Overcoming Tradition and Modernity
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Overco ion and Moderni
The Search for i s amic Authenticity
Robed D. Lee Colorado College
' A Membcr d'the Pcrseus Sc~oksCroup
All rights resenred. Printed in the United States of America. No pact of this publication may be reprcltduced or kansmitted in any form or by any means, electronic tor mechanical, incltxding plwtocopy, recording, tor any information storage and retrieval system, without per~nission in writing from tlne publisher,
Copyright O 1997by Weshriew Press, A Member of the Perseus Books Grc>rrp. Publishell in 1997 in tlne United Stater; of America by Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdc>mby West-view Press, 12 Hid's Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, fifcard 0x2 9fJ
lib rat-?^ of Congress Cataloging-in-f7ubIicatic?nData Lee, Robert Deemer; 1943O\rercc~mingtraditio~~ and modernity: the search for Islamic authenticity/Robert D. Lee. p. cm, Indudes bibliograplnical referencw (p, ) and index. TSBN 0-8133-2797-0(hc),-TSBN 0-8133-27%-9 (pbk.) I. Islam-20tl1 century I. Title, &P163.L36 1997 297',W'04+lc21
97-7391 CTP
f i e paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Pemanence of Paper for F ~ n t e dLibrary Mate~als239.48-1984.
Contents
1 The Concept of Authenticity The &rush of Modernity 4 'The Z,imits of Developmental Thinkng, 7 The Critique of Orientalism, 11 The Idea of Authenticity, East and West, 13 'The Politics of Authe~~ticity; I8 Notes, 21
2 Authenticity in European Thought ParticuZariV, 26 Radicalism, 32 Autonomy; 38 UnicjQ-: Escape from Nihilism, 43 Group Action, 48 Equality 49 Instihtionalizati~n~ 50 Notes, 53 Parlciculafity 59 Unicity; 61 Autonomy; 63 Radicalism, 66 Group Actiarr, 69 Democracy, 71 74 I~~sl;ibtions, Modernity; 75 Notes, 79
4 Sayyid Qutb Radicalism: Liberation of the Self, 85 Liberation oE Society, 88 Autonomy; 91
Particulasi~,94 Unicity 98 Modernity; 100 Gralxp Action, 103 I~~sl;itutions, 106 Participation, 108 Notes, 113 A meory of Authenticity, 119 Radicalism, 120 Autonomy; 123 Particularity 125 Unicity 129 Autanmy Revisiked, 133 UnicjQ- Revisited, 136 Notes, "139
6 Mohammed Arkoun Particularity, 147 Radicalism, 151 Autonomy; 154 Unicity, 156 Modernization, l60 Equality and Group Action, 163 I~~sl;ibtions, 166 Notes, 171
7 The Elusiveness of Authenticity Particularity and Unicity, 178 Autonomy and FIistory, 18.4 Islam, Authenlricity, and Modernity 193 Notes, 194
Selected BiMiqraphy Abotk t the Book and Az-~thor fndex
Acknowledgments
For a project in gmtation nearXy tvventy years, my debts are so many and diverse I find it difficult to reconstruct them. I'm not even sure where it all started. Perhaps it was in Cairo in fall 1927, when 1 irzterviebved Egyptian leaders about tlne c m c q t of development. Then, as at several later stages, I depended upon the support of my home institution, Colorado College. As I begm to explore the cmcept of authenticity hthe early 1980s, my colleague Xmothy Fuller helped guide me toward fruieful sources. As X struggled to clarify my thoughts, Jose* Pickle a d Douglas Fox of our religion depmtment provided impo"t""t suggestions. l["eachingat a place where undergraduate education is one" foremost respms&ility I doubt I would ever have managed to complete the pr""ject without a sabbatical year and two unpaid Leaves spent in Horcnce, ltdy jean Blonde1 of the Eurczpean Universiw fnstitute and,his seminar incomparative pditics provided welcom il~tellectualstimulation. Michael Beard, also on sabbaticat, turned up in Florc3mce and o&red encouragement as well as a reading of an early version oi the Iqbal chapter, FXe later read more. I owe the Associated Colleges of the Midwest for the chmce to help direct its programs in Florence h 1991-1992, and 1 am especially indebted to Janet Goodhue Smith of the ACM, whose friendship made alZ three of those stays so enjoyable and pmductive. W e n Mohammed Arkoun asked whether I would translate his book 0uertzlut.s szlr l'lslam from French to English, I hesitated to accept the assignrnent for fear it would further delay the appearance of this book. In fact, the cdaboration with Professor Arkoun and Barbara Ellington at: Westview Pmss provided just the sort of stimuIus I needed to finish the larger pgect. I am grateful to Professor Arkom, h particular, for his judicious analysis of what I had written atrout him and for his tolermce of my questions and doubts. He tried to explain. his position without dissuading me from mine. on Omar Dhbour and J o h Rker provided much-needed counme~~ts the first tvvo chapters. Miilliam. Slneparcf went far beyond the call of duty in his close reading of tbr chapter m Sayyid Qutb. My colleagues in poiitical science at. Colorado Cotlege have all listemd to me expound my ideas on authenticity at departmental luncheons; they have always been merci-
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ful, tolerant, and insightful, It goes without saying that the remaining weahesses and defects of this book arc. not myfmefs fadt but my own. When it takes twenty years to produce a small manusesipc the suMering of a family which usually figures in such accounts, is pr&a:hly attenuated. I am nonetheless grateful to my wife, Susan A. hshley, who has read everythhg on. mare than one occasion and has embarrassed me into retthinkisrg countless ideas, m d to our sons, Williarn and Matthew, who have *rived in Italian schools and on Italian soccer fields when called upon to do so. I might have gotten this done sooller if 1 had watched less soccer over the years, but I have no regrets. I do regmt that my father, Deemer Lee, who died when I was just beginnhg to i"agine this manuscript, did not live to see it coqleted- PubIi&er of a smalf-tom newspaper, he always thought 1should be a writer, not a college teacher, cmstrait-ted on a daity basis to what he regarded as the mu& Iess satisfactory realm cd verbat comunication. X 1 I have written in a clear and strai&tfrtrward way about complicated matters, same of the credit surely goes to him and the early encouragement he gave me. If I have failed to do that, X guess it will show that hc. was right &out the klxzzy-headedness of academics,
Robert D. Lee Colorado Springs
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The Concep
"AUTf-IENTXCfTU" HAS BEGUN TO RNAL "UEVELOI"MENT" as a key to understandiq the pditicaf aspirations of the non-Western wortd. In the 19470s and 1,970~~ the new states of Afrjca m d Asia kvmted more capital, more schools, better communications facilities, more industry, more transfer of technology-mo~ of those things lieemed essential to an irnitation of the Western pattern of economic development, Wstem theories of modernization both described these demands and fostered them, But the Irmian Revolution of 1978-497C) dimfnished the flausihility of developmetnt theory and practice as a universal phenomenon. Developmetnt became suspect for its origixls in the Mst, its devastating social consequences, its inability to deiiver long-promised doses of well-being, and its indifferctnce to cult-ud distinctions In many places besides Iran, the demand for develupment lost ground to t h cry for authenticity. In its most generic sense, individual authenticity means tbat I as a gerson should be who I am and not someone else, I should not follow external recipes for ethical behavjor and success but should be guided, by the " ermost instincts oE my being. By extension, societies must collectively set agendas that reflect not the theories of intematio~nalplanning agencies but the cultwal heritage of their own peoples, They must be true to themselves, even if this means .revolt against the world-yoking rationality of social engineers. Peoples must f-dshio~~ their okm political, economic, and social systems to fit their w n culhrre. Such a notion of cuitufal authenticity can, hwever, conflict with the freedom of choice implied by individual authcnticitv, Individual aulhcnticiv =quires radical rejection of external standards, whether these be the
product of cultural tradition or modernity, the logic oi Aristotle or the rationaiity of Islamic establishment, the dictates of parental guidance or the conve~~tions of high society Authenticity elevates the importmce of particular ciscumstances of time, place, and culturc in explaining identity My authentic being depends u p m my family my language, my ~ l i g i o n , my place on the map, and my position in the Aow of history All these &Etors precede the consciousness of the Cartesim cogito. The particular cont a t from which I derive my originality is itself the product of past human action and creativity. TT lead an aut:hentic life means to be fsee to fasfnion my own world and therefore to crcate mysellf from the context I am dealt, w i t b u t eifher denying my ertistentiai condition m being =signed to it. 'The authenticl sclf is necessarily uniqtze; no t w persms share exactly the same presence in the world. Does not uniqueness necessarib imply radical disjmction from all other human beings? Unless I c m feel at one with others who share my context and particdaity, how can I construct a y Would a world inwhich all human bewmld that I recognj.ze as ~ l own? ings strive to live authentic lives he a world of multiple particularities locked in perpetual connictUff:the drive for authmticity is itself universal, can one imagine a set oE minimally constraining circumstances in which multiple versions of authenticity could cwxist without war? Does the idea of authenticity contain withi,n it not just the promise of enhanced consciousness of difference but also the potential for a level of c o m o n d ity in the slrbstrata of existential diwersity? Most advocates of authenticity, although they reject Cartesim rationality; suggest the existence of a mystical human bond deep beneath the surface oi things, but they differ on boMi and when such a bond may assert itself. Most contemporary Middfe Eastern advtntlates of authenticity suggest the possibility of moving from individual to culturaX authenticity as a foundation fur group action. By intensifying the b q e o n i n g Islamir interest in autbenticiw the Iranian Revolution of 197S1.979 affected politics in atmost evev other Middle Eastern country. Most radical groups, includhg the assiassjxzs of hwar al-Sadat, have couched their demands in the language of Islam1 and have become h o k m as "fundmentdists" or "I~lallfists.'~2 Such groups have captur~dthe word 'asala (authenticity) and have made the term. anathema to some of their mom secularized, devebpment-oriented opponents. 'The word "'authenticity" has thus temded to becom identified hvith efforts to establish IsZamic gave ents and societies In the Middle East, In the rninds of many scholars and laymen, both h the Middle East and the West, cultural au"centicity has became synonymous with reaction and fanaticism, Yet the debate about Idam in Middte East politics is only one part of a larger discussion of authenticity that began two cent-uries ago in the Mrcst.Ulthough this stu* will focus on four efforts to understand au-
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thenticiw in Islamic term;, it seeks to place these efforts in the context of a debate about authenticity that began with Jean-Jacques Rousseau; rim through Friedrich Nietzsche, fohmn von Herder, Martin Heidegger, JeanPaul Sartre, A.ntoni.0 Gramsci, Frmtz Fanon, Aim4 C&saire,LGupold Senghor, and fulius Nyerere; and led cfi~ctlyto the work of Charles 'faylor." recent outpouring of literaturt." shows that any effort to dismiss authentjcity as the exclusive preserve of Islamists, however much they would welcome the identificatim, would be wrong. In the 'Third World., the demand fnr autl-\entieit.y=fleets the failure of a developmentalism that arose to cure the faults of colonjalism, of a liberalism that was suppclsed to accompmy development, and of a modernism that purpmtcd to providC ChC irrefz~tablelogic upon which colonialism, developmentalism, and liberalism were based. Wet the quest for a w n ticity also seeks to escape the dilemmas of subjectivism, relativism, and meaninglessi~essthat: are d e n lkked to postmodern vi,stas on huntan dfairs. Advocates of authenticity assert the existence of a standard agajnst wfiich attibdes and behavicrr can be evaIuated. They assert the possibiMy of"freely chose11 norms to =place the externaX m m derived from the domjnant perspective of Western civilization. The search for authenticity, while dedicated to the destmction of modem impediments to hurnan Mf i h c n t , is equally colnxnitted to a program of reconstruct.ion and refoundjng. It is a search for new, more robust, more legitimate foundations. The Middle East just happens to be an area of the world where foundations-the remnants of calonialism, a ~ricariousliberalism, a smattering of maverick socidism, a stagnant Islamic tradition, a fractured set of ethnic Ictyalties--have been shaky and legitimacy in short supply* 'The purst1j.t of authenticity has gathered momentunt as a product of both concrete circumstances of dissatisfaction with modernization and an intefiectud critique of development and 1i:berdism. C m this radical $iscontent be transformed into institutions Iegitimt-ed by che seal of authenticity? Must one assume that such institutions would be illiberal and wlruld pursue policies diametrically opposed to those linked to developmentalism? The develnpmernt of the h e market: system appears to be pu%lingthe world closer together. Do the politics of authenticity necessarily imply a cmtrary tendmcy toward fragmentation into more and more heterogeneous cufttlral p u p s , h i c h have less and less in common? Does a world in search of authenticity c ~ a t intolerant e natimalisms, oppressiwe majorities, or even a "clash of civilizations," as Samuel Hunt@t m has argued?&Or does it portend a coming together on new fotmdations as the cmtext of authenticity itself expands toward. tmiversality? Which versions of authc.ntic thought can be most plausibly reconciled with Iberd clemocracy, with international tranquaity? These are some of the questions this study will address.
These are questions whose contemporary relevance is particularly acute in the Middle East. An early proponent of authenticit?i,MtIhammad Iqbal, the Indian poet-philosopher of the early twentieth c e n t q who is widely regarded as the intellectual father of modem Pakstan, sought to discover what was authentically Eastern about hhnself m d his society, as distinguished from the forces of Western civilization he felt pressing h upon him. This book focuses primarily on the work of Iqbai, together with that of Sayyid @tb, tbe Egyptian Islamist hung by Garnal kabd al&sir in l966 for his denul-rciation ol the E~jyptianregime; 'Ali Shari'ati, the Iranian radjcai Islamist popukizer who died before the revolution began; and Mohammed Aritcrun, the Mgerian Berber Mlho is prcrfessor e ~ ~ e r i t of u sIslamic thought at the %rbo~zne.'They all drew upon the el" forts of Western thinkers to move beymd the predominant Western mode of fiinking. 'f'hey describe a world so deeply ma+ked by Westernization that the restoratio~zof the status quo ante is unthinkable. All ob~ectto a dualistic portrait of the world: a modtlm, dynamic West, on the one hand, opposed to an East steeped in unchanging rc-rligiclus tradition, m the otker-a caricature dear to Orientalists (at least according to Edward Said) and to root-and-branch modernizers but not an irnage congenial to the search for authenticity. The question of authenticiq emerges in a world where modernization has shady become so generdi,zecl. that the choice between East and Wst, traditional and modem, has already been fortrclosed. The questim is one of being modem in a way :l can call ""my own,'hnd it is a questio~zthat affects both West m d East.
The Onrush of Modernity Potitical historians treat the ""modern period" in E~uropemhistory as being with the rise of national states in the sixteenth and sevmtemth crcrzknries. The mndern European economy, cvith 2s origins in the revival of cities in the medieval period and t h Scientific Revolution of the Renaissance, grew rapid@ in the eighternth and early nineteenth centuries as a result- of the fndztstrial Revolulion. It w s only in the wake of Ihe Fre~-rch Revolution, the development of poli.tical parties in the fledgling United States, and the English reforms of the n-tid-nineteenth century that the modem p&ty began to take shape. 'The erosi.on of "'traditional" Eurqean society, anchored by the Roman CatJnolic Church, accelerated during the eighteenth and ni~~eteenth centuries under the forces of urbanization, mass educmtio~z,improved cmmwzication, m d Enlighte~zment& h h g . The force of modern European civilization carried into the Arsrericas and then into the rest of the world m a wave of imperialism. Napaleonfs conquest of Egypt h 1798 symbolized European power but, mare important, propelled Egypt and the Mid.dle East toward wide-scak social, eco-
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nomic, and political changes. The Ottoman Empire, impressed with E m pean military power, had already begun tentatiwe efforts to modernize its army. 'Then Muhmrnad %li in Egypt, profiting from the pokver vacuum left by French withdrawal, launched an ambitious program of irnitatke industrial, military and educational refom. The rush toward modernity understood as the European way of life had begun and would not relent, both because the European powers sought economic and political advantage and because locaf statesmen and potentates sought to promote iheir own power and hterests either in cooperation with the Europeans or h opposition to them. The ""lraclitimal" way of life based on agd.cultm, nomadism, and crafts, on landed and military elites, and m the centrality of popular religion began to erode, as had ""traditional" "rapem society a century or more before. Resistance i17 the m e of ""traditionfflargely died with the nineteenth century. Uprisings mder the banner of tribal alliance, as with 'Abd aXQadir inAlgeria, or in the name of Islam, as with the Mahdjyya in the Sudan or the Sanusiyya in Libya, dumbfounded Europeans and delayed ihe onrush of modernity but did not block the spread of European imperidism. By the turn of the twentieth centuryr the power of the Vieux Turbans-those nostalgic for pre-European society-had already become marginal in most of the Middle East, h1 Iran, when the shah invited a foreign company to manage tobacco sales and exports, th pmtests oi indignation came as much from modernists, such as merchants of the bazaar &ended by the t h a t to their business or inteuectuals scandalized by the exercjse of despotic power, as from t h s e u l m a who were willing to play politics and defend a way of life. In fact, ihe actions of those ulcma choosing to play activist roles rather than to follow the Shi'a tradition of poliical passivity (i.e., waiting for the return of the hidden Inram) m y provide the best testimoy of the degree to which the maintenance of tradition had already been coqromised. The social changes rcsulthg either directly or indirectly Irom the projecticm of European power destroyed tradition, if tradition is understood to man a lifestyle characteristic of an era before the advent of the Europeans. Life in eighteenth-century Egypt differed, of course, from patterns of living only a cenbry b e f m and certainly from those of the Fatimid Caliphate or those in Egypt at the moment of the Islamic invasion. Nowhere was "tradition" uu.chang.ing, nor was it utterly given to religious rather ihan swular log*, entirdy diffuse fn its &location of roles rather than differcntiatcd, completely particularistic in its orientati,on rather than tmiversal, or wholly ascriptive rather than achievement oriented in distributing social rdes.7 Nor should ""tradition"' in this sense be conftxsed with the Islamic ftrrgf-h,a term often translated as "tradition" and used to mean the entirety of the Islamic experience; contemporary
Arab thinkers, in.cluding Hasan Hanafi of Egypt, have used the term. tzcrgkh to ~ p r e s mat concept of an evolving religious tradition prescribfng norms but not necessarily refledhg words recorded in archives or practices ingrahed in daily life; it is constantly undcr constmction." The proponents of f~lraihhave been seeking to liberate Islam from dependence on the hadith, the so-called "traditions" or sayi~lgwofthe propht Muhammad and his close compani.ms, They also wish to avoid linkhg Islam to tbe traditional way of life h1 a particuIar place and time no doubt by mny such as eightee~~th-cezztury Egypt. Rather, irnflue~~ced of the writings analyzed in this volume, scholars such as Hanafi and Mohammad al-fabiri of Morocco seek to defh~ean ""authentic" Islamic tradition (tzlrallz) that: has little to do with "tradition" in the sense of a preEurt>yean lifestyle. That pre-Ewoyean "tradition"' continues to recede toward the margins; the erosions of tradition in the last thirty years, whether one loaks at Egypt, Iran, U e ~ ~ eAlgeria, n, or Kuwait, may have been as devastating as the prcvious 150 years. Rupert Emersm argued that the last word on European imperidism, once national independe~lcehad been achicved everywhere, would be that it had carried the benefits of Western civilhation to the rest of the world. A plausible case can . . . be made for the propc~sititic~n that the futuw will lank back upon the owerseas imperialism of recent centuries, Iess in terms of its than as the instrument sins of clppressic~n,exploitation, and discrirn;ina"tic~n, by which the spiritual, scientific and material revolution which began in Western Eurc~pewith the Renaissance was spread tcr the rest of the tzrorld.9
In the long rm-r his prediction may provc c o r ~ c tbut , thus far, the benefits, however real if measured by such standards as economic productivity general heaitjh of thr population, and literacy rates, must be balanced against hewy costs..Radical disjuncture between old ways and new, &gmentation of lives and of iamilies, dependence of villages on central cities and of centrai cities on fnrkgn models, radical ilnequalities between elites prepared to proit from the new circulnstmces and Chose not yet favored in the development process, marginality of traditional d n m i t y ethnic group" the new natictn-states, pofitical insthitity or pditical authoritarianism produced by iwitutional incapacity to respond to mushrooming demands, a sense of psychological alienation from traditional lifestyles (on the part of the young, the educated, the favored) and new pat-Eerm Of behavior (by the old, the xninorities, the cot~~~trysid,e)-sach are the costs, and the list could be extended, Most analysts of the Iranian Revolution see the forced pace of modernization, followed by a slowdown in the late 197Os, as responsible for producing dislocations, inequities, and disorientation that cmtributed to the regime" vulner&ility.
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Similarly, modernization appears to have widened rifts in Algerian society and to have cmtri:buted to the political insthility of that cour7try.l"" The nationalist elites that assumed power in the postcolonial era did not succeed in harnessing t:he forces of modernization. Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Libya eventualIy embraced farms of Arab Socialism, which was s~pposedto produce modernisln in a fashion consistent wjth Arab customs and traditions, but the irnpuXses of alf these regimes we= fmdamentalty secularizing, bureaucratic, and authoritarian, None of them paid much more than lil, service to Idam, and none achieved the degree of economic: and social progress, much less the sort of liberal d e m ~ r a c ythat Westernized e%iteshad expected. 7'he Arab defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967 si.gnaled the failure of the progressive Arab states and opened the door to fresh demands for authenticity. 'f'he cry for authrnticity does not usuaIfy reflect a wish to halt the spread of modernity and restore a tradition& society that disappeared lmg ago. Rather, it wants the tiger tarned; it seeks a moderniv rendered less arbitrary, less vicirrus, more comprehensible, and above all, m m productive of lifestyles people would recog~~ize as spiritunlfy as well as materiatly satisfying. At the popular level, the demand for authenticity constitutes a response to a set of social conditions pmduced by the onrush of modernity that has encoqassed the globe in the last century. On an intellectual level, it is also a rejojnder to the ideas upon which modernizaticm policies have been founded.
The Limits of Developmental Thinking Modernization theory ever shce Marx and Weber has assumed a singlie model of historical cbange based on rational access to objective knowledge and '%e-magiaicaticm of the world."lj Daniel Lemer, working from one of the first exmples of survey research to touch the Third WorM, posited critical psychological changes linked to improving communication as key to the transformation toward rnociemity.lW. W. Rostow wrote about stages of economic growth; his "Non-Communist Manifesto" "suggested that increased world prosperity would, B la Seymour Martin Lipset, increase the pmibahility that democratic political arrangemmts kvollid O C C U , C ~Karl ~ Deutsch proposed indices of sncial mObiliza" tion to chart the course of social change to faciiitate broad comparisons,l" Samuel Hunthgtm added his caveat that social modernization might actually tend to genemte po:[itical instabifity inthe short run; the emergence of democracy could be expected only in a more distant future-after hterludes of authoritarianism, under which institutions could be stretngthened.fi Dependence theorists took exception to such generalizations but added one of their own: that only nation-states free of depen-
dence on the external world could achieve genuine development. Yet these fiemists offercrd no challenge to the notion that development is a universal process, marked by increasing economic productivity; social mobility, and political participation,lh Autonomous states woulld. necessarily choose this one and only pmcess. To be sure, mmy scholars sought to show why different cztlttztres might respond in different fashian to the pressures of modernization, Peoples with hierarchicai authority structums in tribe and family would be in a position to decree a pctlicy of modernization. Those cult~trcsmrked by a lack of overarching political autltorityI such as the segmentary cultures of precolonial North Africa, might, however, be affected more slowiy tban those in which cerntralized institutions had adopted and promulgated change. But the segmentay societies, with less centralized capacity for resistance, might adapt to change m r e easily tlighly fragmented states might find nati.ctn-bu.ildingdifficdt but %hi find democracy somwhat easier to im.plernent than countries where a single ethnic group dominated political ix1stitutions.17 Peoples with high quotients of Protestant values bufjed in their chiidrcn's literatwe might respornd more qllickly to the incentives of the market system.lUAll these observations suggest &at culhlre canditicmed, ~ t a r d e dor accelerated, and bent or shaped but did not di,vert the process of modernization from its fundamental c0urse.1~ Man
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or just to ckan water? How much of what sort of educat-ion is enough to meet "basic needs'? Even the basic needs agprcrach, as m effort tcr limit the universd prescriptiveness of development theory to the lowest: common denominator of policy, foundered on the realiv of cultural diversity. Mihat mi@t be termed the democratic strain in development theory sought to accommodate &ersit); by arguing that develupment is self;dcvelopmnt and therefore reflects whatever a group of people perceives as beneficial. At a Middle East Instihtte conference m development in 1963, Chester Bocvlcs, undersemtary of state and then mbassadnr to India in the Kennedy administration, said: "The only realistic program we can promise with any hope of success is the fundamental one of helping people to help themselves evdve something they are willing to deknd themselves."= Wiitiam H. Lewis, a historian of Africa then serving in the Department of State" Bureau of &search and Analysis, in talkhg about nor'thern .Africa, argued for developmelrt planning that would begin at the village level. The key questions, more pressing for him than which projects should be undertakm, we=: "((l) Who shouid establish the priorities? (2) Who is to decide what is of value in a people's traditions? (3) What means-suasim, coercion, etc.-tihould. be applied in pursuit of moder,ity?'"z Merely posing such questions impies that development might mean different things jn different countries or ever3 in different regions of the same country, The democratic strain fn development t h h h g resurfaced at another Middle East Institute conference on development thirteen years later, in 1976, Afif 7: Tmnous, consultmt on Middle Eastern development for the U.S. Dclparment of Agriculture, catled for beginnhg development based on bowledge of the "expressed needs" of the people. "We must begin with what they want to be done," h said. The planning process must be turned upside down." At the extrme, such thinking suggests there is no univcrsaf,definition of development, h community might decide to "develop" by fforgoilrg new roads, sticking with @rknic schools, rejecting state help with jn"igation, and pmferring impvement of the public water supply over a system that would pipe water into houses. It rnighl choose to protect patterns of family, religious, and community life by forgoi~~ the g lure of materid itnprovemmt. 'The improbhility of ~ L E aC scenario ~ betrays the weahess and even hypocrisy in the democratic strah. Most communi.tiies had. no mechani.sm for choice: effective mayors, city councils, leaders of stature, or even persons s~~fliciently sophisticated to articulate options and project consequences. (Even highly trained social scientists have proved incapable of fortrseeing consequences.) Where political s t r u c t u ~ n-tight s have permitted cSloice and action, the structures were s c a ~ e l ydemocratic. Illitemcy made participatory democracy unknown and.unthinkable, EIites in capi-
tal cities could always, therefore, act in the n m e of "the people," over and against h a l notatrles, who might be ciaiming to protect &eir communities.24 National elites therefore make choices for the natio~~. Traiined in the ways of Western social science, they have confidence in their superior knowledge of national m d international circumstances and their capacity for judgme~~t; their conceptions of developrrrent coincide quite broadly with the very universal models the "democratic strain"' would seek to undercut. Even the notion of people making t-heir own choices in democratic fashion reflects the idea that participation is m element in the syndrome of traits we regard as modern. 7b suggest that people must choose is already to presuypose that they would Westernize. Development that was, by hypothesis, potentially different fnr every culture tumed out to be surprisistgly unifom and thoroughly Western in inspiration,even though a&ocates could not agree precisely on t-he set of ideals that should shape it. Ever since revolution shook Yemen in the 1 9 6 0 ~all~ Middle Eastern governments have embraced modernization, understood to mem economic growth and social mabilization, whether they called themselves sociatists or capitalists, liberaIs or monarchists. In addition, the reyublican regimes have al embraced the concept of popular sovereignty. All states have, in some measure, invoked development. theory to legitimate their policies, thereby endorshg widespread socid change. They have sometimes =aped the benefits but, more hyumtly, especfafiy im the Esource-poor cottntries, have s u f f e ~ dfrom their own inability to produce the ""god life" as defined in the West on a timetable of their own makhg. Developmcmtalism has only rarely been able to deliver the goods in sufficrient qumtities to persuadc people to overlook increasing inequities, corruption at the fiiigJlcst levels, hypocrisy about adherence to democratic ideals, a d general feelings of dislocation and alienation.2" The socialist regimes that: emerged in the I%Os carried the greatest hopes of the modernizers and turned out to be the greatest disapp0in.tments. The Nasirist commiment to Arab Socialism changed the conditions of liSe in much of rusai Egypt but it also generated an indicientstate sector managed by an autocratic political elite that brought the country near to economic ntin in 1967, when the Israelis completed t-he wi& a military blow Socialism in newly indepeneconomic devastatio~~ dent Algeria floundered in, both the agl.icultural and industrial sectors under the tutelage of an idedogical, secular elite. In Syria and Iraq, t-he Ra"ath Party promised commitinent both to Arab nationalism and Arab Socialiism but, despite some notable economic achievements, delivered exmgles of separate national development under highly autocratic regimes. The Israeli victory over Egypt, Jordm, and Syria h 1967 constituted visible evidence for many In the Arab world that Arab nationalism
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(the Unikcd Arab Republic, Ba'athism, as well as individual nationalisms) and Arab Sociatism were unequat to the task of supplying economic progress, soeial mobilization, and participatory politics. Not surprisingly; the resp0~lsibilit.yfor confrontatjon with Israel slni.fted to the Palestinian gumrilla groups, and the groups evoking "'authmticity'" began to gain support in the hternal po:liti,cs of Arab countries, Althoutgh Turkey has moved. hdtingly toward more democratic political arrangements and Israel meets many of the criteria for labeling it a "liberd demcracy" most Middfe Eastern cotlnt.rjeshave responded wiCh the maintenance or even accentuation of autocracy. The monarchies, w h e development ~ theory has been combined with indigenous formulas for governing-embracing and denying theory at one and the s m e time-have proved stable despite what Huntington called the "king's dilemmaM":6They must modernize but must not let modern ideas reach the politieai realm, if they wish to rctain their powr, Journalists and academics consistently marvel at these regimes for their abili.ty to survive debased in modemization theory; hypcrthetically, tbey spite preciictia~~s ought to have disintegrated long ago. The cry for authenticity arises not just because social chmge has swept the n i r d World and p d u c e d dislocation and atienation along with benefits but also because Ibe trheories that justify and legitimate such change have not provided solutions that take culture seriously Where these has been success, it has come despite t;heory rather than because af it. That is, developmer~ttheory itself has not provided helpfwl notions of what it w d d mean for a country to develop in ways adapted to its own culture. The impulse toward authenticity among Middle Eastern intellectuals stems h considerable measure from their dissatisfaction with mainstream developmnt theory propounded by generalists, The twenty-year-old debate about eientalism has served not just to crystallize this dissatisfaction bat to extend the category of villains to hclude the stude~~ts of culture, the area specidists, the so-called Orientalists.
The Critique of Orientalism Western scholars of thr Middle East have necessarily approached the object of their study b m the cultufal and philosophical matrix of"Wrsstecn civilization, This is but a tmism, fn the lljneteenth ccntury their penchant for philology clearly reflected the long-startding Western interest in texts. Equipped with bowiedge of languages, such as Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Persian, they discovered civilimtims they saw as striking@different from their own, AS Edwmd Said has argued, their writings portrayed an Orient of their own making: mystical, sensual, timeless, despotic, exotic, eloquent, hospitable, glamorous, arational, and utterly
un-European." OOslcntalism, according to Said, magnified the gulf between East and West, a gulf only Orientaiists themselves could briclge. Akbar S. Ahmed has written: In the very premise of orientalism something central and indispensable is absent: it is the notion of a cornman universal humanity embracing people everywhere irrespective of colour and creed. By denying a common humanity orientalism corrodes the spirit and damages the soul, thus preventing a complete appreciation or knowledge of other people. In this light orientalism is either cultural schizophrenxa or a complex form of racism.28
Orientalists were hterpreters of East to West, but hcreashgly they also becom i n t e v ~ t e r of s the East to itself, as Middle Easterners studyEng in Europe absorbed European methodology and fie philosophies in which it was embcdcfcd. 'The Orient's contapwary telndcncy to glorify its past and to denigrate its current condition rclflects, in part, the work of _the015entalists, in disseding Orientalism, Said attacked not just the methodologies of Western social science but its epistemological foundations. Only by assumiztg the existence of an observable truth accessible to a m h d unaffected by cultural origins couXd the C)rienta,list presume to descrihie the East hobjective fashion, To mderstand the "essence" of Islamic civilizaticm fie mind must be capable of xizing the essence of things, their nature and their purpose. (Said calls Orientalism a '"tatic system of 'synchronic essentiali.sm.'"""Y)But Western thougtnt since Kant, and especiaw since Nietzsche, has become more and more skepticai of the human capacity to h o w someirhing in essentialist fashion either through reason or observation. For Said, Orientalism represented an effort by the West to master the East intellectually firout;h the application of logic and reason, in order to discover the essence of Islamic civilization. The Western analysts drew u p m the work of Muslim mdievalists to substantiate their vision of a religiously dominated society, to lay out a ccherent: picture of Islam as a way of life.Jqfn dojng so, Orientalism mated m irnn cage in which Muslims found themselves imprimmd, The West spwned both Orientalism a d its (implicit) critics. Kant had already cast douht 011 the jbility of the mind to know the esse~nccof any external object; Jsllarnic civilization Obviously constituted such an object, albeit a complicated one. Rousseau had seen the dangers of reason; in Jzrlie, ou ttr Noaue11fl Hklofsi" he portrayed the herohe, Julie, as trapped in a semi-utopian life that was entirely masonable, but uttmly stagnant, unfeeliw, unbearable. Nietzsche moved beyond Rousseau"s romanticism to denounce in more gerneral fashion the c0nstraint.s of: Western logocen-
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trism. The cry for authenticity stemmed, in part, from. those like Nietzsche and busseau who w o d d escape the straitjacket of tradgicln botstered by dt?ductivewason applied huniversalistic, historic fashion..By borrowing from Niettzsche and portrayjng fiientalism as an enterprise in m y t h m a h t ; rather than scitlnce, Said unwittingly served the cause of those who would challenge European htelledual and political mastery of the East in the n a m of authenticity. Said's attack on an essentialism undery, ed by the tyrmny of Western rclason may go too far, however, to permit a coslccpt of authentici?. If Urientalism is djsmissed as mythmakhg, mi&t not the work of Islamic schotars-and, indeed, of anyone who q g e " s that ideas have vahljity beyond the time and place of their origin-be disntissed for analogous disregard of history? Or would Said be willing to accord greater truth value to the mythmaking of Islamic scholars who openly embrace rwelation as a source?sl If Orientalists have failed not for lack of ho~~est, even sympathetic, effort but far their cdtural origins and place in histor)., does this mean that a schofar situated in Cairo today is any better placed to m derstmd what is essential to Egyptian Islam? C>r does Said's analysis suggest the i ~ o s s i b i l i t yof any essential, fuundationaf point of rclference? Aid if this is so, then what would it mean to speak of any idea, practice, or belief as authentically Egyptian or Islamic? The advcxates of authenticity seek to estabfish a secure identity for those whose political, economic, and inte1kch;lal life has fallen mder the sway of the West. Said" critir;lue of Orientalism, helpful in liberating the East from a stdtifying essent-idism and from rationalist, Western development theory, threatens to swamp it with a Q~oroughlysecularist, social-scientific postmodernism. The demand for aulhenticiiy represents a desirts to break with essentialist notions of truth, both traditional and modern, but nut a willingness to part with the notion of truth altogether.
The Idea of Authenticity, East and West n o s e who have nurtured the idea of authenticity in both East and West, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Charles Taylor and from Nuhammad Iqbal to Mohammed iarkoun, have helped to define the boundary between what we have come to term, the modern and the postmodern. All have criticized moderniy fur its uniformit.y, impersonality, superfjciality, commercialism, self-i~~terested individualism, and infatuation with technology. R e y see hmanism gone awry in its faim to understand l.he historical circurnstances in which humanism developed. As moderns, they see human beings as peculiar products of their circurnstances and pmhmcers of their own history, but they stop short of a verdict that hu-
man beings may be utterly separate, incoherent objects ina world that defhes them, driven to malie choices for which they find verification cmly in myths of thcir own makiag. The advocates of authenticity I have studied renounce the project of universdly accepted foundations but: seek to refound the human experience on a deeper, i~~ner, nonrational snurce, which the individual sees as ""authentic." They search for what "we" arc, as opposed to what '6they'r wodd want us to be. rlhe advocates of aMhenticity seek escape from the imprisonjng logic of modernity without losing all restraint and succmmbing to what they fear: postmodemist subjectivism and relativism. The truth they seek must he recognizable not just as "my m f " f o r then it might well be sub~edivist) but as something that ties me to other human beings and gives us some ground upon wh.ich to build a lifrr together anchored in legitimate instibtions, To do that we must have some basis for common bowledge. The quest for authent-icity has taken both secular and relighus forms. Aim4 Cesaire, the French dramatist-poet and politicim from Marthive, and tkopold Senghor, the poet-president of Senegal from 1960-W81, looked to a concept of nkgrltulilr that depended upon culture but not faith, ?"he African Socialism of Julius N y erere sought to build upon commmaiitics of traditio~zacross e h i c and religious boundaries, but liberation theology as expounded by Gustavo Gutkrrez and otlners, sought to define an "authentic,"' revoluticmary Christianity withh tbr Catholic tradition to enable Latin Americans to "be themehes" and escape external constraints, including those imposed by the Cathulic Church. Within Europe, Kierkegaard proposed a version of rcc.lit;ious authenticity but Rousseau, Nietzsche, Weidegger, and Sartre, all proponents of authent.idty in one fashion or another, looked beyond religious definitions of the sacred. All proposed that to be regarded as authentic, action must reflect not universal moral judgments but-inciividual choice within concrcte circmstmccs, In the Middle East, radical Islamists have come to domhate the conversation about authenticity. Like the propments of liberaticm theology. they look to the past to di,scover an lslarn they cnnsider '%uthent.icM-thisworldly, action oriented, conscious of circumstanc an Islam they invoke s a i n s t existhg politicai authorities, s a i n s t the liwing tradition of Islarn, and against ordhary citizens, most of whom consid,er themselves Muslirn.. This propensiw for intolerance causes Mohammed Arkoun to dissociate himself from the tern ""authenticity,'"but in fact hc,too, is engaged in the process of attempting to find a bedrock of truth upon which institutions can be built, For him, Muslims can find themselves by ronsidering the totality of their historical experience, rather than just one s k m d of it, and by thinkjng of the ways in which that hist.orical experience ljnks
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them to Judaism and Christimity and, hence, to the Western world. The search fm authentic Islam leads him beyond religion to the context fn which religion becornes a defining aspect of the self, Arkorln seeks to avoid the secularism of modern Western thought, with its underlying contempt for religion, and the exclusivist claims of Islarnist g m u p w h o would harness Islam. for their own pctlitical purposes. 1 see Arkoun as a theorist of authenticity because he, like the Islamists, seeks not merely to d culcontest the Western effort to define hunlan hehgs without ~ g a r fur tural norms and particularities but to reestablish fotrndations. Like other proponents of autl~enticitybe critiques the foundations of modernity, but then, rejecting postmodern clailns about the impossibiliv of objective howledge, he seek more limited, experiential bases on which to build.32 Authmtic thought as :I have understood it from the Western tradition and from Iqbal, Qutb, Shari"ati, and Arkoun may then be said to share the faliowi,ng characteristics: 1. It begins from a concept of the self as ranique. Human beislgs arc not first and foremost mind and consciousness but flesh and blood, born into particular families in particular social circumstmces. Authesztic thought starts from the assumption that h m a n bQngs have nothhg in common except the fact of their utter diwersity. Yet it is assumed that there is something called the "'self" @(Iqbal"smost falnous book is Secrets of the S e e 3 3 Charlcs Taylor has written Sources uf" the Sey"")hat seeks by making chokes to distinguish itself from that which is other than self. 'These choices, to be authesztic, must reflect the particularities that constitute the context. :In some sense, this process is inevitable. The self asserts itself in dialague with those who surround it; it reflects the horizons of significance prescribed by the context., even if it ulijmately rejects those horizons." The sources of the self lie withh, but the nature of what lies withh necessarily takes its particularity- from c0ntertC.X Existential particdarity is thus the bedrod of arrthentic thought. 2. Human acti:vity has gmerated the djversity of circumstances that underlines human individuality Authentic &ought, in all its forms, insists that human beir.lgs fast.rim their history m d , t-hereforc-.,trhemselves..What makes human beings is not just what they think or believe but what they do. Sayyid Qutb distinguishes '%authenticwM u s l h s from ordinary Muslims not so much by what they may believe or how faithlul.ly they pray but rather by how they act (or fail to act) in the world, M h m m a d and his followers created a new worId by responding to revelation a d circumstmce. Authes~ticMuslims do not merely believe injustice as defhed in the Qur%an;they insist on practicjng it, They do not sim.pIy mouth the revoiutionary prhciples enunciated by Muhammad; they seek to change the world. in wf7ich thcy live by overthrocving rclgirncs they deem un\vill-
ing to implement those principles, If human behgs did not bear rerjponsibility for their own lives and therefore for hurnan history as a trYhole, then it would make no setnse to speak of azllhentic or haut-hcntic actions. mey w d d be mere robots in the hands of God or tin soldiers buffeted by the forces of modtzrnization. The ve"ion of authenticity arises from the acItno\Yledgntetnt of human control, h0wevr.r imperfect of the course of history Aufientic thought presumes human autmony. 3. Authentic thought cmstitutes a revolt against both modernity and tradition. Traditio~nsuppresses humm choice and saps humm initiative, The very idca of tradition obscures the fact that the tradition was itself a product of human choice, now serving to constrain further choice. Whether it is Wousseau railing at the formal restrictions of eighteen¢ury French society or the Ayatolliah momeini trying to rewrite Shi"i histoy to combat the passivity and lethargy of the traditional mullah, advocates of authenticity have challenged traditicms, religious or seculac But they have also chalienged the secular rationalism of the hlightenment, so essential to the concept of modernity. fn its drive for universal explmations, the French Enlightetnmetnt tended to overlook the cultural origins of ideas, as Germans such as Heder we= quick to point out. If universal rules defhcd what it meant to be a person, then what did it mean to be a Gemtan? Or h r that matter, simply a person at all? Where was the authentic self'! The romantics fomd it in mysticism, nature, action,a d death. Without abancioning raticmaiiw altogether, Mthich would conflict with Sundanncntd assumptions about the self, the advocates ol authenticity have argued rather that rationality begins to work within particular cixumstances. Ljke the G e m m historicists and the romantics, modcrn advocaks o( authcnticity do not dismiss as utltrult7, alS that is not: defensible in ratioslal terns. They regard. myth and mysticism as elemnts of a tmth that probes beyond the reach of reason. 'The process of searching for legilimacy and comparing b&avior with a model constitutes an exercise in reason used to comprdend both myth and reaiity- The issue of authenticity cannot arise in traditional socieq, where tradition c o m a n d s respect precisely because it is unexannined. The search for authenticity demands stripping away custom and eonventicm, digging beneath the surface of things, getting beneath everydayness, recognizing the historicity of all ideas, sceing beneath ttcle corrupthg and commercializhg impact of the market, peeljng away external layers, penetrating the discreteness of objects to reveal their common being. Such a pmces "quires the operafion of reason to transform conscinttsncss, but reason may lead to the embrace of the mpstical, and nonrationaf, the creative, the originat, the heroic, and w e n the "'traditionat," which is no longer traditional by virtue of trsa~~hg been examined and reconstructed.
