Book & Author
Alija Ali Izetbegovic: Islam Between East and West
By Dr Ahmed S. Khan
Chicago, IL
Though it is from the East that the sun rises,
showing itself bold and bright,
without a veil, it burns and blazes with inward fire
only when it escapes from the shackles of East and West.
Drunk with the splendor it springs up out of its East
that it may subject all horizons to its mastery,
its nature is innocent of both East and West,
though in origin, true, it is an Easterner.
— Muhammad lqbal, Javid Nama
Alija Ali Izetbegovic (August 8, 1925 – October 19, 2003) was a prominent Bosnian lawyer, philosopher and author, who in 1992 became the first president (December 20, 1990 – October 5, 1996) of the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And later served as the First Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (February 14, 2000 – October 14, 2000).
Alija Izetbegovic was born in Bosanski Samac, Northern Bosnia, and received his law education in Sarajevo. Throughout his life he remained active in numerous intellectual and Islamic endeavors and social work. In 1949, during the cold war era, he was sentenced to 5-year hard labor, by the communist regime, for association with “Young Muslims” organization, which promoted Islamic education and social welfare.
After serving as a legal adviser for twenty-five years, he retired and spent his time and energies on writing about the philosophy of Islam. He was a prolific writer, his notable books include Islam Between East and West (1984), Islamic Declaration (1991), and Inescapable Questions (2003).
In 1983 he was arrested with twelve other Muslim intellectuals and sentenced in semi-secret trial by the court in Sarajevo to fourteen years imprisonment. During the Bosnian war (April 6, 1992 – December 14, 1995) and genocide of Muslims — the largest in Europe since WWII — Alija Izetbegovic emerged as the face of Bosnia at global stage.
In the Preface of Islam Between East and West, Mr Hasan from Karachi, observes: “Islam Between East and West is the result of a comprehensive multidisciplinary study of the leading world views in the contemporary history of mankind. The phenomenon of self-forgetfulness which characterizes the modern history of the Islamic world puts both the Eastern and Western intellectual in the same position in relation to this book…Modern man has found himself on a historical razor edge, dramatically divided into spirit in the vision of Christianization and into matter in the praxis of atheization. The Islamic teaching of synthesis has proven to be the only possible model for coping with this situation.”
In the revised edition of Islam Between East and West (1989), the publisher’s note states: “…Until this date, we have not heard about the author's release from the prison in Sarajevo (Yugoslavia). Mr Izetbegovic predicted the fall of communism well before the current tide of change in Eastern Europe. His assessment of the situation there was based on his thesis that life, like Islam, is bipolar, and any effort to undo its bipolarity will therefore lead to an unstable state of existence. What bothers us is the irony in his case: the man who strove for this change and predicted it remains incarcerated while his countrymen celebrate life in freedom. December 25, 1989.”
Reflecting on the nature and format of the book, in Author’s Note, Alija Izetbegovic observes: “Islam Between East and West is not a book of theology. It deals with dogmas, institutions, and teachings of Islam with the aim of establishing the place of Islam in the general spectrum of ideas. It is a look at Islam not from within but rather from without. In this sense, the topic of the book is not primarily Islam as a teacher but Islam as an outlook on the world. The book consists of two parts. The first part entitled Premises deals with religion in general. The second part is dedicated to Islam or more precisely to one of its aspects — bipolarity. The Premises are in fact polemics on atheism and materialism. The respective positions held by religion and atheism in facing the question of man's origin and related issues of evolution and creation are discussed through the following six chapters of this part: Chapter 1: Creation and Evolution, Chapter 2: Culture and Civilization, Chapter 3: The Phenomenon of Art, Chapter 4: Morality, Chapter 5: Culture and History, and Chapter 6: Culture and History."
Elaborating further on the nature of the book, the author states: “The thesis is that by an inherent logic, evolution, civilization, science and utopia are parallel to atheism, whereas creation, culture, arts and morals are parallel to religion. Evolution by its very nature and regardless of complexity and duration could not ‘produce’ man but only a perfect or perfected animal as a future member of society. Socialism, as a practical and social consequence of materialism, does not deal with man but rather with the organization of the life of the social animal. Man is primarily a spiritual and not a biological or social factor and could originate only by the act of divine creation. Thus, if there were no God, there could be no man, and if there were no man, there would be no culture, only the needs and their satisfaction — that is, only civilization. Atheism accepts science and progress; yet, in its essence, it implies the negation of man and by the same token a refutation of humanism, freedom, and human rights. Behind the contradiction between culture and civilization stands in fact the basic contrast between conscience /mind and being/ nature, or on the practical plane, between religion and science. Every culture is in its essence; every civilization is atheistic. Therefore, in the same way as science does not lead to humanism and in principle has nothing in common with culture, religion by itself does not lead to progress. By widening and deepening this analysis, the first part of the book establishes this all-encompassing dualism of the human world, exemplified by the ‘insurmountable’ conflicts between spirit and body, religion and science, and culture and civilization.”
