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Journal Islam Today N° 20-1424H/2003

Civilizational Interaction amidst Plurality, Diversity and Difference
Dr. Mohamed Amara(*)

Each religion, philosophy, or ideational system has its own perception of the universe, a vision that determines the place of humans in this universe and their relation with other beings.

While Islam, like all revealed religions, perceives Allah- the Glorified-, as the Absolute, the “Must-exist” and the Creator of all creatures, it considers human beings as the lieutenants of Allah on earth, vested with the mission of edification so that earth be a beautiful place to live in and the human soul be elevated while reaching a fair balance between instincts, natural drives and the surrounding beings.

Islam also considers the Divine Essence of Allah as the Absolute and Distinct from all types of creatures. Nothing is like Allah- the Glorified. Allah is Different from anything one could think of.

As far as our subject is concerned; (Plurality, Diversity and Difference in Unity), Islam sees in  this universe : One God Who has alone the attributes of Uniqueness and Oneness, not characterized by any kind or type of pluralism, duality or heterogeneity.

The existence of all creatures and beings is a result either of multiplicity, doubling, composition, interdependence or harnessing. Plurality is present in all creatures, animate or inanimate, humans, animals or plants, supra-natural or natural. Plurality affects also the realm of ideas, philosophy, doctrines and trends, as well as races, genders, dialects, languages, and ethnicities.

Islam considers that all these spheres are based on the law of plurality, diversity and difference.

This plurality or diversity does not stem from a mere human choice or from part of human rights. It is the law governing the nature of all creatures and a divine rule. This rule cannot be neither changed nor altered.

Islam is a religion of inclusive moderation rejecting such dichotomies as the religious versus the secular,  the religious versus the political, life in this world versus life in the hereafter, the individual versus the group, the self versus the other, freedom versus accountability. Islamic inclusive moderation brings out, from all these dichotomies, some elements of truth and justice, and gathers them in a moderate, balanced, distinguished and new pattern. Being committed to this inclusive moderation, Islam develops an approach based on plurality and dismissal of excess or dereliction.

As plurality is part of the nature of all beings, Islam attributes uniqueness and oneness only to God. Still, it does not adhere to pluralism that leads to a partition severing the bonds that link the phenomena and the creatures themselves.

In plurality, Islam rather sees diversity, difference and distinction within a unity combining them all.

Unity in any phenomenon means plurality, diversity, difference and distinction, necessitating close ties to unify different elements and to bring the various and opposed components together to a common ground beyond all their differences.

Allah -the Glorified- created all humans from one soul, then made of each individual a self-standing universe, embodying within itself  -no matter how tiny he may be- the larger universe.

Within human unity -already united in the origin of creation, dignity, rights, obligations and accountability- we find diversity embodied in  different nations, tribes, individuals, races of different colours, dialects, languages, civilizations, religions, philosophical backgrounds, doctrines, and cultures.

Plurality and diversity shall not be excessive to break the bonds of unity, neither lead to racism, bigotry and denial of the other. Likewise, stressing the elements of unity does not exclude the possibility of diversity, distinction and difference.

Because of this Islamic inclusive moderation, with regard to the relation between unity and plurality, uniqueness and variety, oneness and difference, Islam rejects excessive centralism that wants to shape the world in one mould and humanity in one form, denying for others the right to be different. Religious centralism that wants the universe to profess one creed is refuted by Islam, for the latter considers diversity of faiths as a divine rule that can neither be changed nor altered “To each among you have we prescribed a law and an open way. If Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah. it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute”(1)

“If thy Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people: but they will not cease to dispute. Except those on whom thy Lord hath bestowed His Mercy: and for this did He create them”.(2)

Allah, the Glorified, created beings to be different from one another, but He wants all faiths and religions to be part of a unity assembling all divergences and a link bonding differences; a unity in confirming the uniqueness of the Creator and the Venerated, in believing in the Unseen and in good action. These are the fundamentals of the divine religion, which all laws and divine messages agreed upon, starting from Adam, to Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, peace be upon them All.

Islam’s refusal of religious centralism -out of conviction that religious laws are as diversified as nations to which heavenly messages were revealed- means that it also rejects legal centralism, according to which the whole world is subject to one legal system, even if this system faces opposition and lays accusations against the philosophy of other legal systems, and libels judicial rulings emanating from a different system of legislation to which it does adhere.

Proponents of this legal centralism among political and media community tend to ignore the fact that universal jurists have agreed, in their world conferences -since the thirties of the last century- to adopt three legal systems of reference. These are the Roman law, the Latin law and Islamic Shariah.

