Faith versus tradition in Islam
-
0:01 - 0:05A few weeks ago, I had a chance
to go to Saudi Arabia. -
0:05 - 0:08And the first thing
I wanted to do as a Muslim -
0:08 - 0:11was to go to Mecca and visit the Kaaba,
-
0:11 - 0:12the holiest shrine of Islam.
-
0:12 - 0:15And I did that;
I put on my ritualistic dress, -
0:15 - 0:17I went to the holy mosque,
-
0:17 - 0:18I did my prayers,
-
0:18 - 0:20I observed all the rituals.
-
0:21 - 0:24And meanwhile,
besides all the spirituality, -
0:24 - 0:27there was one mundane detail in the Kaaba
-
0:27 - 0:28that was pretty interesting for me:
-
0:28 - 0:30there was no separation of sexes.
-
0:31 - 0:34In other words, men and women
were worshiping all together. -
0:35 - 0:40They were together while doing tawāf,
the circular walk around the Kaaba. -
0:40 - 0:41They were together while praying.
-
0:41 - 0:45And if you wonder
why this is interesting at all, -
0:45 - 0:47you have to see the rest of Saudi Arabia,
-
0:47 - 0:52because this a country which is strictly
divided between the sexes. -
0:53 - 0:54In other words:
-
0:54 - 0:58as men, you are simply not supposed to be
in the same physical space -
0:58 - 0:59with women.
-
0:59 - 1:01And I noticed this in a very funny way.
-
1:01 - 1:04I left the Kaaba to eat something
in downtown Mecca. -
1:04 - 1:07I headed to the nearest
Burger King restaurant. -
1:07 - 1:11And I went there -- I noticed
that there was a male section, -
1:11 - 1:13which is carefully separated
from the female section. -
1:13 - 1:16I had to pay, order and eat
in the male section. -
1:17 - 1:18"It's funny," I said to myself,
-
1:19 - 1:21"You can mingle with the opposite sex
at the holy Kaaba, -
1:21 - 1:23but not at the Burger King?"
-
1:23 - 1:24(Laughter)
-
1:24 - 1:26Quite, quite ironic.
-
1:26 - 1:28Ironic, and it's also,
I think, quite telling, -
1:28 - 1:32because the Kaaba
and the rituals around it -
1:32 - 1:35are relics from the earliest
phase of Islam, -
1:35 - 1:36that of prophet Muhammad.
-
1:36 - 1:40And if there was a big emphasis
at the time to separate men from women, -
1:40 - 1:43the rituals around the Kaaba
could have been designed accordingly. -
1:43 - 1:46But apparently, that was not
an issue at the time. -
1:46 - 1:47So the rituals came that way.
-
1:47 - 1:50This is also, I think,
confirmed by the fact -
1:50 - 1:53that the seclusion of women
in creating a divided society -
1:53 - 1:57is something that you also
do not find in the Koran -- -
1:57 - 2:00the very core of Islam,
the divine core of Islam -- -
2:00 - 2:02that all Muslims, equally myself, believe.
-
2:04 - 2:05And I think it's not an accident
-
2:05 - 2:09that you don't find this idea
in the very origin of Islam, -
2:09 - 2:13because many scholars who study
the history of Islamic thought -- -
2:13 - 2:15Muslim scholars or Westerners --
-
2:15 - 2:19think that, actually, the practice
of dividing men and women physically -
2:19 - 2:23came as a later development in Islam,
-
2:23 - 2:26as Muslims adopted
some preexisting cultures -
2:26 - 2:27and traditions of the Middle East.
