REFLECTIONS ON MULTICULTURALISM

If there can be one certainty in this whole discourse, it is that the age of the Nation as a perfectly homogeneous community, if it ever existed, has passed away. Like it or not, most modern nations are mosaic, and this mosaicism is even being enriched as time goes by. This is due to a two-fold reason: First, people—for benevolent or malevolent reasons—are ‘digging up’ that which can make them distinguishable as a ‘group’. This can be their essentially ‘supreme’ race, their ‘magisterial’ history, their ‘righteous’ religion, or their ‘archetypicality’. Second, besides the heterogeneities which have been retrieved from the collective memory, seminal heterogeneities are being de novo created, now more than ever before—gay-ism is the perfect example thereof. Notice that what I am referring to by gay-ism is gay as an essence, not an existence.

Where is all this driving us? And, how shall we choose to go from where we now stand?

Inter-culturalism, rather than multi-culturalism, is what I propose as the most likely portal to properly handle the ‘problem’ of the constitution of the modern ‘nation’ depicted above. Multiculturalism, advocating a society that merely recognizes and extends equitable status to distinct cultural and religious groups, is a sheer façade. What evolutionary (in the literal, not the ideological sense) lessons can we learn from such policy? How can we truly grow as persons and peoples? Honestly-speaking, little, if not nothing. We give applause when Milk is announced to be the Oscars winner. We become better, at best, at hiding our fears, non-understandings, and discomfort and, at worst, at hiding our prejudices, intolerances and mockeries, at least when we are ‘out there’.

On the other hand, 'interculturalism', or rather what I prefer to call ‘inter-other-ism’, requiring a genuine openness to be exposed to the world of the ‘Other’ (which is all-inclusive of anyone/thing that is not me), constructs; every encounter takes us one step further towards ourselves. Yes. The whole ‘problem’ metamorphoses into a blessing, an inexhaustible ‘mine’; the more we go there, the more we learn about ourselves through experiencing the ‘Other’. True—the ‘Other’ becomes a gift, rather than a hardship, which we become thankful for. Every time we are exposed to an element of a different disposition, attitude, culture, accent, orientation, or religion, a dialogue will ensue, both within ourselves and without, with that ‘Other’. ‘Interotherism’ seeks so many ‘nobilities’: Commonalities become both retrieved as well as created in our ‘memories’; complexities—those constituting our very human being-ness—become re-recognized for what they are, instead of this reductive commoditization we have been ‘enduring’, which has transformed us into ‘insipid, blatant wanna-be copycats’.

The ‘Other’ becomes a part of who we are—they become incorporated into our senses and sensibilities, about ourselves as well as the others. We embark on a quest for enriching our collective ‘phenomène’ of Ourselves, the Others, the Universe and God with our lived particularities. No more sense of superiority of inferiority shall exist, neither on the inside nor the outside; such scale shall cease to be viable. We will be willing, nay, encouraged, excited to bring forth our pasts and presents; our fears and ignorances; our dilemmas and skepticisms; our beliefs, thoughts and dreams; our ‘canons’. For there shall be one thing that truly matters: Unless we expand that space within ourselves by those spaces in our comrades in this world, we shall continue to be weak, no matter how strong we try to be; ignorant and petty, no matter how knowledgeable and wise we persevere to become.

The Theme of Man in the Qur’anic/Islamic Conscience—(2)

In the previous article, I explained that, according to the Qur’an, when God creates a thing (khalq); He at the same time puts into it, in addition to its qadr, the laws of its behavior (amr , “command” or sunnatullah “the way of God”), and that this should not to be confused with laws imposed ON Man but, rather, laws ingrained IN him—what the Qur’an calls “fitra” (30:30). Amr means that if X happens, Y must essentially follow. Man is not an exception, since these laws are ingrained in every created being to provide steadiness to this world which thus makes it livable. These laws are so steady that we can establish our perspectives in this world based on them. Interestingly, the fact that this concept is reiterated so many times in the Qur’an reflects how crucial it is that we properly conceive it (33:38, 62; 35:44; 40:85; 48:23; 7:54).

The only, yet major, difference in Man than other beings is that Man has been granted the freedom to choose his X’s, but not the Y’s (see the previous example) for him/herself rather than being dictated by God. Interestingly, this means that Man not only has the freedom to choose his/her own set of references, but s/he has been provided with potentialities that can equally make him/her a morally and aesthetically “perfect” man or a “Satanic” one (95:5).

But why is it easier for Man to “gravitate down to the Earth” (7:175-176)?

