tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/muslim-history-18742/articlesMuslim history – The Conversation2015-12-16T15:32:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/520942015-12-16T15:32:24Z2015-12-16T15:32:24ZAs Britain plans to regulate madrasas, let’s understand their history<p>Words with simple meanings sometimes conceal complicated and contested histories. Madrasa is just such a word. Literally, it means a place where teaching and learning takes place. Yet, even a cursory look at the history of the term reveals fascinating tales of contests over knowledge and religious authority as well as the variety of ways in which it is used. </p>
<p>In the UK it is once again a subject of debate, with the government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/480133/out_of_school_education_settings_call_for_evidence.pdf">currently consulting</a> on new proposals that would see madrasas and other forms of supplementary education subject to inspection. </p>
<p>In a contemporary British context, the word often refers to some 2,000 supplementary Muslim educational settings where over 250,000 children learn the basics of their religion and, in many cases, about the languages and cultures of the countries of their families. Another word sometimes used for these places is <em>maktab</em>.</p>
<p>This education, which is now “supplementary” in Britain, historically was the mainstream of the Muslim traditions of teaching and learning. These traditions were practised in a diversity of institutions such as mosques, maktabs (places of elementary education), and madrasas (institutions of higher learning), as well as in libraries, palaces, and centres of translation. </p>
<p>These traditions <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XBmStREVVCUC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=Exchange+of+ideas+islam+and+europe+greek&ots=Wvtwj_SlNF&sig=zXCrrQenO4jpSsgXXVcio0eVI8w&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">were inspired</a> by several factors including the religious quest to understand the will of God, the search for useful knowledge to run empires, and the attraction of the Hellenistic, Persian, and Indian intellectual heritages. They were a remarkable illustration of the movement of ideas across human cultures.</p>
<h2>A millennium of madrasas</h2>
<p>Madrasas <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8412.html">emerged relatively late</a> in Muslim societies, around the 10th century, but then expanded quickly, especially under political patronage of the Seljuq dynasty in areas of present day Iraq, Iran and Syria as part of what has been called the Sunni revival against the growing influence of the Shias. The Sunnis and the Shias are the two major doctrinal groups of Muslims, each with their own internal diversity. </p>
<p>Subjects taught in madrasas included Quranic recitation and interpretation, Arabic grammar, jurisprudence and theology. In some madrasas, arithmetic, astronomy, medicine, poetry and philosophy <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Islam.html?id=icNMHUKnSJAC&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y">were also taught</a>. Biographies of several well-known scholars indicate that on occasions, madrasas also served as <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dK6_IMuqWpoC&pg=PA29&dq=madrasa+and+social+mobility&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=madrasa%20and%20social%20mobility&f=false">vehicles of social mobility</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106053/original/image-20151215-23179-hx0903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106053/original/image-20151215-23179-hx0903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106053/original/image-20151215-23179-hx0903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106053/original/image-20151215-23179-hx0903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106053/original/image-20151215-23179-hx0903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106053/original/image-20151215-23179-hx0903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106053/original/image-20151215-23179-hx0903.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Al Azhar University minaret in Egypt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Al-Azhar_University_Minaret.jpg">Buyoof/Wikimedia.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Their spread <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8412.html">played a key role</a> in the consolidation of doctrinal positions and legal thinking which now form the dominant position among Sunnis. In time, the Shias developed their own religious seminaries, called <em>hawzas</em>, which play a similar role. Some of the most famous madrasas are the Deoband in India, al-Azhar in Egypt, Hawzas of Qum in Iran and the Zaytunia in Tunisia.</p>
<p>From the 18th century, large parts of the Muslim world engaged with modernity, in its colonial form – an encounter that transformed almost all aspects of Muslim societies. Modern schools, higher education institutions, new official languages, and, above all, a new epistemology was introduced. Madrasas continued to provide religious instructions, though in the process they went through remarkable transformations in form, teaching and, to some extent, content.</p>