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Artists and prophets, by searching deepv withixr themsehes and by expressing themselves in language that soars b e y a d =ason, may be the most efcctive commmicators oC awt"rrentieityIt is t h y who lead the way toward overcoming the dualities of mind and body, subject and object, thinking and action, reason and rc-rligion-those duali.ties that are the great "hortcomings of the Western tradition and, especidly of the Cartesim equation of consciousness with being. For many adwocates of authenticity, death outranks cmsciousness as a measure of what it means to be h m a n ; in deathl a h m a n beiag would appear to be Utterly unjyue, complete, unified by the stillness of both rnind and body relieved oE thoughts and acticms that alienate from others and from. the sell, at one with the universe. Advocates of authernticity? from the romantics to religious ideologues, have not shied from linking death with authentic fulfillment. Rousseaufsfulie seems to have chosen that route- Heidegger wrote, "Ky its very essence, death is in every case mine, insofar as it 'is'at a1.1."37 Shari%atidescribed the experience of a pilgrim in Mecca: ' / H e witnes~eshis own dead body and visits his own gra~e.''3~ 'The result is superior howledge of the self. 4. Authentir thought can devohe into radicd individualism, cogitive subjectivism, and vdue ~lativism.Bassam Tibi has written, "ff the project of modernity . . . [were] dcnied [as] the univcrsd platform for a rational discourse to be shared by all hummity the result [would be] cultural fragmentatim. . . . It would became difficult for people of different c d tures to commmnicate their 'sciences' to one another, hsofar as their fhdings would be downgraded to culturd beliefs.""" If there is no basis for cammm scientific endeavor, the passibility of values that span cultures appears even mort? problematic." h d if alt individuals are primordiatly products of unique cdturcs with distixlctive cognitive and value principles, must not: human cclmmunities be severely linlited in their extent? Taylor's answer is that individuals m k e choices in the context of given horizons oi signj.ficance and in dialogue with o t h r humm beings without specifying how broad those horizons or diatogues might be. Iqbal tries to show that the idea of the self reflects a tie to Gad that ultimately links humm beings, Qutb says "authentic" Muslims are those who, like the early companions of the Propbet, take stock of their circumstances and see that they must act together to achieve something. Shari'ati speaks eloquently oi the pilgrimage to Mecca as a dehixlg experience for the self but in the context of an awe-inspirh~gglimpse oE human commonality.41 Arkoun. seeks to show that Muslims, Christians, and Jews have all emerged from a set of historical circumstances that shaped their belief structures and conditioned c h o i ~ sAll . advwates of authenticit,v, hwing demonstrated the discreteness of the self, seek to reestablish some ele-
ment of commonality and association, The notion of authenticity implies a standard or muttipZr standards against M;hich behavior can be judged. The qztestior~is how broad those stmdards rnight be. Is there a single cognitive standard., as Taylor and Arkoul-t clearly believe? Does that standard carry into values? If value standards are multipe, do they unite I'trabs m d Berbers, Kurds and Turk? Do they extend to all Muslims or just to ""authentic'"uslims, Shi'i or Sunni? If common cultural horizons encompass Jews, Cl-rristians, and Muslims, as Xrkoun sqgests, and if, as a cansecyuence, Islam shodd be considertd a part of the West, then how does one look for linkage between this West, more inclusively understood, and the rest sf the world? All variants of authenlic thought contain an impulse tokvard llnicily to counterbalance the underlying particularistic drive, All seek to demmstrate elements of commonality as characteristic of the hulnan community and necessary to the h m a n condjtim. These tendencies give rise to certain questions: C m some c o m m ground for knowledge, if not values and community be successfully reconstructed cm the ruins of tradition and modernity? Are the counterbitlancing forces of commonatity s d ficient to prevent the explosion of humanity into thousands of particularistic encfaves, each ertdowed with its own verSion of science, mordity, and identity? C m the resu,lting cdtural plucalism spawn a healthy political pluralism consistent with and supportive of liberalism, or must disorder be regarcied as a more likely outcome?
The Politics of Authenticity For the most part, exponents of authel~ticitry~ from Rousseau &rough Nietzsche and Heidegger to Nyerere, momeini, and Qut-b, have been ambivalent about libera3 demmracy :Islamist groups in Egypt and hlgeria chalIcnge the state for what they regard as comportment and polieies that- are unbecoming to Muslims. S o m elements are willing to profit from d e w cratic mechanisms to promote their points of view, but their secular opponents, the hcumberrts, regard the Islamist challe~~gers as illiberal in intelzt. The n o m e h i regime maintained and even enhanced parliamentary instibtians but also installed a Council of Guardians and afil7il.t (supreme jurist) to keep watch on the elected representatives. N'ationaljst groups in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union battle to estnblish "authentic" states; those battles have produced violence and the violation of human rights in Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. 'The efforts to establish mthentically Slovenim, Croatian, and Serbian states have destroyed the short-run prospects for some sort of liberai democracy in figoslavia as a whcrle. By reinforchg claims to so-called prhordial identities-"m-calledfs because they are nonetheless products of culturcl-the search for authentic-
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ity solidifies a basis for group actjon. It tends to legitimate the search for self-determination, which has, in the main, been destructive of order and intolmant:of liberill democratic- forms." 2 " ~ o g e n o u s nation-states were revealed as a pipedream, and the illusion that liberal and national ideals coufd be fully accommodated within one political framework could thus be expected to fade away,'' wrote Yael -Tamir,hVShe&inks that naiollal group identities can be reconciled with the liberal state but only by splitting the concept of naticm from that of the state; a litberat state might, in her view encompass a set of mutually tolerant national identities. For her, national ikntities can provide vital emotional cement for the liberal state, but the tolerance r e g u i ~ din her pluralist model has not: been a notable characterislic of nativist and nationalist claims. Tolerance sterns from a univessalist perspective, in which one natimd identity preserves itself by tolerating others.44 Dominant elites have, of course, sought to use elements of authelltic &ought to sustain their hold on power m d reinforce their nation-states. Sengb<Jr drew on ~ggrikrzd;;N y e ~ r eon Ahicm Socialism and democracy, Nasis on Arab Socialism, and Khameini on the idea of the Islamic state, The nature oi these regimes depended. upon interpretationsof national authentiEiV eripclused at the expense of other conceptions. As Tamir has obsemed: "There is a dangerorls climer.lsion in claints about authenticity. These claims are c o m m d y used. to imply that there is one gmuine interprtrtatictn of a naticmal cdture, w h e ~ a all s the others are fictitious and inva(id. Agents of revision m therefore-? likely to be called dislwal and their products inauthentic,"'"The effort to idmtify an authmtic natinnal culture has, in general, been linked with repression and illiberalism. The Nazi effort to define authentic German culture woufd be an extreme exmplc. S o m scholars, including Elie Kedourie, have argued &at a misguided appliration of the nationalist imperative, MIhich Kedourie links to the imp&e for self-realization, sowed chaos in t-he Middie East by exacerbating tendencies toward. particulaxism and rendering fjberalismvirtually im.possible." hn contrast, the lmg-defunct Ottoman Empire, criticrizrd by the Great Powers for violating the righ,ts oE minorities, has att-racted rcllatively favorable mention for what, in the light of recent histoq, appears to be a rather successftll experiment in transnatiltnal governance. The identificatio~~ of u n i p culkrre i,n a national seMi,ng normatly fosters policies aimed at prmoting authenticity. For example, the promotion of ujlamaa (eommunitarian) vitlages in Tmzmia even agafnst the risirtg oppoktim of Ihe peasantry reflected Nyerere's ideological position. Nasir promoted, forcign policies consistent with his vision of Egypt as Arab in heritage, whereas his successor, Anwar ai-Sadat, refocused Egypt on its pharaonic past and broke ranks with other h a b states by making a separate peace with Israel, Algerian nationalists promoted Arabic-language
schools after independme in the hopes of rei.nforcixzg what they saw as authentic Akerian culturt-; Berber-speakers considad this errtphasis as m act of hostjlity aga,ilwt their place in the nation-state. Revoluticlnav Irm insisted. upon dress codes for women that coincided with a paficular conception of national culture.. fn bmirmg away from an Ottomm identity and eschewing Istan? as a national pr.incifle, Must..afaQmal rcllied on Trtrkjsbness as the basis lfor a state, and in do;ing so, he created a rationale for discrhirmalion against Kuds. Policies inspired by the quest for authenticity have oftei~served to augment the rights and benefits oE poli.lrieally dominmt groups at the expmse of mhoritics. The thrust has been illiberal. Authenticity also tends to be mdemwratic. The great champions of authenticity turn out to be heroic figures, prophets, poets, visionaries, intellectuals-those who are able to "see" bbeneath the suriace of things and "feelf"the quh~tessmceof cultrure. 'The problem of authenticity arises because the masses have been misled into conceptions that do not coincide with their roots: They follow traditions whose origins and meming they do not understand; they ape foreign ways without comp~hendingthe reason for the dev&pment and meaning of such ways; they embrace unj.versal reason w i t h t understandiq its embcddedness in Western culture and its role h Western domination. Because the disthction between authentic and hauthe~~tic implies a standard, those who understand the standard. should be in a position to make decisions. There is necessarily a dkision between those leading "authentic" lives a d those who do not. The presumption is that the haulhcntic lack the right to full participation. The decision of the secularist Egyptian and Algerian ~ g i r n e to s deny their Islamist opposition the right to democratic participation reflects this assulnption about the demand for Islamic aut.hcnticity Authentic thought carries a presumption of antipathy to both Iiberalism m d democracy. Debates about Rousseau, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre often hing on the valiciity of this preswptim, hut presumption does not, of course, constitute proof. First, no lib-era1democracy seems capable of dispensing entirely with appeals to nationalist sentiment; the need to develop popuiar affection for states based on arbitrary boundaries drives kaderfi to d.i.stinguish the ""we" from the "they" and to define the "we'kas scrmethhg more than just citizens who happen to be living in a givm tersitory. As lorng as the nation-state remains the primary mode of political organization, the use of authenticity may be vital to its defense.47 For VVestemers to embrace civil religion as consistent with liberalism but tt? denow~cethe use of natural religions or elhnic identities as rallying cries for political solidarity appears kypocritical. Second, not aX I arguments for authenticity can be equated. Kousseau is not Heidegger, and kkoul-r is not Qwtb. Arkounfs rejection of the "authern.t.ic" label reflects his discomfort at being categorized with Islamist ideologues. He seeks to
establish grounds for refounding the Islamic experience in a fashion that does not marginalize any person or gmup "nd that irnplies the need fnr tderance and democracy; he think in terms of an individual authentieity that presupposes a liberal context. SirnilarXy, Charles Taylus expounds a version of authentic thought that he believes is consistent:with liberalism. The pre?sumption,thcn, must remain a presztmptinn. This study seeks to evaluate the work of Iqbal, @tb, Shari'ati, and Arkoun against the background of European philosophy m d against this pmsumption of il1i"cteral and undelnocratic impulses,
Dcspit.e the disimperialism of the postwar decades, the prevalent mode of thought about the non-Western world has rczmained thoroughly developmentd and thoroughly Western in both the Middfe East and the West. The development paradigm accounted for the direction of political life h countries from Latin erica to East Asia. It was a paradigm on which Cold War rivals codd lagely agree. But then, as the Cold War it.sel,f was grinding to an end, the Iranian Rcvolutim opened a gaping breach in theory That event called attention to a series of phenomena that had been underrated or ignored and shifted attention toward a set of demands linked to the idea of authenticity. A world in search of development had newer proved as prosperous, stable, democratic, or peacefuf as proponelnts of the 1,950shad hoped. W a world inc~asinglydrive11by the demand for authenticity be as dangerous as many analysts of the 1980s and 1990s suggest748
1.See Johannes J', G, Jansen, Tke Neglected Duty: Tht Creed of Sadat's Assnssins: Islamic Resztrgeszee z'tz Clze Middle East f New Yczrk: Macmillan, 1986). 2, The word ""fundamentalism'"has generally been applied to 13rotestant groups with strong commitments to a literalist interpretation and implementatim af text. I side with those who do not find this term helpful in describing a range af Muslim groups that have sought I s make a political ideoXogy of Islam, some of which would achieve their aim through existing governments and athers of which advocate violent overthrow I prefer the term ""21amistmto descriibe such g r o u p e a term that does not suggest that they are mare "fundamental" or Literal in their reading of the Qur%an than other Muslims. 3. The classic studies are Z,iunei Trilling, Sincerity and Autlzenlz'city (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19721, and Marshall Berman, The Politics of Azi thelz tz'city (New York: Atheneurn, '11 4. Charles Taylor, The Elkics of- Azitlienticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991')
5. Besides the Taylor book, recent publications include Robert K h r y , A~lflte~zticity: 77~eBeing of tlze SelJ the Worldt and IIze Ofher.(Saratoga, Galif.: R and E Publishers, 1992); fratrizia Longo Heckle, The Statrle c?f Glazlczls: Xoussenza's Modera Quesf fir AsdfllenElciiy (New York: Peter Lang, 1991); Stuart Zane Cfiarrn4, Vzilgarity and Azithenficity: Dirtaerzsiorzs of Othrr-zessin tlze World ofjentz-Paul Sarire (Amherst: Unit~ersityof Massachusetts Press, 1991); Linda A. k11, Sarire's Eflzics cf Aufltenikity (Tuscaicrosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989); and Alessandro Ferrara, Modernity and Aztthenficify: A SIzddy in the Social and Etlzicnl Tlzought of Jean-facqzies Roussenu (Albany: SUNU Press, 1933). 6. Samuel E-funtington, "The Clash of Civilizatians,'" Foreign Aflairs 72t 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 22-49. 7. The reference is to Talcott 13arsonsand his pattern variabls. 8. See, for example, Hasan Hanafi" AAl-furttlfll zo~ltajdtd (Cairo: AI-markaz al'arabl lil bahth tval nashr, 4980). For a comparison of HanaE?s ideas with those of Muhammad al-Jabiri of Morc>cco,see Armando Salvatore, ""The Rational Authentification of fllrafh in Contemporary Arab Thought: Muhammad al-Jabiri and Hasan HanafT,:?,""ayer p ~ p a r e dfor the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Asst~ciation,Phoenix, Nc~vember,4994. 9. Rupert Emerscrm, From E ~ q ~ i to r eNntimz (Boston: hacon, 1960), p, 6. 10. John Ruedy makes this point in Modem Algeria: The Origizzs and Deuelopnfenf of n Ha tion (Bloomingon: Indiana University 12ress,1992). 11. Bassarn Tibi, ""Xslarn, Modern kientific Discourse, and Cultural Mcjdernjv: The Polities of Islarnization of h o w l e d g e as a Claim to De-Westei-nization," paper prewnted at annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, San Antcmio, Tex., November 10-43,1990, p. 2. 12. Daniel terner, 'T7ze Inassilzg of Tradift'onalSociety (Glencm, Ill.: Free 13ress,19M). 13. Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Ecurzumic Croruli?:A Non-Commzatzisf Mntzq6sZ.o (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3960); Symour Martin Lipset, PolitimE Mwtz (Garden City N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960). 14. Karl Deutsch, "Social Mobilization and Political Development,'" Atr~ericatz klilicrzf Science Realfw 55 (September, 196l), pp. 49S514. 15. Samuel Huntington, Political Ordcr in Chw~gir~g Suciefies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 39681, chap. 1. 16. See, for example, James D. Cockcroft, Andrk Cunder Frank, and Dale L. Johnson, Uepe~deneeand Uzzderdeuelop~rzenf (Garden City, N.V.: Doubleday, 1972). 17, David Apter, The Politim of Modemimtiori (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1%5), chap. 3. 18. David McClefland, Tke A c t ~ i ~ vSociefy i ~ g (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961). 19, The work of Fred Riggs, e.g., his Adnzifiislmtimz irz Devetopr'rzg Coznntries: The Theoy c$ PrGmnik Societies (Bosti>n:Houghton Mifflin, 1964), looks rather exceptional in this context.. 20. See Mahbub uX-Haq, Tke 170verfy Curtair-1:61toicesfor the T1zir.n" Wt~rld(New York: Columbia University Press, 44761, and 1LO International tabour Office, Emyloywzent, Crozuth, and Basic Needs (New York: 13raeger, 1977). 21. Cl~esterBowles, "Urban and Rural Tasks in National Development," in TIte Bewlop~rzenfalRet~olufion:izlorfftAfrica, tlte Middle East, and Soutll: Asia, ed. William R. Folk (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute, 19631, p. 41.
The Concept ofAuthenticity
23
22. William H. Lewis, “The Development Equation in Northwest Africa,” in Polk, The Dewlopmental Revolution, p. 84. 23. From my notes on the 1976 conference. 24. See Jean Duvignaud’s Change at Shebika, trans. Frances Frenaye (Austin: University of Texas Press,1977) for eloquent exploration of these themes. 25. See Akbar S.Ahmed, Postmodernism and Islam Predicament and Promise (tondon: Routledge, 1992), especially chap. 3, for extended discussion of general alienation. 26. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Sociefies, chap. 2. 27. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978). 28. Ahmed, Postmodernism and bhm, p. 183. 29. Said, Orientalism, p. 239. 30.Philip Hitti, Islam: A Way of Life (Chicago: University of Minnesota Press, 1970). 31: I am grateful to Michael Bead for alerting me to this question. 32. See Mohammed Arkoun‘s Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, trans. and ed. by R O M D. Lee (Boulder: Westview, 1994) for an introdudion to his thought. 33. Mohammad Iqbal, Serrets ofthe Sey A Philosophical Poem,trans. R. A. Nicholson (New Delhi: Amold-Heinemann, 1978). 34. Charles Taylor, Sources of tlze Serf (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). 35. Taylor, The Ethics ofAuthenticity, chaps. 4 and 5. 36. John Riker wrote in a personal communication (June 1996): “Authenticity runs a fine line between accepting one’s particular fatedness and having the freedom to be self-determining. The self-determination is an overcoming of binding social and political forces which can determine one.” 37. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Acquame and Edward Robinson (New York Harper, 1%2), p. 287. 38. Ibid., p. 10. 39. Tibi, “Islam, Modem Scientific Discourse, and Cultural Modernity.” 40.Emest Gellner argues that the hermeneutical approach of postmodernism leads to both cognitive and value relativism. He regards cognitive relativism as counterfactual; some varieties of science have simply proven better than others, even though they may not produce absolute truth. He believes value relativism may be inescapable. See his Postmodernism, Reason, and Religion (London: Routledge, 1992) for a discussion of these issues from an anthropological perspective that is distinctively hostile to postmodemism. 41. See Ali Shariati, Hajj, trans. Ali A. Behzadnia and Najla D ~ M Y (Houston: Flpe Islamic Literatures, 1980). 42. See Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson, 1960), p. 109. “The truth is that good government depends as much on circumstances as on a desire for freedom and there are regions of the globe which may never know its blessings.. . . In fact, it is these countries which most clearly show that nationalism and liberalism far from being twins are really antagonistic principles.” 43. Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 145.
44.1 thank John XGket- far calling my attention to this point, 45. Tamir, Lz'beml Naliclnafisnl, p. 50. 46, Elie Kedourie, "Minorities and Majorities in the Middle East,'" AreIzl'ves eurap&enesddc soeiolngie 25 (19841, pp. 276282. 47, See Tamir, Liberal M~tio~z~zlism, p. 134. 48. See Huntington, 'The Clash of C~vi~izatic~ns.''
European Though THE CONCEW FOR AUTHENTICITY ARWE IN EUROX2E as a reaction to the
Ex~lightenmentm d the Industrial Revolution. It has flourished as a result of enduring fears that social, political, econontic, and htelleetual modernity threatens th@ uniqueness of the ind.ividua1, the sense of inwarciness and self &at escapewational articulation, the capacity of human beings to control their destiny, and the rich diversity of Europem cutturc. From Rousseau and the rommtics came a ~ n e w e dsense of m inwardness that reason and ~ a e c t i o ncould help uncover but not explain. From Schiller c m e an e~nphasison culture as a dividing force. Opposing the religious establishment and Enligtntenment deism, Kierkegaard emphasized the lonely, irrational act of faith as thr mark of an authentic: Christian. With Nietzsche, the very idea of the self began to come unraveled in the corrosiveness of history, only to reemergc more w i l h l and mystical, even heroic. Heidegger and Sartre both concerned t-hemselves with the way in which the self relates to other objects m d beings, seeking to reconstruct a world tom apart in the dissociation of subject and object that was characteristic of Ex11it;hte ent thinkix~g,For them, authenticity rrteant not a mmanli.c inwardness but an acknodedgmcnt of one's freedom and responsibiliv in the wmid and of m e % lXinkage beneath th veneer of lmguage and =ason to other human beings and the world of objects. Gramsci, from a Marxist vantage point, sought to demnstrate hukv the search for authenticity could, foster group action. Starting, then, with fCousseau in the eighteenth cenbry and extending into our era, a nu~nberof Western writers have pursued the idea of authenticity, sorne more explicitlqi than others. At least four themes run
through their treatments: a particularistic understanding of the human codition; m argument about human autmomy in shaping the world; radical rejection of both tradition and universal, reason as adequate guides lior human conduct; and an assertion of fundamental unit-y of being at some deeper, more "auChenticmkvel. Of course, all these themes can. be traced in some measure to earlier works; the introspection underlying the claim of particularity surely owes something to Socrates and Augusthe, md Blaise Pascal had much earlier e x p ~ s s e ddoubts about either tradition or reason as sufficient gromds for tmtb. The notion of aut o n m y emerges gradually from the arguments of Machiavelli, Descartcs, tlcrbbes, Locke, and Kant, even t3lough authentic thlrught resists the universaiking terndencies of Chese thinkers. It is, thercforc, not any one of the four elements that characterizes the case for authenticity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but a combination of them that does so. 7"he colnbination itself carnot be explained \zrithoul reference to the Enent and the lndustriai Revolution m d &eir persjstmt impact on Western civilization. 'The universalizing impact of Edjghtenment thlrught and the leveling force of industrial and technological society have not: ceased to provoke alarm. in the West, and that is perhaps why those minority voices proclaiming the importance of authenticity have not disappeared. The au&entic moment has been, moreover, prolmged and even revitalized by the attacks of postmodem thought on the very possibility of truth being something other than the product of human imagination. What started out as a strmd of &ought hterested h~ combatkg one truth in the n m e of a deeper, more heartfelt, morc primordial truth has become an effort to defend tmth ar truths against subjec-tivism, relativism, m d thoroughgokg skepticism.
Particularity The question of authnticity arose in Europe from the cmfrontation between individual and society. As urbanization, commercialization, m d industrialization brought people into greater proximity m d the bureaucratic state sprcad its tentacles, life seemed increasingly routinized and dominated by conventions, laws, rules, and traditions. Protestantism had sought to liberate the individual from dograa and formality but had itself fostered churches and states with new versions of official truth, The Enent nurtured the spread of a new universality in science and philosophy. ?"he greater the generality of a propo"ition, the greater its significance hthe Enlightenment paradigm. But what, then, was the place of an individual, born into a ccmcrete setting, endowed m t just with r e a m but with feelkgs, capable of will and action even against the forces of nature and society? Mant argued that the will, though universal, in its character,
permitted the unique definition of the individual; by seeing the self as the defining n i t , Kant opened the way for the sort cJf self-definition impfied by cultural authenticity and nationalism.' Writers such as Rousseau, Mrordsworth, and Schiller evoked individual authenticity by looking upon the self not as an alostraction but as a particular person grounded in an individual ""sentimentof beingf'-hard, strong, autonomous, replete with earthy instincts and nasty thoughts. In a world drifting toward irnperscmality and universality they saw themselves engaged h a struggle for the uniquer~essof the individual, a struggle for aulhetnticity The struggle presupposes a disposition for hwarhess; a conscimsness of physical as weil as rnental capacities; a sense of one" positim in time, place, and society; a recognition of that which, is undeniably felt bill may not be subject to ratimlal defense; and,in short, a concern for what distinguishes a single human being f m all others. 'The disposition for inwardness rcflects the Socratic impdse toward reflection and inlrospection, Yet Sucrates talked more about issues of mind. and spirit than about the physical circumstances of his existence. He did acknowledge his good fortme to have gsokm up and tbrived in Athens, because his citizenship protected him in the search for truth. But with Socrates the search for truth, like the escape from the cave into the upper ~ g i o n of s life, a h a y s s e e m to casry him t w d reflection on humankin& the uaivcrsaf, characteristics of truth, and the universal sets of moral considerations that oughe to guide h an behavior. Socrates relentlessly pursued a truth he assumed to be universal. The particularity of his origins, his body, and even his mind in all its creativiQI however decisive for Western thought, disappeared into the systmatic philosophies of Plato and Aristotie, as Socrates himself night well have wished, When Jem-JacqucsRousseau composed his Confessions, he claimed to be undertaking a tblrrougbly original pMect. But Augustine had aheady embarked on this road by providjng a hiighly pesso~~al account of:his own evoh t i m as a particular person, endowed.not just wi& inteuect and virtue but with matwial existence in a concrete setting of temptation. For Auwstine, there is a shamefulness about it all and ullinnatefy an effort to Enottnre the particularity of existace for the mdifferentiated Tmth he discovers in the Christian faith. Spirit owrcomes body m d essmce takes precedence over existerne, wherclas for Rotlsseau, rc.lvivhgthe confessional sf-yle s o w 1,300 years later, there is no escape h m such individuality. Rousseau was proud of himself, defects and all; his heroine, Julie, in Jtrlir?,on la Nouvelle Mloi'se, seerns utterly wiChout. dekcts, hut she is not without a sharp sense of h r self, which she tries desperately to submerge in m effmt to please her pwnts, to rationalize her entire hcrusehold, and to placate her lover. She ennbraces both reason and faith in an effort to overcome her instinctrual, passionate, physical, natural self, and when she
fails to kill that seIf in such fashion, she kills it by farlling into a stream and contracting a fatal illness. Unlike Socrates and Aqustine, Rousseau sees inwardness as not sitnply a mute toward a ratimal t r u h but as a fundamental test of the truthfulness of rationality. Lionel Trilling has written: The sentiment of being is the sentiment of being stmng, Which is not to say powerful: Rousseau, Schiller; and Wordsworth are no* concerned with energy directed outward upon the world in aggression and dominance, but, rather, with such energy as contrives that the center shall hold, that the circumference of the self keep unbrc~ken,that the person be an integel; impenetrable, perdurable, and autonomous in being if not in actian.2
Schiller argued that the Greeks had achieved a balmce behnieen miversality and particutarity: "Cambkting fullness of form with fulhess of cantext, at once philosophjc and creative, at. the same time tender and energetic, we see them unithg the youthfulness of fantasy with the manliness of reason in a splmdid humanityr.""n its efforts to s q a s s fie Grcek effort, the Enlightenment had destroyed such balmcc in favm of the cultivation of abstract, universal ideas, Schiller said; the sensuousness of the Greeks had been lost. Wtat he calls the specdative spirit, fn its search for pcsmanence in the realm of ideas, had become "a stranger in the mterial world."qut where then is individuality and imaginationl H e called for aesthetic education as a means of =storing the whole perscm, as a way to keep sensuous and formal impulses withir? bounds, the sensuous being based in existace and the forml, in the mind. This, he argued., is the basis for L\lholmess and creativity. The temporal yuaiiw of human lik ensurtls unipemess. And indeed, for Heidegger, death reprtlsetnts the m s t utterly personaI, utterly authentic moment in a likeAt that moment each life is a finite set of points, complete, u n i p . rlb live authentically means to live in full warcness of the temporal quality of hunan existence and the fundamental fact of death. "By its very essence, death is in eveq case mine, insofar as it 'is' at all.""Undfor &idegger, it is anxiety in the face of death that most thoroughly =\re& an indjvidual's "ow thlity for Bejng. Only in confronting the utter particularity of existenceits "throwmess," as Heidegger put it-m the human self understand its cornmonality with other behgs. Particularity comes not just from the insidefrom the "heart of darkness,'%e deep, p~ratirrnalimpulses of the self-but from thc.particularity imposed by dhcrs. fn A~sfi-Smileand bw,Sartrc argued that Jews are? necessarily Jews by virtue of the way the rest of the world, and anti-Semites most especially view them. Authentic Jews respond not by denying fie uniqueness attributed ta them but by embracing the particularity ""Ia word, inauthmtic Jews arc those persons whom otlners regard as Jewish
m d who have chosen to flee before that Irttolerable situation,""hhus 'Jews, like everyone else, enjoy freedom to embrace or to dmy the idmtity that others have fashion4 Ear &ern. Where antsemites go wrong, according to Sartre, is in claimhg that Jews are essentially difierent; democrats, in contrrast, fnsist that humm beings are essentially the same. But Man as archetype does not existr wrote Sartre-o11ly concrete individuals and peoples who c h a s e who they arc as a function of Cheir circumstances existayHe suggests that liberalism must learn to acccr odate concrete particularity by dropping its t?ssu,mptjons about a universal, urnhangkg I-\~~man nature. TThese sources of particulariw-inwardness, the sentiment of being, the defining act of faith, the temporal quaiity of human existace, the qualities imparted by social circz.nnstmces-may. cmtribute to group ide~~tity The validity of any proposition depends first upon its tmthhrhss with ~ g a r to d a single ixndi\ridual; unless a way oE life is genuine for someone, it camot be genuine for all, Deductions from human nature lead only to abstractions that fack meaning fur the individual. Because every thrust toward autbrnticity incorporates nonrational elements, tbr validity of that effort does not necessarily extelnd beyond a si.ngle individd. h y exfrapolation to a larger group depends upon induction from the particular with cmstant teseing agahst the feelings, instincts, inspiratiofi, md will of those concerned. Each individual must discover and verify the genuisleness of apparent commonality or, q&e to the contrary, discover that individuality must he defined against the group. @po&tion to alien foxes provides an initial, apparent bond, A strong current of nativism runs through theories of cultural authenticity.8 Foreipers a d foreign domination constitute a first obstacle to authenticity and a first rallyi.ng point h r the protagonists of revolut.ion. Pllatio~zalism, with its claim that each people has the right to govern itself, is both a consequence of particularistic thinking and a further hnpetus for a c h i . v a (jroup identity, But the phy~icalliberation .from foreign dominatim can only constitute the first step, insofar as foreign ideas contirrue to cmtaminate a people. For example, Gramsci applauds Machiave1l.i as a revolutionary who wmted an Italy free of foreign cmtrof, but he, Gramsci, insists that liberation must penetrate the hegemnny of foreign ideas, Pmon calls for the expulsion of not just the colnnialists but of the very idea of colonialism, with its insistence on. the superiority of foreign ways. The struggle against foreipers must thus become a fight against the indigenous bourge0i"ie as the perpetrators of foreign 1iEestyles and the servmts of"foreign economics. Meidegger suggests that truth cannot be broader than one" own people;Vhe problem is nut only to delim.it that people but to identify the most hdigenous, genuhe, mliable elements withh that p u p to serve as the guideposts b r the reconstruction of the society The search accentuates the particularistic tendencies,
Any selection of a beacon group proceeds from a set of values that may be more or less restrictive. For Nietzsche, it is the extraordillargi philosoyhical, creative thinker who is able to t b w oft the chains of tradition and rcasm and to chart tlne way toward overcomjng humanity as it has been understood. Legithated by diverse theories, these groups elaborate a new matrix of values-nekv because they are dissynchrolnous with present practice but old because they are rooted in a past-for the society as a whole, For a thinker like Gramsci, it is the masses who retain the closest touch wif-;hthek heritage and who understand their own needs. Paradoxically, however, the particularity of the new cultural matrix varies inversely with the restrictivemss oE the beacon group. The m m egalifarian versinns of autherntic thwght must struggle to break out of provincial, particulasistic. outcomes, wfiereas the more eltist versims, capable of producing ideas of greater generality, face the need to recruit nonclites to their carnse, that is, to break out of the particurnistic criteria by which the beacon group is daignated. For example, Gramsci sees veracity as linked to numbers. What is correct for a people or a group of people is Chat which most of them percehe to be correct, But Grarnsci also acknowledges that ordinar). people tended to accept passively the "common sense" "ften h m & d in tke most superstitious sort of Cathdicism) of their village and rcgion. 'The great ideas elucidated by Benedetto Croce and other leading Itaiian liberals have left them tmscafhed. For Gramsci, the problem was to conceive of some mwernent of the masses from the "common sense" of a distmt past toward the "goad smse" of the present, without violating his own rule that mly the people themselves can pass judgment on the authenticity of the solution. He therefore emphasizes the role of intefleduals who propose but afso ljsten and the role of a party that responds as well as acts. Like others, he acknowledges that the Italian South deserves policies that may be happrophate for the North. But therein lies his problem, for the prefe~tncesof Siciliam may not resemble those of Calabrians, and village X may not recognis the same "mthentic" w d d as village V. Where does the a s s u m e lie that any of these groupwill in fact be witling to part with the truths that- currently regulate their lives? The future depends on the least reflective, least creative, least rational strata and depends upon the capacity of these strata to imagine a future diverse from the present and to struggle activciy tokvard that irnage. Elites may propose, encourage, cajole, listen, and rttpmpose, but only cmcrete individuals, neighhorhaods, villages, and cities can impart the seal oE rnthcnticity to any set of social arrangements. By definition, for Gramsci, an authentic solution must enjoy class if not universal acceptmce; but his thou&t provides no more guarantees than does the Cornmul-rist Manifesto that preexisting particularities will dissdve into class consciousness at the behest of enlightened intellectuals.
Nietzsche represents the antipode of Grannsci. Far horn viewing the ""rabble'bs the arbiters oE tmthfuhrless, he regarded them as incapable of penetsati.ng the fog of il,lusjon, of risking danger, of cscding nekv values and acting autonomousty-findjng them incapable, in short, of the sort of behavior he ~ g a r d as s most genuinely human. "The approval of numbers adds nothing to the aulhemticity of such activity In fact, he said, One has to get rid of the bad taste of wanting to be in agreemnt with the many. "Good" is no Ic~ngergood when your neighbcx takes it into his mouth. And how could there exist a ""common good"! The expression is a setf-contractictic~n:what can be common has ever but little value. Xn the end it must be as it is and has always been: great things are far the great, abysses for the profc~und,shudders and delicacies for the refined, and, in sum, a11 rare things are for the rare.1"
For Nietzsche, only the few achieve the full potential. of which human beings are capable by ove~omingthe illusions that endwe them. On* free spirits can muster the understmdhg, courage, and will to break not simply with the pmvinciallsm of nnarality in a given pEace and time but even with the pmvincialism of Western thought, predicated upon an imqined realm of ideals m d truth that takes its strength in the fact that its fotmdation cannot be verified. Onfy the few can understand the htemal contradiction of the mficl,the mprovability by logic of the supremacy of logic. Even more important, only the few can confront the repugnant result of such reflections: the ""eternal recurmce of the same,""Escaping from the ilusiom of the past, the few discover that there is in fact no escape from either illusion or the past. M y those of the grea.t.estwill and courage can act creatkely without assurance of a futurc different from past or present, It is thus the precious few, according to Nietzsche, whcr can rise above the temporaf, geographiral, and social particularity of the human conditim, but what they discover, far from a recipe for the sahatim from mankind, is that there is nothing else beyond individual volition, the will to power, that c m scarcely be anything but particularistic. Nietzsche's judgment &out the insensitiviey of the masses led him towarcl an elitism from which escape is perhaps not: possible. E'czr him, cultural autl-temtkjty and indi\iidual authenticity appear to be irrceoncjlabl.e, To dilute ideas for mass consumption out of hypocritical concern for human equality is to invite decadence. Nietzsche wproached Wstern ciwilization for engaging in such an enterprise at. the expense of tbose intelIectual eitites capable of genraine creativity Empathy for the less fortunate has gmduced only mediocrity. 'f'heelites must know how to suffer and to endure the suffering of others in the nan?e of cu,ltu,ral xhievement, which d y emerges from chdlenge and stress. But Nietzsche offtlss no assur-
ance that even elites, driven by their will to power, will rally to a single set of values. Znstead, if Nietzsche offers any vision of poii.tics, fie cohesicm of society would scern to depcnd upon forcit?le imposition of a single will, the greatest wil1, which nonetheless reflects a single, arbitrary vision of what it means to be human. Born in flight from the overpowering force of tradition and logic, nurtured in violalt opposition, Nietzsche's individualism may depend upon coercion to fend off marchy. The will to power, y or anarchy, seems to preelude any reduction whether it produces tyr of human estrangement. The basic p m k e about the particulariv of the self tbus leads toward the delimitation of groups, themsekes distinct by virbe of their innermost sense of: themsehs, their c m 0 1 1 imagination of Ihemseives, their position in time, &eir perceptions of each other. But these gmups nece* sarily depend upon individuals or srthsets of themsehes to provide direction, to hdlcate the nature of "authe~ltic"values at the group level, unless one is to presuppose democratic choice, But can the "will of all," with its confusion of ideas and intewsts, ewer be authentic? Can it ever produce truth? Can a group mintain its particularity in the everyda)r, interestdrivenI compromise-oriented drive to create a nrgority in democratic competition? Among Lhe tr~ritersmost committed to authenticity in Lhe Westesn tradjtion, oniy Sartre and perhaps Grmsci appear to think so. To construct a liberal. theory on particularistic foundations is a challenge. 7i, ~concilcindividual and cultural authenticity may be impossible.
