Volume 3 Issue 2 May-June 2003

Cultural Serfdom and the Role of Muslim Students
Maulana Abul-Hasan Ali Nadwi

(Based on a speech given in the Union Hall of Leeds University before a well-attended meeting of students from India and Pakistan on Thursday 26 June, 1969)

WESTERN DOMINANCE

Europe came into significant contact with the Islamic nations at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Only then, after its slow emergence from the medieval gloom and ignorance of the Dark Ages, was Europe able to reach out to the East. It is true that certain Western powers had made inroads into certain possessions of the Turks, but these were of minor significance. The real impact of Western civilization was not really felt until one of the major Western powers attained a hold on India and Egypt-these, with Turkey, enjoyed eminence and authority not only in the Islamic East but in the entire world of that time.

India had pride of place-the populous Muslims there had wielded power for several hundred years with unparalleled pomp and glory; they had enriched different branches of Islamic learning and through intelligence and industry made their mark on the intellectual, political and social life of the country. But when, after the 1857 upheaval, the British government took over from the East India Company, it was thought that India would remain forever under the British Crown. Egypt was of consequence because it became the intellectual centre of the Arab world: it boasted the great al- Azhar University, the work of whose scholars and theologians, poets and writers, was deeply admired all over the Islamic world. The importance of Turkey needs no explanation: it was the center of Caliphate, the home of a capable, gallant and energetic people who played a crucial role in world history. When these three countries were introduced to the Western civilization, they entered into a new world, their history took a new turn.

Whether by good or ill-fortune these three countries all fell within the sphere of British political influence at about the same time. The British government took direct control in India; it made Egypt a protectorate and imposed there a Political Agent under the excuse of facilitating repayment of British loans to Egypt. Turkey was able to stay free of domination by the West but it fell victim to the political machinations of the British. It might be said therefore that the East and the West crossed through the power-quest of Britain: the injury sustained by the East was likewise, as historians acknowledge, at the hands of this island nation. The East came to realise its economic backwardness as well as its military and political weakness through subjection to Britain.

INDEPENDENCE

But all this happened in the middle of the nineteenth century. In the more recent past, a tidal wave of national liberation emancipated, in quick succession, country after country from the political domination of the West. The era of foreign domination has come to an end, officially, as it had to, for it was unnatural. It was unnatural that one country should continue to govern the affairs of another fertile and populous land, from across the seven seas and against the will of the people inhabiting that land; this was a phenomenon lacking in any inherent capacity for its own continuance. Had its continuance been further enforced it would, certainly by now have run its course. The British in this sense have proved themselves more realistic than the French-they were able to see the writing on the wall and 'granted' freedom to their subject nations.

Well, all Islamic countries have attained independence, India and Pakistan are tasting the fruits of freedom-you will say. But are they? What kind of independence is it where there remains intellectual, cultural, moral serfdom to Western civilisation? Those who have pondered the situation, studied it as it is, must see that freedom has in fact increased cultural bondage to the West, not removed it. Why so?

CULTURAL BONDAGE

Varied reasons have been advanced by different writers for this situation-I too have discussed the question at some length in one of my books on this subject. For the present we need not go into the reasons-for the moment let us face the fact, and fact it certainly is, that political freedom has deepened cultural enslavement. No one, unless slavish and immature, could favour the political bondage of his country; yet, is it not true that ultimately cultural bondage is the deeper evil of the two?

Neither India nor Pakistan, nor those Arab countries still to achieve full freedom, have as yet realised what it means to be free. They have inherited the cultural and economic structures previously imposed upon them-and live within them. Such is their dependence upon the West that liberation has meant only a change of hands at upper level of government, without any change in the springhead supplying the vital impulse to run these governments. We draw on the West not only for knowledge in specific subjects or for specific skills but for the entire system of education. We ape the West in manners and modes of living. What is worse we even depend for our moral and religious precepts on researches done by Western scholars: even the Islamic sciences are judged from the standpoint evolved by Western educational institutions. Orientalists are held in high esteem even in the East, and it has been accepted everywhere that what they say is the last word and requires no further scrutiny. The insufferable weight upon every Islamic people of alien, crazy concepts, of values that have no grounding in, that even contradict, the principles of Islam and the demands of its own conscience-this insufferable weight is provoking everywhere a crisis of identity, a deep anxiety, a grave malaise -mental and spiritual.

