Commentary
Islam and the Roots of European Secularism
In the wake of the events of September 11th, all kinds of bizarre theories have emerged about the nature of Islam and the Islamic world. One such theory is that secularism - the demand for the separation of church and state - is a peculiarly European concept which has no relevance in the Middle East. It has even been claimed that secularism was utilized by the Anglo-American imperialists to subjugate these countries. This theory negates both the ancient and recent history of the Islamic world.
The roots of European secularism actually pass through the Middle East. Islam began in the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th century, based largely on Arab culture and thought. However, by the 8th or 9th century it had expanded to include most of the Middle East and Northern Africa and in so doing it incorporated Persian and Greek culture, as well as the tendencies and customs of various local pre-Islamic traditions. Of particular importance was the influence of Greek science and logic.
One of the schools of thought which emerged in this period was Mu'tazalism, a religious philosophy in which, in the Greek tradition, reason occupied a position superior to the "holy power of God". In this philosophy human beings became completely responsible for their own actions and God was reduced to a simple abstraction with little role in human affairs. Although widely considered heresy, in 849 AD many of the ideas of the Mu'tazalites were endorsed by Caliph Mutawakkil and a long line of succeeding caliphs. The resulting period of intellectual freedom gave rise to Islam's Golden Age, during which science, medicine, mathematics and the arts all flourished.
However, with the end of the Abbasid dynasty in 1258 AD, Islamic rationalism was replaced by a renewed fatalism and Islamic scientific activity went into decline. Fortunately, the works of these Islamic scholars and the Greek works which they had translated were transported back to Europe, especially after the 4th Crusade. There the works of these Islamic scholars formed the basis for the European Renaissance and Age of Reason.
As had happened in the Islamic world, the ideas of science and logic ran into the opposition of the civil and religious authorities in Europe. However, in Europe the merchant class was relatively stronger than its counterpart in the Middle East and it seized on the revolutionary ideas in its struggle for supremacy over the feudal aristocracy. One of the key demands of the European capitalists was for the separation of church and state as a prelude to their seizure of the state for their own purposes. However, apart for a brief period following the French Revolution, secularism has never been rigorously applied by the bourgeoisie, which quickly formed an alliance with the defeated religious authorities in their common struggle against the rising revolutionary working class. Even formal secularism does not exist in Canada or the United States, both of which have references to God in their constitutions. In Britain, the head of state is also the head of the Anglican Church.
Just as in Europe, the people of the Middle East gave rise to struggles against oppression. Since their oppressors were an alliance of religious and civil authorities, these struggles also had a secular character. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries secular national liberation struggles had begun to emerge throughout the Islamic world, first against the Ottoman Empire and then against Anglo-French imperialists who, following the First World War occupied the former Ottoman territories. In order to defeat these democratic liberation movements, the British adopted a policy of opposing secularism, which it saw as inherently revolutionary. Adopting the policies it had pioneered in India, Britain systematically organized, financed and put into power the most backward religious fundamentalists, including the Saudi royal family.
With the collapse of the British Empire following the Second World War, the United States replaced Britain as the main colonial power in the Middle East. However, the British policy opposing secularism remained intact as the United States forged alliances with religious fundamentalists, royalists and military despots to oppose any secular movements for democracy and socialism. Systematic murder, imprisonment and torture of thousands of communists, socialists and even bourgeois democrats were carried out in the countries of the Middle East under U.S. control. The destruction of the democratic and revolutionary secular forces in those countries created a political vacuum in the national liberation movements. This was filled by religious fundamentalists, many of whom had previously been allied with U.S. imperialism against the progressive and revolutionary forces.
The dilemma facing progressive people throughout the world is that, with the destruction of the progressive and revolutionary forces in many countries of the Middle East, virtually the only forces still fighting against imperialist domination are those under the control of religious fundamentalists. Clearly, a section of the Islamic fundamentalists have a contradiction with imperialism and wish to free their nations from neo-colonialism, but they have an equally sharp contradiction with the progressive and revolutionary forces and with any movements for social progress. The fact that these forces are fighting against imperialism is positive and, to the extent that they do so, they deserve the support of all progressive peoples. However, the fact that these forces do not stand for social progress condemns their struggle to defeat. They will never be capable of uniting the vast majority of the Middle Eastern peoples in a broad, anti-imperialist struggle for national liberation as long as they cling to narrow, backward, sectarian positions and insist on using religion to oppress large sections of their own people, especially those who espouse progressive ideals.
As a matter of principle, Modern Communism supports the struggles of all peoples against imperialist domination, regardless of the ideology of their leaders. However, we are firmly convinced that victory for the people of the Middle east will only be possible when they free themselves from the negative aspects of religion which play an inhibiting role in their struggles. In other words, the peoples of the Middle East must give rise, once again, to a broad, secular, progressive and revolutionary movement against imperialism and for social progress.