The demand for individual authenticity requires a struggle agaiinst the forces that betray one's nature, originali.ty, creativity and being. Those forces have been identified with tradition, understood as ""te hmding on of formed ways of acting, a formed way of living, to those beghning or developing their social. membership,"ll l~royonentsof authenticity tend to see hurnan beings as prisoners oE tradition, victim of the social rules by which they are constrained to Eve, merc?puppets of con\ren.t.iansestablished in a dlstant and irrelevant past, Authnticity means liberation f r m such restraints and hence from tradition as a bhding set of social practices inherited from the past. -That liberation may nonethekss be conceived by proponents of culhral authenticity Fn the n a m of another concept cJf tradition, one that is justified by an ""assumption of pre\iious performancef% some time period remote from the present.1" In the Persian Letters, Montesq-uieu interlaced his commentary m French life with scenes from tlsbek" harem in Isfahm. Usbek h h self absent and eunuchs in commmd, the fetters of harem life, the boredom of the women, the mnatural limitations on the activity of human be-
ings becorne unbearable. Not even aupmtations in the level of repression c m restore a world to which Usbek himself, havillg glimpsed the hurly-burly of Europe, seelns rehctant to return.1" Mmtesquicu contrasted the male-dominated world of traditional society, exemplified by the stultifying languor of the female harem, with t-he vigorous, egalitarian life in Paris, where the industrious could aspire to drive more horses than the noble of birth. There a person could be autonomous, follow his own fnstincts, profit from his own efforts, be his owin person. Modern society appeared mascdine by traditional standards, even though w m e n could ptay a much wider range of roles there; passivity, subortraditional socictty-portrayed as the harem-onnoted dination, and depemdence.lA Montesquieu%ccaricature of tradition outdoes the Parsmian model in its exaggerated simplicity. M1 societies, including the Persian society of the eightwnth century, seem to include elements that both Parsons and Montesquieu might achowledge as modern. The growth of those elements rnight eventually mitigate the unnaturalness that M0ntesquic.u saw in the traditional world. But far Rousseau, as well as for most of. the theorists of authenticity who follow him, Montesguieu erred in thinking that capitatism, urbanization, and enfightenment would tiberate humnlsind. Instead, the advernt of modernity replaced one set of ehains with another, the new set pefiaps more devastating and insidious because anchored in reason rather t;hm repetfition. 'The reign of the etrnuchs in tlsbc.k's hare~nappears patently unnatural to enlightened. European eyes; the cmdi'tion of the oppressors itself represents the deformity of mankilld. In falie, ozc Ea NouveEIe Hiloise, Rausseau took pains to persuade his readers of an analogous cruelty and artificiality in the hierarchical, male-dominated society that prevents Julie from marrying her lover, Saint-Preux, who does not share JulieFsnoble status. Her father has already decided her fate. Julie loves agait.tst her cmsciotls will; Saint-Preux cannot h a k e his love for Julie, despite his realization that it hnmobilizes him. But Julie cmnot join him without doing violence to her father, to hvhom she keIs a heavy ohiligatioin of tradition& loyaity, notwithstandjng her knowledge of his adultery and evidence of his cruelty. She herself remai~~s prisoner of tbe traditimal mindset; her plight s e e m as uizreasonabl.e and hopeless as that of U'sbek? wives in Isf&an.1" However, Rousseau found no relief in m0derni.t~To escape the patentiat wrath of Julie" ffather and upon Jufie" oordm, Saint-PEW travels fsom his native Switzerland to cosmopolitan Paris. Far from being impressed with the liberatixlg impact of commercial activity he fjnds people obsessed with trying to be what they are not. Parisians worry about how they dress, how they ride, and how t h y tdk but not &out who they are, where they are going, or what life means. The ultimate humiliation for
Saint-Pmux comes when he accepts an invitation fmm officer friends to meet ""ladies." He writes to fulie that he had doubts about the house whesz he arrived but hated to offend. Then the "water" with which he diluted his red wine tumed out to be white wine, and the "Ladies" obliged his "friendsf%y making sure that he compromised himself. He longed h r the sitnplc, nat-ural life of the countryside, Chough not for the swial strictures of rural society.1" ot =ason discern a middle gmunad between the oppressiveness of tradition and rhe alienati~~g friwlity of the modern city? Juiie's designated husbmd, de Wollmaq turns out to be a reasonable mm, Withh a traditional marriage, he and Julie seek to cmstmct the perfect household, where the managelnent of the servants, the farming of the land, the education of the children and the hteraction of family members are as honest, natural, and authentic as pcrssiHe, cmsistent with the need ktr social order. Knowing of Julie's nat-ural love for Saint-Preux, de Wollmar has him summoned to the estate and offered a permanent piace in the household. He etipressly leaves the two lovers alone to giwe thenn the confidcnce that they can acknowiedge and continue their feelings for each other without, thanks to their own self-imposed autonomous and hence authentic ~straillt,causing Julie to violate her marriage vow to de Wotixnar*In letters to an English friend and protector, Saint-Preux, gives3 to philasophical pursuits, extols the logic and naturalness of it all,': And fulie herself plans to lay the final brick in thjs magnificent edifice by trying to satisfy Saht-Pre~~x's sexual needs by encouraging him to marry mother occupant of the household, her intimate friend and companion, Claire, who has lost her husband. All would live under the same roof; both love and propriety could be preserved. :It did, not work. Julie herself could not bear it. Pehaps it was the thought of her lover married to Claire; perhaps it was the growing realization that, once completed, Che rational world she had helped construct snuffed out the spontaneous, creative, physical feelings for Saint-Prewc she had come to identxfy as the essence of her being. She begins to see that her creation has condemed her to a routinized life that satisfies her every ostmsibte need and desire but leaves her profoundly afienated. from herseff. "Happiness bores me,'-she says, not long bctforr-?brni_t~g to suicide for relief. It was in some sense the only authentic act: of self that relnained withh her powers, (Not surprising@ the Greek root of the ward authnticity means "to have full power over; also to commit a murderrf"l"JJulie dies '"h.appy to have bought at the price of my life the chance to h v e you forever without wrongdoing and to tell you so one more tjm.e," as she says in a last lettcr to Saitlt-Preux.lg For Rousseau, then, traditio~zrepresents on:ly a symptom oE a mom general dilemma for the sensitive being who would be true to himself or her-
self, Society, any societJr,however modern and rational in its construction, h.ap"dividual human beings, wen those rczsponsible for its constmction, in a web of restraints. Insafar as those restraints remain external, an individual. may retah a sense of self-control and eificacy through stmggIe. But insofar as the limits are internalized, both in thc.perkctfy traditional society and in the perfectly modem m, the struggle must be carried on within the individual. Modern human beings liberate themselves from the chains of a system wbose legitimacy stems either fmm Fnfir~iterepetition or from charismatic creation. 'They can define themselves against the mindless, foppish social conventions of the emergent capitalist economy but be metheless ~ d u c e din their essential frcledom by the raticmality of the institutions t h y are capable of gememting. The hternalization of the new norms produces either passive, uncrcative, self-abnegating compliance m open revolt against the self as a producrt of the society, European advocates oZ: autheMicity came to see rclason as bul-lressing the sociat. fabric in which human beings have imprisoned themse2ves. According to Rousseau, human beings remain "free, healthy, good and happy" as long as they relnain self-dependent. The need to live in prwimity to others lures them into a division of labor m d the constmction of social relations in vvhich imquality, dominance, and subordination become essential characteristics.2" The justification for these aliema.t.hgrelat h s h i p s emerges in a set of philosophical ideas that distracts human beingdrom their plight by focusing their attention on another world, the world of ideals as opposed to reality; of essence as contrasted with existence, of subject as opposed to object, For Siiren Kierkegad, Catholic haditionalism and Protestant rationalism constitukd separate but equail,y effect& dampers on autf.tentic Christian faith, The Catholic tradition irrsisted that faith could be routhized and ritualized, depriving it oE the qualities of fndivdual choice and risk epitomized by the life of Jesus. Me wrote about the age of revolution as a reaction against "fossilized foxmalism, whict?, by having lost the originality of the ethical, has become a desiccated win, a narrow-hearted custom and practice.""a He surely meant the camme~~t to apply to the Catholic Chuxh, ammg other institutions of prerevolutionary Europe, Protestantism, by contrast, subdinateet religion to reason, action to thou@t, m d individual acts of faith to universal principles. In a long discussion of i?\brahm and his deckion to sacrifice Isaac, Eerkegaard argued that Al;lraharn exemplified Christian behavior by stepgfng beyond the universal by followh g his faith agahst his reason." Authentic Christim action does nat depend on ei.th.er reason or tradition, except insofar as the example of Jesus in defying both =ascm and traditim is regarded as exemplary, Nietzsche argued that Western philosophy, beghnhg with Plato, gradually eroded the creativity and plurality of ancient Greek drama and
myth with its ever-inc~asinginsistence on cause-and-effect analysis and monotheism. 'The belief in cause and effect leads to a vision of history in which man has little control or, at best, few options; it renders seemhgly inexorable and hence acceptable the process by which custom m d iXIstituticms have deprived human beillgs of their self-ciependrtnce. ikfonotheism reinforces the notions of ideds, essence, and subject by proposing a realm of absolute truth; little does it matter, accordhg to Nietzsche, whether that realm be accessible by faith alone, by eason in faith, or by reason alone. 'The internal contradiction of the Western r ~ t and k its preoccupation with the search for the truth, which by its own methods can be shown to be unattainable, reveal tradition for what Nietzsche took it to be: the mask that Western man has imposed on himself (or rather that some men have forcitbly imposed on others) to sustain a set of social arrangements and rmder legi.tirnate a distribution of pclwer.23 'The question for Nietzsche, and for other theorists of wthcnticity, is whether human beings can live withollt the traditional myths that have, while sugpressing their independence a d creativity, saved them from despair. What would be truthful behavior h the absel~ceof customary truth? HOW can one accede to an authentic existence when the tentacles of inauthenticity reach to the core of the reasoning process one is accustomed to use to seek solLttio11s and when the susceptibility of such a probe to reasonable solution may itself be an illusion of the Western tradition? If traditimal perspectives took thrir strength primarily from their logical persuasiveness, then they would be susceptible to modification by superior evidence and argument. However, tradition itself depends not on reason but on prwious performance /'or the assumption of previous performanceU"-land on some ekrnent of force for its preservation.. Its principal practitioners, the masses, h o w no philosophy but behave as they do from c o m m sense, tryhich includes a heal.thy seme of not rocki~~g the boat or stepping out of h e . The intellectuals who defel~dany traditional order argue for its general.utility, which inevita:hly includes their own position in the social hierarchy.2-And even it; they advocate reform, they elnploy tools selected from the workshop of the donninant intellectual tradition, alt products of an array of forces protective of the existing order of things. Reformism strengthens the status yuo by reducing the need far coczrcion in the maintenance of order but does not, by definition, ChaXlenge the coercive foundation of any dominant perspective, The pursuit of authenticity &us recjuire escape not just from the prevaifhg intellectual traditim and not simply from the coercive pokver of the state but rather from a connbination of mutually reinforcing ideas and forces. Nietzsche argued that violence permitted the installation oE the ratio as the dornhant mhdset and cmthued to sustah both the h e a r view of causality and the distinction between essence and existence, The
Athenian state, the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, the divine monarchies cJf early Europe, alld even the liberal regixnes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had inculcated the rntirrt and bee11 sustained by it. Nietzsche asserted that the idea of the subject as an actor ;in history obscures the domination of thinking over other human instincts, of mind over body, of the spiritual over the makriai world., of lnaster over slave.2h The solution, Nietzsche suggested, lies not in a reversal in whIch the material world takes precedence over the spiritual or the slaves become the new masters but in overcoming the dualism that marks the Micstern tradition since Plato, Such a tradition, violently established and coercivcly sustai~~ed, can only be overcome by vioknce: Nietzsche's "free spiritf"rakes his liberty by acts that arc repugnant and deleterious to the exjsting order. That which the society defhes as evil necessarily becomes good to the free spirit, who has not escaped the pattem of retribution that Pllietzsche saw as charackrizing the struggle of mader and slave through history The free spirit stilf remains to that extent a prisoner of the history he seeks to escape. Violence is but a first step, however necessary, toward the liberation of the self.27 Not all theorists of authenticity accord equal importance to violence, but the need for some measum of violence emert;es from the imprisming nature of a tradjtion. For example, F m m argued that the na.t.ive can escape nativeness only through physical attack on the perpetrator of the violence suffered. Physical repression produces mental submissiveness fiat can oniy be ovcrcome in of mental and physical aggression. Violence, in Fanon" eyes, can be the midwife in the rebirth of the genuine personality of the colmized. Rousseau, by cmtrast, sutjgested both the inevitability and the futil,ity of violence; Julie's suieide culminated, and ended, her search for authenticity. Gsamsci, convinced nf the ultimate need for violent overthrow of the Italian liberal state, cautioned nonetheless that a "war of maneuver" could not be successful without prior "tactical battles" agahst the prevai1isl.g common sense of the masses. He felt that the great war Of manewer might scrrwe tittle purpose untess it had first acquired meaning through the search for a new common. sense, Seen as a partial cure for the psyche in. Fanon and as a defeat for the self in Rousseau, violence constituted for Gramsci, as for Nietzsche, both a part of the logic of struggle and a hndamentd characteristic of the situation from which human beings seek liberation. Martin Meidegger, whose discussion of the word "authentiCitff in Beitg a d Time touched off much of the szlbsequmt debat-e about: the concept, has ofien been regarded as a cmservative, a defender of tradition, though certai~~ly not a dctfender of the philosophical tradition of rationality But WeR. Newell, has argued that Heidegger, too, should be seen as a ""revolutionary." Tradition comes to constitute the rationale for everyday
life, which is filled. with routine, repetition, idle chatter, ordinariness. Tradition in this sense contradicts the very forces that created tradition. The c u m m u n l ~ ' reassumption t of its destiny requires a new kind. of radicatism which is both backward- nnd faward-looking. It requires the rejection of all existing political, social, culturaX, and moral bonds in the name of a contentless commrmitarianism; a tzrholly absbact notion of "the people" rc~oted in a past t o primordial as to bear little if any resemblance to what is regarded in everyday life, by custom, public, and intdlectual opinion, as the people's past history28
The appeal to the ""printordial" is not, of course, an appeal to reason; like Nietzsche, Heidegger struggled to find language capable of describing the human cmditim without subordinating it to reasm, Authenticity is a mode of being distinguished both from traditional behavjor and from ethical conduct based in universal. reason, The catl for authenticity is a call for stmggle against an existing social order seen as inimicai to the devetopmnt of the true self, i-t-tdiffertntto mankhd"s potential, and repressjve of human effort to realize that potential. That stmggle quires volition as an antidote to passivity, action as opposed to mere thought, and even viole~~ce as opposed to persuasion, because the pillars of existing society, erected and sustained by force, cannot ot11erMlise be moved. Agaillst a status quo reflective of efforts at social engineering and dependent upm a cultural hegemony defended by Western-educated, intellectuals, the struggle appears nu less protracted and no less violent than when waged against a society steeped in tradition. The calf to authenticity is a summons to struggle against the fatalism of the traclitiod world and against the passivity of a world swept toward modernity.
Autonomy C h the practical level, authentic thought calls for active struggle against an existing social order, Through the quest for authenticity, human beings emerge from their passivity to become architects and masons of their world. m e y seek to ljfnerate Chemselves from a past of their own mking that has escaped their control, to fashim a future that is tajfored to tbeir own needs, instincts, and wisl-tes. In the process, they transform themselves. The practical call for radical change thus presupposes a philosoyhicd understanding of history as a product of h u a n aclion and of human nabre as subject to manipdation b r n within a d \nlithout. In a mechanistic world, human vditim has no place, and the westion of how human bejngs may seek their genuineness lacks memhg. In a world h o w -
able d y by social scientific method, man's role becomes Fnritator rather than creator, 3 e c t rather than subect, dependent phyer rather than autonomous actor, victim rather thm protagonist. In cmtrast, advocates of authenticity necessarily see human beings as autonomous and creatke protagonists of history Fatlad Ajami has noted that the determinism inherent in the domhant strand. of Western thought, predicated on the presumed inevitability of human pmgress, rczsemhfes a predominant fatalism in the :lslamfc world of the past scveral centuries. ""Kotb want to spare men and hvomen the agony of choice and experience," he has
[email protected] search for authenticity cannot be ~crmciledwith either religious fatalism or social deterxninism,, Aut"rrentieitycaXls for choice m d hvi.11to overcome the clulches of the inauthentic life; if existing cmd.itions result from the inexorabfe forces of God c ~ rnature, then fie y?xestic,n of their authmticity does not even arise, If inevitable, how cottld they be rcgasded as anything but genuine? Concern for authenticity reflects a conviction that the h m a n wilf shayes human destiny The emphasis upon. human agency permits comparison between ideas marked by contrasting views of metaphysics. The search for authenticity may be conducted either trYithin a cmtext of revealed truth c ~ in r a context of skepticism; inboth eascs, authentic conduct depcnds upon truthful action even though, m d especially because, human behgs do not have access to the truth, either because truth resides with God alone or because no belief in miversal truth can be sust..ained.AuChe~~tic thought. telrds to emphasize human volition as tke sole force of historq!. Accordkg to the theists, God is separate from h u a n beings, who must strive to feel God's presence and exercise their powers of reflection to d e r s t a n d God's wmd, who must analyze their place in sociev and hlstory and try to effect change in themselves and the world. Since history is driven by individuds who may themselves be no morc than contradictory packages of instincts who act without precise external guidance, one cannot foresee the behavior of any individual, much less fiat cJf a society" Reason is vital to the discovery and pursuit of truthful,modes of conduct, but it cannot reveal the truth; human beings reason from a perspecthe inside history from within a perspective conditimd by the historical moment. To suppose trheln capable of lifting themselves beynnd fiistory is to make human beings into God., a supposition that conflicts both with, th initial assumption that h u m s and God arc separate and with a skepticai view of universd trulh. The radicalism of the autl-\entic persuasion requires human autonomy* Conceptions of human beings as builders of their world, without perfect reasoning powers to discern the optimal cou,rse of action, foster an emphiasis on unity of thought and. action, If human beings bear responsi-
bility for their fate, then they must exert themselves to h o w the tmth, whether that means seeking contact with God or wrrstlixrg with the fact that there may be no Truth- Under the same assumptions, they must put into practice those ideas that reason or inspiration may permit. Not to do so gives a h n t a g e to those who drift passively m d thus betray their authentic, creative natures. monght is an hitid action. Ac.lion taken without reference to thought sacrifices the human abiliv to controt fate. Human beirrtgs would once again become objects rather than subjects. n o u g h t m d action cannot be distkguished, because human beings are both subjects and objects: 7b understand them as subjects alone is to remove them from the social cmditions that impinge upon their freedom; but to emphatske only their condition as ohjects of b t o r y is to deprivc them of any freedom whatsoever. Orthodox Marxism, with its insistence on inevitability and its relegation of thought to the realm of superstructure, is incompatible with assumptions about autonomy found in authentic thought, but the writings of the early Marlc have become an important element in the attempt to reconcile subjedivity and objectivity Marx started from an. observation about the creative potential of human beings. Human beings realize their creativity through work; tbey are the work they do and become alienated from themselves as Chey relkquish control over the toots needed in production m d , as a resut.t, over the objects of their Iabor. ?i, realize their potcntial, human beings must stmggle to =gain control d production and of themselves, Tbe \zrheet of history turns ~lcntlesslybecause individual human beings, seeking to overcome their dienation, move it forward with their own efforts to understartd their predicament and act on the basis of their understanding. Their consciousness is necessarily ""detrmined, finite, rooted in a pmconstituted social world," not reflective of an external, generai truth. But as cmscious agents, they are a ""dynamic, creative drivjng force of social transfomation,""I capable of atering their own being by virtue of their capacity to change the circumstances that conditim their cmceptions oE self. Reunited with the product of their mtivity; human beings achieve authenticity This is the Marx who in.spired Cramsci to reassert the place of conscious, reflective, organized wilf in rwofutionary theory, against the mechanjstic bterpretat.ions of both idealism and orthodox Marxism,, For Gramsci, the fact that human beings create t h i r own history implies the absence of any history without human beings, as actors, writers, or at least storytellers. Every metaphysical conceptim, every version of human history, every poli.tical ideology can be traced to human actkit-y under a specific set of conditbns themselves rc.flecti\/e of p ~ v i o u sthought and action. No ideas, including the orthodox Marxist insistence that only the evolution of materid forces shapes class struggle and the flow of history,
escape their ties to an epoch and circurnstance.32 To argue for the inevitable triumph of the proletariat hnplies the existence of s m e &server placed beyond h m a n history, the god that neither Gamsci nor orhodox Mamists was preparcd to accept. Moreover, reiying m a misplaced faith in dialectical materialism and underestimating the extent to which dominant thought patterns had hstilled passivity Marx missed a key step h the rclvolutionary struggle: the need to bster a will for change. Gramsci mmifested faith not in the otTjective processes cJf history but in the existence of an il-tdividual suhect, djsthct from aif other subjects and capable of understanding that distjnctim. (Gramsci called "'cbjective" the verdict of multiple subjective apprait;als.) He based his case for autonomy not on necessity hut on plausibility. "Is it better," he asked, to think without having critical awareness, in a disjctinted and haphazard tvay-that is, to parGcipate in a conception of the tvorld ""impc>sdfl mechanistically by the externa! environment, by one of the many scxlial groups in which one is automatically involved from the moment of entry into the cmscious world; or is it better to ebborate one's own conception of the world, conxiously and critically and thus, in con_jmctic)n with this tvork of your cjwn brain, to choose one's own sphere of activityCpadicipate actively in the produdim of world history, to be guided by- oneself and not to accept passive1y and supinely the imprint of the outside world on one's own personality?%
n o s e capable of such reflection-the intellectuals-mst- rcexantine Ihe hegemony of their day the ideas that sustairr the configuration of power in a ghen society and a given time. With assistance from the intellectuals, 1 ordinary people can reassess the "common sensef3by which they five. X offered new perspectives, they will plausibly prefer those suited to their own age condition, and personality. They will prefer "good st;nsef"act h e pursuit ol a more authentic society-to the prevailing ""cornmon sense," based on routine m d folk religion and conducive by its wisdom of p a s h i t y to the maintenance of the old hegemony together with the political order it sustains. Indepemdent thought is thus the first concrek act of will in thet construction of a new world.and. a m w human species, Not surprisingfy Gramsci often wrote of his regret that the Protestant Reformation and the Pratestmt ethic had not spread to Italy. He argued that a Protestant Italy would have been more likely to faIlow MachiavellYs advice by thinking and dofng for itself." Such an arwment leaves him far h m such writers as Pascd, Gutierra, @lib, or momeini-atl expments of an authenticity rooted in religious belief. But these writers do share Gramsci's emphasis on autonomy and his opposition to tradition, The theme of autonomy h authezztic thotrgS-tt runs even d e q c s in the existentiaiist strain than in the Marxist tradition of Western thought.
Kierkegaad's characterizati.on of the ""present age," his age, derided its passivity: 'The present age is essentially a sensible, reflecting age, devoid of pssion, P a r i ~ ~upg izz s~lpe$cicrl, silort-limd crnftrrlsilrsnzand yrrrde~tially rcrkaxiczg in indolence" "tdics in original].."sFor Kierkegaardt, Christianity mq u i ~ an s act of i~~diwidual will. fndividuals must choose it. God speaks to alt human beings, but he is so relnote that h u m n beings cannot know him or understand him, Truth is in this sense unavailable; neither aesthetic nor ethical wisdom is liable, but human beings c m nonettneless choose through a leap of faith to do God's will. Reason cannot groulzd their choice. Tn doing so they reject both radical optimism that indhidual action cannot compromise God's benevolent plan for the uni\lerse a d nihilism, which would in its radical form assert that human actions do not matter, either." Far Kicrkegaard, authentic Christian bchavior springs from the acceptance of individual rtzspmsibiii.ty for both individual and collective desthy. Jean-Paul Sartre" vversim of existmtialism makes the acceptance of individual f ~ e d o mthe principal criterion of authenticity Freecfom comes from human consciousness, which, provides the ability to transce~~d onc's own physicaX, factical nature, in and of itself meaningless and even absurd, as well as one's socid situation. Sartre hirnsdf grew up within bourgeois constraj,nts that-, Xike Rousseau, he idmtified with artif"icia1ityand t k suppressim of individual fcrelhg. Like Rousseau, he turned to nature as a remedy, but unlike Rousseau, he f o n d absurdity in the natural state of t h g s and, again unlike Rousseau, he link& human freedom with the purposeful confrontation with nature: "Sartre's path to existential authmticity requires hiln to navigate between the d u d threat and promise that lie kvithin both civility and nature. Civiljty can be &er a prison of bad faith or a refugcr from the mslaught of nature. Conversely, what is nature can be a source oE nausea that engulft; cmsciousness, or it can be an oasis in a desert of pretentious civilitfl" The fact that human beings must navigate this channell means they face choices; to accept that frtredorn is to behave authentically*To deny choice and see ones& as either a captive of natural forces or a prisoner of propriety is to demnnstrate fear oE frttedolvr and hence bad fai.th, Stuart Zme Charm.&has argued persuasivek that Sartrt.'~interest in groups such as Jews, Americm blacks, and homosexuals refiwted his conviction that their examples helped amplify his sense of the range of human choke." Their particularity enhanced his frezedom. Sartre, like other advocates of authenticity presumed that human beings can act in ways that are not mere reflections of their drclmstances. Aukhentie chojce requil-es that they reason about the constraints imposed by their physieal a d social situations. But if existence comes before essence and individ,u,ality takes pre?ceden,ceover c o m o n hilities to rea-
son, how can one account for this capacily fnr autonornous choice? Autonomous reason cmnot accomt for autonomous reason. 'The Cheists say God has provided the impulse for autonontous choke: Pascal launched biting attacks on the Jesuits for their talk of sufficient 15""" that was not deemed sufficient." "&keg& suggested that the leap of faith comes after rcsignation artd in solitude. Rousseau spoke of these impulses as being natural, Nietzsche extolled the artistic, creative, corpcrreai, Dionysian aspects of h u m behavim as the authentic reflections of human will, over and again.st: the restrictions irnposed by n?ind, conscience and reason, Nietzsche did not accomt far the existence of will; 5artre did not explain the origin of human freedom but rather ietentified it as a hndametntaZ characteristic of the human condition. In short, however much the revolutimar)i thrust of authentjc thought depends upon the rationality of human Esponse to physicai and social circumstances, autonomy ultimately requires justification h a world beyond the reaches of reason, An act can be deemed authentic: if it stems from impukes that cannot, by analysis, be attributed to some prior ter~strialforce.. Nonrationnl invocati.ons or evocations undccyin the aut.onomous choices of authentic thought. And. it is also this necessary venture beyond the domain af reason that cements a measure af coherence and community in an otherwise highly particularistic world.
Unicity: Escape from Nihilism The emphasis an particularity impels authentic thought toward confrontation with fJ-ame\vctl-ksthat oqanize daily life for individuals or societies, toward. autonomous cbvice by sharply individuatcd persons, toward a djwersity of perspectives and outcomes, and, perhaps, toward chaos and anarchy. By abandoning hmanist assumptions, Chc European propuncznts of authenticity sacri.fice the familiar foundations for psychological, social, and political life. Uet their embraw of authenticity implios m acceptance of a truth up013 which some reconstruction can begin. By dcf nition, t h y resist the sirens of nihilim and meaninglessness and embrace a masure of commonality in the humm experience tbat might be termed "unicity.'9t is much less far-reaching Chat the essetntial unity of reason proposed by humanists or by those adherents of religious traditicms who see God as the stage director and initiator of alT h u m action. In the authetntic view' the .fundamental assumption is that- such unity is lacking, but the very explanation of human autonomy and particulal-ity =quires, in their wiew, a deeper, more remote and nonetfieless decisive oneness that cmstit~ressalvation from nhilism,
For Rousseau and the romantics, nature provided this oneness. It was not that nabre could be read lLke a book for what it; revealed about the universe and God's btentions, as European science and the Enlightemmmt had come to believe. Rousseau contrasted m m h d in the state of nature with human efforts to construct societies in a civilized setting. Although he hoped h m a n beings could overcme alienat-ion, he did not hagine they could return to some happier, natural state, Rut he did suggest that the individual comes to a full mderstanding of h s e l f or herself through contact with the nahlral world. It is in the boat on Lake Geneva or in her own garden that Julie has th@ most trouble suppressing her own, gnuinely persmal instincts for her lower, St. Preux. Nahtre helps one to feel oncself beneath the layers of habit and reasm that normally govern behaviou:And the unicity of nature, of whirrh human bejngs are not mercly observers but form a part, provides assurance of some underlying mity Far Kierkegaard, the underlying u ~ ~ iis t ymore problematic. Authentic action comes out of solitude, because only an individual can search for tmth,@and out of resignation, because temporitl beings cannot by definition have access to the eternat and camot therehre h o w the permanent, unchang4ng trutl?, 7b presume that hurniln beings can know God by reason is to prc;lsurrte that they art- not entiely separate thfngs, just as it is contradictory to presume that a phjlosopher such as Megel can prodttee permanent truth about the realm of the evanescent, "The suprem paradox of all thought is the attempt to discower something that thou$t cannot think."" Only God can providcl a gljmpse of the tmth to a person who is prepared to receive it, But if that truth could be rendered permanent in this wor2d and propagated to a gmup trYithouf;hdividual effort and will, them Kierkegaard's initial t?"sum,ptionwwouldbe violated. Chly the existence of God provides some unity to existence; the transcendence of Cod rt.nders this unity extraorcliinarily precarious. Zf h beings cannot k ~ o wTruth, Wl"lich is G&, they cannot knocv each What they see is difference and unlikmess, which Kierkegaard, identifies with sin and error. Only Cod, who ~prtrsentslikeness, holds the key to overcoming this absolute di,fference; only God can provide hocvledge about such difference, m d human success at ""understandhg"' must necessarily be limited to the moments of passion in which an act of faith permit.~insight. The logic suggests that human bonds depelrd upon acts of faith rafier than reason, and such acts are neither permanent nos compreot be captured by either a Catholic Church, subcrrdinatkg Truth to organization, or a Protestmt Church, subordfnating Truth to mason, Such unicity, if one may cat1 iuhat, provides scant foundations for social construction. 'The westion of unicity looms largm for Nietzsche, who proclainned the '"death of GodM-the inability of human bei.ngs to sustain belief irr an ulti-
mate source of truth and goodness, even an inaccessible source, such as the god of which Kierkegaard speaks. For Mietzsche, as for Kierkegaard, temporafity cmstitutes m apparently insuperable barrier for human access to enduring truth. He reminds us that propositions about the preemhence of &ought, the self, subjects, and objects have all evolved as part of the kstorical human experience; to I;now &out Chem one must use the techniques of genealogy rather than abstract reason, which is itself a product of power and values, accordir-rg tcr the genealogical perspective. Yet gencalow constitutes m effort of the mind to get a hold on things: ""lt does not take sides over what is good or evil so much as it takes sides against every claim that an action is good or evil. Rut to do so is stitl to operate withirr the domain of v a l ~ ~and e s to relate genealcr~"allegedly power-conscious commitments to that domain-and that surely makes genealof~ynormative."42 For Nietzsche, there is nothing but will to power, which underlks h m a n eMorts to make sense oE their universe in order to gain mastery over thernsehes and their condition. l[i, know is thus tcr exercise the will to power, and knokvledge appears to be uttcrly particularistic, hence perspectival. Vet his embrace of gelzealogy suggests his commibent to a truthfuhess beyond truth. Or peshaps the commitment is, paradoxically, to a truthfuhess in which there is m tmth.43 Nietzsche idelntilied truthfulness with a forfiright acceptance of Che world of becoming, J, P. Stern wrote: ""Authenticity is the deliberate cohcidence of what a m m is with what he can become.""4 Human b e i ~ ~ g s must accept the impermanence of all that they create, hcludhg the most elaborate philosophjcal systems. They must resign themselves to the "eternal recurrence of the same,'" flow of experience and events that constitutes a sort of order in an otherM4ise chaotic, meaningless wobjd, at least for tl-tose eniifShtened sods who dare to face up to their radical historicity. "The superman is one MIho can value hfinitely what he h w s to to say, of course, that one must ennbrace the irrabe valueless.W"is tional for rational reasons: "Willing the eternal return is the suprclme will tcr power becaux it is the grratest contradiction that man has yet been asked to bear. We must bestow on becoming the absolute value that the ascetic ideal taught us to bestow on being."4Wm Nietzsche, then, ixnpermanmcc; and change comtihte the unitary ccmditions of humm experielzce; grasphg these, m authelztic human being can escape nihilism by exercising the will to power and creating an authentirr self. Such selfdetermination is a ""csnsummation of the secular searchiz~gfor values which is central to the recent iuttelkctual and politjcd hjstory of the West,"Q even t h o q h Paietzsche saw klrnself as undermining the metaphysical foundations of that tradition. Such a straddle, tJRough particularly dramatic in the case of Nietzsche, is elzdemic to the effort to estarblish authent-icity as a truthhhess beyond truth and beyond radical particularity,
For Pdietzsche, bejrzg and time were utterty contradictory cmceptions, and the result was his rejection of being in favor of becoming as the basis for authentic human action.. In his most influential work, Being and T j ~ l ~ e , Heidegger reopened that issue. His very utilization of the term. '6Behg" and his eMort to demonstrate hoMi beings and especiatly the human self, which by N'ietzsche's account appears utt-erly self-determining, may participate in Being. That account, according to Heidegger, appears to leave out the way the human self shares the world with other beings yet remains uCterly individual, t?l. least jnsofar as it responds "aulhentically" to its own potential for being. That means, first m d h ~ m o s tresponding , to its finitude. It is primarily an anxiety 111 the face of death that lifts tbr self out of its weary., dreary, everydayness to assttlne an attitude of resolve and care toward the world: "Mm exists authentically when he "nticipates' and kesdves uponf this finih;lde. 'Resolvef establishes our "freedom-t-owards-death,' the freedom to face everyday lik" impermanence and t h e ~ b yto face the need to reestablish the w d d out of which everyday life has gr"~wn.'~~W:~eestatrlishing the world means htoking back toward prjmordjal origins to get bencath ~asm m d everydayness and to undermjne politics as usual h hvor of some radically dirferent community Unlike Nietzscl-re, who suggested that at least the few m y be able to impose some sort of order on chaos by .facing up to the futility ol permanence, Heidegger spoke of a mvement backward into "primordial oritr;jnsm-whicl-r at times seem to ewke h e "heart of darkness'"--that appears to promise a m c h broader harnessing of the parlieularistie forces. Vet, as Newell has observed, the exercise may look backward, but the implicatims arc. for the future. A violent resoluteness to sweep away a world infected with the technological and managerial politics of modern times; the vision of a pure and unified community which will broach no comprcsmis with ordinary puli"rcal squabbling and interests; the conviction in the s i p a l importance tc) the West as a whale that Germany lead this revolutionary reencounter with Being: Ch the basis of these considerations one could begin to examine the openness C>E" vulnerabiliQ of Heidegger's philosophy to the kind of political alternative offered by National SociaIism.49
More generally, Heidegger proposed to reach through his expIoration oi ""fundwntal ontolog "-the search for Being-"" the pemanent cm&tion of human impermanence or hjstoricity.'"Und in doing so, he erected a stalldad for authenticity#a basis for political community, a unitary platform fn an othervvise sp1interc.d world. The platfom necessarily lies beneath tradition and beneath rdionality, and it impf,ies the need for revolution agairzst the afienating fnrces inherent in modernity*
Jean-Paul Sartre attempted to erect a platform on the idea of freedom, which he took to be fundamental to human beings. Again the title of a book, Beifzg and Nothi~fgncss,suggests hocv his enterprise differs from trhat of Heidegger. The threat to Being comes less from time than from facticiv and meaninglesmss, but the problem for Sartre is not: so different: how to establ.sh some linkage among human beings as a basis for et-hical Wtion-without recourse to God or mivessal reason. For Sartre, that linkage lies in the human condition a d a shared freedom to utilize consciousness in coping with facticity, 'The freedom I experience when. I understand my condition causes me to accord. freedom to another person, and the result is an ethic of authenticiw 'Ib deny my f ~ e d o mis to act in bad faith.51 Freedom, springing h m human consciolrsl~ess constitut.es the standard on which an ethic can be erected. Whereas particu2ariv constitutes the fundamentat condition of all authentic thought, it is also the p"i.ncipal thred to fhdi,ng a new trulhfulness b e y o ~ ~the d truths that can no longer be accepted. Truthfulmss requires a standard, and a standard requires an element of co onality in the human experience. If each individual is utterly unique and isolated by virtue of tinne and facticity, then to make any ethical observation about even a single person, much less a collectiviv, is impossible. Meaninglessness, chaos, and marchy would be the logjcal consequences, Those who espouse the doctrine of authentieity share a conviction that those cmsequmes can be avoided and a basis for authentic action c m be established. Since the demand far authex~ticitylies in objection to the dictates of universal reason and to the demands of conventionality, the response must lie at some level other than reason or tradition. It must be irrational or aratbnal, and it must be revolutionary. This is cvhy the advocates of autl-\enticit.yhave not been a part of the poli,ticd mainstream in the West. In fact, a set of political dilemmas emerges nah;lral@ from a reading of European thinkers who have wrestled with the question of authenticity. Authentic thought can enjoy long-term political success only if it demonstrates the ability to hamess human autonomy and energy, to orgmize paticipatio~~ in a body politic by overcoming the particularity of founding groups and. their ideas, md. to move beymd revotutim toward the establishment of permanent instihttions. Several forces push in &:hose directions. First is the need for mass ac.lion to achieve politicai objwtives. Second is the modern pmoccupatim with equality as a basis for dcmocracy. Stilt a third is the eventual need for stalnility that only hstitutictns can provide. These forces chtlengc authentic thought. to soften itself, without abmdonjsrg its basic impulses. Authmtic thougfnt must confPont the challenges of modernity gmup action, democracy, and instiktions in the light of lundarnentd characteristics that seem to point toward a static view of history, radicalism, individualism, elitism, and instability,
Group Action Authentic thought of all, varieties sees history as the product of indjvidllal effort. Some Muslim mystics have been content to explore paths toward. the authentic as purely personal solutions, but even Nietzsche's Zmathustra finds himself compelled to descend from hjs mounta,in retreat to preach the gospel of liberation. :It takes no social scientist to demonstrate that radical ideas became revoIu.tionary only with the support of a group. It m y take eiCher religious inspiration or reljable sncial science, or both, however, to permit authentic thought ta move from its base in individual action to the t-hemtical ccmstruction of group action. Common belief in God does not suffice. For Kierkgaasd as for Pascal, God will inspirc those wha, by their own diligence, strive to randerstand the meaning of true faith. Genuime autonomy means that human beings must make the effort; and Chc problem is to show that they will do so as a group, despite their fundamental particularity and without falling back either on miversal reason applied to texts (as t_he Protestant mainstream would suggest) or on tradition and ritual (as utilized by the Catholic Church). An authentic act of faith is unique and hcommunicable, according to Kierkegaard. t-low one moves from incommunica"oie individual acts to group action is not self-evident. Depending upon a neo-Marxian analysis of classes in Latin America, Gutierrez postulated unity of action for Lhose who simultaneously seek the true, revctlutioniiry spirit of Christianity and the revctlutionary needs of their countries, Human beings must themselves discover their common purpose in the history they have made, but it is God who helps weld those individual discoveries into a movement capnble of effective actim. To count on God without sociology would be to deny man" liberty to constmct his own world; accordkg to Gutierrez, God acts w2hi.n history, not beyond it. But scxjnlogy hvithout God leaves a group of individuals with silnilar interests and conclusions incapable of overcoming group insularity and reaching their full potmtial. '"The fulh~essof liberation-a free gift from Christ-is communion With God and with other men," wrote Gutierrez." But he also said that love "is not authentic if it does not take thr part of class solidarity and social stmggle.""s" In the t?bsence of Cod, group action appears eve11 more problematic for the burdens pIaced. uym sociological analysis, which nonetheless cannot be accorcted objec.tivity witbout compromising free will. Nietzsche seems to assume at some moments in his &inking that the prohletn will. resolve itself as those with greater howledge, and hence greater will to power, assert their natural impulses to d e . Cohesion results from coercim.2 But far a clemocrat such as Gramsci, coercion represmts achowledgment of failure in the effort to replace an old h e g m m y with a new one. For h,
intdectuals must serve as intemediaries beween a party of the few capable of organizing actim and the masses that must ultimately support any successful revolution. Ort the basis of their malysis, the intelfechxals can propose new ideas; the masses dispose m the basis of what they feel, htellec.htals think but do not feel.'Vuch would be a true liescrjptia~~ of their situation and a true p~scriptionfor the rernedy- The sub~ectiveratification of the great majoriky transforms the subjective maIysj.s of the intellectuals into an objectiwe base from MIhich gmup acgon is passible. Human beings will undertake such action because t h y are essentially political m d because action a h e d at transfoming and consciously directing other men completes their humanity, their " h m a n nabre."" hramsci put this term in qrxotatim marks because it appears to vidate his asscrtion that h w m naturc is not a constant but a variable, the product of humm action, For on conscit,usness proceeds from common experience, It is not sell-evident, then, t-hat hdividuals, each a product of slightly different historical experience, hould feel truth in the same set of propositions or that they &add be suddt~nlycapable of feeling, as m e such pmposition, their inhexnt h w a n need for group action. The arguntent estabIisfies plausibiliv rather than necessityI and thus Gramsci" view of history, as the graciual assefiion of m d s domfnance over nature, similarly remains in the realm of b y p ~ c s i rather s than certai.nty. Tfie hfismity of sociology becomes the infirmity of group actim m d the lameness of history, which defies rigorous sociological understandhg.
