The Modernist Menace To Islam by Daniel Haqiqatjou

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, the Master and King of existence, the All-Merciful, Beneficent, who has power over all things. May peace and blessings be upon His final Messenger, Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم, and his Family, and his Companions.

Modernity is a menace to Islam. It is a menace to the human race. But to understand this, we have to take a step back.

Historians generally identify the sixteenth century as the beginning of modernity. This was a century that saw great upheaval in Europe, as the Reformation pitted Christian sects in a bitter conflict from which the secular age was born. War, tribalism, and bloodshed did their part to disenchant intellectuals from religion and scripture, which were increasingly seen as sources of ignorance and suffering. But what would replace God and scripture? What else could be the source of morality? What else could be the source of knowledge about the nature of existence and of humanity’s ultimate destiny?

The early modernists elected their own minds to this position of metaphysical and worldly authority. The mind alone, they argued, could guide mankind. The success of the mathematical sciences and Isaac Newton’s empirical philosophy seemed to bolster this conclusion. Through reason and empirical observation, the human mind could become a god. The mind, it seemed, had infinite ability to reason, calculate, and discover. All the mysteries of the universe and of human nature would be solved like an equation. It was simply a matter of time.

But knowledge was only half of the story. What distinguished mortals from gods was not only knowledge but also power, i.e., the ability to enact one’s will and, thereby, refashion the world accordingly. This need could be met by technology, which could be continuously developed and advanced. To the modernists, this meant that technology promised infinite power and, therefore, godhood. Finally, man could recreate himself in his own image. Here again, achieving unlimited power was simply a matter of time.

This focus on time is the hallmark of modernism and modernism’s chief characteristic: Progressivism. As time marches forward, humanity improves in its knowledge and power. Civilization grows in rationality and morality as it races to a utopian future that resembles the heavenly paradise described in many religious texts. The humanity of tomorrow is better than the humanity of today. The humanity of today is better than the humanity of yesterday. This notion of progress became the grundnorm underlying all modern thought and an unquestioned truth devoutly held by layman and intellectual alike.

Here we begin to see the basis of modernity’s menacing nature. Progress means that change becomes a virtue all unto itself. Constancy, in contrast, becomes the greatest vice. To resist change is seen as a literal assault on the human race. Modernity’s number one enemy, therefore, is tradition since devotion to tradition means, among other things, resistance to change.

Tradition, in whatever form, calls to consistency over time. A basic commitment to tradition means accepting that some principles are timeless. Some values cannot be updated. To be devoted to a tradition requires reliance on the past in one way or another, and that requirement by itself pits tradition against modernity. Cultural traditions, linguistic traditions, and especially religious traditions are constantly under threat of being bulldozed by modern innovation and reform.

Religious tradition has no place in the modern world. Modern or modernized religion amounts to nothing more than a garnish on the side of the main course. The piece of parsley sits on the edge of the plate, inconsequential in every way. Modernity can tolerate parsley as long as it doesn’t affect anything. At the end of the day, modernity requires everyone stuff themselves with its steaming pile of entree. If some choose to nibble on parsley as well, who cares? But if anyone rejects modernity’s main course in favor of religion, this is not allowed. Those religions that want to be more than garnish will not be tolerated.

The question that sits at the back of the modernist mind is: Who needs religion when all the main questions of life are (supposedly) answered by modernity and its epistemologies?

Darwinism (supposedly) has the answer.

The physical sciences (supposedly) have the answer.

Liberalism answers this; just treat others how you want to be treated. Freedom and equality are the ultimate goods.

There is no objective meaning. At best, we make our own meaning. At worst we are just collections of atoms floating in the void of infinite space

In this way, according to the modernist mentality, humanity has no real need for religion, as religion adds no substantive value. According to this mindset, the only reason someone would be religious is out of some a-rational cultural bias or, maybe, force of habit.

In the light of modernity, nothing could be more contrary to progress than “closed-minded” believers “blindly” reading one-thousand-year-old texts and maintaining canonized religious law. Modernity, therefore, aims to destroy this religious impediment to progress with a multi-faceted assault involving media, education, law, and global politics. This assault is as comprehensive in scope as it is brutal.

Islam can rightly be described as the antithesis of modernity. This is partly due to the fact that the European Enlightenment thinkers in the 18th and 19th century, who developed the main theoretical philosophy underlying modernity, viewed Islam as a more brutish, less forward-thinking version of the same stagnant Church they had so thoroughly neutered. Famous 18th century atheist French philosopher Voltaire, for example, caricatured Islam as a barbaric religion. He even wrote a play Mahomet satirizing the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم, portraying him as a fanatical tyrant and depicting his enemies, the pagan Arabs, as freethinking saints of reason. This bitter Orientalism colored the thinking of many European philosophers. Islam, in their minds, was despotic while modernism meant freedom. Islam was irrational while modernism put a premium on the mind. Above all, to them Islam meant stagnation and decay while their modern outlook represented continuous change and renewal. Beyond that intellectual history, the very nature of modernity clashes with Islam. After all, Islam is the most consistently traditional of all religions. Preservation of the Prophetic Sunnah is paramount in Islam, and Islam’s entire epistemology is built on the notion of preserving and transmitting past knowledge, not only past knowledge from the time of revelation but, indeed, past knowledge from the very beginning of human existence, when Allah created humanity and asked them, “Am I not your Rabb [i.e., Lord and Master]?” And all of humanity responded, “Yes, we testify,” as described in Surat Al-Ar’af (verse 17) in the Quran. This primordial knowledge of the Creator, His Oneness, and His right to be worshipped is preserved in the human instinct known as the fitra. This is the instinct that drives mankind to goodness, purity, and righteousness unless it becomes corrupted due to the vicissitudes of the dunya, corrupted whether due to idolatry (shirk), arrogant egoism (nafs), lust (shahwa), the whispering of satan (shaytan), or false whims and prejudices (hawa). The practice of Islam functionally serves as preservation of the fitra in the sense of ensuring constancy in one’s worship to the Creator alone without partner. Constancy of will is equally paramount, as the believer must ensure that he brings his will and his desires into utmost congruence with the Divine will, always intending Allah’s good pleasure (ridwan).

