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Published by: Brookings Institution Press, 2007
Email: bibooks@brookings.edu
Professor Akbar Ahmed the former Pakistani High Commissioner to Britain and member of the faculties of Harvard, Princeton and Cambridge, current chair of Islamic Studies at American University. His new book, Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization is perhaps the most important book published this year on the topic of avoiding a clash of civilizations.
The book is a fascinating personal account of his travels last year into the heart of Islam, spanning the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. Through in-depth discussions with high-level officials and religious figures as well as ordinary people, Ahmed offers a nuanced picture of a complex world that alternately fears and misunderstands America, yet seems eager to engage with us if given a chance.”
Prof. Ahmed is in a unique position - he is both an American and a Muslim with impeccable academic credentials, and experience in diplomacy. He is widely respected in the Muslim community as well as the academic and diplomatic communities.
The main purpose of the book is to give western readers a more three-dimensional picture of the Islamic world, enabling them to engage with real-life Muslims and acknowledge “their common humanity”. Ahmed’s device for doing this is to introduce us to three “models” of contemporary Islam, which he associates with three rival centres - all in India, as it happens - that he and his team visited.
Aligarh, seat of the university founded on the Oxbridge model by the great 19th-century Muslim reformer in British-ruled India, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, stands for strengthening Islam by learning from the west. Deoband, a major madrasa in India, also founded in reaction to Islam’s 19th-century crisis, stands for an almost opposite philosophy, one of asserting mainstream or orthodox beliefs and traditions. And finally Ajmer, shrine of the 12th-century Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti, stands for a more quietist, mystical Islam, stressing inner calm, transcendence of earthly passion through direct apprehension of the divine, and openness to other forms of spirituality such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
The author’s main interest in this study is not to analyse the economic consequences of globalisation, though he does take up that aspect too. He is interested in throwing light on how Muslims perceive globalisation in cultural terms. He continues to apply a framework of analysis which he has used in the past for categorising Muslim opinion.
In an interview with ‘Knowledge Without Borders’, prior to the publication of the book, Prof. Ahmed made three important points: 1) “I have been pushing the young to go out and become the real ambassadors from America. The youth are the ones who should be tagged to go out and represent the United States to the rest of the world. They are American, love America and can represent the true values of the U.S. instead of letting foreign policy dictate what the rest of the world thinks about America. On my trip, a group of young Americans accompanied me through 8 different countries. While we did encounter high levels of anti-American feelings, these feelings softened as we talked with them.”. 2) “So we really need to ask: Has the clash theory, which has so far dominated foreign policy in the United States, really succeeded? Has it gotten us what we wanted or should we now explore an alternative paradigm?” 3) “If we are able to find the common ground between the faiths, learn about each others and work together on issues such as terrorism, global warming, genuine democracy in the Muslim world, etc. then we may be able to avert a clash of cultures.”
In an interview by Shilpi Paul in The Internationalist, Prof. Ahmed said: “The young generation of Americans can change the world. They are bright, open, thirsting to do something. One, they need to understand what’s going on in the Muslim world. 90% of information from the media is so negative; they can’t have a real understanding. They need to read, visit, and talk. Two, they need to create some bridges, with scholars, students. Three, they need to start looking at their own society and asking some hard questions. Where is this country going? Are we compromising the ideals that have created us as the great United States of America, the greatest, free-est, and most wonderful democracy?”
And, he further stresses his hopefulness that change is possible: “I am when I think of all the wonderful people who are committed to dialogue and discussion. That gives me hope. The pessimism is, against this, you have a tidal wave of ignorance, prejudice and hatred, on both sides. When hatred and prejudice are out of control, this is the slippery slope which leads to anarchy and chaos for civilization. On the heels of one hatred comes another hatred. When you get all the Muslims and put them in internment camps, who’s next?”
Policy recommendations emanating from the trip and the book include: the U.S. government’s reaching out seriously to the Muslim world to listen and engage in serious dialogue, finding ways to overcome stereotypes and show that the U.S. respects Islam as a religion, a program of economic generosity that shares more educational resources and fewer instruments of war, and the United States’ living up to its own ideals of democracy, civil rights and civil liberties. Dr. Ahmed believes that the U.S. State Department should field ambassadors who are as respectful, dignified and dialogic as his four young companions on this journey into Islam.”
Journey into Islam ends with a call to solutions that “take into consideration the interconnectedness of the world, the fact that everything happening in the United States is making an almost immediate impact in the Muslim world, and vice versa.”
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