This is the third and final part of Prof. Clive Kessler article. -- Kassim
An Evening at IKIM
But, despite the collapse of Rashad Khalifa’s position and the ignominious murder of its author, it was not quite the end of the matter.
Several years later, some time in the early 1990s, Kassim Ahmad received some high-level encouragement to open up once more the debate about hadith and, by implication, the role, including the special position and claims to special authority, of the ulama as a group or “clerical estate” in Islam generally and specifically in modernising Muslim societies such as Malaysia.
The congruence or “fit” between these ideas, if they were sustainable, and those of Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir is obvious.
Dr. Mahathir’s core initiative was to emphasise Islam, modernisation, and, as part of the same overall cultural complex or “package”, modern understandings of Islam. If the resistance to him and his, and the UMNO’s, religious “project” came from the religious traditionalists and their allies, deeply entrenched not only within PAS but also the UMNO itself, then an argument that might decisively defeat and delegitimise that clericalist opposition was, it seems, worth considering.
Anything that would put his traditionalist and traditionalising Islamist adversaries on the defensive, and possibly seize the political initiative from them, was worth a try. So the hadith controversy had, was allowed, a brief second life.
At a political moment when these issues were very much in the air, and prominent in the minds of some leading Malaysians, it was decided that the hadith question with its related, and to some very troubling, implications about “the special position of the ulama in Islam” might have a another hearing: not the trench and guerrilla warfare of the original UKM confrontation but something more dignified and also controlled —— from above, rather than by unruly dissenting academics.
Accordingly it was arranged that a public forum would be held under impeccable auspices, and that it would be taped for later broadcasting, in edited form, via national television on RTM1’s long-running and very popular Thursday evening religious programme Forum Perdana Hal Ehwal Islam.
The event itself was staged in the elegant public auditorium of the then quite newly established and salubriously housed government entity IKIM: Institut Kefahaman Islam or Institute of Islamic Understanding.
A so-called “think-tank”, it was yet another of those handsomely funded institutions that Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir created to develop an alternative Islamic agenda and project a rival Islamic worldview to those of PAS and the clericalist traditionalists —— but which in the end, because they were placed under the leadership of people who simply did not understand with sufficient cultural and historical depth what the task and challenge facing them were, never had any possibility of addressing them successfully.
The people placed in charge of these wondrous new creations were simply intellectually inadequate to the challenge they faced, they lacked the deeply grounded knowledge even to grasp what was involved, let alone take on that challenge and see the task through to successful completion.
They never knew and understood what they had to know and understand if they were to accomplish, or even plausibly begin, the historic task that was expected of them, So, in the end, these institutions, including the Islamic University [UIA/IIU] and others too, fell by default into other hands. They ended up being “gifted” by Dr. Mahathir’s government as resources to the very forces that their creation had been intended to oppose and contest.
Yet these were early days for IKIM and for Dr. Mahathir’s hopes of it. The forum was organised. Kassim Ahmad had the chance to state his case, as did two notable and knowledgeable opponents. After their presentations and some direct exchanges, amounting to a tough and quite hostile cross-examination of Kassim Ahmad by his critics, the forum was opened up, in accordance with the Forum Perdana Islam format, to questions and comments from the floor.
Eventually I took the opportunity to make a point. I decided to refer to and then quote some lines from the work of the great Pakistani/Canadian Islamic scholar, the late Professor Fazlur Rahman who, perhaps more than any other individual in the twentieth century, had sought, with some considerable success, to bridge, as a pious Muslim, the worlds of classical Islamic scholarship and the modern academic study of the Islamic tradition.
By doing so I sought, after the torrid cross-examination of Kassim Ahmad, to restate the same position in different words, now with the backing, prestige and authority, grounded within the Islamic tradition, of a truly great scholar and moral leader.
I referred to Prof. Fazlur Rahman’s Islamic Methodology in History (1965) and then to his Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (1982).