Equality Unlike the problem of group adion, which may be more acute h the absence of God, the problem of equaliw appears to pose more critical problems for theistic approaches tcr authentirity. Both Christianity a d Islam contain assertions of the equality oE all human beings before God and denunciations of the ir\justice inherent in existing inequalities. The one attacked the power of R m e , the other assaulted the wealth cJf Mecca. Mareover, authentic thought of all stripes ide~ztifiesthe inequality of traditional society, whether based in p ~ s t i g e money , piety, or politics, as a source of inauthenticity. It is passivity in tbe face of greater p w e r that prevezzts human beings from realizkg their gezzuhe potential. Nietzsche, for example, spoke of the perpetuation of the maskr-slave relationship as a fixed aspect of the human condition, Yet the search for authe~zticitynecessarily beghs with an hdividual or a small group and leads most easjly to elite hxnination. For Nietzsche, unencwmbered by a transhistoric ethic, elitism ~prtrsentsthe o d y hope far hwman 1.iberation fnlm the tyramy of a less enlightened, less hwmanc, and more utopian (hence, deluded) eliGsm. The domjnance of superior
wills remins the most plausible hypothesis about h u m n behavior. For Gramsci, wcrrking fmm the concept of a human nature in search of Eulfillment, the leap may not be long from the need for a politicd party, together with the recognized Mlibility of m a n y political analysis or action, to the acceptance of several parties and some form of liberal etemocracy, albeit not the liberalism of Croce's dreams, Gramsei" reservations about the capacity of an intdlectual class to prescribe for smiety, lacking either the ability to do objective social science or to feel what is true, as nanintelleduals do, pushed him. toward populism. Yet his dottbts about. the adequacy of spontaneity pulled him back toward ""the modern princeH-the political party-which serves both as galvanizing myth and agent of organization. Reworking Machiavelli (in his rekrence to the prince) and ICobert Michels" (in his recogslition of the need for hierarchy), he anticipated Maurice &verger""il.il his discussim of mass parties) and Samlael HuntingtonB (who called politicat parties the only genuine@modern politjcal invention). In short, 6ramsci"s respmse to the problem of political epality, acceptitlg the necessity of elite leaeiership as well as mass authorization, fits well within the mainstream of the Western liberal, debate.60 The thrust of all aut%tenticthought is toward the particular and away from the universal. By seeking the true self, it divides rather than unites, disthgznishes ra.trher than encompasses"By emphasizkg humm diversityr it renders diffjcult the argument for equal treatment for ethnic, religious, politicd, social, or political minorities. It accepts the fragmentation of the world into groups of disprate identities and purpose without providing much theoretical guidance about the management of such a. world.kl ?'he mom intmsely religious versions =em antifcheticai to the notion of equal sovereig~ntyfor weak and strong, yet that idea appears vital to the practical survival,of a self-consciously authentic regime, unwilling to depmd on a great power for defense. b r this reason, the practical problem of maintaking peace at home and norm1 rclatin1n.s with, nr.ighbors dictates compromise, but cornpromise begins to separate theory from pmctice and to illvilte charges of hypocrisy sirnftar to those leveled at m ancien r6ghe. The more a regime seek legitimacy in piety; the more it is sensitive to such critieim, and the grcater the tension it feels with the equalizing, universalizi.rzgforces operant internally and externally.
The contemporary concern for equality derhes from the hvidespxad acceptmce of development theory as articulated in the West, By contrast, the need for group action skms from the fundamental radicalism of authentic thought as an attempt to redructure society and human beings. That grcat historian of authenticity movements, Ibn maldun, idcntificd
group feeling as the critical variable for successM revolution as well as for the durhility of the po"revo1utionary state. Rut, as he also observed, g r o q feeling camot endure.. Is the decline of authenticity as incvithle as Ibn U~aldunsuggests? Is it as firmb anchored in human instincts as the search for au&enticity itself? f i e r y theory of genuine renewal, even if isolated from the pressms of modernity and equality, must confmnt the problem of instihtionalizatim unless it can, like fbn maldun and Nietzsche, accept the transitory nature of any such endeavor. John Pmock outlined the dilemlna this way: " R e radicai reconstructs the past in order to authorize the future; he historicizes the present in order to deprive it of authority. Both oper;ltions may give him a bias in favor of historical explanation, which may detract against his wislnes from the very cbracter of his enterprise."Q One instance of a r y intervention into politics inviks ano&er. C)ne ~volutricminwites another. One invocaticm of a mythical past invites the search far mother, stjll more hazy mystjcal, and authentic. Rousseau's Julie sought to institutionalize the most genuine part of her being, her love for Saint-Preux, by bringing l6m and the friends that linked them into her married household. There, her husband, de Wollmarf in his inhumme rationality left the lovers to discover that the net of social constraints now enmeshing them had, by binding their own cmsciences, deprived them of the capacity to relzew Chc intense, natwal, authentic relationship they had once enjoyed. By takng them to a sacred spot in the woods where J d i e and Saint-P~uxhad first embraced, de Wallmar demonstrated that the lovers could withstmd the canfrontation with the past; the new institution sustained them, But simultaneously, the past lost its meaning and the new household, designed in part to keep that past alive, also began to lose its fascination for Julie. As t-\er rapport: with Saint-Preux gradually lust its irrational power, Julie began to find that part of herself in God. She had, in fact, rediscovered her faith on the day of her hveddjng to dc W o h a r ; dter the discovery of her inability to instilutionalizeher love for Saint-Prcux, she welcomed death as an escape into authenticity. Nietzsche recognized the destructive, especially self-destructive, potential. of the drive for truthfuhess. '"I know of no betkr purpose in life than to be destroyed by that which is great and impossible.""bW~luman beilzgs can liberate themsehes from their consciences m d from God, he thougfnt; they can rescue themselves by dint of will, and action from Julie's dilemxna, but fhey still find themelves caught in the web of history f m which there can he no escape. The present cmstmtly loses gromd to the past and the future. fnstitutims may be absolutely critical bits of illusion for the preservation of the human species, ~flectiveof the strongest wills of a particular hjstorical moment, but their very nature-persistemcc of behavior over time in accord with established rule-seems inconsistent
with what Nietzsche meant by the Mfillment of the human potential: autonomy creativit-y, courageous action, a d acceptance of the radical histmicity of existence, of the idea of eternal rczcurrence. NOt su~-f"risingly~ most revolutionary authors emerge sonredat morcr optimistic. Yet Gramsci rightly chided the Marxist tradition fctr failure to think carefully about the probem of the "new hegemonyf9tlnepostrevolutionary cultu.~.His historicism, though fess rdical than :Paietz~che%~ prevented hirn from imagining a utopia beyond yesterclay. Human beings must construct an dternative future fmm dcments of the past, cognizant of the need, for authori@ organization, hierarchy, and the capacity ta execute a progran-t as well as the need for a grogram itself. Cramsci's awareness of the provisional nature of all historical ahievcment left him rclceptiw to open-ended solutjons and skeptical of those that reducer discussion and diminish choice. Frctrn nonliberal asswptions, he arrived at a form of liberalism that appears incapabk of closing the gap betwem ""god sense" and "common sense," k t w e m social realities and cultural hegemmy. Without the organization and hierarchy of a politicai party, action is impossible. With them c m e s an aggregation of particz~laritiesh t o a c o m o n d e n o h a t o r of national program that may well appear inauthentic to ithose at the bottom.
Both Westerners and non-Westerners have concerned themselves with the need to discover a mode of truthfulness beyond accepted truth, either because they deem cmventional standarcis of truth unreliable or because they regard those stmdards as hadequately u~~derstood and practiced. The result is a body of thougtnt that is radical in its rejection of tradition and universal reason, particularistic in its understanding of human beings, categoric in its hsistelzce that auto~~omous human behgs shape history and nonetheless given to belief in a hndamental human bond beyond ream or traditim. That thought challenges modernization theory from within as well as from without and, by doing so, establishes a Link between WesQm thought and the reemergent phenonmm of authenticity movements in the Third World. Such thought does more. By the persuasivrness of the general argument, it strikes a blow against developmentalism, revealed as m e perspective on the h m a n condition that does not en~oyuniversal support in either the developed or devdoping hvorlds-the kind of support that w d d , by a reasoning similar to Grarn~ci"~ objectify developmentalism in the eyes of many social scientists. Development theory a product oE the Western rakio, may be moribw~das a consequence, even if policies based on it remain very much in force h most of the Third World. Does authen-
tic thought hold promise as a replacement? The particularily of authentic thinking rrtight seem to negate the philosophic& pcrssihifity crf a general per"pe"ive on the hurnan condition derived from that framework, although Europeans such as Heidegger have at-tempted to find same minirnalist framework for the comprehension of mutually e x c l u s i w world ~ problem of group ac.lion, and the views. The pressures for e ~ a l i t ythe need for institutionalizatim constitute general challenges for which authentic fiou&t as devdoped fn Eumge does not offer satisfactory solutims. Have thinkers in the Islamic tradition such as tqbal, Qutb, Shari'aljl, and Arkoun been more successful? That is the question to which this study now turns.
Notes 1. ELie Kedourie, N~ntior~nlism ( b n d o n : Hutchinson, 1985), pp. 21-34. 2. Lionet "frilling, Sincerity nud Azttltenticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 191i"2), p. 99. 3. Friedrich %hiller, 012tIze A~sfhefic Educatimz ofMau (New tlork: Frederick Ungar; 19651, p. 38. 4, %hiller, Aestr'zetic Education, p. 44. 5. Martin Heidegger, Bei~zgand Erne, trans. John Acquarrie and Edward Rc>binson (New York: Harper, lli3(;2), p. 287. 6. Jean-Paul Sartre, RqLexions szrr In quesl-ionjzri-ile (Paris: Gallirnard, 19541, g. 112. 7. Sartre, Rkflexit~tzs,chap. 4, 8. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Xranint.2 X~ztellectmlsand trlte Wesf:Tfze Tarrrrented Triz~myl~ of-r\infz"vis.m(Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 49536). 9, Heideggeu; Beirzg atzd Erne, p. 780. 10. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good nnd Evil, trans. R. J. Hoflingdale (Middlesex: Penguin, 19831, p. 53. 11. John G. A. Pocsck, klilics, Lnnguap, alzd E~ne:Ess~yson Polr'tictzfTlzougllf and his to^ (New York: Atheneum, 49i;"3), p. 234, 12. Poeock, P(~fitics,Langzt~gc,and Tinze, p. 234. See also Abdalla h tarc>ui, Tlw Crisis of the Arab Inteflccftin/,trans. Diarmicl Cammell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), for his distinction between tradition as a contemporary social force and tradition as ideology. 13. E owe much to Marshall Berman, The hlitics of Authenticity (New York: Atheneurn, 19'701, far my analysis of Montesqujeu and Rousseau. 14. Montesquieu, httres persanes (Paris: Garnier FrPres, 3.975)' pp. 220-223. 15. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jz-llie,olt IQ nouzlelle FJkloi~e(Paris: Flarnrnarion 19671, part 1. 16. Rousseau, Julie, part 2. 17, Ibid., part 4. 18. Lionet. Eilling, SinwriQ n ~ AzrthenticiQ d (Cambridge: Hamard University Press, 19721, p. 434. 19, Rousseau, jzflie, p. 566,
20. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ""Quelle est l'origine de I'inegalitk pinrrni les hommes et si, elk est autoriske par ]a ioi naturefle?" h D~ztcontrat social (Paris: Garnier, 1%2), p. 73, 21. Sbren Kierkegaard, Two Ages: Tlze Age of Rezjalzatio~zand llle Present Age, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna EI. E-long (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 65. 22. Siiren Kierkegaard, Fenr arzd TretnbEE'ng: A Dz'nlectica/ Lyric, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941). 23. Ciami Vattima, It soggetto e la mascfter~:Nielzsclze e iI prcrbkma diylbz liberazbrze (Milana: Bompiani, 1979), part 1. 24. lPc>cock,P(~lllics,Ln~zgunge~ and Time, p. 232. 25. Antanio Gramsci, The Modem Prirzce land Qtlter Writi~rgs(New tlork: International Publishers, 1978),p. 60. 26. Vattima, It soggetlo e kn mascllera, part 2, chap. 3. 27. Ibid., part 3, chap. 4. 28. W. R. Newell, "Heidegger an Freedom and Commrmity: Some Prjlitical Implications of His Early Thought,'" AfrrerimnPolitical Science Review,,78 (19%),p. 781. 29. Fottad Ajarni, The Arab Predicame.121. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1%l),p. 195. 30. The reasoning is that of BZaiise Pascal in Pensdes, text established by teon Brunschwigg (Paris: Flammarian, 1"36). 31. Jarnes Miller, Hz'sfory nrzd H~rntnnExistence: From Marx to Merlenu-Ponly (Berkeley: Un,iversity of Califcjmia Press, p. '22. 32. Gramsci, It mnteriallsnzo storim e Infilosojn dz' Benedettu Croce (Tc3rino:Edizioni Riuniti, 1975), pp. 115-116. 3% Ibid., p. 3, 34. Ibid., pp. 403-405. 35, Kierkegaard, Teuo Ages, p,68, 36. Mauro La Spisa, Fede e Smndola ylpi diari di S. A. Kierkegaard (Firenze: GeG, 19170), p. 77. 37. Stjitua~Zane Charm4, Vzilgarifyand Azrliteniicify: Dimensions of Qtherness izz the Inkartd offun-Paul: Sartre ( A h e r s t : University of Massaehur;etts Press, 4991), p. 40. 38. Gharmk, Vulgnrity and Auflle1~ticlfy. 39. Blaise Pascal, Leftres icrifes B utz provz'ncint (Paris: Flammarion, 1981), pp. 43-51, 40, Kierkegaard, Plzilosopl~icntFragme~2ts,or a Fragme.121. of Plzitosopl~y,trans. David E Swenson and H o w a d V, Hong (Princeton: 13rincetm UniversiQ Press, 19621, pp. 15-1 6. $1, Ibid., p. 46. 42, S. Kernal, "%>mePrt,bterns of Genealojgy," Ni~fssclle-Sludien19 (1990), p. 36, 43, John Rikel; private eammunication, June lli396, 44. J. I;". Stern, Mietzs.clze (Transbridge, England: Harvester, 1978), p. 77. 45. Bernard Vack, The Longirtg for liltal Revutzrfiu~z:Pizilosoplric Suzlrces of- Ssekl Discontent from Rolrsse~tauto mrx arzd Nicfzscize (f3rinceton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 353. 46, Ibid., p, 353, 417. Stern, Mietsscite, g. 79.
p.779. 49. Ibid., p. 782. 50. Ibid., p. 784, 51. See tjnda A. Befl, S~rtre'sEflzics c$Arktr"zenticify(Tuscalc>osa:University of Alabama Press, 1989). 52. Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology cf Liberatlion (Maryknolf, N.Y.: Orbis, 19731, p. 36. 53. Ibid., p. 276. 54, kttima, It soggetfu e In mascllera, pp. 349-375. 55, Angelo Brtlecoli, Antonio Gmmsei e lreducnzicl-r.tecome egenzo~ia((Fireme: La Nuova Itaiia, 1972), p. 99. 56. Gramsci, D maferinEis;smo,pp. 34, 37, 57. Robert Mieheis, 1701ifi;eaEIfarlies: A Saciol61gl;cnlStudy of Ol;ih@rctzz'crzfTenc3t.nties ofMc?dcr~-zDemucmq, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (London: Jarrold and %ns, 1915). 58, Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Orgn~zizatir~n arzd Activity in the Moder~zSfnte, 2d rev. ed., trans. Barbara and Robert North (London: Methuen, 1959). 59, Samuel Huntingon, hlifical Order itz C l z a ~ g i qSocieties (New Haven: Vale University Press, 1968). 60, See Gramsci, TfzeM d e r n Prince, or for fuller treatment, Note sul Maciziaz~erffi, szllln politz'ca e szillo slnlo moderno fTc3rino: Edizioni Riuniti, 1979). 61, Sartre, for example, saw this diversity as desirable but did not say much about how liberal thought could be modified to accomplish it. YaeX Tamir did better in Liberal Nnfz'orznltism(Princeton: Princetcm University Press, 4993). 62, 130coek,IJalifim, tangtinge, and Errze, p. 261. 63. From T11~ttghl.s out of Seasun, quoted b y J. 1"". Stern, A Stlidy ofhrietzsche (Cambridge: Harvester, *L978),p*90. 48, Newell, "Heidegger on Freedom and Community,"
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hree
d Muhammad Icjbai, t l ~ eIndian Muslim pwt-philosopher of thc. early twentieth cezztury. hspired by Europe m d Islam, Iqbal rejected Europe" conception of progress along with the contemporary pattern of Islamic culture in hdia. He caf:ted upon "true Muslims"9o assert themselves against mullahism, mysticism;, and monarchy as well as against foreign ways. In a broader sense, he summoned all human beings to rise above acceptance of traditional ways and abowe the embrace of Western ideas and techologq" to discover their creative, Mlillfu%, authentic selves. One contemporary biographer of Iyhal wrote: "There is no more versatile, prolific and gifted genius in history; and for similar examples of omnicmpetemce, nsle has to turn to blichelangelo, konardo da h c i , [Lean Battista] Aberti and [Rabhdrmathj TX"agore."l Such cmpasisons across time and culture are difficult, but there can be little cfispute about Iqbalfs versatility and competence. Born in the Punjab in 1873to Muslim parents, Iqbal achieved distinction as a student and a poet before going to Lahore in 1895 to study at cove ent College. There he studied Islamic culturl, m d Arabic literature with a distinguish& British Orientalist, Sir % w a s e ArnoXd. By the turn oi the century he had earsred a master's d e g ~ h philosophy and started to teach, but he found the academic life restrictive, and the civil service rcrjected his candidacy on medical grounds. All the while he wrote poetry ""in the traditional, style, verxs on nature and love,of the typical Urdu lyric."'Z His writing reflected his upbringiw as a Muslim, hjs study of: Islmic culture?, his exposure? *rough hjs father to Smfism, his awareness of the Eslmic revival movement of the era (Sayyid THE IDEA OF AUTHENTICITY HELPS IUUMXNATE the thought
&mad Khan, Jamal al-Din d-Afghani), and a commitment to Endian natimalism based on Muslim-:Hindu solidarity. lqhal welrt to study in Europe for t h e years, first at Cambridge wi& a neo-Hegelian philosopher, J.M.E. McTaggert, then in Germany at Fleideland a berg and Munich. He c m e away with a law degree from E~~gland doctorate from Gemany for a thesis on Persian mysticisnn, More important, he came away with a deep understanding of European thought, from the theotogy of 'T"homasAquinas to thc. philosophy of tlenri-Louis Rergson and Nietzsche, WiIfred Cantwell Slntilh wrote: Until that trip [to Etarqe], these was nothing distinctbe about Iqbal except his ability, What he had to say, numerous others were saying; only they said it less well, But after three years in England and Germany he returned to India with a new and vibrant message. Not- only was it expressed with supreme eloquence; it has been the chief contribution to Indian Islam since that of Sir Sayyid Ahmad .3
His message emerged cleasfy wiCh thc puhbcation of Secrets c?f the Self in 1915. From then cm, Iq"oal supported himself by workjng as a barrister but gained recognition as a p e t , Philosopher, and "prophet'kof the new age. &cognition came both from within hdia md. abroad. He was highted in 1922, selected to the Legislative Council in 1926, appointed p ~ s i d e nof t the annual sessio~~ of the Muslim League in 1930. In his address to that group, he said he thought hdia could not paper over differences to become a single, undifferentiated nation, h~stead.,he cai1ed for cclclperation betweell the religious groups. "Perhaps we are unwilling to recognize that each group has a right to free development according to its cultural traditions.""e idea become known eventually as the "1-'akistan scheme,'%ut Iqbal h h s e l l never showed e~~thusiasm for narrow natiollalisms of any sort. Others used his ideas, buwever, to bolster the emerging case for Muslim separatism, and Iqbal gained general copi it ion as one of the 'Yat.lnersMof moder11Pakistan. Illness overtook him in 1934, and he died in 1935, almost a decade before :India achieved independence and Muslim Pakistan went its separate way; To appreciat-elybal"s significance to modern writers, one must see him. as a theorist of authenticity, seeking to liberate humanity from the clutches of both tradition and modemiy, from the mysticism of the East and the reason of the West, from the imperialism of the West m d the submissiveness of the East. As he put it in '"East and West:" The poppy heard my song alzd tore her mantle; The morning breeze is still in s e a ~ ofa h gardm,
Ill lodged in Afiilgrk or Reza Shah, 27%~Soul offhe East i s still in search of a bodp. The &in8 I am may me~fckastisemmi; hly-the world is still in search ofa gz"bbef.5
'The only stmdard by which Iqbal might be hung would be a universal one, one that not only bid not exist but that, FR Xqbal's view, couXd not emerge fmm eitl-ter the reason ("brain-malady'" of the West or the mysticrjsm (""hcart-mahdy") of the East."t could d y have beern the sort of standard. that Xqbal himself eventually proposed, a standard of indkidual truths fiat turn out to converge. l-fe spoke to all peoples, most especidly those of the 'Third world, in an effort to help them rediscover .Crhemsellves, their beings, their purlposes, their destinies. As Fatzlur Rahman has said: "Pqbalfs] main idea was the regeneration of humanity through the unremitting effort of the individual for complete self-realization."7 Xqbal proposed a genera1 thory of authmticity.
Particularity Iqbal lamented the erosim cJf identity not from any commitment to quaint traditions or clisregard for the dangers of nationalist fervor but. from a convictjon, like that of many European writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that comprehension of reality crrutd only begin with an existentid understanding of the scif, h a short poem he wrote: Each atom pants far glory: ~ e e d Olf Sev-fmigon ea&hrswhole ereedf
. . . " . . " . .
"Yol.rrown head is your candle, your Own s e y k all the light you need; Yo, are this wodd% sokg tmtl;z, all else Blusisn such as sorcedes bred -These desevl thorns pll"ck many a dogbt: Do not complain if bare fed ftbleeL2,a
Both reasan and sense perception can mislead and deceive; only true heart or soul, with its jflrtuitivepowers, can be mtied upon to discern real.it5 which is nothing but selves, But if self-fruition is the goal of the self m d if the heart is the candle, whence comes the tallow, the wick, and the fire'?The reference to desert thorns suggests that the setf reflects its past, its environment, and the limitations of the body. Iqbal sqgested that neither modem science, obsessed with empirical data, nor mystic is^^ in its escapist forms can pmvide relief from the concrcte ci~rumstmcesof exis-
tence. For a Muslim, the Arabia of Muhammad cmstih-ltes the principal definhg element of the self-a reality shorn of apparent aclvantage fn the modem erag hut a hard reality .from which Muhammad crrea.t.ed a great civilization, The thorns hurt then, too, The authentif self necessarily reflects the past as part of its prt-sent state of being. Its sense of the past comes fmm the community' which Iqbal caXled ""the link betvveen / What is to come, and what has gone before."l" For him, the community was the umr7-rnfthe community of believers, which took precedence over ancestral or territorial solidarities. Far h m suppressixlg individualism, the community founded by Muhammad liberated the individual from fear and entmsted human beings with full respor~sibilityfos their desthies. lqbal stressed the finatity of Muhammad's prophethood; believers were left to fend for themselves with only the memory of a leader, a book, and a territorial focus to unite them. Fomed by thejr collective experience, Muslims face llxe world alone, just as they must mswer to God alone. Like Kierkegaard, Iqbd took loneXiness to be the primcrrdial human condition. la a poem cdkd "Solitude," he wrote of searching the physical world for anyone or anythixlg that shares his uniqueness; he gets no response except from God, MIho merely smiles.ll The smile confirms the indil~iduation,while dellying m y muggestion that the hdividtsal is a part of God or just a reflectiosl of G&. t+al vrjected the mystiral view that faith permits ololiteration of the i~~dividual through absorpticm into Cod, although his emphasis on love rathcr than reason as the essence of faith puts him within the ~l)istic tradition." h factct, it is the suprarational foundation of the self m d the highly personal naturt- of love that impede crrmmmication m d deepen solit-udc.'Wheln Zinda-Rwd begjns his tour of the heavens in the Jlaoid I\lama, he does so she, And in his opening prayer, he asks: "W~eremay Adam's son find a k-indred spirit?'q4 Autha~tjcitycannot, however, he equated with Ihe search, for solibde in the mamer of the ascetic. fqbal saw asceticir;m as an escape from the concrete reality of this world and hence as a Aeeing from the self in its physical, worldly dirurensio~~s* To love Gad is to exert oneself in the world God created, not to find exit.
wlzm the soul's image is p e e d e d in the world, to behold fke commoas .is to behold God Blessed is the malz whose single sigh causes the nine heavens to circle about his dzueZling,l5 The authentic self is the strong, vigorous, autonamous self. That which d a n c e s strength, vigor, and autonomy augments the qualiw of the self.
Weakness, passivity, and dependence undermine it by diminishing its particularity. Asking disintegrates the S e y And dep&vesof illurninafion ticre Sinai-bush of the Se&16 Bushes are discrete, unique, concrete, different inthe irttensily with which they bum and, in the case of the Sjnai-bush, self-t.ighting. The true Muslim Eghts this world by nurturing his solitude into a fiet-cely strong, independent self. Such commitment to the uniqueness of the self put Iqbal into practical and theoreticd difficulties. His particularistic understanding of the human condition dictated a position of tolerance towad non-Muslim identities. Hwever, his own position within the Muslim community pushed fiim toward the espousal of a separde Muslim state, a state committed to the preservation of one identity among others. His particularity thus conditioned his Rsponse to the pmhlems of instit-utims and democracy, but his theoretical, probles~,common to other exponents of autheszticity; was more fundamental. flow does the unique self establish contact with other selves and with the world in which it lives? Does not solitude lock the self into a prison of impotmce?
Iqbd demonstrated that the particulariv of the self, properly understood, holds the key to understandkg atl existence. 11%fact, he suggested that self is all that is, and in doing so, he denied the significrance of dichotomies such as being and becoming, man and Gud, mind and matter, =ason and intuition, science and religion, sacred and profane, subject and object, thinking and action- The self, through self-wzderstanding, frees itself to comprehend the w d d and to act within it, morally or immorally The true Mudim reaches this point of understanding by virtue of the concept of tuztlbiia (oneness of God). I s l m is thus not merclly the principal definixrg element of :Iqbal"sparticularity; it is also the religion most consbtent with a unitary understanding of reality Islam, hc wrote, ""happens to be the d y [seligiod suita,ble to my putpose."17 :IqbaX founded much of his critique of East md. West on arguments about false dualism. He reproached the East for abandcming its medieval fora); into inducCive thinking, whi& eventually opened the door to the scientific volution in the West. Muslims wrongly asserted religion as an exclusive mode of understanding, different from science and phitctsopl~y, whereas Europe made the opposite error by progressively rejecting religious faith in favor of a supposedly objectjve tru.tXI, that of science. But
Europeans could not prove the superiority of their predilectim for science m y more than Muslims codd demonstrate the superiority of their preference for rclljgjnn. Both dualism produced djstortions, in Iqts?al"s virw, Europe veered towad dehumanizing materialism, whereas Islamdom lapsed into passivity and mysticism. Europe separated church from state and morality h m legdity, relegating church and morality to subordinate positions. Islam tolerated an analogous division wit.hout authosizing it; temporal power, science, and philosophy all lacked legitimacy. As a result, a degeneration in the materid condition of the East paralleled a spirituaI degradation in the West. Iqbd asserted the primordid oneness oE the self: If is oze An4 beirrg one, brooks ~o duality; Grace to its gEow I am myse& thou thou.18 The self necessarily recognizes what is not self. Iqbal acknowledged the limitations, demonstrated by Kant, on knowing mytl-tingbeyond the self but tried to show that howledge m d intuition are merely two modes in which the self apprehends different sorts of realive By intuition, the self understartds itself by understanding God, "the Absolute Ego,'" and by understmding Cod, the self gains access to the world He created: nature. Or vice versa, to appreciate nature is to confront God. Iqbal t;p& of a chain of being in which entities are diskifiguishecf by the degree of their ''I-amness."19 Even the oceans, the mountains, and the stars have their own identities, their own inertia. They, too, arc alone in the world," though not isolated; they fashion the being of humans,a d h forts to mdcrstand nature, shape the being of physicd space. "lt is . . . possible to take t h g h t not as a prlncipk which orgmizes and integrates its material from tl-te outside but as a potency MIhich is formatiwe of the very being of Its material.'Ql The oneness of the human self guarantees the unity of thought and inhtition and of thou$t and being; it also p m i t s onmess with God. Iqbal suggested that the significance of distjnctions between spiritual and secuIaq God and. h m a n creatures, brcak down in the fact that God is a part of the authentic self. The self achieves awareness of existence first through sdf-consciousmes and then through the conseiousnesses of others. But: only in the cmrnunim with God does the self reach full understanding. The Gd-seeing m m sees 'Sinzserlfanlyt h m ~ g h GO& C q i q One God, hhe quivers in his ows blo0d.2-7
Iqbai en\tisioned God as a mirror in which the self sees its w n being more fully; as i t develops its own projects m d executes them, it does Godts will. God has no separate agenda. "hgreat actim alone the self of man becomes united with God without losing its own identity, and tran-
scmds the limits of space and time. Action is the highest form of contemplation.'"" TOh o w God is tcr b o w cmeself i.11 the world that God created. Like his view of particularity; Iqbal" unitarim perspective coincides with but does not depend upon his vision of Islam. Iqbal traced all his wiews, a d especially his unitarianism, to the Qur'an and Islamic that u ~ ~ irety thinkers, especially the mygic Rumi. However, to co~~tend flected truth because God had. decreed it so would vitiate the centrafity and cltestray the autonomy of the self. He rejected the Sufi doctrine of zuatzdat ~ J - w ~ ~ the j f d ,unity of existence, which was understood to mean the world is only God. Instead, Iqbal sougfnt to h o w that Islam, with its radical insistence upon Cod" onemcst; and u p m the finality of Muhammad's prophet-hood, expresses a truth that is at least equiprimordial with the oneness of self. Ultimately, after criticizing :Flaw out of the mistaken belief that the great mystic espoused this doctrine, he concurmd with Ha)@ that "the Divine Unity does not result in destroying the personality of the mystic, but makes him more perfect, more sac=& more divine, and makes him its free and fivillg qm.""2V~or Iqbal, monotheism constituted both the condition for and the inescapable concomitant of a world, of multiple, discrete selves. The prophethood, of Muhammad united believers in a concrete social and political organization and prowided guarantees against any threat to the u ~ ~ i of t y the community. h these ways, Islam represented the "'unitive principle,"'25 both in theory and gractke, Iqloal regarcied Islam as anticlassical in spirit. Ile fnterpreted Plato as Nietzsche did, as one wfio neglected m t t e r for spirjt., c ~ a t i v i yfor logic, and action for thought. The @r%n bridges, in Iybaf" view each of these dichotomies. ""'Tb Islam mattcr is spirit reatizing its& fn space and time," he wrote," Iqlqbal rcfer~cd.in his poetry to the Qwr 'aani image of ntan as a product of both spirit and clay. Islam demands an expression of iaith, yet its law reflects reason and justice; it =quires imer transformation but, through Nllahammad's example, entreats Musiirns to transform their wmid. It sees human beings not as objects of Godfswmath,or mercy but as the ~sponsiblesubjects of earthly action, "'The Qurkn is a book which elnphasizes 'deed' rather than 'iidea."Q7 Sinee action is "the hjghest fctm of contemplation," Islam does not separate temporal from spiritual affairs. Islam prtrscribes a mode of living in this world. 'To know Cod is to h o w oneself, but the sell exists in a world God has made. The true Muslim eschews dichotomies,
Autonomy In the find h e s of Iqbal's Shikrvn and fizwh-i-Shik-run: GomplaOzt and Alzszoer, IqhaE's Dialogue zoith Allah, God cmcludes his reply to a Muslim"s lamentation on his condition:
Jf y a are ~ tme Muslims your d e ~ ~ is n to y asp what you aspire, If;you break w f faiitl? with Mahammall, we shall always
be witl? you, M a t is th& m&wable world? To w ~ t the e w~rlcfa history pen and tablet we of#r you.28
M u s l h s bear msponsibility for their own miseries, It is d y they who can turn history to their advmtage. Such is the message of Gnnplaint mlzd Alzszuer, which formulates the practicnl, poliical concern Chat underfjes all, of Iqbal" work, the problem of decadence in the East.29 For Iqbal, human volition produces history not unseen forces of eithcr spiritual or material origin; fatalism m d mcehanism deprive the self of its vitality, creat-ivity, and force. lqbal regarded the w d d as a pmduct of human effort. In the kvid Nanla, Bartari-Hari, an ancient poet of hdia, tells Zinda-Bud: X4is ulorld you behold is isot the handiwaP.k of God, flze wheel is yours, and the &read spun an ;your spi~dle. Proshate 3oumey befire the Law of action's rezoard, forfiorn actioyt are born Hell, ilfurgaf0.ol-y and I"arad'ise.30
God has entmsted the world to human beings to make of it what they will, if they will and by tbrir will. They are responsible before themselves m d hencle before God, mirror of the true self, for their a c t i o ~ or~haction. Success requires elfort even in the face of hardship. "Life without pricklhgs is no true life; / one must live with a fire under one's feet.""" In a poem entitled "An Old Raluchi to Mis Son," 1Iqba.l evoked an i m q e to which he often returned, that of the pearl diver. Fo&nes of States &rough indizl?ldualprowess Ripen, each man one star of ther'r ascmdant: Oceais wifh;bficlltilsher treasure when the diver Gropingfol. pearlshells Clz'ngs by land's mar@n,3-"
A group clan act only if individuals act, and individuals succeed in acthg only if they cultivate strcrngth m d courage, In Srcrcts Qf flre Seljf; Iqbd spoke of sheep who try to defang tigers by persuading their enen-ties that the meek shall inherit the earth-3s Plato and Christian thhkers lulled the world into passivity, he argued, but Europe then behaved Xih a tiger, unabashedly projecthg its power cm the rest of the glribe. Ile twitted Europe for its hypocrisy h criticizing Islam for its militancy.y,""qbaIi% rhetorie often invokes violence as testimony to the courage m d strength of those who seek tcr shape their world in the face of adversity
Iqbal took the founding generation of Muslims as evidence that human b e i ~ ~can g s by force of will transform the worId. In the Javid &mu, a Martian sage speaks of destiny: Eal.thlings have gambled away the win ofselfiood, not comprehendiulg the subtle meanieg of destiny; its ssubtleQ i s contained in a single phrase"qyou transfcm ;youme% it too will be transfomed. "35
IqbaI's understanding of destiny approached Heidegger's conception of an potential for Being-in-the-world, In the Jlrvid Mama, Halla~tells Zinda-Rud: 27%~ bel-imertme thus peiitions God: "W accord with you, sa accord with us," His resolution is h e crea-torof God's ddetemina~on anA on the day of batLIe his a r m is God"$awow.36
Rght springs from will, which FR turn reAects the reasoned choice of the setf, conscious of its own potential through its contact with God. Although the world constrains human options, life nonetheless holds enough freedom for the sell" to put it beyond the realm of causal necessity, True Muslims diseinguish themselves by the degree to which will dominates necessity tqbal posits three stages of aclvancement for the ego: h e dience to the law, which requires limited self-awareness and conndtment; self-control (firqr), which constitutes ""detachment [from] and superiority to one's material possessions,"37 and divine vice-regency, in which ".thought and action, hstinct and reason become one,'"Vhose who reach divir~evice-regency direct, c ~ rshould direct, earthly affairs. Sharing characteristics of Absolute Ego, such individuals m most fully representative of God, because they are the m s t capable of the ""rationally diwcted creative life,'" which Iqbal terms the ultimate reality.39 Iqba:l saw life as movement for both indlividual and society and thought that the will of the individual constitutes the motive force. I'hilosophks, religions, and even art must be judged by what they cantribute to liveliness-He lomd Flatonism dcf cient in that regard: Dear is ticre world of ideas t~ ticre Bead spirr"t; Ifs gazelles have no grace ofnzovemen;l;@
Neo-Platonic mpticism and the poetry it i n s p h d suffered from the same xnahdy: They induced lethargy. As .for Christianity lqbal fomd it oriented, more toward death and imortaiity than toward life and glven more to the pursuit oE the ascetic ideal than to the irngrclvement of the
secular world. In contrast, he regarded Islam. as founded in a spirit of movement and c h g e , "mlioristic" h its tbrust. And this ernpbasis is for hinn ""the ultirnate presupposition and juslification of all hunan effort at scientific discwery and social pmgrams.'"l Islam means submission to God, but discoverkg God means ullclrvering one's potentiai a d making the most of it by developing one's spirit, one's energy, and one's will*"A strong will and a strong body is the ethical ideal of is lam,"^^ Muhammad's example showed what will and power can accomplish.
Iqbd believed the world of the Indian Muslim h the first decades of this century demnded transformation. But his radicalism ran much deeper than oppor;ition to British rule. Like European theorists of authenticity, Iqbal called for revolt: against the pinching movement of tradition and modemjw, which squeezed hdia and the rest of the non-European world. At one m m e n t he exprcfssed fear that the East wodd lose touch with its inner sczlt by f0lliokvin.g the lures of material impmvement: offered by the West, and at th next he bemoaned the power of rrrysticism, mullahism, and monarchy in the East. h a poem called ""Kevolutim," he repeated his fsequent charge: Europe is death for the soul, and Asia is death to the wi11.43 He sought salvation for both s d and wiU through the radical transfamation of the human condition. "He was, irm effect, a revolutionary,"# lqhal shnred Jarnal al-Dh al-.hfghanirs revulsion at the state o( Islamdom, but he did not a d m i the ~ Europem way of life as many of his campatriots did. He m t e : Thus, wvvhly avershadowed by the results of his intellectual activity, the mcdern man has ceased to live soulf-uffy, i.e., from within. In the domain o f thou&t he is living in open cmfiict with himxlf; and in the domain af econamic and political life he is living in open codict:with others. He finds himslf un&le to contrclit his ruthless egoism and his infinite gold-hunger which is gradually killing a11 higher striving in him and bringng him nothing but life-weariness. Absorbed in the "fact," fit-hatis to say, the oapticatly present scaurce of semation, he is entirely cut aft: from the mplumbed depth of his own being.4'
In this view, human behgs become afienated.by virtue of physical separaticm from their own ideas, M;hich acquire a moment aE their own. 'They h e bGholden to the ideologies and institutions spawned by their okvn imaghations and lose all touch with the creative moment from which they sprang. In a positivistir age, they cherish the data and even see each other as data, but ""facts" are static, dead, and distant, whereas life, for Igbat, is moving md. pmxhate. The FRductive method of the Europeans
arose not from logic but from creativity, It is that creati,;it)i that Iqbd believed modern man had lost. The call for the exploration of the mplmbed depths is the call to auther1ticity.46 The summons to authentic revolution as a ~ m e d for y modernity should not be confounded with either a fondness for traditional society as it has evolved or a desirt. for wholesale resurrection oE the past. Iqbal espoused neither. In the IL/vid Nacla, the Spirit of India complains that Indians "have estranged tJRemselves from their selt'hood; / they have made a prison of mcient customs,"47 Iqbal de~zouncedcmventionalism as "self-1xurder"48 anct said those '(who i g ~ t ~the r e beaten paths of tradition" are those who gnuinely fol.low in the path of the prc,phet~.4~ As he saw it, the contemporary "traditims'kof the East were pasSjvity in the face of imperialism, accommodation oi foreign ways, and escapism, all f o s t e ~ dand condoned by the religious and political establishmcynts as well as the Sufi orders. :Ele saved biting irony for the mu,llahs, the learned men whose rigidity pettymindedness, and otherworldliness he found inappropriate to fslm. h the Jt.lvidMama, Said H a l b Pasha says af the mull&: "Short of vision, blind af taste, an idle gossip, his hair-splitting aquments have fragmer~tedthe cmmuniQ."'""IqlsaI said a mdlah wou%dfind heaven unbearable for the lack of someone to quarrel with aver trifles Although committed to the SzlPi preference for heart and love over mind, lqbal objected to neoPlatonic mysticism for its withdrawal horn the world. His objection to monarchy was standard: It violated the principles of Idam and the practice of Islam mder Muhammad and his immediate successors. m e n Iqbal comparcd the living tradition of Islam with the Islam of the Qur";;mand the Prophet, he fomd it wanting in daring, in walor, in imagination, and in heroism, That Muslims should have been drawn toward European ways demonstrated the debitjty of the living tradition. He saw clearly that imperialism had.encroached not just upon territory but u p m ways of being, and for that he blamed Muslirns themsehes as much as Europeans. Muslims had become sheep, accepting not just economic and politicai but psyChdogica1dependence. The mind is p~sotaerto others' tho~gbzts, Anotherft7 mzlsic throbs within thy throat R y very speech, is borrowed, and thy head Dilates with aspir~tionsnot &ine owp2.51
The traditional world of the East had became ""clonizable," as Albert Memmi, and Malek Bcmabi would later put ite52 ?he present held no inspiration. 'mosque, school and tavern, all alike are barrea."" Mus1ims colrfd only look into the unplumbed depths of their own beings to rediscover the heroic age of Islam, fqbal viewed.