<p>One result of this social and economic transformation is what most Muslims today want for their children: both the material fruits of modernity through western secular education and the continuation of traditional moral and religious values. One educational arrangement that has prevailed in many Muslim contexts to cater to these two needs has the adoption of dual system of education whereby children attend mainstream schools as well as supplementary religious education classes. In contexts such as Britain, the word madrasa came to be associated with these supplementary education provisions. </p>
<h2>More regulation on the cards</h2>
<p>The word madrasa does not appear at all in the government’s recent consultation document on regulating <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/480133/out_of_school_education_settings_call_for_evidence.pdf">“Out of-school education settings”</a>. Still, the document’s context as well its references to the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97976/prevent-strategy-review.pdf">Prevent strategy</a> and to extremism leave no doubt that its primary concern is with Muslim supplementary education settings. </p>
<p>David Cameron’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-party-conference-2015-david-camerons-speech-in-full-a6684656.html">speech at the Tory party conference</a> was <a href="https://theconversation.com/clampdown-on-madrassas-misses-the-point-of-why-parents-send-children-for-extra-study-49031">more explicit</a> in referring to madrasas. Understandably, the plans to regulate these settings have <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/07/muslim-leaders-voice-concerns-about-tory-crackdown-on-madrasas">raised concerns</a> among some Muslim organisations. These concerns must be seen against the backdrop of the fact that since the mid-1990s when the Taliban took control of parts of Afghanistan, madrasas around the world have received <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Moral_Economy_of_the_Madrasa.html?id=eACQCvQD9jQC&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y">massive bad publicity</a>.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that that some madrasas in the UK <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.ippr.org/files/images/media/files/publication/2011/11/inside-madrassas_Nov2011_8301.pdf?noredirect%3D1&sa=D&ust=1450173599928000&usg=AFQjCNHybmFX9WUXLNXfydFTcq_Q2kIPmw">have practices</a> that need improvement, both with regard to the content of teaching and physical provision. Many Muslims <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34933970">accept this</a>. There are already projects that are helping reform madrasas, including in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21975225">Bradford</a> – but much more needs to be done. </p>
<p>But Muslim organisations also insist, rightly, that the huge majority of madrasas are not doing anything that is harmful to social cohesion.</p>
<h2>A clear framework</h2>
<p>The government’s consultative document recognises the good work done in the country’s supplementary education settings. This creates the potential that proposed regulation can become a source to build trust among those sections of Muslim citizens who feel they are being <a href="https://theconversation.com/young-british-muslims-alienated-by-us-versus-them-rhetoric-of-counter-terrorism-46117">targeted</a> by the government’s approach to extremism. For this potential to be realised, several steps should be taken and a framework generated for implementing the reforms. </p>
<p>First, it should be made clear that the state is not intending to interfere in religious instruction, which should be the business of private individuals and associations. Second, those who carry out the inspections should get induction into the traditions of learning in Muslim communities and the history and status of madrasas in particular. This is vital to ensure that the line between conservative religious instruction and extremist discourse is observed. </p>
<p>Third, the inspectors should learn about the madrasa reform initiatives already going on within Muslim communities. Fourth, where shortcomings are found, there should be a transparent process of corrective measures. And lastly, the fair and even-handed treatment of all out-of-school education provisions, not just madrasas, should be clearly visible.</p>
<p>If done well, the government’s aim to ensure that all children should have access to secure, safe and socially useful religious education can be a valuable exercise. It can create a background against which Muslim communities can carry out the much-needed theological and epistemological debates about the place of madrasas in today’s society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Farid Panjwani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>British Muslims have mixed emotions about the motives behind moves to inspect madrasas.Farid Panjwani, Senior Lecturer and Director, Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/487272015-11-17T11:03:02Z2015-11-17T11:03:02ZIs Islam incompatible with modernity?<p>In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, political leaders have lined up to denounce the acts as inhuman and uncivilized, unworthy of our day and age.</p>
