Islam Promotes Civilizational Debates, Not Parochial Exclusivism

By Grace Mubashir, New Age Islam 8 October 2022 Islam's Greatest Achievement As A Global Civilization Was To Establish A Cultural Harmony Between Different Peoples, Different Places And Different Times ------- Islamic civilization has been integrating traditional cultural expressions for centuries. Islam achieves this through a universal ideal formed by sacred laws. Islam combined immortal beauty and immortal truth. Islam, the unity in diversity, has embraced all the countries from China to the Atlantic shores like a peacock. Islamic jurisprudence paved the way for this creativity. Historically, Islam has been a culturally friendly religion. That is why Islam is loved as a clear stream. Its waters, pure, sweet and life-giving, flow transparently, reflecting the very foundations that form its culture. Look at Islam in China, it can be Chinese. What is in Africa will be African. Islam's greatest achievement as a global civilization was to establish a cultural harmony between different peoples, different places and different times. Islam is not an ideal practiced or known only at the local level. It is a religion that takes root wherever Muslims go, where self-love is practiced and their own identity is nurtured. Even today, Muslims preserve the remains of the precious cultural splendor of Islam. But amid some of today's conflicts, there is a situation where the cultural value of Islam of the past is being forgotten or Muslims do not understand their value. However, the peacock we mentioned earlier is not completely destroyed, at least a small part of it shows its beauty. That stream has not completely dried up. Clear water still flows from it. At least a small part shows its beauty. That stream has not completely dried up. Clear water still flows from it. At least a small part shows its beauty. That stream has not completely dried up. Clear water still flows from it. Humans construct cultures as naturally as a spider weaves a web. But the cultures that man weaves are sometimes not as fine as a spider's web. They tend to be inadequate due to lack of proper guidance or otherwise. Muslims who immigrated to places like America retained their love for the land they had left and brought with them the healthy cultures of their past. If there was nothing else like that in them, they would not have thought of emigrating from the country. African Americans were alienated from their deep traditional roots and even from their own cultural consciousness. It was the destructive, culturally insensitive Islamist ideology that drove them to this course. American Muslims have been quietly forging some subcultural identity over the past few decades. They use mosques, Islamic schools, homes and colleges for that purpose. Some of these developments are promising. The new generation has given many notable Muslim poets, writers and singers. Special clothes (for example denim clothes) and specially coined words become part of our lives. Inter-cultural and inter-ethnic marriages are on the rise here. This proves that they consider themselves Muslims above American Muslims, Indian Muslims, Pakistani Muslims, Syrian Muslims and Egyptian Muslims. Moreover, the younger generation shows better cultural maturity than their parents. But despite these signs of hope, there is something troubling us. These are some of the habits that are formed without proper direction from the places mentioned earlier. These reach into the darkness of hollow hegemonic culture. This reduces Islam to the narrowness of being a religion of counterculture. As it joins the Islamist ideology, instead of building a unique Muslim identity, a cultural vacuum is created here. The community needs to prioritize the problem of building a good Muslim identity as a solution. It's not something that gets used up or develops on its own. It is the need of Islam to create and develop a unique culture in America and similar places. To take up this challenge, we must understand the divine laws of Islam and its long history. Islamic Culture Is Inclusivist Culture is generally defined as 'an exquisite taste' and 'high character'. Matthew Arnold defined culture as the best of what is known and said in human history and in the world. In any case, this study treats culture as 'a unified pattern of human discourse as a whole', as modern anthropology views it. It is so much higher and vaster than the higher expressions of man. Culture is something that controls us beyond our nature and nature. Many times our nature and spontaneity are spoiled by our culture. What makes us truly human, what separates us from the animals, is our culture, which reveals the nature that we all embody. Human beings are often described as speaking beings, political beings, and religious beings. All these qualities of speech, politics, religion and other essential qualities are the basic elements of culture. Therefore, whatever you call it, Culture is woven together with beliefs, morals, expectations, skills, knowledge and whatever else we see as necessary. These give functional expressions to culture by consolidating them into a meaningful habit. Culture is rooted in language, symbols and expressions. They are also related to our habits like clothing and cooking. Culture extends its branches beyond such mundane to religion, spirituality and the inner levels of the mind. Distribution of food and goods and services, trade, banking, development of science and technology, learning, knowledge and thinking are all the basics of society within culture. Family life, birth and death rituals, relationships, habits, skills, cooperative tolerance attitudes and lack thereof, and superstructures in society such as political movements are all cultural. For example, a vibrant democratic system is the result of cultural values and civic habits as well as the functioning of the administrative structure or administrators. Some of our churches, schools, and homes, however, are examples of our cultural rhythms. Often they can function little as an Islamic identity. They have to deal more with human complexities and conflicts with old world attitudes with realities and societal needs. Having a unified sense of identity, society, and its fixed habits is an important criterion for evaluating culture. A culture succeeds when it forms an effective identity, builds social interaction, and provides its members with the information necessary to understand their personal and social obligations. Social and identity determinants also play a role in making culture successful. As long as we do not develop a unified and vibrant identity – whatever our strengths or abilities – all that we say we are building a community or that we have a stake in the political and civil sphere are merely rhetorical and wishful thinking. By developing a better unified sense of identity, we are able to interact more actively with ourselves and the world around us. It will enable us to come to terms with complex social realities and deal with the partnerships that modern society demand of us. All this is possible if we have a unified and grand conviction about who we are and what our obligations are to the values we stand for. Humans can bounce back from broken legal systems. But not from a broken psyche. Building a healthy Muslim mind-set is essential to building a successful unique culture. Puritanists’ Discomfort with Cultural Syncretism Salafism and other puritanical versions of Islam try to sabotage this symphony. Through puritanical interpretation of religion they acrimoniously argue for shedding all civilizational aspects of Islamic society. This parochialism breeds violence. In contrast, some Islamists today reduce Islam's age-old cultural wisdom to a religion of austerity that looks down on cultures. Such manipulations and accompanying movements play a major role in the construction of dangerous re-narratives of Islamic scriptures in the West. Some of the distortions and other things of the contemporary Muslim world have in no small way created this Islamist phenomenon as a by-product. Cultures - whether Islamic or non-Islamic - often lay the foundation for social stability. In another language, if you want, it grows in stable societies. Because many cultures fall due to the disorders and pollution in the society. ----- A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Mubashir V.P is a PhD scholar in Islamic Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia and freelance journalist. URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-ideology/islamic-civilizational-parochial-exclusivism-culture/d/128128 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism