[JohnPattillo]

The Islamic “Enlightenment”

This is a most interesting book — surprising since its thesis is false. Its full title is: The Islamic Enlightenment, The Struggle between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times. The author’s thesis, variously restated, is this: “Through the characters in this book we will see that for the past two centuries Islam has been going through a pained yet exhilarating transformation—a Reformation, an Enlightenment and an Industrial Revolution all at once.”

Conceptual Confusions

The problems begin with the term “Enlightenment,” which the author, Christopher de Bellaigue, scarcely explains or defines. Who were its authors? What did they believe that differentiated them from their predecessors in the intellectual world? Why was the Enlightenment admirable, such that de Bellaigue wants us to credit the Islamic world with its own Enlightenment? None of this is presented, other than by infrequent phrases or a single sentence attribution to a person or thing as related to the Enlightenment. But in fact, he cannot point to a Locke, a Grotius, a Diderot or Voltaire, to any outstanding scientific thinkers on the order of a Newton or Galileo or Darwin, to a Royal Society or an Academy emerging within the Islamic world.

He discusses the genuine Islamic Enlightenment period in the tenth and eleventh centuries; he cannot show any equivalent of this in the modern era. The University Al-Azhar, an Islamic institution, and “Islamic sciences” (i.e., Islamic theology) are not equivalents, to put it mildly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Azhar_University).

He seems to think that everyone knows what the Enlightenment was; then he buries the term for the rest of the book.

Consequently, although he discusses a number of very interesting Islamic intellectuals who, in a better context, might have served as builders of a true Enlightenment, he cannot support the idea that these isolated thinkers and writers were part of a substantial movement properly called an “Enlightenment.”

To compound the problem, he immediately switches to a different term, “modernity.” I’m not sure that this is an anti-concept, or a package deal, although it might have some elements of those, but it is certainly a floating abstraction. By “modernity” he means “tolerance,” “empiricism,” “the internalization or diffusion of faith.” He does not explain the third item, but I think he refers here to the idea of religion being a private matter not allied with the state (as in the West).

These three components are non-essentials: if “modernity” is to be a stand-in term for Enlightenment values, it should mean 1. Reason and science, 2. The supremacy of the individual and the acceptance of non-coercive human relations.

His inexcusable conflation of Enlightenment with “modernity” shows up, for example, in the fact that many of the “modernizing” leaders and countries he discusses were motivated only by their desire to adopt modern methods of warfare (cf., e.g., the reactions to Napoleon’s victories, or the devastating Ottoman defeats in 1912). The Islamic countries were shocked by the ease with which European armies achieved crushing victory over Islamic forces. But to modernize for this reason does not mean that one has accepted an Enlightenment view of the world. Motivated by martial bloodlust and, even more to the point, the desire to save Islam from European cultural infiltration, the leaders of these countries exemplify the opposite of Enlightenment.

Another mistake de Bellaigue makes (a mistake shared by just about everyone today) is to equate electoral policies with the Enlightenment. I.e., If a country has elections, they are, therefore, a “democracy,” and this is a marker for “the Enlightenment.” But, as we know from ample history, voters often elect tyrants. Popular voting is no guarantee of any Enlightened policies whatsoever. Beguiled by the magic elixir of elections, country after country in the modern world has been delivered into non-Enlightenment tyranny.

Another example of his confusion: discussing Istanbul, he says, “In a little over a hundred years the most significant polity in the Muslim world had accommodated many of the elements of modernity” (p. 101). But “elements” do not make a compound without the chemistry of fundamental principles integrating them. A press, a legislature, industrialization – these are some of his elements. But they were not based on any widespread acceptance of reason or on a politics dedicated to protection of individual rights. Note that he says that Turkey had “accommodated” the elements, not grasped or accepted or integrated them. I.e., Turks had accepted these elements into the stew of their culture. This is not Enlightenment. (In this conceptual confusion we are led to the second main issue, below, the Fallacy of Composition, here writ large.)

Furthermore, de Bellaigue seems not to grasp that the West has been going through its own centuries-long war against the Enlightenment too. He cites turn-of-the-century Egyptian (Cairo) coffee-house intellectuals absorbing authors such as Schopenhauer and Poincaré, as if these philosophers are examples of advanced culture and Enlightenment instead of indications of the anti-Enlightenment forces gathering in the West.

In each of three primary centers of Islamic culture—Istanbul, Cairo, and Tehran—he discusses their various revolutions and political changes as if these were examples of “modernity” or Enlightenment. But none of these were based on any theory of individual rights or limited government; he admits that often they were socialist in nature.  Since when does the Enlightenment mean socialism? Whatever the deficiencies of Enlightenment thinkers, they do not deserve that slur.