<p>French President Francois Hollande <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34816077">denounced them</a> as “a barbaric act,” while President Obama <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2015/11/15/targets-terrorism-financing-and-border-controls-after-paris/E9qXvgk9v5sF8UYYABoMLK/story.html">called them</a> “an attack on the civilized world.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the horrific actions of ISIS – done in the name of Islam – often get attributed to Muslims as a whole. There is the underlying assumption that there must be some core aspect of the religion that is at fault, that the religion is incompatible with modernity. </p>
<p>It hasn’t helped that some non-Muslim thinkers have conflated ISIS with mainstream Islam. They’ll often point to ISIS’ desire to return civilization to the seventh century as further proof that Islam – and its followers – are backwards.</p>
<p>Yet many leading Muslim thinkers are going to some of Islam’s earliest texts to actually promote reform. Contained within these texts are ideas many consider progressive: peaceful coexistence, the acceptance of other religions, democratic governance and women’s rights. </p>
<p>Indeed, Islam and modernization need not be at odds with one another. And in the aftermath of tragedy, it’s important to not lose sight of this. </p>
<h2>A single model of modernity?</h2>
<p>The question is posed, time and again: will Muslims ever be able to reform and modernize and join the 21st century?</p>
<p>Yet the subtext is almost always that the Western paradigm of modernity – the one that developed in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, that firmly embraced <a href="https://thereformedmind.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/when-calvin-and-qutb-went-smashing/">secularism</a> and the (sometimes ferocious) marginalization of religion – is the only one worthy of emulation. Muslims, the thinking goes, have no choice but to adopt it themselves.</p>
<p>However <a href="http://www.havenscenter.org/files/Eisenstadt2000_MultipleModernities.pdf">some scholars have increasingly challenged</a> the notion of a single model of modernity. According to them, there’s no reason that religion and modernization must inevitably be at odds with one another for all societies and for all time.</p>
<p>In 16th-century Europe, the priesthood had achieved considerable wealth and political power by often allying themselves with local kings and rulers. The Protestant reformers, therefore, regarded the Church as an impediment to political empowerment. </p>
<p>But Muslims, due to their unique religious history, continue to view their religion as an ally in their attempts to come to terms with the changed circumstances of the modern world. </p>
<p>Muslim religious scholars (<em>ulama</em>) never enjoyed the kind of centralized and institutionalized authority that the medieval European church and its elders did. The <em>ulama</em> – from the eighth century’s al-Hasan al-Basri to the 20th century’s Ayatullah Khomeini – traditionally distanced themselves from political rulers, intervening on behalf of the populace to ensure social and political justice. </p>
<p>Such an oppositional role to government prevented the emergence of a general popular animosity directed at them, and by extension, toward Islam.</p>
<p>For this reason, today’s Muslim thinkers feel no imperative to distance themselves from their religious tradition. On the contrary, they are plumbing it to find resources therein to not only adapt to the modern world, but also to shape it. </p>
<h2>Islam turned on its head</h2>
<p>Yet 21st-century Muslim religious scholars have a challenging task. How can they exhume and popularize principles and practices that allowed Muslims in the past to coexist with others, in peace and on equal terms, regardless of religious affiliation? </p>
<p>Such a project is made more urgent by the fact that extremists in Muslim-majority societies (ISIS leaders currently foremost among them) vociferously reject this as impossible. Islam, they declare, posits the superiority of Muslims over everyone else. Muslims must convert non-Muslims or politically subjugate them. </p>
<p>As a result, <a href="http://theweek.com/speedreads/554266/rick-santorum-isis-bomb-back-7th-century">many have accused</a> these extremists of trying to return Muslim-majority societies to the seventh century. </p>
<p>If only that were true!</p>
<p>If these extremists could actually be transported miraculously back to the seventh century, they would learn a thing or two about the religion they claim to be their own. </p>
<p>For starters, they would learn to their chagrin that seventh-century Medina accepted Jews as equal members of the community (<em>umma</em>) under the Constitution of Medina drawn up by the prophet Muhammad in 622 CE. They would also learn that seventh-century Muslims took seriously the Qur'anic injunction (2:256) that there is to be no compulsion in religion and that specific Qur’anic verses (<a href="http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=2&verse=62">2:62</a> and <a href="http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=5&verse=69">5:69</a>) recognize goodness in righteous Christians and Jews. </p>
<p>Most importantly, fire-breathing extremists would learn that peaceful non-Muslim communities cannot be militarily attacked simply because they are not Muslim. They would be reminded that only after 12 years of nonviolent resistance would the Prophet Muhammad and his companions resort to armed combat or the military jihad. And even then it would only be to defend themselves against aggression. </p>
