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Secularism
Edited
by Mustafa Hamido
I.Secularism:
A term used for the
first time about 1846 by George Jacob Holyoake to denote "a form
of opinion which concerns itself only with questions, the issues
of which can be tested by the experience of this life" . More
explicitly, "Secularism is that which seeks the development of
the physical, moral, and intellectual nature of man to the
highest possible point, as the immediate duty of life - which
inculcates the practical sufficiency of natural morality apart
from Atheism , Theism or the Bible - which selects as its
methods of procedure the promotion of human improvement by
material means, and proposes these positive agreements as the
common bond of union, to all who would regulate life by reason
and ennoble it by service" (Principles of Secularism, 17). And
again, "Secularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life
founded on considerations purely human, and intended mainly for
those who find theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or
unbelievable. Its essential principles are three:
. The improvement of this life by material
means.
. That science is the available Providence of
man.
. That it is good to do good. "Whether
there be other good or not, the good of the present life is
good, and it is good to seek that good"
II. HISTORY
The origin of Secularism is associated especially
with the names of Holyoake and Bradlaugh. George Jacob Holyoake
(born at Birmingham, 13 April, 1817; died at Brighton, 22
January, 1906) met Robert Owen in 1837, became his friend, and
began to lecture and write articles advocating socialism or
co-operation. In 1841, with Southwell, Ryall, and Chilton, he
founded a magazine called "The Oracle of which was succeeded by
"The Movement" (1843), and by "The Reasoner" (1846). In 1861 the
publication of the latter was discontinued, and Holyoake founded
"The Counsellor" which later on, was merged with Bradlaugh's
"National Reformer". Owing to differences between Bradlaugh and
Holyoake, the latter withdrew from "The National Reformer,"
started the publication of "The Secular World and Social
Economist" (1862-64), and in 1883 of "The Present Day". Among
the political and economical agitations in which Holyoake took a
leading part may be mentioned those for the repeal of the law
prohibiting the use of unstamped paper for periodical
publications, for the abolition of all oaths required by law,
for the secularization of education in the public schools, for
the disestablishment of
the Church, for the promotion of the co-operative
movement among the working classes, etc.
Charles Bradlaugh
(born at Hoxton, London, 26 September, 1833; died 30 January,
1891) was a zealous Sunday school teacher in the Church of
England , when Rev. Mr. Packer, the incumbent of St. Peter's,
Hackney Road, asked him to prepare for confirmation which was to
be administered by the Bishop of London. "I studied a little",
writes Bradlaugh, "the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of
England , and the four Gospels, and came to the conclusion that
they differed" (Autobiography, 6). He wrote this to Rev. Mr.
Packer, who hastily denounced him as an atheist . His views,
which at this time were deistical later on reached extreme
Atheism . From 1853 till 1868 he wrote a great number of
articles under the pseudonym of "Iconoclast", gave many
lectures, and held many public debates. In 1858 he edited "The
Investigator", and in 1859 founded "The National Reformer".
Elected by Northampton as a member of the House of Commons in
1880, he refused to take the required oath, and was not allowed
to sit in the House. Re-elected the following year, he consented
to take the oath, but this was refused on account of his Atheism
. Finally, in 1886, the new Speaker allowed him to take the oath
and sit in Parliament. In 1858 Bradlaugh succeeded Holyoake as
president of the London Secular Society, and in 1866 enlarged
the scope of this association by founding the National Secular
Society, over which he presided until 1890, when he was
succeeded by Mr. G. W. Foote, the actual president. The
following words from Bradlaugh's farewell speech are
significant: "One element of danger in Europe is the approach of
the Roman Catholic Church towards meddling in political life. .
. . Beware when that great Church, whose power none can deny,
the capacity of whose leading men is marked, tries to use the
democracy as its weapon. There is danger to freedom of thought,
to freedom of speech, to freedom of action. The great struggle
in this country will not be between Freethought and the Church
of England ,not between Freethought and Dissent, but - as I have
long taught, and now repeat - between Freethought and Rome" .
