No time to go into as much detail as I'd like, but I wanted to draw attention to two fascinating exchanges recently about Islamism and secularism in the Arab public sphere.
First, the most popular political program in the Arab world, Faisal al-Qassem's The Opposite Direction just presented an explosive debate on this topic: who poses the greater threat to democracy - Islamists or secularists? As always, he frames the debate by posing a series of tough questions from each direction: With secularists backing autocratic leaders across the Arab world, from Mubarak and Abdullah to Mahmoud Abbas, how democratic are these liberals really? vs. don't Islamists just speak sweet democracy talk in order to fool people into giving them power? What made the program really interesting was his choice of guests: Hani al-Siba'i and Sayid Qemni.
Siba'i is no Muslim Brotherhood moderate - he is one of the most influential salafi thinkers around, a regular contributor to the jihadist forums, and (it's safe to say) a supporter of al-Qaeda in spirit if not practice. Qemni is one of the bravest (and funniest) of Arab secularists. Unlike his last appearance, Qemni was in fine form this time, matching Siba'i blow for blow. As always, this episode raises the perennial question about al-Jazeera: many will criticize the decision to give Siba'i such a visible platform for his ideas, but I tend to think it's a good thing to force him to defend those ideas against a tough opponent. Qassem didn't give Siba'i a free ride either - he pushed him hard to defend his more controversial stances, and at one point cut his microphone when he wouldn't stop screaming over Qemni. I'll link to the transcript and video when it's available. It's a perennial critique of Qassem's program that by hosting extremists on each side, the reasonable middle gets lost. But while the scholar in me might have preferred a civil, reasonable discussion, in this instance watching heavyweights from the two extremes like Siba'i and Qemni square off was very entertaining. And, I think, important.
The other issue I wanted to mention is the month-long controversy over a fatwa by a member of Saudi
Arabia's Higher Ulema Council which seemingly declared takfir
(apostacy) on liberals. On June 19, al-Arabiya ran a report on the fatwa issued by Shaykh Saleh al-Fawzan (who seems a pretty reactionary guy in general, judging by his past opinions; thanks to Greg Gause for the link). Since I've been
arguing for quite some time that the takfir question should be
considered a fundamental litmus test dividing radicals and moderates in
the Islamic world, I've followed this controversy quite keenly. This fatwa has
generated quite a bit of discussion and debate in Saudi Arabia and
throughout the region (today I got about 75,000 google hits on تكفير
الليبراليين, down from 119,000 a few days ago).
Fawzan's fatwa originally circulated on the internet without drawing
much attention, until Saudi liberal Turki al-Hamid made an issue of it for the wider public, describing it as declaration of takfir on liberals, and
a justification for the physical liquidation of members of that trend. The fatwa came about in response to a
somewhat leading question from one of his students, who asked whether
someone who believed a whole series of things - that people had freedom
without limits, that pluralism meant equality between Muslims and
non-Muslims, that people had absolute personal freedom without being
constrained by the sharia, that they could ignore sharia laws that they
didn't like with regard to the role of women or jihad - was permitted
to call himself a "liberal Muslim." Fawzan responded that somebody who
believed all the things included in the question could not call himself
a Muslim. Al-Hamed's intervention sparked a furious debate in various forums, generating enough controversy that Fawzan delivered a subsequent explanation, in which he emphasized that the ruling applied only to the very specific conditions laid out in the
question, and was never meant to nor could be generalized to all
liberals. I've got a few dozen commentaries filed away on this, but haven't the time to work them into this post right now, sorry...
That Fawzan was forced to issue this clarification could itself be seen as testimony to the growing power of the Arab public sphere - he couldn't just lay it out there unchallenged, and his final position was much weaker than the original interpretation. On the other hand, as Daoud Shriyan complains today, the liberal side didn't cover itself with glory either, stripping the issue of all context and focusing on superficialities, to the point that he bitterly denounces the "liberal terrorism" of the secularists as becoming as intolerant, radical and dangerous as that of the Islamist radicals.
While the liberalism debate here obviously plays out in distinctive ways in the Saudi case, the issues raised resonate throughout the region. What's striking throughout is the intensity of these debates, and the extent to which the liberal-secularist side has been so consistently, thoroughly undermined by association with US foreign policy. Again and again, open American promotion of 'liberal Islam' is used as a weapon against them, and now Bush's abandonment of democracy promotion has left the liberals even more exposed and vulnerable. The debates can get ugly, and will get uglier... but they really are important, and it's good to see them on the air.
Shouldn't that be "takfir al-taqaddumiyeen?". Easy way to get around the fatwa at the very least.
Posted by: Moloch-Agonistes | July 12, 2007 at 01:44 AM
Thanks for the information. Has the Saudi Government had any involvement, or are they waiting till they do something like condone WMDs like good ol' Nasser al-Fahd?
Posted by: Aaron | July 12, 2007 at 01:50 AM
Very interesting piece! I'm glad to see that this fatwa doesn't apply to all liberals. I was getting worried that Shaykh al-Fawzan might get his own show on Fox News with that kind of rhetoric.
Posted by: toasterhead | July 12, 2007 at 10:09 AM
Off topic - Arab media event
Palestinian poet Mahmood Darwish was permitted to give a reading in Haifa before 2000 spectators who were lucky enough to get tickets. Giant TV screens were erected throughout the Haifa and other cities to carry the live broadcast by al-Jazeera. Israeli Arab MPs skipped Shimon Perez' investiture to go to the show.
Posted by: nur al-cubicle | July 17, 2007 at 03:32 AM
Were you able to find a link to the video?
Posted by: Amine | July 25, 2007 at 09:33 AM