Abdal Hakim Murad on an alliance of religious conservatives vs. the left

If Europe is once again finding a kind of unity in its allergy to Muslimness, can Muslims find any allies in this landscape? Tariq Ramadan, in his book To be a European Muslim, implies that a marriage is possible with environmentalist and left-wing groups who are dismayed by the rise of anti-immigrant feeling. Pim Fortuyn’s assassin was, after all, a militant left-wing vegetarian who wished to defend Holland’s Muslims from Fortuyn’s plans for a liberal persecution. And many of the emerging British and European Muslim organisations seem to sympathise with Ramadan’s approach. After all, when marching against the invasion of Iraq, or campaigning against arms sales to brutal elites in the Middle East, one usually finds oneself sharing an umbrella with Fabian or CND types, not the Young Conservatives. Hence the popularity of the likes of George Galloway among Muslims. 

Such an alliance, however, is likely to be, at best, a tempestuous marriage of convenience. Muslims and the left may converge on Iraq, or Israel, or globalisation, but on domestic matters they stand at opposite poles. The Green movement, and virtually all on the Left, are fiercely pro-homosexual and feminist. It seems clear, then, that European Muslims are unlikely to forge a stable relationship with the Left. Similarly with the environmentalists: Muslims are often forgetful that the roots of the green lobby in Europe are not monotheistic, but often implicitly or explicitly pagan. Nazism was very keen on the environment: Sigrid Hunke, the German feminist and green theorist of the 1930s who is still viewed as a founder of the green movement, was revered by several Nazi ideologues. 

Many Muslims, from their vantage-point in Europe’s ghettoes, intuit this correctly. But they then conclude that the true believers by definition have no allies. Some Salafist perspectives, in particular, seem unable to accept the possibility of partnership with non-Muslims. One recalls the embarrassing cases of Shaykh Faisal in Britain, and Anwar al-Awlaki in the United States; whose followers, mesmerised by the slogan of ‘Back to the Qur’an’, had to spring back in dismay when the political views of these preachers reached the media. Yet such paranoia and xenophobia seem both scripturally unnecessary and practically unwise. If Europe continues to secularise, while Europe’s mosques remain full, then Islam is likely, without any planning or even forethought, to become the principal monotheistic energy through much of the continent, a kind of leaven in Europe’s stodgy dough.

Yet we should note that the pressure being brought to bear on Muslim communities relates to social, not doctrinal, beliefs. No-one in Brussels is greatly concerned about Muslim doctrines of the divine attributes, or prophetic intercession; but they do care about whether or not Muslims believe in feminism. This places Muslim believers in a historically new position. It should be possible to forge close friendships with other Europeans who also have the courage to blaspheme against the Brussels magisterium. We may differ with conservative Catholics and Jews over doctrine, but we are all facing very similar challenges to our social vision. Signor Buttiglione could easily have been a Muslim, not a Catholic, martyr. 

Here, I believe, a burden of responsibility rests upon the shoulders of Muslim leaders. It is in our interests to seek and hold friends. We are not alone in our conscientious rejection of many liberal orthodoxies. The statement by Bishop Michel Santer of the French church condemning the official punishments imposed on women who wear the niqab is an important sign of the possibility of cooperation. The challenge is going to be for Muslim, Christian and Jewish conservatives to set aside their strong traditional hesitations about other faith communities, and to discover the multitude of things they hold in common. To date, clearly, the interfaith industry has failed to catalyse this, partly because it tends to be directed by liberal religionists. We are more and more willing, it seems, to discuss less and less, and to conform more and more to the moral consensus of a secular and individualistic world. 

However an alliance sacrée between orthodox believers in different religions would, I think, deflate the potentially xenophobic and Islamophobic possibilities implicit in the process of European self-definition. If Europe defines itself constitutionally, as I believe it should, as either an essentially Christian entity, or as one which is at least founded in belief in God, then the fact of Muslim support for core principles of Christian ethics will give Islam a vital and appreciated place. But a purely secular Europe will always see Muslim values as problems on the margin, to be tolerated or punished according to the whims of the currently elected politicians. The relationship with European Jews is no less critical. If Orthodox Jewry – currently gaining in strength – can make common cause with Islam over core moral issues, chauvinisms and suspicions which currently exist on both sides will be seen as self-defeating.

 -from "Can Liberalism Tolerate Islam?" Oslo Litteraturhuset, 20 March 2011, Abdal-Hakim Murad.