• Our Arab Culture and Their Western Culture

Our Arab Culture and Their Western Culture

How does the West view Arab culture? A question towards which we are impelled by the flood of accusations which Western news media are heaping on us. There is no justification for these accusations in the present time, but their roots go back to an ancient historical enmity and an existing fear towards everything Islamic.

In his famous novel The Crimson Manuscript, the well-known Spanish novelist Antonio Gala deals with one of the hot issues of conflict between the Arabs and the Spaniards under the walls of Granada. This was the last of the Arab cities which fell, and with it collapsed the golden dream of Andalusia. and God's sun in the West was extinguished, as some historians say. The novel centers around an ancient manuscript whose events are related by Abu |Abdullah Al-Saghir, the last King of Granada who submissively signed the document surrendering the city and handed it over to the Reyes Catolicos on 2 January 1492 AD, after it had been besieged by the armies of the Franks. Addressing his enemies in the last moments, he said, "We have lived together, we Muslims and Christians, for eight centuries, and we have died for each other, and now I am disappearing. Nevertheless, this will not be enough for you. You will try to make everything disappear. You will try to erase us as quickly as possible, to erase our lives, our religion, and particularly our customs which you call infidel, our language and our culture which will disturb the serenity of the artificial unity which your kings are seeking. The owner of this paradise will not only change, he will also eradicate the time which was ours in history. The eight centuries will disappear in the blink of an eye, and then the sound of our names will become strange, and everything will be abolished and must not return to its former course. For the sake of that, the uprooting of the religion, the language, the customs and the laws will be aprecaution that must be taken."

This is what actually happened. Andalusia fell, the courts of the Inquisition were set up to search into everybody's souls for any religion or creed that disagreed with Catholicism. These courts set fire to the bodies of dozens of Muslims and Jews and all who were the subject of a denunciation which cast doubt on their beliefs. This transformation in the territory of the Iberian Peninsula was the first symptom of Eurocentrism which at that time refused to accept any opinion that disagreed with it, and was only satisfied with eradicating other people's thought and eliminating any other cukltures facing them. This picture was repeated on more than one occasion, as happened in the countries of the New World, when white Europeans set foot on it and eliminated the civilization of its original Red Indian and other inhabitants. The Arabs and Muslims did not do that when they recovered Jerusalem from the Frankish invaders. The Turkish Muslims also did not do that when they overran Asia Minor and when Constantinople fell into their hands. The Muslimsalso did not do that before when they crossed into Andalusia, bringing to it the cultures and civilizations of the East. They preserved that ethnic and religious mosaic which still exists in the Balkan region to this day. Perhaps this is what led an important writer like Antonio Gala to present such a fair testimony. , which is a rare and courageous voice in the midst of the cries of demagogy which have been continuing against Arab ciulture, from the darkness of the Middle Ages to the explosions of 11 September 2001 in New York. We do not forget the arrogant role of the Zionist information machinery, which round the clock inflates and feeds these racist ideas which grew up in Europe during the Crusader campaigns against the Muslim world, and does not let the fire die down.

The Dangerous Contact

I do not wish to appear, through this introduction, to appear as if I am suffering from a feeling of deep persecution from the West's view of everything related to aspects of Islamic Arab civilization. I also do not want to fall into the trap of interpreting history according to a conspiracy theory. But what I am aiming at is a more profound attempt to cast light on the past in order to understand the West's view of us and our culture, and why this West seems to be fanatical on most occasions and understanding on fewer occasions. We may thereby be able to understand how it views many Arab lifestyles, and the attitudes it adopts towards our vital questions.

