KHUTAB III - 25. THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATION

25. THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATION

          The English poet and fiction-writer, Rudyad Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay (now Mumbay), India on 30 Dec. 1865. Among his writing were two Jungle Books.  Being raised as an English man in the Indian subcontinent he noticed the gap between the Eastern civilization in general and the Indian one in particular and the Western civilization.  He put it in his poem, as follows:

Oh, East is East and West is West

And never the twain shall meet.

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at

God’s great Judgment Seat;

          People used to cite these lines to indicate the enormous difference between the two civilizations and cultures, that they cannot meet and accommodate each other. For example, in Indonesia it is a taboo to touch an adult’s head, and for the Arabs to touch someone's buttock as this is interpretated as a homosexual advance.

          People used to stop here with these two lines. However, if we continue reading the next lines of the poem, it indicates that there is exception. The continuation of the lines is:

But there is neither East nor West,

 Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,      

When two strong men stand face to face,

 tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

What the poet means here is that if two men strong enough to understand and tolerate each other, the barrier between the two cultures will vanish. However, there are sacred things in every religion which have to be observed by its followers, that it is a taboo to violate them, such as the sanctity of the Ka‘bah, the Qur’ān and the Prophet in Islam, to mention a few.

          In 1993 Dr. Samuel P. Huntington published his book The Clash of Civilization and the Remarking of the World Order. He said that at the end of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world is entering a phase of clashes between civilizations. He mentions eight of them, namely, Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, and probably African. These civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and especially religion. He states that Western civilization is the most powerful, and it can be said that the clash is between Western civilization and the rest. He also says that Islamic and Confucian civilizations are the most dangerous to the West (p. 10).

          Islam is being followed by approximately one-fifth of the world population. The Confucian civilization is also being followed by approximately one-fifth of the world population, especially among Chinese people, each with more than one billion people. However, Islamic civilization is being singled out as “a potential threat” to the West. It is an irony that the West had colonised and occupied the Muslim world (for example: Algeria and Western Sahara by France, Libya by Italy, Indian sub-continent and Malaysia by the British, and Indonesia by the Dutch) and had interfered with their internal affairs. After losing their grip of these areas, Western powers suddenly claimed that their inhabitants were posing a threat to their system of life. They fear that Islam will penetrate their way of life and freedom.

          Who is interfering whose business? When the late President Sukarno of Indonesia was asked by a Western journalist in an interview what he would like to say to America (i.e., U.S.A.), he simply said, “Leave us alone, leave us alone!” When a Muslim country is using a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes, such as to generate electricity, they suspect that this country will produce “an Islamic nuclear bomb”, posing a threat to the West, whereas Israel, India and South Africa that already possesses nuclear bombs are acceptable to them.

          The collapse of Socialism in the Soviet Union is simply because the system cannot give both spiritual and material prosperity to its people. Capitalism was victorious over Socialism without firing a single shot. It succeeds, to some extent, in giving material prosperity to its people at the expense of spiritual happiness, resulting in moral degradation. Homosexuality, drunkenness, gambling, rape, living together out of matrimony, sex industry, the use of illegal drugs and other social evils and diseases are rampant among people in their big cities. This is the Jāhiliyyah (the era of ignorance) of the 21th century era. Islam, and only Islam, that can cure these ills as it had done with the Jāhiliyyah of the 6^th century.

          The people of the Jāhiliyyah of the 6^th century fought the Prophet and his followers, because they could not produce a system better than that of the Qur’an in order to challenge it. What would happen if the clash between Western and Islamic civilization does really take place, and which of the two will be victorious? What we know is the West is confusing the world by creating fear with different labels to describe various phenomena in the Muslim world which are foreign to the Muslims themselves, such as “Islamic fundamentalism,” “Islamic Resurgence,” “Militant Islam,” and “Political Islam.”  Earlier in the  last century until now the Orientalists are still using the misleading terms “Classical Islam,” “Medieval Islam,” and “Modern Islam” as if this religion is divided into three categories, when they meant “Islam in Classical Period,” “Islam in Medieval Period,” and “Islam in Modern Period” respectively. A bolder statement was given by Prof. Dr. Charles J. Adams, the Head of the Institute of Islamic Studies of McGill University in Montreal in late 1973 in one of his lectures when he said about “Islam according to God,” “Islam according to the angel Gabriel,” “Islam according to Muhammad,” and “Islam according to the Sahabah” as if the message of Islam had not been presented in its original and true sense.

The clash between Islamic and Western civilizations is apparently inevitable, directly or indirectly, peacefully through integration or forcefully through confrontation. The winner will be the better one, although embraced by weak followers. A system or an idea cannot be defeated by defeating its followers, but by challenging it with a better system or idea. This reminds us of the expression “The ink of the writer is worthier (stronger) than the blood of the martyr.” The martyr kills the enemy, but it is the writer who can kill the idea which the enemy is fighting for. Fukuyama in his work The End of History and the Last Man (1993) has predicted the victory of Islam over other systems. For the Muslims, they have been promised by Allah with the final victory. Allah says in the Qur’ān, 

هُوَ الَّذِي أَرْسَلَ رَسُولَهُ بِالْهُدَى وَدِينِ الْحَقِّ لِيُظْهِرَهُ عَلَى

 الدِّينِ كُلِّهِ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْمُشْرِكُونَ ( الصف : ٩)

  He it is Who has sent his Messenger [Muhammad] with guidance and the religion of truth [Islamic Monotheism] to make victorious over all (other) religions even though the polytheists hate it (Q. 61:9).

وَلَا تَهِنُوا وَلَا تَحْزَنُوا وَأَنْتُمُ الْأَعْلَوْنَ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ (آل عمران :١٣٩)

 So, do not become weak (against your enemy), nor be sad, and you will   

be superior (in victory) if you are indeed (true) believers. (Q. 3:139)

 كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَأَغْلِبَنَّ أَنَا وَرُسُلِي إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَوِيٌّ عَزِيزٌ (المجادلة : ٢١)

 Allah has decreed: ‘Verily, it is I and My Messengers who shall be victorious.’ Verily, Allah is All-Powerful, All-Mighty.  (Q. 58:21)

          These are some verses indicating the final victory of Islam over other religions and systems of life. However, this victory of Islam is conditional, namely, with Allah’s help. He says:

إِنْ يَنْصُرْكُمُ اللَّهُ فَلَا غَالِبَ لَكُمْ وَإِنْ يَخْذُلْكُمْ فَمَنْ ذَا الَّذِي يَنْصُرُكُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِهِ

 وَعَلَى اللَّهِ فَلْيَتَوَكَّلِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ (آل عمران : ١٦٠) 

 If Allah helps you, none can overcome you; and if He forsakes

 you, who is there after Him that can help you. And in Allah

(Alone) let believers put their trust.  (Q. 3:160)

Conclusion:

Islam will be victorious in the conflict of civilization with the condition that it followers stick to its principles and teachings. (ANUMA, 24 Febr., 07)