Islam and Modernity: Are they Compatible?

In the book titled “Modernity, Islam and Secularism in Turkey”, Alev Cinar discussed how modernity is always studied or analyzed in a western way. “They analyzed trends, institutions, which are characteristics of Modernity in Europe” (p.3).  Cinar sees this as an inaccurate way of analyzing the modernity in the non-western countries, especially the Muslim countries (not Islamic states but countries with the population are a majority of Muslims). This is because modernity in Islamic countries is influenced by the Islamic cultures, teachings and norms. However, Cinar argued that there are aspects in analyzing modernity that is similar to the European way. Such as that “all modernization projects involve the creation of a particular sense of nationhood and the construction of the specific national identity”. The National Identity is a main factor to how one may see how modernize a country is. Cinar also emphasized that even though the Islam and Western ideologies are different in many ways, not all Islamic ideologies are anti-western. In Turkish, the word modern came to be used synonymously with secular and was evoked to indicate political alliance against Islamism. Ataturk, became the symbol of secularism as he was ‘the father of modern turkey’. Turkish Modernity has been built upon such narratives of self-defamation, be it produced by the westernist urban elites of the late 19^th century.

In the book “Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1989”, Albert Hourani also discussed about Modernity but in Arabic countries. Although he mainly focused on Islamic scholars Jamil Al-Din Al-Afghani, Rida Rashid and Muhammad Abduh, through them he talked about Islamic modernization in countries such as Egypt and Iran. Al-Afghani for instance, who travelled throughout the Middle East, sharing his values and ideologies about Islam. Al-Afghani taught about, “The danger of European Intervention, the need for National Unity to resist it, the need for a broader unity for the Islamic peoples, (and) the need for a constitution to limit the ruler’s powers”(p.109). Relating back to Cinar’s argument about European influence to people’s way of analyzing modernity in Islamic countries, one can connect how the European intervention is a threat to Muslim’s society’s process in modernizing. Modernization in Islamic countries takes a fairly different path compared to the western way, and others have to realize it in order to see that modernization is actually happening. If European intervention is seen as the right way to modernize in Islamic countries, then nationhood would decrease from that country, as its religious and cultural norms will slowly fade.

Muhammad Abduh also has similar principles as Al-Afghani. He believed that the best way for a Muslim country to modernize is by going back to the 1^st principles of Islam, back to the “Golden Age”, and using those principles to develop a modern life. To him, Islam is a middle path between science, reasons, morality, or faith. Islamic principles from the early days, are not against reason, in fact they are compatible with each other. Just the facts that good are rewarded and bad are punished, is a logical law, similar to laws we have today made by society that also brings secular principles. My point is, both Cinar and Hourani would argue that Islam and modernization are interconnected with each other. Not everything in the Islamic principle is against the Western or shall we say the secular principles.


Rossa D.