These are two landmark studies —— milestones, one might even say, or perhaps better, benchmarks —— of Islamic modernism and modernist Islam at their highest point. In the latter work, Fazlur Rahman remarks that the
“proliferation of hadiths resulted in the cessation of an orderly growth in legal thought in particular and in religious thought in general” [26]; as a result, “it came to pass that a vibrant and revolutionary religious document like the Qur’an was buried under the debris of grammar and rhetoric. Ironically, the Qur’an was never taught by itself, most probably through the fear that a meaningful study of the Qur’an by itself might upset the status quo, not only educational and theological, but social as well” [36].
To help, or rather begin, addressing the problems created by this proliferation of often dubious hadith and the effect that a long traditions of sophistic hadith scholarship had had for the study of the Qur’an itself, Prof. Fazlur averred that
“the first essential step … is for the Muslim to distinguish clearly between normative Islam and historical Islam [141]. To do so, “we must make a thorough study, a historically systematic study, of the development of Islamic disciplines. This has to be primarily a critical study that will show us … the career of Islam at the hands of Muslims … the need for a critical study of our intellectual Islamic past is ever more urgent because, owing to a peculiar psychological complex we have developed vis-à-vis the West, we have come to defend that past as though it were our God. Our sensitivities to the various parts or aspects of this past, of course, differ, although almost all of it has become generally sacred to us. The greatest sensitivity surrounds the Hadith, although it is generally accepted that, except the Qur’an, all else is liable to the corrupting hand of history. Indeed, a critique of Hadith should not only remove a big mental block but should promote fresh thinking about Islam” [147].
“A historical critique of theological developments in Islam,” Prof. Fazlur added, “is the first step towards a reconstruction of Islamic theology [151]. This critique … should reveal the extent of the dislocation between the world view of the Qur’an and various schools of theological speculation in Islam and point the way to a new theology” [151-152].
Having alluded generally to Prof. Fazlur Rahman’s career and ideas, I cited explicitly his words that “the greatest sensitivity surrounds the Hadith, although it is generally accepted that, except the Qur’an, all else is liable to the corrupting hand of history. Indeed, a critique of Hadith should not only remove a big mental block but should promote fresh thinking about Islam.” I then posed the question to the more outspoken of Kassim Ahmad’s two critical interlocutors on the Forum Perdana panel how he responded, in this present context, to Prof. Fazlur’s principled and informed position.
When challenged to address himself to these words from Fazlur Rahman (which in essence, if far more diplomatically, stated a position similar to that of Kassim Ahmad), Dr. Othman al-Muhammady responded very precisely that, in his view, “Fazlur Rahman had been a great man in the history of Islam, but his aqidah [the integrity of his faith] was questionable and his influence had been damaging and remained dangerous”.
Aftermath
It remains only to note three things.
First, that Dr. Othman al-Muhammady was one of the featured speakers, perhaps the central speaker, at the Muslim Professional Forum’s symposium in September 2005 that targeted “Liberal Islam: A Clear and Present Danger”.
Second, that, with those legally resonant words in that subtitle, the symposium was branding modernist Muslims and the proponents of Islamic modernism as promoters of sedition and treason.
And third, that at the same time when Dr. Othman al-Muhammady was acting as the guiding spirit and prime mover of the onslaught upon liberal Islam as “a clear and present danger”, he was appointed to serve as a Commissioner of Suhakam, the official, statutory Malaysian Human Rights Commission of the government of Malaysia.
What are people, including those of the Fazlur Rahman intellectual “lineage” and scholarly tradition in Islam, to make of this bizarre appointment and the thinking behind it? Who knows? Many may simply remark, in a formula of conventional piety, “WaAllahu’alam …”, that only God truly knows, knows the truth. The Truth is ever with Allah.
Here on earth, meanwhile, one may suggest that the brutal verdict which Dr. Othman al-Muhammady was happy to place upon Fazlur Rahman —— against the integrity and grounding of his faith, and scorning his influence upon and place in modern Islamic intellectual history —— offers a very telling insight into the meanness, the vindictive nature, of the emblematic leaders of the “new Islamism” when they find themselves cornered and effectively challenged.
Meanwhile, though the Truth may be with God alone, as mere humans those of that modernist tradition may and should endeavour —— since it is a truly wondrous and wonderful part of their fitrah or divinely created human ontology —— to use in good faith their human power of reason, always, of course, in well-guided ways.
What does well-guided mean?
