L’Islam en Questions

One work published before February 1989, when Khomeini’s fatwa on Rushdie was pronounced, deserves mention. In L’Islam en Questions (Grasset, 1986), twenty-four Arab writers reply to the following five questions:

1. Does Islam retain its universal vocation?
2. Could Islam be a system of government for a modern state?
3. Is an Islamic system of government an obligatory step in the evolution of the Islamic and Arab peoples?
4. Is the “return to Islam,” the phenomenon that is observable in the last ten years in the majority of Muslim countries, something positive?
5. What is the principal enemy of Islam today?

It is clear from the scholars’ replies that a majority of these Arab intellectuals do not see Islam as the answer to the social, economic, and political problems besetting the Islamic world. The majority of the respondents fervently advocate a secular state. Nine writers—Louis Awad (1924–1990, Egypt); Edouard al-Kharrat (1926–2015, Egypt); Youssef Idris (1927–1991, Egypt); Kateb Yacine (1929–1989, Algeria); Hussein Amin (b.1929, Egypt); Tahar Ouettar (1936–2010, Algeria); Abdelkebir Khatibi (1938–2009, Morocco); Rachid Boujedra; Abdelwahab Meddeb (1946–2014, Tunisia)—give an emphatic and categoric no to question 2, “Could Islam be a system of government for a modern state?”

Another four are equally emphatical in favor of a secular state: Youssef el-Khal (1917–1987); Emile Habibi (1922–1996, Israeli Arab); Abderrahman Mounif (1933–2004, Saudi); Gamal el-Ghitani (1945–2015, Egypt). Even those writers who answer yes to question 2, do so very tentatively in responses hedged with qualifications such as, “provided rights are respected,” or “as long as we have a modern interpretation of Islam,” etc. Almost all of them find the “return to Islam” a negative phenomenon, and consider religious fanaticism as the greatest danger facing all Muslims.

…

AHMAD AL-BAGHDADI [1950–2010] There are said to be 57 Islamic countries, and the situation obviously varies from country to country, from year to year. Even countries trumpeted as “moderate,” “liberal,” or “tolerant” have, in reality, a mixed record as far as Human Rights are concerned. Criticism of Islam is well-nigh impossible in all fifty-seven countries. Nonetheless, some courageous individuals living in the latter have found a way of indirectly casting doubt on Islam as the solution to every problem in the modern world, namely, by advocating Secularism.

Kuwait is an Arab Emirate just north of Saudi Arabia and south of Iraq, with a population of just under three million. With its large oil reserves it is considered the eleventh richest country in the world. Though Kuwait is a constitutional monarchy, with a parliamentary system of government, its Human Rights record is decidedly mixed, and this was made plain when in October 1999, Professor Dr. Ahmad al- Baghdadi—first of our three Kuwaiti secularists whom I shall be discussing here—was sentenced to one month in prison for allegedly defaming Islam and the prophet Muhammad in a 1996 article that he wrote for the Kuwait University student magazine Al-Shoula. However, the emir of Kuwait pardoned him a few weeks later, and he was released.

Ahmad Al-Baghdadi [not to be confused with Ayatollah Ahmad Al-Baghdadi], a political science lecturer at Kuwait University, was in trouble once again when he published several articles in November 2004 in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, dismissing religious thought as no longer relevant or adequate, and extolling the virtues of secularism. A few excerpts from his articles—superbly translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI, Special Dispatch 823]—will suffice to show the courage of Al-Baghdadi’s thorough critique of religion, and the need for a separation of state and mosque: “Muslims Have no Future as Long as They are Subjected to Religious Thought

In his article, “Secularism and Life”, Al-Baghdadi argued that only a society free of religion could make progress and develop; Islamic religious thought merely prevents progress and development:

Secularism as a [world] view and as a way of life was not formed in a vacuum, but is the outcome of the painful life experience of human beings which has continued for close to a millennium and in the course of which the religious thought of the Church, devised by the religious clergy, was abolished … During this experience, Western man lived in intellectual darkness and [endured] devastating wars in a period called “the Dark Middle Ages.” “For the person educated in sciences, industry, finances, politics, and culture there was only one solution, which constitutes a refuge for the poor societies. That [solution] is: distancing the man of the cloth from life … From that moment on, the Western world became the only world to develop, progress, and flourish in all spheres of life.