-
2:27 - 2:32Seclusion of women was actually
a Byzantine and Persian practice, -
2:32 - 2:36and Muslims adopted it
and made it a part of their religion. -
2:36 - 2:40Actually, this is just one example
of a much larger phenomenon. -
2:40 - 2:44What we call today Islamic law,
and especially Islamic culture -- -
2:44 - 2:46and there are many Islamic
cultures, actually; -
2:46 - 2:48the one in Saudi Arabia is much different
-
2:48 - 2:51from where I come
from in Istanbul or Turkey. -
2:51 - 2:54But still, if you're going to speak
about a Muslim culture, -
2:54 - 2:58this has a core: the divine message
which began the religion. -
2:58 - 3:03But then many traditions, perceptions,
practices were added on top of it. -
3:03 - 3:07And these were traditions
of the Middle East medieval traditions. -
3:07 - 3:11There are two important
messages, or two lessons, -
3:11 - 3:13to take from that reality.
-
3:14 - 3:15First of all, Muslims --
-
3:15 - 3:19pious, conservative, believing Muslims
who want to be loyal to their religion -- -
3:19 - 3:22should not cling onto everything
in their culture, -
3:22 - 3:24thinking that that's divinely mandated.
-
3:24 - 3:27Maybe some things are bad traditions
and they need to be changed. -
3:27 - 3:31On the other hand, the Westerners
who look at Islamic culture -
3:31 - 3:33and see some troubling aspects
-
3:33 - 3:36should not readily conclude
that this is what Islam ordains. -
3:36 - 3:40Maybe it's a Middle Eastern culture
that became confused with Islam. -
3:41 - 3:44There is a practice
called female circumcision. -
3:44 - 3:46It's something terrible, horrible.
-
3:46 - 3:50It is basically an operation
to deprive women of sexual pleasure. -
3:51 - 3:53And Westerners --
-
3:53 - 3:56Europeans or Americans --
who didn't know about this before, -
3:56 - 3:58[saw] this practice
-
3:58 - 4:02within some of the Muslim communities
who migrated from North Africa. -
4:02 - 4:03And they've thought,
-
4:04 - 4:08"Oh, what a horrible religion that is,
which ordains something like that." -
4:08 - 4:10But when you look at female circumcision,
-
4:10 - 4:13you see that it has
nothing to do with Islam; -
4:13 - 4:15it's just a North African practice
which predates Islam. -
4:15 - 4:17It was there for thousands of years.
-
4:17 - 4:21And, quite tellingly,
some Muslims do practice it -- -
4:21 - 4:23the Muslims in North Africa,
not in other places. -
4:23 - 4:27But also the non-Muslim
communities of North Africa -- -
4:27 - 4:31the animists, some Christians
and even a Jewish tribe in North Africa -- -
4:31 - 4:33are known to practice female circumcision.
-
4:34 - 4:38So what might look like a problem
within Islamic faith -
4:38 - 4:42might turn out to be a tradition
that Muslims have subscribed to. -
4:42 - 4:45The same thing can be said
for honor killings, -
4:45 - 4:47which is a recurrent theme
in the Western media -- -
4:47 - 4:50and which is, of course,
a horrible tradition. -
4:50 - 4:53And we see, truly, in some Muslim
communities, that tradition. -
4:54 - 4:57But in the non-Muslim communities
of the Middle East, -
4:57 - 4:59such as some Christian communities,
Eastern communities, -
4:59 - 5:01you see the same practice.
-
5:01 - 5:03We had a tragic case of an honor killing
-
5:03 - 5:07within Turkey's Armenian community
just a few months ago. -
5:07 - 5:09Now, these are things
about general culture, -
5:09 - 5:12but I'm also very much
interested in political culture -
5:12 - 5:14and whether liberty
and democracy is appreciated, -
5:14 - 5:17or whether there's an authoritarian
political culture -
5:17 - 5:20in which the state is supposed
to impose things on the citizens. -
5:21 - 5:23And it is no secret
-
5:23 - 5:25that many Islamic movements
in the Middle East -
5:25 - 5:26tend to be authoritarian,
-
5:27 - 5:29and some of the so-called
"Islamic regimes," -
5:29 - 5:34such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and the worst
case, the Taliban in Afghanistan, -
5:34 - 5:37they are pretty authoritarian --
no doubt about that. -
5:37 - 5:38For example, in Saudi Arabia,
-
5:38 - 5:41there is a phenomenon
called the religious police. -
5:41 - 5:45And the religious police imposes
the supposed Islamic way of life -
5:45 - 5:47on every citizen, by force --
-
5:47 - 5:50like, women are forced
to cover their heads -- -
5:50 - 5:53wear the hijab, the Islamic head cover.