Muhammad as a revolutionary who did not blanch at the use of violence to change the world. "[lqbatf gtorified the early days of Islam because of its revolutionary role in h m a n affairs, but he did not advacate a return to the primitive conditions of those days."S"t was the spirit of Muhammad and his followers, their creative Esponse to ~velationand reality that he admired. 1qba.i called upon Muslilns to =capture that spirit and to act in a similarly =volutionmy fashion. fn thc. lazlid &mar the Martyr-King says: "Without rebellion the self is unattainable""%In the Jravid Nama, God himself tells Zistda-Rud: "Man of God, be trenchastt as a sword, / be yourself Revolution carries a price hhuman life, and your own world's destirmy!"~~ Iqbal clearly believed it had to be paid. His repeat-ed exaltation of strength, power, military prowess, and violence makes that concIusim inescapable, The revolutionary thrust of Iqbal's tbougl-rtpropefled him into practical politics. His cvhoehearted espousal of Muslim wtonomy in hdia contributed to the emergence of a new nation-state, Pakistan, yet he afso denounced territorial nationalism. He preached tolerance of other fai"chsbut advocated the suppression of Qadianism, whi,ch threatened Muslim unity. These positions and others drew charges oi inconsistmey Fazlur Rahmm has argued that the apparent cmtradictictns reflect an undel-Iying unity of Iqbal's thought. "There seems to us . . . no contradiction in Iqbal's universalistic message on the one hand and in his firm appeals to and unfailiz-rg faith in the present Muslim CommunityU57E suggest that it is the naturc of the "universalistic message," anchored not in universals that generates the tensions in EybaX" pdtics, but in pasti~ularity~ Any exponent of authenticity must wrestle with dilemmas generated by potential contradictions among fmdamental elements of such thought: its simultaneous emphilsis on pafticularity, unicity, autonorny and radicalism. Far example, the assertion that autonomous human beings shape their own destinies m&es apparent the usefulness of group action. Yet the sell:as ultimate reality#the bedmck of a particularistic view, mitigates agaiz-rstgmup identification and solidarity. Llnicity suggests the pos".ihilityof human behgs livil-tg in consollance with one another and their environment, but the radical denuslciation of routine, of everydayness, a d of clerical religion makes it difficult to envision any set of institutions by which such collsonance could be achieved or maintahed. Radicalism predisposes such a system of thought toward adaptation and change, yet the commitment to autonomy sets such a system squarely against the modernist notion of "progress" and moves it toward some seemingly undetermined objective. The particularistic vision of the self favors liberalism and democracy, but the radical rejection of both m d traditia~~ as adewate bases .for dedsion, as well at;the assertion of the need for inspil-ed leadership and iron will, generate reservations &out
liberal democracy Insofar as Iqbat sustains an argument for authenticity, he necessarily confronts such &lemmas, magnified or reeiuced, as the casc may be, by his own elaboration ol the theory. The significance ol IgbaX" cmtribution depends not on the existence of apparent contradictions but on the fact that he confronts them.
Group Action Iqbai's Tlie Mpteuicrs of ficrvesstzess, coming in Che wake of Secrets of the Seg cmstihted his response to the problem of group action. Afthough in 5ecrets ofthe Seyhe had lauded hdividual autonomy and initiative ("&ware of incurri,ng obigations, be\varef""" m d "Sweet is a little dew galherczd by one's o m hmdl'"Y), he dcmonstrated in The Mysteries of Seyrsstzess that the c a m u n i t y is a constibmt element of the self. As a part of the world and as body as well as spirit the individual ~ l e c t cultural. s and natural. ents. The communi.ty reflects the past, m d the past is the key to self-understanding;it contains the posibility of authenticity. Wza-tthing is histo?, O sey-unaa~are? A fable? Or a legenday tale? Nayp the lFIzilalg that makdh ffzeeaware Ofthy tme se& ale7-t unEr'l the i"ask, A scmo-rzed baveller; this is the source OlffIzesou18sardour, &is t-lze nemes &at knit The body of the whole Comm~niQ.G@
A. sellse of communitypbbut amollg Muslims on love of the Prophet, thus precedes and conditions any sense of self. h true self knows its path and acquires its impetus from the past, and since the cammunity necessarily mcriates fiistorical understanding, what. cotlld he more natural than communit-y action? The sotution, however, is not so straightforwad. The c which the Muslim draws strength and hspiration is also IqbaI,accusa of mullahism, mysticism, and monarchy. It is the c m m u n i q of the Ctmzplainf u ~ Arzsu.?er, d a communiky conknt to Mame God for its fate but unwifling to take responsibility for its own destiny Consequently, whm IqGi-11fell himself obliged in Thfl Mysteries ofSe!f;(essnrssto praise conforrllity to communal norms, the endorsement came qualified. He entitled the relevant section: "That in Tims of Decadence Stsict Conformity is Betatian,"M He cited law as the basis of communiw but d legalism and the rigidity enforced by the orthodox schools of lawZI 1x1short; the basis for group action h m s out to be the reason for inaction and even an Object of I+alk revolutionary challenger. Not
surprisjngly, loneliness outwQghs sofidmity as a theme of his work, despite The Nlysteries q f Sevcssness, which might have been intended to mollify critics as m c h as to advance 1qbal"s central thesis,".' The problem of group action becomes one of consciousness-raising. That role falls to great leadership, to someone who can espouse a goal and move peaple out of their flaccidity. The great leader ""reschools them inGod" wmdrous tmiw," he said.," Even the poet may have a rde, Rumi says im t-he [avid Nanza: "If the pufpose of poetry is the fashionhg of men, / poetry is likewise l.he heir of prophecy."~~ Xqbal saw himelf as contributing to the constructinn of a new community within (but also against) the existing one, and his allies in that task were not sdf-evident or numerous. :Iqbal%'%solution" to the problem of group action partially conceals mother difficulty. For Iqbat, faith can be the only genuine basis for p u p action. Me dismisses race and territoy as false grounds for solidarity. Our Essence is not bound to aEy one Place; The vigor of our wine is not.contained In any b0~1.65
Nationalism and r a c i s ~threaten ~ the unicity of the plurality of selves, which is a central tenet of Zqbal's faith. Falth does divi$e the contemporary world, but such divisions would melt away if hurnankimd c m e to accept Xqbal" proposition: To b o w oneself is to h o w God, and, conversely, to know God is to know meself. Since that proposition is the centrat impuise of Islam, Muslims need not abandon their faith, and nonMuslim wed only rally to the proposition to fulfil1 the promise of unity carried in the assertion of tazi7hrd. Auflze~ticfaifhis heli# in sziclz n ltrzeness and thus lzot divisiue; e1~Zz"gI.ttetled groz~ actirm m ~us, u colzseqzdelzce, be recolzciled wjIh the a~~i~!~I"salbty of zitzdersta~~din 10 which Iqbal mpires. The argument, however consistent, is less than persuasive, because it hinges m the distinction between cultural-mligious and e t h i c or nationd sources of id,enlity: '"l"atriotism is a perketly natwal virbe and has its pIace in the moral life of mm. Yet that which really matters is a mm's faith, his culture, his historical tradition. These are t-he things which in my opinion arc worth living for and dying for,""" His case against natio~~alism, as an idea of recent origin and. relative evanescence-individuals and nations all die but community lives on-stands up much better than the e f ort to rule out ethnicity as a focal point of iderztily Elie Kcdouri.efs demonstrations of the artificiality and pesniciousness of territorial nationaIism as it has corne to grip the modem world buttress Xqbai"s contention." But 1qbal"s effort tcr distinguish ethnicity from faith, czIfturc3, and historical tradition lacks similar support, To disengage Zslm from the
cdture and history of the Arabs is to ignore the debt of Muhammad to e t h i c identi(y and to dimhish the accomplisl-rmcmtsof the first century of Islmic :history. Muhammad established one community "the world its parish,"bH as :Iqbal Observed, but idmtiv as a Muslim often lies on top of older, ethnic loyaities L\lhich, however submerged, have never cased to underph cztlttztre and histarieal tradition. If: these loyalties cannot be dismtangled from a Muslim" identity with Xslm, then the possibility of RConciling group action with Iqhal's vision of unity within Islamdom and beyond is d h h i s h e d . :If lqbal had been a philosophical ideal.ist, this problem might have been less acute. He might have argued, for instance, that endorsement of Muslim hdia's cause against a Hindu-dominated state reReckd a necessary holdlng action quite removed from God's ideal of unity, which only He in His W s d m might one day choose to implement. But Iqbd explicitly rejected a dualistic position. God gave human beings fttll responsjbility for their destiny Xqbal said. There will be no futurcl prophet to guide them. They must stmggle to understmd themselves, MIhich means recognizint; their origins in community As they realize their own ident-ities, Chey will move closer to the .Absolute Ego and randerstmd the commm ground of being. ""All development, creativity and mdtiplicity must take place with refcrtnce to the unitive principle . . . m d take place it must."@Communalism must be mdertaken and understood not just as movement toward universalism but as a projection of it.The tension cannot be ~ l i e v e dby a convenient disjmction of thcory and realjty. Rather, accorcting to Iqbal, such tension c m and must produce creativily. Creativity evokos individual effort, not group action, however, a d the effort to engender rightly guided communal effort:thus leads back to the need for poetryf philosophy, and leakrship united in one person. That observation appears to be a call for ancrtkr prophet, but of course it is not; Iqbal repeatedfy emphasized the finality of Muharnnad"~prophethood, Faith may be the basis for community but does not identiq those who distfntguish the "true Islam" from nationalism and ethnicity and proclaim its universalistic calling. m l y e~~lighte~zed leadership can further the "prpose of Muhammad" mission," which was "to found. freedom, epality and brotherhood among ail mankind."m
Democracy Freedom, equality, and brotherhood seem to parallel Iz'bevtk, egalz'tk, and friltcnrit.6 ~2ndpoint Iqbal toward liberalism, democracy m d socialism. By freedm, he meant man%autonomy, his caparity to choose either right or wrong. The concept of right cmduct depends on the h u m n ,?biliV to do otherwise, By equality, he seems to have meant equal. dignity, He says
Muhammad was ""impatient with discriminations all, / His soul was pregnant with Equality""71lqhal re~ectedNietzsche" ccflntempt for the "herd,"" recaHing that early Islam had drawn its strength from lowly camel herders.72 By brotherl-tood, he surely rekrred not just to the cornmunity of believers but to a human species copizant of its Eundamental unity with God and with natwrc. All three defhitions reflect his fundamental principles, but his elaboration oi these definitions put him at odds with democratic.theory. In some respects this may seem surprising, since Iqbal prized individuality above all else and said God had put human beings in charge of their own fate. He abhorred distinctions of race, nation, or class. He denounced monarchy; praised the law, m d lauded the egalitarimism of early Islam, Yet be was not a social democrat. In a poem entitled "'East and.Wst," he wrote: Slavery, slaais:srhness,the root of our Disease; clftlzdrs, ticrat Demos holds all power; Hea&-malady or brain-malady h a oppressed Man's whole warld, sparing nc.il.lzerEast nor VVeste73
He linked democracy with brain-malady via reas011 and its product, legaliq. "This is not in itself bad," he wrote, "but unfortunateIy it tends to displace the pwely moraf standpofnt, and to make the illegaf and the wrong idei~ticalin meming."7"~edom, is respctnsibitjty before Cod for me% actions rather than freedom within the law as made or interpreted by mankind. 'The separation of secular and religious spheres implied by the concept of positive law is "unthhkable to a Muslim,"T%e wrote. The r e l i g i o ~ d a was~ a set of guidelisles offered through Muhmmad, enjoys higber stabs than the positive taw, but Iqbai conditioned his appeal for conformi,ty to that lakv on eircumstmccs of decay. Authenticity colnes before the law m d especially before the secular law. ed even more from his mderstandhg of His objection to Demos ste equality than from his notion of freedom. The rule of the majority meant, in the case of IqbaYs India, the dorninatim of Muslims by Hhdus. Majority rule would have deprived the Muslims and other minorities of their autonomy. "As far as 1tan see, there will be no peace in this corntry until the various peoyles that constitute fndia are gitren opp~rhl"itiesof free self-development on modern tines d t h o u t abruptly brraking with their pastff%e wrote.76 Shce Iqbal saw communities as exte~~sions of the self (and viewed selves as products of communities), be equated their right to self-development with the achievement of sel&ood. Communities, not majorities, preserve thc epality of human di,gnity and protect against discrimisration.
Marewer, as a radical thixlker, Iqbal had to confront the conservative nabre of any majority, When he spoke of the slavishness of the East, he was thinking of the majority. Wheln he s p k e of conditions in India, he undou:btedly referrcd not just to the division between Hjndus and Muscharacteristics of lims but: to tbe unlettered, unambitious, undiscemi~~g the great numbers. Radical change of circzu,mstances calls 'or power and ladership. Minorities have shaped the fistor). of the world., he noted. "Character is the irresistible force which determines the destinies of nacharacter is not possible in a majorityfv7 tions, and m inte~~se Iqbd preferred consensus to majority rule as a means of legit.imathg leadership. /'The idea of universal agreement is, in fact, the Eundamental principle of M u s l i ~constitutimaf. ~ theory," he said.7Korrse11sus gives leadership greater leeway and afiirms the unity of the c o m u n j t y ; it eliminates the probtem of millorities by excluding them. Whess Iqbalfs attitude toward Qadians and Sabais, who, he said, had put themselves beyond. the Islamic community by rejecting the finality of Muhammad's nities of their g m , prophethood. Minorities become consensual c prodlacing the sort of fragmentation lqhal fca ccepted as a col~sequmce of the princiale of self-determination. It is perhaps Iqbalfs understanding of brothrrhood that puts him furthest from liberd, demncsatk thEJory and brings hjm c1,osest-to thc sncialist ideal. For Iqbal, brotherhad is a fact to be understood througtn a combination of reason alld faith. Islam prowides such an understanding, broththough perhaps not the only olle, and opens the door to u~~iversal erhood of the sort socialists also dreamed of, For socialists, fraternit-ywas to emerge as an extensitrn of the natural sol-idarity of tbr wwking class; for I@d, it was to be a nat.urall outgrowlfrr of the eo unity of the faiCh. For him and the sociaEsts, the liberal-democratj.c propensity to dkide the world into peopIes with swereignty over nation-states appeared arbitrary m d destructhe of universal bro.t.herhood. Equality withjn those states-the emergence of King Demos-had contributed to imperialistic tendencies, to the sukjugation of much of the 'Third World, and, in particular, to l.he "'slavishness of t-he East," as he put it. Delnocracy had pcoduced not brotherhood but alienation, :In this sense, freedom, equaiity, and brothrhoad all conflicted, in lqbal" view, with liberal democracy as it had been kstii-utionalizedin the West and had been proposed as a system of gwernment for an dent hdian state. Certainly, he accepted many of the principl h m a n clignity, for instance-on wt.tich democracy is based, and even more important, he accepted. the need for the kind of adaptation and change democracy provides. He rczferred to "qirih;lat demwracy" as fie ""ultimateaim of Islam,"79 but he distrusted the idea of demwsacy, as he distrusted all other ideas divorced from circumstance and the spirit of
creation, His cdX for a return to origins in search of the authentic self took precedence over any and all institutionatized forms of decisicmmaking, incl~~ding the democratic.
Institutions Instih-ltions represent both the continuity of tradition and the rationality of modernity, but authentic thought rebels against both in the name of innovation, creativity,originality, particularity, autonomy, and truthfulness. In this light, it would be surprising if Iybal had held a predomirtantly positive view of institutions. How Musliims ought to be governed is less clear than how they ought not to be, Although Iqbal praised the dynmism of Mustafa Kemal's 'TitrkeyK-he vigorously cmdemned the result as mere imitation of Europe*KI It coMainedf he said "no fresh breath," ""'no design of a new world." He said the secret of I s l m was the law, yet he stressed the need for modification more than the need for cmformity, except in times of &cadence. He lauded Che hvays of the Prophet, but 1qbal"s goal "was never simply to re-create the past in an Islamic State."" Rather, he cited the principles oE the klamic ""Constitution"--the law of God is suyrtrme and all members en~oyabsolute equality.83-which might presumhly be institutionalized differently at various times and places in consonance with what he called the dynarnic spirit of Zs3am.H He heaped severities m both the monarchic and the canonical tendencies of Islam for the constraints they placed on that dynamism. Machiavellj received parallel condemnation for his dedication to a dynamic but secular state.8" Iqhal did advocate an independent educational system for Muslim India, CosnpZaining that Muslim children learned much more than they needed about Pul-itanisrrr and Gromwell, he said that British education in India was "not true to our genius as a nation. . . . In order to be truly ourselves, we ought to have our own schoolis, our own colleges and our own universities.'"6 This was clearly a call not for institutional stability but for authenticity and change. Educational institutions, however stodgy; occupy a marginal position in socriew maections of the status yuo but producers of innovation and creativity. For one who wishes to transfom fie conscious~~ess of humankhd, they are perhaps indispensable. That Eqlaal tmderstaod the value of institutions emerges clearly f r m The Mysferies of Sevesstzess 11% carefully guarded ways, he spends page after page paying homage to the Islamic way. But the main body of his thouglnt cuts against the grain of those arguments and against all known and existing fnstit-utims in favor of new, original, authentic sohticms. He did not explain hokv my hypotheticat solution codd avoid institutiol?alization or bow any society codd survive without it, He did say tension
and turbulence could produce creatkity and seems to have envisioned a changiw society with a lower quotient of ine;tih;rtionalij.,ati~n than either traditionalists or some modernists might find acceptable.
Modernity By its radical rejection of traclitim, authentic t h o u e t commits itself to a conception of history cmtrolled by human beings. n r o u g h a critique of both idealism and materialism, it embraces change as genuine but undetemjned. By a denial of duality, it deprives reason of its imperid position and swial scimce of its objective capacity to discern fie futurr. As a consequence ol its pmticularity, authentic thought undermines lberal and Man
tluman beings possess tbr possibility of achieving a high degree of selfhood through the hsorpticm of godly qualities. Blessed with self-consciousness, they are capable of Ioolcing into themselves, understanbhg
their potential and seeking to realiz-e it. It is the^ not God, who determine their own success or failure and qualify, or fail to quafify for eternal l&. That possibiiit-y lies within their potentkl. To achieve eternal, life implies, of course, that humankind can overcome even thr ravages of time. Iqbal takczs direct issue with Nietzschr m this point. By pushisrg historicism to its extreme, Nietzsche demonstrated that the passage of tixne erodes all human elfort; just as death takes away the body, changing times and circunlstances undercut ideas, even the idea that there is pattern in the events of history. Most human action thus seems predicated on an illusion: that what one is and what one does endures beyond the moment and the circumstance.4' Can one face the world without such an illusio~n?The pmspcet appears overMrhelming, but N'ietzsche fjnds relief in eternal recurrence. Although the present is always swept away, it reflects the past and conditions the future, vvhich im htm, both prospectively and retrospectively, refashions history Permanence is illusion, but so is novelty; conthuous creativiq works within a circulating s t r e m of human activity. Every evmescent act cmtributes to the permnelrce of the h m a n ernterprise. Death assures the onerness of"lifee92 Such is Nietzsch" hwothesis. Despite his admiration for same of Nietzsche's thought, eripecially the aitique of idealism, Iqbal found those conclusions macceptable. Xqbal mtertained the possi:bility of buman improvement, which he found consistmt with the meliorative outlook of the Qur'm, and he could not accept Nietzsche's argments &out the transiellce and fragme~ntation of the self. Me sought to reconcile his rejection of philosophical idealism with the possibilit,y of eternal life and to rescue from Nietzschean destmction the prospet of moral impmvement-without., of cotrrse, fallkg back inlo the mechmis tic and deterninistic traps of Western sociological analysis, whiCh violated his assumptions about human autommy To achieve that purpose, Xqbal posited two sorts of time, serial time and "pure durationm-an idea he adapted from Bergson, God exists in pure duratim, whereas the physical world evolves in serial t h e . But ail & i ~ ~ g s with a sense of self dso participate in pure duration. Mtaman beings, whose desthy is the realization of their potential for self-consciousness, achieve a sense of self by gatherir~gtogether their momentary feelin$s and the mm; total of their thoughts and activities into a single being that trmscends time; that is what it means to discover the self, to know God and to participate im a phenomenon characteristic of the Absolute Ego, or pure dzlra.t.ion.As rnan moved through the stages of self-consciousness, from obedience to self-control to divine vice-rclgency he would be more capable of transcending serial time and experiencing the eternal-pure duratim. He codd aspire to be the "periect man""of 'Abd al-Karim. d-Jili (d. early fifteenth century). :lqbal said Nietzsche had mistakenly rejected
the possibility of ""the eternal now," a window of escape toward the health of the individual and the amelioration of the human race. "The perfection of the perfect man, accordi,ng to Islam, consists in realizing this aspect of tirne which can be described only as the eternal now Ti> Nietzsche there is no such thing as the eternai no~.~'93 Cbe critic has said: "R [lqbir], Me is perpetual striving in behatf of great and. worlhy ideals."y4 In an ordinary sense, that is true, but in a more rigorous sense, it is not. 'fhe '5iceal'" he espoused derked not from reasor1 or from God but frorn suprarationnl pe~epli.onof selkood uniting, the disparate images of human activity. The development of the self emerges from the particutar via intuition as well as reason. This truth leaves open the course of human. strivhg rather than attaching it to any preordained set of great and worthy ideals, like those so tightly associated with lhrestern notions of development-h tbis qualification: The self and t-he community frorn which it derives its selnse of identity stand as primordial values. Their primordiality stems, however, not from reason but from a combination of experience and instinct. b r human beings, eltistence prccdcs essence, but one facet of human existence is Che sense of self, which leads to the discovery of the oneness of the world.. Existence exisleads toward the encounter with essence, which ultimately explai~~s tence. God's essence precor~ditionsexistence. :Iqbal"sunderstmdjng of the human predicament thus combined what he saw as the best elcments of East and West. It opened the door to the embrace of technological progress wit;hout succt~lBbingto positivism and its irrational attachment to empiricism, It incorporated the mystjcal insights oE the East without accepting quietism as a necessary concomitant. It elnbraced the dynantic understanding of history without: resiglnixlg itself either to circularity or meaninglessness. :I+d opposed Westernizaticm, either by imposition or imitation, trYithout: demanding a re&n to the tradi,tions of the East, which had fallen into disrepair. h authentic respmse to the human predicament lay, in his view in the effort to reconcile rationalism and mysticism, pemmmce and change. "True 1slamf"oes just that, and the jntuit.ion of the self authent.icates "'true Islam," Iqbal's reputatio~~, like that of most great thhkers, does not ride on. a single set of accomplishments or a single idea. It does not depend exclusively on the originality of his philosophy on the quatity of his pwtry or on the contexnporary usefuhess of his political ideas. 7;r, focus on his effort to elaborate a general theory of authentidty is not to diminish his other endeavors or even to insist that this project outweighs any other in a lmg-range perspective. Rather, it is done to elicit the way in which Iqbal was important to writers such as Sayyid Qutb and 'Ali Shm-i'ati.
His role m s t be contrasted with that of Muhammad 'Abdu of Egypt, another admirer of Jamal al-Din ai-Afgbani, who IikewiSe found fault with s t m as it was practiced. 'Abdu, laborfjd to reform Islmic doctrine by giving reason its place; he suggested that Islam and mason both reflected God's truth. They could not conflict.gWut 'Abdu" work inadverterntly exposed revelatim to the onslaught of reason and legitimated the wholesale infatuation with liberalism and the West that pervaded Egypt in the 1921)s. 'The rapid growth of the Muslim Brotherhood in t.he 3930s probably reflected a perception that Egypt, infiuernced by '&du, among others, was losing touch with, its own past, Although his name is o k n associated with Islamic revival and reform, 'Abdu represented one pole of wfiat IqbaX sought to gmrd against: the tyranny of reason. The other p d e was tradition. Xqbal" cmception of t s l m prevented hin? from inwokhg mere precedent as justification for kgal fh~dint;s.His skeptic is^^ of religious scholarshjip m d his outright de~nunciationof monarchy make it seem dubious he would have seen virtue in the "tradi"tiona1 monarchies" of the Middle East, notwithstanding their e k r t s at modemization. Iqbal would have been as contemptuous as Abdallah Laroui of those regims m d those mnvements that utilize "tradition as ideology"but for entirely d i f f e ~ n reasons. t Laroui demeans them for obstructing the progress of history, whereas Iqbat, deny.ing any such djscemible pattern in. history, would see tradition as an ubstacle to the redizatim of authenticity :lf the principal characteristic of contemporary Islarnic "fundamental is^^'^^ the insistence that the Islamic tradition constitutes a palitjcal ideology, Iqbal is not a '"fundamentalist," although brr does plumb tbe Islarnic tradition for inspiration, L m u i clailns that the histclricism of Marx permits the Arabs to join the West by revolting against it, but tqbd, one step more radical, wodd. suggest that the revolt cannot be genuinely Eastern if it occurs within a secular, rationalist, historicist, Western p e r s p e d i ~ e . ~ ~ Does not tyhal" sawn thinking lend itself to this criticism? Surely his htcnse e @ ~to &demonstrate Islamic origins for all his ideas ~ f l e c t e dsensitivity on that point." Others have sought to show which elements he borrowed from particular European thinkers." Does such borrowing make his thinking about authenticity hauf;hentic? :If Iqbal's fulldameatat precept is the sclf as Che center of purposive action, it w u l d seetn pctssible for genuinely difkrent people to follow the precept without compromising their origindity or their creatiwity*Rifat t-lassm has argued that Iqbal fixed upon this elentcnt of his thinking, together with his conviction that spiritual and material worlds cannot be separated, before 1905-before his extensive cmtact with European t;hought.g%d if that p ~ c e p lurks t withh Islamic c u l t ~ ~as r ewell as witjhb~Western cztlture, as Iqbal claimed, then borrowing is merely a form of substantiation, not of treason.
Mrhereas LamuYs historicism constitutes a general theory destroykg difference, Iqbal's theory of authmticity, though equally general, legitimates pmticulari?, but it also preserves the possibil,ity of sotjdarity, because the principle itself stems from the nature of the self. Both thories reyuirc an act of faith, fie one in sociat science, the other in the seff. Iqbalfsrhgs authentic because it is st~bjectto intuitive verification by any reflective person; it is authentically Muslim because it coincides, he argued, with the h a d m e n t a l impulse of the Islamic faith. It foltnws, hocvever, that arnthenticity does not stricly depend on Islam, The reding of European philosophy seems to have convinced Tqbal that the sense of self lies within h w a n possibilities. Islam =presents the best, but perhaps not: Ihe only, exprrzssion of those possibilities. The kuth of his propositions dcrives from faith, but his faith in the self seems to precede his Islamic faith. Iqbal w u t d contend that the two fai&s are mutualZy rekforcing, but it could be argued that the tmth of Islam, as seen by Iqbal, stems from its coincidence with the intuitiun of the self 'S ppotmtial for being; Islarn provides support for that insight and a m a n s for the many to find access to it, The sense of self demands faith in Gad, but faith in God does not necessasily rcguirrz an understanding of self; the =rent history of Islam stands as testimony to fiat fact. Like :Ibn Khaldun, who argued fie pMosophess were "wrong when they =same that prophecy exists by necessiQ;'"loD IqbaI kept his randerstmding of faith 'kauthmtic" by ddcnying the logical necessity of '"me Islamffwhile asserting its centrality to the self-understanding of Muslims. Me sought to ""save""I s h much as Kierkgaarci sought to '"save" Ckistianity from both Platonism and tsaditicm,"Vyet it is still not clear what he p ~ s e r v c dHe . accepted one precept of modernism-'rhat huntan beings "are indeed the authors of their own actions"; but he tried to avoid. t h disastrous consequences of its corollary "that they are fully atitled to act on the basis of their own calculated interests""" by showing that genujne individuaiity reflected an understanding of the common good by virtue of the underlying oneness of being. He Mt unspecified what. that common good wlruld be in tl-te r e a h of poli,tics. AltLholrgh he ~sczledthe ""trueIslaxx7'9rm the grasp of reason, it is less clear that be saved it from the ravages of autonomy and particularity which are fmdamental to his defhition of authenticity.
1. Syed 'AbduX Vahid, Q61al, His Art and Tlzougllf (Lahore: Ashraf, 1g&), p. 3. 2. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, JVIodcr~zIslam in India: A Social Analysis (London: Victor Gollancz, 2946), p. 101. 3. Ibid. 4, Vahid, lqbnl, His Art and Ttzozigltt, chap. 2 .
5 . Muhammad I@al, Poe~rzsfiornXqbal, trans. V. G. Miernan (London: Murray 1955), p. 72. 6. Ibid., p. 78, 17. Fazt-ur Rahman, "TqbaX and Mysticism," in inqblal as n Tlzir-zk~r (Lahore: Ashraf, 19441, p. 223. 8. Iqbal, ""ChazaX No. 13,'' in inoenfs,p. 33. 9, Iqbal developed this theme in S!zz'kz~~a and Inzttab-i-Shikwa: Compjninl and Anszoer, Xqbal's B7;alogue with Allah, tram. mushwant Singh (Delhi: Oxford, 1983). 10. Muhammad IqbaI, Tke Mysteries of Selflessness, trans. Arthur J, Arberry (London: Murray, 19-53], p. 5. 11. Iqbal, h e n $ $ ,p. 137. 12. Rahmm, ""XbaX and Mysticism," p 2217, 13. Muhammad TqbaX, Tlte Reco~lsCruetioncf Religious 5rhozqlgl. ir-z Ishm (Lahore: Ashraft 19821, p. 12, 14. Muhammad Jqbat Invid-pjnntn, trans. A ~ h u Jr .Arberv (London: Alfen and Unbvin, 1966>,p. 21, 15, bid., p. 300. 16, Mohammad I+al, Secrets ..fsffheSeg A Pfzilosophicat Poem, trans. R, A, Nicholson. (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 19781, p. 48. 1'7. Moharned Iqbal, ntnug/:lllsand Repeckions of lqbal, ed-.Syed Abdul Vahid (Lahore: Ashraf, 1964), sec. 8, p. 99. 18. Iqbal, Mysteries, p. 17. 19. Iqbal, Recorzstntetion, p. 31, 20. Tqbal, "Solitude," h int~etns,pp. 94-95. 21. Iqbal, Reco~zstntetiorz,p. 31, 22. Iqbal, jl2z)illl Nrlmn, p. 48, 23. Iqbal, T\?oztghts, sec. 9, p, 115. 24, Quoted by Annemarie %hi et, "Mystic Impact of Hall;ti,'" in Iqbnl: PoetPhilosoplzer ofPak-isfnfz,ed-.Hafeez Malik (New York: Columbia, 19711, p. 314. 25. Fazlur Rahman, "%me Aspects of Xqbal's Political Thought," "utlr'es in Islam 5 (19681, g. 162. 26. Iqbal, Tlzoztghts, sec, 16, p. 163. 27. Tqball, Reconstrz~el.l'on,prefacq p. v. 28. Iqbal, Complaint and APISUII"~) p. 96, 29, Vahid, Iqb~dl,His Art and Tkotlg-lzt, chap- 2, 30. Iqbal, Javid Rlamn,p. 426. 31, Ibid., p. 94, 32. Tqbal, Poenzs, no. 105, p. 85. 33- Iqbal, Secrets, p. 54. 34. Tqbal, Poenzs, no. 61, pp. 62-ti3. 35. Iqbal, jizv.icA Mamn,p. 85, 36. Tbid., p. 95. 37. Vahid, Iqbnl, His Art and TIzoztghl., p. 49. 38. Ibid., p. 62. 39. Iqbal, Reco~zstnictiotz,p. 57, 40, Iqbal, Secrets, p. 59, 41. Tqbal, Tjtoughts, sec. 3, p. 34.
42, Ibid., p. 41. 43. Iqbal, Poenzs, no. 80, p. '70. 44. Rafiz Zakaria, fareword to Complaint n ~ Anszuer, d p. 2 0. 45. iqbal, Reer;lnslt.rzcel.2'01~~ pp. 387-488. 46. See Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Auftw~zfieiky((Cambridge:P-iarvard University Press, 19?2), pp. 10&110, far an analysis of Conrad's The Ffenrt of D~rkrzess. 47, Iqbab jizvid N a m , p. 408, 48. malifa Abdul Hakirn, ""Rurni, Nietzsche and Iqbal," in Iqbal ns n Thinker, p. 469. 49, Bid., p. 171, 50. Tqbal, J ~ v i dMama, p. 65. 51. Xqbal, Mysteries, p. 73. 52. Malek Bennabl, Vocation de I'lslam (Paris: SeuiZ, 19541, p. 32, and AIbert Memmi, The Culunizer and ~ J Z C Colonize~i,trans. P-ioward Greenfeld (New York: Brion Press, 1965). 53. Iqbal, javid Nnmn, p. 70. 54, Zakaria, foreword to Complai~ztn ~ Anszuer, d p. 10, 55, Iqbal, Jnvid Nnmn, p. 434. 56. Ibid., p. 138, 57. Rahman, ""Some Aspects of IqbalfsPolitical Thought," p 164. 58. Iqbal, Secrets, p. 48, 59. ibid., p. 50. 60.Iqbal, Mysteries, p. 61. 61. Ibid., p. 40. 62. "hqbal" mind was simply incapable, apparently, of dealing with men in community. He was excellent in thinking about the individual; but he floundered badly tzr hen he apprnached qucrstims of society, the relations of many individuals to one another. He certainly tried to think about such questions and wrote a whole poetical treatise on the subject. But ever)r attempt was a failure; he himself, the poet, knew that he was not at af l at home with practical complex affairs." Wilfred CanmeX1 Smith, Modem Iskm in Itzdia, p. 133. 63. Iqbal, Mysteries, p. 9. 64.iqbal, J ~ v i dNama, p. 45. 65. Iqbal, Mysteries, p. 29* 66, Iqbal, Thozights, sec. 27, p. 297. 67. Elie Kedcturie, Natiotznlism (London: Hutchinsan, 190). 68, Iqbal, Mysteries, p. 30. 69. Rahman, "%me Aspects of IqbalfsPolitical Thought," p 162. 70, "That the Purpose of Muhammad%Mission Was to Found Freedom, Equality and Brcjtherhoojd Among AlI Mankind" & the title of a section in lybal, Mysteties, p. 21. 172. Tqbal, Mysteries, p. 2.3. 7'2,Iqbal, Thoztgfrts,sec. 6. 73. Iqbal, Poe~rzs,sec. 102, p. 78. 74. Iqbal, Tboztgfrfs,sec. 5, p. 78. 75. Ibid., sec, 16, p. 163, 176, Ibid., p. 189.
77, Ibid., sec, 5, p. 79. 1725. ibid., sec. 4, p. 58. 79. Iqbal, Reconstruction, p. 180. 80. ibid., p. 162. 81. Iqbal, jmid Nnmn, p. 58. 82. Rahman, ""Some Aspects of Iqbalfs Political Thought"+. 162. 83. Iqbal, TboztgFzls, sec. 3, p. 52. 84. Iqbal, Reco~struction,p. 138. 85, Iqbal, Mysteries, p, 32, 86, Iqbal, TJloughts, sec, 3, p-44. 87. b h i d , QbaZ, His Art and TIzstigI~f,p. 62, 88, One may nonetheless doubt Vahid" assertion: "IqbaX is not content merely with turning kings into philosophers and philosophers into kings like Plato; he aims at turning every man into a Faqir, and his Faqir is samething much more than Plato's Philosopher and King combined." It is true that Iqbal places no Xirnit on man" ability ttlr imprc~ve,Vahid, Iqbnl, His Art and TJjozlght, p. 79. 89, Iqbal, Reco~strucfi;o~, p. 50. 90, Ibid., p, 50. 91, Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Use and Abuse of History," in TJloughts out of Season, Part 2 (London: Allen, 192[7),g. 12. 92, Nietzsche, Tlttds Spctke Znratlzusfm, trans. VValter Kauffman (Middlesex: 13en.guin, 1981), pp. 355-160. 93. Iqbal, TFzollg5"hts,sec. 22, p. 242. 94. K. G. Saiyidain, "Progressive Trends in iqbaf" Thought," in inqbal'as a Thir-zkr (tahcjre: Ashraf, 19441, pp. 42-1QQ. 95, Malcolm H. Kerr, Islamic Refonrz: TJle Political a d t q a l TJlmries of Muf~arrr~r~nd 'Abduh and Rnsfzid Ridu (Berkeley: ZJniversiQ of Califi~miaPress, 496G), p. 109. 5%. Abdallah Laroui, cfhe Crisis I?( trlte Arab Irttellectunl, trans. Biarmid Camme11 (BerkeXey: University of Catifc~miaPressf 119714). 97, See A. H. Karnali, "The Heritage of Islamic Thought,'" in Malik, 4ba1: PoetPhilosoplzer of Pakistan, pp. 21 1-242, far the best concise discussion of iqba 1% debts to the Islamic tradition. 98. See B. A. Dar, ""lnt;pirat.ic>n from the West-," in Malik, Qbal: Pt~ef-PhilosopIter of Pakistan, ftx a succinct discussi~~1. 99. Rifat Hassan, "The Development of Political 13hilasrrrphy," in Malik, Igbal: Poet-PI?ilosopfwrof inakistnt~,p. 140. 100. Ibn KhaXdun, Tlzc Mz-tqnddimalt: An X?ztrodlrctian fa History, trans, Franz RogntchaX (Prlnc&on: Princeton University Press, 19671, p. 48. 101. S6ren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fmgments or n Fragment of Plzilosoplfy, trans. Davici F. Swenson and How-ard V. Hong (Princeton: Pninceton Unirrersiv Press, 1962). 102. Kerr, islnntic Reform, p. 222.
UNLIKE IQBAL, WHO LARDED HIS TEXT with rekrences to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Bergscm, Sayyid Qufb studiously avoided such references to learned Europeans, although his litemy background suggests he knew somthing of mndern philosophy. Born in Asyut Province in Egypt in 1906 to devout: parents, Qutb first shxdied in Qur";;mic schools in his viUage of Qalna and managed to mentorize the w'an by the age of ten. At thirteen, with his parents moving to FXelwan on the southern outskirts of Cairo, he transfermd to secclndary school in Cairo, and in 1929, at age sixteen, he entered the Dar al-'Ulum, which ultimately became Cairo University. Studying with Abbas Mahmud al-Aqyad, one of tlle leading lights of Egyptian liberalism, ""b became extremely interested in English literature and read avidly anythjng hc cod$ lay his hands on in translat h . Upon graduation be was appointed as inspector of the Ministry of Educaticm, a position he eventually gave up to devote hilnself exclusively to writing."We wrote poetry, stories, and articles, many nf them devoted to the critique of literature. He later said he r e g ~ t t e dwritixlg these things. His decision to abandon literary criticism after World War II represented disillusio~~me~~t with the West and a renewed interest in Islam. He reacted negatively to British policies durQ World War ZI, which he saw as ~negirrgon n e w granted Egyptian independence and denying Arabs the right to self-determination in Palesthe. During the war, he wrote two books in which he approached the Qur%asr as literature, and then in 1948, he fir~isheda bocrk called Social J ~ s t i c ilt r klam, which was published t.he followhg year, while he was on a two-year educational mission to the United States.Wpon his return home, he joix\ed the Muslim Brotherhood, a lay movement founded in the 1920s, MIhich by the 1940s llad become t-he single largest political force in E u p t . "His stay in America made a deep impression upon him, and he returned convinced that the materialistic
civilization of the West ommmism being just a logkal extreme of itis devoid of basic human values and is leading mankirrd toward spiritual, sociat and even physjcal destmctim."" Sayyid QutWs dedicat-ion to the develoyment m d pr~pagationof a radical versim of Islam from the late 1 9 4 b until his death in 1966 put him at odds not only with occide~~tal imperialism but with the modernist regime of G m a l 'abd al-Nasir, which came to power in Egypt in 1952. At first Hasir welcomed the support oE the Muslim Bmtherhfrcld and liberated its leaders from prison, but mistrust between the regirne and the brotherhood led to a falljng out in late 1954, when the brotheskood was banned. and its leaders, including Sayyid Qutb, pmpagmdist and journal editor, were again jailed. Qutb spent Phe rest of bis life in prison, where he revised thirteen volumes of cammentary on the QwPc7nand wrote two other books. Liberated in December 1964 and then rearrested in August 1965, he faced charges based on his claims in a book called Milestones, published during his few mmths of freedom, that all existixlg Arab governments (including the Hasir government in Egypt) werc. un-Islamic. He was cmvicted and hung in 1966. As propagandist for the Muslitn Brathehood in Egypt in the 1950s and 19605, Sayyid Quth suffered and died for what Emmanuel Siwan wrongly calis "a total rejection of modernity since nnndernity represents the negation of God's sovereigty . . . in all fields of life and relegation of religion to the dusfbin of historql."3 The appeal of his thought and the strength of the radical lslarnic groups that have worked from his i&as (',Few Muslifn thixlkers have had as sipificant an impact on the reformulation of cmtemporary Islamic thought as has Sayyid Qutb'"" may depend m a perception th& he draws exciusivcly f r m an authentic tslantic well. Qut.b himself would have wished to ioster that impression, which is nonetheless n-tisleading, if not utterly inaccurate. @ttb's thought has emerged as a stiimulus of radical Sunnism in E u p t and in, the rest of the Arab world, but he does not espouse a return to the ""traditional" world of Islam, whethrr cme places that tradition in the seventh cenhary or the nh~eteenth.Athough Qutb ncver explicitly called fos violent attack on his own or other gove ents that he deemed negligent of Islamic law, his arguments p " i d e a rationale for others to do so. Ti> eschekv critique of h,is ~ 0 u g h .in t terms other than those of the Islantic tradition is to concede a cardinal point the radirals wish to make: that Islamic radicalism is, by virtue of its basis irr faith, different from all otber foms of radicalism md, hdeed, from all ideologies. But such a concessio~~, which a Westerner might make to avoid charges of ethnocentrism, leads directly to the portrayal of a mystic&, inscrutable, mditmt, and violence-prone Islam. To analyze the thought of Sayyid Qutb solely within the confines of Western modernization theory does not make sense either, because his as-
Sayyid Qutb
pirations do not fall wi"cEtin its range. Social mobilization, economic growth, palitj,al participatio-tee are not his primary objectives, He cannot be g r o v e d with modernist reformers such as Muharnmad 'Abdu, who sought to brhg Islam closer to the Western notion of religion, consistent with the ratimality of science and the secularism of society. (2utb writes agaiinst modernity in a modern way6 Qutb can md.must be cornpased with European and. other n i r d World thinkers because he rejects the dichotomy between Eastern mysticism and Western rationalism. E-lc is modern by virtue of aski.ng w f n d it mems to be human, building on the premise used since the eighteenth century by a number of Europeal~writers that neither faith nor rationality providc-s an adequate response. Qutb can be compared with other "authentics'kot because he aped European writers, although he was prohably more farniliar with their work than his references wodd suggest,7 but because he posed the same questions. He did not ask "'at is aut.hentic Islam?" oar, much less, "What is an authentic hadie?" although these are the ways in which hr would employ the word '"authentic,"" He asked, ratherI "How can hwman beings act in the world and still be themselves? Hour can human beings overcome their base ixrstirrcts in favor of their spiritual qualities in a world of g ~ e dself-interest, , materialism, and impersonal rationality? Can spirituality be recovered without retreat from the world, without monasticism?" Qu-tb is ratlical not only because he dmounces all existing Muslim govemmenks but because, sounding very much like Rousseau, he speaks of liban beings from ali that would obstruct the reaiizatim of their God-created potential. l-fis thought is evocative cJf the work of other authentics in its talk of praxis, of lslm as a st-ream of fiistorical experknce rather than as an ideal. He, like :l+& argues that autm~moush ings can, by acts of faith and will, shape an authentic Islamic communityin ways that remind orlc of Pascal and Kierkegaard. h d @tb's idea, likcr those of other authentics, hhge on a tary ideal, common to all versions of Islam brat vital to an interprebtin &at emphasizes tbe historiciq of expmicnce and the dcc7ishenem of hurnan will in histosical outcomes. may be understood as an advocate of authenticiv and his responses to the chaltenges of modernity, democracy institutions, and history may be judged against: those of others who hiwe shared that perspective.
