice for women today; what do we believe of Jews today?

I am implacably opposed to fundamentalism for two reasons:

Firstly, all forms of absolutism invariably have to narrow their base. If they come for Jews today, tomorrow they will come for "heretical" Muslims; if they come for women today, they will come for beardless Muslim males tomorrow. Tolerance, ambiguity, and pluralism are not qualities one can decide to withhold from all save your own; when you deny them to others, then, inevitably, you end up denying them to your own.

Secondly, you cannot deny the worth of the other -- walk over another people--and not have your own worth diminished. A man cannot continue to oppress a woman and not himself emerge from that oppression a lesser person. Witness the psychological devastation that white racism in South Africa has caused to numerous whites, indicated by the growing number of Afrikaners who kill their entire families. Many sensitive Jewish writers have written very movingly about the way Israeli society is increasingly being dehumanized by the occupation of Palestinian Territories and the violence required to maintain it.