In order [to avoid] being accused of subjectivity against the religious way of thought, let us present examples from the reality of life in the Muslim and Arab countries:

1. Religious thought is the only way of thought nowadays that refuses to accept the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” on religious grounds, and this constitutes an obstacle to [the realization of] these rights in the Islamic countries, not only in the matter of inheritance, but also in matters such as equality, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech.

2. Islamic religious thought is the only way of thought nowadays to persist in [accusations] of ridda [apostasy] … Unfortunately, this persistence [leads to] the killing of human beings, even without trial.

3. Religious thought objects to freedom of thought and freedom of speech when religion is criticized. Moreover, religious thought reveres things that religion itself does not instruct [us] to revere. Thus, for example, regarding [the immunity from criticism of] the Prophet’s companions, who are not considered part of the principles of religion or of the roots of belief. Religious thought does not distinguish between religion and its believers.

4. Religious thought is still anti-woman even if the religious clerics claim otherwise.

5. Religious thought is opposed to human health in matters of treatment and medicine. The prohibition of including alcohol in most medicines leads to their reduced effectiveness … [Moreover,] the Muslim doctor nowadays does not dare to instruct a patient not to fast [during the month of Ramadhan], and the hospitals therefore become full of patients who fasted.

6. Religious thought supports political tyranny, because it opposes democracy and the constitution. [For example,] in Kuwait [some] strive to destroy the constitution and the constitutional state, and in Saudi Arabia there is complete opposition to democracy.

7. If we were to imagine that an [Arab] regime adopted a certain religious school of thought, what could happen to the other schools of thought?

8. Religious thought opposes the Other, accuses him of heresy, and objects to living by his side. Proof of this are the supplications and appeals [to Allah] that we hear in the mosques to destroy all non-Muslims and harm them, rather than requesting guidance for them on the straight path, [as would have occurred] had there been an ounce of human tolerance.

9. Religious thought is the main reason for the production of terror, because of the negative interpretations of the [Quranic] verses regarding Jihad.

10. Religious thought opposes any kind of creativity and art … “The West did not make progress until it became free of this way of thinking. This is the only solution facing the Muslims. They have no future as long as they are subjected to religious thought.”

Al-Baghdadi relentlessly pursued his theme in an article published two days later, on 16 November 2004, in Al-Siyassa, [Memri, Special Dispatch 823][1] titled “The Good in Secularism and the Bad in You,” and explained why the secular countries were successful and the Islamic countries manifest failures:

There is no Islamic country in which a Christian or a Jew could reveal a cross or a skullcap, and get away with it peacefully. In addition, members of [other] human religions, like Buddhism and Hinduism, are prohibited from conducting their ceremonies in public, even with governmental approval, without people harming them, as happened at the Hindu place of worship in Kuwait. In contrast to this religious persecution [in Islamic countries,] of which the [Islamic] religious stream boasts, there is no secular country that prohibits the construction of mosques, even in the event that the government does not finance them. Moreover, there is no secular country that prevents the Muslim from praying in public …

There is no church in the secular Christian world in which a priest stands and curses anyone who disagrees with his religion or prays for trouble and disaster to befall them, as do the preachers in our Friday sermons. [Moreover,] our religious thought has no parallel to the message recently pronounced by the present Pope regarding the importance of peace for all. Contrary to the ease with which a mosque is built in secular Europe and America, the construction of a church [in a Muslim country] is carried out only with the approval of the country’s president, [and even then] it is rare.

There is no non-Muslim religious institute that teaches its students to hate the Other, claiming that he is considered an infidel, doomed to hell, regardless of whether he was of any use to mankind. This hatred is present in the curricula of the Islamic religion.

Throughout [Muslim] history there has not been one Muslim judge who strived to attain justice for a non-Muslim who was wronged, whereas the U.S. and Europe have saved many peoples from oppression, while sacrificing human life and property in order to save other [peoples.] [In this context] one cannot but note the benevolence of the secular toward the Kuwaitis when they decided to liberate Kuwait and reinstate the honor of its government and its people.

