In
the Name of God
[The paper below was to have been presented by Dr. Soroush at a
conference in Tehran on religion and modernity. In the event,
it was read out by his son, because Dr. Soroush was told by the
authorities that 'they could not guarantee his security if he
attended the conference'.]
Threats and
restrictions prevented me from being in your auspicious midst.
The officials who are in charge of security – that is to say,
the Intelligence Ministry – were themselves the heralds of
insecurity and the bearers of threats. And I consented to the
breaking of the pitcher in order that the tavern would
remain safe. Despairing of the judiciary’s justice, with these
brief words, I refer my plaint instead to the people’s court and
to the judgment of God, so that it can be engraved in
our history that this land’s guardians were not trusty keepers
of the security that we had entrusted to them. And that they
sold our rights, learning and freedom cheaply to the wicked
practices of thugs. And that they tyrannically cast the Abraham
of virtue into the fire of vice; forced a pen to cry out a
thinker’s grievances; and blackened the white face of justice
with the dark tint of ignorance.
Whither
Religion in the Modern Age?
Tradition and
modernity are two big fallacies of our times; neither tradition
nor modernity has a single identity. Neither religion nor
history has an unchanging essence. If we maintain that any of
these has an essence, we have committed a fallacy, the sole
result of which is to muddy the waters and to impede judgment.
The question,
'What does modernity do to religion?', is an extremely confused
and confusing question, and to ask it is to fall into the
above-mentioned fallacy. First, we must unravel the question in
the manner of analytical philosophers; then, the way will be
paved to finding an answer.
Modernity has
neither a spirit nor an essence. Modernity is nothing other than
modern science, modern philosophies, modern art, modern
politics, modern economics, modern architecture and the like.
And, when we ask, What does modernity do with religion, we have
in fact mixed dozens of questions together and then called for a
single answer - which is to demand the impossible. Instead, we
must ask, What does modern science do with religion? What do
modern philosophies do with religion? What does modern politics
do with religion? And so on and so forth. And we must arrive
at a separate verdict in each of these cases. Bringing in the
tale of 'modern rationality' will not solve anything either,
since modern rationality is what we find manifested in modern
science, modern philosophy, modern morality and modern art.
Hence, we will find ourselves back where we started. Moreover,
religion does not have a single instantiation either; do we mean
Islam, Christianity, Buddhism or other religions? So, the
precise question is, for example, What does modern science do
with Islam (or with Christianity)? When we arrive at this
point, the question's scope and, of course, the answer's scope
become clear. We must look at historical experiences to see
what modern science has done to Christianity, for example. The
answer is palpable. The modern sciences destroyed or diminished
Christianity's credibility.
The quarrel
between the Church and modern science in the 15th and 16th
centuries was a fateful quarrel indeed and it forced
Christianity to become modest; to give ground and retreat into
its own sphere; to recognize its limits; to reconsider its
claims about human nature, cosmology and theology; and to begin
its coexistence with science. In a word, to become 'more
religion-like'; in other words, it moved closer to religion's
principal function, which is to regulate the internal
relationship between the Creator and His servants.
What modern
science will do with Islam is a question that falls within the
context of history and its answer is conjectural and a matter of
supposition. Muslims have not yet been tested by this trial and
they must not be too overjoyed by the fact that they have not
experienced this quarrel yet. They must contain their
Schadenfreude over Christianity's fate.
This same
quarrel between science and religion - which undermined and
weakened Christianity and the Church - paved the way to
secularism too. That is to say, the Church and religion as an
institution had no strength and backing left to remain a player
in the arena of power and politics.
Politics is a
trial of strength between the powerful and, the moment one of
the actors loses his strength and begins gasping for breath, he
will automatically disappear from the arena of power and cede
his place to another.
Secularism
neither comes nor goes on anyone's orders; it is the forcible
outcome of the strengths and weaknesses of the players in the
arena of power and this was a fate that was forced upon
Christianity.
Let us also
not forget another important event that befell Christianity;
i.e. the splitting of Christianity into Protestantism and
Catholicism at the beginning of the modern age which also played
a huge role in undermining the authority of the Church. Muslims
experienced a split of this kind at the beginning of their
history and, ever since, these two divisions - Sunnism and
Shi'ism - have more or less remained the same and caused no
further upheaval.
Modern
philosophies had almost no less of an impact than the sciences
in their conflict with religion, with this difference: science's
effects were more tangible and philosophy's effects less so.
The tyrannical atmosphere in Islamic lands never allowed a free
and natural encounter between these rivals and Islam's strength
remained unknown and untested in this arena. This produced a
delusory self-satisfaction, from which Muslims have yet to
extricate themselves.
Some
traditionalists and naive believers are still of the view that
Islamic philosophy is the unmistakable king of all the existing
philosophies and that modern philosophers are misguided peddlers
of fallacies who 'have fallen for fairytales, since they have
never seen the truth'.
