A reader calls my attention
A reader calls my attention to this Weekly Standard piece on Sayyid Qutb, rightly called “the most effective Islamic critic of the West and the most eloquent advocate of pan-Islamic revival.”
Qutb believed that while Western democracy is based on freedom, Islamic society is based on virtue. Hence, the repentant adulterers who insisted upon confession to Muhammad and were then stoned to death in accordance with the law of Allah are to be celebrated for their virtue, that is, their desire to be pure when they finally met Allah. Furthermore, the democratic insistence that ‘the People' rule places them above God as a kind of idol, thus making democracy idol worship in the same way that capitalism is market worship.
Author Dinesh D'Souza is quite right in calling for intellectual responses to Qutb's far-reaching and highly influential critique: “To counter this idea will require a full-bodied defense of freedom as understood in the West, as a gift from God and a necessary pre-condition for true virtue.”
There is a problem with that, however. To argue that freedom is a gift from God will require reference to God's words, in some form or another. What form of God's words should be used? The Jewish Torah? The Christian Testaments? The Vedas, perhaps? The only reference acceptable to Qutb's disciples will be, of course, the Koran. Since they will probably reject any Koran-based critique of Qutb offered by a non-Muslim, it once again falls to the Muslims themselves to reform their own religion.
There is no rationally coherent defense of God, which is why a society based entirely on a chosen Book of God will always be incoherent. Freedom, or free will, is indeed a necessary pre-condition for virtue. Convincing the radical adherents of a religion whose very name demands submission to the will of Allah that free will is a necessity strikes me as an impossible task.
The debate, therefore, ought not to be about “gifts from God,” but about the very viability of the god-idea as the foundation of a modern society. Can a state based on the premise that one's individual spiritual life is most properly directed by external authorities be a just state? Is it ethical to demand that non-adherents observe religious law? Is the required public observance of religious law more important than private faith and conviction? All of these questions do not presume the existence of God or God's authority. Instead, they are concerned with what constitutes a just and ethical society, and whether or not a theocracy can insure the just and ethical treatment of its citizens. The followers of Qutb and those who sympathize with them are not and will never be interested in what we in the West have to say about his ideas. We must engage those Muslims who are interested in the broader questions about the role of God in secular society. Those who deny the very viability of secular society will not listen to us.
By requiring that the intellectual defense of Western values be grounded in theistic belief, D'Souza dooms the effort from the start.
