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STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY
Supplement 27
transforming spirituality
Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of
Studies in Spirituality
Selected and Introduced by
Rossano Zas Friz de Col
With a Foreword by
Kees Waaijman
PEETERS
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Contents
Preface
29
31
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contents
251
301
339
351
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contents
XI
and
Religion
in a
Secularised Society
469
563
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XII
contents
609
635
681
733
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Patrick Laude
Spirituality in a Postmodern Age
Challenges and Questions
Two orientations appear in a particularly prominent manner in the intellectual and spiritual landscape that surrounds us. One encompasses all the tendencies arising from postmodern views and experiences; the other manifests
itself in the different forms of a return to religion, or a recourse to spirituality. In this brief essay, we wish to initiate a reflection on the intersection of
these two types of orientation, be it characterized by fluidity, tensions or
oppositions, and suggest a few lessons that may be drawn from the various
modes of this confrontation. Such a reflection will also lead us, in our later
development, to propose an assessment of the situation of religions in the
postmodern era, by examining some aspects of the new religious deal of our
times in light of traditional principles. The final sections of this paper will be
more specifically centered on the contemporary predicament of Islam as a
keenly representative illustration of the new religious landscape and the challenges it raises.
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various occultist and theosophist movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These movements were characterized by a reaction against some
of the tendencies of scientistic materialism, especially the latters incapacity to
open itself to the reality of extra-physical phenomena, but all they could offer
against that materialism were the psychic experiences of a random and sterile
individualism. This justified Gunons implacable critique of spiritism and
theosophy.3 Moreover, the phenomenist tendencies of the neo-spiritualist dissolution identified by Gunon demonstrated clearly that the latter broke away
from modern materialism only in appearance, and proposed in fact nothing but
a caricature of spirituality. Thus, the supra-sensible could be experienced as an
epiphenomenon of matter, whose relation with the latter could one day be
elucidated by positive and experimental science. It is to be noted that the New
Age phenomena which appeared during the last quarter of the twentieth century reflect to a certain extent a number of parallel tendencies.
On another plane, the so-called postmodern way of thinking may be deemed
to stem from a parallel movement of dissolution inasmuch as it advocates
bringing down, or at least dismissing as doubtful, the meta-narratives or the
grand narratives of modernity, as expressed, primarily, by the rationalistic and
materialistic solidification that they involved. This amounts to questioning all
principle of systemic and explicative coherence issuing from human rationality.
In this sense, the postmodern follows the modern just like the epistemic dissolution of meaning follows its systematic solidification. In fact, during the
sixties and the seventies the theme of the death of man which is attributed,
rightly or wrongly, to Michel Foucault already announced the critique of
rationalist and progressive humanism, as well as the rejection of the Eurocentric vision of the human, which are two of the most prominent features of
postmodern thinkers. Already for Foucault, man, this invention of the nineteenth century, was like foam on the surface of formal systems of meaning
which constitute, in the wake of structuralist analyses, the fundamental object
of the new human and social sciences. The multiplicity of these systems of
meaning is thereby substituted to the former unity and universality of man as
an object of study, thus giving way to the postmodern epistemological outburst. It is no longer just a question of fostering a relativism antithetical to any
concept of objective and absolute truth, but also of establishing a new definition of the truth that is at once plural and produced or generic.4
Ren Gunon, Theosophy: History of a pseudo-religion, Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 2003;
and The spiritist fallacy, Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 2003.
