I have just finished reading The Heart of Islam, by Seyyed Hossien Nasr, who is professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, Washington DC. (He was brought up in Tehran, received his university education in the West, and has since held posts at universities in both Tehran and the West.) Nasr was invited to write this book after the destruction of The World Trade centre.
I found the book extremely illuminating. As well as presenting a survey of the history of Islam and a description of Islamic beliefs and culture, it contained a ‘tactful’ critique of the West.
As far as Islamic culture goes, some of the things that impressed me were:
the emphasis on self-control.
the attitude to trade — trade is not a means of making a profit, but a public service ie trade is a means to circulate goods throughout society, and traders should be scrupulously honest.
money-lending is considered immoral.
the hierarchy of the arts: chanting and calligraphic writing of the quran are the primary arts. Second is architecture, particularly, but not exclusively, that of mosques. Third is clothes, since clothes, after the body, are closest to the soul. Also, it is a matter of privacy, preserving modesty (of both men and women) ,dignity, beauty and functionality. Fourth are the articles of the house such as carpets, textiles and utensils. Poetry and music are not rated in the hierarchy but are said to be much loved and valued in the Islamic world. The reason this hierarchy appeals to me is expressed by AK Coomaraswamy: “In modern society the artist is a special kind of person, while in traditional society every person is a special kind of artist”. I think it is better that every person is an artist. Notice, too, that as women are the main creators of carpets (and textiles?) they must rank high as artists.
There was much more that I found to admire, but these were some of the main things.
Then there was Nasr’s critique of the West. He was not, on the whole, complementary though he chose his words very, very carefully — as one does when one is speaking to someone who is overly ‘sensitive’ and inclined to take offence too easily and fly off the handle — and that, in itself, I thought very telling.
I think his attitude is expressed most concisely by a couple of quotes:
First is a poem quoted in the text by Nasr. It is by a miedeval Jewish sage and poet:
The Muslims sing of love and passion
The Christians of war and revenge
The Greeks of wisdom and devices
The Indians of parables and riddles
And the Isrealites — songs of praises to the Lord of Hosts.
Then in Nasr’s own words, “……the process of globalisation ……… seeks ……… to articulate a single world view and “value system”. But this “value system” is what one might call “trans-human”, because it is based on the ephemera of the market place and its corporate denizens and not on enduring truths and spiritual values.” (globalisation is, of course, a goal of the West.)
He ends with a general comment with which I can only agree: “Not only the Islamic world, not only the West, but the whole world is passing through one of the darkest pages in its history, which no amount of triumphalism or chest-beating can hide.”
I went from finishing that book to starting Civilisation, by Niall Fergusson. In this book he attempts to define the attributes of Western Civilisation that enabled it to rise to world dominance. He subtitles the book: the Six Killer Apps of Western Power. “Do we still have these winning tools,” he asks. “Or is another power about to triumph?”
Basically he is out to save Western Civilisation by identifying what made it a ‘winner’ in the first place.
Fergusson has much the same sort of academic background, and a similar professional status (as far as I can determine) as Nasr, but the two could not be more different.
I have only read the ihtroduction to the book, but I can already see what the answer to Fergusson’s question is: one only need to read Fergusson, experience the spirit of the man, to see why the West Rose to dominance. I get the same feeling when reading Fergusson as I used to get when, as a child travelling home on the steamer, I would go and stand at the open door of the engine room and watch the pistons and wheels: the wheels spun the pistons pounded and if I got caught, dragged in by a piece of clothing getting tangled, or slipped and fell, then the wheels would go on spinning and the pistons pounding just as if I had never existed, merciless, relentless, inhuman.
In the film Ghandi, there was scene where Ghandi and some fellow protestors were facing a line of mounted police. The police kicked their mounts forward and the line cantered towards the protestors as if it would mow them down. One of the protestors shouted to the others to lie down on the road because he knew that horses will not trample on people. The manoeuvre saved the protestors. In the modern world one can imagine that scene: now the police might be inside tanks or other vehicles, and if you tried to escape by lying down on the road, then they would not stop but would just roll on, roll right over you as if you did not exist.
That is the feeling one gets when reading Fergusson. There is a huge, monstrous machine at work here. It is inhuman, knows nothing of human values. It is this loss of humanity and the restraints that that puts on aggression that has enabled the West to dominate the rest. The west is out of control. There is nothing it would not stoop to. It has no sensitivity to others, no dignity, no soul. Of course if there is nothing you will not do while your opponents are restrained by their humanity then you will ‘win’………… the trouble is that you are losing even more than you are winning. The cost of victory is your soul. You are building hell on earth.
From the outside, as an alien, one looks at this thing called Western Civilisation and one sees a monster, a grotesque, inhuman deformity, a ravening, titanic beast with a lust to dominate all life, and yet the members of this civilisation smile with satisfaction their works to see. They think themselves to have reached the pinnacle of human achievement, to have created the best society that has ever been, think of themselves as benign, as benefactors gifting their ways to the world…………….
……………how can this monster not know what it is?
Because it does not want to know; it wants to win. Because it does not want to hear the truth, it want to hear praise and flattery. Because it the price it is paying for its unbridled lust for power is the loss of its senses, the loss of its mind, the loss of its humanity. Because the denizens of this ‘wonderful’ civilisation have become little more than machines.
The price this monster pays for its lust for power is that it is no longer capable of knowing what it is.