<p>The Qur'an, after all, unambiguously forbids Muslims from initiating combat. Qur'an 2:190 states, “Do not commit aggression,” while Qur'an 60:8 specifically asserts: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>God does not forbid you from being kind and equitable to those who have neither made war on you on account of your religion nor driven you from your homes; indeed God loves those who are equitable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Extremist groups like ISIS are often accused of being scriptural literalists and therefore prone to intolerance and violence. But when it comes to specific Qur'anic verses like 2:256; 60:8 and others, it’s clear that they cherry-pick which passages to “strictly” interpret.</p>
<h2>Going to the source</h2>
<p>Not surprisingly, Muslim reformers are returning to their earliest religious sources and history – the Qur'an and its commentaries, reliable sayings of Muhammad, early historical chronicles – for valuable guidance during these troubled times. </p>
<p>And much of what we regard as “modern, progressive values” – among them religious tolerance, the empowerment of women, and accountable, consultative modes of governance – can actually be found in this strand of Muslims’ collective history. </p>
<p>Like 16th-century Christian reformers, Muslim reformers are returning to their foundational texts and mining them for certain moral guidelines and ethical prescriptions. For one reason or another – political upheaval, war, ideological movements – many had been cast aside. But today they retain particular relevance. </p>
<p>As a result, the reformers are distinguishing between “normative Islam” and “historical Islam,” as the famous Islam scholar Fazlur Rahman <a href="http://www.jstor.org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/stable/pdf/20840179.pdf">has phrased it</a>. </p>
<p>But unlike the earlier Christian reformers, Muslim reformers are hardly ever left alone to conduct their project of reform. Their efforts are constantly stymied by intrusive outsiders, particularly non-Muslim Western cultural warriors who encroach on the Muslim heartlands – militarily, culturally and, above all, intellectually. </p>
<p>Such a multipronged assault was particularly evident during George W Bush’s presidency, during which the neoconservatives championed a “clash of civilizations” between the West and the Islamic world, a theory <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1993-06-01/clash-civilizations">popularized by political scientist Samuel Huntington</a>.</p>
<p>Western Muslim reformers are not immune to this onslaught, either. They are frequently derided by <a href="http://nocompulsion.com/why-the-west-loves-lying-to-itself-about-islam/">self-styled “expert” outsiders</a> for subscribing to what they characterize as newfangled beliefs like democracy, religious tolerance and women’s rights. According to these “experts,” there is supposedly no grounding or room for these beliefs in their religious texts and tradition. </p>
<p>One wonders how effective Martin Luther would have been in 16th-century Europe if he had to constantly deal with non-Christian “experts” lecturing him about Christianity’s true nature. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, there are a number of pundits who are eager to tie the actions of Islamist terrorists to mainstream religious doctrine.</p>
<p>Journalist Graeme Wood’s <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/">alarmist article</a> in The Atlantic is a most recent example of such intrusive punditry.</p>
<p>“The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic,” he wrote. “…the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.”</p>
<p>Caner Dagli, a well-known scholar of Islam, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/what-muslims-really-want-isis-atlantic/386156/">rejected</a> Woods’ argument: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All of this puts Muslims in a double bind: If they just go about their lives, they stand condemned by those who demand that Muslims “speak out.” But if they do speak out, they can expect to be told that short of declaring their sacred texts invalid, they are fooling themselves or deceiving the rest of us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite such formidable challenges, reformist efforts continue unabated in learned Muslim circles. Sometimes crises and the subsequent marshaling of moral and intellectual resources can bring out the best in an individual and in a community. </p>
<p>The Qur’an (94:6) promises that “Indeed with hardship comes ease.” Committed Muslim reformers who take the Qur'an’s injunctions seriously (unlike the extremists) are working toward the easing of current circumstances of hardship – and calling on others to help, not impede, them in this global human endeavor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asma Afsaruddin is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. </span></em></p>Religion and modernity need not be at odds with one another, and many leading Muslim thinkers are plumbing early texts to promote progressive ideas.Asma Afsaruddin, Professor of Islamic Studies and former Chairperson, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/454822015-08-26T09:51:04Z2015-08-26T09:51:04ZWhat Don Quixote has to say to Spain about today’s immigrant crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92450/original/image-20150819-10832-grkyqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tilting at 21st-century Spain?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Don_Quixote_and_Sancho_Panza_3.jpg">Vitold Muratov</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1492, the Spanish Inquisition forced Jews to convert to Christianity or to leave the Iberian peninsula – on pain of death. Some five centuries later, in June 2015, the Spanish <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11687465/Five-centuries-after-expulsion-at-pain-of-death-Spain-grants-citizenship-to-Sephardic-Jews.html">Parliament</a> invited the descendants of those Jewish exiles to apply for Spanish citizenship without having to give up their current passports. </p>