4
() Une vrit produite scientifique, artistique, politique, amoureuse justement en tant
quelle procde ne peut tre mauvaise, i.e. inductrice dune figure du dsastre. Comme telle
une procdure gnrique de vrit ne saurait avoir dexposition au dsastre. Toute vrit
3
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Thus, on the one hand one deals with disseminated truths, which means
that each field of thought and action possesses its own type of truth, and on
other hand with truths which are the product of a generic and creative activity, and not of an ontological or epistemological adequation. In other words,
the notion of truth is divorced from that of objectivity: truth as adaequatio rei
et intellectus has become obsolete since reality is never more than the horizon
of a deferred meanings, and the intellect nothing but a machine manufacturing them. If there remains a truth, or if the concept of truth has still some
axiological value, it can only stem from the psychological category of authenticity or refer to realizations of a socio-political order. The rejection of the
traditional or classical concept of truth as adequation of the thing and the
intellect is therefore linked to a profound distrust vis--vis the all-embracing
unity of the concept of truth, and its exclusiveness vis--vis error. In this postmodern view, all forms of philosophical imperialism and semantic diktat are
thereby prevented: the end of systems and the eviction of dogmatism are
indeed announced or celebrated. But this challenging of objective truth is not
the only focus of postmodern thought: its subjective side is likewise targeted,
specifically in the form of the rational subject and, beyond it, the subject as
such.
Thus, it appears that postmodern thought lends itself to being characterized
by two fundamental tendencies: the dispersion and the deferment of meaning on the one hand, and the more or less radical negation of the subject, on
the other. We are thus confronted with the typically pre-modern views that, on
the one hand, meaning ever escapes us notwithstanding our ceaseless producing
of it, or else that it ever lies beyond that in which and by which we produce it,
and, on the other hand, the elimination of the human subject as stable foundation and ontological and epistemological seat of truths and values. Thus, Derridas diffrance hints at the perpetual incompletion of the meaning of words
and concepts which are ever relative to those from which they differ but
also differed by those that complete them, follow them, or accompany them.
Analogously, the zerological subject of Julia Kristeva suggests, for its part, a
negativity which annihilates and which is located out of the space governed
gnrique produite est bonne en soi. On soutiendra donc la thse de lexcellence dtre des
vrits plurielles pour lhumanit gnrique. En revanche, dans tout dsastre historique rel,
en particulier dans ses effets terroristes, qui visent anantir un tre qui devrait ne pas tre,
quelque chose de la catgorie de vrit, donc en rapport avec la philosophie, bien quaucune
terreur ne puisse se soutenir dune vrit ( part peut-tre la terreur religieuse) se trouve exige en un point du parcours historique. Alain Badiou, Philosophie, thorie du mal et de
lamour (1990-1991), Notes dAim Thiault et transcription de Franaois Duvert, http://
www.entretemps.ass.fr/Badiou/90-91.htm
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by the sign.5 Not only does the sign escape us and itself qua meaningful, but it
also negates us qua subject who would be the source of denotation and signification.
Post-Modernity and Traditional Mysticism Is There a Convergence?
It has sometimes been suggested that the two aforementioned aspects of the
postmodern sensibility are not without affinity with some central orientations
of traditional mystical theology.6 Thus, some commentators establish correspondences between the postmodern fragmentation of meaning asserting plural truths, and mystical perspectives such as the Akbarian concepts of the God
of imagination or the station of no station maqm bil maqm. In a parallel
manner, the postmodern disappearance of the subject has been read, in this
context, as an insight that converges with the mystical and more particularly
Buddhist orientations of the anatta, the non-self, or even of fan, the Sufi
extinction.
Can it be seriously entertained that the plurality of postmodern truths could
echo the indefinite diversity of the God of imagination as understood by
IbnArab, or the potentially infinite horizon of hermeneutics and radical
de-centering inherent to his esoteric outlook? For the latter, the God of imagination is but a determination of the Reality proportionate to the belief of a
given human subject. In this sense, the Absolute which is in itself pure Indetermination, not in the sense of a deficiency but inasmuch as it is non-delimited,
Dans cet espace autre (potique) o les lois logiques de la parole ne sont pas valables, le sujet
se dissout et la place du signe cest le heurt de signifiants sannulant lun lautre qui sinstaure. Une opration de ngativit gnralise, mais qui na rien voir avec la ngativit qui
constitue le jugement (Aufhebung) ni avec la ngation interne au jugement (la logique o-i);
une ngativit qui annihile, et que les anciennes philosophies, tel le bouddhisme, ont entrevue
en la dsignant par le terme de sunyvad. Un sujet zrologique, un non-sujet vient assumer
cette pense qui sannule. Ce sujet zrologique est extrieur lespace gouvern par le signe.
