Islam in the Modern World

An address given to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council

On October 6, 2010 by

Dr. Tariq Ramadan

Islamic Intellectual; Professor of Contemporary Islamic
Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University

_______________________
Thank you for the kind introduction and this invitation here tonight. It’s a
pleasure to be here and to share some views on this topic of Islam in the Modern
World, and also trying to get the sense of the challenges that the Muslims are
facing. By talking also about the common challenges that we are facing in our
societies – the American society, of course, the Western societies in Europe and
elsewhere, as well as in the Muslim-majority countries. I think that this is a very
important topic.

Let me start with something that, for me, was a shock. What we are
experiencing in Europe, we’ve been experiencing over the last few years. You’ve
heard of Populist parties – far right trends that are gaining ground and attacking
immigration; the Muslim presence, and even winning elections on the basis of
attacking Islam. In my own country, Switzerland, we had the Swiss People Party
winning a referendum by asking the people to ban the construction of the
minarets. It was quite worrying.

I was far from thinking that something like this could happen in the States,
because for the last nine years after September 11th, we had a very interesting
trend. After the very negative things, people starting to work as leaders and
American Muslims reaching out and being much more visible. And then, all of a
sudden over the last few months, we got these reactions for the community
center in New York; bad media coverage; statements; things I was not expecting
from within the United States of America.

Why am I starting with this? Not to start with these problems, but we all should
understand that if this is happening in the United States of America, it mean that
this is our future. It’s your future, and we have to take it very seriously. What is
happening within the Muslim communities; what is happening in Islamic
contemporary thought; what is happening in Muslim countries matter for any
human being today willing to promote a pluralistic society, mutual respect and
better understanding.

And if I’m here, tonight is not for just sharing views on something which is far
from us. It is to tackle a topic which is of very important concern for every one
of us, as citizens, as human beings, and as people trying to build a future for
ourselves and our kids. So it’s really a call for more responsibility when I’m

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speaking from within a religious tradition trying to give you a sense of what are
the challenges, and also what we have to do together; what is our common
future. So don’t take it as a talk from outside – someone talking to you from a
universal reference which is not yours. It is mine, but it is our future. It’s from
where I am, speaking about the challenges that we are facing, but it’s our
common future. The more we will be able to listen to each other – to understand
these challenges, and some of them are common challenges – the more we’ll be
able to build the future together.

So when we speak about modern life – and once again the perception is, very
often when we speak about Islam, as if Islam, per se as a civilization or as a
religion, has a problem with modernity. And let me put it in a very simple way.
When we speak about modern life, is it possible for the Muslims today, referring
to Islam as a universal reference with principles; with faith; with spirituality, and
religious practices, to face the contemporary challenges of this time? This is the
question. Is it possible for them to live in this modern society? Be it in the States
or in Muslim majority countries; in Africa and Asia, do they have the means, and
do they have the potential to come to responses for the time? So this is a very
simple question. But to answer this question we have to look at the realities and
facts and figures of what are the challenges that we are facing in this
contemporary world and this modern life.

When it comes to Islam, as you have seen and you can experience on a daily
basis, there is a great deal of ignorance. We don’t know exactly what we are
talking about, and to tell you the truth it’s not only that the ignorance is coming
from outside. Sometimes the Muslims themselves don’t know really how to deal
with the religion. It’s not because you are not a Muslim that you don’t
understand the principles; the fundamentals and the deep teaching of your
religion. By the way, if you are Christian or if you are a Jew, sometimes it is
exactly the same. You might be Christian or Jew by name, and referring to a
universal reference that you don’t know exactly what it’s all about.

There is a great deal of ignorance about our respective religion. There is

something which is called religious literacy, which is a reality with us and also
with our kids. And if we want for the future to build a world where we are serious
about pluralism, there is something which is quite clear: There is no pluralism
with ignorance. Ignorance of oneself or ignorance of the other is not going to
work if we want to promote a universe of mutual respect.

Mutual respect is – whatever is your take on religion, you might be an atheist;

an agnostic; a Christian; a Jew; a Muslim; a Buddhist; a Hindu – at the end of
the day your position, your decision, should be based on knowledge. Know what
you accept, and what you refuse. But there is no freedom with ignorance.
Ignorance is not an option for freedom. Someone who is ignorant and thinks that
he or she is free is imprisoned in his or her own ignorance. Ignorance, by
definition, is a prison; is a jail. An intellectual gets to where it is not possible to
make a decision, and I think that is where we have to start, when you listen to
the Muslim intellectual talking about Islam in the contemporary and modern
world, and to understand what kind of challenges we are facing.

