We are in delirium, confusion and dialogue of the deaf. Despite sensible speech, misunderstanding about Islam persists. The Muslim citizens need a collective voice, Islamic studies scholars, believers and practitioners, credible, amounting to speak up above all against the grain.
We are in delirium, confusion and dialogue of the deaf. Despite sensible speech, misunderstanding about Islam persists. The Muslim citizens need a collective voice, Islamic studies scholars, believers and practitioners, credible, strong quis’élève to talk above all against the grain.
Able to say what it is, including “fundamentalism” and how it is unjustifiable drift. A Muslim does not commit denial of reality, does not deny the responsibility of Muslim societies stiff, disturbed by legalistic ideology.However, every Muslim is committed to showing that fundamentalism are perversions. The Emir Abdelkader said: “The Muslim is sometimes a manifestation against religion” (1)
Exit the alarmism
For a joint work has a chance of success, there are pitfalls to avoid. Vueune pitfalls lose part of intellectuals who define “Muslim culture” or “secular Muslims”; while Islam is naturally secular source and respect for plurality. They say that the West want to hear. Under the pretext of anti-fundamentalist struggle, their “Islamic studies” of the punch, and the denial of the amalgam serves Islamophobia.
The first pitfall lies in their alarmism, out of step with reality. Indeed, despite the criminal actions of small groups obscurantist mercenaries who benefit from chaos geopolitical situations, Muslim societies are opposed to this nihilistic ideology and the use of religion in politics. There are no Muslim world came under a fundamentalist wave.
There is no war of religions or civilizations. The Eastern Muslims refuse to see disappear the other communities, including Christians, who are a part of themselves. These are not strangers. They share common values in harmony with Muslims. The Eastern Church has survived much thanks to the will of the Christian communities want to continue to exist as an open sense of Muslim spirituality. In the land of Islam for centuries persecuted and sought refuge primarily Jews. There are 150 years the Emir Abdelkader in the name of Muslim humanism saved thousands of Christians in Damascus facing the sectarian madness.
The religious rigor, which usurps the name of Islam, fueling Islamophobia, but the causes are political and mafia. Furthermore, the Muslim world is not monolithic. Despite media uproars, fundamentalism in most Islamic countries is in decline. In Europe and North America, almost all Muslim fundamentalist and reactionary refuse temptation. Moreover, they contribute to the search for a new civilization, a new just world order.
Ending the deadly mix
The second major obstacle concerns the brutal assertion that Islam would have an intrinsic disease.A heinous shortcut that obscures the fact that the problem is followers, often manipulated, that betray the principles. Nothing should leave some doubt on the unjustifiable character of violent fundamentalism.
Demonize Muslims talk about ” The Islam of the disease “of “Islamism Islam as cancer , “” How to get out of religion? “of “Islam without submission” of ” responsibility ” , the need to ” declare null and void the violent verses of the Quran “ (2), are insults that spread the fatal idea that Islam can not be cleared violent actions advocated on his behalf.
How the Qur’an, sublime and inimitable Written book above all suspicion, which emphasizes mercy, Voice revealed, which soothes hearts, reactive reason, transforms the whole being of hundreds of millions of all nationalities, races and cultures, which produced the civilization of living together, Sufism, the sense of brotherhood, the right to self-defense strictly codified, could he suddenly become a source of indiscriminate violence and of extremism?
The drifts in a complex context of archaic regimes, market-World and the liberal-fascism, are human constructs that betray the monstrous. Amplified by those who seek to defile Islam.
For fifteen centuries fundamentalism was not the form of existence of Islam. Like the inquisition is not in the Gospel, terrorism and fanaticism are not in the Qur’an. Jacques Derrida says rightly:“Islamism is not Islam, never forget” (3).
We have a duty to continue the tremendous work undertaken by Ibn Rushd, Ibn Arabi, Ibn Khaldun, question, interpret and critique every praxis, every culture and every religion but reject the confusion is a duty. Make the amalgam is to justify all forms of aggression against Islamic countries and discrimination against Muslim citizens.
Criticism and self-criticism
Third pitfall, you must know the name of what we denounce the intolerable? Islam belongs to the world, but there is the risk of speaking from only the current values in crisis. Also, ignore the external causes of fundamentalism and the nested position undermines credibility.
With cynicism is asked to: ” do not waste time constantly accuse the West. “ (4) .While self-criticism and constructive criticism of others are inseparable, beating themselves and without substantive debate, appears to a category of intellectuals, hybrid and hasty, as the only way of redemption.
There is no question of retreat into victimhood posture. Maiss’il is not given the internal and external causes of problems, criticism has no chance of success; especially from the mass of Muslims, who knows that the violent fundamentalism is a boon to powerful aimed diversion and hegemony.