RULERS AND THE RULED

There is unremitting conflict between the men in power, whose hopes and ambitions (albeit they are Muslims still) are modelled on the West, and the people they rule. For the people are Muslim through and through: they believe in the Hereafter, in Paradise and Hell; they believe that they will have to render account for whatever they do in this life; they acknowledge that the life of this world, its pleasures and sorrows, is transitory; they are convinced that the ultimate end in view is preferable to immediate purely material objectives; that to eat, drink and be merry and have the fat of the land, is not the aim of life; they believe rather that the aim of life consists in being more humane, in living in awe of God, following the path of virtue and avoiding self- indulgence and sin, in observing the precepts of the Law revealed by God, in proper reverence for the teachings and example of the last Prophet of God, peace be upon him, in disseminating the message of peace and virtue to unbelieving humanity so that they too may learn and believe.

But the men in power have a quite different view of the world. Some of them doubt the truths of Islam; they doubt that there is a power behind what their senses reveal to them; they doubt that there is a life after death. They cannot believe that man can derive satisfaction and happiness from anything other than material assets and possessions. In consequence there is in the people they govern a growing unrest; the rulers have no commitment to the people's faith and so they waste their real energy, being unable to direct it to proper use.

Yet this energy is no slight thing. I told some Arab friends only yesterday that if our Eastern countries had a leadership properly aware of the inherent qualities of the people-of their strength, courage, enthusiasm, of their zeal and capacity for sacrifice, of their glorious past and present potentialities -there is no power on earth that could subdue them. This vigour and energy rests in the people's faith, in the power of that faith, a power to move mountains. Islam has still, for the people, the power to awaken their spirits to sacrifice-and they would sacrifice - their pleasures, their homes and possessions, even their lives, for the honour of God, of Islam and the Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him. No other cause could arouse in the people such enthusiasm, nor could that enthusiasm ever be subdued.

YOUTH AND THE WEST

But our bright young men and women leaving the gates of Western universities seem out of touch with the strengths of their people, they do not know even themselves-perhaps it is these young men and women that are addressed in the couplet:

Get within yourself, and discover life's secret, If you will not be mine, be
true to yourself at least.

They return from the universities equipped with the knowledge of history and geography, individual psychology and mass psychology - but they are blind to the temperament and ideals of the people to whom they return and who are the work-force, the hands and limbs, of their government. They remain unaware of the immense potential within them, of the spark that made them shake the entire world. Even now we have the same power-the power of faith. Alas, our leaders are either ignorant of Faith or unable to speak the language of faith. True they know the language that can appeal to intellect-though I doubt if these words ever penetrate even that; but the language that can touch the hearts of the people they know not. They cannot speak to their own people in words that may go deep into the heart and evoke the highest degree of commitment and sacrifice- the language of faith, the language of the Qur'an, the language of the Companions. How can they make their people understand if they cannot speak their language!

What a pity that Muslim leaders speak to their people in the idiom of the West! It is not the idiom of the West, but the uplifting language of faith and the Qur'an that the people who follow the Prophet, peace be upon him, can understand, which can inspire them to great and greater heights of sacrifice. Speak in their homes and streets, in their mosques and market-places; but let them know you believe what they believe, you cherish what they cherish, you are Muslims as they are. This can happen only if you speak the language of transcendent realities that have been cherished by the people for fourteen hundred years. Therefore I say to you, if you want to touch the hearts of your own people; you must use the language of faith.

I do not oppose modern arts and sciences-I congratulate you rather, and your guardians who sent you here. Learn as much as you can and do more: undertake original research, add to the store, for it is a great need of our time. But do not confuse means and ends. This walking stick helps me walk- it may even help me defend myself-but it cannot take the place of any objective to which I aspire. If I can get a better stick or if I am able to do without it, I shall then throw it away. So too is human knowledge a means.

And this argument of old and new, modern and ancient, in human knowledge, I have never accepted it. For me knowledge remains ever fresh and new. What you call ancient branches, ancient modes, of learning, were once modern. And what today are proudly presented as modern modes may become old and stale in fifty years-instead of with pride you may think of them, then, with shame. No-the old and new is meaningless quibbling. Learn what there is to learn, languages, arts, sciences, history, philosophy, and psychology- but treat these as only a means for achieving your goals.

The disintegrational friction rampant in our countries- which I consider entirely unnecessary and a great wastage of our energies-is mainly because our leaders are inhabitants of the West. Their bodies live in the East, their minds and souls in the West. Yet the people among whom they live, with whom their own destiny is linked can be moved only as Muslims.