Therefore, “legal centralism’’ is a notion rejected even by jurists themselves.

By the same token, Islam refuses “civilizational centralim” that makes of the world one civilization and opts for confrontation– the clash of civilizations- to coerce the world to accept one model of civilization. Islam in fact perceives of the universe as a forum of various and distinct civilizations.

It does not want that civilizations replace chauvinism by a forcible civilizational centralism. Islam rather heralds that these civilizations should interact and cooperate in all what is commonly shared by humanity.

Sciences that are exact, and hence objective, and urbanization sciences, aiming at promoting living on earth, the welfare of humans, peace for humanity and the preservation of the environment illustrate the existence of vast fields of unity, interaction and solidarity between civilizations.

Cultures, philosophies, cultural legacies, the systems of values and civilizational and national identities offer an example of various and distinct fields within one general human frame, shared by all these different civilizations.

Islam refuses Centralism, on the basis of race and color. This Centralism, resulted in a loathsome discrimination between colors and races, creeping even to temples, clubs, homes, schools, factories, and affecting laws, rights and duties.

We even heard those pretending to belong to the “elected people”, just because they were born from a particular womb, even if they were illegitimate children or atheist.

Islam rejects ethnocentrism when it is focused on a particular race, be it white, black or yellow, or any other one. The difference of races is part of the one humanity and their equality within this one humanity is a divine rule and a sign of the Creator to all these colors and races (And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colours: verily in that are Signs for those who know.)(3)

Islam rejects language-based centrism expecting the whole world to speak one language and denying nations the right to multilingualism. 

Islam is against this Centralism even within a single State, since it deprives minorities from their right to learn their own languages, in order to preserve their cultural heritage.

At the same time, Islam refuses that linguistic and religious plurality should lead to a rupture severing, through chauvinism or religious fanaticism, the bonds of interaction between linguistic spheres and religious sects in a single Ummah or State. The Ummah is a unity gathering various creeds, races and languages. Islamic moderation protects the unity of the Ummah from disruption that might be induced by excessive linguistic and religious plurality and at the same time protects this linguistic and religious diversity to avoid being crushed by the unity of Ummah or the State.

By promoting plurality, Islam intends to have the universe be a place where the plurality of culture caters for multilingualism and for the plurality of cultural and intellectual legacies, because this diversity is a divine sign.

Islam rejects economic Centralism that puts international economic organizations in the service of strong civilizations at the expense of oppressed ones.

A centralism where global trade turns into an invasion of national industries in newly independent states with weak or fragile economic structures.

A centralism within which 20% of people belonging to a particular civilization own and exploit 80% of the wealth of the world. As a consequence, wealth is put together in one scale of the balance while poverty is gathered  in the other. Hence, every body suffers -some people from opulence and indigestion and the others from poverty.

At the same time, Islam does not deny disparities between humans in wealth, but it wants to control these disparities by way of solidarity that makes of the world one body whose members are different in their abilities, contribution, size and needs, yet they act jointly to achieve the same purpose.

Islam refuses “centralism of authority” within a state, one that imposes a single opinion, a single orientation, a single stand and subdues the nation to a single party, a single opinion and an individual governor.

Islamic rejects “authoritarian centralism” that resuscitates the times of the Pharaohs. At the same time, Islam does not want that pluralism leads to the disintegration of the social classes, parties, doctrines and intellectual trends. What it seeks is diversity with regard to factions, methods and mechanisms, within the Ummah’s established dogmatic Constants that embody the foundations of society and identity and are the landmarks of the civilizational projects of the Ummah. 

Islam is a religion of moderation, combining elements of truth and justice and that moderation supposes diversity and variety within unity, a unity bearing distinction and difference;

Islam is not the Utopia of philosophers dreaming of the ideal city that could never exist over centuries. Islam is rather a religion combining both “idealism” and “realism”. Islam realized that peoples, societies and states must experience contradictions and a mixture of inclinations for good and evil, for what is positive and what is  negative, superiority and inferiority, egoism and altruism, etc.

Hence, came Islam’s appeal to settle conflicts between individuals, classes, states and civilizations through the same method recognizing and capitalizing on plurality. It refuses “confrontation” as a way to settle conflicts, because clashes lead to the destruction of one party by the other one, and would them compromise diversity, since the victorious party that crushed its enemy would stay alone on the arena.

Islam, while it refuses conflict, it does not, neither, accept resignation and capitulation, for resignation prompts the weak to imitate the fittest and the defeated to be dependent on the victorious, a fact which leads to the disruption of diversity and to the fading of plurality.

