Islam and Modernity: To be or not to be?

The book, On Being a Muslim by Farid Esack, was useful in terms of giving me an overall understanding of what it means to be a Muslim in a modern world. His viewpoint, which derived from his experiences, conveyed the means of identity in Islam. Some of the questions that were raised while reading this book was the question of whether Islam promotes the idea of modernity or whether modernity promotes some ideas from Islam.

In the chapter on being with Allah, one quote that really interested me was when Esack said, “Prayer does not only influence our lives, it is also influenced by it” (p.31). The reason for this is because, this quote seem to acknowledge that the Islamic culture sometimes need to accustom with the changing world. However, this would raise the problem or the question of to what extent. Is there a limit to how religion should accustom to modernity.

Esack talked a lot about this in his book using many examples and bringing western ideologies and explaining it in an Islamic content. For example, he used the wheel of growth, reproduced from the Life Line Trainees’ Manual, that reflects some of the stages in our encounters with ourselves and the potential which they have for growth. Esack connected what’s conveyed in this wheel to the sayings of the prophet. In page 48, he wrote about how the prophet mentions that those whose two days are equal is a loser. In other words, those who do not grow is a loser.

In page 44, Esack talked about the struggle of being a Muslim but coping with the changing world. He said, “ The challenge to me a s a Muslim is thus to avoid living a life of perpetual war with all that’s around me but to live contemporaneously, fully alive to and responsive to all the impulses of modernity, even as I struggle to reach to Allah”. Although in books or papers people can argue that Islam is against modernity, and that true Muslims should not develop in that way, sometimes it is impossible to completely ignore the changing world. In the real world, we are all exposed to the media, we all consume fast food, we all respect growth. This means that, no matter how hard a true Muslim tries to avoid being involved in modernity, they will eventually enjoy some aspects of it. Prophet Muhammad himself is a supporter of growth. Doesn’t that mean to be a Muslim we should respect the changing world?

To some up I would like to talk about how this is all related to Shakespeare’s famous quote of “to be or not to be”.  The reason why modernity occurs is because of human demands. We demand better quality of life, and technology, entertainment, and all that fulfills it. So should a Muslim respect that? But if they do respect that can they still identify themselves as a good Muslim follower? This is why the question to be or not to be, really refers to “to be or not to be a good Muslim when following modernity”.

Rossa D.