In the United States,
the American Secular Union and Freethought Federation, presided
over by Mr. E. P. Peacock, with many affiliated local societies,
has for its object the separation of Church and State, and for
its platform the nine demands of Liberalism, namely:
. that churches and
other ecclesiastical property shall be no longer exempt from
taxation;
. that the
employment of chaplains in Congress, in state legislatures, in
the army and navy, and in prisons, asylums, and all institutions
supported by public money, shall be discontinued, and that all
religious services maintained by national, state, or municipal
governments shall be abolished;
. that all public
appropriations for educational and charitable institutions of a
sectarian character shall cease;
. that, while
advocating the loftiest instruction in morals and the
inculcation of the strictest uprightness of conduct, religious
teaching and the use of the Bible for religious purposes in
public schools shall be prohibited;
that the appointment
by the President of the United States and the governors of the
various states of religious festivals, fasts, and days of prayer
and thanksgiving shall be discontinued.
.
that the theological oath in the courts and in other departments
of government shall be abolished, and simple affirmation under
the pains and penalties of perjury, established in its stead;
. that all laws
directly or indirectly enforcing in any degree the religious and
theological dogma of Sunday or Sabbath observance shall be
repealed;
. that all laws
looking to the enforcement of Christian morality as such shall
be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the
requirements of natural morality, equal rights and impartial
justice;
that, in harmony with
the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of
the several states, no special privileges or advantages shall be
conceded to Christianity or any other religion; that our entire
political system shall be conducted and administered on a purely
secular basis; and that whatever changes are necessary tothis
end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly made .
Although the name
Secularism is of recent origin, its various doctrines have been
taught by free-thinkers of all ages, and, in fact, Secularism
claims to be only an extension of free-thought. "The term
Secularism was chosen to express the extension of freethought to
ethics" . With regard to the question of the existence of God ,
Bradlaugh was an atheist , Holyoake an agnostic. The latter held
that Secularism is based simply on the study of nature and has
nothing to do with religion, while Bradlaugh claimed that
Secularism should start with the disproof of religion. In a
public debate held in 1870 between these two secularists,
Bradlaugh said: "Although at present it may be perfectly true
that all men who are Secularists are not Atheists , I put it
that in my opinion the logical consequence of the acceptance of
Secularism must be that the man gets to Atheism if he has
brains enough to comprehend.
"You cannot have a
scheme of morality without Atheism . The Utilitarian .ht scheme
is a defiance of the doctrine of Providence and a protest
against God ". On the other hand, Holyoake affirmed that
"Secularism is not an argument against Christianity , it is one
independent of it. It does not question the pretensions of
Christianity ; it advances others. Secularism does not say there
is no light or guidance elsewhere, but maintains that there is
light and guidance in secular truth, whose conditions and
sanctions exist independently, and act forever. Secular
knowledge is manifestly that kind of knowledge which is founded
in this life, which relates to the conduct of this life,
conduces to the welfare of this life, and is capable of being
tested by the experience of this life" . But in many passages of
his writings, Holyoake goes much further and seeks to disprove
Christian truths. To the criticism of theology, Secularism adds
a great concern for culture, social progress, and the
improvement of the material conditions of life, especially for
the working classes. In ethics it is utilitarian ,and seeks only
the greatest good of the present life, since the existence of a
future life, as well as the existence of God ."belong to the
debatable ground of speculation" . It tends to substitute "the
piety of useful men for the usefulness of piety" .
III.Secularism and
islam:
Here is an opinion of
Dr.Yusuf
al-Qaradawi .He said in his book
Secularism vs. Islam
the following:
Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society
but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic
society. Christianity is devoid of a shari`ah or a comprehensive
system of life to which its adherents should be committed. The
New Testament itself divides life into two parts: one for God,
or religion, the other for Caesar, or the state: "Render unto
Caesar things which belong to Caesar, and render unto God things
which belong to God" (Matthew 22:21). As such, a Christian could
accept secularism without any qualms of conscience. Furthermore,
Westerners, especially Christians, have good reasons to prefer a
secular regime to a religious one. Their experience with
"religious regimes" - as they knew them - meant the rule of the
clergy, the despotic authority of the Church, and the resulting
decrees of excommunication and the deeds of forgiveness, i.e.
letters of indulgence.