<p>As the Catholic Church continued to establish its primacy at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, Spain’s Muslims, too, were forced to convert. </p>
<p>Called <em>moriscos</em>, these Muslims made up, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vXTs8jJiuu8C&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=moriscos+spain+expulsion+percentage+of+the+population&source=bl&ots=zIyTR99XlM&sig=1KHIN9d91M8RecLH6Hi0zXgLIV8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFMQ6AEwCWoVChMI_-GxpaW4xwIVA44NCh2e4wWU#v=onepage&q=moriscos%20spain%20expulsion%20percentage%20of%20the%20population&f=false">by some estimates</a>, approximately 4% of the country’s population. But they were not to be there for long. </p>
<p>By 1609, the royal expulsion had been decreed – the <em>moriscos</em> were ordered to leave Spain. <a href="http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/richard.hornbeck/research/papers/morisco_ch_dec2014.pdf">And they did</a>, in waves, between 1609 and 1614. To this day, their descendants have been denied the “right of return.” </p>
<p>So why are the descendants of Sephardic Jews allowed to return and the descendants of Muslim converts not? </p>
<p>Might the great Spanish writer Cervantes, whose second volume of Don Quixote was published <a href="http://ndsmcobserver.com/2015/04/notre-dame-celebrates-400th-anniversary-don-quixote/">400 years ago this year</a> – right after the expulsion of the <em>moriscos</em> – shine any light on this current debate?</p>
<h2>Richly textured writing</h2>
<p>When I teach Don Quixote to my students at Columbia, we can find a dark, deeply satirical, and skeptical Cervantes, but also a more nuanced and multicultural one, capable of tremendous irony. This is not – as is assumed by some – by-the-book Spanish Catholic and traditional orthodoxy. </p>
<p>What we see is a Cervantes of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2862407?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">complex humanity</a>. Despite being captured by pirates and imprisoned in Algiers, and, from the little we know, having lived a life of many deep disappointments, we see in his writings that he was still able to sort out good and bad – among Spaniards, Turks, North Africans, English, Catholics, Protestants and <em>moriscos</em> – by their behavior and not by their labels. </p>
<p>Cervantes is most often remembered for <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/cervantes/c41d/complete.html">Don Quixote</a>, giving the world the term “quixotic” and the phrase “tilting at windmills,” and the endearing and often frustrating characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92452/original/image-20150819-10841-fadlyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92452/original/image-20150819-10841-fadlyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92452/original/image-20150819-10841-fadlyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92452/original/image-20150819-10841-fadlyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92452/original/image-20150819-10841-fadlyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92452/original/image-20150819-10841-fadlyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92452/original/image-20150819-10841-fadlyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (1547-1615).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Juan_de_Jauregui_-_Retrato_de_Miguel_de_Cervantes.jpg">Bridgeman Art Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Less generally known, but significant even today, is the voice Cervantes gave to ideas of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cervantes-Humanist-Vision-Exemplary-Novels/dp/0691065217">freedom and tolerance</a>, especially religious freedom and the powerful love of one’s homeland. </p>
<p>This occurs most notably in Part II of Don Quixote through the character Ricote the <em>Morisco</em>, a former neighbor of Sancho Panza, who has settled in Germany after the historical expulsion of the <em>moriscos</em>. </p>
<p>Ricote longs for his homeland, Spain.</p>
<h2>Ricote, his countrymen and Cervantes</h2>
<p>Ricote, though he might face death if discovered, has sneaked back into the country, dressed as a pilgrim, in order to find buried money he had been forced to leave behind. </p>
