Humanism obliges reciprocity of cultural studies

Humanism obliges reciprocity of cultural studies

The following is an interview with Dr. Mohammed Arkoun, a professor of history of Islamic thought at Sorbonne University.

Dr. Arkoun, who likes to call himself an Islamic humanist, visited Indonesia recently in connection with the presentation ceremony of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in his capacity as a member of the award master jury.

The professor, who has written numerous books on Islam, was born in Algiers. Among his more important books are Pour une critique de la raison islamique, Lectures du Coran, Essais sur la pensee islamique and his latest, to be published soon, The Rethinking of Islam. The interview was conducted in Yogyakarta.

Question: The team of jury of the Aga Khan award seems to have a deep concern about the poor in the Third World. Is this true?

Answer: We have a very big demographic development. The population of some countries have doubled or tripled in 30 years. And to face this we need a very strong economy. This is one of the problems of the Third World today, to develop the economy at the same speed with the demographic development. The Aga Khan award precisely wants to pay attention to this discrepancy between the demographic development and economic development. That's why we stress the importance of marginalized people because people, even if they are poor, still relate to culture.

Q: So you look at population explosion as a big problem in the Third World?

A: Certainly yes, it is the big problem.

Q: If we can stop this growth do you think we can make things better?

A: This you can stop through culture. You have to give culture to women.

Q: What do you mean?

A: It means that you have to give women the right to go to school, because when you educate women then you educate the children at the same time. If you don't educate women you won't have the possibility to raise the children in a cultural atmosphere. Women have to be helped and not only used like they are used in several underdeveloped countries. Before the population explosion the ancient traditions were protecting women and men but in the new situation women are suffering more than men.

Q: Do you mean we have to get rid of the ancient traditions?

A: No, to integrate the values of ancient culture into the modern education. That's why the Aga Khan award favors popular cultures in architecture, popular styles in buildings; it is part of the personality of the population to express its culture. And the tradition also have to be studied at schools. Not only one culture, you should not only study modern sciences to build industries but also humanities. Architecture is on the side of humanities as basic needs of economic tool. That's why architecture is important because it means both. You can't have a good architecture without having good technology on one side and good culture on the other side. This is the best way to have integrated development and integrated integrating development.

Q: What do you mean by integrated integrating development?

A: Integrated integrating development at the same time because if you have only integrated modern technology you can't integrate the popular culture. It's not an integrating development.

Q: Is population explosion the only reason for poverty?

A: It was one of the mistakes. During the 1960s and 1970s there were still the communist conception to separate economic development and cultural development. It says when you develop an economy all the society develops automatically, which is not true. Many Third World countries have made that mistake. Today we are trying to repair this mistake and this is one of the reasons why the Aga Khan award was created in 1978. When I say cultural development it is the study of history, culture, literature, history of religion, pluralism, all religions have to be studied. It is dangerous to study only one religion.

Q: Why?

A: If you only study one religion you develop fanaticism. You don't develop tolerance. You have to know Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, all religions because each religion is a great tradition of culture. You can't separate religion from culture. So it's not only knowing the beliefs of people but it's knowing the culture of people. Look at the Borobudur, how could you ignore this? This has to be developed otherwise you don't develop people to be tolerant. There will be violence in the country when you don't have tolerance. It's very good for Indonesia because since the beginning of independence they have developed a place for tolerance, for all religions to live together. This is extremely good.

Q: So it seems that you see the need for a change in the education systems of the world, including in Europe?

A: Yes, in education in Europe too. They have to learn about Indonesian cultures because Indonesians are learning European culture, so it has to be both ways. This is the 21st century humanism because it didn't happen so far. Europeans must learn about Islam and other cultures, African cultures, Buddhism, Hinduism. And Buddhists must learn about Christianity. Are we? Moslems must learn about Christianity. The same, you can't say this is not my religion, I don't learn about it, no, otherwise you will become static.

Q: You mentioned 21st century humanism?

A: Yes, this is the participation of all societies, Moslem societies, Hindu societies, Buddhist societies, African societies which has been put aside until now for the modern economy, for the regulation of international relations.

Q: Can you relate religious tolerance to development?

A: Yes, unfortunately it is difficult to develop an economy and culture at the same time because while you develop your economy you are asking for more engineers and you have people engaging in technical training and you earn more money. When you study history you are just a professor in a small school. So it creates a discrepancy. That's why you have to maintain a policy to sustain support for cultural development otherwise you will not have good architecture because good architecture is based on artistic inspiration.

Q: Referring to tolerance to all religions, how do you see the growing of sectarianism in some parts of the world?

A: Because people have not learned in their schools the history of their own religions. And this is true for Moslems. Moslems ignore what theology is, they know only that you have to pray and to go to Mecca. Islam is a great culture, and this great culture is not studied correctly at schools. So when you ignore the intellectual development of the religion you become very fanatic because you ignore that this religion has produced intellectual theories about laws.

In Islam, for example, we have had many schools of law, now we have only one school. In Indonesia we have mainly one school. You don't study the other schools. When you have many schools what does this mean? It means pluralism and when you have pluralism it means tolerance. You are Hanafi, I am Maliki, we speak together, discuss together, you interpret the Koran in your way, me in my way. I can't impose my interpretation on you and you can't impose it on me and we discuss, and this discussion has great importance, it is called munadzarah. It means looking face to face. It's very important; we lost it. When we lost it, we lost culture, we lost pluralism.

Q: How could that happen?