Radicalism: Liberation of the Self Qutb" vision of unlimited hurnan potcmtial makes him a radjcal, He speaks of hurnan beings as capable of achieving peace within themsefves, oZ- batancing their most. pmfnrrnclify hwman insthcts with those needs that arc fundmentally alien to them, whether biohgical or social in origin:
"When the soul is at one with its true nature, when its needs and necessities are fulfilled, when its constructive capacities are released, then with ease m d cvithout c q u l s i o n . . . in natural harmony with life, cvill it ascend to the lofty summit ordained for it,"%uch a project requircs the mderstanding of one's "true natwf"ia faith; it requires the rc.shay>ing of individual behavior according to a code cmsistent with that true nature and the natural harmony of life. For @tb, the act of submission to GodIslam-is the first act of hdividual liberation from the domi~~ation of other humm beings, That is not enough, for as liberated individuaIs we cannot, "with ease and without compulsion," achieve our full pokntial in a society operated according to rules de~risedby other human beings. We cannot be ourseIves because we are still ruled by others. We can only fulfjtl.the promise of our humanity Mthen the society permits us to be at peace with ourselves and with others, when it permits us not just to submit to God but to God alone; we fjnd a borne d y in a society &at is obedient solely to the wit1 of God. Since no such society exists today human fuIfil1ment thus delnands the formation of a revolutictnary elite, the overthrow of exjsting social a r r m g e m t s , and the construction of a society rclgulated by divine rules. Like Rousseau, Qutb seeks not a return to the state of nature but a nonalienating reconcliation of human nature with the rcqui~mentsof civil society. By starting fmm t-he idea of indiwiduals estranged from their ""true nature," Qutb places himself in the company of writers who have canfronted the pmblem of alienation in the context of modernity Like many thinkers, West- and Islamic, he suggests that human befngs are two dimmsionat: C)ne djmcnsion links us to other mimal species; the othcr dimmsion, to God. From our animal nature comes a set of needs we can s c a ~ e l yipore-food, sleep, sex, and so m-and a set of instincts t-hitt help satisfy those needs. Our hsthct for s e l f - e e v t i n and nur love of self drive us beyond necessity toward the fulfillment of "needs" of our own definitim. "Man is a passionate self-lover," wrote Qutb. 'But he loves only what he imagines ta be good for him: wealth, power, and the pleasures of this world."Waturallyr buman beings associate freedom with the right to pursue these self-centered objectives. Freedom is the freedom to do whatever one wishes. Human beings are distirrguished from animals, however, by their htellect and their spirit, Qutb t-hus contrasts our human nature with our mimal nature, ou,s real needs (Le., spiritud needs) with, physical and imagined needs, the inner being of mind and spirit with the outer person, dcrmilnated by the pursuft of comfort and pleasure. 'True freedom," he said, is freedom from the domhation of the animal side of one" mimal exjstence. It mems freedom from the very forces, the gods, that cause hu-
Sayyid Qutb
mans to seek the freedom to do whatever they wish, to satis9 their whims, however frivolous. Genuine human freedom, based on the noble side of human nature, mems freccfom for the inner behg and cmtrol of the base aspects of human character. That, according to @tb, is the purpose of wligion. The @rfanic revelations opened tl-te way for human beings to abandon their ignorance and barbarism (j$\ziltjp)and to strive toward the achievement of their own potential. Where. Qutb deviates from mahstream Islmic thought and allies himself with lqbal and modcm European philosophy is in his argument that the onset of modernity, even in corntries where the Qur%nic revelation. is revered, has exacerbated the problem of alienation, In the West, Christianiq cmltivated the spiritual bp rejecting the secular; according to m t b , the Roman Catholic Church erred in holdlng to dogmas that put it at odds with science and with the secular world. Religiosity became synonymous wilh withdrawal from the world, hvhereas s ~ u l a thought, r including scientific innovation, moved away from religion by choice or necessity. Human beings thus found themsekes regiarded by empirical science, on the one hand, as creatures driven by economic, political, social, and sexual needs, and by religion, on the other, as sinners capable of owercomhg their weaknesses: Now, when man" conscience and feelings are governed by a certain b w but his actual lik and activities are gc>vernedby another, and when the two laws emerge from different conceptions, one from human imagination and the other from the inspiration of Gcd, then such an individual must suffer sclmething similar to sehizopfrwnia,""""
The Western ""slution," 'the connpartmmtalizaticm of life in which religion occupies one corner of the human cmsciousness or is banished altogether, as Marxists hvould have it, separates human beings from their own spirit, the essence of humanity. Modernity of this kind alienates human beings from themselves. That is Qutb's fundamental proposition, m d it puts him in the company of o t h a modems.. For this rcason, @fb h u n d the human p~dicamentmore serious than it was more than a millenniunl ago, before thc. advent of Islam: "The crlouds which w i g h over man's naturc arc Chieker m d denser than before. The prcvious ignorance of God. was based on a general ignorance, simplicity and primitiveness. That of the present is based on learning, complexjty and frj\ro:ljty."II Is it not worse to ixnagine that one lrnows the truth about things, about human volition in particular, than not to hw? When human beings find themselves enveloped by slrcial institutions ranging from grade schools to governments is not the cure for aliel~atian more difficult than h an mlettered m d mfettered Arabia? And is it not
easier to persuade human beixlgs to satisfy fundamental needs in different ways than to dissuade them altogether from acknowledging the needs they thcmelves have created? Menation aMicts us as kdjviduals, but we find ourselves separated from our o m fundamental nature by pollution of the twentieth cmbry-whether we live in these cloud-the the East or the West, or even in a country that calls itself Muslim, Our ability to look back on Ihe succcsses of the Islamic revolution in overcorning tbr iporance m d barbarim oE the seventh century constitutes our oniy significant advantage. :If the first jdhr'lfya was general, splintered, and tribal, the modern version is social, organizilCiona1, and cdkctivct?.For fiat ream, as individuals we can only achieve meration by freeing ourselves front the clutches of the collectivil.y, the clutches of other human bejngs, Coilectivit.ies do not budge, hokoever, unless human beings cause them to move. The impulse t w d auLhelnticity lies within human nature. Mu~nmbejngs have a natural need for peace withln themselves and peace with the universe.12 They instinctively turn toward religion as a way out of their schizophrenic plight. "'Huntan na.t.ure," he wrote, "conforms basically to the n o m s of being.'"s "Being" connotes permanence, lixlkage with the world, participation in the world of name. The "imer man" kfes at one with that world; that is t-he origin of the religious jnstinct, the reasor1 t-hat seven&-cmtury Arabs saw truth in the message carried by M u h a m a d and the =ason the spirit of contemporary man will eventually seek escape from its imprisonment. To find one%authe~~tic being means m a b g oneself a part of being, submitting to the s o m e of being, giving up one's whole self to God. Islam asserts that every person is capable of that act of faith. For Qufb, that fact guarantees &at at least a few will brave t%cc odds and seek to rediscover the essence of humm nature by embracilrg God. Qutb s h w s with Iqbal the hope and convictim not just that social inequities can be removed and social institzrtioxls renovated but that- the human species can transform itself in the dhction of its primnodial, "upright,""' '"fairestfll5 nature. He is radical by virtue of his belief in the posibility of ovcccoming alienation and con(lict and of reaching the ""lofty s u m i t . " D~rspitethe "clouds" overhead., a few people can, by listening to their most fundmental instincts, discover God" path and, by exercising their autonomy, put Chcmelves in tunc with their ocvn beings and the universe, Et then becomes their duty to help Eberate others from the forces of alienation.
Liberation of Society By engaghg in the act of Islam, st~bmitthgto God and to God alone, human beings Eberate themselves from mortal authority. Freedom, Qutb
Sayyid Qutb
says, means the freedom to choose submission to God; a few will be able to make that decision even under the most adverse circumstances, but one c m o t speak of complete freedom for the individual as lmg as there exist external constraisrts an behavior, such as social hstitutions created by some standard other than God's lawI which mRects the naturai order of things and is Chercfosc consistent with human nat-ure. M y w h e rid ~ ~of all humm rulers are hdividuals free to choose to submit to God m d thus to give up their nah;lrai freedom to do as they wish, \Alhich atienates them from their own true nature and horn. their Mlow human beings This i s a call for "total revalution."l~ The true religion is in fad a universal declaration af man's freedom from the servitude to other men and to his own desires which too are a form of semitucle. . . . This means that religion is an all-embracing and total revolution against the sovereignty of man in all its types, shapes, systems and states, and completely revolts against every system in which authority may be in the hands of man in any form, or in other wards, he may have usurped sovereignty under any shape.17
Qutb argued that every prophet had brought the same message; each had been ignmd. Me dmounced rabbinjcal power in Judajszn,and the pocver of the church in Christianity @tb also faulted Christianity for its apposition to the development of Weskm science, vvhich contributed to the bifurcation of society and permi,t&d the emergence of secular political philosophy justifying and ratiodizing the exercise af h r n a n sovereignty over human affairs.'"utb was no less categoric about the East: "The slate of the M u s h community is such that it has forgotten its real 'selft; . . . centuries have el;apsed [since] its exit from the stage of historyef'lWhe creatim of a secular monaxhy fn the scrventh c e n t v , fie interest of the monarchy in ereating stabihty through the elaboration of orthodoxy, the entrusting of orthodoxy to the hands of the ulema, the modern domination of the Islamic world by nation-states committed to nationalism, socialism, and Arabism, and the relegation of Xsfarn to the domain of personal religion-all these facts and others attest to the nonexistence of an Islamic community, one where a person would be free to submit to God and no one else, The modern jahl'lfyw, thus encompassesr according to @tb, the world that calls itself Muslim20-inctuding Nasirfs E g p t , where he became a martyr and hero fof the lslarnic movement. "Our foremost ob~ectiveis to bring about a rcvdution in the pmtical sptem of the society The jahiXiyy order has to be exterminated root and branch," he wrote.zVhat order includes the Sunni estarbXisX-tme~~t, the ulema, who have since the time of the Wmayyads sought to legitimate the claims of secular rulers. Qutb por-
trayed Islam. as a revolutionary movement: 'The fundamental Islamic pri~~ciples are ~voluticmary~ It was a revolution against thr deification of men, agai.nst injustice, and agailnst political, economic, racial, and re&that Kierkegaard. argued that a true gious prejudice."= In much the wa~." Christian must imitate the historical action of Christ, Qut;ib asked that Muhammad" era be used as inspiratio11 (but not as a model) for m attack on Islam as a living tradition, as a set of inherited dogmas and befiefs, as a community marked for more than cme Lhfrusand years by a de facto split betweell secular and rcljgious authority.'"everd h m its origins, tradition is as dehumanizing as modernity;Z"ogether they constitute the clouds that prevent human beings from seeing with clarity and choosing the natural path mapped out for them by God. The cloud. metaphor fails, however, to suggest what must be done. No sweet, gentle breeze can etispmw "the veits of traditbn and modernity. Force is required: ""Bt when . . . material influel~cesand impediments may be ruling, &ere is no =course but to remove &em with force, so that when this message may appeal [to] the heart and reason of men, they shorlld be free h m alX such slhackles and bonds to pronounce their verdict open-heartedb."zs It is perfectly natural, he argued, &at Islam should authorize the use of force not for the conversion of souls but in order to clear the terrail7 of:man-made authority so that rnan may choose to live by the rutes of God. It is natural that in an initial periob, as when Muhammad recruited a small group of believers in Mecca and sought to understand revelations pertainbg to the relationship between man and Gad, the process of liberation does not require violent skuggle." The cornpanicms of t-he Prophet liberated t-hemselves by embracing Islam and, Zly doing so, set themselves apart from Meccan society, first within the city and eventually by leaving the city for Medina. There, they struck out to defend their right to live by their new beliefs in a hostile enwirrmment. Jihad necessarily took a mare offensive, more violent turn at that juncture, according to Qutb. Then, only when existing authority had been razed, could. a new society be articulated. Violelzce is a part of the " n a h r a l f ~ r ~ c eofs smeration; to misunderstand unit). of its chmcc of escaphg the that paint is to deprive the Islamir c jiihiliya, he said,zl for Istarn as a way of life cannot prevail for the great numbers undcr eo~zditionsof extemd hostility. If it is huntan nature to be free m d if to be free mems to live without subordisration to others, then it is natural &at one should seek to desbcry that which obstmcts liberatimproof olnee ag"in that I s l m ~ l c c tnature, s or nahre va(idates "Cmef9Islam. Qutb did not share Fasron" view on the value of violence in and of itseff. He explicitly dissociated himself from the Christian view, emphasized by Kierkegaard, that to h e authentieaily is to share Christ's suffering and to welcome death, which constitutes the ulthate escape from a
Sayyid Qutb
wmid of original sin. @ite to the contrary, he spoke of God" path as one of ease for human beings, because it is the naturai path and human naturtis fundamentally sound." I d m desig~~ates the way to eternal life; it guarmtees eternal life to those who die on its behalf; a believer welcomes the ogport-unity to overcome all selfish ambitions and participate in jihaci'g md even to die for the cause.30 But Islam also reminds me11 and women that they are accountable for their actions on earth; it provides a code of conduct hthis world in preparatkn for the next, a code designed to provide seczrrity against tenor and cwrcion and the gemsal well-being human nature instinctively desires.31 It eschews forcible conversion. Although violence is a nahtral part of the process of &straying institutional obstacles to sell-discovery;it does not, in Qu;t-bfs Islam, constitute a necessar). element in the individual"^ struggle to overcome alienation,"
Autonomy Sayyid @ttb calls for a revolution in which man comes to ack~owledge God"s absolute s o ~ e r e i p t y but ~ paradoxica.liy, God has left human beings to bring about that state of affairs." "ey must choose to liberate themselves and their fellow human beings from the worldly situation in which otent God has put them. Musbms are destined to prt.va.il, but ly do so if they exert themseives. It is God's will that human effort, offered wilhout: coet-cion or constraint, will carry the day for Islam! Qutb" pmblem, analogous to that of Gramsci, is to find room for autonowus human action in a detern?inistie world. To campromise cm des to deprive God-or dialecticd mterialism, in the case of f omnipotence and to deprive history of its memhg; to cornpromise on hrm-tan autonomy is to turn rwcrlutinn into evolution and human bejngs into puppets. 'That wlllid scarcely be consistent with what: Qutb sees as the ultimate purpose of Islam: '"o awaXcen the 'humanitykf man; to develr,i, it, to invigorate and glorify it and to make it domhant over all other aspects foulzd in human lifeef'34 Qutb sought exit from the dilemma by suggmting that God., who might have made puppets, chose instead to fashion autonomous human kings. He chose to rnake divine guidance the fruit of exertion and desire for it. . . . He chose, too, to rnake human nature operate constantly W-ithoutbeing affeded or put out of adicm. . . . He chose that his diriinely ordained path for human life sShc)uld be realized through human exertions, within the limits of human capacities. . . . He chose thereby to raise man to a paint of excellence corresponding to the exertirons he makes, the abilities he applies, and the patience with which he meets misfc3rtune for the sake of realizing this divinely ordained path, of removkg evil from himself and fram life around him.3"
Mrhy God made such a choice is a question @tb says neifier a believer nor an atheist woutd ask; both see history as a product of human action rather than as repeated divhe intervezztian. The believer would not ask it ot (despite the convictions of a thinker like "bdu) be held responsible to =asan; &c atheist woulLi not bother to inpire abmt the motives of a god he or she rejects. But unlike the atheist, the believer regards h u m autonony as conditioned, by divine creation and divhe judgment. 'The choices available to man are two: vvbether to suhmit to Cod by acceptjng the conditions and whet-her to work hard b r the realization of God's plan. Tb submit is to be a Muslim; to WO& bard, on God's behalf is to be a true Muslbn and an au-thentichuman being. @ttb does not agonize over the clifficulty of having faith, as did Pascal and Kierkegaard; he wriks in a context where ""fith," in the sense of professing to be Muslim, could be taken as a given, Rut he is as emphatic as Iqbal, or as Kierkegaard, for that matter, in stating that h u ~ n mbeings do not fulfill their destinies by mouthing tmths or by being born in a predomi~~antly M d i m (Christian) ~ g i o n of the globe..For Qufb, in reading Sura 98, the ""and'' is critical: "Those who beiicve and do righteous deeds are the best of all creatures" "Fernphasis mine].%The words "effort," '""exertion," '"'work," "stmggle""(jihad)are as fulldamentai to Quth" vocabulary s the overcoming of inctividas thcy arc to Iqbal's. The possible ~ c v a r d are ual alienation, the achievement of greater individual comfort, the reduction of human afaiction and injustice through the advancement.of God's cause on earth, and, most inportmt, eternal Life. Despite the similarity between Kierkegaard and Qutb in, their insistence that a faith must be lived, not just professed, and that living a faith requires deep commitmnt, thcy differ p d o u n d y on the possibility of human se2fiimprwerment. Kierkegaard despail-ed of escaping torment within this w r l d Of origiml sin; Living the faith meant sacrifice, selfdenid, asceticism, and death. For @ttb, quite to the contrary, h ~ t m mbeings need not repress natural desircs but need only, through extraordinary effort, brint; them under the dominion cJf self-control." He wrote of the volwztary and involuntary "quarterdkf hurnan existence and of the need for balance behnieen them, Self-control means not rejection of the to natural laws to which the body is sLlhject but choosing m d strivi~~g p ~ v e none's t life f r m k h g governed exclusively by the involtrntary. By working to implement God" pplan, one hamsses voluntary exertion to the divinely provided wagon, which only moves in a prtrdetermined direction. Man can thus pllll him.self, so to speak, horn the schizophrclmia of life without departing the earth. Kierkegaard"~pessimism cmfirms what Qutb saw as a fundamental differencebetween Islam a d Christianity: Islam offers reward in t%ljsworld as well as the next; Christia,nit-y promises etemail =ward in return for sufferhg in the here and ~ O M ,
Sayyid Qutb
The individual has a right to expect material as well as spiritud compensation fur effort dispensed in the pursuit of the proper objectives. Quth, like Iqbal, notes that God helps those who help themselves, "Me chose thereby to raise man to a point of excellence corrcspondhg to the exertions he has made, the abilities hr has applied."'" Moreolder, the individud who achieves wealth by djnt of honest effort need feel no pangs of gudt, provided that person obeys Islamic prescriptions for charity AIthough Islam ~ f l e c t as strong impulse tclward eyuality, Quth emphasizes equal human dignjty rather than epality of reszlld wt7ich would d a ~ h with the natural diversity of the h u m n species. The more generat benef-it of exertion comes from the enlargemat and preservation ol the lstarnic c m m m i t y By laborillg to establish a new communiity, the Prophet and.his companions improved the condjtion of their lives. By carryhg the fight to all of Arabia, they brought peace where there had been war, equal treatme~~t where there had been discrhination, a single standard of law and justice where there had prevailed a mosaic of petty sheikhdoms. Qutb asked himself whether thrs early generation was cut from some different cloth, m d his answer was no; they believed, and they struggled. They showed. that the human will can triumph over "beliefs a d ideas, circumstances and tradition. "3Cmsequemtly, s:irnitar efforts would produce an analogous impro~~emcnt in the human condition, though not a definitive one, Qutb did not delude hirnsetf about the possibility of perfection on earth. Not everyonc can be expected to join the struggle; not everyone can be expected to achieve self-control. Human beings cannot ent-irely escape the affliction into which they are born40 except in the hereafter, but to earn eternal reward they must strive to do righteous deeds: "Positiveness m d activit-yhave a moral aspect in the path of Islam. fdleness and negat-ivism are immoral, since they contradict the purpose of human existence, . . . nmely rhe vice-regency of God on earth, and the use of all that C;nd has subordinated to man for the purpose of constructive activity."'"' Hurnan b e i ~ ~ must g s act and then t a k ~spcmsibilityfor those acts on the day of judgment.4"ey can and must try to chmge their lives and their world in conformiw with the divine plan, This is the driving forcc of revotution and, at the same time, the mechanism by which God retains control of history. For "it is ultimately Gad's will which is decisive, and without which man by himself will attain nothhg."as ?'he paradox opens a g ~ a t e space r for human volition than most other thought, Islamic or European. Far example, by stresskg action rather than belief or ritual, Qutb distanced himself from many versions of Sufism as well as from folk Islam. By demanding willful chmge, he chall e ~ ~ g ethe d estaiblishme~~taria~ defense of the secztltar m d religious orderBy insisting upon the miraculous power of God, necessar)i to the achieve-
ment of any human purpose, he differed from fbn fialdun, whose discovery of sociological laws made him pessimistic about the possibiity of permanent h m a n improvement;" k differed as well k m the moderns, who see humm beislgs trapped in a web of class conflict; a struggle for hdividual bettermat, or a stampede for worldwide modernization. Qutbfs "mystical""" faith in the power of God liberates the human will from the constmctions of its own reason,
Particularity Sayyid Qutb spoke of the universal apy>licabilityof the Q u r h i c message. Its timeless validity cuts across national, ethic, and ideological boundaries, He lauded Islarnic psincipfgs as IogicaI a d ridiculed the Roman Catholic Church for its medieval oppositinn to scientific discovery, He saw no geograpfnjcallinnits for the wvolzrtion he solicited. Yet, his fundammtal concern with human alienation and his search for what it means to be "truly human" led him to pcrsblate a reconciliation between the ""inner" and the "nuter" person, between cvhat indjvidllals feel in the deepest recesses of bejng and what they are driven to think and do by virtue of their w n physical needs and the demands of the swiety. Reconciliation wcws whe11 at least one individud decides to live cliMerenti,y Irom otbers by fdowing deeply embedded instincts to ernbrace the true Islam. Only a pmwn etiposed to the culture of Ishm can have such instlncts. Revolution means practical action, not abstraction; it means setting oneself apart from general beliefs; it means acting out one" particuhri-ty against what is taken to be rational and universal; it means acting at a given moment within a specirFic historical context. The thrust of Qzztbian thought- is particularistic in its attention to identity#practicality circumstance, time, and mptical communication. With XqbaX, as with European romant.ies, to be h m a n was first and foremost to be a genraine hdividuaf, With @tb, one cannot speak of a themy cJf hdividuaticm, n o s e vvho assert themselves as individuais become Muslims to overcolne their a1imati.m; they sacrifice their individ,uality to God in order to recover their natural humnity. did not need to hborf as had Iybal, to demonstrate that the authentic self would unite with other authe~~tic selves to achieve common purpose. But, for him, the individual and the group necessarily set themselves apart from society by virtue of their faith, their gcrals, a d their methods. The act of submission makes individual authenticity virtually synonymous with participatio~~ in the grotlp. For Qufb, Islam contalns the only appropriate response to the vestion of what it means to be "truly human." A non-Wslirn is ulllikely to find the answer.46 However, mlike other modem thinkers such as Muham-
Sayyid Qutb
mad Xbdu and Rashid Rda, Qutb concerned himself less with the doctrrine of Islam per se tban with h w c ~ n emust live to be a true MusLIm. In his understanding of l s l m as a set of revelations, as a coiilection of authent-icated hadith, and as a set of universal vahes emergent from those these ways, his sources, Qutb had little q u a r d with the establishmmt. 11% ideas fall withh the realm of ort.Etodoxy'47 but he warns repeatedly that Islam is not a set of abstractions, I s l m is not just another set of ideals different from but parallel to those expounded in the West: For idealism is dreams and will continue to be dreams because it looks at a world that is not seen and whose realization is not sought after, because it canno>tbe realized on this earth. As for Islam, it is a creative force for the actualization af a particular vision af life which is capable of being brought into being, when one is influenced by it in a positive way [and] which is not satisfied with emotions and feelings.48
Islam calls upon human beings tcr realize their potential by living a particular kind of life; they do so by wsponding in some mystical, highly personal way to the instincts buried withh their own sense of themselves, hsti~~cts that draw them toward nature a d toward God-the true God. They do so by acting as individuals in geographical m d cztlttural space as well as in time, What they crcate is a society different not only by virtue of its values but by the circumstances of its existence. @ttb suggests that the Qur%an contains two levels of meaning, one &~tractand general, conveyirtg universal values, and the other specific in its advice to a group or a generation But since the call tcr practical action constitutes a part of the universal message, the first level cannot be skirnmed without refercnre to the second. The Qur%n is a book of practicaf advice tcr be studkd afrc;slz in every age a d in every setting, A Muslim of the first generatio11 distinguished hinnself by listmling to recibtions of the @ r h '30 find out what the Almighty had prescribed. fnr his individual life and for the group.""* The compmi":"nmfMubammad sougbt to translate prescription into action, "while the kter generations were brought up by the method oi instmction for academic research and mjoyment,""Q If the Meccan comp"nions and the Medinan helpers wercl. better Muslim than thcir successors, it was by virtue oE their concrete accomplishments as human beings. Within the limits of their capacities and their envirmment, they tried to live in a way worthy of God's creatws. Although Qutb's writing conveys admiration for the early achievements of Islam, he suffers under no illusion that those achievements coufd be translated into Egypt irr the twentieth century. Ile did suggest that the task of the early leaders of Islam was more clifficult for lack of a previous example, but th human material they lnad to work with-the
Arabs of the seventh century-may have been morc receptive to the message as a result of their closmess to nabre and to their own fnsthcts. 'The modern jgkilfya makes it nnore djfficult for human beings to discovcc themselves beneath superficiality Even so, modern revolutionaries can bmefit from all earlier experience. Qutb took i~~spiration from the bundilng generation's commitmnt to the realization of a new and differernt way of life but never yearned. to recapture the specific ways of the Medina state. The principles of Islam are timeless; they have only bee11 realized at certain junctures in blstory. Qutb thought in terms of stages of realization. The revelations received in Mecca entreated Muhammad a d his followers to recornsider their relationship to the universe; at a second stage, in Medina, God pushed, them to organize a community, to establish institutions, to strike out for the Liberation of other human be%s.. The community ahieved enormous successes, before monarchy replaced divine sovereignty The monarchical phase, emergent from the early successes, produced decadmce but also pointed the way toward revival. In each phase, the Islamic achievemmts reRected not just the will m d actions of individual Muslims but also the limits of human capability and of physical and historical circumstances." When Qutb referred to the ""particular method" of Islm, he meant the progressive realization of the Islamic idea in his to^-one step at a time. He thought of history as t h long voyage of humanity tclward the realization of its potential, a voyage marked by achievement, decay, and revival. Islam provides "sipposts orn the roadeffs2 Beirrg humm means to live ;in the world; the truth about what it means to be htaman emerges as hulnan action in this world, as history ccmditimed by previous history. Trulf.l-in-the-worIcf sterns from the evcttution of histor). and even from its darkcr moments. The jdf~ililynshaped early Islam; the m d e r n j%iliya pushes h m a n beings toward truth by making them feel, alienated from themselves. Qutb xcepted fhn Khaldunfs dynamic but without cpclical necessity; Qutb embraced, a sort of historlical movement towad truth reminiscent of Hegel or Heidegger, without enunciatixng a formal dialedic. It is not at all certain that Qu& envisioned progress as m inevitable result.53 The consequences of his views are at least two. First, breakthroughs toward truth are partial, temporary, approximate, and cumulative. 'The corndition for a definitive breakthrough wouM be a t h o m g h transformation of human nature. such fiat the sons and cltaughters of true Muslims, born into an lslmie societq; without keling alienation and adversiky; would dedicate themselves with the eneqy of their parents to the majntenance and expansion of the Islamic order. Qutb douhted that humanity could ever be so perfect that history as the history of struggle toward truth woutd come to an end. The attahment of the humane life camot, in his
Sayyid Qutb
view, attah permanence and universal it.^, even though Islam is permanent and universal. To be h an is to be finite and particdar. Second, conlemporary Islam benefits 'som its location in geugraphy and history, A religion primarily of the Third Wrld, it builds from a degree "f aiienaticm not experienced in the West, an alienation produced by Western dminati.on as well as by the dekrioratior~of Xslamic civilization. It benefits from the experience of the early Muslims and the accmplishments of science and reascm since the seventh century*Qutb regretted that Muslims had failed to pursue their exrdeavors in empirical science beyond the Middle Ages, permitting the construction of a scientific edifice in Europe divorced from the Islarnic context in which it had developed, m edifice that challenged religion for the control of lifc,""ut QuCb did not lament th development of science per se, challenge the utifity oi reason, or demand the cfestruction of technology. These factors merely crhange the ktorical bases for Islamic rclvival. For Qutb, reason and science fall within history; which is itself a process by which human beings, foltcrwing their God-given instincts, struggle tokvard Che realization of truth. Reason cannot, as a consequence, be invoked to prove or djsprove the fundamental insights that give meaning and direction to the flow of events. Faith drives humm beings to use reason in understandi,ng lstarnie revelation, Mll?ich is for the most part logical; d i k e Christianityf it cmtains few riddl@sand no mysticism in Qutb's view. Yet he spoke of a special lmguage in which hurnan beings commune with nature and with themseives: "This language is part of human nature. It is a language which does not use sounds and articulation. It is a communication to tbe heart and an inspiration to the souls which come alive whenever man looks up to the universe for m inspiring touch or a cheerful sight.'"" They submit to God because, deep within themselves, they fed it is the nahtral thfng to do. Reason is necessarily subordinate to these prjmordial, mystical instincts; it cannot: reduce the truth value of either these instincts toward God or revelations of God" will. Faith is prior to reason in the stmggle toward truth." A ttruth that is lived, conditioned by a particular act of faith, does not presuppose the u17jversality that reason might convey to it, None of these consieteratims detracts from the universal appficabftity of lslmic revelation, but Islam has not carried the day either by its principles or by its appeal to universal reason. In fact, for Quth, Islam's dilemma is that it has become a sort of intellecbal common dmominator, a mere theory, "diverthg Islam from its nat-ud function of inlusing life and respIcndent faith into the veins and arteries of a living society and enlightening the body of m organked rnovement.'"7 The miversal applica"oi1it.yof l s l m m s t not obscm the imperative for cmcrete realizat h : "@tb idcntifjed three levels of particulariv in Islam: Thus the par-
ticular system of thouglnt of this refigion, its particular ideology and its dynamic movement of a peculiar nature art^ not three different things, separate from each other, but are fulfilled simultaneously-'% What makes Islam ranique is not its value system, which is universal, but its call. for the realization of those values, the liheration of man from domination by other mcn; for him, both Judaism and Christianity had lost sight ol this objective, although their revelations also conkairred it. The ideology, as a set of ideas linking fiought to action, is distinct fmm its prartical orie~ttation. It offers preejse instruction for the implemental.ion of God"s will and depends upon humm effort for achievement. The ""dynmic movement of a peculiar naturc." wodd seem to be the historicity of the Isiamic vision..ff the goal is liheration of human beings within this world, the advice must be geared to this world, and the metlnuds must be appmpriate to circumstance, The revelations of Mecca were different from those of Mediz~a;jihad, irrelevant in Mecca, became the method of Medina. In short, the radjcalism of the fundamntal impulse, the ideologiral emphasis on human autonomy, and the partkularity of the method are all ""petds'kofthe s m e Aower-a particular living, natural thing.
Wniriw is the other face of particdarity. The mmotheism of Islam gives it a single focus. The?doctritle of tu@fd asserts the onmess of existetnce mder God. Rut: these ideas, hokvever stmdard to Islam, acquire additimal significance in Qutb's thought as a counterweight to the concreteness of Islam. If Islam is not. merely a set of beliefs but a way of life-md not even a way of fjfe but several of them, separate in time and space, fashioned accordillg to God's instructims by distinctly human endeavorthen the unity of Islam, much less the unity of existence, is not self-evident,""f human beings cletermine their o m history, what ties this life to a life beyond? What links one hdividual to anothr and one socicty to anoher? What pem-tits human beings to understand their wwldly reality in order to shape it? What perm,jts human beings to overcorn their selfishness and. to work on behalf of common goal9 Qutb's response, like Iq_hal's and :Ibn Khaldun", hhtges cm an ullderstanding of human nature as a refledion of tawhld. The unkerse is one, because God. created it that way. Human beings are part of that universe by virtue of their chemical composition and their physica) location within it- 'They can understand that world and move within it as a result of their similariw to other living things and inanimate objects; mind, composed of matter, operates on the world from a position welii hvithin it, and it. thhks about the self front a position within as well, foreclosing a y possibility of division between mind and body The nat-
ural condition of the universe is thus one of peace and harmmy of humms with nabre, humans with other humans, humans with their own beings. What distinguishes human beings from other crclaturcs is their Lability to intuit this central, indivisible tmth." The intuition comes from the soul, lclcated somewl-iere deep within hlrman nature beyond t.ke rcacl-ces of human reasm, Qatb said the human physique, animals, and nature as a whole serve as constant reminders of this truth, but even when society manages to obscure the unity of being with a variety of prnjects and goals, the human spirit can penetrate the obscurily and sense the tmth, which is not something separate-nor is the spirit something separatefrom the universe but is the wfinle of it. The spirit, semsi.ng the wholeness of things, reaches out toward, the One God, source of the wholeness; recopizing that it possesses no separate avenue of truth, it submits to God and follows the path of submission, mapped out in Islamic revelation, reflecting the oneness of all things and leading toward oneness with God in eternal life. For this reason, authentir actims, however peculiar to ptace and circumstmce and however reflective of hdividual will, co~~tribute to the unj.Q of existence because they derive their legitimacy from it. Conflict a d discord arise when human beings i p o r e this hndamental truth buried kvithin themselves m d attempt to fashion "the law of life from the code of [heis] desires hstead of the Divhe code."M Human beings generate philosophies in which mind takes precedclnce ower body or body over mind; they develop images of theznselves as engaged in a struggle with nature and picture society as a battlefield where classes and e t h i c gmups strive for superiority; m d they conveniently posit no correlation between comportmezzt hz the City of Man and access "c the City of God, These ideas ioster physical confict among human beings and accentuate e?jtrmgement within the individuat, who cmnot Mly ignore the primordial sense of oneness,.Humm bejrzgs, elldowed with access to that truth, instkctivel:y know that peace is the natural condition for an individual, a society, and the universe as a whole. They seek peace through truth, and truth, lies With Islm. Isfam must eventually prtlvail. Understood in this way as a product of the fundamental human imot be partiai. It c ot be confhed to one pulse toward truth, Islam c sphere of human behavior called ""religion," as distinguished from the political or economic domains; it cannot be limited to the individual"^ perscrnal fife, as distingrrished from pubiic life: "Islam encourages the individual to use his rnind and body and does not substitute ritual for rules to govern behavior. Et does not cakr for the individual and neglect his r d e in society It does not concern itself with his private life to the detriment of his political m:[e in society nor ignore the relationship of his state to other statesetfb2 Islam speaks to the whole person, the whole society, the
whole of mankind, not by choice but by the necessity born of conformiq with twth, which is one. of attb's critiq~zeof the modern jdhiliya stems from his ide~~tification Islam with the dynamic unity of the universe as much as it does from his assertions of the particularistic a d autmomous character of human mtions. Islam is not passivity or retreat into mystical solitude; it is not merely a set of ahstract principles, enlightened scriptures, and hspiring historicai examples; it is not a religious estaolishmt.nt: that dedicates itself to erudite scholarship while political, Leadcrs, declaiaJling their piety, Lead their countries wit.hout reference to God% order. True Muslims are not those who proclaim: "I am a plmner; 1 am a Muslim. Bnd what does the one have to do with the other?"63 3 e Qutbian revolution is total in that it: demands the total elimhation of obstacles to humm fulfilhmt and total human submission to a God, whose domain is, by the very definition of God, the totality of the human adivity-indeed of the universe. Does that make Qutb an advocate: of ""sreo-Islamic totalitarianisrn?"b4 W ~ asort t of institutions could cl-tararterize a ""tg 1Ismic society without compromising the absolute sovereignty of God? How would such a society respond to the worldwide pressures for greater entitlement to goods and services?"Rejecting the materialistic and rationalistic premises of moder~zity,how would it confront the fact of modernization"?ow w d d it t ~ athe t pressures for greater particiaatim mgendered by social mobilizatim in Egypt, as elsewhere? 'The Muslim Brofierhood found its early strength in young people with Western-styleI technical education; the more radical descendants of the brotherhood continued to recruit from this category in the 1970~.6~ These groupwdect the alienation produced by modernization. Successful in liberating fellow Muslims from human domination in any form, including liberal democracy would they paradoxically restrict political participation by snuffing out modernizatisn or repressing iEs effects? Sayyid Qutb" version of Islamic authenti.cit)l supp1i.e~relatively clear responses to the questions about moeiernity and group action but provides much less precise ideas about institutions and participation.