Islam rejects both destructive clash and passive resignation and calls instead for “civilizational competition” which is a medium wayout between the two extremes : destruction due to clashing and death resulting from inertion.

Conflicts should be settled through social, political and cultural dynamics,  stimulating competition between individuals, classes, political parties, nations, states and civilizations, a competition that would never grow into the “acuity” of a clash, in which a party annihilates the other and hence annuls diversity.

Competition should not neither turn out to be dull, and become, actually, a form of resignation of the weak to the strong and imitation by the defeated of the victorious.

This is how Islam sees plurality:

- A divine law pertaining to the  nature of all creatures. A law that can never be changed nor transformed.  

- A just and balanced intermediate stand, combining diversity and difference within unity.

Unity means : a composition of various elements.

Diversity must be within the frame of a unity gathering distinct fractions. Comprehensiveness of this law- with regard to diversity means that it should comprehend all universes of creation

Starting from the atom to the universe, from individuals to humanity as a whole, the living as well as the lifeless, from creeds to philosophies, ideas and political parties.

(O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you.)(4)

(To each among you have we prescribed a law and an open way. If Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people)(5)

(If thy Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people: but they will not cease to dispute.  Except those on whom thy Lord hath bestowed His Mercy: and for this did He create them: and the Word of thy Lord shall be fulfilled: "I will fill Hell with jinns and men all together.)(6)

This is what diversity within unity is about.

A unity encompassing diversity, distinction and difference.

It is moderate dialectics that represent- in our modern world- the life buoy saving us from the drift of negligence and immoderation.

On the relation between the Arab-Islamic Ummah and other civilizations, especially the West -a relation that commands this subject not only on us but also on the West-, I think it is necessary to distinguish between “illusions” and “facts”  that are mixed up when one deals with the subject.

With the revolution in communication and information media, it is highly illusionary to think it possible for any civilization to live in retirement. Even if all its people have agreed to do so. Even in ancient times and over centuries, this could never be possible, particularly for civilizations standing at the crossroad of continents, as it is the case for the oriental civilization.

To coin a phrase, one of the facts established by the “medicine of civilizations” is that the retirement of any civilization means its fading away and its decline, exactly as it happens when the only nourishment of a “body” is its own self and it is not fed from the milieu surrounding it.

Another fact established by the “medicine of civilizations” is that when a civilization imitates another, especially with regard to identity and the constant characteristics distinguishing it, this civilization becomes dependent and then vanishes away. The life of a civilization, any civilization, stands on “creativity” and creativity is impossible with imitation. The imitator can never be creative, for he gives his creative capabilities a long vacation, and contents himself with ready-made options and models. So while both retirement and imitation lead to the disappearance of a civilization and the melting away of its identity, it is thus necessary to look for a third choice. A moderate, just and right choice that I call “civilizational interaction”, from the standpoint of an adult and independent being, open onto other civilizations without losing its own essence and identity.

This perspective of -civilizational interaction- which is a moderate approach between “introversion – insulation” and “imitation – dependence” supposes that we find a space (civilization’s specificity) which constitutes our identity that we should revive, cling to and protect, as nations protected their honour and national industries, and another space (common space shared by humanity) in creativity, not to accept as it is handed by others but to act on it and make it one’s own property.

 If I were to give an example of all characteristics that I consider proper to our identity, I would start with Islamic unifying moderation that does not stand inactive between two extremes but which draws all elements of justice and right that could be unified from these two.

If the Indian Nirvana and with it the esoteric Gnostic thought sees in the human being a tiny and marginal element lost in the absolute, while the western civilization considers him as the  master of this universe, our Islamic moderation looks at him as the khalifa (lieutenant) of the Master and Creator of this universe - the Glorified. It does not deprive him of freedom and powers, but it does not neither let the latter unbridled. It recognizes and develops them, while controlling through the Istikhlaf (lieutenancy) treaty – the Divine Sharia. The human being, as Mohamed Abdou put it, is “the slave of Allah Alone and the master of everything but Allah”!

While the esoteric Gnostic thought set the way to salvation in knowledge and spiritual exercise alone and the materialistic model considered the satisfaction of worldly needs as the only way to progress, our civilization’s choice sees happiness in equilibrium and moderation. Thus, it bases knowledge on the Book of the Revelation and uses reason (Al ‘aql) in reading the Sacred Texts (An naql) and controls reason from deviation by means of these Texts. For our civilization, happiness in this world depends on happiness in the hereafter which will last longer. It does not limit bounds to human rights, but extends them to divine rights that are represented by the rights of the Ummah and humanity. For instance, it does not take away from humans the right to own money and to be wealthy, but does not either give them free reign in that field. It rather opts for the theory of moderation in substitution and sees property to useful ends, controlled by the Charia of the Real Owner and Original Donor of wealth and money, Allah the Glorified.