-
5:54 - 5:55Now that is pretty authoritarian,
-
5:55 - 5:58and that's something
I'm very much critical of. -
5:59 - 6:02But when I realized that the non-Muslim,
-
6:02 - 6:06or the non-Islamic-minded
actors in the same geography -
6:06 - 6:08sometimes behaved similarly,
-
6:08 - 6:10I realized that the problem maybe lies
-
6:10 - 6:13in the political culture
of the whole region, not just Islam. -
6:13 - 6:15Let me give you an example:
in Turkey, where I come from, -
6:15 - 6:17which is a very hyper-secular republic,
-
6:18 - 6:23until very recently, we used to have
what I call "secularism police," -
6:23 - 6:27which would guard the universities
against veiled students. -
6:28 - 6:32In other words, they would force students
to uncover their heads. -
6:32 - 6:35And I think forcing people
to uncover their head -
6:35 - 6:38is as tyrannical as forcing
them to cover it. -
6:38 - 6:39It should be the citizen's decision.
-
6:39 - 6:41But when I saw that, I said,
-
6:41 - 6:45"Maybe the problem is just
an authoritarian culture in the region, -
6:45 - 6:48and some Muslims
have been influenced by that. -
6:48 - 6:51But the secular-minded people
can be influenced by that. -
6:51 - 6:53Maybe it's a problem
of the political culture, -
6:53 - 6:56and we have to think about
how to change that political culture." -
6:57 - 7:00Now, these are some of the questions
I had in mind a few years ago -
7:01 - 7:02when I sat down to write a book.
-
7:03 - 7:05I said, "Well, I will do research
-
7:05 - 7:10about how Islam actually
came to be what it is today, -
7:10 - 7:13and what roads were taken
and what roads could have been taken." -
7:14 - 7:18The name of the book is "Islam Without
Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty." -
7:18 - 7:20And as the subtitle suggests,
-
7:20 - 7:24I looked at Islamic tradition
and the history of Islamic thought -
7:24 - 7:26from the perspective
of individual liberty, -
7:26 - 7:30and I tried to find what are the strengths
with regard to individual liberty. -
7:30 - 7:32And there are strengths
in Islamic tradition. -
7:32 - 7:34Islam, actually,
as a monotheistic religion, -
7:34 - 7:38which defined man
as a responsible agent by itself, -
7:38 - 7:41created the idea of the individual
in the Middle East, -
7:41 - 7:45and saved it from the communitarianism,
the collectivism of the tribe. -
7:45 - 7:47You can derive many ideas from that.
-
7:47 - 7:50But besides that, I also saw
problems within Islamic tradition. -
7:51 - 7:52But one thing was curious:
-
7:52 - 7:56most of those problems turn out to be
problems that emerged later, -
7:56 - 7:59not from the very divine core
of Islam, the Koran, -
7:59 - 8:02but from, again,
traditions and mentalities, -
8:02 - 8:06or the interpretations of the Koran
that Muslims made in the Middle Ages. -
8:06 - 8:09The Koran, for example,
doesn't condone stoning. -
8:09 - 8:11There is no punishment for apostasy.
-
8:11 - 8:14There is no punishment
for personal sins like drinking. -
8:15 - 8:18These things which make Islamic law,
-
8:18 - 8:21the troubling aspects of Islamic law,
-
8:21 - 8:24were developed into later
interpretations of Islam. -
8:24 - 8:26Which means that Muslims can, today,
-
8:26 - 8:28look at those things and say,
-
8:28 - 8:32"Well, the core of our religion
is here to stay with us. -
8:32 - 8:34It's our faith,
and we will be loyal to it. -
8:34 - 8:36But we can change how it was interpreted,
-
8:36 - 8:39because it was interpreted
according to the time -
8:39 - 8:40and milieu in the Middle Ages.