In the secular world the author, the intellectual, and the journalist are not sent to jail for their opinions—with the exception of the European laws concerning the denial of the Holocaust that annihilated the Jews of Europe, because this is a fact from which the European conscience still suffers. [Even in such a case, the Holocaust denier] is not imprisoned, but is merely fined. They do not consider him a murtadd [Arabic: apostate], and do not seek his death, try to assassinate him, harm his livelihood, or separate him from his wife and children. In contrast, the extremist Muslims and the Islamic clerics often adopt ideological terror, issuing calls for killing, and accusations of ridda [apostasy] …

Those in the religious stream cannot avoid admitting that all the good is in the secular thought, and all the evil is in the religious thought, for they take advantage of religion in order to harm not only people but religion itself, to the point that Muslims no longer respect their religion, and they start to exploit it for financial gain by selling Islamic books and drink.

Do you know why Allah helps the secular country? Because it is just. Why doesn’t He help countries that build mosques every day? Because these countries are oppressive …

The Muslim countries cannot adopt secularism for a simple reason: the principles of secularism contradict the outlook of these countries, which are based on tyranny, oppression, aggression, backwardness, and anarchy. Moreover, these countries exploit religious thought in order to impose their legitimacy. Thus you find that they are the most avid supporters of the religious groups, knowing that these groups include those who support terrorism and harm society. For the religious groups do not support rights and justice as much as they support oppression and tyranny, whereas secularism [acts] in the opposite manner.

One’s first reaction to Al-Baghdadi’s article is one of wonder at his courage in a much-needed act of self-criticism, something which is rare in the Islamic world. The second reaction is to worry for his safety. Unfortunately, one’s worries were justified when one read that Al-Baghdadi on March 21, 2005 published a request for political asylum in the West “in response to being sentenced by a Kuwaiti court to three years on probation on 2,000 dinars [$6800] bail, with violation punishable by a one-year prison sentence, on charges of contempt for Islam.”

…

In the end Al-Baghdadi did not need asylum; he was able to stay on as a lecturer at a college of Political Science in Kuwait, and continued to write for various liberal journals and newspapers in Kuwait, Baḥrayn, and other Middle Eastern countries. Al-Baghdadi, 60, died after a long illness in the Shaikh Khalifa Hospital in Abu Dhabi. Right to the end Al-Baghdadi called for secularizing laws, and the need for rational thinking in addressing political and religious issues.

Atheism in the Islamic World in the Twenty-First Century

One could call the present age the Golden Age of Atheism in the West. … Books that overtly promote and argue for atheism have been bestsellers in the USA, works by such scientists and intellectuals as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, A.C. Grayling, and Victor Stenger. There have been surveys of atheism by Peter Watson,[2] Mitchell Stephens,[3] Michael Martin,[4] Julian Baggini,[5] and Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse.[6]

Surprisingly there is a similar mood or change in the Islamic world, for we find individuals born into Islam but who do not believe in any deity, let alone Allah. It is surprising since “unbelief” is considered by Muslim jurists as the greatest of the great sins (kabirah) as opposed to the little ones (saghirah). There are seventeen great sins, beginning with (1) Kufr, or infidelity, that is unbelief, while murder comes way down the list at (15).[7] There are several words used for those in a state of infidelity, with different nuances of meaning, kafir, mushrik, mulhid, zandiq, munafiq, murtad, dahri, and wasaniy. The most common one in modern accounts and media is mulhid. Classical Muslim jurists, as I have already indicated above, are agreed that a male apostate from Islam is “liable to be put to death if he continue obstinate in his error; a female apostate is not subject to capital punishment, but she may be kept in confinement until she recant.”[8]

On 24 June, 2019, the BBC published on its website some of the startling results of a poll about the rise in atheism in the Islamic World: “Arabs are increasingly saying they are no longer religious, according to the largest and most in-depth survey undertaken of the Middle East and North Africa. The finding is one of a number on how Arabs feel about a wide range of issues, from women’s rights and migration to security and sexuality. More than 25,000 people were interviewed for the survey—for BBC News Arabic by the Arab Barometer research network—across 10 countries and the Palestinian territories between late 2018 and spring 2019 … Since 2013, the number of people across the region identifying as ‘not religious’ has risen from 8% to 13%. The rise is greatest in the under 30s, among whom 18% identify as not religious, according to the research.”[9]

In Tunisia, 31 percent of all ages define themselves as not religious, with the figure rising to almost half (46 percent) among 18–29 year olds, the highest figure in the region. In 2013, only 16 percent of people in Tunisia defined themselves as not religious.

Libya, which has witnessed conflict since 2011, has also seen a steep drop in religiosity. The number of people identifying as not religious (25 percent) has more than doubled since 2014 (11 percent). Among 18–29 year olds, the figure is 36 percent.