For Muslim societies, the acceptance of
secularism means something totally different; i.e. as Islam is a
comprehensive system of worship (`ibadah) and legislation (Shari`ah),
the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari`ah, a
denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah’s
injunctions; It is indeed a false claim that Shariah is not
proper to the requirements of the present age. The acceptance of
a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the
humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine
guidance: "Say! Do you know better than Allah?" (2:140).
For this reason, the call for secularism among
Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a
basis for rule in place of Shari`ah is downright riddah. The
silence of the masses in the Muslim world about this deviation
has been a major transgression and a clear-cut instance of
disobedience which have produces a sense of guilt, remorse, and
inward resentment, all of which have generated discontent,
insecurity, and hatred among committed Muslims because such
deviation lacks legality. Secularism is compatible with the
Western concept of God which maintains that after God had
created the world, He left it to look after itself. In this
sense, God’s relationship with the world is like that of a
watchmaker with a watch: he makes it then leaves it to function
without any need for him. This concept is inherited from Greek
philosophy, especially that of Aristotle who argued that God
neither controls nor knows anything about this world. This is a
helpless God as described by Will Durant. There is no wonder
that such a God leaves people to look after their own affairs.
How can He legislate for them when He is ignorant of their
affairs? This concept is totally different from that of Muslims.
We Muslims believe that Allah (SWT) is the sole Creator and
Sustainer of the Worlds. One Who "…takes account of every single
thing) (72:28); that He is omnipotent and omniscient; that His
mercy and bounties encompasses everyone and suffice for all. In
that capacity, Allah (SWT) revealed His divine guidance to
humanity, made certain things permissible and others prohibited,
commanded people observe His injunctions and to judge according
to them. If they do not do so, then they commit kufr,
aggression, and transgression."
IV.secularism in the
arab world:
Here is an opinion in comparing between secularism and the
opposite term fundamentalism which is widely used these days.
A
major movement of secular writing in Arabic has been gaining
strength and depth over the last fifteen years, little reported
by outsiders.1 It is going into new directions, well
beyond a mere reaction to Islamic fundamentalism which grew
mostly after Khomeini took over in Iran in 1979. This article is
a quick overview of some of these recent writings that have come
out in Arabic.
Islamists in many Arab countries seem to have the upper hand,
and the coverage. News of fundamentalist violence predominate
in many Islamic countries. In Algeria, the open conflict with
the army-backed regime has reached new levels of atrocities, and
the authorities keep trying to prove their piousness with more
stringent conservative measures, not least in the cultural
field. In Egypt, the main guardian of Islamic norms in the
country and beyond, the al-Azhar Islamic Institution, is
increasing its offensive on any signs of cultural liberalism,
and is blamed by some of indirectly condoning the extremist
armed militants. In Lebanon, Hezbollah occupies a special
position as it is the main force confronting the occupying
Israelis in south Lebanon. In Jordan, the Moslem Brotherhood
movement has always been towing the line with the regime, but
more radical elements have been probed by the security services,
including Islamic 'mojahidin' who went to Afghanistan to fight
the Soviet backed 'atheist' rule in the eighties. Everywhere in
the Arab world, the Islamic discourse is being taken seriously
by all governments.
And yet, against this apparently one sided picture, there is a
growing reaction to the Islamist tide, notably what is dubbed
'political Islam', both intellectually and on the ground. This
is manifested by a spate of new books that are being seen more
and more abundantly on book stands in many Arab cities. Some
books by Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, the lecturer in Cairo university
who was facing a court case to have him separated from his wife
on the grounds that he is an apostate, and who had to flee from
Egypt following increased threats on his life, were even bought
in book exhibitions in Riyadh, capital of the Saudi strict
Islamic regime.
Secular ideas are, of course, not new in Islamic countries. Ever
since the call of the prophet Mohammad in the seventh century,
there have been doubters and secular writing. Some of its
authors are documented in Abdurrahman Badawi's book From the
History of Atheism in Islam,2 which first
appeared in the 1950s and has been reprinted many times since.