<p>While revealing to Sancho that he himself has been less devoted to Christianity, nevertheless he has a wife and daughter who were true converts. Surprisingly, he defends King Philip III’s decree, while vividly painting the effect on himself, his family, and other <em>moriscos</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know very well, O Sancho Panza, my neighbor and friend, how the proclamation and edict that His Majesty issues against those of my race brought terror and fear to all of us…It seems to me it was divine inspiration that moved His Majesty to put into effect so noble a resolution, not because all of us were guilty, for some were firm and true Christians, though these were so few they could not oppose those who were not, but because it is not a good idea to nurture a snake in your bosom or shelter enemies in your house. In short, it was just and reasonable for us to be chastised with the punishment of exile: lenient and mild, according to some, but for us it was the most terrible we could have received. No matter where we are we weep for Spain, for, after all, we were born here and it is our native country. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Spain, like other European countries, feared the power of the Ottoman Turks, whose expansionist movements seemed unstoppable in the 16th century. </p>
<p>But Spain had a unique situation that contributed to the fear of the Ottoman Turks. </p>
<p>As a land that had been under Muslim domination for hundreds of years (from AD 711 to the mid-13th century) when Christian conquests of important cities left only the Kingdom of Granada until it, too, fell in 1492, Spain had a significant Muslim population, especially along the coasts. </p>
<p>Across the Mediterranean, the Barbary states of North Africa were under Muslim control. </p>
<p>Although forced conversions of Muslims in the 16th century intended to create a society of Christians, both <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/eve-spain">Church and Crown feared that Muslims were “false converts,”</a> remaining “crypto-Muslims,” disloyal to Spain, and worse, conspiring with Constantinople to bring about the fall of Catholic Spain. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92454/original/image-20150819-10879-ekkfrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92454/original/image-20150819-10879-ekkfrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92454/original/image-20150819-10879-ekkfrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92454/original/image-20150819-10879-ekkfrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92454/original/image-20150819-10879-ekkfrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92454/original/image-20150819-10879-ekkfrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92454/original/image-20150819-10879-ekkfrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Turks at the Battle of Vienna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Vienna.Sipahis.jpg">G Jansoone</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To be sure, Christian forces across Europe enjoyed significant victories, defeating the Ottoman Turks, for example, at the <a href="http://teachmiddleeast.lib.uchicago.edu/historical-perspectives/middle-east-seen-through-foreign-eyes/antiquity-modern/image-resource-bank/image-04.html">Battle of Vienna in 1529</a>. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Spain felt acutely the dangers of <em>morisco</em> society. Church and Crown turned away from what they saw as failed strategies of assimilation and instead debated, confirmed and then justified the strategies of expulsion that took place in waves between 1609 and 1614. </p>
<p>While some may see Ricote’s defense of King Philip III’s decree as Cervantes toeing an orthodox line, it is obvious that a multicultural Cervantes also managed to air opposing views, under the eagle eye of the <a href="http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/v06/tofino.html">Inquisitional censors</a>.</p>
<p>While nodding to the perceived political efficacy of expulsion (the <em>moriscos</em> may not be “true Christians”), Cervantes nevertheless makes no small point when he writes that the <em>morisco</em> exile “weeps for Spain” and the loss of his own country. Cervantes is unique in the degree of sympathy he shows to the <em>moriscos</em> and in his recognition of their allegiance to Spain. </p>
<p>And so, the descendants of <em>moriscos</em> ask today, how can Spain offer differential treatment to descendants of Sephardic Jews and <em>moriscos</em>? Do the Sephardic Jews feel any more keenly the loss of homeland than do the descendants of <em>moriscos</em>? </p>
<h2>Justifying differential treatment</h2>
<p>The Spanish government<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11687465/Five-centuries-after-expulsion-at-pain-of-death-Spain-grants-citizenship-to-Sephardic-Jews.html"> has congratulated itself</a> on righting a historic wrong by allowing dual citizenship to the descendants of Sephardic Jews. </p>
<p>But, at the same time, it maintains that the two cases have no basis for comparison. In one case, they argue, bigotry lay at the heart of the expulsion. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/24/spain-sephardic-jews-islam-muslim">In the other</a>, the expulsion of the <em>moriscos</em> was the result of decades of political clashes and thereby warrants no apology. As a member of Portugal’s Parliament (that has passed a similar law inviting Sephardic Jews to “return”) put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Persecution of Jews was just that, while what happened with the Arabs was part of a conflict. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But, a more obvious answer may lie in the migrant crisis facing Europe today. </p>