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Let me start with something which, for me, is important as one of the challenges
in the contemporary world. Be it in Muslim-majority countries in Africa or in Asia,
or now in the West where we have millions of Muslims living, there are American
Muslims, European Muslims – I am a European Muslim, I am a European by
culture, Muslim by religion, Swiss by nationality – and you have millions of
Muslims today are having exactly the same destiny.

There is something which is quite clear as a challenge of our contemporary

world, and we cannot divide it. In fact, very often we start by speaking about
very sensitive topics: the situation with the economy; politics. But upstream, up
the line of all these problems, what I see in the Muslim-majority countries, as
well as in the communities in the West, is something which has nothing to do
with this. One of the main challenges that we have is a psychological one.

If you listen to what is said about Islam today, in Muslim-majority countries as

well as here – it’s not only in the States – the perception is quite negative. In
Muslim-majority countries, very often the Muslims have the impression that we
are dominated. We are the victim of a dominant economic and political system.
We are victims of what is happening. We are poor. We are marginalized. We are
not contributing to what is happening in the world. No leading Islamic nation is
visible, for example, producing something in science; in arts. The perception is
quite negative and self-negative. You come to the West, it’s exactly the same.

There is, for example… the polls are quite worrying. Seventy-five percent of the
French, when asked about Islam, have a very negative perception of what Islam
is, connecting it to violence. And over the last three months, what came out of
what is happening in the States is quite worrying. The perception is quite
negative. If you add all this together, the first challenge is a psychological
challenge, which is to avoid being on the defensive; to avoid trying to justify the
fact that you are Muslim.

When I am dealing with Muslims around the world – just coming back from the
Middle East – very often what I have to deal with is a psychological problem: a
bad perception of the self. You cannot avoid this. So how do you free a mind; a
spirit, from this negative perception? Because, when you deal with American
Muslims, how are we going to get this sense of confidence? This is the first
challenge.

If you want to be at peace with the surrounding world – the modern world – you
should get this sense of peace; of confidence, to trust who you are. This is the
first challenge for Muslims. Anyone who is a father or a mother here knows
exactly what I’m talking about. How do you transmit a sense of ‘be who you are’
with no apology for being who you? And you bear it with pride and humility,
which is not an easy marriage. Proud to be who you are; and humble with the
values that you are bearing.

So this is something which is very deep in what we have to do, and as someone
who is working in education, if you want to… and let me tell you something here:

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when I’m saying this, I’m also talking to my fellow citizens. You can’t be part of
something which is always asking someone to justify yourself; tell me about this,
and what about this? And having a list of questions and then asking him or her
to be at peace. You belong to us.

This is one of the main challenges, which is a psychological one. If you are in the
field of education, you understand that it is always with this that you have to
start. Dealing with Muslims today – and also dealing with the fellow non-Muslim
citizens and “the Western world,” so to speak – is also to say: at one point, if
you enter into a dialogue – a dialogue is to listen, it’s not only to ask questions.
It’s to listen.

Many people enter into a dialogue with Muslims with a list of questions. They
have this… this… this… this… to ask. And very often they are media covered. I
can tell you now I have a list of questions, depending on which country I’m
visiting, that I know I’m going to be asked. It’s always an attitude which is
putting psychological pressure, and we call it dialogue. And very often also we
come to the Muslims who think like we think, and we call it a dialogue.

I’m always saying it’s not a dialogue, it’s an interactive monologue. You talk with
the people who think like you; his name is “Ahmed”, so it’s a dialogue. And you
choose the people. I think this means that on one side you free yourself from
being on the defensive. On the other side you experience something which is
called intellectual empathy. To try to think from where the other people are
thinking and to try to understand what they are experiencing, which is a very
difficult exercise, but a necessary one in our world today.

So this is a main challenge which is starting with the mindset, which is: how do
you feel? Very often in the book, What I Believe, what I’m talking about are the
seven “C’s” which the Muslims should get. The first one is confidence. Be
confident. Know who you are, and be who you are. It doesn’t mean to be
obsessed with your rights. And once again confidence is not arrogance.
Confidence is to be as at peace with your values that you can experience
humility. Confidence with humility is exactly the opposite of arrogance.