One thing of which there is no doubt is that the West's view of our culture is different from its view of other cultures, not because of geographical proximity which has created many points of contact and dangerous friction between us and it throughout the ages, but because Islam represents a basic part of the components of Arab culture. Accordingly the West has viewed this culture as one of the weapons directed against its creed and which differs from and is opposed to it, as the West sees and interprets it. The battle under the walls of Granada was not the first. It was preceded byseveral battles which began with the spread of Islam northwards on the borders of Christian Byzantium. Then came the Crusades, the first colonialist wars which they tried to dress in the clothes of religion and the cross. The battles continued after that up to our present time. Perhaps the most important of these is now going on in the land of Palestine. Arab culture has been victorious at times and defeated at others, but in all circumstances it has not surrendered its banners. The regrettable thing in this long history is that violent conflict has been its main characteristic, not dialogue and the desire for mutual understanding and coexistence between neighboring cultures.

In his book The Road to Mecca, the German diplomat Murad Hoffmann relates that when he announced that he had embraced Islam and went on the pilgrimage, he wrote a letter to his mother from Mecca, but she refused to open it, and said, "Let him stay with the Arabs!" Hoffmann attributes the reason for his mother's attitude rejecting him and his new religion the fear which dwells in the hearts of Europeans towards everything Arab and Islamic. Europe, which is tolerant towards Buddhists, idolaters and devil-worshippers, cannot forget that historical fear which has been inherited generation after generation of the warlike conflicts between the Christian and Islamic words in the Middle Ages. The Crusades have played a great role in fixing the Arab Muslim image inside Eurocentrism up to now. Europe was not only defeated militarily in the land of Palestine, it also became apparent that these Muslim "infidels"

- as they used to call them - were the owners of a great and prosperous civilization that was superior to their European Christian civilization in various fields at that time. This fact annoyed and provoked Europe, and any Islamic awakening awakens all these ancient fears.

The European Church drew a dark picture of Islamduring those ages. At a time when the Arabs and Muslims viewed Christ as one of the prophets whom God had sent, and regarded him as a basic link in the course of monotheism and faith in God, the Europeans accused the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be jupon him) of all evil characteristics and painted a diabolical picture of him. The noble Prophet was the target of many insults and slanders, to the point of describing him as an Antichrist, a deceiver, a swindler and lecherous. Salman Rushdie, in his novel The Satanic Verses, chose the name Mahound to refer to the noble Prophet, the word hound meaning a dog, or in Spanish a verb meaning to urinate on oneself. These are things which arouse disgust among us Arabs, who are used to respecting other religions, even non-scriptural ones. I do not believe that there is any Arabic book which contains a bad adjective describing either Christ or the Prophet Moses. But this is one of the methods of incitement used by the Church in the Middle Ages, in order to urge armies to invade the Arab world under the banner of the cross.

Answering Lies

To confront this dark and negative image, some voices were raised from inside the European Church itself which attempted to answer these lies and forgeries. Dr. Abdullah Al-Sharqawi, a Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Religion, reveals to us an old manuscript written by Henry Stoup, an English priest in the mid-seventeenth century, about the life of the Prophet Muhammad (Fod bless him and give him peace). This manuscript was published in a limited edition, and it rapidly disappeared. Only three copies still exist, which are preserved in the British Museum. This is believed to be the oldest document of its type in English literature. It shows us one aspect of the incorrect European conception of Islam. In spite of the religious education of Henry Stoup, who was a doctor, priest and traveler, he became used to opposing all prevalent and deeply-rooted ideas. He attempted to draw a true and realistic picture of Islam and its Prophet, not only to confront fanatical churchmen, but also to confront major writers and thinkers like Dante and Shakespeare whose genius did not help them to see the truth. The value of this book is that it was written in the age of Christian isolationism, before the colonia;ist period in which Europe came out to impose its domination and assert its creed. This book remained as a manuscript for 250 years until an Indian Muslim scholar called Hafiz Shirazi edited it and published it in London in 1911.

