Muslims and the West [Irfan Ahmad Khan]
[Author: Dr. Irfan Ahmad Khan. Dr. Khan is founder of the World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations (WCMIR). He serves as Chair of the Interreligious Engagement Project (IEP21). He is a renowned Quranic scholar and philosopher, with a long history of commitment to interreligious understanding and cooperation.]
The answers to the two questions by our distinguished participants have further strengthened my claim that the main source of confusion lies in people’s mixing up ‘ideals’ with ‘realities’.I say to all Westerners:
If we are proud of the ideals to which the people of the West aspire – closing our eyes to the failure of many of us in living up to those ideals – then we should also be able to appreciate Islamic ideals, without being obsessed by the destructive action of many so-called Muslims.
Likewise, I very clearly see the fallacy of those Muslims who speak against ‘the West’ with great irresponsibility – who would even see the West as criminal. They would say:
Earlier, the Western powers colonalized the whole world, killed millions of innocents citizens in the First and Second Great Wars and in the Holocast. They invented nuclear bomb and used it on innocent citizens. And today also the West wants to dominate the whole world. It would keep its huge stock of nuclear weapons but would not let other nations develop any ability to produce nuclear weapons.
(And they would add many other charges which will be true of only of some – but never universally true of all – westerners).
So far as reality is concerned, both the Westen World and the Muslim World conduct themselves alike – like degenerated faith communites – always making high claims but remaining below the mark, in their actual performance. Our conduct is full of contradictions.
The job to be done is, therefore, quite clear:
We need a strategy and a plan to answer the following question:
How can conscientious people in both the parties work together for common ideals, counteracting these realities and save the world which is moving toward self-destruction?
This should be the next item in the agenda of the Global Dialogue of Civilizations.
A theological note
In closing, I also to make a theological observation that can provide great inner strength.
God is, in fact, working on two planes.
I. The Plane of Innate or Natural Guidance
All the progress in science, technology, art, literature, philosophy, law and, in fact, in all the fields of human life comes also from God. God continues to improve our abilities and skills to understand and live by Divine Guidance. And God still has high expectations of humankind – in spite of all the continuing bloodshed and corruption which continues in the human world.
In accordance with this view, I understand that the culture of the West is also an initiative from God. It is included in what God is doing on the First Plane.
By ‘West’, here, I mean, the awakening and the subsequent progress in human thought which started in Europe more than five hundred years ago.
II. The Plane of Revealed Guidance
God is still hopeful that the true followers of Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and other prophets and messengers of God, will strive toward the fulfillment of Divine expectations.
[As we know, according to the Qur’an, prophets and messengers of God were sent every where in the human world with Divine Guidance. I have mentioned only the three most revered messengers in the West.]
In fact the two planes of God’s activity complement each other.
The Divine intention was to awaken the followers of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (and other prophets). God only intended to guide them and help them in their leadership task.
And of course, there has been another fairly recent initiative from God, a century ago, to bring followers of the messengers of God into a closer relationship, to make them work together and stop fighting among themselves.
[As you know the birth of the Global Interfaith Movement took place in 1893 when the the Parliament of World’s Religions was held in Chicago.]