The modern
politics that entered Iranian Islam through the gateway of the
constitutional movement was preceded by neither modern science
nor modern philosophy. Hence, a religion that had not had its
strengths and weaknesses tested in the battlegrounds of science
and philosophy and had not come to recognize its own limits went
into battle with politics. Is it any surprise that this
resulted in nothing other than failure, misfortune, flaws and
shortcomings? The result was neither a secular secularism nor a
theocratic theocracy. Anything that was born thereafter was a
deformed and imperfect baby that served as a lesson to the
servants of God and illustrated the saying that it is best not
to give birth at all than to give birth prematurely.
At any rate,
this author is as certain as any human being can be that Islam's
experience in the modern age will not be very different from
that of Christianity and Judaism; that is to say, totally out
of keeping with the views and efforts of the traditionalists,
who wish to see a crude and impossible return to the past - and,
of course, they wrap their aim in the garment of portentous
words and have a ringleader who, once upon a time, used to scan
the skies for signs of divine providence using a telescope set
up in the office of the Shah's wife and who, today, more
arrogant than ever, basks in the limelight of fame with the aid
of his eulogists and disciples. Yes, contrary to the views of
these traditionalists and obscurantists, if traditional Islam
fails to bring about a balanced, reason-pleasing relationship
between knowledge and identity, it will fall into the clutches
of tradition-worshippers and truth-less, knowledge-less
identity-lovers whose indiscriminate fundamentalism will wreak
indiscriminate havoc on the truth.
Christianity's
historical experience tells us that modern science, philosophy,
art, technology and politics will first suck religion into a
whirlpool of powerlessness and ineffectiveness; strip it of its
pillars of faith and experience; and unfurl before it a
parchment exhibiting all its past good and bad deeds. Then, it
will be time for the second stage; i.e. the stage of new
interpretations. And well-wishers will try to re-comprehend
their religious heritage in the light of modern human
discoveries. And they will follow the course that religion has
always followed: they will seek assistance from non-religious
presuppositions and try to adjust and adapt their
interpretations to the new conditions via the formulation of
new, reasoned opinions [ijtihad]. Then comes the third
stage: wishing to return to the purity of the past; abandoning
all these mental and theoretical exercises; basking in the
traditional heritage; harping on the wronged, lost identity;
eulogizing the past's glories; and cursing modern skills and
thinking. This return movement has an active and a passive form;
traditionalism is its passive form and fundamentalism (which may
best be described as opting for identity at the expense of
truth) is its active and aggressive form. The emergence of
heterodoxies and heresies can be considered the fourth stage of
religion's encounter with modernity.
The emergence
of new religious sects, which Christianity has experienced and
which has also had an echo in Islam in recent times, is not
unrelated to modernity's entry into the realm of religiosity.
And there has always been the fear that some heresies will be
described as reasoned opinions [ijtihad] and that some
reasoned opinions will be described as heresies.
I believe that
there is no judicious observer who has failed to detect
similarities, at least in these respects, between Christianity
and Islam.
That which is
today termed a reassessment of tradition or the reactivation of
tradition, first, has no useful meaning and, second, offers us
no clear method. Where is the sense in reassessing the ancient
natural sciences (which are one of the components of tradition)
and trying to reactivate them? And by what method are we to
proceed? And the same questions apply to the idea of
reactivating ancient philosophy. On what basis and to what end?
These are all empty, poorly thought out phrases, which flow
amongst us in great volumes today without any result other than
to stifle clear questions.
If the
intention is the activation of religious tradition, we must make
this patently clear and then to state what we mean by religion:
religion as an identity or religion as knowledge? Activating an
identity that is lacking in knowledge will only sow the seeds of
violent fundamentalism. And if it is a question of activating
religious knowledge, this can only be done in the light of
modern ideas.
It is in the
battleground of this re-comprehension and reinterpretation that
religion will demonstrate its internal strength and it is here
that it will become clear whether it will endure or fade away.
Subsequently, it will either recede into a utilitarian
religiosity, turning into one of life's many habits, or become a
source of inspiration to gnostic and experiential believers and
nourish their agile minds and souls. Although even experiential
faith will not remain safe from gnosticism's mental
callisthenics and the endless search for causes will - as
Mowlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi put it - plunge its arms into wonder's
blood and constrict the path to God.
Those who wish
to see the revival of Islamic civilization must not forget that
that civilization was a body that had a soul. And the
long-slumbering soul of Islam can only be awakened in the
battleground of knowledge. Setting our hearts on a corpulent
body and a feeble soul recalls the tale of a Solomon who,
although dead, continues to lean on a termite-eaten cane.
Peace be upon
God's capable people
Abdulkarim
Soroush
Ershad
Conference Centre
August 2006
Translated
from the Persian by Nilou Mobasser
