Making Sense of the Arab (Muslim?) Spring

Have you heard of Muḥsin Mahdī ? (June 21, 1926–July 9, 2007) He was an Iraqi-American Islamologist  who was considered a leading authority on Arab history, philology and philosophy. He was born and raised in the Shiite pilgrimage city of Karbala, Iraq.  He studied here in Lebanon at the American University of Beirut , where he earned degrees in philosophy. He eventually came to the United States in 1948, where he earned an M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. After a couple years teaching in Baghdad, he returned to Chicago but eventually ended up at Harvard where he taught from 1969 until 1996. He is especially known for the recovery, edition, translation and interpretation of many of the works of the Islamic political philosopher Al-Farabi (d. 950 A.D.) – a character whose writings I spent a bit of time with this past semester. With Professors from University of Chicago and Boston College (where I took my first course in Islamics while in seminary), Mahdī co-edited Medieval Political Philosophy, a path-breaking sourcebook that includes selections in translation from Arabic, Hebrew and Latin texts. [read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhsin_Mahdi ]

     OK, so now that you are thoroughly impressed (or bored out of your skull) with these factoids about a man you probably never heard of before reading this, let me tell you why I’m bringing him to your attention. Mahdī was well versed in medieval Arabic, ancient Greek, medieval Jewish and Christian philosophy and modern Western political philosophy. I imagine he would have been fascinated to witness what we are calling the “Arab Spring”. I’m not sure I think that title is appropriate given some of the outcomes we are seeing in Egypt a year later. But that is because until recently I haven’t understood why a nation would  rise up and overthrow a dictator only to replace him with the Islamic Brotherhood. Neither did I understand why when Palestinians were given the right to vote in a truly democratic process a few years ago, they voted for Hamas! But after reading some of Mahdī I think I’m beginning to understand. I also imagine that he would have probably indeed called the present uprising in North Africa and the Middle East, not the “Arab Spring” but the “Muslim Spring”. Let me commend to you a quote from Mahdi’s chapter, The Political Orientation of Islamic Philosophy, to show you why…

“If there is a single attitude that has characterized the entire Muslim community throughout the centuries, it is gratitude for revelation and the divine law; commitment to the exemplary deeds and sayings of the Prophet the vehicle of that revelation; adherence to the way of life of the Prophet and his companions as the correct way, which the community must preserve and imitate and to which it must return; and the conviction that deviation from the way of these pious ancestors is wrong and constitutes a rebellion that leads to strange byways to forsaking God’s command, to estrangement, to exile to a world of infidelity, from which the Muslim community must return and again find its home. No amount of interpretation, legal devices, reliance on the consensus of the community and its common interest, or justification based on necessity and the change of time scan undermine the fundamental belief that genuine progress requires a return. There is no rainbow on the horizon, no golden age at the end of man’s time whether resulting from the perfection of human sciences and arts or from man’s controlling or conquering nature. Progress consists in resisting estrangement and false paths in returning to one’s origins by completing the circle – in their end is their beginning. The Muslim community is therefore never satisfied with its present. It looks to the future, but only in so far as it is called upon to bring about the revolution that will suppress its own rebellion and, beyond all this, as it must think of the final end and the final accounting. Beyond the return to the right way of pious ancestors is the final return of all men to their Maker, to the other world beyond this world.” [Muhsin Mahdī, Chapter 1 The Political Orientation of Islamic Philosophy in Medieval Political Philosophy Pg. 17]

     Notice how many times he says “return” or “returning”. Islam is always about a return to the “divine Law” by which he means the Qur’an (and possibly also Hadith as the inspiration of Sharia').
     What do I respect about Mahdī’s perspective? First, I resonate with him in that he’s not at all evolutionist in worldview (at Harvard!). Look at what he says: “There is no rainbow on the horizon, no golden age at the end of man’s time whether resulting from the perfection of human sciences and arts or from man’s controlling or conquering nature.” Tell that to a global-warming alarmist!
     But also keep in mind that Mahdī’s is a thoroughly Islamic conception of the future and of history. Islam understands world history to have started with a covenant made between God and all the souls of humanity who were bound up in the loins of Adam before anyone was born. After assenting to be Muslims (submitters to God) in life, their souls were then returned to Adam and were born to live their lives at their appointed times. But although everyone is considered to be born a Muslim according to this primordial covenant, those who do not follow through with their commitment have done so due to their environment, other non-Muslim religions, or Satan’s influences which have snatched them away from Islam. So the call of Mohammad and the mission of Islam is to call humanity to return to Islam as revealed through the Qur’an. It is all about “completing the circle” and I think we need to remember that these are not just political uprisings the way we think of political uprisings. Politics here are thoroughly Islamic and Islamic politics are also about returning to the divine law of the Qur'an.

     Now pay attention to one sentence that, for me, made sense of all that is happening in this region today. Mahdī says, Islam “looks to the future, but only in so far as it is called upon to bring about the revolution that will suppress its own rebellion…” When we westerners saw the images of revolutionaries mobbing in Tahrir Square last year we assumed they were sick and tired of their dictator-for-a-president and wanted freedom the way we understand freedom. But this revolution as it turns out was a truly Islamic one wherein the revolutionaries in the end sought to suppress their government's "rebellion" against a thoroughly life-enveloping adherence to the divine law of their Qur’an. They sought freedom for sure, but freedom from secularism, freedom from western influences, freedom from non-Muslim forms of governance, and freedom to submit to the suppression of their own choice.