<p>Spain has particular problems with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/12/afrian-migrants-sea-crossing-strait-gibraltar-spain.">a growing number of refugees </a>crossing the narrow Strait of Gibraltar from North Africa, and has
already faced severe criticism by other members of the European Union for allowing its borders to be so porous, thereby opening the way for migrants to enter France and other countries. Although human rights activists have called for a more holistic response to immigration on the part of the European Union, it has still been left to the Southern European countries on the front line to bear the brunt of the migration crisis. </p>
<p>Because of the large number of descendants of <em>moriscos</em> around the world – some estimate tens of millions, most of whom are in North Africa – <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4183/muslim-right-of-return-spain">observers</a> say that virtually overnight, if Spain were to rescind the Edict of Expulsion of the <em>moriscos</em>, it could become the largest Muslim population in the European Union. </p>
<p>According to a study conducted last year by the <a href="http://www.ul.ie/news-centre/news/economic-crisis-polarises-attitudes-to-immigrants-in-ireland-and-across-eur">University of Limerick,</a> Spanish attitudes toward immigrants have significantly worsened since 2002. <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/12/chapter-4-views-of-roma-muslims-jews/">A 2014 Pew survey</a> revealed that more Spaniards are negative about Muslims (46% unfavorable) than are Germans (33%) or British (26%). </p>
<p>Interestingly, although Spanish scholar Americo Castro (1885-1972) recognized that Cervantes’ works demonstrated religious and ethnic tolerance, most criticism of Cervantes in Spain today is far less engaged with views of his tolerance than are scholars who are based in the US and Britain. </p>
<p>There are many things Spain itself must consider in dealing with the migration crisis, and no one underestimates the vast number of problems. </p>
<p>But maintaining a flimsy line of defense between the justification for allowing the descendants of Sephardic Jews to return to their homeland because of their much smaller number, while continuing to force the descendants of <em>moriscos</em> to “weep for Spain,” like Ricote the <em>Morisco</em>, should not continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia E. Grieve has received funding in the past from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research now published on medieval and early modern topics.</span></em></p>Over 500 years ago, first Jews and then Muslims were expelled from Spain. This summer, Spain’s Parliament invited the former back but not the latter. Here’s what Cervantes might say to his countrymen.Patricia E Grieve, Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor in the Humanities, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/444162015-07-20T01:05:19Z2015-07-20T01:05:19ZIslam: the ‘Open Civilisation’ confounds closed minds<p>The modern era defines a period when Islam passes through the shadows, or so it would seem. Islam remains in the media spotlight, with <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-19/police-out-in-force-as-protesters-converge-in-more-rival-rallies/6631212">anti-Islamic rallies</a> being held around Australia. It is portrayed as the religion that fails to integrate into modernity. Apparently, the only remedy is the construction of a “Western Islamic” identity.</p>
<p>This is a hugely problematic and skewed view of Islamic history and the potential of Muslim communities. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bulliet">Richard Bulliet</a>, professor of history at Columbia, has argued that the period 1300 to 1900 is the “golden age” of Islam. This period is hardly talked about in academic circles and seldom without the taint of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis">Bernard Lewis’</a> hypothesis about the decline of the Muslim world and his claim about the unimaginativeness of the Muslim empires during the age of European discovery.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gWqZw5QO-vA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Bulliet discusses the history of the Muslim world, highlighting problems in how we discuss Islam.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This portrayal, Bulliet argues, resonates strongly with the contemporary notion of Muslims as dullards incapable of inventiveness and innovation in the modern world. An aspect of this is that the “West” has bought into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-hundreds-of-westerners-are-taking-up-arms-in-global-jihad-28302">Salafi</a> argument that there is a pure form of Islam against which the great <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslims-need-to-counter-violent-jihadists'-claim-to-represent-Islam-43051">diversity of the global ummah</a> (Muslim community) is tested.</p>
<p>The global reality is different. Bulliet makes a pertinent point about “Islam” being the “Open Civilisation”. He also presents the clearest evidence to refute a theory of decline. </p>