Autrement dit, le sujet disparat lorsque disparat la pense du signe, lorsque la relation du
signe au denotatum est rduite zro. Inversons: il ny a de sujet (et par l, ny a de psychologie ou dinconscient) que dans une pense du signe qui compense la pluralit parallle des
pratiques smiotiques occultes par la domination du signe, en se donnant des phnomnes
secondaires, ou marginaux (le rve, la posie , la folie), subordonns au signe (aux
principes de la raison) Le sujet zrologique (on voit quel point le concept de sujet est
dplac ici) ne dpend daucun signe mme si nous, partir de notre espace rationnel, ne
pouvons le penser qu travers le signe (Julia Kristeva, Posie et ngativit, in: LHomme 8
[1968] no.2, 36-63: 60).
6
See, for example, Peter Coates, Ibn Arab and modern thought: The history of taking metaphysics seriously, Oxford: Anqa, 2002; and Ian Almond, Sufism and deconstruction: A comparative
study of Derrida and Ibn Arab, London: Routledge, 2009.
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from the point of view of relative determinations which could delimit it. It is
the pure ductility of the heart defined in The Interpreter of Yearnings as qbilan
kulla sratin or receptive to all the forms. It is therefore no longer the bias of
the human subject which delimits and gives meaning to the world but rather
the world, that is, the divine Self-disclosure which signifies in the soul, to use
Henry Corbins phrase.
In light of the above, the structural and thematic analogies between postmodern themes and mystical concepts suggested earlier should in no case prevent one from recognizing the profound and indeed irreducible divergence
between the traditional metaphysical universe and postmodern reality. Certainly, these two perspectives dismiss the modern figures of rationalist humanism, while also revoking the facile ideological optimism of an obsolete modernity. One must however point out that mystical perspectives are at once
metaphysical and spiritual, unlike the postmodern point of view which could
be defined as purely semiotic. The postmodern universe is, radically, a semiotic
network of produced meanings, whereas the mystical universe is an ontologically meaningful universe. Since postmodern reality, if this word is still adequate, turns away from a system of coherent and meaningful signs emanating
from a subjective center of signification and symbolic reading, the subject
fades or disappears on the margin or below the self-producing web of meanings.11 There is no ontological or epistemological depth of meaning, but rather
the type of clash of meanings described by Kristeva in the context of postmodern poetical language. By contrast, the void of the mystical subject constitutes
an absence of egotistic projection which delivers the immanent truth to those
involved in the path of spiritual knowledge instead of imprisoning them in
their own distorting delimitations. The traditional notion of symbolism presupposes an adequation between the divine Source, the symbols which manifest
the infinity of meanings therein, and the human intellect which actualizes these
meanings. The world of postmodern meaning is thus fundamentally alien to
the traditional conception of a meaningful metaphysical order, a meaningful
world with which humanity is consubstantial. Even though postmodern concepts shatter the shell of the solidified universe of the modern world, this is
solely to make room for a purely negative and hollow non-subject on the
surface of which there floats a dust of differing, fragmented, and provisory
meanings.
11
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in religious thought and practice, all that defines most formally, distinctly, and
outwardly the most discernible and incontrovertible difference and exclusivity.
Hence the insistence on all that marks religious identity within the social space,
in an ostensible, if not ostentatious, manner. The increased popularity of the
hijab in Muslim milieus is, in this respect, a most eloquent example of such
trends. Moreover, this declaration of identity is most often loaded with ideological contents which substitute, most often subtly and as it were unconsciously,
the external system of formal religion to the metaphysical and spiritual realities
to which it points. Thus, the religious system becomes inherently bound with
political and social demands and goals which provide it with an operational
energy in circles that feel besieged or alienated by the globalist hegemony.
Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly for superficially liberal analysts, these
ideological finalities are most often not incompatible with the scientific and
technological paradigm of modernity, quite the contrary, since religious forms
no longer function, in most cases, as supports for a genuinely traditional metaphysical or aesthetic consciousness. This explains, for example, why fundamentalist movements are generally dismissive of the traditional cosmological models
and unaware of the import of symbolical and aesthetic forms which have constituted the concrete framework of established spiritual traditions. Their view of
the universe, therefore, hardly differs from the modern quantitative paradigm,
with the exception, needless to say, of the position of a Supreme Being understood in the most exclusively anthropomorphic forms derived from Scriptures,
while their aesthetic sensibility, or lack thereof, is not different from modern
norms, aside from moralist censure, as testified by their desacralizing use of
mass media, and the artistic indigence of their aesthetic choices. Far from being
remnants of medieval thought and practice, as claimed by their modern critics, these fundamentalist movements are nothing but hybrids of practical
modernity and formal tradition, around which sociopolitical objectives and collective identitarian passions have sedimented. Thus, the economical and technological homogenization of globalism incites by way of reaction an identitarian spirit that finds a fitting support in the formal and politicized shell of
religious identity, one which is at once a principle of formal solidification and
a vector of chaotic dissolution by way of a religious tribalism impervious to
any sense of universality. While closing itself to modern uniformity, fundamentalism also closes itself, and this is its greatest tragedy, to the horizon of
universality that used to guarantee, implicitly and essentially, the spiritual vigor
of tradition.
In contemporary Islam, by way of a pervasive puritanization of hearts and
minds, the tendencies sketched above manifest most emphatically in that the
affirmation of Divine Unity turns very often into a rigid monomania of abstract
unity set up as a mental idol, while a pedantic legalism with no spiritual horizon
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functions as the foundation of numerous ideological platforms. The all-embracing totality of the tradition, a quasi-maternal mercy that used to enable traditional Muslims to orient their existence in accordance with the One on the basis
of a spiritual realism open to the human integrality of existence, is increasingly
being reduced to the status of a stifling and artificial formal system, when it is
not pharisaic and policing; to the extent that a foremost contemporary commentator has spoken, in such cases, of truth without presence.12 While being
mindful of not oversimplifying or caricaturing the contemporary situation of
Islam, which indeed reveals an extreme complexity through the diversity of its
components and contexts, one must recognize that a certain ideological, puritanical and legalistic rationalization has gradually imposed itself as normative,
including in many milieus that cannot be considered as fundamentalist in the
ordinary sense of the term.
The narrowing of intellectual and spiritual perspective that has ensued has
also contributed to deprive Muslims of references and models that would allow
them to tackle modern predicaments with more discernment and penetration,
and from a higher vantage point. Although it is true that the combative faith of
Islam rests upon a metaphysical discernment that has nothing superficially
inclusive about it, since it rejects illusion and error, it is equally true that this
exclusivism is essentially based on an implacable sense of the Divine Reality,
and not on the formal limits of an identity exacerbated by its own exclusivist
self-reduction. While an acute sense of the Divine demands on mankind should
follow, in different degrees and in more or less direct modes, from a clear sense
of the absoluteness of the Divine Object, this should not veil the principle that
the sharah has its raison dtre only in view of ones return to God. The phenomena of a formal hardening and spiritual shrinking of Islam, to which too
many segments of the ummah bear witness, result in losing sight of this distinction: Islam, or rather a certain reductionist idea of Islam, has been de facto and
as if unconsciously substituted to God. Similarly, some of the most visible and
vocal manifestations of the attachment to the formal traditions of Judaism contribute to an interpretation of the concept of the elect people in terms of an
ethnic nationalism with no transcendent horizon. This hypertrophy of identity
cannot but lead to a lack of concrete recognition of the principle of justice vis-vis the other. The Eternal Covenant has often ceased to be the source of a
universal mission of testifying to the One and turned into an ideological pretext
for a carnal idolatry that is easily manipulated by militant and political passions, as well as by socio-economical interests.