This is serious. Islamology aims to dispel fears, misunderstandings, allow to grasp the uniqueness of Islam misunderstood, articulate permanent and progressive. Not to pay in the pathological denigration. Jacques Berque has shown that it is possible to grasp the originality of Islam without reducing the prism of rationalism, traditionalism and sterile religious wars. Especially today religions are betrayed by usurpers, and abandoned by the modern world nonreligious or antireligious, intoxicated by power.
Religions have a bad reputation and can turn into a weapon of war due to lost, but how can we dare to speak in the new century “war of religions”, while everyone knows that this is primarily a political problem and ignorance?
Moreover, it is completely untrue to say that ” the question of the religious – the crisis of religious authority and the sacred – … was at the center of this event … (the Arab Spring) “(5). Countries Islam does not have a religious problem, but of democracy, good governance and stability.
The question of the meaning of the world, the interpretation of texts, the reform of the education system arise. But talking about religious war in our time is an intellectual crime. This is not the way that the West and the East, will see what eludes them.
The approach of some of the intellectuals of “Muslim culture”, so little scholarly Islamic studies, overlap those of notorious Islamophobic. The weight of the dominant ideology of the auxiliary product, blindness, like that of the closed tradition.
To contribute, through interreligious dialogue, intercultural and work “Islamics” to counter fundamentalism does not mean overwhelm Muslims and call for the sunset verses, abandonment of references that have been proven. But to say what “Islam” and the Abrahamic values.
Neither fundamentalism nor materialism
Be aware that even if the “neither nor” no reputable Muslim peoples aspire to the middle, a new common civilization to all peoples that respects the singularities. Neither fundamentalism nor materialism.
These extreme lack the consistency of the Qur’anic discourse and prophetic practice. Believers of all religions open, open humanists of all philosophies, are allies and not adversaries. The other evidence, there is no war of religion or civilization lies in the fact that worldwide 95% of victims of terrorism are Muslims.
All religions and cultures are facing the same challenges. On the one hand facing the dehumanization produced by a violent world, materialistic, scientistic and merchant, on the other face of fanatical extremism and violent sects that proliferate in this decadent and poisonous atmosphere. All violence contradict our ideals and religions.
The West, of free thought, the dictatorship of the market, of techno, ethics crisis, globalizing, beyond its gains, as says Pierre Legendre (6), has difficulty understanding and listen to other.
The Muslim world, concerned with spirituality and justice, is like paralyzed, weakened by extreme forces, those of decline and dilution. He is currently low in terms of political thought, the relationship between state and society. Interspersed, the East and the West, are their responsibilities.
Hope remains
The hope remains. Modern thinking, progressive criticism, philosophy of deconstruction, the dis-enclosure and psychoanalysis, but also liberation theologies and cultures of ecology and living together, challenge fate and the cruelty of the world Liberal, analyze the malaise of the culture and the crisis of humanité.Des thinkers working within the West to its overcoming.
Similarly, Muslim thought does not begin on a clean slate. The rampart for false Islams, minority, is the true Islam, the majority. The Muhammadan way reflects the primordial spiritual tradition for all humanity. Work true Islamic scholars and Muslim mystics, far from agitation, betrayal, gossip and petty accusations, leading the way of metamorphosis and educate the bel-acting.
The philosophy recognizes that ” the peoples “who have made history in the modern sense, are three: the” Jewish “, the” Greek “ and “Arab” (7) . Caught between extremism of all stripes, but able to renew fraternal ties, peaceful, discern, we will not succumb to weariness.
The dialogue, the direction of the open road and the median can loosen the noose in which extreme lock the world. Generate mutations, bring forth a new common world is possible. What has been lived for centuries “living together” despite clashes moments can still be tomorrow.
There is no war of religion and communities, but a thirst for meaning and justice for all. The otherness is wealth. In this year 2015, declared the International Year of Light by UNESCO, let enlighten us with the gift of the difference.
MC is a philosopher, author of ” Islam and the West “ed. Odile Jacob, 2006, and ” The Quran and our time “ed. Albouraq 2012
(1) The Emir Abdelkader ” French Letters “, ed. Albouraq 2003
(2) Abdenour Bidar, 01. 2. 2015 in the Express
(3) Jacques Derrida “Faith and Knowledge”, ed. Le Seuil, 2001
(4) A supra Bidar
(5) A supra Bidar
(6) Pierre Legendre ” What the West does not see the West “éd.Mille Nights 2004
(7) Gérard Granel “logical and Political Writings” , ed. Galileo, 1990