The question is whether people may, in good faith and reason, seek out and seek to combine wisdom from a variety of sources. Or whether, when matters are contested —— which is when they truly matter —— there is one sole and unique source of guidance to which believers must turn and whose admonitions, almost always of a restrictive nature and intention, all must accept as authoritative: the guidance ever so insistently proffered by the exclusivist and exclusionary clericalist monopoly.
Which choice people should make is not for me to say. I simply note that the choice is theirs and that it is there. Of those who would deny that fact, and seek to deny others that choice, one may simply, and legitimately, ask that they clarify their motives and intended agenda.
Postscript
For the record, Dr. Othman al-Muhammady died in early 2013. But his ideas and influence are far from dead. Very recently I saw in the Malay press a column praising him and his work that was written by Senator Dato Dr. Mashitah Ibrahim, an Islamic International University doctoral graduate in Islamic Studies who is a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department. In the context of delivering her praise, she noted that a book honouring Dr. Othman al-Muhammady and his work has recently been launched by the Deputy Prime Minister (“Inteligensia Muslim kontemporari,” Sinar Harian, 1 August 2014).[1]
And meanwhile, as Kassim Ahmad is dragged out of his house and into police stations in the dark morning hours and dragged through the courts, it is clear that even in the year 2014 his story is not yet over.
So long as he lives, as his will lives, I dare say, he will not let it end.
Beyond his own story of lonely determination, the issues that he and the official treatment of him raise will not go away.
They are of the highest importance.
As with al-Hallaj —— but now in very different and supposedly far more advanced times —— they involve the nature of religious faith, thinking and reason and the rights of citizens to live their own lives in their own heads, free from being bothered by government officialdom, and to talk to their fellow citizens about their ideas.
Ultimately, at stake here is the question of a triple freedom: freedom of religion, freedom from religion, and also freedom in religion.
Parts 1 and 2 are available HERE and HERE
[1]http://www.sinarharian.com.my/kolumnis/inteligensia-muslim-kontemporari-1.303862
Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He is well known for being unimpressed by “postmodernist” theory and analytical practice while being adamant that people, especially the champions and exponents of that now almost mandatory approach, should understand its origins and basis in twentieth century French social, cultural, intellectual and political history. The vast majority, he insists, alas do not. He is himself not such an enthusiast, but in the course of his scholarly career, he has made it his business, often in the hard way over years of serious investigation and study, to find out.
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#1
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Posted August 7, 2014 at 1:22 PM
As a sign of the desperation of the Ulama to emasculate Kassim Ahmad, an absurd Fatwa was issued against Kassim in Terengganu, a State he never lived in, but was not issued an (absurd) Fatwa, in Kedah where he is from. The Federal Courts would not hear his case, because it was deemed an “Islamic” matter (his supposed heresy against Islam), so he was tried in Shari’a Court for heresy, based on his long-time rejection of the Hadiths and Aurat in Malaysia, which JAKIM and UMNO knew for 20 years, but decided to go after him right now, when they could have years ago, if they really wanted to. His books are banned, not because they are heretical, but because the Ulama cannot understand them. To call this a farce, would be an insult to all self-respecting clowns around the world. He appealed the ruling of not being allowed to be tried in civil court in the first instance, in Federal Court, and ultimately lost, with the Shari’a Court charge of heresy not being annulled. If any other Malaysian would have been treated like a dog, like Kassim was treated, they would howl in protest. That Kassim respected the system enough to let it take its course, like he has respected everything and everyone throughout his whole life, says more about the honour and decency of this man, than the reprehensible corruption and religious ignorance of the Shari’a Court. To even have been issued a Fatwa, in a State he never resided in, let alone committed any heresy in, is Kafaesque. The treatment and abuse of Kassim Ahmad, really epitomises how Malaysia treats anyone who dares to think outside the established norms, established not by societal consensus, but by the Ulama and by UMNO, who form an elite caste system.