It brings to light some of the debates and writings that marked
certain periods of Islamic history, including the derisive
poetry of Abul Ala' al-Maari, the blind Arab philosopher who
lived in northern Syria in the 10th century.
In
more recent history, a movement of Islamic revival took place in
the second half of the nineteenth century, mostly as self
defense against the culture of the European colonialists. Sheik
Afghani and sheik Mohammed Abdo were among the best known
figures of this movement which adopted Ottoman and sometimes new
pan Arab positions against the West. A counter movement of
liberal writers emerged towards the end of the nineteenth
century on the pages of al-Muqtataf, the one time leading
scientific journal in Arabic, which was published in Egypt many
years before Scientific American, and lasted until the fifties
of the twentieth century. Farah Antoun and Shibli Shmayyel were
among the best known representatives of the scientific and
secular ideas. For their audacity in dealing with religious
subjects, texts of their articles and debates could not be
reprinted today in most Arab countries. They were joined by
other science and liberal writers, among them Yacoob Sarrouf and
Ismail Mazher who translated Darwin's Origin of Species. Ismail
Adham could find a publisher, in the 1930s, for his Why am I
an Atheist?3 Salameh Mousa, one of the first
proponents of socialism in Egypt early in the 20th century,
could discuss the Emergence of the Idea of God,4
and Mansour Fahmy could publish a thesis on the Women's Place in
Islam, in which he questioned why the prophet Mohammed excludes
himself from the rules he sets for everyone else, such as being
seen kissing his favorite wife during the fast of the holy month
of Ramadan.
Between the two world wars, two notable tracts appeared. Taha
Hussein, the blind doyen of Arabic literature and one time
minister of education in Egypt, published his controversial
reappraisal of Jahilieh (pre-Islamic) literature and poetry,
questioning the Islamic story of that period.5 Ali
Abdel Razek, himself Azhar educated, published in 1925 his
Islam and the Origins of Government,6 in which he
argues against the Islamic state and for the separation of
religion and civil society, drawing the wrath of Al-Azhar upon
himself.
After the second world war, national questions were predominant
in the area with many countries becoming independent from
western colonialism. Islamic movements, such as the Moslem
Brotherhood, joined in the liberation struggle, only to turn
against the new local rulers. In Nasser's Egypt and other Arab
countries, conflict between the regimes and the Brotherhood and
other more fundamentalist movements, such as Tahrir (liberation)
party, took more or less bloody forms and some of their leaders
were executed.
Following the deroute of Arab armies in the June 1967 war
with Israel, with its aftermath of shaking many long held
beliefs in the Arab world, there appeared many 'religious'
explanations of what happened. Stories of 'sightings' abounded
and there were calls for going back to God who had Moslems
defeated for straying from his path. Sadik al-Azm published in
Beirut his Self Criticism after the Defeat7
and followed it with his controversial Critique of Religious
Thought,8 in which he ridiculed some of these
religious escapist explanations, such as the sightings of the
Virgin Mary. He made history by fleeing for a while from Lebanon
to Syria for writing such a book. The norm was that Arab writers
ran away usually from their countries to Lebanon to avoid
intellectual persecution. A scathing and irreverent attack on
religious thought and official Islamic history came in the long
introduction by Lafif Lakhder to a translation of a collection
of Lenin's texts on religion.9 He criticized
'Stalinist' communist parties for their conciliatory attitude
towards religion and evoked Marx's dictum on starting criticism
on earth by criticism of the Heavens first.
The latest and probably the most radical movement of secular
writing to date took off mostly since the mid eighties. It was
sparked by the successful rise to power of Imam Khomeini in Iran
with his Islamic State rallying cry and the return to Islamic
fundamentalism. The wave of Islamic revival that swept the
region has not subsided yet. No regime or political movement
escaped its influence and fallout. Even conservative Saudi
Arabia had to tighten even further its adherence, or pretense,
to more fundamental tenets of Islam. In Syria, emboldened by the
trend and other internal factors, Islamists declared open
rebellion in the town of Hama
in 1982. It was crushed with brute force by the regime. Shiite
Islam, backed by Iran, became more organized and militant in
Lebanon. The droves of Moslem 'volunteers' who fought against
the communist regime in Afghanistan, trained and hardened, have
been a menace to many an Arab regime since, and beyond. In
Sudan, more Islamic integrism seems the only course for the
regime out of a war beleaguered and impoverished economy. In
Iran itself, the economic situation including the debt problem
is getting more serious and the oil income is tied to servicing
state debts for years to come. Against this background, some
social disappointment with what an Islamic state can deliver in
today's world is beginning to set in. Intellectuals, especially
liberal ones, are noting the trend and are coming out with their
points of view, relating the Islamic discourse to the social and
political problems besetting the countries of the region.