Continuing on the nature of the book, the author describes the contents of the second part of the book: “Is man able to overcome this contradiction, this either or between heaven and earth, or is he condemned forever to this stretching between the two? Is there a way by which science can serve religion, hygiene, piety, progress, and humanism? Could the utopia of civitas solis be inhabited with human beings instead of anonymous and faceless individuals and have the features of ‘God's kingdom’ on earth? The second part of the book is dedicated to this question. The answer is yes, in Islam. Islam is not only a religion or a way of life but primarily the principle of the organization of the universe. Islam existed before man and it is, as the Qur'an explicitly states, a principle by which man was created). Hence, one finds an inherent harmony between man and Islam or, as the book calls it, the ‘man-likeness’ of Islam. In the same way as man is a unity of spirit and body, Islam is a unity of religion and social order, and just as the body in prayer (salah) can follow the movement of the soul, the social order can serve the ideals of religion and ethics. This unity, foreign both to Christianity and materialism, is basic and the ‘most Islamic’ characteristic of Islam. The concept in question is examined in the second part [in Chapters 7-11: Moses-Jesus-Muhammad, Islam and Religion, The Islamic Nature of Law, Ideas and Reality, and ‘The Third Way’ Outside Islam] of the book… The book ends with the essay ‘Submission to God as the soul of Islam.’”
In the introduction, Dr S. Balic (Institut fur Geschichte der Arabisch - Islamischen Wissenschaften Ander Johann Wolfgang Goethe — Universitat Frankfurt Am Main) commenting on the background of the author, observes: “The writer of this book, Alija Ali Izetbegovic, a lawyer from Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, comes from South Slav which for more than 500 years belonged to Islam. He views his environment, therefore, with an Islamic frame of mind. Nevertheless, he charts his own course — daring but fascinating…In August 1983, he, together with eleven Bosnian intellectuals (among them one poetess) was sentenced to fourteen years in jail for his ‘fundamentalist digressions’ by a court in Sarajevo. Evidently, the communist rulers in Yugoslavia see in the philosophy of our writer a great threat to their current order. As a Bosnian Muslim who has been struggling for several decades to preserve Islamic faith under the strenuous conditions of secularized society..., I accept with great pleasure this opportunity to point to an intensive concept of Islam in the hearts and minds of Bosnian Muslims…”
Describing the theme of the book, the author states: “The modern world is characterized by a sharp ideological encounter. All of us are involved in it, whether as its partakers or as its victims. What is the place of Islam in this gigantic confrontation? Does it have a part in the shaping of the present world? This book tries in part to answer the question. There are only three integral views of the world: the religious, the materialistic, and the Islamic. They reflect three elemental possibilities (conscience, nature, and man), each of them manifesting itself as Christianity, materialism, and Islam. All variety of ideologies, philosophies, and teachings from the oldest time up to now can be reduced to one of these three basic world views. The first takes as its starting point the existence of the spirit, the second the existence of matter, and the third the simultaneous existence of spirit and matter. If only matter exists, materialism would be the only consequent philosophy. On the contrary, if the spirit exists, then man also exists, and man's life would be senseless without a kind of religion and morality. Islam is the name for the unity of spirit and matter, the highest form of which is man himself. The human life is complete only if it includes both the physical and the spiritual desires of the human being.”
Referring to the third way outside Islam, the author observes: “The Third Way Outside Islam increasingly calls for social democracy. Protestant countries have found in social democracy the solution which traditionally Catholic societies try to find in the ‘historical compromise.’ Social democracy, which in Europe means a compromise between liberalism and social intervention, between the European Christian tradition and Marxism, has been advancing throughout the postwar period and all over the world.”
To conclude the book, the author exquisitely summarizes the concept of “Submission To God” in a supplement: “Nature has determinism, man has destiny. The acceptance of this destiny is the supreme and final idea of Islam…Submission to God or revolt — these are two different answers to the same dilemma…Submission to God is the only human and dignified way out of the unsolvable senselessness of life, a way out without revolt, despair, nihilism, or suicide. It is a heroic feeling not of a hero, but of an ordinary man who has done his duty and accepted his destiny…Submission to God Islam does not get its name from its laws, orders, or prohibitions, nor from the efforts of the body and soul it claims, but from something that encompasses and surmounts all that: from a moment of cognition, from the strength of the soul to face the times, from the readiness to endure everything that an existence can offer, from the truth of submission to God. Submission to God, thy name is Islam!
In Islam Between East and West, Alija Ali Izetbegovic, in a simple but eloquent manner, has explained Islam in both — language and context — for the quizzical minds around the globe to enhance their understanding of it. The book is a must read for all who want to discover the intricacies of the material and spiritual domains viz a viz challenges of the modern times.
[Dr Ahmed S. Khan ( dr.a.s.khan@ieee.org ) is a Fulbright Specialist Scholar.]
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