-
8:40 - 8:42Now we're living in a different world,
-
8:42 - 8:44with different values
and political systems." -
8:44 - 8:47That interpretation
is quite possible and feasible. -
8:47 - 8:51Now, if I were the only person
thinking that way, -
8:51 - 8:52we would be in trouble.
-
8:53 - 8:55But that's not the case at all.
-
8:56 - 8:59Actually, from the 19th century on,
-
8:59 - 9:05there's a whole revisionist, reformist --
whatever you call it -- tradition, -
9:05 - 9:07a trend in Islamic thinking.
-
9:07 - 9:09These were intellectuals or statesmen
-
9:10 - 9:12of the 19th century,
and later, 20th century, -
9:12 - 9:14which looked at Europe, basically,
-
9:14 - 9:17and saw that Europe
has many things to admire, -
9:17 - 9:18like science and technology.
-
9:18 - 9:21But not just that;
also democracy, parliament, -
9:21 - 9:23the idea of representation,
-
9:23 - 9:24the idea of equal citizenship.
-
9:24 - 9:29These Muslim thinkers, intellectuals
and statesmen of the 19th century, -
9:29 - 9:31looked at Europe,
saw these things, and said, -
9:31 - 9:33"Why don't we have these things?"
-
9:33 - 9:35And they looked back at Islamic tradition,
-
9:35 - 9:38and saw that there are
problematic aspects, -
9:38 - 9:41but they're not the core of the religion,
so maybe they can be re-understood, -
9:41 - 9:44and the Koran can be reread
in the modern world. -
9:44 - 9:49That trend is generally called
Islamic modernism, -
9:49 - 9:52and it was advanced
by intellectuals and statesmen, -
9:52 - 9:54not just as an intellectual idea, though,
-
9:54 - 9:56but also as a political program.
-
9:56 - 9:58And that's why, actually,
in the 19th century, -
9:58 - 10:02the Ottoman Empire, which then
covered the whole Middle East, -
10:02 - 10:04made very important reforms --
-
10:04 - 10:09reforms like giving Christians and Jews
an equal citizenship status, -
10:09 - 10:10accepting a constitution,
-
10:10 - 10:12accepting a representative parliament,
-
10:12 - 10:15advancing the idea of freedom of religion.
-
10:15 - 10:18That's why the Ottoman Empire,
in its last decades, -
10:18 - 10:22turned into a proto-democracy,
a constitutional monarchy, -
10:22 - 10:26and freedom was a very important
political value at the time. -
10:26 - 10:27Similarly, in the Arab world,
-
10:27 - 10:31there was what the great Arab
historian Albert Hourani defines -
10:31 - 10:32as the Liberal Age.
-
10:32 - 10:35He has a book, "Arabic Thought
in the Liberal Age," -
10:35 - 10:39and the Liberal Age, he defines
as 19th century and early 20th century. -
10:40 - 10:44Quite notably, this was the dominant trend
in the early 20th century -
10:44 - 10:47among Islamic thinkers
and statesmen and theologians. -
10:48 - 10:52But there is a very curious pattern
in the rest of the 20th century, -
10:52 - 10:56because we see a sharp decline
in this Islamic modernist line. -
10:56 - 10:58And in place of that,
-
10:58 - 11:04what happens is that Islamism grows
as an ideology which is authoritarian, -
11:05 - 11:06which is quite strident,
-
11:06 - 11:09which is quite anti-Western,
-
11:09 - 11:13and which wants to shape society
based on a utopian vision. -
11:13 - 11:16So Islamism is the problematic idea
-
11:16 - 11:20that really created a lot of problems
in the 20th-century Islamic world. -
11:20 - 11:24And even the very extreme
forms of Islamism -
11:24 - 11:26led to terrorism in the name of Islam --
-
11:27 - 11:30which is actually a practice
that I think is against Islam, -
11:30 - 11:33but some, obviously, extremists,
did not think that way. -
11:33 - 11:34But there is a curious question:
-
11:34 - 11:39If Islamic modernism was so popular
in the 19th and early 20th centuries, -
11:39 - 11:44why did Islamism become so popular
in the rest of the 20th century? -
11:44 - 11:47And this is a question, I think,
which needs to be discussed carefully. -
11:47 - 11:50In my book, I went
into that question as well. -
11:50 - 11:53And actually, you don't need to be
a rocket scientist to understand that. -
11:53 - 11:56Just look at the political
history of the 20th century, -
11:56 - 11:58and you see things have changed a lot.
