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Introduction

The world is constantly moving: man seems to be acceding further every day to greater autonomy, as he also sets out to a greater freedom. Scientific progress and technological discoveries have made of rationalisation and efficiency the two emblems of our time. So much so that one very often confuses the fact of modernity with what appears to be, by distortion, the ideology of modernism (we shall return to this shift in meaning which is neither harmless nor gratuitous). It remains that the idea of modernisation has today one of the most positive connotations. To make it one’s own is by extension to accept the principles of modernity: rationality, change and freedom.

It is indeed a haunting question at the end of this second millennium to know whether Islam and the Muslims will embark on the train of progress. To compare the Western world – which is permanently stir red by scientific and technological effervescence, with the Muslim world, which is invariably stilted in memories of flourishing times, clinging to old traditions which mix local culture with Qur’ānic references – is indeed interesting. For one may ask whether the rejection of progress or modernity is not inherent in Islam itself. Such is the contrast, as some have claimed, that it is incumbent to “modernise Islam” if there is to be any chance of seeing Muslims living in harmony with their time, and in order that they might finally adapt themselves.

The question becomes then, can the Muslim world accede to modernity without denying some of the fundamentals of the Islamic religion? Do we have the means to modify from within the links between a millinery traditionalism and an imperative reform which will turn faces towards the present? Many in the West propose, in all legitimacy, this reflection to their Muslim interlocutors. This reflection inevitably engages us in a crucial debate, in the course of which it would be possible for us to fix, all at once, the points of convergence and divergence between Western and Muslim concepts. This because it may well be that the sole reference to Western history, viz. events as much as mentalities, cannot be enough to give account of the complexity of the problem. We cannot therefore make the economy of fixing with precision the acceptance of certain words and concepts. And this applies as much to the terminology in usage in the modernised West, so evident in appearance, as to that of the Islamic tradition so foreign because of the same appearance.

We shall attempt, in this Introduction, to determine what the concept of modernity really covers. By dint of Western history, this notion has taken the flavour of its origin and it is this specificity, which we should keep in mind. In Part One, we shall study the fundamentals of the Islamic religion. We will try to explain, ‘At the Shores of Transcendence’, the basic elements of Islam’s universe of reference (in the sense of religio, of the bond between God and man). Then it would be possible to address the social, political and economic questions. Part Two, ‘The Horizons of Islam’, attempts to set out the trends offered by Islamic sources regarding the management of the collective fact. Here, we shall find out that there exists an important margin for manoeuvre enabling us to carry out the reforms which are impressed upon us and which should allow us to face contemporary challenges. The last part, ‘Values and Finalities’, tackles the question of encounter, when it is not a question of facing up to or of a conflict between Western and Islamic civilisation. Nonetheless, the end of the century is tense; clashes or “new wars” are constantly announced to us. To guard against slipping, necessitates a return to the respective concepts of the universe, of life and of man. This, in our understanding, is the path imposed by any hope for dialogue, or future collaboration. The differences are as numerous as the misunderstandings. Acknowledged differences may create mutual respect, but hazy misunderstandings bring forth nothing but prejudice and rejection. The latter is our daily lot. A dialogue without prevarication must establish itself, and perhaps it should centre around the question of modernity. This notion has become the banner which is held by all overt progressists, and seems to attract to its ranks only a few Muslims who want to remain loyal to their religion and their culture.

I. History of a Concept

The hold of religious power, the unjust traditional order of feudal society and the numbness of thought are a few ideas which will serve to characterise the European Middle Ages. ¹ A “sombre” epoch, thought Victor Hugo; “an obscure” period, pointed out Auguste Comte. Nothing seemed to move; men were as if paralysed by the burden which was imposed by their masters as also the clergy.

The fifteenth century, however, saw the first upheaval. A great movement was set in motion and respectively touched the economic (the birth first of mercantile and then capitalist society), political (the first visible jolts of contest against the hegemony of religious power before the more direct mobilisation of the eighteenth century) and social (access to a greater freedom until the recognition of the primacy of the individual) spheres. This great moment of transformation in European societies shall be identified by a term that conveys the most positive considerations: namely modernisation. To put it plainly, modernisation is a liberation, the breaking of the chains of all intangible dogmas, stilted traditions and evolving societies. It represents accession to progress. Within this, reason, science and technology are set in motion. Finally, it is also man brought back to his humanity, with the duty of facing up to change, to accepting it and mastering it.

From the seventeenth century, and more clearly the eighteenth century, a number of thinkers took strong positions in favour of modernity. Everyone became somehow opposed to traditional society and called for rationalisation and the secularisation of society. They also defended a new status for the individual. This movement, which found its vigour 300 years ago, is still very much alive today and has lost nothing of its legitimacy in the West. Many defend modernity in the name of freedom, progress, the autonomy of reason as also in the name of a certain idea of man and humanism.