12
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We prefer to speak, paraphrasing Ghazal, of a mould of truth without presence, for truth as
such is always presence in some way.
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601
Il fut enseign autrefois que lamour du prochain passait par lamour de Dieu. La ranon du
rejet de Dieu et des vertus naturelles, cest lalination structurale. La charit du chrtien
moderne, ce nest pas lamour des hommes, cest lamour dune construction abstraite qui doit
rendre les hommes heureux. Jean Borella, La charit profane, subversion de lme chrtienne,
Paris: Cdre, 1979, 99.
13
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suggestive concept.14 The non-objectifying and non-reifying silence of the Buddha on the question of God is most often translated in terms of a rejection of
the Abrahamic theistic model. Freed from metaphysical dogmas and therefore deprived from any concrete recognition of the dimension of transcendence,
a Buddhicized secular psychology has thereby crept in on the margins of the
fundamentally ascetic and impersonal teachings of Buddhist orthodoxy. It is
undeniable that this spirituality without religion and without God corresponds
to some inner needs on the part of a contemporary individualism that has been
exhausted by mechanized and artificial lifestyles. In a parallel way, one witnesses the emergence of a neo-Vedanta, a neo-Sufism, and a neo-Kabbalah severed from their respective traditional framework.
The emphasis on individual freedom, the distrust towards institutional forms
deemed outdated and unduly repressive, and the allure of forms of meditational
practice tailored to fit the constraints of modern life, all these elements militate
toward the appearance of a new spirituality that would distill the practical
sap of the spiritual wisdoms of the world without entailing the compromises
and dullness of so-called organized religions. In addition, two apparently independent phenomena that are perhaps more related than would appear prima
facie i.e. the spiritual exhaustion of religious traditions and the global diffusion of sapiental and mystical writings heretofore reserved to a small number of
initiates, have thus opened the path of a new inner quest that challenges the
inherited spiritual norms of the tradition. It is also in this context that some
spiritual authorities have gone so far as to announce the end of esoterism. This
is a startling way to refer to the contemporary phenomenon of a universal
access, by way of diverse media, to the spiritual arcane lying below the formal
surface that used to imply a polarity, or complementarity, between exoterism
and esoterism. In other words, the decay of the various forms of exoterism, and
the putative advent of a new global consciousness attuned to inner knowledge
through mediatic relays and inter-religious exchanges, would cancel out the
very notion of a distinction between exoterism and esoterism.
A number of neo-spiritual movements do not hesitate to move even further
in that direction by postulating a collective spiritual maturity that would render mankind as a whole receptive to the ultimate message of esoteric teachings entered into the public domain. In this logic, it is as if the tragic experiences of the last centuries and the acceleration of history characterizing the
last decades had been leading, as a reaction, to a global awareness intent on
restoring a collective primacy of transcendence beyond the traditional forms
that had been its vehicles heretofore. In actuality, upon monitoring the modern world, it is difficult to ignore an utter intellectual and spiritual confusion,
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solidification and thickening that makes it a prey of time, human abuse, as well
as social and historical law of gravity.
It must be considered, furthermore, that the context of the modern world
adds a particularly problematic dimension to the situation of religions, in that
it compels them to define themselves and to operate in a world which, for the
first time since the outset of civilization, is based upon foundations that are
fundamentally alien, and indeed contrary, to the traditional religious vision.