In
1984, the then lecturer at al-Najah university in the
Palestinian West Bank town of Nablus, the late Suleiman Basheer,
published An Introduction to the Other
History: Towards a New
Reading of Islamic Tradition.10
The book was based on a wealth of material unearthed for the
first time from the old Zhaheria Library in Damascus. It
consisted largely of references which belonged to the first
century and a half after Mohammed, and which were hidden or
ignored by the official orthodox history of Islam. The book had
a limited distribution outside scholarly circles, and especially
outside the occupied Palestinian territories. It caused its
author to be kicked out of the university. Illegal copies of the
book are, however, still circulating in Jordan and elswhere in
the Arab world. In Syria, Hadi Alawi has been reviving some
little known old texts that bring out a rich impious and daring
heritage in Islamic history.11 He is even directing
some of his criticism at the classical Arabic language, which he
claims was ossified by the Koran and its self appointed
guardians, the 'language clerics' of the Arabic language
academies, and calling for reform of its structures.
12
Farag Foda in Egypt started publishing his
controversial books around the same time. He espoused secularism
openly and directed some of his outspoken criticism at political
Islam and its theoretical and historical foundations, notably in
his widely read book, The Missing Truth.13 His
Islamic opponents accused him, as they often do their critics,
of covering his atheism with secularism, the two concepts being
synonyms according to them. He paid his life for his stand, at
the hands of a fanatic Islamist, shortly after the famous debate
with Sheik Mohammad Ghazali and others which took place during
the 1992 Cairo book fair.14 Instigation for the
murder goes back to some Azhar patrons, according to other
secular writers.
Hamed Nasr Abu Zeid, a Moslem scholar well
versed in the history and theology of Islam, is a formidable
opponent of Islamists in the interpretation of dogma scriptures
and their explanations. His books are being sold widely all over
the Arab world.15 He declined police protection
because, as he said on a visit to Amman, he will have to feed
the badly paid government guardians round the clock. Further,
they could not protect him against a determined fanatic anyway,
and he had to flee to Europe.
The book series Qadaya Fikriya in Egypt has devoted its
8th book16 which appeared in October 1989 to the
question of Political Islam, and the combined 13-14th book,17
which appeared in 1993, to Islamic Fundamentalisms. The editor
Mahmoud Amin el-Alem, a prominent scientist and political
thinker, collected articles from well known free thinkers to
discuss the notions of state and religion in Islam, and
fundamentalism in Islam and other religions.
Sayyed Mahmoud al-Qomni is another serious
challenger who is questioning the very foundations of the
Islamic historical and theological discourse as detrimental to
progress and development. He started with a book on the rise of
monotheism and the belief in eternity, Osiris,18
and studied the origin of Islam as the religion of the Hashemite
ancestors of the prophet Mohammed and tracing it back to the
Abraham of Arabia.19 Other writers and scholars in
Egypt are providing more evidence and analysis of the religious
phenomenon all the time in the cultural monthlies 'Cairo' and 'Adab
wa Nakd' and the Progressive party's weekly 'al-Ahali'. The
confrontation is taking new dimensions as the long running
weekly magazine, Rose el-Yousef, has dared the Azhar and the
government recently by publishing forbidden texts ranging from a
previously censored story from the Thousand and One Nights
to extracts of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.20
Other trends in digging up the Islamic story are appearing all
the time in many parts of the Arab world. In Syria, an
engineering professor and an observing moslem, Dr. Mohammed
Shahrour approached his study of the Koran from a linguistic
point of view, tracing the meanings of Arabic words as they
prevailed at the time, leading to new interpretations of much
received wisdom. His 500-page book, which took him 20 years to
complete, The Koran and the Book21 is making
publishing history. It has gone into its fifth printing of 5000
runs each in two years in Syria alone, not to mention separate
Lebanese and Egyptian editions. Another professor, Aziz al-Azmeh,
at Exeter university in Britain, who wrote about Arabic and
Islamic thought and Ibn Khaldoun previously, has produced a well
researched volume entitled Secularism from a Different
Perspective,22 reviewing the development of
secular ideas in modern Arab thought.