Arrogance is the one who is speaking without listening. Confidence is the one
who knows who he or she is while listening, and not being scared of listening.
And in our societies today, in a world of people being victims, when you feel that
you are victims, you feel that you are on the right side and you don’t need to
listen. This is very dangerous. This is why I would start with this.

Now, there is another challenge which is coming in the modern world. Everyone
who has values; a conscience or a religion, or spirituality – if you are a Christian;
or a Jew; or a Buddhist; or Hindu, you will know what I’m talking about. In our
time and what we call “modern society”, very often we are obsessed with
consumerism – buying; having. And when we speak about Islam; when we
speak about religion; when we speak about spirituality, one of the main
challenges is not what you are going to have, but what you are going to be. It’s
about the spiritual teaching.

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As a father, this was my main question. Am I going to educate my boys or my
girls in a way which is: be who you are with confidence that never forgets the
meanings of things? Instead of being asked as a Muslim – and what about this
and what about that – why don’t we come to one of the main challenges for all
the men or women of conscience in our world? How do you transmit the sense of
meaning, values, and spirituality in our time? Which is essential for me?

Recently, Prince Charles came to Oxford and he was lecturing about ecology, the
environment and Islam. He came to something that when you look deep into
Islamic teachings you understand that there is a mirroring reality – the way you
are with yourself should be mirrored in the way you are with nature. Respect
your heart – you will know how to respect nature. I think that at one point, when
we speak about global warming; when we speak about the way we deal with
water; waste; with all this, in fact it’s a spiritual question. You can be with or
without God, but at the end of the day it’s the way you are with your conscience.
It’s the way you are with your heart. This is education. It’s a very, very difficult
task. How do you educate? Not at school to be the first, but to be at school to
serve the first and to serve the last.

How do you have this sense of solidarity? Not to get money, but to give meaning
to the money that you get. As a Western Muslim living in the contemporary
world, this is one of the main questions that I have. And, you know what? There
is good news in all of this. I never met a committed Christian; a committed Jew,
or Buddhist or Hindu. I spent three weeks with the Dali Lama and I saw him
waking up at 4 o’clock and having this spiritual training. It was about what? The
way you deal with the self. The way you liberate yourself from the self, and the
way you serve people.

It’s something that I know; something that I understand; something that he sent
back to me as a mirror: try to come to your religion not only with practices
without meaning but meaning embodied into practices; a challenge of our time.
As we are eating now, it’s always something which is quite important – eat in
order to protect your life, but never eat forgetting that you are alive.

These are things that, when I speak like this, I feel that this is the universal
message that we are all sharing. And this is why, by talking about the challenges
of being a Muslim in the modern world, these are the same challenges that we
are all facing, if only we look at the reality of things and the deep understandings
of the essence of spirituality and religion.

This is something which has to do with what? Education. Education in the very
deep meaning and sense of the word. In Arabic, “education” is ‫ ميلعتلا‬and in
‫ ميلعتلا‬we have the same word as ‫برلا‬, which is one of the names that we have
in the Qur’an speaking about the Lord, translated as Lord. In fact, it is “the
educator.” It’s God and the oneness of God, and the closer that you come to
Him; the better you understand the very meaning of education because he is
your educator. Educate yourself. No humanity without human beings being
educated. A human being without education is losing his humanity. It could be
only a being.

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So it’s all a process of how do you reconcile this? Look at all our educational
systems, in the West as well as in the Muslim majority countries. You come to
the deep understanding that here we have a challenge, all of us. Are we teaching
the right things? Is this the right way to teach? Are we not facing today
something which is a crisis in all the educational systems around the world?

We are much more concerned about putting in money than about getting the
right things to teach. The first one is, I want to teach the very meaning of being
a citizen in the country. A citizen is all to be obsessed with your rights; is to
know your duties towards the community. It’s a question of giving, not only of
taking. This is something which is the deep understanding of the Islamic
tradition. And once again, it echoes what we get in all the other traditions, and
this is where our message is universal.

So education is a challenge and it is connected to spirituality. When I’m asked to

define spirituality, it is meaning in action; in motion. It is to always ask yourself:
why are you doing what you are doing? Is it to get money? Fame? Why are you
doing what you are doing? Why this work? This is spirituality. This is something
which is consistency. And I never met a Christian; never met someone who is
meaning on Sunday and who is money on Monday. It can’t work. Meaning on
Sunday means that you also have to have this ethical meaning on Monday, to
ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. I would say that as a
Muslim, and in the Muslim-majority countries, this is a very deep challenge that
we have to spread around if we want to come to the essence of our religion and
the essence of the message of this religion.