Thus, religions, or rather their official representatives, but also their followers,
are summoned to discern the nature of the modern world in its principles or
lack thereof as well as in its manifestations, and to assume a spiritual and
ethical position towards it while functioning therein. In this respect, Gunons
work offers fundamental keys for such a discernment by emphasizing the
anomalous character of the modern world, and by suggesting, more or less
explicitly, a witnessing duty and an action of presence on the part of those
who are conscious of its monstrous characterin the etymological sense, but
also perhaps at times in a literal one.16 The extraordinary conditions of modernity, which are intrinsically connected to the destruction of traditional universes, the secularization of the ways of living, and the implementation of a
type of society which the Catholic writer Georges Bernanos considered, already
in the mid-twentieth-century, as a gigantic conspiracy against any sort of inner
life, call for a need to focus on the spiritual essentiality of the religious message,
the only component thereof likely to withstand centrifugal forces.
Such need for a cultivation of the essentials originates in two sets of constraints: on the one hand, the fact that the psychological and social conditions
of the time do not lend themselves to an analytical deployment of all the formal
richness of traditional realities in their outward dimension of formal framework
and support, and on the other hand, more fundamentally, because the spiritual
urgency of our times reminds us constantly of the essential finality of religious
phenomena. However, such a reduction presupposes that we be in a position to
discern this essential finality in a way other than through circumstantial and
accidental criteria. Therefore, it requires a penetrating consciousness of the
meaning and principles of religion, an ability to discern the means of its manifestation and permanence in the modern world without betraying its transcendent character and spiritual integrity. Such a discernment seems hardly accessible, not to say quite impossible, without a sufficient degree of spiritual and
contemplative interiorization of the tradition.
16
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[T]he modern world considered in itself is an anomaly and even a sort of monstrosity. Gunon, The reign of quantity and the signs of times, 8.
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17
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the essential to which we referred earlier. It is also on this plane that the distinction between exoterism and esoterism, based on a supple and subtle understanding of the complex play of relationships between form and essence
could prove most fertile, and the most useful one, by providing the inner keys
of a discernment of spirits, or a spiritual ijtihd.
The Inner and Outer Permanence and Exile
It is to be noted that the relationship between essence and form, or between
spiritual content and formal transmission, comprises a historical and eschatological dimension of much importance. It appears, for example, in a rather
suggestive way in the epilogue of the Gospel according to Saint John. Therein
is staged the complex and subtle relationship between two Churches, one corresponding to the ecclesial institution crystallized in history, while the other
represents the inner tradition that distills the spiritual essence of the message.
The relationship between these two Churches is presented in a somewhat
enigmatic form:
Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which
also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth
thee? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus
saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow
thou me. (Jn 21:20-22)
Whereas the Church of John drinks from the heart of the spiritual teachings of
Jesus under the sign of love, the Church of Peter can but follow Christ. There
is, therefore, implicit in this duality a certain contrast between direct inspiration gushing from the heart of the revelation and horizontal transmission by
virtue of a line of outward traditional authority. What is striking in this passage
is the contrast between the allusive character of the words of Jesus concerning
John, who is however never designated by name, and the direct and imperative
evidence of words addressed to Peter. In other terms the earthy destiny of the
esoteric and spiritual dimension of tradition remains efficacious albeit
enshrouded in secrecy and discretion (do not throw your pearls before swine)
whereas the destiny of the earthly Church is limited to a duty of unequivocal
obedience: Follow though me. The inner dimension remains impenetrable for
the representative of the outward authority, and Jesus asks the latter not to
concern itself with the former.19 But a last point must be emphasized: the
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A sign of excellence in ones Islam is leaving what does not concern one. (Hadth related by
Ahmad, Malik and Tirmidhi)
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becoming of the inner tradition seems to be linked to the eschatological mystery of the second coming: If I will that he tarry till I come, whatis thatto
thee? and it is in this sense that the contemplative and esoteric dimension
acquires a completely particular privilege in our crepuscular world.