You are not the heirs of some barbaric primitive tribe that has suddenly been confronted in its mental and moral darkness with the light of modern technology-you should not then gape open-mouthed at the marvels of electricity and aeroplanes or whatever. You are the heirs of a civilisation that once rescued the world from darkness and destruction, which led mankind. The Arabs, who were the first to embrace Islam, did save humanity when there was none to steer it out of dangerous waters. We have a fundamental difference with the West, we cannot believe blindly in it. It was only because of our own shortcomings and the shortsightedness of our leaders that the Islamic countries have lagged behind in education and learning. The West has overtaken us. Very well. It is no doubt our misfortune, but there is no denying the fact that it was we who showed the world the way to knowledge and progress. Civilisation was committed to our trust, and even today no people except the Islamic people have the capability to conduct humanity to safety. Witness how the West has managed world affairs.

THE WEST'S SHORTCOMINGS

The West has, without doubt, filled the earth with innumerable novel inventions that achieve what it was never thought possible to achieve. Some time back a European scientist proudly told an Indian philosopher that the West had produced aircraft that could cross the wide Atlantic in a few hours, and then narrated other victories of technology. The Indian philosopher listened patiently and when the other had finished, commented:

'You, you have learnt to fly in the sky like the birds (or better) and to
swim in the oceans like the fish (or better), but you have still not learnt
how to walk on the earth like human beings'.

The comment epitomises the achievements of the West-they are still groping in the dark about their ultimate objective.

The first and foremost thing one needs to know and should try to know is the reality of man-what is the ultimate end of human life; what should be done to realise it? The West has not and does not shed light on these questions; that is why its achievements are, finally, a sort of play-acting to avoid those questions. As any dramatic performance is enjoyable, so too the West's exploits on land or sea or in space are enjoyable. But then what? What is the result of so much technological progress?

I ask you, you should ask yourselves, have humans become more humane? Have they really come nearer to each other or to nature? Have love and compassion increased or have they decreased? Have they learnt to keep peace with one another? Does the individual find greater peace and contentment of heart? Have human beings drawn away from cruelty, lewdness, and ruthlessness; have they learnt not to take delight in subduing others, robbing, plundering, enslaving, humiliating their fellow human beings? Has it yet dawned on Western psyche that so far it has been treating the world as (to use Iqbal's phrase) a 'gambler's den' and, in the pursuit of profit or power, taken humanity through the catastrophes of two world wars?

Indeed it is well to ask what has been the result of technological progress, what will be its end? I ask you, what has human being gained by it? We see today ever more ill-will, more enmity, among individuals and among the comity of nations. Acts of flagrant injustice are carried out in broad daylight with no better reason than the power to do so. Take the instance of Palestine: the powerful nations of the West banished the inhabitants of that country to make it the national home of another people who had already been settled in other lands for many hundreds of years. All appeals to equity and justice have failed to affect the conscience of the powerful nations of the West. Do you still call their world a civilized world? Has any big power-America or Britain or Russia - the moral courage even to acknowledge the injustice done to the Arabs? How many people are there in this country with the courage to risk admitting that the promises made in their name to the Arabs was broken by their leaders, acting in their name? You will not find another like example of wanton injustice and immorality. But this is only a conspicuous instance of a weird and crazy destructiveness aimed by the West against the whole human race-animated by mutual jealousy and distrust the big nations are arming themselves with weapons capable of destroying the whole of humanity in a few seconds-the rest of the world's nations are the theatre in which this deadly confrontation is being staged.

America and Russia already have such an arsenal; China, Britain and France, are in steady pursuit of the same goal. It is as if some heartless stupid adult had given daggers to little children to play with, knowing that the children were all too willing, all too able, to attack and kill each other-God knows when one of them will try to give the other a death blow.

THE ROLE OF YOUTH

You belong to the Islamic nations and peoples-who have an ideal, a set of beliefs and convictions. Your people will never be content with the materialistic civilization of the West. By all means, gain what knowledge you can, but as a means, that only: by no means accept the worldview of the West as the last word, nor as an ultimate end. Nor think of the Western nations as guardians of the world. You are not right, nor have any right, to think of the Eastern nations as uncivilized peoples for whose enlightenment the West must act the part of ministering angel. No. Take from the West that which you need and your people need-do not deny to yourself, nor to them, your and their heritage. The West needs to learn from the East-a life of goodness and virtue is as much an essential for genuine success in this world as in the next; a knowledge of, a capacity to entertain, the idea that human life must serve a higher end, gives to human endeavor (to technology) its proper place and its proper dignity and measure. If you are unable to learn what the West has to teach, it will mean, at worst, a little delay in material progress, some inconvenience and a little more effort for the East to catch up with the West. This explains the difference between the worth of what the West possesses and the way of life chosen by your people in the Islamic East. And now I leave you to decide which of the two is worthier and more valuable.