Faith and the Dialogue of Civilizations- Part 8 of 8
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
CA
Conflicts between Faith-based Civilizations
Conflicts between faith-based civilizations are ones that attract headlines and form the bulk of historical descriptions. Certainly, there is a vigorous competition in the world marketplace between competing ideas of the transcendent. However, what is often portrayed as a conflict between faith systems has its origins in more mundane sources such as political power, expanding turf of empires, control of resources and a desire to dominate. We offer for discussion the following observations:
- The fourteen hundred year old rivalry between Christianity and Islam has received voluminous coverage. However, the best known of these conflicts, the Crusades, had their origin not so much in the doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam but in the changing feudal structures in Europe.
- The Mongol invasions of Central Asia and the Middle East in the thirteenth century did not pit the Rasa of the Mongols against the Shariah of the Muslims. It was the case of a nomadic people overrunning the more settled people of the great cities of Asia.
- The Balkan wars of the nineteenth century are sometimes portrayed as a conflict between the Eastern Orthodox and the Muslim. They were more a reflection of an aggressive Czarist Russia flexing its muscles at the expense of the Muslim Turks, and to a certain extent the Catholic Hapsburgs.
- The decimation of the Aztec, Mayan and Incan civilizations at the hands of the Catholic Spaniards was rooted in the rapacity of Europe for Mayan and Inca gold and Aztec silver, a rapacity that had already gathered momentum as a result of the European discovery of the African gold coast in the latter part of the fifteenth century.
- The Japanese invasion of China prior to and during the Second World War had very little to do with Buddhist aggressiveness. It was a reflection of an expansive Japanese empire hungry for more material and labor resources.
- The Hindu-Muslim dialectic in the subcontinent in the twentieth century, which continues to this day, reflects a struggle for political dominance. The two faiths have coexisted for more than a thousand years.
- The Russian suppression of the Caucasus has its origins in the Russian bid to control the production and distribution of oil in the Caspian Sea basin. It is not a conflict between Islam and the Eastern Orthodox Church
- The Arab-Israeli conflict reflects a clash between an aggressive Jewish nationalism and an assertive Arab nationalism. It is not a conflict between Judaism and Islam. One day this conflict will end and the two faiths will embrace each other.
The only conflicts which can be explained in civilizational terms are those involving the global material civilization and all the faith-based civilizations. Whether the material civilization masquerades as capitalism or communism, it makes no bones about its desire to conquer, control and exploit the natural resources of the world for its own benefit. In the process, it tramples over the turf of all faith-based civilizations. While it has succeeded in bypassing and marginalizing the Christian civilization, it has also succeeded in co-opting, to a large extent, the Hindu and Buddhist civilizations of Asia.
It can be argued that Islam, and Islam alone, stands unbowed before the onslaught of the materialist civilization, although it is badly bruised and injured in the altercation. Many of the conflicts in the world, those in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucuses and South Asia can be explained in the context of an aggressive, expanding, imperial global material civilization, and a faith-based Islam that is engaged in a rearguard action, perhaps a desperate struggle, to prevent the global civilization from dominating the entire globe and taking humankind to the precipice of man-made extinction. When and if this conflict ends, the faith-based civilizations will owe a word of gratitude to the Islamic civilization for rounding off the razor sharp corners of the global materialist civilization.
Internal Conflicts within a Civilization - the Burden of History
Internal conflicts within a faith system are more endemic and widespread than conflicts between faith groups. Indeed, with the sole exception of the Crusades which are often viewed through the narrow spectrum of Christian-Muslim dialectic, very few of the conflicts over the last millennia can be characterized as inter-religious wars. On the other hand, conflicts within religious groups are unceasing and continuous. Most of these conflicts are a result of national, tribal rivalries, political power, military dominance or the result of migrations due to famine or natural disasters. As illustrations we offer a brief history of conflicts within the dominions of Islam over the last millennia:
- In the eleventh century CE, the mass migration of Turks from Central Asia was the result of extended droughts in the steppes of Central Asia. The Turks, moving as tribes, successfully dislodged the Ghaznavids in Afghanistan, the Buyids in Iraq, and ultimately pushed out the Byzantines in Anatolia (modern Turkey).
- The Timurid invasions of the fifteenth century CE destroyed the Muslim kingdoms of Bukhara, Samarqand, Ghazna, India, Persia, Egypt and almost succeeded in extinguishing the Ottoman Empire. Timurlane was a Muslim. In addition to the Muslim empires, he also conquered Russia and laid the foundation for the later emergence of the Christian Orthodox Czarist Empire.
- The Battle of Chaldiran (1517 CE) was a fateful one for Safavid Persia against the Ottoman Empire. The Safavids were Shia while the Ottomans were Sunni. Both were Muslim.
- In 1588 CE, the kingdom of Morocco fought the sub-Saharan Muslim empire of Songhai. The incentive was gold.
- There were no less than five major dynasties in Delhi, all Muslim, between 1192 CE and 1526 CE. The motivation was always power and the riches of India.
- Bangladesh split from Pakistan in 1971 even though they were both Muslim and had worked together in 1947 against Hindu majoritarianism.
- And so on.
One may conclude therefore that there is perhaps a greater need for dialogue within a civilization than across civilizations.
Dialogue of Civilizations
The observations made in the lecture about inter-civilization and intra-civilization conflicts should help us evolve strategies for an effective interfaith dialogue.
The principal dialectic of the times is that between the faith-based civilizations and the disbelieving, material civilization. To facilitate this dialogue, both sides must understand the assumptions, underlying philosophy and science. Faith must accommodate philosophy and science. And science must bend and accept the limitations of its domain.
Man is both mind and soul. Without the soul, man is but dust. And without the mind, the soul walks in ignorance.
A dialogue across faiths must sort out the shared public space where cooperation is both necessary and possible. This includes the areas of ethics, economic, legal and political issues.
Oftentimes, interfaith dialogue gets bogged down in doctrinal issues. These are best left to people of wisdom and intellect. Only they can reconcile the doctrines.
At other times, a dialogue never takes off from the terrestrial pull of rituals. Rituals serve an important function in the lives of people. They provide a rhythm to life and a visible and concrete thread to a community with its past and its future. Rituals, holidays, feasts can be enjoyed across faith boundaries. Rituals and holidays can be both a source of joy for all faiths and a means of reinforcing our communal bonds. They must be encouraged.
Lastly, in a pluralistic global village, civilizations overlap and individuals have multiple identities. The same person may at once be a Muslim, an American, and if he holds dual citizenship, an Indian. Interfaith dialogue requires the commitment to seek out and broaden the shared space, the tolerance to accept the validity of the doctrines and the faith of the other, and the openness to participate in and enjoy the holidays of the other.
A perfect world is not one where everyone is the same. A perfect world is one where every person is the keeper of the other, spiritually, materially and physically.