Modernity C;lutE, deplosed many aspects of modern society and modern thought. FIe criticized not just the behavior of the sexes in the West or the conduct of Western banking, both of which he foul?d co~~trary to Islmic lacv,but also the prevalence of concern for material g o d s in both socialist and capitalist countries. He attrjbuted a decline oE mcrrality to the relegatim of religion to Sunday (or Friday or Saturday) ritual, the kagmentatim of the individual into economic, political, social, and ethical d e s in circumstances
Sayyid Qutb
where the ethical could not prevail, In thoroughly Western fashion, he attacked a&ertising for cultivating artificial needs that further mapify the damhation of the mimalistk instincts of hunan beings and further estrange them from their spiritual naturcs. Qutb faulted Western th:hou@t for its willingness to separate rdigious m d secular concerns and for its o~renrrreeningattachment to satio~~alism, Actually, he. blamed the church as much as phdosophy for the relationship of distmce and hostiliq that h e l o p e d between science and theologq", chufclh and state, achievemnt and salvation in the West, In thc triumph of the Enlightennnent and.the modern political ecmomy, he saw the enslavemmt of h m a n beings to sociotogicai laws. Beneath the theory of liberal demwsacy, he found a rationde for the domination of some human beings over others, and in Marxism he detected determislistic denigation of the human role in creatit~ghistory& He rejected the idea of human confcimement. hvitlnjn parameters of behavios establlrshed by h u m n reason or, worse, by biological and psychological instincts such as those defined by Darwin and Freud. If Qutb can be called antifnodern for these rcasons, he appears more modern in his attachment to the idea of change, if not progress, He wrote: Islam is a continuous movement for the progress (of life; it does not accept the prevalent cmdition at a time or of a generation, nor does it justify it or beautify it because it is existent. Its primary mission is to change that cmditian and make it better, to continuomty suggest the creative, creating movement for the newer forms of life*b7
However much his ideas may be mchored in scripru are impervious to change-his model of history projects contixzuous evolution spurred by human effnrt along the path charted by revelation. QllCbtook issue with Marx and DarM.in about the role of necessity in history and about the standard by which progress should be measured, but not about history as evotrxtion in an ilientifiabte dircction.h"e purpose of I s i m is p p s s i v e fdfillment- of the human ptential of human beings; since spirit separates man from animals, progmss must thus be measured by spiritual as well as material standards. Material pmsperity must be derivative rather than printary in the evolution of sodety, ''lslam is not opposed to material advancement and material means, and does not belittle their importance, but regards the material pmgress acquired under the shade of the Divine system as a benedictim and blessing f r m God, Most FXigh."@@fb would seem to embrace material progress but regard. long-term mord improvement as anythhg but guaranteed. He paints a picture of ""ptenkl historical progress, rnoted in Che lslantic idea of SWcessive prophetic missims,"7" Islam had brought improvement to Arabia,
but the extensiveness of the jl?i;hilfyaprevented enduring global improvement, and evolvifig material conditions actuafty p h u c e d m a d decline. lslarn could offer the pron?ise of regeneration but codd not guaritntee em.during commitment from human beings, wbose faith and effort Qutb dearly deemed essentiat to long-term morat irnpmwement. C k t the Paxrsorrian scale, @ttb appears quite modern as well, Erected on a consummatory Ifoundation rather than on reason, his ideas nonetheless emerge in a logical fabric. William Sheparcl refers to "a process of 'rfaimalization' not unljke w:hat Weber ascribcs to the Ca:Lvinists, who probab:ly even more than Sayyid Qutb ascribed everythi.ng to God, and yet contributed to the secularization of modem thaught."7J Moreover, he ~ ~ s i s t e d that Islam is emhently comprehensbk and rclas011abl.e in its demmds on human nature, Afthough his thought is par2i.cuiaristicfit conforms m r e to "scripturalist unitarian pufitdnism'9han to a saint-dominated, srtperstition-ridden, popularistie XsLarn.72 He did not evince any interest in a &rowback to simpje, tribal society whert. role allocation would be diffuse. tlis orientation toward achievement rather than ascription shourld he abumdantly clear from his elnbrace of autonomous hwman action. In short, alhough @tb disdaixled the standards of Western social scimce m d the efforts of sociology to predict human behavior, his ideas appear more modem than kaditional by social seielrtific standards. More ixnpctrtant, he achowledgeb the usehhess of science and technology anct endorsed the vision of history upon which all Western developmentalism is based. From a vantage point amid industrialization and bourgeoisij*icationI Qutb took a postindustrial, postbourgeois stmce. Without minimizing the importance of economic growth and the satisfactim cJf "genMinef%human needs, hc prrzached the transcendence of 117,odemjsm in the pursuit of human fulfillment. For Qutb, Islam permits capitalist enterprise to flourish and grow but throws a safety net under society to minimize hardship, achowledges Legitimate gain but prQhibits fraud and corruption, includhg usury, and concerns itself with both social pmductivity and social justice.7"utbfs antimoeiemism is disthctly postbourgeois and postmodern in its rational mistrust of u~ziversdreason, prclnodern in its embrace of faith and fundmental values, This is intent. Could it be argued that Qutb's Islam, which he insists is prac.licd ratrher than theo~tical,WOUL~, Once i,n pokver, be ohliged to dow the processes of industriatization? Laroui has accused Islamir revivdists cJf magnifying the "retardationf7of the Arab world by fIxU~gtheir gaze m mmelnts of a glorious pat.74 h hiS view, t?ll contemporary Arab regimes err by acknowledging Islam as a part, albeit small, of their working ideologies, giving camfort tc:,the forces of superstition, =action, and conservatism. Such regimes compromise their abilities to escape Third World status. Qutb, quite to the contrary, condemned those same regims for
their unwillinpess to embrace Islam as ideology and criticized a l cont e m p o r q religious establishments for their pliability in the face of secular demands- He did reinforce traditional viebvs on the status of women h society,7%ut it is difficult to portray h b as a deknder of landlords, Sufi sheifis, rural saints, or the ulema. Qu.t-btsthoroughgoing scripturalism and less thoroughgoing historicism permit him to abmdon the past as easily as Laroui. By separathg the word of Cod from the use h an beings make of it, he liberates the @'an from any single wading and the shari'a (Islamic law) m m any single body of fiqh (legal interpetation), Every Qur'anic verse has two meanings, he said: one to be grasped by any given generation, the other absolute m d general. Within the limits imposed by the permanent, ahistmical yrinciplm, Islam must necessar.ily evolve, Yet values escape rclativism by their firm anchming in the ahistcrrical word of Cod; o11ly the mode of their expression varies with time. Such a m0dera.t.e version ol historicism fits easily with @tbo"sgeneral perspective; he emphasizes human imbitity to understand truth. The full, unchangir~g,permanent truth of the Qur'an atcvays lies slightly beyond h u m n understanding, as does the fact that there exists suck a truth. LarouYs historicism is similarly limited by his faith in the truth of the historical prows; within Larclui's own rationalist system, the veracjty of that tmth is impossible to defend. The weakness in @tbt"s modernity lies h his ~ l a t i v hattention e to the question of how m e gets there horn here. m a t would be, for example, a Qutbian policy of wonoMic development that w o d d take account of Islamic values? 7b what extent must there be economic growth to satisfy basic humm needs a d what, exactly, are those secondary; nsnessmtial needs that may be ignored? More lundamemtally, by what sort of institutions ought such decisions to be made? (Jutb described Islam as a uniytle religim with a unique, step-by-step methd. Hence, vestions about institutions and policy carnot be posed until there exists a genuhe Islamic entity ready to face them*fn the interim, true Muslims must proceed to organize themselves for the assault cm thejahiliya.
Group Action m t b disthguished hhself from IqbaX by his focus on the group as p r h e historical mover. For Iqhd, who began his malysis with Secrefs ofthe Sclf and whose masterwork, the puid NLlma, portrayed a single individual in search of the truth, group actio11 rclnained hypothetical, even though necessary and desirable. For Qutb, however, the starting point is not the self but ""human nature," "commodity rather than individuation. By their very nature, human beings can commwle with the u~~iverse in a ""secret language"' that permits them to understand the oneness of nature, the
oneness of God. Unarticulated though it may be, that language woufd seem to be miversal, permitting human beings to be drawn toward the same God in the same way. It is natural that those who understand the secret lmguage and commit themselves to the path of God. shoulcjl form a single group. Qutbfs preoccupation with community equals or surpasses lqbal's commitment to the indkidual. 1qbal"s affirmations of community often seem to be afterthoughts desiped to stifle criticism. Qlatb" repeated references to individual. responsibgity on the day of judgmmt, hdividual achievement, and in.dividuaf reward seem similarly perfunctory The duty of inliividuals is to sub& to God, to join the community of beiievers, to give up their own,indi.vidual freedom to do whatever they rnight wish in order to do God" bidding, Qutb saw the group as the secret to Muhammad's success and the key to any contemporary effort to folfow God's way Realizatim of the divine plan wodd wcur not by indjvidnal preaching or by divine enforcement, he said, Rather, it is bmught into being by a group af people undertaking the task, believing in it completely and conforming to it as closely as possible, t ~ i n to g bring it into being in the hearts and lives of others, too, striving tc3 this end with aff they possess. They struggle against human weakness and human passion tzrithin themselves; they struggle against those whom weakness and passion impel to resist divine guidance,%
In this concentration on the group @tb again reveals his modernity. The Islamic metl-rod, deriveel from the career of the Prophet and propomded by Qutb as a "progrm for moving society from a state of jahilr?qn to a state of 1slam,"TT turns out to be a formula for grczup action: (3) ~ c r u i t m mof t a vanguard elite, (2) solidification of gmup consciousness, (3) segregation of the group from society, (4) enlargement of the group, (5) seizure of power, m d (S) establishment of the new society Each step requires appropriate advice and action. For example, the Meccan verses of the Qur'an focus on the place of human beings in the universe and their relationship to the saverclip God; they offer little in the way of practical advice &out orgmizing or goweming a ccmlmunity; they do not advocate jhad, as do the later verses that were revealed to Muhammad at Medina, Weak in the early stages, the group would need protection within an establishrd body politic. &ce stronger in intensity and numbers, it could strike out on its own, buifd its own organization and carry the campaign to others. Qutb viewed the @r%n as a guidebook for the vanguard, providing advice tailored to the needs of the mtzvement as it developed fsorn a tiny nucleus surrowding Muharnnad into an lslarnic state whose domhmce hArabia had been established.
Sayyid Qutb
By his emphasis on the early stages, @tb urged patience on his contemporaries and subdination of the inciividual to the group. Clearly, he idmtified the position of the Muslim Brotherhood in E u p t in thc 1,950s and 1960s with the companions of the Prophet in the years before the bqra. For lack of strength, they were forced to live in thejglziliya/ to cooperate in some measure with the authorities, and to conce~ztrizteon understandbg "true :Islamuand rei.nforcing gmup solidarity. Bejng steadfast is a virtue, he wrote, but to counsel others ta be steadfast is even more hnportant. t,ikewise, to urge others to be mercifUL is more important than bekg mercifu1.m The objective for those who would establish a true Islamic party or Islamic society must be creation of a ""moverncmt which is dynamic, active m d orgmized, whose members are closely knit, mutually cooperative and marked by cohesion and uni.ty."TY @tb saw himself workhg at that task even from his confhement inNasir's p r i s m . Fm Qutb, the group rnakes possi,blc the realiza.t.ionof community and in cornunity lies the cure for individual alienation. h that sense, group action takes precedcrnce WETboth inclividual ant( community Qutb speaks of the uniqueness ol I s l m and the uniqueness of its method. The u n i p e n m of Islam lies in the wholeness of its vision, in its penetration of every aspect of human life, in its concept of community, and, especially in its insistelzce that the vision must be realized. The uniqueness of method is its me-step-at-a-time approach; a group must act h a way appropriate for the time period and cu1h;lral setting according to a series of dirrctions Gad has set down in the Qur'an. .h genuine Islamic society emerges from such group actim; it does not emerge from the abstract contemplation of the Medina state (622-(ihO), from speculation about hocv m ideal lslamic community might be structured, or from misguided loyalty to an existing community wbel-c God does not rcign sovereig: "The Muslim Society comes into existence only when individuals or g m v "f people turn from service of something other than God, whether almg with or apart f r m Him, to service of God alone with no associate anci when these groups decide to orgmize their life m the basis of this service.""" Islam aims at the restoration of individual whale~zess; the establishment of an tstamic comrmunity, in which external expectaitions of the hdividual conform to his or her htemal instincts, is Fndispensable to that elld. But the group constitutes a dynamic intermediary, the only possible bridge between individua.1 aspiration and general achievement. Mihm Qutb said that Islam cannot be separated from its method, he meant that Islam demands realization, realization requires method, and the method is group activity according to the conditions of time and place along a path outlined by God. The path and the =&ad, both permanent and unchanging, produce a concrete community that is historicallly unj.we. The realization of community, tantamount to the gen-
eral reduction oi individual alienation, depends upon group action. It is n st i~~evitable, Attention to the group as a historical actor makes attb's thought highly useful to contemporary revolutionaries. @tb is to T17n maldun in somewhat the same way Lenin is to Marx. Unlike fbn maldun, MIho thougbt g o u p f e e h g had, ultimately, to be bascd in Hood ties, a t t b insists that: faith can be sufficient; a group is not necessarily born of social cimmstmces but is constructed by h m volition. Like %n maldun, he saw fiist.ory as a product of group action but- did not e~nbraceIbn maldwl's perception of a cyclical and apparently deterministic mechanism that causes societies to decline once they have arisen. Qutb shares with Ibn maldun a strong sense that a social achievement will not endure once the volition from which it arose disappears, The vanguard, represents the wiU to build and the will to persevercr. M e n that will disappears, institutims may servc to mask the reafity but are in fact hollocv. Zme will topple them. @tb seems to endorse the modern idea of dialectic.81 H w is it then possible to thir~kin Qutbian terns about a stable Islamic society? What becmes of the vanguard once a true Islamic state has been formed? How is it possible for human beings to govern a society without infringing upon the sovereignty of God? What is the role of the individual who has exercised his fseedom by submining himserf to Cod, who= wjll rules the society?And h a t is the place of mjnorities who do not submit?
Sayyid Qutb avoided most questims about institutions Zly asserting that they must merge from an already constikrkd Islamic society. In his Sacinl Justice in Islam, he wrote extensively of the values articulated in the Qur";;mthat wodd h f o m an Islamic society artd shape the instiktionp;. He w o t e of the need for social order and the need far specific codes of law, inspired by the shari'a, which could c o r n a n d obedimce. He wrote of the need for responsible leadership and of the duties of rulers and ruled, but- unlike Sayyid Abu d-A'la Mawdudi, the Pakistani cvhom he admircd and followed on so many matters, @tb mfrained from suggesting the forms Islamic g o v e m n t might take. Tl~efact is more disconcerting h Qutb than it is with Iqbal: @t-b's orientatio~~ toward the group, h contrast with Iybal" individualistic stance, renders revolution more plausible and the need for substitute institutions more pressing. @ttb rejects any importation of hstitutims from other times or other places, In Stlcidl Jzlstice he had already deplored the tendency in the Muslim world to "cast aside our own ful-tdamcmtal pritlciples and doctrines and . . . bring in those of:democracy, sociafjsm or con?munisxn."~Wesaid he would rely on Islamic ""principles and doctrines," which are permanent, but not 0x1 institutions erected on those foundations in other histori-
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cal moments. To the contrary, consistent with his rebellion agaisrst the establishment, he distinguished between the shari'a, the eternal principles of law rooted in the Qur'an and the hndith, and the body of law called fiyh, extracted irom those principles by legal experts, As a set of human decisions and actions'fiqlt must be renewed with every age; those who are fightjng for the new ordcr must: make a nwfiqh on the basis of the permanent values, @tb w d d never have suggested that the institutions of the Medina state be ~ v i v e dsome thirteen cmturies later; it is only the principles of those institutions, enunciated in the sbiari'a, that can be invoked. As William Shepard has argued, Qutb's dcfinitim of Islam as a system by which sotutims can be produced "'justiEies the refusal to spell out debils of that system at present,"'" "ly the system properly implemented can generate specjfie proposals. The fundamental principle is that of a pact between ruler and ruted, a bay'a, similar to the pact between man and God. By st~bmitthgto God, man liberates himself from the domination of other men, but since all men can never be expected to submit, social order requires that Muslims obey Cod's deputy on earth-be he Prophet, caliph, or irnam-provided he mles by the Rook, the eternal principles laid down by God. The pact between rulers and ruled is thus conditional on behavior; @tb made creative usc? of Ibn Taymiyya or1 that point to opposc? the mainstrcm of the Sumi tradition.84 Akng with the right to revolt, Muslims also retain the right to consultation, the sbircra. Qutb referred to colfaboration but said "rto specific method of admisristering it has . . . been laid down."= Later ;in his commentary m the Qur'an, he suggested that the slzzira, though inspired by Mttharnmad"~use of it, kvndd take some entirely unprecedented form and in an unspecified way would affect the selectjon of the imam Irom among the vizt-ucrus. 01ly a newly established Islamic society could determine the exact form such consdtation might take." "Rut it wodd not, in QutWs view#take the form of Europem parliamentar). democracy, born of other social circumstmces, built on individualism, and designed to protect individual interest rather than the general welfare.87 Such an adoption of foreign ways would be unnatural; it could not arise from within the Islamic framework, alt)lough many other solutions presumjbly could, orle after the o.th.er,each validated by a telnporary set of social circumstances, Institutions thus provide no enduring base for individual rights or social stability* Qlivier Car&%speaks clf @tbfs political mysticism. Somehow an imam must e m g e to keep social order and help implement God" will on earth, tle mmt ertercise power withC)ut hfringing upon God's scrvewipty and thereby violating the human right to freedom from domination by other h m a n beings, He m s t establish institutions and laws that reflect the eternal code and the specific needs of time and place in the knowledge that
such efforts camot be lasting. His efforts, profikg from the previous experience of M m , wilt advance the h an cause and prepare the way for yet another wave of human excrtion but cmnot themsejves reach perfection. Not even a proyzhet, not even the last of the prophets, Muhammad, could do that. Qutb sketched the shape of an ideal Islmic sockty, whirh contrasts with existing condit.ions, m d called for revolution in the name of that vision. But he offercrd, little suggestion about how the vision might be achieved or even little hope that modest improvmmts might endure. He proposed a journey into the mists with the Qur'an specifying onXy the direct-im of travel but not rest stops or even the destination. Such a joumey requires strong leadership, an enlightened despot, an imam commanding absol~xte,even fmatical obedSence.@ Nanethelcss, Qutb thought the scriptures pose limits. 1sIa.m secures man from injustice, emancipates him from "enslavemc.nt" to man-made law guarantees him "al his social rights, his honor and his wealth," assures him the sanctity of home and assures him sustenance.90 Subjects have a right to e x p ~social t justice from their rulers," m d the prerrtises of social justice are "an absolute freedom of conscience, a colnpfcte equality of all mankind, and a permanent mutual responsibility in society.""" Mutual ~sponsibititywould s e a to refer tct the duty of subjects tct obey rulcrs whose authority derives from the conformity of their ac.lions wjth the law of God. A ruler, he said, has no privileges. 7 ' lf he colds the law and sees that religious duities are observed, then he has reached the Iimit o.f bis powers."~ True to both his scripturalism and his historicism, Qutb formulated not a theory of neo-Islamic totalitarimism but one of tension, contradiction, m d evolution. Etcmd law is the basis of the community, eliminating any need for human intervation; such is the permanent truth, But historical. circumstance necessitates adaptation under strong, even autocratic leadership, kvhich is bound to overskp the narrocv boundaries ol legitinnate action, exposing itself to complaistt, protest, and even revolution. 'This is the dynarnic of Islamic history Queb soug1'1t a proiongation of that histt?r¬ an escape fnlm it via ahistorical (i.e., prophetic) leadership or institutional permanence, both of which violate the premises of his argument: The only permanent truth lies in revelation, and Cod has left people to cope with that euth as best they can. But w:ho, t h a ~can , cope? Who if entitled to pa~ticipatein the new fslannic society?
Participation Qutb, mernber and ideologue of a mass movement, and Iqbal, the poetphilosopher, took predictable-'"here you stand depends on where YOU sit"-positions on the issue of participation. On the one hand, fqbal, with his emphasis on the e g c envisioned renew& beg ing with a person of
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superior insight and understanding, one who c d d by understanding the serf penetme to the heart of the universe and arrive at an understanding of God in the Idantic mmner. Such a person need not be a Muslim. C h the other hand, Qutb, who was both morc egalitarian and less universal in his vision, thOug11t any person possesses an instinct fur the truth of things, but non-Mustims, morc3 Chorou$hly alienated, c m o t bre& out of the modern jahilfya. Any Muslim, but only a Muslim, can lead the world out of its schizophrt.nia. By such m argument, Qutb seemhgly hoped to avoid Iqbal" predicament; in '"savhg" "lam from itself and tyirrg the "true Islam" to the nature of the universe, Iqbal opened the door to other versions of the "nnaturd" faiiCh. In Islam: The Religiorz c$ the Fzctnrtr, Qutb devoted several pages to expositions of the views of Alexis Carrel and John Foster Dullrs; he also mentioned Bertrand Russell as someone w11a had understood the ""schizophrenia""of Che West. Carrel had seen the inadequacy of sdence as a basis for truth but failed, accorciing to Qutb, to see that the proihlem lay with reason itself-the basis of science-rather than with the manner in which the West was dohg science.94 Dulles had deplored the decline of spirituaIi9 in the West and had called for a return to Christianity$but he did not understand, according to @tb, that Christianity had lost its capacity to dominate Wstern consciousness and =invigorate the whole of life." Nme of the three could, see the truth from their position as "white men'%side a wbite man's culme. "It is we alonr-., the champions of this ~ , can perform the great- leap from the cage of decadent: Islamic s y s t e ~who Western civilization.''96 ?"he argument, which reserves to contemporary Muslims the role of leadership, fits messily With Qutb's emphaSis on human autonomy and his analysis of Illusfinn society It underscores his belief in particularity. In combating dekrmhism in any &ape or form, he extolled the capacity of h u m n beings to trirxnnph over environfnemt, society, and fiistory itself. Moreover, he noted that Muhammad had brought the same message as previous prophets, a message neglected or distorted Zly the Jews and the Christians, but Muslims had lost sight of that message. ""What is requirt?d,lfhe wrote, is a system that does not differentiate between faith and words. A system that rejects the allegation that it is impossible to have social justice without adopting atheism and materialism, or the allegation that materialism must be the prime factou; or that slavery and despotism can be lawful means for securing abundance of materiat prc>duction,or that freedom of thought must be suppressed for the sake of maintaining affltuence, What is required is a system that does not enjoin the cessation of sdentific grogress in the name of religion, nor confine the practice of religion to the suppression of science and knowledge. Finally, what is needed is a systern whereby worship [practices] evolve until tzrork becomes one of the aspects of that worship.97
For Gfutb, that describes Islam (though surely not the I s l m he criticizes for its passivity its subservience to politicai authority, and its unwillinwess to challenge materialis~z).Havi,ng u n d e r g m less distortion than Christianity and Judaism m d with a moTe recent prophet as its guide, Islam can serve as a basis for renewal. ChIy Mudims have the capacity to become true human beings and Iead others toward the trkrmph of h m a n nab=. What Muslims can do for non-Muslims is to free them from the social contexts that wstrict their ability to chocrse Islarn. Having founded a true Islarnic society, Mus%irnscan carry the battle to other slates and liberate non-Muslims from the external conditions of their atienation. Such nonMuslims then have the option oE choosing Islam or k i n g under the protedion of the Islamic state. Only by becomhg Muslims c m they become full pasticipants in the society Qutb echoes stand& Islamic argrtments against the political relevance of ethnidty, language, or nationality Believws must be regarded as quals with respect to rights and duties; they have a right to a government of laws and not oE men, UEtt the responsibility for the creation of such a govent lies with a vangmrd of ""trueMuslims," determhed not just to believe but to live thei.s beliefs, They participate by giving up their right to individual decision in favor of thr will oE God, represented by Iloiy Law as bterpreted by the commw~ity.But whence comes that kterpretatio~~? Miho leads the jihad? Who decides when jihad is appropriate? M a t is the mle of Muslims and "true Muslims'" inthose decisions? If leadership &ere must be in the form of an imam, then what is the role of believers and "true believers" in that selection? @th merely suggests that answers to these questions must c m from a true Islamfc society once constihnted. To call this a recipe for either "neo-Islamic totalitarianism" or liberal democracy would seem tmwarranted. The need for scriptural sanction weakens the prerogative of leadership; the Qur knic ""constitution"' stands for freedom to choose and practice one's religion, protection of m e % hmor and digniv, sanctity of the home, and even sustmance of the individual, according to Qutb*Most important, the scripturai basis of the society guarantees a government of general rules rather than arbitrary decision, But the liberty of the individual does not extend beyond the right to be consulted m political decisions, and it is not clear that everyone, rather thm just a vanguard, or a branguard of the vanguard, should have that rigf-it, Tn any casef no indiedual or gmuy could ~nakea, decision that conajcted with the gmeral rules. If "social justice" is the objective, as suggested by the title oC Qutb's book, then ewality need not be a part of &tIter the process or the outcome. The trouble is +at justice impEies an authority and social order-Quth recognized the need-that would be difficutt to defend against the sort of attack Qutb launches against the contemporary Islamic world, How is it that human beings, without prophetic help or divine intervention, can c m e r t scripture into irrstitu-
Sayyid Qutb
tims without imparting any human quality to their work m d alienating themsehes as well as others? Rousseau's vob,nt&gkntrate fgenclral witl) comes to mind not as a solution but as an evocation of the sort of annbiguities inherent in the Qutbian view,
Atl efforts to characterize Sayyid Qutb as either traditional or modern, reactionary or progressive, socialist or capitalist, liberal or authoritarim, fail in m e way or another. He is traditional in his appeal to the Qur%n, in his demand that Muslims look to scripme for their guidance, but he is modcrn in his effort to put the t?~complishmmt~ of M u h m a d and his contemporaries in a context of space and time. He is reactionary by current standards in his stance on the positicm of women but progressive in fiis suggestion thatjqh must constmtly adapt to fresh circumstances. Me sounds socialist in his concern for the welfare of aIl and capitalist h his discovery of the ""Protestant:et-hicf% Ifslam. Like a liberal, he d ~ a m e d of a society oE laws not of men, but like a Rousseauist democra.t.he voiced great optirnism about human nature ('"upright" a d ""fairn")nd grcat distrust of social instibtions. To put him in the Islamic context is only somebvhat easier. Surely, he represents a cycle of puritani.cal revolt against the adaptive, compromising ways of klam, but he represents not the force of the nomads sweeping in from the desert but a product of the city ai-i;acbgthe city from wi&in. Althoutgh the pattern of religious revival aimed at political and social rcvolution is familiar, the dynamic is new, canditimed by the twmtieth cenbry in thought and action..Unlike '&du and Rids, he rejected the idea of reconciling Islamic doctrine with European &ought; he sounds "normativist" Zly comparison. But from a seemingly or&adox perspecthe based in tbr permanent and unchanging, he derived a formula for rcvoluticln against current fslarnic practice not in the hope of resumcting the past but with the promise of an opm-ended fubre. @tb reached back to Ibn Gymiyya to justify his distinction between Muslims md "true Muslhs" and the need far j&ad withh the Islamic community; he sought to shield imovation with tradition in a pattern familiar to Islamic history For that Eascm, some would put him with 'Abdu and lZida in the "neo-n0rmativist,"~8reformist line, even fiougfn he rejected their brmd of rationalism. 7i,see Qutb as but the leader of the nth puritanical revival movement in the history of Islam, although accurate, is to miss what makes the contemporary revival unique: its confrontation with modernity md. modern thought as internal to the Muslim condition. Iqbat and Qutb both addressczd aspects of the same question: Hobv can I live in such a way as to be at peace with myself and that world? That is the issue of authenticity Both Iqbal m d @tb argued that the scrlutrion required the transformation
of the self and the society. Iqbd concentsated on the first part of the problem, the rediscovery of the self bmeath passivity, stagnation, ritual, and foreign domimation. Qutb worked on the problem of trmsition fmm individual rediscovery to domhance in a society; he sought to galvanj.ze a group fnto action and expiicrate a rationde for its revolt against an existing society. He left to others, those who would achieve power, the design of new institutions.* The naturl, of the task pushed Qutb w a y from fie phitosophical lmguage of Iqbal as well as removing him from the morc speific, instit;utional reflections of Mawdudi. One does not recruit Egyptians to the Muslim Brotherhood with complicated poetry and esoteric references to Pllietzsche and Kergsm & la Iqhal. And one does not build grwp solidarity agahst a secular regime by initiating speculation, and hence quarrels, about the nature of institzltictns a futurr Islamfc society might choose to build. Rather, one works withh the orthodox language of Islam but imparts to that language a mvolutionary spin. The key to m t b % success is the apparent orthodoxy of his appeal,HuIbut the orthodoxy of the langtlage does not malte Quihmy less modern than C2.ut.bor Mawdudi inhis understanding of the pmblem or in his objectives,'" :111 his ego& to save the self, Iqbal found Islam ideally suited to his purp o x h u t not, perfnaps, rigorously necessary; for him, one discovered God through the self. Qutb reversed the procedure, and by doing so, he =stored Islam to necessary s t a s and laid the base for Muslim solidarity. Rather than understanding the ego, an ordinary person need only be sellsitive to the totaliq of nature to feel the religjous instinct, Alf h u m n beings understand the secret language. But only Muslims, less alienated than Christians or Jews by the seczxfarization of society, are able to respond and join the vanguard in its struggle to rezllize the full potentjal of humanity. Such is (_2uthr% call to action, which is more narrowly Islamk than Iqbat's and more broadfy appealhg. Indkiduatim is the principal casualty. In his insistmce on a uniform human naturt? and an equal ability to feel the oneness of nature, Qutb posits huntan being;s who will respond alike by givhg up their own volition in order to fOllow the will of God. a t h o u g h circumstances might render kumans diverse, such diversity could never be ~ g a r d e das fundammtal, It cou,ld not thrclateln soljdarity. Would it be suMicien.t.to gain the respect of society and to be worthJi of deknse? Individuals would be free from tl-te oppression of other human beings; wodd they also be free to be themselvesmutb3 answer is that true humm beings give back to God the freedom they have been granted. Self-serving action is by definition unworthy and unnatrtral; mankind is essentially good, fair, and one. Unity ovenrrrhelms. Let scom~drelsbeware. The prinripl.es of Islamic taw m a h as the bulwark of liber@ as they have (or have not been) for centuries. Would those principlede safer if
radically separated from the concrete interpretations accord.& them by generaitions of ulemawould the :!individual be safer and less alienated in a society without human go~rernance?Or would the nekv moralism become yet another cover for secularist behiavior, prepar-ing society for the next wave of puritmism? Qutb f i g h t well acquiesce in that judgment, for fie refrains korn szxggesting that any revival can be t-hc definitive one. But if that is the case and if decline follows revival and alienation follows wholeness, then any effort at chmge is futile. Qutb%historicism, fundam m t d to his revolutionary interprrztatio~~ of Islam, leaves Muslims hvilh nothing permanent to cling to but the values contahed in a set of scriptures h o s e full meming they can as mere buman beings never understand. Such a situatim m y appear exfitilarating, but it may atso seem frightening and hopeless. It might take a good deal of consciousneasraising and coercion to convince Egyptians, much less a l q e r group of Sunnis, to embark on. the attrbim advezzture.
Notes 1. Uvonne Y. Haddad, ""S;tyyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islarnie Revival," in Virices of Resurgent Isi'am, ed. J o h Esposito (Mew York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 69, 2. Williarn Shepard, "The Development of the Thought af Sayyid Qutb as ReRected in Earlier and Later Editions of %ocial Justice in Xslam,"7in Die Well des Islams (32.,2 (19921, g. 198. Shepard mentions claims that friends helped Qutb leave Egypt to escape amest, althou& several accounts say that the Ministry of Education spc~nsoredhis trip. 3. M. M. Siddiqui, "An Outline af Sayyed Qutb's Life,"Yn Sayyid Qutb, Islam nlzd Urzi-ilersalPeace (Xndianapc~lis, Xnd.: American Trust Pub! icaticyns, 2993), g. xii. 4, Ernmanuel Sivan, Rndical Islam: Mc-ldieval TJzeolngy a ~ Modenz d Politics (New t-far~czn:Vale University Press, 1985), p. 27, 5. Haddad, "Sayyid Qutb: Ideolope," p, 67. 6. Yvome Yazbeck Haddad goes to the point of suggesting a comparison of Qutb's thinking with other ideologies of liberation but then backs off. See her ""The Qur'anic Justificatian For an Islamic Rwcltlution: The View of Sayyid Qutb,'" in Middle Enst Jozrmnl 37r 1 p. 28. 7. Wilfiarn Shepard t h i n h not. "Despite more than two years in the U.S., I have doubts as to how weEl he ever learned English. In fact, T think one wc~uXdfind that radical Idamism tends to appeal tc~people who, while influenced by the Westei-n, do not know a Western language well and thus d o not have firsthand access to the sources of Western culture." Comment in correspondence, February 3,4994. 8, Sayyid Qu*, Tkis Religion oflslam (DdXli: Markazi Maktaba Islarni, 1974),p. 27, 9. $avid Qutb, In ithe Shade of f l t p Qur'an, trans. M. Adit Salahi and Ashur A. Shamis (London: MWH, 1979), p. 261. 10. Sayyid Qutb, Islnnt: nze Religion I?J: the Fufzsrc (Delhi: Markazi Maktaba 15lami, 49"711), p. 23. 11. Qutb, This Religion of fslnm, p. 87. 12. Syeb Qutb, Milestunes (Karachi: International Islamic, 1984), p. 467.
13. Qutb, Thk Religion $Islam, p. 23. 14. Qutb, Tn the Sllclde offlze Qur'an, p. 212. 15, Qutb, Thk Religion $&lam, p. 30. 16. Qutb's use of the term ""total revofutiun" "seems similar to its usage by Bermard Yack, The Lo~zgingforTohl Revni"zrtim: Plzilosopltk Sozcrces of $ockt DiscorzEcrnl. Princeton tmiverslty Press, 1986). front Rousseau ku Marx nnd Nietzsdle (Ifrinceto?~: 17, Qutb, Mileslorzcs, p. 114. r e ,51ff. 18. See Qutb, The Religion I?(flteF t ~ t ~ ~pp19. Qutb, Mileslorzcs, p. 47. 20, Ibid., p. 152, 21. Ibid., p. 63. 22. Ibid., p. 72. 23.1 agme with Bruno Etienne that Qutb cannot be called a fundamentalist or an integralist..He is nat calling for personal cc>nfrontatianwith the text or even ehalXenging much of the standard interpretation. Nor is he demanding a return to abandoned ritual. See Etieme's LL"islr;lmisme radical (Paris: Hachette, 4987), pp. 167-168, 24, Hence, any utilization of the word '"raditionaf" with regard to Qutb, as in the title of Haddad's chapter about Qutb" views on history ("The Traditic~nalResponse" in Haddad" Contemporary Xslnm and the Challeltge of History [Albany: SUNV Press, 1982]), is perhaps misleading. 25, Qutb, IbliEeston~,p, 5, 26. Ibid ., pp. 126ff. 27. See Ibid., p. 438. 28. Qutb, 112 the Sllclde of flze Qur'an, p. 141. 29. Qutb, Mileslorzcs, p. 136. 30, Ibid., p. 263. 32. Qutb, Isinm and Universnl Peacl., p. 12. 32. Qutb drrnied that Islam is bloodthirsty See Milestorzes, p. 143. 33, William Shepard has written: 'I think it fair to say that Sayyid Qutb shares to some extent, and in his own way, in that modern sense of the remoteness of the divine which, in more extreme forms in the West, has been labefled 'The Eclipse of Godr of even 'The Death of Go~d."""rom "Islam as a "yystem' in the Later Writings of Sayyid Qutb," Middle dle~nskernS t ~ d Q 25'1 s (January 1989), p. 42, 34. Qutb, Mileslorzcs, p. 122. 35, Qutb, This Religion $Islam, pp. M . 36. Qutb, In ttze Slzadc oftflc Qur'n~t,p. 249. 37, Ibid., pp. 106105, 38. Qutb, Tltis Religion oflslnnt, pp,W. 39, Ibid., p. 59. 40. Qutb, Tn tlze Sllclde offlze Qur'an, p. 1%. 41. Qutb, TIzis Retigiorl uflsttlrur, p. 30. 42, Qutb underscs~resthe role of human volition in his discussion of Sura 84, especially in one line: ""Oh man! You labour hard unto your Lc~rd,and you shall meet him.'" From 1p.f tlte Sltade of tr'ze Qtrr'nn, p, 104. 43. Qutb, This Rctigiorz ujlstam, p. 12. 44. Ofivier Carr4, Mystique et pulitiq~e:teet ure rkz~olutionnniwd u Comn p m Sayyid Qtrfb,fi&rentziszllmnn radicnl (Paris: Editions cfu Cerf, 192341, p. 137,
45, The term is Carrgs; it must be wed with care, for @tb himself took care to dismciate himself, just as had Iqbal, from mysticism and its tendenq toward passivism. He is a mystic in the smse that he calls for belief wen and especialy in that which cannot be defended by reason. He does, hcwever, insist that Islam is inherently reasnable in its demands and in its structure, which c o i n d d s with nature, 46. See discussion of John Foster Dutles and AXexis Carrel in Qutb, Islam: The Retigi'otz of the Fzrfure, pp. 83-124. 47, Etiienne, L'islnmistl-reradical, p. 253. 48. Sayyid Qutb, "Histc3ry as the Interpretation of Events," in Haddad, Confernporary Xstanz laud the Clzallenge c?(Histoq, p-165. 49. Qutb, Milestones, p. 56. 50. Ibid., p. 553. 51. See Williarn Shepard, "The Development of the Thought of Sayyid Q ~ t b ~ ' ' Die Welt des Islams 32 (1992), p, 203, for a discussion of changes in the text of Qutb" Social Justice in [slant from the first edition to the last on the question of cclnsultation in the choice of the ""nightly Guided caliphs." In the last edition, Qutb wrote: "Practical circumstances determined who should be consulted in each period scl clearly that there was no uncertainty about it" "hepard" transtation]. 52, This is the title of his bcmk, M~nll'mji al-Tariq, which might be translated as "signposts" mther than "milestones,'" 53. "My most recent research has convinced me that by the end of his lifef SQ had divested himself of the idea of pmgress, except in relation to material technology'' William Shepard, persona t correspondence, F & r u a ~3,1994. 54. Qutb, Mikeslorzcs, p, 201. 55, Qutb, In fhe SI-tndeofthe Qar%nn,p. 184. 56. See William Shepard, "The Development of the Thought of Sayyid Qutb,"" p. 204, for a clear anafysis of Milesfo~zeson this point, 57. Qutb, M i l e ~ f ~ p. ~ l 88. e~, 58. Ibid., p. 90. 59. See Shepard, "Islam as a 'System."' 60.Qutb, Mileslotzcrs, p, 167, 61. Ibid ., p. 169. 62. Qutb, lslrzsn and Universnl Peacl., p. 3, 63. Intemiew with Egptian planner, 1981, 64. The term is Manfred Halpenn" in Svcinl Cfmngc in ttw Middle East and North Africa (Princetun: 13rincetonUniversity Press, 1963). 65.See Richarc3 Nitchell, The Soeiefy c$Rsl~isZi?nBroYCjttll~rs(London: Bxfc~rdUniversity 13ress, 1969); see also Sivan, hdical Xslatrz, and Etienne, t'isfnmisme mdical, 66. Qutb, Religion c$ the IL-uZ.l.ire,p. 71. 67. Qutb, "History as the Interpretation of Events," p. 163. 68,Qutb, Milesl-ones, p. 185. 69. Ibid., p. 485. 70, Shepard, ""Xslam as a %y~tern,"+~43. 73. Ibid. 72, The terms are Esnest Getlner" in Muslim Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
116
Saypid Qutb
73. Sayed Kotb [Qul.b], Social jzrstice i i ~IsTslnnr, trans. John B. Hardie (New Vmk: Octagon, 1953). 74, Abdallah Lar~ui,The Crisis I?( trlte Arab Irtfellecfunl, trans. Biarmid Camme11 (BerkeXey: University of California Pressf 11976). 75, See Carrgt Mystique et potitique, chap. 2; also Sylvia G, Hairn, ""Syyicl Qutb,"" Asian and AJlyiccan Sfzldics 16 (1 9821, pp. 151-1 53. 76. Qutb, TIzis Retigiotz oflslam, p. 6. 77, Shepard, ""Islam as a %ystern,"+p, 41. 78. Qutb, In tjrc Shade oftfzc Qzar'arz, p, 179. 79. Qutb, MiEeston~,p, 2 01. 80. Qutb, ""No God but God-The Program for lEJife," in Milesfe;tnes,chap. 5, trans. William Shepad, p. 3 (typescript). 81. Shepard, "XsIam as a 'Sy~tem,~" p. 44. 82. Kotb [Qutb], Socinl justice, chap. 1. 83. Shepard, "Islam as a 'System,""'. 39. 84, "The genius of Qutb comisted in his grounding his argument in the thought of a prominent medieval thinker, ibn Taymiyya (126;8-13281, and of some of his votariest through an act of "creative interpretation."' Sivan, hdicat Isfiam, p. 94. 85, Kotb IQutb], Social Jastice, p. 95, 86, Carr& Mystz'qzileef politique, p. 197. 87. Ibid., p. 196. 88. Carr& Mystz'qz-reef politique. 89, Ibid., p. 213. 90. Qutb, ]slant and Universal Peace, pp. 2FB. 91. Kotb [QutbJ,Svcinl j~rstillc,p. 97. 92, Ibid., pp. 62-63, 93.Ibid., p. 97. 94. Qutb, The Religion of the Futzlre, pp. 94, 108. 95. ibid., pp. 101,111. 5%. Ibid., p. 121. 97. ibid., p. 103. 98, Haddad, ""The Qur 'anic Justification," pp. 15-19. 99. Sayyid Abu at-A% Mawdudi, who influenced Qu&, had worked on that problem mclre thoroughly as Pakistan achieved independence, See Mawdudi, TIze Xslanlic h w and Cc~~zsfifufr'an, trans. Khurshid Ahmad, 3d ed. (Lahore: Islamic Publicatic~ns,1967.) 101. Etienne, L7islnm?',smemdiccail, p. 253. 102. $ban has said Mawdudi showed some "residual modernism" in aadvocating democracy. Presumably, he would see Mawdudi as already having backed away from the modernism of Iqbal. The problem with all such r~bservatlionsabout "modei-nism," including my own, is the multiple meanings of that term, In sclme "an IqbaX; in others, he is not*See Sivan, Radical ISw a y a u t b i s more ""mc>dernm lam, p. 7'3.