A final thought here: de Bellaigue’s biggest obstacle to making his case is that an “Enlightenment” is a philosophical concept. To claim that one exists, one must show philosophical writings, arguments, philosophers all establishing the enlightened point of view. It is not a political concept. Political change follows from an Enlightenment. Therefore, to make his case, he should be spending, perhaps, three-fourths of the time on philosophy, and one-fourth on politics. In fact, he spends about one percent on philosophy (barely), and the rest on politics and social effects.

The Fallacy of Composition

De Bellaigue asks us to take a few examples as representative of an entire cultural movement. But because one writer (or a hundred writers) puts forth an idea, this does not mean that the culture to which he belongs has embraced that idea, much less transformed itself into a completely new way of thinking and living. And, if a thinker says something positive about reason on page one of a treatise, but affirms his approval of faith on page 100, it leaves completely unresolved whether or not this writer is truly an advocate of reason, or is just very confused, or even duplicitous. These facts are illustrated over and over again in the book: no sooner does he give an example of an Enlightened writer and his purported influence than the government of this writer’s country reverts to tyrannical, anti-rational policies and actions. The book is an extended example of the Fallacy of Composition, taking the part for the whole.

The single most important feature of the Enlightenment is the reliance on reason (as the thinkers of that era conceived it: primarily, sense perception and logic and induction) in contrast to what prevailed before, namely, faith and mysticism. De Bellaigue offers only a few Islamic writers in the nineteenth century, for example, who appear willing to accept reason. And most of his examples are very mixed cases, who appear radical only in the context of the extreme religious conservatism of their time and culture.

De Bellaigue himself recognizes that people he brings forth as exemplars of Enlightened Muslims often do not grasp essential Enlightenment ideas. For example, Rifaa al-Tahtawi spent five years in France, which “convinced him of the need for European sciences and technologies to be introduced into the Islamic world, but he chose not to enquire about the link between a free intellect and a free spirit, or whether the inquisitiveness he admired in the French people might be in some way connected to their quest for political liberty.” And Rifaa is one of the best writers de Bellaigue shows us. Rifaa says, “The inventions of our era, welcomed with favour by nations and kings, are the noblest fruits of the mind; successive generations transmit them and show them under forms still more perfect and beautiful.”  But even this is then justified with a religious basis in the Koran.

Another example of a thinker with very mixed ideas is the Turk, Namik Kemal. Here he states with some eloquence a thought about the opposition of force and mind: “You may crush in a man’s brain with stones, but is it possible to change those opinions of which he is persuaded? You may cut up a man’s heart with daggers, but can you detach from his heart those beliefs that he has ratified with his conscience? Speech, poetry, politics, taste, opinion—these are free and natural and it is not through compulsion that they can be changed, but naturally.” But this admirable expression is immediately undercut by this: “…but for him the freedom of human beings was the gift of God and there was no reason to import Europe’s secular basis for politics and social organization”; instead it should be based on Sharia.

A final major criticism: de Bellaigue repeatedly, throughout the book, falls back on a variant of historical inevitability to bolster his thesis. He seems to believe that when a writer merely introduces support for a free press, this leads to the entire country where the book is published “inevitably” adopting “modernity.” In good Hegelian fashion, history cannot be stopped. He calls this “the inevitability—of regeneration and modernity.” This is, of course, an absurdity. Try telling the victims of the Taliban, ISIS, or of the Kims in North Korea that the mere “introduction” of a “modern” idea is enough to make its enactment inevitable.

Finally, on the last page, he recapitulates the primary flaws in his book succinctly: “I hope I have demonstrated that many of the ideas, such as the value of the individual and the benefits of law, science, and representative government, were adopted rapidly—so seamlessly, in fact, that they are now authentic features of Islamic thought and society.” But this is just what he did not do. The “value of the individual” has scarcely been mentioned, and not one of the thinkers he discusses puts forth a comprehensive or persuasive statement of this Enlightenment idea (so far as we know from de Bellaigues’ citations).

“Benefits of science” are no indication of truly valuing the human mind or valuing human well-being if they only are motivated by desire for military power against perceived enemies.  As the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar stated, “The priorities of Muslims are ‘to master all knowledge of the world and the hereafter, not least the technology of modern weapons to strengthen and defend the community and faith.'” He added that “mastery over modern weaponry is important to prepare for any eventuality or prejudices of the others, although Islam is a religion of peace” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Azhar_University#Religious_ideology).

The “benefits of law” in Islamic countries rest today on very shaky pillars. “Representative government” (why does de Bellaigue suddenly abandon the word, “democracy”?) is no guarantor of Enlightenment ideals.  And, finally, “Islamic thought” and “Islamic society” are two different things here being conflated. Where are the modern “Islamic thinkers” who today advance these ideas? Significantly, de Bellaigue stops his narrative with the very modern period following the Iranian Revolution. At that historical point his thesis implodes.

Far from demonstrating his thesis, de Bellaigue in fact refutes it.

In spite of this, de Bellaigue’s book is a fascinating window on the world of Islamic thinkers and their societies from the last two centuries. The window is fascinating: the conclusions are just wrong.

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