A: Because of poverty, lack of schools, but now we have the possibility to develop.

Q: Or perhaps believers in one school of law in Islam do not recognize the others?

A: Yes, flowers... all schools produced in Islam are very interesting. Like flowers, each flower produces its own beauty. You can't just like one flower. This is what we have done since the 16th century. We didn't pay attention even to flowers produced by Islam. We kept looking only at one flower.

Q: Does the Aga Khan shares your view?

A: Of course. That's what he calls Islamic humanism. He wants every Moslem to listen to other Moslems and share with other Moslems. You can stick to your school, to your flower, and have it at home. But when you come from your home and visit other gardens you can like other flowers in the garden.

Q: Is it bad to look at one's culture?

A: It's not bad, it is good to look at one's culture but if you don't look at other cultures you will not enrich your own culture, you will become poor, like we have been since the 16th century; intellectually poor. And in the time of Ibn Sina, he looked at other cultures: Iranian, Indian, Greek, Arabic, Byzantine culture. He was very open, so he produced very rich humanism.

Q: You say humanism?

A: Yes, to integrate Islam in humanism and Islam will enrich humanism but it will take from humanism, this is dynamic. And humanism existed very much in Islam, I wrote a book on humanism in Arabic and French.

Q: You mean it is written in the Koran?

A: Of course.

Q: Could you give some examples?

A: There are many. For instance, in the Koran you have many words which comes from Hebrew, Greek, from many other languages, from Ethiopian language, Armenian, Syrian, it is very open to culture, many cultures.

Q: Do you think humanism is important nowadays?

A: Of course, you cannot achieve democracy without humanism. What is humanism? It is in the interest for human beings to protect their right to express themselves and to express their resources to create new possibilities for understanding; for having an esthetic environment for having new possibilities of development. This is humanism and to protect the rights of each individual for its free creativity. Architecture is based on humanism. It is a humanist option to protect human beings and human rights.

Q: In what way does architecture in Indonesia reflect Islamic culture?

A: Architecture has not to be on the same Islamic standard. Each country has its own tradition for architecture and it expresses this traditional, religious architecture, Christian religious architecture, Buddhist religious architecture, is only places for worship but the rest you can build hotel, your own house, according to the tradition of your country. For example, some of mosques are built on the Indonesian style, it is not Islamic it is Indonesian, you see. So when we say Islamic architecture we don't necessarily link Islam as a religion because Islam provides the possibility for all the traditions to be expressed. Thus we have to make this distinction to not produce a standard Islamic architecture, like MacDonald's is a standard way of eating, everybody eats the same way in all countries, it is not artistic architecture.

Q: There are those in the West who look at Islam as new threat?

A: Yes, there are people in the West who speak about fundamentalism. What does fundamentalism mean? It means that religion is based on some fundamental principles and that every body must respect this fundamentalist principle without allowing free discussion about this principle.

Some people in the west, they see it like this, you develop a conception of Koranic exegesis and write a book about it and you have the fundamentalists who say you have no right to have a personal exegesis. And also they link Islam with politics and this of course for the West is dangerous because Europe has separated politics and religion since the 16th century and we in Islam didn't separate religion from the state. You have many Moslems who say that Islam is the same time the state and the religion. You have some other Moslems who say yes you can separate; so there is a struggle about this.

Q: How do you see it yourself?

A: I see it through culture again because I know that in the history of Islamic thought there has been a cultural development which gives all Moslems the possibility to develop many readings of the Koran, many ways. This is the theological principle. If you impose it, you impose it only through politics not through religion. What you can do through religion is to have a munadzarah as I explained so there is a break in the history of the Islamic thought. Islam is not only a religion it is also a thinking, there is a break in thinking and this break is related to demographic growth; too many people and we couldn't provide the school to so many people. And also development has given too much importance to industrial development, not to education and culture. So people could not study at school the history of Islamic thought. Even here in Indonesia it is not yet developed at the level it should be developed. So that's why the fundamentalist found the possibilities to grow because of the lack of education.

Q: Has Islam separated state and religion now?

A: No, not yet. Even until now. Except in Indonesia. You have Pancasila which is a kind of separation but it is a very good solution because it is philosophical and spiritual. It is the state philosophy. That's why you are extremely tolerant in Indonesian. When you compare Indonesia with Arabic countries the Islam in Indonesia is very tolerant.

Q: Do you think one day Islam will also separate between state and religion?

A: Yes, definitely yes. It is a matter of education. When people will be more educated in history they will understand because it exists in Islam too but we forgot it.

Q: When?

A: In the time of Mu'tazilih in the Abbasids dynasty. It is the 9th and 10th century's school of theology.

Q: But some people believe that if we do not take part in politics we will be marginalized?

A: No, it is not true because politics, if you have citizenship you are protected by law to express your political opinion and you have several political parties. Each one has to express freely its opinion. This is a democratic state, then you don't have to mix religion with politics because you will only have to deal with political problems.

Q: You distinguish Islamic thought and Islam, could you elaborate?

A: We must make this distinction between Islamic thought and Islam. Islamic thought is the intellectual development. Without intellectual development you cannot respect the pluralist of Islam. This is essential to teach. Islam is a pluralist religion, not monolithic. Islam is open to knowledge. For example, Moslems in 11th century studied all religions. Isn't it curious that we in our modern time are more ignorance than those who lived in medieval ages? (hbk)

Window: If you only study one religion you develop fanaticism. You don't develop tolerance. You have to know Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, all religions because each religion is a great tradition of culture.