It is because of what the Qur’an calls “pettiness (da’f)” and “narrowness of mind (qatr)” which are effortlessly existent in Man. His/Her self-destructive selfishness and the greed to which s/he is a constant prey, his/her hasty, panicky behavior, his/her lack of self-reliance, and the fears that perpetually haunt him/her arise ultimately from the effortlessly existing narrowness of his/her mind (70:19-21; 17:100; 21:37; 17:11). Eventually, this results in Man being oblivious of the long-term consequences of his reactions—the Y’s. The Qur’an ubiquitously talks about this condition where Man becomes conscientiously “blind” and “deaf” despite being physically sound (7:179; 22:46)—Man becomes completely immersed in the externalities of this life, where s/he becomes a slave for anything and everything—societal traditions, fear, parental upbringing, political and religious authoritarians, people’s expectations, culture, the unknown, money, sex, time and place, etc. (30:7; 9:24) i.e. He becomes a conscientiously dead Man and a lively Satanic mosaic.He bci.e. S/He becomes so outward that s/he loses the realizability of the real moral and spiritual consequences of his deeds—Good becomes bad and vice versa; corruption becomes reformation and vice versa (18:103-5; 2:11-12). He loses himself in the middle of the chaos of the world that s/he does no longer remember what s/he once was. Indeed, this echoes strongly with what the Qur’an says in 59:19 that s/he who forgets God (i.e. his/her primordial, God-conscious nature and his/her responsibility of being a morally sound and autonomous being), God causes him/her to forget him/herself. For it is God’s “remembrance” that ensures the cementing of personality where all details of life and particulars of human activity are properly integrated and synthesized; “forgetting” God, on the other hand, means fragmented existence, “secularized” life, an unintegrated and eventually disintegrated personality, and enmeshment in the details at the cost of the whole. This is precisely Muhammad Iqbal’s distinction between Godliness and un-Godliness:

The sign of a kafir is that he is lost in the horizons;

The sign of a mu’min is that the horizons are lost in him.

It is in this sense that all evil deeds are very often termed dalal by the Qur’an. This term is usually translated as “misguidedness” which is correct provided that we clearly understand that misguidedness signifies primarily that “one will not go anywhere”, no matter how long or how hard one walks. That is to say, dalal, is sterile or vainless—what the Qur’an calls batil. Arguable, torture in hell basically consists of the realization that the mountains one had built have suddenly shrunk to a particle of sand and that all false Gods will come to nothingness (6:24;94; 7:53; 10:30; 11:21; 16:87; 41:48; 7:139; 11:16; 22:62; 29;67; 47:3). This establishes the equation of batil and dalal and their contrast with hidaya (getting somewhere) and haqq (the truth).

The Theme of Man in Qur’anic/Islamic Conscience—(1)

Last time, I purported that Man, and not God, is the center of the Qur’anic revelation. I also alleged that God is not an item among items; rather, He gives meaning to everything we perceive in this world. This does not negate that He is actually existent (although the form is intangible to Man), but his existence lies in His and not this world. His only existence here in this world is “within everything” here—that is what I previously called the “One-God Conscience”.

There has been much debate on what the axial nature of Man is. Is it the Mind/Intellect (2:31-33)? Or the Spirit (15:29; 38:72; 32:9)? Or the soul (nafss) (2:75; 91:7; 12:53)?

When one approaches the Qur’an in its relaying of the story of creation of Man/Adam, one can see that only two peculiar points stand out: (1) that God breathed in His own spirit into him (15:29; 38:72; 32:9), and (2) the fact that Man was the one and only among creatures who was able to “name things” (to describe their natures) spelling the disabled angels ( 2:31-33). It is actually quite important to think of these two peculiarities collectively—the ability to describe the nature of things cannot be exclusively intellectual; since when I describe something, I don’t actually tell how it truly is; but, rather, how I perceive it. In other words, my connection with the things of the world, which I describe, runs much deeper than a mere machinery ability to put labels on them. This process of describing the nature of things depends on your prior set of references, whether innate or acquired. For example, how I describe a lady depends on my very moral, aesthetic, intellectual and sentimental identities i.e. my Whole. This can range from erotic to beautiful, from insipid to funny, etc. And this is how I describe each and every thing.

But how does this relate to the story of God breathing His own spirit in Man? Well, strongly. But first, I may need to explain two terms frequently mentioned in the Quran—Qadar (to measure out) and Amr (command).