UOES THE PUIGUll" OF GULWIiAL AU'I-X-IENTICITYc d i c t with. political or-
der? If one begir-zsfrom a propo"ition &out fundamtuntal is it possjble to rczlconskuct a colnmoln ground for the fo or au&enticity necessarily foment concooperation? Or must the sea a d Shi"i, %rb a d Basnim, Kurd a d flict between East and West, Tuk? Does the construction of an Xslarnic repubJic necessarily entail a state seekjng e i h r to convert its neighbors or conquer them, a state caught betwem its pursuit of difference and its need to hnction in a larger world? 'The witillgs and oratory of 'Ali Shasi'ati helped generate a rwolutionary atmosphere in the final dccade of the late shah" reign in Irm. .About Shari'ati's fnflumce there appears to be little dispute. &c. student of the period says, ""l is an undeniable fact that, next to morneini, he is the most influential figure in the Islamic mnvement that led to the revolution of 1979."1 But little else about this man is beyond contention. Critics c h q e h h with inadequate h o w k d g e of Islam and a superficial mderstanding of the West.2 Sharikti is said by some to have sacrificed, logical rigor and a dedication to tmth for political iduence,%nd by others he is said to have been a nnarginal. political force, much more interested in ideas than in action.We advocated a rcturn to f s l m but in ways that challenged both the religious establishment and the maverick Ruhollah Khomeini's revolutionary ideas, and he both embraced and rejected Western ideas h sirnilar, and seemingiy inconsistent, f a s h i m w e is portrayed as primarily intert-sted in the reform of Islam in the traditbn of Mttharnmad 'AbduQand, quite to the contrary, as prepared to use and abuse Isfarn for political purposes, in the manner of J m a l al-Din alAfghani, that is, as more a revotutionary than a theologian or philosopher.? Ajarni wrote of Shari%ti as a liberal, despite Sharikti" aapparelnt preference for e ~ a l i t over y liberty and his endorsement of populism.8
The problem in assessing Shari'ati lies in deciding upon which standards to apply Evafuated from the perspective of mainstream Western philosophy from Plato to Kant, Shari"ti3 ideas appear to vacillate between ideakm and empirirism without fixing themselves firmly in either camp. Seen int;tead in the traditim of what Arkcrun has called "Islamic Reason,"Vtself rehlorced by Greek thought, Shari'ati's arguments look undisciplined, ill suppmted, and even heretical. He helps himself to those aspects of thr Shi? traditim he finds useful, just as he helps himelf to elements of Marxism or liberalism, withod committing himseJC to the prjnciples from which those aspects or elements arjse. From either of these perspectives, 5hari"at.ihas created a hodt;epodge of half-baked ideas that need not be taken seriously,however great his prerevolutionary influmce in Iran may have been.lo 5hari'ati might better be evaluated for his contributions to an analysis of authenticity What. m a b s a human being unique? How can identity be preserved under the onslaught of modernity? To what extent can the products of universal mason be embraced without cornpromis% tryhat is unique about a person or a culture? To what extent must reason be rejected? These arc the questions that drive Shari'ati and that define the search for authenticity. Like other advocates of authenticity Sharikati is suspcet among secdaists for a lack Of cmplete comnitment to rationality and is suspect in the eyes of rehgious establishmentsfor lack of faith in a dogmatic tradition, ikfysticism permeates his work as it does the work of Iqbd and Qutb, empowering them all with popular followings and makine; them dubious members of the academic community In short, Shari'ati participates in the cmfusions, ambiguiairts, and contradictims common to other advacates of authenticity. To assess his enterprise against that backdrop reveals a coherence not otherwise apparent and helps one see that shortcomhgs rczfiect not just Shari'ati" ppersond weaknesses but the grave difficdty of his enterprise. Within the mivase of authmtics, Sharikti should be regarded as m internationalist, one M;hose work can be read as a plea for rediscovwing common huntan bonds through the exploratim of distinctive culhritl roots. Athou& he exhorts intellectuals to expfore their cultural mob, especiauy their Islarnic, Shi'i heritage, as a basis for understanding fiemsdves and the faunclations ol'mass action, his airn and objective remab~sthe tiberation not of the %'a m Muslirns in general but of human beings of all sorts, cultures, and faiths.11 Howeva imperfectly and fnadequateb he sketches a Ushaped path from an extemai)y i,mposed uni:vt.rsality associated with the W s t through culltural rediscovery and back toward a commm human bond based not in reason but ""au&enticiv)i'"fn doing thatf he lays a possible ground for C S C V ~ h-om the ravages of self-determkation.
A Theory of Authenticity Shari'ati called for revolt against both modernity and tradition in the name of autl-rmticity Colonialism had sought to propagate a single, fore i p , universal cdture in order to generate a single, unifom set of ccmsumers. Traditionalist had deterioraked into a routbnized, ritualized ""fassilized" "ems of bsulathg Iran horn the farces of history. But Islam and modernity- also reprtrsented the cure, for in his view klam in gmeral and %'ism in particular contained the potential for jvlciting revolt and enabling Iran to save itself frm modernity through modern revolution. Modernity and traditim cmstituted the essence of the problem and also the sol~~tion. Shari'ati grew up on the maqin of East and. West. Born in 1933 near Mashad in the northeastern province of Iran, he lived at a distance from the secularizing, mdernizing force of Reza Shah and from the cosmopoiitmism of Tehran. His father bad founded a Center for the Prczpaption of Islamic Truths in :Mashad. Yrt Shari'ati began his ovvn c m e r by teaching in a secular public school, and even later, when his criticism of the religious establishment struck raw nerves, be resisted fetrrnal religious training at the hands of the ulema. He studied W s t m sociolngical and poliLical philosophy as well as Islamology i,n 13ari,s,but he retzlrncd to Iran in 1964 as an established opponent of the Westerni.zingfmodernizing, authoritarian rule of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, His Western education drew him toward opponetnts of colonir?lism, such as Jacques Kerque and Frantz Fanon." His study of Islam pulled him into conact with the religious hierarchy in Iran. Between 1966 and 1970, he lectured first at the Fcrdowsi U'niversjty of Mashad and then at the Musayniyeh Irsbiid in Tehrasr, where, as a fomding member of the institute, he became the leading light. rTi, silence him, the regime closed tbr imtihte in 1973 and arrested his father. 'Ali Shari'ati then gave h h s e l l zxp m d served eighteen months in prison. (He had a l ~ a d yserved eight months in 1957 a d six months on his return to lran in 39M, always on politicai charges.) Exiled to his honneto\vn after liberation k m prison, Shari'ati ""managed to conthue writlng and even participating in semipublic gatherings.'"ut then he left for Europe, 'Vhcii~~g life in Iran unbearable."n He died in toneion on June 8,1927. The British authorities ruled that he had died of a massive heart attack; his supporters accused the shah" secret police. Afer all, Shari'ati belongs to a tradition which for Ec>urteencenturies has believed that its leaders have either been killed by the sword of an oppressor or by the poison of a conspirator.1"
Sharikti was never systematically anti-Western. In an essay on art, he wrote that Iranians erred not in imitating the West but in failing to do so, Iranims are neither Eastern nor Western, he said in effect.lWe memt, I think, that Iranian intelkctuals had failed to imitate Che West in creating a new cultuse from their own resources, h criticizing the eighteenth cenhtry dogmas of universal truth upon which colonialism had been constructed, and in re~ectingpositivistic attitudes toward religion. "There is no universal prototype of hekg 'enlightened.,"" he wmte.lh What he rejected was not Westem thought as a wh& but what he termed the central impdse of modernity: " M human beings must become 'consumt.r animals%and all nations m s t be stripped of their authenticity."lT More precisely, he reproached Iranians for not understartding, as many Europeans had come to argue, that this absollltist definition of modernity lacked any but relative authority, 5hari"ti treats Marxist thought as another effort-not unlike what he refers to as bialogism, sociotogism, natufalism, and libera:lism-to portray limited truth as universaL Several aspects of Marxism appealed to Shari'ati: its emphasis on social reality its attention to history as a source of truth, its analysis of capitalism and hperialjsm, its cdL for revolution. But far from liberating man, he argued, Marxism presupposed a humankind subject to a history it could not control. "111 short, humanity turns out to be the product of the mode of material production."lg Sharikti revolted agaixrst such materialist assertions as well as against the liberal prescriptions for humankind. An authentic response to these alienatkg forces, hence to my ge~~uine revolt, could only c o m horn the inside, from the spirit, according to Shari'ati. "Spiritual knowiedge alone can raise tJle existmtial value of man to a degree that pmtects him. agalnst any kelmg of inferiority toward Occidental greahess.""%ince religion tends the spirit and s i n e =@ion in Iran means Islam, the burdm of revolution lies with Islam. But Islam in Iran, far h:om po&timing itself at the cutting edge, had been su,bverted into a force for cmsen.ation. "'ft is common knowIedge that the true Islam was tuxzled into the mockery we have today, not by the p)liloscrphical or military opponents oE Xslm, but by its supporters, the tradition&& . . . judges . . . Muslim jrariscmsults, speculative theologian%intcspreters of the Qur'an, RE@ou"udges, rulers, preachers, &eosophists, and the caliphs."" Wewas the thrust of modernity c o w s from the ot~tside,Che strengfi of traditjcrn lies withh. Pehap"hat explains the edge of bitterness inSlnazikafr's assault that is not to be found in his andpis of modernity on t-radiIt-i~n Shari'ati sounds much like Iqbal and Qutb, though also like Rsusseau, Montesguieu, and Kierkegaard, when he describes the alienating impact
of traclitim: "History is a long cemetery, silcnt md. sad., empty and cold, black and deathly, generation after gmeratirtn. Everythiw is =petition, imitation. t,ives, thoughls, hopes are only tradition and inheritance. Culture, civilization, art and faith are d y so many dead stones."zl The past, then, irnmcrhitizes human beings by suborciinatlng indiwiduality and spi,rit to an overriding pattern of legitimate action. Mowver, human beings wodd be utterly incapacitated without a past from which to draw a sense cJf self. "It is absolutefy impossible for an indkidual who has no past to have a future," w m e Sharikti.2 How does one imaghe, create, project, and.expect withollt reference to the past? The well-being of the spirit depend?;upon one's understanding of fie past. 5hari"ati sees regime and clergy perhaps moved on. occasion by outsiders, as the manipulators of the Iranian past and the architects of tradition as a prison. The late shah evoked not religion but the unchanging place of monarchy i,n Iran, whereas the men of the cloth emphasized fie unchang4ng role of Islam. The tragedy [in Iran] is that an the one hand, those who have cmtmlled our religictn over the past two centuries have transfc~rmedit into its present static fc3rrn and, on the ather hand, our enlightened people who understand the p ~ s e nage t and the needs of our generation and limef d o not understand religion. . . . Meankvhile, true Islam remains rmknown and incarcerated in the depths of history.2"
For ShaTifatL"true" I s l m is revolutionary and "true" 5hi"ism is a particularly ~volutionarybrand of Islam.24 In Irm, the "red Shi"ismf\I>f W i ('AE ibn abi taib), cousin, and so11-in-law of the Prophet, had become the "black Shi'ism" of the Safavis and.the spiritual m d temporal rwolu-t;ionbegun by ad and W e $ . into a defmse of ceremony, sayings, and rituals.25 The bat;lle &apes up as Islam versus "true Islam," ""'nal-coticf>reiigion versus "true" "religion, religion q a i n s t religion, Islam versus Islam. Shari'ati calls upon Islamdcrgists to Lead an intellectual revrtlutim in t-he discovery of that distinction. It takes people who know both Idam and the contemporasy world, he said, to see that ""true Islam" i s revolutionary ""I: is a question of an Islarn that comes forvvard as a revolutionary ideology, generathg an ideal capable of trmsfarmhg the system, the enviro11mmt and social relations."^^ The liebate turns on methodolr,gyY For Sharikti, howledge of the "true Islam" would appear to depend upon at least four methods: the history of Islm, and especially the early days of Islam; study of the contemporary world and its needis; familiarity with Islarnic scripbre, and ~ceptivityto the most mysticd eiemetnts of rdigion. Traditional scholarship ennphasized scripture with grudging, unofficial room for the mystical. In the
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’Ali Shri’ufi
madrasa, the traditional secondary school, students worked through rhetoric, logic, the Arabic language, the Qur’an, compilations of hadith, and the law as compiled and interpreted by learned men over the centuries. Islamic history meant history as seen through scripture, not the history of scriptxm itself in its spatial and temporal context. For Shari’ati, Islamology required an examination of the situation in which Islam had emerged and the impact of Islam on that situation. It meant seeing, for example, how the Prophet retained the form, or container, of many a custom of pre-Islamic Arabia, how he “change[d] the container, the contents, spirit, direction, and practical application of this custom in a revolutionary, decisive and immediate manner.”*’ For example, Islam adopted the traditional point of religious pilgrimage in Mecca, the Kaaba, but imparted to it a new significance. The advent of Islam brought a moderate change in customs but a radical change in the meaning of those customs. Shari’ati speaks of this as the “method” of Muhammad, not the method of God, and he speaks of prophets as those who combine mysticism and intellectual acuity with a sharp sense of what the masses of people need and want. The “true Islam” must be discovered not in scripturebut in the activity of exemplary Muslims, Muhammad foremost among them. As a Shi’i Muslim, Shari’ati puts ‘Ali and his wife, Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, close behind Muhammad in importance and bemoans insufficient historical knowledge of them. What passes for such knowledge is a formalized, abstract, wart-free portrait derived from scripture. Knowledge of scripture preempts the understanding of Islamic practice. Islam is revolutionary because the prophet Muhammad acted in a revolutionary manner to transform life in Medina, then in Mecca, and finally in Arabia as a whole. When Shari‘ati calls for a revolution that would start from “fable rase and rebuild everything,”**he does so out of conviction that this was the essence of Muhammad’s activity. When he says that the Shi’a “do not accept the path chosen by history,” he means that the early followers of ‘Ali, the most illustrious proponents of the Shi’i school of thought, revolted against their destiny as had Muhammad before them.29 Of Shi’ism he wrote: The awakened call and the possibilities of learning of this school are based upon the twin principles of imamate and justice. It produces revolutionary cries of ‘Ashura and the aggressive mobilization of the masses against the existing conditions. It invites people to await the hidden Imam who is in occultation. . . . It keeps alive the hope of “redemption after martyrdom.” It promotes the idea of revenge and revolt, faith in the ultimate downfall of tyrants and the decrees of destiny against the ruling powers who spread justice by the sword.Jo
The legitimacy of Shi’ism flows from continuation of the revolutionary tradition begun by Muhammad but nipped in the bud by the Umayyads.
The partisans of "li resisted the drift ttoward standardization, burcaucra" tization, ctdification, authoritarianism, and inauthenticity i n Shari'ati's view, by cmtinuing to espouse a personalistic vision. of Islamic leadership. In Iran, they succumbed to the transformation of'krtrd Sh.i%ism9nto '%lack 5hi"ism" only after the year l500 and under Safavi rule, Such analysis of tiftari'ati's position suggests why he resisted the rather insistent proposal of some ulema that he withhold his critique and spend a few years in the study of Islam. That would have w a n t study of the scriptural tradi,tion, which he regarded as a cause of Xslarnic distress rather I.hm as a cure for its emphasjs on continuity. Such study was unlikely to improve his knowledge of actual Islamic history contemporary needs, or the mystieirim necessary to sustain a se~zseof authentic ide~ztity. His rejection of such study makes it difficult to call Sharikti a '6refomer'' in the seme that Muhammad 'Abdu soul;ht =form of the traditional Islamic undcrsfanding of scripture. %ari'ati rejected the idea of reform; rather than reform of dockine, he sought to d e r m j n e dogma and doctrine as the basis of the d i g i m , And in this regarcl he resembtes Iqbal, m t b , and Arkoun more than he does 'Abdu. Nonetheless, Sharikti" pprclarnation of revolutionar). IsZm and revolutionary 511i'ism seems no more secure than the nature of the times in which if was proclaimed, By insisting that an interpreter of fdm must know contemporay social conditions as well as Islamic hjstory he would seem to im& that social cmditions might sometimes dirtate a conservative Man, not revolution. Might not Muhammad then be properly understood as a builder of stablc institutions and of an enduri~~g system of justice? 5hari8ati%ddinitiotl of the ""true Isfam" uitimately lies in the pres-ent; logical consiste~zcyrequires that he locate hjs own thinki.ng and actions as syuarely within hjstory as he puts those of Muhammad, 'Ali, and Fatirna..Atthough Sharikti also speaks of I s l m as commitment to "enduring ideals," it is difficdt to imgin.e he would include revolution among them, for be explains Islamic revolution not as an ideal but as a necessity of circumstance. Does this approach liberate human beings from theis history or enslave them?
Autonomy Sharikti memt to liberate human beings from history and from God by makhg tbem cmscious of their capacities. Family social circumstances, cnnstoms, hjstorieal context, economic and physical needs-a:lf thcse factors shape hursran b e e s but do not determine their responses. Rather, by virtue of their humanity by virtue of God's gift of vditim, human beings can say yes or no at every juncture?. Will emerges in Shari'ati's &ought, as it does for other authentics, as the defining characteristic of what it means to be human, and the search for the source of will leads deep into the
mystjcal recesses oi the human spirit. 7b realize their authentic personalities, human beings must respond not merely to external cues but to the mystical, spiritual qualities wi-t-hh,which put them closer to a remote, ranhowable God, the unifying force of the unkerse. Shahrough Akhavi sees a pair of related clmtradictions in Shari'atifs position. First, he wonders how Shari'ati can insist both u p m an autonornous human being, apparent@ free to choose conduct of which God would not appove, as the prime gmerator of human history m d upon God as an "absolLlte hidden beingff,"" dtimate guardjan of the univcrse,J1 Second, he ohserves that Shari'ati, apparently a phenomenulogist, believes that human beings cannot themselves penetrate to the truth of things; they must look at both mterial objects and ideas as signs or indications of truth but must not confuse these signs (readings of the Qurfmt for example) with truth itself. Can cme regard human beings as fully autmomous if in fad their "autonomous" choices reflect d y the "appearances of retality?""" Might not their ahility to choose be mere illusion, itself fostered by manipulatiwe forces they do not understand? -30th ohjectinns carry weight but would apply to much authentic thouglnt, surely to the work of Iqbal m d Qutb as well as to that of a European Christian existentialist such as Kierkegaarci. Sharikti seems to have opted for the Iqt7alian sdution, wjth atS its defects. The c o m o n starting point, which simultaneously opens the way to criticism and resolves the problm, is that logic and rationdip are neither necessary nor suffiicrictnt avenues to truth- H ~ ~ m abeings n may came closest to truth and God through inwad rcflertion and the creatkity that sprlings from it, Poetry for Iqbal and art in general for Shari'ati express those izmer strivings for truth. The existence of God and the oneness of the universe are htuitive rather than demonstrated but are consequently no less '"true." What can be demonstrated by modern methods is the impact of buman action. The prophets, especially Muhammad, reshaped the world by .force of will. Western technology and imperialism have altered the basis of choice h the Third World. But it emnot be demonstrated, even by the standards of logic, that this success represe~~ts Truth in some larger sellsee For Shari'ati, then, authentic h u m n behavior dcpends upon both the rational and the irraticmal and hence upon wlrrldly and oherworldly orie~~tations. Human autonomy depends upon submission to one's innermost behg, one" spiritual. being, which leads toward God. If there is some hidden manipulation of the unfverse via this spiribal communication, it would be by definition unknowable by hgic and rationatity. WhatSharikti argues with conviction and persuasiveness is the lack of prod for verifiable determinism of any sort, material or ideal. Similarlb the insufficiency of human reason does not, even by logical slandards, preclude the possibility of human access to spiritual truth and, as a result, to genuine autonomy
Such considerations do not negate the logic of Akhavi" oobjctions. They merely underscore twlr somewhat contradictory assertions of authesztic thought: that human beings make their own world but that a part of what makes a human beings unique and authentic is a mystical, otherworldly quality. Withouf;that rnystical quality, human beings lack the will to aMect their world in a positive, purposeful, fuUy human hvay. 7;r, be human is to have a solid footing in two worIds, one historical and.amnable to reasm, the other beyond the confines of Western logic. Such thougbt will always come up short by the standards of reason alone. Like Qutb, Shari'ati speaks of an awakening for h u m beings who otherwise slumber through history. Gabriel descended to rescue the Pr0phc.t kom passivity, isolation, and individualism by givifig him a mission, pushing him into battle. Although Muhammad was the final prophet, every perscrn is "heir of the prophets.'"Wan is " a l w moving, ~ searching, stmgglhg, workjng and wanting. He will not be satisfied.""3" "True" Islam, unlike tine '"na~otit=&ion" propagated to render human b e i ~ ~submissive gs to the authority of past and p ~ s m tprovides , an example and a doctrine for the exescise of such ixlitiative and, energy According to Shari%ti, the principal lesson bmug)nt by Muhammad. is that human beings as individuals inspked by God can wwst their fate from t-he grip of ""nature, history, society and the sel6,'"5 which can be but the involuntary product of external fosccs, The mystical awakening opens the way for t-he voluntary ~constructim(Iqbat" tern) of self and sociew. And as Qutb observes, Islam entreats believers to undertake jbad ing, struggle-towardt these ends, which are human ends. Musllms mdertake jif~adin t-he name of God to fashion their own personali.ties and make their own history, escaping the determinant conceptions of religion, history, m d self that have imprisoned them.
Particularity Sharikti's radicalism leads him to reject tradition and modernity, both hostile to the aut.hentic understmding of self. Human beings must: choose their personalities and shape their own lives, but on what basis must they choose? What is the link between their choices and something 5hari"ati calls their "primordial being?" Why wouid one suppose that Iranians, faced with choices stemming from the clash of tradition and modernity, would proceed any differently from Europeans? What is t.he foundation for authentic revolmd choice? For 5hari"a.t. that foundation is culture. He defines culture as the "tota.lity of mterial and spiritual savings of a particular race and society," as opposed to what he cails 'kcivilization,'" which is the "totality of material m d spiritual accumulations of humanity.""" Technology constitutes an aspect of civilizatit>n,because it is universal, he says, but culture distinguishcts one e t h i c gmup, race, or nation
from another. He calls culture the "inherent attribute of a society" and the ""spiritual essence of a race or a nation."g Cdture dkides, whereas civilization unites, and althoug%lit lies w i t h the power of hurnan beings to modify the culture they have produced, Shari%tiis not clear m whether one codd imaghe cultlrres dissolving themseives into an undifferentiated world civjlizat.ion. At times, he speaks o( ""hman natureJ>s if it floated above culture, as when he speaks of "human values" as "sacred ideals, which, although their applicability may vary, am eternal and absolute and may change only as the hutnan species changes or disappearsu%or when he speaks of mysticism "as a manifttstation of the primordial n a t w of man."B Rut even then he argues that values will he applied differctntly in each cdture, and the mysticnl instinct m y merely help explain the drive for religion, generator of a variety of cultures rather than a single civilization. For Shari'ati, the particular preempts and conditions the universal. Sharifati"sessay on Fatima, daughter of the Prophet m d wife of ' M , turns on this point. He seeks to portray her not as a model of female liheration, leadership, stzbordinai-ion,activity; or passivity Rather, he argues fiat Fatha's greatness stemmed h m her ability to play a whole series of mles dicQted by her particular circumstances. The title of the essay and the final line is ""Ftima is Fatima." She asserted her influetnce on Islamic history not by following a script or imitating a model but by being hersellf. By virtue oE her success, she has becomc. a part of Shi'i myth and legend, serving with 'Ali as an e x a q l e for the present. But the problem, says Sl?ari%ati,is fie paucity of what is known and written about them as concrete historical perscmalities. fnstead, they are portrayed as r e f l e c ~ guniversal Islamic valzzes, mchmghg models, m d a static culture. The details of realiv and history have heconne obscured by retrospecthe idealism. Ideologies =shape cultums and civilization, They arise from ""prticular hwman self-consciousness""generated hconcrete social drclzrmslances. They are effective if they express the needs and aspirations of a given society "Any school [ofthought] which is not based upon the cultural foundations of a society look like a good book in a library which is used nnZy by a smal grmp of sbdents and professors . . . Xf a free-thinker separates hhnself horn his society, no matter where he goes or what he does, his society will remain in everlastkg corruption.'"Vrophets succeed precisely because they emerge from the masses and speak a language &at is gcnerally accessible. They make universal claims, but their success in remaking c d u r e sterns from their mderstanding of the circun?stances in kvhich they lived and workd. Whatever the tmth of their claims, "a valid and true statement e x p ~ s s e dat an improper time and place will be f~tile.~'41 Shari'ati proposes a universal defhition of "enlighte~nmetnt'~ m d argues that there is no universal prototype for being "enlighkned." Frmris Ba-
con was enlightened for his time and place, Sartre for his. "The enlightened soul is a person who is self-cmscious of his 'hhuman condition' inhis time and historical m d social setting, and whose awareness inevitably and necessarily gives him a sense of social responsibjlity."Q The form of enlightenment seems to be unchanging, but its content must vary, as must the educational system designed to produce e~~lightenment. lis be sure, science is universal, and a scientist may learn the same things the world. wer, but scientific learning, the quhtessence of enlightenment in one set of circumstmces, may not be apt in another, Enlightenment must begin with bowledge of context, For an Irmian, that conkxt is the '"Cotrality of &hgs which haw been accumulated as the Iranim cu2hre: Islamic principles, story, mflyth, art, philosophy, oration, and tlneosuphy comprise our culture.""" It is not the truth of Islamic principtes from which an intellectual must begin but rather their existence in Irmim culture. Better understmding of co11tf3xt would require not a more thorough trainhg in exegesis but rather an understanding of h w principles, stories, and myths emerged from historical circumstance and what they have come to mm, hence Shari"ati's insistel~ce,given the predomhance of Shj%smin frm, on the vital necessity of =search ox7 tlne historical fit;ures of 'Ali and Fatima, whose lives have gcfnnerated a plethora of stories and ~ I h taken s to be fundame~~tal to Shi'ism. Shari'ati would not challmge the "sac=$ tmth" of Islmic principles, hut as he put it with rc3g"rd to a somewhat differmt issue, "'e questions I arn raising here are . . . by wharn, for what purpose, and at wh.at ti.me this sacred truth is beilrg utilized,"44 Enlightenment thus begins with knowledge oi the concrcte htcraction of ideas, and consciousness arises from physical surroundings and historical developments. Abstract, ideoliogicaf,understmdings can only be usehi m d meaningful if they d e c t such farniljari.Q Mysticism is the other pillar of particularity. ""Mysticism follows love," wmte Shasi'ati, "Love is the extra-mterial energy that is the source and active cause of human behaviod'" Mysticism saves one" tthoughts and actions from the erosion of history eithw by authorizhg indifference and passivity toward ongoing historical develoipments, an attitude Shari'ati and other authentics deplore, or by becoming the basis for individual will and action. By reaching beyond the rational, one may believe in the efficaciousness of human activity while nonetheless engaging in the sort of cold-blookd, myth-&stray ing analysis that undermines the absoluteness of d prir~ciples,even one's own. 'l"hrough mysticism one feels at ""hornet* in the world, spirituab comfort&, thoroughly clneself, despite physical: separation and alienation f r m physical objects and, blstorical process. Strangely-and this is perhaps the essence of mysticism-this particularistic, personatistic spiritml endeavor bath solidifies individxlality and relxnks the hdividual, otkrwise alienated, to a larger world.
Sharitati"streatment of the pilgrimage to Mecca, in an essay caf.led Hajj, ilustrates the links between particularity mysticism, and universalism.46 By writing about pilgrimage, Shari'ati distances himself from those ~lrho see Islam as a set of hstract principles." By going on pilgrimage, a Muslim seeks to experience faith as the early Muslims di$,to walk where they walked and pray where they prayed. It is a return to origins" for human beings who divest themselves of their daily routhe, the clothes that symboiize culture and materialism, tbr petty purposes for which one lives, all those thjngs Chat come to overlay the se1f and ali,enate h m a n beings Cram their spiribal, inner selves. Pilgrims must be preparcd to die before they leave; debts must be paid, a will drawn, anger and hostilities dropped.@ "He wihesses his own dead body and visits his own grave, Man is reminded of the final goal of his life, He experiences death at Miqat and resurrection after which he must continue his mission in the desert between Miqat and Miad."SQe therne echoes one frequerntly expressed in authent-ic thought, whether in Rsusseau or Heidegger, Iqhal or Qutb: Unly at death does one experience one" aauthntic being. Only death is uttcrly personal. Chly at death does one see the full scope oE one's life in all its particularity. From that initial preparaticm for death, the piIgrim then moves toward God. Shari'ati wrote not so much about the ritual or the rules as about what the pilgP.ims feel. The surmundhgs, the masses of silnilarfy clad pilgrims, the Kaaba, the heat and dryness-all produce sensation, hefping the pilgrim to recreate the feelings and faith (If Abraham, Hagar, and Muhammad. One feels drawn away from the self into a mass of human beings be% swept along. One feels the excitement as cme approaches the Kaaba. The sense of sclf clissdves, only to return aga,iln as m e steps out of the Tawaf circfing crowds at the point of entering. "After denying and killing all oE the prtrvious and false egos, you will discover your kautt-tentic ego."'" Later, in Mashar, t-he pilgrim feels utkrly alone, despite the presence of a mass of people spending the night thew. As one moves on to Mina, one kels the power of h e behind inefividual and collec-tiveaction. For Shari'ati, what nnatters about the hajj is the intent with which a pilgrim performs the ritual and the kelings derived from the observance. Like Kierkegaard, he focuses upon Abrahads decision to sacrifice a son (Ishmael in Che Istarnic tradjt-ion) as something a pilgrim must confront: What is this person" Ishmael? Is one free to make the proper choice? Can one act f r m faith even L\lithoutexgfanation, as did Abraham? Scripture entreats .faith and even pilgsimage, hut Sharrati, like Kierkegaard, asks that the pilgrim be pmpared to make Tbrahim" '""leap of faith," not , then there is no genuine choice, but because it because it is ~ q u i r e dfor can and must be freely chosen. Rather than returning home content- with having fdfjlled one of the duties of a Muslim m d confident of a good life
beyond death, the pilgrims must assume responsibility as did. Abritham for the state of the faith and the state of their people. Abraham and Ishrnael built the Kaa,ba together, and the pilgrim must return to build a ""house for the people."52 By undertaking fie hajj, a pilgrim moves closer to God, but this means the fuliillment-of the authefltic self, Iiberated from the ordinary routines, cibligatims, and duties of life and freed to think about the past and responsibilities for the film.By confronting the historicity of Islam, one must c o m to grips with the needs of the present, By refiectjng upon the exemplary actions of early believers, m e moves toward an understanding of what must be done in tbr present. By sensing the unchanging and eternal, one sees that genuine f&h, s ~ ~ as c hthat of Abralhnm, calls for responsi:bility on earth. Islam is not a religion of pious forms leading toward eternal life but an invitation to individuals to take stock of themselves and the world in which they live in order to follow the lead of their ancestors in making that w d d a better place. For Shari'ati, authentic faith requires appropriate action from responsible individuals fully conscious of their partjeular backgrounds in concrete circumstmces. Ano&er, somewhat contradictory message also runs through Shari"ati"s discussion of the pilgrimage. The pilgrim grasps individuality anci at the same time melts into the masses of pilgrims who circun-7ambula.t.ethe Kaaba and follow the rest of the timeworn route. Allhough Shari'ati regards faith as a personal mMer and views the hajj as hportant for the consciousncss it instil.ls, he also argues that the faieh leads tokvarif,a realization of the oneness of humaniv md.,even beyond that, of the universe. From an understanding oE partiruiarity and historic* emerges a smse of unity and oneness (tazufifd)that is critical to Shar'iati's general argummt, as it is to those of other authentics, t"nifomity produced by mutisr.e, rihxal, and tradition stand in the way of m authentic, choice-driven lift., but a world of individual choice promises chaos, mless there is some fundamental,mity beneath or beymd choice. Shari'ati's vision of a better world, and certain)). his l~opesfor getting there, presuppose that such unity exists, despik the partlirularistic nature of the phenoma~alworld he a~treatsus to confront.
:No theme runs morc insistently through Shari'atYs work than fiawFFd, a Qzrrfanic idea rescued, rejuvenated, and reinvigorated to mean much more &an the onclness of God. As Shari'ati uses it, howcver, this highly traditional term. begins to sound radical in Jacobin, socialist, idealist, transhistoric ways. He brandishes tuwj"l?das a sword to combat religious division, the partition of howledge, the separation of God and man, and the meanhglsmess of d i s c ~ t historical e events, If he does not brandish it
clnergetically m d successfully, he risks a world caught in cultural particularities, speaking dif-femnt languages, worshipping diffemnt gods; but if he hvield.s it too vi.ciously, he trhreatens the pmticularity that distinguishes human beings from other matures and.anchors the concept of indzvidual authenticity He also fuels the argurnentri of tbe tracfitionalists &out a single, unc"nanging Istarn and those of the idealists about a single concept of moderniv The line he attempts to walk is thin and perhaps nunexistent. For Sharikti, the unicity of the universe is a matter of hstinct and faith. It cannot be a product of empirical proof, for inslpc.cti,ol~of the phe~~ontenal world leads him to conclusions about particularity and multiplicity. The world abounds with cmtradictictns and distinctions, whjch empiricrisln can seek to contain but. not overcome. X,ogic m y be helpful but cannot suffice, for logic cannot demonstrate the sufficiency of logic, Moreover, a part of what Sharikti means by unity is the unity of feeling and Itnohdge, of love and truth, \zrhich carnot of course, be delnonstrated def nitively in the realm. of knowledgcr alnne.5" Sharibti invokes logic but then achodedges its inadequacy as a proof. Reflecting and modifying existentialist refrains, he says there can be no an beings who are a part o irverse, mless there is beings to have choice meming in the universe. It is not possible f and responsib2ity ha world without the cmscience, will, direction, and intelligence. an beings pargcipate h Being; if Being is ab=ason, as only one element in Being, cansurd, all is absurd.54 But Xn fact, all not exarnine itself from the outside and verify this propositio~~. efforts to do so lead to breakdowns of moral m d social consensus, to division rather than unity. Hence, like Iqbal, Sharikati relies m poetry and mysticism to demonstrate the oneness of the universe. :In a bit of p o e t v he muses about the role oi one and zero in a number compcrt;ed of one and an infinity-of zeros. mey do not exist bat they do mq are zero Rd it;, l"tzqare hallow mey are nothing mq are absurd Rq a m meaningless mey are not really numbers either mq are Plot Because only one is really a number And it is a gnif.55
At first blush, the poem appears to suggest that the particularity and multiplicity of the world, which Sharikti has taken pains to establish as
the only starting point for authentic existace, constitute ilhsims generated from a base of unity. Because the metaphor is abstract, Sharikti also appears to deviate from his distrust of logic detached from social context. Pdably, though, he intends to argue by indirection that multiplicity and particularity depend upon unity. The zeros in the number " ~ , O ~ O r ~ ~ O lack meaning only if &ere is no numbcr one (or other digit) prweding them, Standkg alone, they are absurd, meaningless. Thus, mmy individuals living together as mere bits of matter similarly lack meaning and purpose. Their great number makes it easy to forget that they are first units, ixrdividuals, and authentic individuals, not mere numbers. They are something rather than nothing, because they share in the property of unify, that tnzubTLir of which Shasi'ati speaks. 'This is one reason Chat selfknowledge, the introspection of the particular self, turns out to be h o w l edge of God, fie root of the oneness of fiings. Embedded i.n a poem, the metaphor of "011Followed ~ by an Eternity of Zeroesl" persuades mort. by its mystical than its logical qualities. In fact, Sufi-Eke, Shari'ati suggests that the human capacity for love serves to cement the kdividual into the u~~iverse. [Love] has an unknowable source and can inflame and melt all of my existence; it even impels me to self-denial. Lcwe grants me values higher and R"tc)x"e sublime than expediency; and no physical, material or biochemical account can camprehend it. ff Lave w e l taken ~ away from man, he would become an isolated, stagnant being, useful only to the systems of productian.56
The effect of love canstot be verfied, only felt, and the resdting hypotlnetical hsion of God, nature, and man does not lend itselfr either, to the test of rationatity But the failure of S:ha,ri'ati%thought to pass the test of rationaljty in its insistence on unicity offers eloquent testimony that he belongs amow the advocates of authenticity. Isiam, and especially Shi"ism, contributes to the sense of unity but seems nonessential. Islam emphasizes trzwhfd in its scripturcs and in its practices, such as t.he hajj, which draws Muslims out of &emselves and into that cornunion with God and univcrse that Shari"ati tries to portray in his essay on the pilgrimage, But Shari'ati also describes Islam as the religion of humanity. "To adore God is to adore the values of man and canseqwently to beeme divinc in constantly w i n g closer to God.q7 PresurnabXy non-Muslims might dso move toward God by embracing the groper hurnan values embedded in a number of religions. Xli offers to %i'i Muslinns an example of the h v e and tmth united in a single nature. Iranians still mourn the family of 'U.The family evokes a love that lifts Irmims out of themselves and toward fie sort of mystical unity of which Shari%tispeaks. Non-Shi'a or non-Muslims could participate in this overarch4 sense of oneness. Tn fact, Shari'ati says Islam cm-
dorses "one giant h m a n society (ummaln) on the face of the earth which is based on economic and humane equality and on lofty and diwine ideals."% That society would not necessarily be Shili or even Muslim. In fact, for it to be Muslim in the way much of the world is currently Muslim would mean a perpetuation of splintering. Only the "true Islam," eextracted from its accide~ztalcircumstances, and "true Shi'ism," "separated from ritual and myth, draw people beyond their particularistic tmderstandings and toward the radkal unity Sharikti envisioned. 5hari"ti fashioned this dclicat-ebalance between unity and diversity under the same sort of pressures felt by other authentics. C h the one hand, he saw a need to defmd the self against the other, to defend one" sulkre against universalizlng theorics of moden?izaticln, to combat the passivity of Muslims who would separate religious belief and pmctice from. the concrete ccmdition of Muslims in thc.twentieth century, to start toward revcrlut h n not by hypothesizing what the masses ought to believe but, like Gramsci, by achowledging the begemun)i of yarticularistk belief, On the other had, he saw a natufal human aspiration to owexcome the gap betwem self and o ~ e rthe , need for peoples of diverse cultms to live together, the need. for unity in the m m of revolution and equality and, perhaps most hportant, the heightened need for trmscmdmt meaning in a world increasistgly conscious o f its estrangement mese pressurczs drove him toward a dclicate balance sirnilar to those crafted by fybal m d @tb, though his balance was different in its assrtmption of Shi"ism as a starting point but like theirs in the ambivalence of its practi,cal applications, Sharikti resembles Iqbal and Qutb in that he, too, believed the mystical enert;y of Muslims would tip &at delicate balance away from particularity toward harmony; yet he is currently remembered as a a h k e r whose ideas contributed to a culture-bound revolution, as @tb continues to be remembered as an idecrlogue of Egyptian revolution and Iqbal c his ultimate endorsement of PaEstazi st3para.trism. Sharikti gemrated a Shi'i theory of authenticiq m d contributed. to the Irmim Revolution, which has thus far remained nationalistic m d xenophnbic. Alfiottgh it is easy to see in retrospect that he wttld not hiwe approved the kstitutionalimtion based on clerical rule, it is perhaps less obvious that his ideas do not necessarily sustair~Shi'i nationalism, Iranian nationalism, or even a permmelzt restoration of the Islamic u m m . Rather, Shari'ati appears extraordinarily conscious of the political pitfalls of authentic thou$t, wary of its pokntinlly divisive consequmes, and devokd. to seeking a cure. In his view, unicif-Ywill necessarily emerli;e from the sepmarticularities.Internationalism will trim$ over nationalism. iment stems from the expression 5hari"ati gave to the authmtie impulses of autonomy and ullicity, which seem to h.iuntp"nnver the bett e r - h w n trademrks of his and other authentk thought: radicalism and
particulari' Politics must begin from a particularistic culbrd base, which is the only possibk meeting point for elites a d masses, but autonomy m a n s that human beings ultim,&ly make and co~~trol their culturcz. They must do so with the toals at their disposition at a given moment. Sbmorrow's circ.umstances may differ from today"; the culhral politics of today may prove inappropriate tomarrow in the light of the ongokg revolutionary discovery of the oneness of h an beings that lies beneah the culturd vmeer. Nothing prevents human beings, fully in control of their desthy, h l n fashioning a potitical structure on this increasingly unified framework. In fact, evohjng ciPrurnstanres may require it,
Autonomy Revisited Sharitati"tidebts to ertistentialism reveal themselves in his conception of fiulnan beings as self-conscious, cre&ive choosers." As generators of their own cultures, histories, and personali"cit.s, they have imposed constraints on their own choices. The development of material society represents human choice and then comes to dictate choice. Techoloe;y arrives to liberate human beings from natural necessities only to shackle them in another era. Freely ch,sen religion deteriorates into ritual a d dogma that restrict choice and diminjsh moral responsibility. What is chosen in one generation is inherited as a constraint in the next. From this perspective, humanlrci~~d has split into ethnicities, races, classes, language groups, and religions by virtue of a set of choices that perpetuate themselves and dctermirme bchavior. In the face of such diversity, European imperialism took two approaches. In the case of hfrica, Europe sought: to demem native cztltures, lmguages, and religions and to replace them with European versions; the recoveq of AErican cultures in a naticmaiistic vein thus constihtted a necessary phase in hfrican liberation, in Shari"atirsview. In the case of:the Muslim world., however, Eurnpe reified Islam and the cultural mosaic of Middle Eastern societies through both scholarship and poliq, cmtributing to the stdtification oE tradition. As a rclsull; the mere wassection of cztltufe would o111y co~~tribukz to subservicnce rather &an liberation, as would the wholesale adoption of Eu~ s both from ossified tradiropean values. Progress thus r e ~ i liberation tion and from the externally imposed sameness of modernity In bath Africa and t:he Muslim world, liberation requireuulturd choice; it requires tbr modificatim of the cultural constraints upon behavior rather than passive acknowledg~nentor mere reproduction. Shari'ati expresses admisatim for Camus" ddefinitim of beconirtg: "I revolt, fierefore I am.'Yt is the mle of "free thinkers" to rebel agah~stconstraints and thereby generate options for themselves and for others. To break out of the "prisons" in which human beings find themselves,
whether naturalistic, historicist, or technological, they must study and explore. Ta liberate oneself from historical determinism, one studies history To liberate oneself from the cl~~tches of natural is^^, one studies science; ta liberate oneself from technology one studies the philosophy of techology; and to liberate oneself from the constraints of religious traetition, free thin;kers must engage themselves in religious studies. Shari'ati mapped an extensive program of Islamic studies for the Husayniyeh IrshadM with a view toward openi~~g up choices t-hrout;h research on the ev