I would note that a former prominent benefactor, who assisted him out of self-aggrandisement, has now abandoned him entirely, to be eaten by the wolves. Yet, Kassim persists, retains his optimism, and fights for the freedom to believe as one chooses. Kassim Ahmad is in the fine traditions of Naguib Mahfouz, Vaclav Havel, Czeslaw Milosz and Orhan Pamuk, all dissidents who refused to abandon principle for notoriety, and to appease the system that denigrated them. Kassim Ahmad is a Malaysian hero, a Malaysian original, and a Malaysian without whom, Malaysia would be a very different nation. Kassim, already 81 and frail, deserves an apology from the Ulama, UMNO and his former benefactor, from whom he is the least likeliest to receive anything safe. The treatment of this man is a disgusting disgrace, and calls very much into question, whether the Malaysian Government respects, or even believes, in its own Constitution. Every Malaysian should hang their head in shame, at the savage maltreatment of a true “Son of the Soil”. For shame !
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#2
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Ma Lee
Posted August 7, 2014 at 4:09 PM
Interesting read
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#3
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Clive Kessler
Posted August 7, 2014 at 6:18 PM
A further comment or addendum, if I may.
I have been asked about the harshness of my view of the response of Dr. Othman al-Muhammady to my putting to him the views of the late Prof. Fazlur Rahman as a way of contextualizing Kassim Ahmad’s views and grounding some serious and civil discussion of them.
To have risen to ask a question at all in that context, and certainly to have offered a challenge, no matter how polite, to that formidable scholar-ideologue, was no small thing.
So, when I did so, I was fully prepared for his treatment of me to be curt, dismissive, even irritable and unpleasant. After all, as he would have seen the matter, what business of mine was this anyway?
But I was simply not prepared for the vehemence of his reply, for the intensely personalized character of his response, and for the lack of civility and regard that he directed at Prof. Fazlur Rahman and his lifelong work.
So I was at the time, and remain even now whenever I think of that occasion, shocked and genuinely taken aback at his impugning of the good faith of Prof. Fazlur Rahman and his denunciation of that man’s intellectual influence, of the baneful effects (as he saw them) of the man’s ideas.
But friend and foe alike of Dr. Othman al-Muhammady will readily agree upon one thing: that he was no fool.
He was a very sharp man.
So, when I rose to ask and began outlining my question to him, I noticed him fix his attention closely upon me and my words.
He took seriously what I was saying, and, I am sure, saw immediately the challenge that I was presenting.
And he decided, so it would seem, to deal with that challenge decisively.
No half measures.
He seized upon the nub of my implied argument —— the invoking of Prof. Fazlur Rahman’s ideas and their authority —— and he struck immediately, hard and fast, at their credibility and acceptability.
Rhetorically and politically, it was masterful: a very powerful and effective move. It shut down the question and line of argument decisively.
But it was very unfair and involved doing a great injustice to one of the great thinkers of twentieth century Islam.
That I still find hard to accept.
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azfar
Posted August 11, 2014 at 1:24 AM
Great write-up. As a big fan of Kassim Ahmad I hope one day more Malays/Muslims consider fairly his ideas. truly a giant of the Malay intellectual world. But i guess like most greats, his ideas will only be appreciated when he’s gone.
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#5
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Phillip Turnbull
Posted August 13, 2014 at 1:03 PM
Muslims are intellectually in a cul-de-sac of their own making. Why? Because they ‘closed the gates of reason’ during the 10-12th centuries and in doing so committed intellectual suicide.
Hence, Muslims are caught in a bind – they can only interpret islam in a literal and fundamentalist way – thus condemning them to liver intellectually in the Middle Ages – with electricity and gadgets.
A scholar in Cairo recently (2011) was explaining to his students at university how it was more than likey that the Koran was the result of arab expansion in the 6th/7th centuries – and the need for a text to conteract the claims of Jewish and (largely heretical) fringe Christian groups, plus some Hindu and Zoastrian influences.
“What? Are you suggesting that the Koran was not dictated to The prophet by the Angle Gabriel verbatim and is a duplicate of the uncreated book written on gold tablets in heaven?” Somer of his students rushed him and threw him out the window, He now lives overseas in hiding and in fear of his life.
Such things will continue for ever until Islam begins to use, again, Reason to interpet itself. But my hunch is that Islam will resist the use of Reason because it fears it may discover that the whole enterprise – Islam – is a house of cards based on a very human book.
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