Dominique Wolton sums up in a clear fashion what this notion covers today:

“Modernity is characterised by distrust, if not opposition towards tradition; the primacy granted to the individual and the crucial importance of freedom; the belief in reason, progress and science – the three being linked together; the detachment of society with regard to the sacred and religion through the process of secularisation; the enhancement of the value of change and discovery; and, more generally, the primacy granted to self-reflectiveness and self-institution – to speak like C. Castoriadis; finally, in the political level, the emergence of a private sector which is distinct from the public sector, the importance of law and state and finally, the necessity of building and defending public liberties which are the conditions of democracy. We understand, in this quick examination, how modernisation and modernity constitute the foundation of our contemporary history.” ²

Wolton has the merit of placing this rapport of modernity in a historical perspective. In fact, the whole of what this concept covers has been influenced by European history. In its source, it expresses a revolt against the old order; at its peak, it is a real transmutation of the order of values. Alain Touraine explains this phenomenon clearly: “The West has, therefore, lived and thought modernity as a revolution. Reason recognises no gain; it sweeps clean the beliefs, the social and political forms of organisation which do not rest on a demonstration of a scientific type… the idea that society is the source of values, that the good is what is useful to society and evil is what harms its integration and efficiency, is a basic element of the ideology of modernity.” ³

Placing the phenomenon of modernisation on the historical plane allows us to better comprehend the logic which rendered it so positive, so liberating and so human. At the same time, this procedure clarifies to us the principles which will straightaway characterise modernity. These principles are its opposition to any tradition, any established order, against any sacredness or inquisitive clergy, against any revelation or imposed values; it is the affirmation of man as an individual, the claim of freedom, the defence of reason and, by extension, an appeal to science and progress. As Touraine and Castoriadis said, from now it is man – society – which fixes norms and values.

II. The Lessons of History

The great movement born in Europe beginning from the sixteenth century brought about outstanding changes to economic, political and social levels. Economic modernisation was to transform society, becoming synonymous with enrichment and the improvement of the conditions of life. On the political level, one witnessed the creation of the state of law, a recognition of individual and religious liberty within secularisation, and finally to the birth of open democratic societies. The social sphere evidently profited from the whole of these upheavals: the rights of individual and citizen, and his social rights (work, participation, representation) followed this same positive evolution.

Who can deny the contribution of modernisation in Europe when comparing the two models of society – feudal and civil? Who can question the validity of modernity? To consider the facts from this angle, modernity has given everything to man in the West: from liberty to knowledge, from science to technology. In short, it restored him to his humanity and to his responsibilities.

Yet, more and more voices are heard criticising modernisation and the founding principle of modernity. In analysing today’s societies, some intellectuals level the reproach of excess (without being able to clearly designate those responsible). By dint of giving privilege to rationality, efficiency and productivity for more progress, our societies are on the edge of an abyss. On the economic plane, we witness a continuous course of growth with the consequence of an incredible fracture between the North and the South. On the political level, the democratic ideal is falling apart; and on the social plane, unemployment and exclusion are the lot of an increasing number of men and women.

We repeat, modernisation was in its origin, a revolution. Being an expression of rejection, it actualised itself against an order, and every barrier stripped away was in itself a liberated stronghold, a gain of liberty. It conveyed, at the same time, an unlimited optimism and a profound faith in man. Without any other authority, except its spirit, and without any other norm except the real, it was apt to establish values and fix limits for the good of humanity. As with all revolutions, this one has not escaped excess. Very often, the means of liberation become ends in themselves in an amnesia of any normative value. Liberty has called for more liberty and change has engendered change. Efficiency and productivity in the production of things are henceforth the measure of the good, growth is self-justified within a process which gives privilege to the most extreme pragmatism, and which makes out of any traditional reference, or reference of identity, a reactionary enemy – that is in love with a past which is fortunately passed by. Rationality has become the truth and progress the meaning and value; with the advent of our century was born a new ideology: modernism. It is clearly a distortion of the first élan, but, at the same time, it seems that this is the logical result. Defenders of modernisation, because of historical data, have wanted to cut themselves off from any reference in order to rush forward to the future in all freedom. In the name of this same freedom, the ideologues of modernism have made of this élan the reference itself, the only reference. It will have as a name: growth, progress, science or technology, but the substratum is the same.

The West is passing today through a crisis which we might render, with Touraine, as “a crisis of modernity”. ⁴ The rationalisation which is elevated to the rank of an infallible doctrine marks its own limits, and man, who was supposed at the beginning to become the master of the game, is outrun by the logic which he set in motion. The forces of attraction combined with efficiency, productivity, growth, investment and consumption have dispossessed man of a part of his humanity. Without references, in search of new values (ethic), he is subjected to the meaning of progress and the march towards the future, more than he decides them.

From economic crises to political and social crises, from the imbalance of the North-South divide to ecological imbalances, it is nonetheless imperative that man’s gain becomes the subject of his history, that he reinvests in diverse fields of activity in order to fix priorities, limits, meanings; this for lack of being able to determine values.

It is difficult, as we see, to disassociate the positive and negative aspects of modernity. In its origin, it is a claim of liberty, a call for autonomy of reason in an acceptance of change. The evolution, in course from the seventeenth century through to and mainly in the twentieth century, has provoked excesses and given birth to an ideology. It is this that we have attempted to identify, so that the ground is cleared for a more precise usage of terms, and in order to avoid indulging in a hotchpotch. Hotchpotch, for example, would consist in confusing the process of modernisation with its recent excessive rendering, and thus justifying, in the process, all the rejections. In the same fashion, by reinserting the process of access to modernity in its European history, it is possible for us to avoid inoperative comparisons, and so especially, avoid confusing modernity with occidentalism. This because to accept the principles of liberty, autonomy of reason or the primacy of the individual is something, but it is something else to identify these solely with Western history which has seen their accession to the social field being done after a conflict whose extent and consequences on mentalities is still unappreciated. The West has given us a particular form of modernity, it partakes of its history and points of reference. Another civilisation can, from within, fix and determine the stakes in a different fashion. This is the case of Islam at the end of this twentieth century.

Notes

1 We know nowadays how much the Middle Ages were, on the contrary, rich and burgeoning with ideas that have, for many, influenced the form that the Renaissance later took.

2 Dominique Wolton, La dernière utopie, Flammarion, 1993, p.71.

3 Alain Touraine, Critique de la modernité, Fayard, 1992, pp. 25 and 30.

4 Ibid., title of Part II of his book.