Now there is another challenge which is important because all of this is about
heart and meanings and your minds with your meanings. It puts meanings into
everything that you are doing. This is to be consistent. This is the second “C.”
The first one is confidence; the second, consistency. Be consistent as much as
you can. You have this in the prophetic tradition is: be close to God as much as
possible; do your best.

Do your best means don’t feel this sense of guilt always, do your best. Innocence
is first, responsibility second and forgiveness is coming with it. Do your best. Be
consistent. It’s a message for all of us, by the way: be consistent. If there is
something that I got from priests and Christians that I met on the ground, it is
always this: consistency. You can’t be with Jesus and forget the poor; it’s a
contradiction in terms. It’s not possible. You cannot be for justice and forget the
marginalized people in your society. So there is a connection between the way
you are and what you believe; and the way you believe.

Having said that, it’s all good because we think it’s coming from the heart and
this: our spiritual teaching. There is something which is also important, and this
is the third challenge: the way you use your mind. This is where, as Muslims
today; we might have a very deep problem. In our tradition – in the classical
tradition – we repeat; we get this teaching of Islam. But there is something
which today we have to reconcile ourselves with. Something that we got at the

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beginning of the Islamic tradition; the Islamic revelation and civilization: critical
thinking. It is something which is: come back to the texts.

As Muslims today we have two sets of texts: the Qur’an, which is understood by
the Muslim as being the very word of God. And then the sets of the prophetic
traditions – the prophet of Islam, peace be upon him – approved them. All this is
foreign but we have many interpretations. So Islam is two sets of texts and
many interpretations; many trends. And for all of you, if you speak about Islam
and Muslims, stop talking about this very simplistic binary vision of the Muslims.

We have the good Muslims and the bad Muslims. This is coming from
colonization. The colonizers were always speaking like this. The good Muslims
and the bad Muslims; the good Muslims are with us and the bad Muslims are
resisting us. You will never define your own religious tradition or philosophical
tradition, with God or without God, by saying there are good and bad, because
you don’t show respect towards the others if you simplify who they are. Islam
and Muslims are as complex and Christians and Jews and Buddhists; many
trends, many interpretations. The one challenge here is critical thinking. You rely
on text but you should be able to question. You should be able to ask questions;
to be critical with your scholars. And this is something which is not perceived the
right way today.

There is good news here. Muslims living in the West, with their education, are
asking many more questions and being much more engaged in this. This is
something which is very interesting. You have a new leadership of Muslims in the
West and also in Africa. I met students in the Middle East, in Africa; they are
coming with more critical thinking, and they want to understand. Because the
only way for you to understand is to ask questions, it’s not only to repeat what
was said. So it’s important here to get this intellectual commitment of Muslims
today: questioning the text; being able to question the scholars; being able to
come to an understanding.

Don’t only imitate, understand what you believe. It’s a marriage between a deep
faith and a critical mind. The more you are critical, the deeper your faith will be.
Don’t confuse a superficial mind with a deep faith. It could be that your faith is
superficial and your mind, absent – which is sometimes what we get on the
ground. So it’s really to push in that direction. It’s really to ask ordinary Muslims
to be much more involved in critical thinking and, in the name of their faith, to
be able to question.

This is a great challenge in many of the Islamic institutions that we have now.
It’s not new. You have scholars at the end of the 19th century say, we are fed up
with Muslims that are always repeating the same thing and not questioning and
not challenging. Now we still have this problem. Once again, this is why in the
book, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, I’m talking about the role of
Western Muslims and also pushing in that direction with critical thinking and
helping the Muslims around the world to dare to ask questions and be involved in
the process. I would say here that this process at the grassroots level is
everywhere a problem and that we have to really be pushing in that direction.

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Be careful, as well, not to confuse what is said about media coverage about
Muslims, or to think that Islam is static and monolithic. In reality, we have
trends and we are reform trends. We have literalists; traditionalists. We have
Sufi; mystical. We have rationalists. All this is part of the Muslim community
today everywhere – not only in the states, but everywhere. This is why with
critical thinking there is one of the great challenges of our time: internal
communication.

We speak a lot, and I will say something about inter-field dialogue, but we need
intra-community dialogue. Intra-community dialogue is to accept that there is a
diversity; that you might go in several directions, but we are all Muslims and you
are not more Muslim than me if you think that way. This critical thinking from
within means to manage this diversity.