Qadar linguistically means “to measure out”. This is to be contrasted to the medievally-originated misinterpretation of the term as “divine predetermination of everything including man’s actions” (this topic is so demanding that it needs a whole post).And the idea is that while God alone is absolutely infinite, everything else bears the creaturely hallmark of “being measured”, i.e. having a finite sum of potentialities—even though the range of potentialities may be very great as in the case of Man. This measuring on the one hand ensures the orderliness of nature and on the other expresses the most fundamental, unbridgeable difference between the nature of God and anything else. It is precisely this belief in such sharing that is categorically denied by the Qur’anic doctrine of shirk—one has to be completely free from everything in this world when deciding on one’s set of references in life. Be it parental upbringing, social traditions, cultural influences, personal or social heritage, or financial references. Indeed, it is the freedom of Man from each and everything that essentially defines humaneness. It may be important to reiterate here what I said in the beginning—God cannot be considered as a restraint of Man’s will; God’s only existence in this world lies “within everything” including Man’s own conscience—that is what I previously called the “One-God Conscience” or primordial covenant with God (7:172). He is not an item among items but rather He gives meaning to everything. This perception of God can never get along with a tyrannistic/ authoritarian one. Indeed, this denotes lack of perfection since in this latter case, God is in need of satisfying Himself and He would get this from practicing authority on Man. Again, this externalizes God from Man, something I completely reject herein.

This idea relates perfectly to my discussion on the second term—Amr (Command). According to the Qur’an, when God creates a thing (khalq); He at the same time puts into it , in addition to its qadr, the laws of its behavior (amr , “command"). Again, this is not to be confused with laws imposed ON Man but, rather, laws ingrained IN him, what the Qur’an calls “fitra” (30:30).

The Theme of God in Qur’anic/Islamic Conscience

If one is to point out to the single central theme/goal in the entirety of the Qur’an; one would find it to be, rather than informing Man, transforming him. If one looks carefully and holistically into the text, one shall find that its very principal goal is not to inform Man about things s/he does not know, but to provide, for those who are in need, the ideal holistic conception o f this world, with Man as a part of that world. Even when the Qur’an informs Man, this is essentially a para-qur’anic goal. The fact that the Qur’an calls itself “The Reminder” itself avers this very conception of revelation.

Accordingly the Qur’an does not revolve around God, (since this is beyond the finitude of Man; since there is essentially a graspability dichotomy between the facts/realities of God and those of Nature/World, Man included) but rather almost exclusively around Man—at the end of the day, the Qur’an calls itself “guidance for mankind” (2:185), and if any apparently irrelevant themes are raised therein; they are, again, to serve the principal goal: transforming Man or, in other words, exciting his/her inherent religious conscience. For instance, talking about God’s perfectness in the Qur’an serves to give a relativistic meaning/definition for Man’s judgment/evaluation of central concepts of the moral status of Man in this world. Indeed, moral evolution is the dimension Man struggles with the most in this life e.g. justice, mercy, power, integrity, patience, etc. The Qur’an purely serves to connect with the inherent religious component of the complex human structure or what the Qur’an calls “Man’s pre-eternal covenant with God” (7:172).

It is also important to consider the fact that the Qur’an has not been revealed to “re-create” Man, since this essentially suggests a subconscious conception of more than one deity—one who creates and another who guides (sends revelations). Man was created as God wanted him/her to be, and all the consequences of this creation including the divine revelation are to connect to this very nature of Man. Indeed, it is very important to look at that with this holistic mentality—that is the act of creation, the primordial religious component of Man, the nature or what the Qur’an calls “signs of God” in this world and the divine revelation i.e. the Qur’an here. It is also important to remove the element of time from the whole equation—since this multitude of events occur(red) in the realm of God rather than that of Man, it is inaccurate to apply the laws of one realm on the other. Indeed, it is extremely important to bear in mind that Time is one of the laws of this very world (Sunnanullah), and not an absolute one.

But what is exactly this conception/paradigm that the Qur’an wants to infuse into Man?

This can actually be explained with two axial Qura’nic/Islamic pillars in mind—Taw’heed and Taqwa. These two principles are, interestingly, functionally overlapping. The paradigm can be named The One-God Conscience, which, qur’anically, must be the one and only filter (hence Taw’heed) through which Man looks through into the world, him/herself included (These two principles will be discussed in detail in later posts).

An interesting relevant Qur’anic story can be mentioned here. Many prophetic traditions (hadiths) purport that surat 112 equates one-third of the entirety of the Qur’an. Interestingly, the word “As-Sammad” linguistically means the immovable, indestructible, pore-free, crack-free rock (The one rock; As-Sammad). Only this One-God Conscience can give that value, unity and wholeness to life which makes thoughts and deeds ”inherently” worthwhile and meaningful; any partialization of reality, parochialism, or fragmentation of Man’s conception of this world is considered to be “Shirk”, which is the only unforgivable (or, at least, the least forgivable) sin (4:48), because this shirk paradigm simply destroys the whole order of Man’s journey in this world. These conceptual bifurcations of shirk in Man’s conception of the world, despite their apparent complexity, are extremely fragile from within. The analogy made in 29:41 clearly depicts this idea.

Reflections continue.