Concluding Remarks
We would like to conclude by pursuing the preceding reflections within the
more exclusive framework of Islam by meditating upon the possible implications of a hadth that is not uncommonly quoted in contemporary discourses
about Islam: Islam started as an exile, and it shall return in exile, blessed are
those whose faith leads it on exile. The Arabic word translated by exile is
gharban which implies a sense of being foreign, or being like a stranger. As it
appears quite plainly, this hadth suggests an eschatological situation of Islam
which is at once problematic and providential. For a tradition which is so
rooted in the sociopolitical reality as Islam, exile undeniably represents an
abnormal situation in the sense that it implies a failure of the formal supports needed to sustain the equilibrium and permanence of the tradition.
Islam is a sacred law, and as a consequence a sociopolitical order derived, in
different degrees, from this law and its historical developments. In other
words, primordial and normative Islam, that is, the surrender of the human
will to the Divine Will, is also manifested in and through the formal complex
that integrates the human will into the multiplicity of earthly norms and
requirements.
While Christianity may appear to us in many aspects as a tradition intrinsically in exile, my kingdom is not of this world, Islam is, by contrast, characterized by an individual and collective earthly balance which integrates and coordinates the world and earthly experiences in view of its soteriological goal. The
Islamic civilization, from its highest spiritual, intellectual, and artistic output
down to its most pragmatic and approximate not to say ambivalent social
and psychological manifestations, is indeed a kind of religious homeland. It
encompasses not only a formal and legal system guaranteeing happiness in this
life and the next, but also a wealth of cultural treasures that makes of our
earthly existence a sort of anticipation or anti-chamber of the hereafter. If the
elect of paradise are said to hear but one word, peace, peace (illa qlan salman
salman) (( ) Quran, 56: 26), this peace is already prefigured by
the practice of Islam as repose in the effort to use Frithjof Schuons suggestive expression. The homeland of integral Islam is therefore this earthly foundation with an already paradisial perfume, this City of God founded upon the
revealed Law.
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Thus, to speak of an exile of Islam may amount to hinting at the possibility, suggested by some, that the values of this faith could very well be manifested mainly, in our times, outside of the traditional zone of influence of the
sharah where the ummah is a majority, but also more profoundly beyond the
strictly earthly order as such. Institutional, communal, and visible Islam has
indeed been largely eroded, to say the least, by the combined effects of time, an
increasing narrowing of understanding, and the irruption of modernity, to the
point that one is not unfounded to wonder whether the very idea of its outward
reaffirmation is not one of the most dangerous utopia. Indeed, the outward
attempts to affirm or reassert the sociopolitical authority of the Islamic framework, which is everywhere confronted to modernity and the secularization of
ways of life and mentalities, have clashed with most of the human crystallizations of modern and post-modern tendencies, hence, as a reaction, a formal
hardening of the religious consciousness that remains furiously powerless in its
attempts at filling in the cracks of the Islamic edifice.
Between formal routine, socio-psychological constraint, and political oppression, the ossified and largely reified external remnants of the traditional universe are most often quite incapable of satisfying the most profound and
demanding needs of the Muslim soul. Thus, some would dare suggesting that
Islam is no longer in Islam, if one may allow oneself this inevitably schematic
but nonetheless suggestive shortcut. At any rate, such a paradoxical observation
brings out rich implications when one considers that the growing presence of
Muslims in non-Muslim lands, and particularly in the West, as well as the
emergence of new half-heartedly Westernized generation of Muslims in the
East, represents, according to the reflections of a number of present day Muslim thinkers, a most fertile occasion. Indeed, this Islam in exile is provided with
the spiritual opportunity to resource itself in a more profound zone of the
Islamic identity, independently from the psychological, cultural and historical
limitations of Muslim societies. Beyond the specifically acute predicament of
Islam, one may wonder whether this exile may not refer, more generally and
by way of symbolic allusion, to the challenging rigors of the contemporary destiny of all believers, irrespective of their specific creeds, but also to the blessings
and inner compensations that it carries in its fold.
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