All of these values and this entire existential framework immediately and uncompromisingly conflict with modernism as well as all its concomitant -isms.

But the hostility between Islam and modernity did not remain theoretical. The first clash between Muslims and the adherents of modernity occured in the early nineteenth century as European colonization of the Muslim world began. The colonial powers first and foremost desired to expand economic power and control and, secondly, to bring the light of modernity and progress to the “savage” Muslim populace “stuck in the seventh century.” Islam stood in the way of both goals. In response, the colonizers developed a sophisticated strategy to weaken the influence of Islam over the Muslim mind. From North Africa to South Asia to Indonesia, the colonial project attacked Islamic religious institutions and scholars by systematically defunding them and replacing them with pro-European alternatives. In terms of religious practice, everything from Islamic language (Arabic) to Islamic dress to Islamic family structure was targeted by the colonizer and systematically dismantled in many parts of the Muslim world. The Caliphate itself continued to suffer from the modernizing influence until it was completely abolished in 1924. This top-to-bottom overhaul of Muslim society often meant nothing short of annihilation and, at times, outright genocide, as those Muslims who resisted the colonial threat and “stood in the way of progress” were summarily exterminated. In the final analysis, tens of millions of Muslims were brutally killed, sacrifices to the Western god of progress and enlightenment.

Those Muslims who survived and their children were brainwashed over time to adopt modernity and its -isms. The formulation of “modern = good” was branded on the Muslim consciousness through a Westernized educational system as well as media, literature, and political influence. The fundamental paradox which few modernized Muslims could resist was the idea that modernism held the key to reviving the lost glory of the Muslim peoples. To return to the global dominance that Muslims historically enjoyed, they must, paradoxically, follow the modernized West, learn its science, adopt its way of life, embrace its technology, emulate its economy, etc. This lie is as powerful today as it was two centuries ago. It is a lie, of course, because adopting modernism means abandoning Islam. Therefore, even if Muslims were to attain civilizational ascendance by aping modernity and the West, by the end, they would no longer be Muslims. It would be, at best, a hollow “victory.” In the end, no true victory can come from other than Islam as mentioned in the following verse.

Ali ‘Imran (Q3:126)

This we hold as a sacred, inviolable truth.

Once we understand the toxic nature of modernism, it becomes easy to recognize its effect on the Muslim mind. How can the progressiveness of modernism and the traditionalism of Islam coexist in the same mind and heart? How can one simultaneously believe the progressive narrative—viz., that the present day is the peak of continuous human moral and intellectual advancement—whilst also believing that the best generation was the generation of 8 The Modernist Menace to Islam the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and then the righteous Salaf? Logically, one cannot. Yet, the colonized mind will twist and contort in order to reconcile the two. Perhaps the answer lies in reforming Islam, bringing the religion up to date and up to code. Perhaps everything in Islam that is anti-liberal, anti-secular, anti-feminism, anti-materialism, anti-scientism, etc., can be expunged from the religion.

Such thoughts constitute the source of numerous doubts in Islam that are plaguing some Muslims in this day and age. In response to this tension, the tendency— nurtured by an environment polluted with the heavy stench of modernism—is to distort Islam, bending it to the mold set by modernism. Muslims who have such doubts would be better served by breaking that modernist mold rather than attempting to warp the Straight Path that is Islam. Successfully breaking this modernist mold requires debunking the -isms and disenchanting these Muslims from the false gold modernism sells. Once the Muslim mind is deprogrammed, decolonized, demodernized, and cleared of the radioactive waste products of the West, then once again the pure light of Islam can shine through.

This book collects short essays and reflections I have written over the years critiquing these -isms. I have written primarily for a Muslim audience but non-Muslims, many of whom also recognize the scourge of modernity, can also understand most of the arguments, save for a few Islamic terms they might not know. The book can be read in any order as each chapter and section can be read independently of everything else. The critiques themselves are not comprehensive, though they are meant to pack a punch against some of the more persistent dogmas of the day. But the hope is that this book is the first volume in a series that, as a whole, will provide the reader plenty of food for thought and, if Allah wills, a paradigm shift towards understanding that the modernist emperor has no clothes. And Allah is the King of kings.

May Allah accept this work and forgive its faults. May He shine the light of sincerity and guidance onto our hearts and let us and our children not die except as Muslims and as submissive slaves to Him. Amin.