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.