-
11:58 - 11:59The contexts have changed.
-
11:59 - 12:01In the 19th century,
-
12:01 - 12:03when Muslims were looking
at Europe as an example, -
12:03 - 12:06they were independent;
they were more self-confident. -
12:06 - 12:09In the early 20th century,
with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, -
12:09 - 12:12the whole Middle East was colonized.
-
12:12 - 12:15And when you have colonialization,
what do you have? -
12:15 - 12:16You have anti-colonialization.
-
12:16 - 12:19So Europe is not just
an example now to emulate; -
12:19 - 12:22it's an enemy to fight and to resist.
-
12:23 - 12:27So there's a very sharp decline
in liberal ideas in the Muslim world, -
12:27 - 12:32and what you see is more of a defensive,
rigid, reactionary strain, -
12:32 - 12:34which led to Arab socialism,
Arab nationalism -
12:34 - 12:37and ultimately to the Islamist ideology.
-
12:37 - 12:40And when the colonial period ended,
-
12:40 - 12:45what you had in place of that
was generally secular dictators, -
12:45 - 12:46which say they're a country,
-
12:47 - 12:49but did not bring
democracy to the country, -
12:49 - 12:50and established their own dictatorship.
-
12:50 - 12:54And I think the West,
at least some powers in the West, -
12:54 - 12:56particularly the United States,
-
12:56 - 12:58made the mistake of supporting
those secular dictators, -
12:58 - 13:01thinking that they were more
helpful for their interests. -
13:02 - 13:05But the fact that those dictators
suppressed democracy in their country -
13:05 - 13:08and suppressed Islamic
groups in their country -
13:08 - 13:10actually made the Islamists
much more strident. -
13:10 - 13:11So in the 20th century,
-
13:11 - 13:14you had this vicious cycle
in the Arab world, -
13:14 - 13:17where you have a dictatorship
suppressing its own people, -
13:17 - 13:18including the Islamic pious,
-
13:18 - 13:21and they're reacting in reactionary ways.
-
13:22 - 13:23There was one country, though,
-
13:23 - 13:28which was able to escape or stay away
from that vicious cycle. -
13:29 - 13:31And that's the country
where I come from, Turkey. -
13:32 - 13:34Turkey has never been colonized,
-
13:34 - 13:38so it remained as an independent nation
after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. -
13:38 - 13:39That's one thing to remember;
-
13:39 - 13:42it did not share
the same anti-colonial hype -
13:42 - 13:45that you can find in some other
countries in the region. -
13:45 - 13:46Secondly, and most importantly,
-
13:46 - 13:48Turkey became a democracy
-
13:48 - 13:50earlier than any of the countries
we are talking about. -
13:50 - 13:53In 1950, Turkey had the first
free and fair elections, -
13:53 - 13:56which ended the more
autocratic secular regime, -
13:56 - 13:57which was in the beginning of Turkey.
-
13:57 - 13:59And the pious Muslims in Turkey
-
13:59 - 14:04saw that they could change
the political system by voting. -
14:04 - 14:07And they realized that democracy
is something compatible with Islam, -
14:07 - 14:09compatible with their values,
-
14:09 - 14:11and they've been supportive of democracy.
-
14:11 - 14:12That's an experience
-
14:12 - 14:15that not every other Muslim nation
in the Middle East had, -
14:15 - 14:16until very recently.
