“The Islamic Conservative Research Paradigm” was the title of a lecture by Professor Louis Cantori at the International Institute of Islamic Thought on February 21, 2007. The lecture was attended by several guests including Dr. Eric Weislogel, Executive Director of the Metanexus Institute, in addition to IIIT staff and executives.

 

Dr. Abubaker Al-Shingieti, Regional Director at IIIT, welcomed the guests and briefed the attendees on the program for the lecture. Dr. Jamal Barzinji, Vice President of IIIT, gave a short introduction about IIIT before the lecture.

Dr. Louis Cantori expressed his honor to be at IIIT - which he said has engaged some leading minds in North America – and stated his enthusiasm in presenting his ideas, and welcomed all reactions. Dr. Cantori is currently working on a project titled “Tyranny and Domination in the Middle East: The Republican Response” and trying to articulate framework of Islam that is compatible with western/Islamic thought. He is approaching this through an epistemological-Islamic point of view.

Dr. Cantori’s choice of conservatism as a theme has to do with a personal priority judgment, for he contends that Islam’s political culture is basically conservative. The work of Ismail al-Faruqi, the school of the Islamization of Knowledge, and other scholars is predicated on working from within Islam. Islam can generate its own paradigm and approach to knowledge. He said that this is okay, for every civilization does that. He wants to define conservatism in a cross-cultural manner so that it is meaningful and relevant to Islam and the West. Conservatism in the West is dead. This is a polemical statement that seeks to make a point. Neoconservatives and Republican Party and practical politics have killed conservatism.

Following is a summary of Dr. Cantroi’s lecture:

Traditional conservatism is a clear point of view, as exemplified by Edmund Burke and Counter-Enlightenment philosophers. Currently, there are two easily identifiable social science paradigms: liberalism and Marxism. There is no conservative paradigm because liberals prevent it by defending the Enlightenment. Conservatism is anti-Enlightenment. Also, conservatism has been popularized by neo-conservatives, which is no more than “hard conservatism.” It focuses on economics, supply and demand, and the global market. They are the ones pushing globalization and the war in Iraq. They identify themselves as conservatives, but in reality they are radicals. Conservatism has no sponsor/spokesman. Therefore, it is an orphan in the United States. Since the United States dominates the world, liberalism and everything associated with it has gone global.

“Paleo-conservatives” are the real conservatives; however, they are basically dead. Their conservatism is better received in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party. The Islamization of Knowledge wants to work within the parameters of civilization and Islam. This could be a paradigm for the world (what Dr. Canotri is doing). A great deal of conservative thought is applicable to Islam and other civilizations. This is most important in Asia, where liberal thought is entirely absent, for all of its societies are conservative. Washington does not realize that the “Asian Man” is conservative, and so the neoconservatives do not understand Asia and cannot really accept Asians.

What is “the” political problem in the Middle East? According to Washington, it is the absence of democracy. But this is not true; the real problem is tyranny. What does democracy have to do with torture and assassination? Democracy is immediately irrelevant here. Washington cannot/does not address the question of injustice. Why has the region’s tyranny survived for so many years, and why has this been allowed? Washington should focus on tyranny, not democracy. Iran overthrew tyranny in 1979. Revolution is well understood as the beginning of the appearance of democracy. But this is not true in the Middle East. The rhetoric goes unchallenged, and torture, tyranny, and imprisonment are ignored. What are we going to do about it? Scholarship cannot be separated from reality. Scholars are trying to find intellectual response/solutions.

Abuses of tyranny are abuses of a regime, not of the state. The state is neutral. Liberals would like to wave a wand and abolish government. But this will not happen in Islamic societies, because Islam makes a place for an authoritative state. However, this does not automatically mean that the state is despotic. It addresses the political needs of society as a whole. This involves redefining the state. Can we make it conservative or republican? If yes, we can create an image of the state consistent with the Qur’an and the hadith.

Liberalism claims to be universal. Democracy is a concept that applies worldwide. But many scholars are not careful here, and so to them, democracy means “liberal democracy.” But “liberalism is an orphan, because most nations are conservative. “Democratic states do not make war with each other.” However, they manage to kill millions. This began with Napoleon, who was enthused by the French revolution. This same zeal was transferred to England and America. Now America is using it in the Middle East. Our bayonets are smaller (in size) than those of Napoleon’s soldiers, but force is still used. Colonialism rationalized its existence by citing the need to spread democracy, but democracy, according to them, was meant for conservative societies. These conservative societies have been targeted, for the people pursuing this policy are all liberal democrats. This gives democracy a bad name. All of this, amazingly, is very obvious. One needs to participate in critical thinking, in terms of standing aside from one’s culture and really looking at it. The Weekly Standard, published in Washington, is a spokesman for neoconservatives. But who speaks for the conservatives? Why is there no conservative paradigm?

Conservatives need a theory of democracy to constrain the state and direct it toward the good. Conservatism is a body of thought that attaches a greater degree of importance to the past than to the future, to the good of the community over the good of the individual, and believes that the objective of society is to enjoin the good and prevent the evil. Confucianism is sustaining China’s economic miracle by its moral vision for the future, which he finds pretty amazing. A republic can be defined as the “control of the state by its citizenry, by revolution or election. It is willing to use force to get power; liberal are not.” Hamas, Hizbullah, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun are examples of republican movements. Iran and Turkey have used republicanism for revolutionary social change. Turkey has been ruled by laicism, but now the Islamic opposition is beginning to adopt republicanism. The main thinker here is Said Nursi. This concept is advancing. It has been very dramatic in the case of Iran.