<p>The period 1300 to 1900 was a time of increased conversion to Islam in what Bulliet calls the “Muslim south”, places such as West and East Africa, Southern India, Bangladesh, Southeast Asia, but not including equally important newly converted outer-lying regions such as China. The phenomenon of conversion to Islam during 1300 to 1900, a period of so-called decline, undermines the credibility of Lewis’ influential thesis.</p>
<h2>Muslims actually</h2>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world#Countries_with_the_largest_Muslim_populations_.282010.29">Most</a> of the <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/files/2009/10/Muslimpopulation.pdf">world’s Muslims</a> today are direct descendants of those converts from the 1300 to 1900 period, which occurred after the <a href="http://lostislamichistory.com/mongols/">Mongol devastation</a>. These Muslims have little connection with those Muslims of the early medieval era, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests">period of conquest</a> and empire-building, nor with earlier events in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Mecca#Muhammad_and_conquest_of_Mecca">Mecca</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina#Religious_significance_in_Islam">Medina</a>.</p>
<p>The point often missed is that they are the majority of the Muslim migratory population who are presently moving into regions of the Western world. It is their voice that is <a href="https://theconversation.com/islams-silent-majority-moderate-voices-drowned-out-by-extremists-30706">not being heard</a>; instead, a conservative, puritanical view of Islam has made a deep impression on the Western imagination.</p>
<p>This blinkered view of Islam continues, for example, to be perpetuated through Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is both privately and publicly invested in promoting its <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-wahhabism-in-saudi-arabia-36693">own traditionalist version</a> of Islam. Such a view, though constantly in the “public” eye, does not constitute a majority in Islam, nor does it amount to hegemony over Islam.</p>
<p>There seems to be confusion about what constitutes “majority” opinion on, say, hardline attitudes and what might qualify as “hegemony”. Having less than a quarter of the Muslim population advocating death for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XROJwaRg9pM&list=PLlsKuHEwO-Kq1cYSak1jW4hxlLIvRitle">apostasy</a> does not equate with majority. Radical Muslim groups vying for a <a href="https://theconversation.com/caliphate-a-disputed-concept-no-longer-has-a-hold-over-all-muslims-41521">caliphate</a> do not constitute hegemony. There has to be a majority for there to be hegemony, and the majority of Muslims are ordinary, <a href="http://nceis.unimelb.edu.au/?a=503339">more liberal-minded</a> people.</p>
<h2>Freedom of religion includes Islam too</h2>
<p>Another side to this is that Muslims should have the right to practise their faith freely, in whatever form and to whatever lawful degree they choose, without being suspected of being “terrorists”. People who are strict practising Muslims are not necessarily associated, and should not be assumed to be, with extremist militant jihadists. Practising one’s religion with sincerity and rigour is one thing; being confused with extremist militant jihadists is another thing altogether.</p>
<p>The relationship between militant extremists and the Muslim faith is coincidental. The relationship between dissenting views about the culture of Western capitalism and liberal democratic idealism and being a strictly practising Muslim is coincidental.</p>
<p>It is true that people in Muslim countries around the world retain an anti-“Western” attitude. They oppose American, British or Australian policies, for example. Yet there is not necessarily a causal link between this attitude and Islam.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XROJwaRg9pM&list=PLlsKuHEwO-Kq1cYSak1jW4hxlLIvRitle">Reinforcing this argument</a> is that most Muslim countries in the Middle East are not governed by Muslim regimes, but by autocratic rule. Over the past half-century or more, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/201232710543250236.html">foreign support</a> of these autocracies has understandably led to Muslim disdain for <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-islam-and-the-west-the-moral-panic-behind-the-threat-43113">“Western” involvement</a>. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XROJwaRg9pM&list=PLlsKuHEwO-Kq1cYSak1jW4hxlLIvRitle">fall-back to religion</a>, Islam, for those who feel oppressed by autocracies certainly does not reduce the whole of Islam to a religion that breeds radical jihadists.</p>
<p>Religions are not themselves living phenomena that move through time; they are moved by the actors who interpret core religious texts and participate through the religions to which they belong. Human agency makes the religion what it is. </p>
<p>Religion is ultimately subject to interpretation and its manifestations are representative of the struggles that individuals face in coming to terms with what it means to be religious in everyday life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Milad Milani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Islam that causes alarm and protests in the West is not representative of the beliefs and practices of the world’s Muslims. Most are Asian and they are the ones more likely to migrate to the West.Milad Milani, Lecturer, History and Political Thought, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.