The History of God,23
written by Georgy Kanaan in Syria, traces the very idea of God
in Syrian ancient religions and mythology. Firas Sawwah, also
from Syria, has published a series of books dealing with the
origins of religious beliefs in the region. Mohammed Arkoun,
based in Paris, is analysing basic questions of Islam in a
series of books that are selling well in spite of their high
cost.
Others are looking at the foundations of Judaism and
Christianity, especially the claims to Palestine based on Jewish
mythology, and the relations between Judeo-Christian
Protestantism and modern Zionism. Lebanese historian Kamal
Salibi's controversial ideas about the origins of the Jews and
the prophets, have also wide circulation. More 'materialist'
scholars, analyse religion from a social point a view. This
tradition goes back to the Russian educated Palestinian, Bandaly
Jousy, who published his "From the History of the
Intellectual Movements in Islam"24 in 1927, to
the Lebanese communist Hussein Mroueh and the Egyptian school of
Marxists.
The secular scene is not limited to writing. Countless
discussion groups concerned about the state of the Arab
countries have religion on their agenda as one of the main
elements of the underdevelopment formula. Heeding the call of
Farag Fouda before his assasination, rationalist societies are
coming into being in Egypt and other places under different
names, unannounced officially. Some Arab intellectuals have also
issued a statement in support of Salman Rushdie's right to
publish and against Khomeini's Fatwa.
No
opinion polls concerning religious beliefs are usually allowed
in Arab countries, to judge the real spread of secular ideas. An
exception is the survey of living conditions of the
Palestinian society under Israeli occupation in Gaza, West Bank
and Arab
Jerusalem,
25 which challenges some widely held notions about
religious attitudes. It shows that the percentage of 'secular'
men is 20%, going up to an unexpected 30% among women, and that
it is on average higher than the percentage of Islamic
'activists' on the other end of the spectrum even in the Gaza
refugee camps. Secular is defined in the study as someone who's
life is not dictated by religion. The larger middle ground is
being held by simply 'observant' moslems. Partial surveys by
some university students elsewhere seem to confirm this
distribution of the degree of belief.
This growing flurry of secular writing should not, however, give
the impression that the Islamist tide in the Arab world is being
checked. The fundamental activists present an 'alternative' to
the impoverished masses with their slogan, 'Islam Is the
Solution', coupled with social welfare programs in many places,
not provided by the state, in addition to other various
activities for the masses. Islamic teaching as preached in
thousands of mosques every week all over the Arab world, as well
as the weight of history, still carries the day. The secularists
cannot hope to compete for the minds and souls of the masses,
without a change in social conditions, but their message is
being written and distributed and they are reaching countless
readers. Rewriting and re-evaluation of Islamic history,
including its secular aspects, is taking place as never before
in the contemporary history of Arab and Islamic countries.
Islamists are having to contend with this growing trend, in
addition to facing an array of other challenges: the growing
disappointment with 'Islamic states' such as Saudi Arabia, Iran
and Sudan, inter-Islamic strife as in Afghanistan, women's
movements, the economic failures and scandals of 'Islamic
investment banking', the excesses of 'Islamic' violence in
Algeria and elsewhere, the onslaught of new scientific findings
in astronomy and molecular biology, and to top it all, satellite
TV broadcasting and the Internet. So, as far as the belated
conflict between religion and secularism in Islam, it is not the
end of the story.
References :
1-Catholic
encyclopedia
2-Secularism
vs. Islam by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi
3-
Ghassan F. Abdullah ,Birzeit University in Palestine.
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