The Steadfastness of Islam

Perhaps what most frightens the West about Islamic Arab culturre is the continued existence of this culture and its modern awakening, desoite its exposure to marginalization and elimination for many years. A few decades ago all the Arab countries were under the yoke of European colonialism. Those Arab countries which emerged from the Ottoman legacy were exhausted and weak. Europe was certain in the first half of the twentieth century that the Arab world was as good as finished. Indeed some Orientalists devoted their efforts and researches to studying Islam from an anthropological point of view as a declining religion in danger of extinction, whose details it is necessary to know as part of the history of human religions.

However, what really astonished the West is the steadfastness of Islamic Arab culture, in spite of periods of stagnation through which it passed. Islam remained, in spite of the predictions of all the Orientalists. It is the only creed for more than one billion Muslims in various parts of the world. Rather than dying out, the Muslim countries have increased in number, and some of them have emerged from the circle of backwardness. All the Arab countries have become independent, indeed one of them, Egypt, became one of the pillars of the struggle against colonialism. Also the Iranian Islamic Revolution came as a surprise, against all the expectations of researchers on the future of Islam in Iran.Islamic activity frightened Europe so much that it accused Islam of being the remaining enemy of the West after Nazism had abated and Communism had collapsed, according to the statements of US President Nixon and studies by the American strategic thinker Huntington. Hoffmann, in his book referred to above, stated that when the film star Richard Gere announced his conversion to Buddhism, this did not arouse any comment or rejection, whereas he, Hoffmann, was showered with accusations after he announced his adoption of Islam, that he supported polygamy, beating women, cutting off hands and stoning adulterers. All these are symptoms of unjustified fright and fear, but they are a regurgitation of the ugly picture which medieval Christian ideas painted of Islam.

Israel and the Ancient Vengeance

Far away from the Crusades, the fall of Granada and the Muslims' capture of Byzantium, the contradiction between the Western and Arab world’s still seems to exist and to be deepening day after day. The establishment of a Jewish state by the Christian West in the land of Palestine is regarded as a renewal and an intensification of that long conflict against the societies of the Islamic Arab East and a constant element of contradiction between the Arabs and the West. The establishment of this state is evidence of Western arrogance and haughtiness, and an attempt to settle ancient scores in the same region where the West was defeated. the establishment of a military entity equipped, supplied and supported by the West is a daily humiliation for Arab civilization which was at the beginning of its new renaissance, and an attrition of all its energies. It is regrettable that this civilization has not been up to the challenge. Instead of the presence of this alien "virus" in its body arousing all its instincts of survival and resistance, we find that it is still stumbling around in circles of successive defeats and contenting itself with cursing the West which has placed it in this predicament, rather than creating from its own strength a weapon with which to destroy this intruding body.

The West carefully chose the most racist elements hostile to the Arabs, namely Jewish Zionism, in order to strike at the Arab world and dissipate its vigilance. It rid itself of the harm and evils of the presence of the Jewish element omits territory on the one hand, and on the other hand helped Israel to occupy cities and holy places of central importance to the Arabs and the Muslims. This caused a strong feeling of bitterness among the Arabs and made them feel that the hypocritical West, which talks about freedom, democracy and human rights supports one of the most racist and violently aggressive and bloodthirsty regimes and imposing it on them. I believe that in spite of what is said about rapprochement between civilizations and dialogue between cultures, nothing will really be achieved to close the gap between the Arab world and the West as long as Israel exists as a religious-racist state on sacred Arab soil.

Arab Culture Is Accused

Arab culture then - whatever the developments - will remain accused in the view of the west. It derives these accusations from the long heritage of hostility to Islam in Europe. In spite of the progress of Oriental studies in recent years, and the translation of numerous works of literature and thought into European languages, they are read with little of the necessary objectivity. The problem is that the Eurocentrist view of the world has not changed much since the Middle Ages, and the literary works which are most famous in the West are still those which portray the Arab East as a tyrannical society in which women are treated as slaves, and informers and spies control people's fate. At best they belong to the world of the Thousand and One Nights.

