Introduction
Introduction
On September 11, 2001, Islamic fundamentalists intentionally crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, killing about 3,000 people. That day, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address “the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday.” The focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals. The address was designed to promote a missile system as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or Islamic extremist groups according to former U.S. officials who saw the text. The speech was postponed in the chaos of the day. It mentioned terrorism, but did so as one of the dangers from rogue nations, such as Iraq, that might use weapons of terror, rather than from the extremist cells now considered America’s main security threat.1
Similarly, until 1900 no one was predicting that democracy would replace kingdoms in most European countries, or that Asian and African countries would gain independence within five to six decades. But because of World Wars I and II, most European kingdoms were replaced by vibrant democracies, and colonial rulers had to leave most of Asia and Africa due to the destruction wrought on their economies during the world wars.
The 2001 attack on the United States and subsequent Western-led attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq have led political scientists to believe in Samuel Huntington’s theory of a “clash of civilizations.”2 The world’s civilizations—Western, Islamic, Sinic/
Introduction
The Modernization of Islam
Chinese, Japanese, Orthodox/Russian, Hindu, African, and Latin—will, according to this theory, align and engage in war on a civilizational basis. The current conflict between the U.S.-led coalition of Western nations and Islamic nations and groups is only its present and most patent manifestation. Although experts predict that Islamic militancy will last three to four decades, they are unable to predict its final outcome.
What we are in fact witnessing is not the clash of civilizations—but the modernization of Islam. In order to give birth to a beautiful child, a woman has to go through the pains of labor. Europe went through a similar crisis in the first half of the last century. World Wars I and II were necessary in order to change the global socio-economic and political environments of those times, in Europe in particular. Had those wars not occurred, much of Europe might still be ruled as kingdoms, and most Asian and African countries might still be awaiting independence from their colonial masters.
Islam is the only major religion being imposed by government fiat anywhere in the world, and as such is a throwback to medieval values. Following the dissolution of the Islam-centered Ottoman Empire after World War I, colonial powers Britain and France carved up the Middle East and North Africa, creating most of the nations we know there today, now about 40 in number, for administrative reasons, and installed client rulers. Later on, a number of these rulers were ousted in coups, and almost all the countries in these regions are now unstable and facing Islamic militancy. The combination of religious medievalism and socio-political instability indicates a transitional period is underway.
Today Islamic civilization is going through what Europe went through between WWI and WWII. The creation, first, of Israel in 1948 and now the invasion of Iraq in 2003 have catalyzed deep changes that will result in its modernization. At the end of this crisis, Islam will cease to be the guiding force where it now leads, and the majority of Islamic nations will become secular and democratic, like Turkey. Until WWI, Turkey, whose population is 99 percent Muslim, had been the seat of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) and the Islamic caliphate. It is now a secular, democratic nation and has been since 1923.
The Ottomans fought with Germany against Britain and France during WWI. After their defeat, Muslim leaders as far away as the Indian subcontinent launched movements to influence the British government to protect the caliphate, a spiritual and political leadership system that started after the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632. Even Mahatma Gandhi and his Congress Party made an alliance with Muslim leaders, who had formed the All India Khilafat Committee, to actively participate with them in the Khilafat Movement (1919-1924) to pressure the British government in this direction. It is an irony that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who later became instrumental in partitioning India along communal lines into India and Pakistan, dismissed this campaign as “religious frenzy.”
Following WWI, Mustafa Kemal changed Turkey from an Islamic caliphate into a secular, democratic country overnight. He abolished the caliphate in 1924, ending a 13-century-old institution. Women were given equal rights, and the entire educational system up to university level was made co-educational. Islamic courts were banned, and a new legal system was established, based on Swiss, Italian, and German models. He made other profound changes as well, which will be reviewed in chapters 5 and 7. All these changes were made within two to three years.
In 1995-96, I wrote a couple of articles on international politics in Global Times (Denmark) and stated that certain events would occur in the Middle East, predictions that are now being realized. I wrote:
The U.S. has sowed the seeds of the next Cold War by employing the low-cost war strategy in Afghanistan. Although a rise in Islamic fundamentalist movements world-wide was inevitable, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan only hastened the process…
The rise in Islamic fundamentalist movements world-wide is inevitable. Iraq just delayed this rise by waging the eight-year-long war with fundamentalist Iran. Large-scale unemployment and acute poverty in the general population and —-
Dr. Susmit Kumar