In Algeria, among 18–29 year olds, the figure of those not religious is 24 percent, while in Morocco, for the same age group, the figure of those not religious is 22 percent, in Jordan 24 percent, Egypt 18 percent, Lebanon 17 percent, Palestinian territories 46 percent, Sudan ten percent, Iraq nine percent.[10]

There have been dozens of articles, both in the Arab media, and in the Western press, on atheists in the Islamic world in the last five years.[11] According to a recent article for Associated Press by Diaa Hadid, it is still very rare to find people in the Arab world who openly declare themselves as atheist, since the Arab world remains deeply conservative. It is perfectly acceptable socially not to be religiously observant, for example, if you decide not to pray or carry out other acts of faith, or to have secular attitudes. But to out oneself publicly as an atheist would lead to ostracism by family and friends, and you can expect trouble from Islamist hard-liners or even the state authorities.

Nonetheless things are changing; as Diaa Hadid explains, there is now a small number of courageous souls who have dared to step out of the shadows. “Groups on social media networks began to emerge in the mid-2000s. Now, the Arab Spring that began in early 2011 has given a further push: The heady atmosphere of ‘revolution’ with its ideas of greater freedoms of speech and questioning of long-held taboos has encouraged this opening.” One 40-year-old Egyptian engineer, born a Muslim, told The Associated Press he had long been an atheist but kept it a deep secret. The 2011 uprising in Egypt and its calls for radical change encouraged him to look online for others like himself. “Before the revolution, I was living a life in total solitude. I didn’t know anybody who believed like me,” he said. “Now we have more courage than we used to have.”

However, it was evident that there were limits as to how far an atheist can go. The above-mentioned Egyptian spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals, and estrangement from family, friends and colleagues. He went “public” only online.

The article gives two recent examples of atheists in the Islamic world who were sentenced to prison for insulting religion. In 2012, Egyptian Alber Saber, a Christian who confessed to being an atheist, was arrested when neighbors denounced him for posting an anti-Islam film on his Facebook page. “Though he denied it, he was sentenced to three years in prison for blasphemy and contempt of religion. Released on bail during appeal in December, he moved to France. Similarly, a Palestinian atheist, Waleed al-Husseini, was arrested in 2010 in the West Bank town of Qalqilya for allegedly mocking Islam on the Internet. He was held without charge for several months, and after his release also fled to France.

However, according to Diaa Hadid, “There are some 60 Arabic-language atheist Facebook groups—all but five of them formed since the Arab Spring. They range from ‘Atheists of Yemen’ with only 25 followers, to ‘Sudanese Atheists’ with 10,344 followers. There are pages that appear dormant, but most maintain some activity. An ‘Arab Atheist Broadcasting’ outfit produces pro-atheism YouTube clips. There are closed groups, like an atheist dating club in Egypt.”[12]

Notes

1. Kuwaiti Progressive Scholar: “All the Good Is in Secular Thought, All the Evil in Religious Thought,” Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI] Dispatch 823, December 2, 2004.
2. Peter Watson, The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God, Simon & Schuster; First Edition (February 18, 2014).
3. Mitchell Stephens. Imagine There’s No Heaven, St. Martin’s Press (February 25, 2014).
4. Michael Martin, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
5. Julian Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press (August 28, 2003).
6. S. Bullivant and Michael Ruse, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, Oxford University Press, 2013.
7. Thomas Patrick Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam, Rupa & Co., 1988 [Ist edn, 1885], s.v. “Sin” p. 594.
8. Ibid., 1988 [Ist. Edn., 1885], p. 16.
9. “The Arab world in seven charts: Are Arabs turning their backs on religion?” BBC.com.
10. 25 June, 2019. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/new-survey-reveals-drop-religiousity-across-arab-world-especially-north-africa; “PUSHING BACK. Arabs are turning their backs on religion in record numbers ‘in backlash against Islamists’. Annabel Murphy, 25 Jun 2019, The Sun: https://www. thesun.co.uk/news/9369668/arabs-religion-backlash-islamists- turning/
11. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48703377.
12. Diaa Hadid, “Arab atheists, though few, inch out of the shadows.” Associated Press, 3 August. 2013, in http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/08/03/arab-atheists-though-few-inch-out-of-shadows.html.