Revolution is part of the republican vision. This was also true in 1776, in the cases of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. It was also true in 1649, when the British executed King Charles I in order to introduce democracy into the country. These historical American republicans have been forgotten. The Federalist Papers are all republican in nature. Thomas Jefferson and others seized the initiative from the republicans and turned it into liberalism. Both the United Kingdom and America have had republican “interludes,” so why cannot others? This can be done constitutionally, as the Ikhwan are doing in Egypt. In fact, they are getting ready to run the country.

Americans are handicapped in their study of politics, political science, and domination. They cannot deal with domination because of their underlying assumptions: individualism, secularism, and pluralism. This is now the agenda of political science. Thus, Washington cannot use political science to speak or write critically about the Middle East, for the underlying assumptions have painted its policymakers into a corner. Alexander Hamilton said that the “mission of political science is to protect the state.” This continues to be the reality. Thus, American academics are signing up for “national service” to go to the Middle East in order to support democratization. Social science and economics, which appeared in the nineteenth century and came out of the Enlightenment, are extremely complex and interesting fields. This is not true of political science, because it is sycophantic in nature and is the custodian (of the status quo). Very seldom does it come up with any new ideas. Thus, American political scientists are very patriotic.

All of this influences Middle East studies in the American academy. Many empty studies (e.g., studies of polling data on the Middle East) are produced and reveal nothing new. Their approach is quantitative, and they do not engage in actual field work or archival work. This is a general rule, for they are trapped in their own liberal point of view. However, there are exceptions. They do not want to deal with “culture,” that, by definition (according to them), is “biased” and “subjective.” Thus, they cannot “see” where the Arabs are now.

When talking of Middle Eastern regimes, it is said that they are patrimonial, authoritarian, or totalitarian. All of these are negative terms, a negation of liberalism, and one cannot carry out good research with a negative definition. For the Middle East, it is necessary to understand conservatism, which American political scientists and policymakers - because of their liberal bias- cannot. They never call it “tyranny.” Now, they have started to call it fascist, as is seen in Bush’s use of “Islamo-fascists.” The use of such labels is diversionary, for those who use it cannot hold the subject steady long enough to focus upon it.

The Islamic state has existed and is an important concept. It is not a theocracy. Deen (religion) and dawlah (state) show evidence of a mosque-state separation. An Islamic state is important to us because it is a statement of goals. It stands for Islam and so is an Islamic state. This does not mean that the ruler stands for Islam, however, but that he serves Islam in an advisory role. There is a distinction between the ruler and his ulema and the ulema in reality. This can be seen in Egypt, where it is hard to tell whether al-Azhar is allied with the state or not.

The Islamic state is a prototype of Middle East politics. One cannot lose sight of this. Another quality of the Islamic state is that it is an integral/intimate state. All parts are related to each other, and individuals/institutions are subordinated to the state. But this is true only up to a certain point. Alex de Tocqueville raised the concept of a “dual state,” which consists of the “political state” (where resources, the elite, and the government are located) and the “social state” (where everyone else is located). This is an important feature of a republican state, where the elite serves as the intermediary between the two “states.” The elites act on behalf of the state and do not depend upon the masses’ involvement. This is called “civil society,” as the elites interact with those in power. This is not a civil society as we have come to know it in a liberal democracy.

Republicanism can be understood as a conservative phenomenon, especially in the Middle East. The Middle East is conservative, for it recognizes hallowed past and religious values, both of which have priority over the individual. The Middle East also stands for virtue and morality of the kind we saw in the Rome of Caesar and Cicero, and much later in the case of Machiavelli. The elite must convey these to the masses. In Arabic, this is known as muhasabah and nasihah. This shows that Islam and republicanism are very close together on this particular concern.

Isaiah Berlin said that the wars of the communists and the fascists were a result of liberalism. On the surface, we see liberalism as characterized by pluralism, compromise, and accommodation, but the real liberalism is very polemical and committed to a political absolute. This is why conscience-free democracy can kill missions of people and not feel guilty. They view their Enlightenment ideas and reason as so superior that such killing is justified. In other words: “Either you’re going to be like us or you will be dead.” The “war on terror” is a Washington polemical idea.

In conclusion:

1.   Liberal democratic thought vs. Islamic thought. Although it is never said, liberal democracy is a problem itself. Can this be possible? Is it a significant contribution to the problem?

2.   Liberal democratic thought has little to say about tyranny in the Middle East. Its adherents are well able to accommodate themselves to it. Middle Eastern liberal intellectuals have made a “negotiated arrangement/political accommodation” with the state.

3.   Republicanism says that democracy does not equal non-interference with the individual, but rather freedom from the state’s authority. Iran was a success here.

4.   Republicanism can become a democracy by appealing to religion and tradition. It provides a space/place for law. Developments in fiqh in North America are very interesting, especially as regards applying the Shari`ah in a non-Muslim country.

5.   Conservatism and republicanism are the two most common political systems in the world.

6.   Republicanism is an analytical concept. Hamas is successful in the government and in the resistance because it works within a republican framework. This is also true of Hizbullah. Both organizations are very clear about their roles and priorities.