-
14:16 - 14:19Secondly, in the past two decades,
-
14:19 - 14:21thanks to globalization,
thanks to the market economy, -
14:21 - 14:24thanks to the rise of a middle class,
-
14:24 - 14:29we in Turkey see what I define
as a rebirth of Islamic modernism. -
14:29 - 14:33Now, there's the more urban
middle-class pious Muslims -
14:33 - 14:35who, again, look at their tradition
-
14:35 - 14:38and see that there are
some problems in the tradition, -
14:38 - 14:41and understand that they need to be
changed and questioned and reformed. -
14:41 - 14:45And they look at Europe,
and see an example, again, to follow. -
14:45 - 14:48They see an example, at least,
to take some inspiration from. -
14:48 - 14:52That's why the EU process,
Turkey's effort to join the EU, -
14:52 - 14:55has been supported inside Turkey
by the Islamic pious, -
14:56 - 14:58while some secular nationalists
were against it. -
14:59 - 15:01Well, that process
has been a little bit blurred -
15:01 - 15:03by the fact that not all
Europeans are that welcoming, -
15:03 - 15:05but that's another discussion.
-
15:05 - 15:09But the pro-EU sentiment
in Turkey in the past decade -
15:09 - 15:13has become almost an Islamic cause
and supported by the Islamic liberals -
15:13 - 15:15and the secular liberals
as well, of course. -
15:15 - 15:16And thanks to that,
-
15:16 - 15:20Turkey has been able
to reasonably create a success story -
15:20 - 15:25in which Islam and the most pious
understandings of Islam -
15:25 - 15:27have become part of the democratic game,
-
15:27 - 15:31and even contributes to the democratic
and economic advance of the country. -
15:31 - 15:35And this has been
an inspiring example right now -
15:35 - 15:37for some of the Islamic movements
-
15:37 - 15:39or some of the countries
in the Arab world. -
15:39 - 15:41You must have all seen the Arab Spring,
-
15:41 - 15:44which began in Tunis and in Egypt.
-
15:44 - 15:48Arab masses just revolted
against their dictators. -
15:49 - 15:52They were asking for democracy;
they were asking for freedom. -
15:52 - 15:55And they did not turn out to be
the Islamist boogeyman -
15:55 - 15:59that the dictators were always using
to justify their regime. -
16:00 - 16:02They said, "We want freedom;
we want democracy. -
16:02 - 16:04We are Muslim believers,
-
16:04 - 16:08but we want to be living
as free people in free societies." -
16:08 - 16:11Of course, this is a long road.
-
16:11 - 16:14Democracy is not an overnight
achievement; it's a process. -
16:14 - 16:18But this is a promising era
in the Muslim world. -
16:18 - 16:22And I believe that the Islamic modernism
which began in the 19th century, -
16:22 - 16:24but which had a setback
in the 20th century -
16:24 - 16:26because of the political
troubles of the Muslim world, -
16:26 - 16:28is having a rebirth.
-
16:28 - 16:33And I think the takeaway message
from that would be that Islam, -
16:33 - 16:35despite some of the skeptics in the West,
-
16:35 - 16:37has the potential in itself
-
16:37 - 16:41to create its own way to democracy,
create its own way to liberalism, -
16:41 - 16:42create its own way to freedom.
-
16:42 - 16:45They just should be allowed
to work for that. -
16:45 - 16:46Thanks so much.
-
16:46 - 16:51(Applause)
- Title:
- Faith versus tradition in Islam
- Speaker:
- Mustafa Akyol
- Description:
-
At TEDxWarwick, journalist Mustafa Akyol talks about the way that some local cultural practices (such as wearing a headscarf) have become linked, in the popular mind, to the articles of faith of Islam. Has the world's general idea of the Islamic faith focused too much on tradition, and not enough on core beliefs?
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:51
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Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 1/24/2017. At 14:56, "while some secular nations were against it." was changed to "while some secular nationalists were against it."
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 1/24/2017. At 14:56, "while some secular nations were against it." was changed to "while some secular nationalists were against it."