In the same way, there are many examples of the fruit of this moderation characterizing Islamic civilization, in matters of human sciences, as a culture of the “Muslim Self” that improved and should further do so according to the specificities of our heritage, of our way to see the Universe, its origins, progress and ending, and our traditions.

These are some examples of our civilization’s specificities whose revival and protection - through cultural and information action – should be the prerequisites to independence and interaction with the other, without risking excess in introversion or in imitation and dependency.

To discover, revive and then protect one’s civilizational specificity and to avoid imitation and dependence, it is necessary to discover the space commonly shared by humanity, in which creativity in matters of facts, laws and knowledge does not change according to civilizations and creeds. While experiences of the human soul are unique and unrepeated, distinguishing human sciences according to each civilization, facts and scientific rules (objective, natural and neutral) do not change with the change of the faith and civilization of scientists, since the matter – their subject – is constant.

Differences between civilizations in this field do not go beyond the philosophy or ethics used to implement the rules of these sciences. Facts related to agricultural sciences do not change with the change of the faith, the color or the nation of the researcher. The difference lies in implementing these facts in growing what is allowed – from a religious point of view – and what is used in satisfying worldly and instant desires, irrespective of ways to reach satisfaction in the hereafter. Thus, absolute sciences can become either useful or harmful, if “the usefulness” is governed according to religious rules.

If we succeed in setting the “specific space - identity”  and the “commonly shared space ”, we can reach “civilizational autonomy and “interaction” with all the civilizations of the universe.

There are still two observations:

The first one is used by the researcher when he notices that nations and civilizations seldom think carefully of ways of protection from the Other when they are strong and unthreatened. On the opposite, they open -almost- all windows on others, like the stomach of a healthy person that does not fear any kind of food, since it can easily digest, taking what is useful and rejecting what is harmful.

But in a position of weakness, voices often call for intensifying ways of protection, like the stomach of an ill person that can be hurt even by healthy food and sometimes by pure air.

We should consider the sense of this observation as we witness the controversy between opponents of openness and those of introversion. This happened before in the history of our civilization, when our ancestors, during the era of strength, opened unto the others, but in time of regression. Ibn Arabi made of his heart “the temple of monotheism, Trinity, paganism, Judaism and all cultures…”, while Ibn Taimia said : “the prerequisite toward the right path: opposing the people of the Hell”

The second observation considers that “interaction” - that rejects “introversion” and “imitation - dependence” - as the rule that governs sound relationships between civilizations over centuries - So it is a rule and not an “invention”!?

Our ancestors opened unto the Indian civilization, and borrowed from them their numerals and astronomy, but not their philosophy.

They opened unto the Greek and the Roman civilizations. They took from them the tradition of scriptures, but they did not take their law. They learned natural sciences, but not theology and literature, and when they translated Greek rational philosophy, they made out of it a foreign rational arm to fight the esoteric Gnostic threat, the most dangerous one – and thus this philosophy remained a mere arm in the hand of philosophers of the “elite” and never changed into a philosophy of Islam and its Ummah.

Our ancestors opened unto the Persian, and borrowed “administrative management”, but not Persian doctrines!

When the West opened unto the Islamic civilization, during the era of their Renaissance, they took what humans share – from experimental methods to natural sciences- but they did not take the Islamic principle of monotheism, neither Islamic moderation, nor the ideals, nor the principle of finalities and ethics. They built up their Renaissance on the “Classics of the Greek Humanism” and the facts and rules of neutral sciences, which is universally shared. They were even selective with a thinker like Averroes, so they learned through him Aristotle’s rationality and left down his Islamic rationality, combining wisdom and Sharia!? Likewise, they took from Avicennes medicine but not his philosophical illuminism.

Today, we have the task to develop a method to have an interactive relation with other civilizations, be it Eastern or Western- and to set a space for our civilization’s specificity and identity and another one of what is commonly shared by humanity as a whole, in order to open unto the world, shake hands with everybody, without losing our identity and hence spare ourselves the adversity of excess, either in introversion or dependence and imitation.

(*) Member of the Academy of Islamic Research, at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif.

(1) Al-Maeda, Verse 48.

(2) Hud, Verses 118-119.(3) Rum, Verse 22.

(4) Al-Hujurat, verse 13.

(5) Al- Maeda, verse 48.

(6) Hud, verses : 118-119.

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