In one recent issue of Newsweek magazine, a comparison was made between the Gospel and the Quran. Although the writer of the article, Bob Ward, attempted to be objective, he indicated that there are some verses in the Quranwhich call for violence to be countered with violence and killing with killing, and that Muslim extremists exploit these verses excessively to justify their aggressive acts. The magazine does not forget to efer as evidence of this to the martyrdom operations which are carried out by Arab resistance people against the Israeli occupation forces.

These accusations are part of the basic accusation against Islamic Arab civilization, namely that it is a culture that encourages terrorism. This accusation has become prevalent and definite in the view of the Westafter the events of 11 September. Fred Halliday, in his book Islam and the Superstition of Confrontation, believes that thwe record of Arab societies in dealing with various religions, races and sects has been much better than that of European societies. Christianity was and still is one of the main religions of the Arab region. It grew up in it and spread from it to other parts of the world. The Jews in Aab societies lived in safety before they chose emigration to Israel. Indeed, it is the Arabs and Muslims themselves who have been the victims of repression and terrorism in many countries.

The second accusation levelled against Arab culture is that it is hostile to democratic thought in its Western conception, because it is a culture which is not based on tolerance and recognition of pluralism, and does not possess the necessary traditions to recognize other views. We have to recognize that there are many Arab regimes which obstruct the application of democracy even to a minimal extent. It is not the teachings of Islam which cause that. Many Arab countries are still suffering from backwardness as a result of the intransigence of the centralized state and the lack of separation between the state and the law. Hence we are aware that the interpretation that the absence of democracy is due to the Islamic religion is a wrong linkage. The question of Islam being both religion and state is only a cover which many oppressive regimes in the Arab world exploit in order to give themselves the legitimacy that they lack. and monopolize power. Arab thought can be divided into two main currents, a traditionalist which is opposed to any secular thinking, including democracy as one of its basic components, and a liberal current which considers that civilization has single standard criteria in all countries and accordingly that the application of democracy is possible and does not conflict with the provisions of religion, indeed it derives its inspiration for its modern traditions from the old spirit of shura, the Islamic principle of consultation.

The third accusation against Arab culture is that it does not recognize the criteria that modern states lay down for human rights, which is the truth. Arab culture is suffering severely from regimes in which human rights are violated, regardless of their cultural or ideological direction. Even writers who go along with government authority in its oppression do so out of fear and to avoid being harmed by it. It is certain that Arab countries have played a part in several human rights issues like opposing racism and resisiting factors of oppression and persecution that befall some peoples like those of Palestine, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Chechnya and Kashmir, but many of these countries do not treat their own citizens according to the required international criteria. Arab people of culture in most of their production try to affirm the humanity of mankind and condemn oppression and the violation of the rights of human beingswhom God created to inherit the Earth. I believe that Arab prisons are among the most crowded with prisoners of opinion, who committed no crimes other than trying to express their opinion courageously in the face os various laws an dregulations which do not allow any other voice. The West exploits this question a great deal against our Arab culture.

Arab culture suffers a great deal from the restrictions imposed on it which limit its ability to think and invent. This is not due to its religious roots but to long years of backwardness and constant repression inherited originally from the governments of the colonial powers which controlled these countries. This has affected even the sphere of ijtihad (the exercise of independent judgement) and renewal in religious thinking itself. What Arab culture is doing in its various analyses is to resist these restrictions and try to open up to the other cultures of the world. This is a process that began since Renaissance times and the visits of the first missions to Europe, and is still continuing up to now. But this hostility which Arab culture is facing could push it eithe to withdraw into itself or to embark on rash attempts to defend itself.

We are aware that there are many differences and contradictions between our culture and Western culture. But an exchange of accusations will not solve these contradictions or find an alternative to dialogue between contemporary cultures in an effort towards more understanding. It is time fir a deep-rooted and continuing civilization like Arab civilization to be treated as a living and influential civilization, not as a marginal one about to become extinct.

Sulaiman Al-Askary

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