We have a problem with diversity and it’s very often the case. You know why?
Because when you are on the defensive, it’s easy to be united against. It’s very
difficult to be united for a project and to be able to say we accept diversity and
we come together. So unity on the defensive is problematic. Many Muslims have
a problem with diversity and they confuse unity and uniformity. Uniformity is not
an Islamic reality. We were never asked to be all the same. We are Muslims with
different minds – different understanding – and this diversity is important.

But once again I’m saying this, and you might think that this is only an
understanding coming from within. But ask yourself, if you are an American
citizen and you have to deal with Muslims you also have to understand that you
have to deal with diversity. You have to see it sometimes that there are Muslims
that are conservative; others that are reformist, and others that are
traditionalist. Don’t reduce Islam to one voice, and say, “This is Islam,” or now
listening to me and saying, “Wow, this is Islam.”

No, I’m not representing Islam, I’m just representing one trend within Islam,
and you will have other people. So I’m not speaking in the name of all the
Muslims, but it’s the job of every one of us, if we are serious about diversity and
pluralism, to understand that there is a diversity.

I met so many Christians; some of them were expecting me to become a

Christian. Others were helping me to become a better Muslim. I never reduce
Christianity to one. I understood that this is a complexity of voices; a concert of
voices. I think that it is our job to come to this.

When you come and you listen to this, you can go back home and say, “Okay,
am I open to all these voices? Who am I ready to listen to?” Tell me what you
are ready to listen to, I will tell you who you are – or maybe what your mind is
like; how it is. Are you really open? Because it is very easy to be open-minded in
a roundtable tonight and just listen to the people we like. This is why we all have
to go through a process of critical thinking and dialogue within.

Three challenges that I wanted to mention, because they are also part of
something that we have to do. Last summer I was in Africa and we were talking

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about issues of daily life. We have a problem in the way we deal with culture as
Muslims today. Very often, we confuse our principles with the cultures of origin.
So we tend to think that to be a good Muslim today is to be a Muslim as we were
in Egypt, or as we were in Africa; as we are in some countries, and that’s wrong.
To be a good Muslim today is to be faithful to some of the Islamic principles. But
we have to be critical towards every single culture. For me, the good American is
not someone who says, “This is my culture and take it all.” A culture means that
from within you are always critical; you take what is good and you question what
could be bad; the sense of arrogance towards “the other.”

Once I was talking to an American and saying, “I don’t like the way you talk
about the Iraqi people. I just want you to know that the blood of an Iraqi man or
woman is as valuable as the blood of an American.” He looked at me and said,
“This is the way we Americans are.” I think we may have to question your
culture. If this is the way you think about yourself, you may have to go through
a process of being humbly questioning the sense you have of your culture.

And I would say here that this is something which is very important for all of us:
question your culture with humility to know what is good and what might be bad.
The consumerist culture that we may have in America should be questioned by
the Americans. The consumerist culture that we have in the West – in Europe –
should be questioned by us, because we are living with this. Is this right, the
way we deal with water and the environment? Is this the way? We have to be
critical. The same for the people in Africa; the same for the people in Asia – not
to confuse religion and culture, but sometimes to question culture in the name of
religion. Question your culture.

The way I put it is that there is no religion without culture; no culture without
religion, but religion is not culture. We have to differentiate between this and
that, and to be able to say this. It’s important why? Because there are ways of
life in African countries; in Arab countries, that are more Arab than Islamic.
Muslims should question the Arab culture in the light of Islam, or the Asian
culture in the light of Islam, and American culture in the light of Islam.

For example, last month we were fasting, all the American Muslims who are
practicing Muslims were fasting. What does it mean? In the name of your fast,
question the consumerist society in which you live. Question it! Question the way
you are with what you eat and what you drink. There is something which is
always questioning through your practice. I would say that the Muslims today
have to go through this process of questioning the cultures of origin, and
sometimes to be able to say, “It’s more cultural than Islamic.”

With this I come to one of the other challenges, for example, about women. It’s
a challenge why? Because today, what is happening in many Muslim
communities – and even in the west and Muslim-majority countries – is
confusion between cultures and cultures-of-origin in Islamic principles. So
women are treated in the light of the cultures, and not in the light of Islam. This
is why we have now Muslim women using Islamic principles to free themselves
from culture discrimination and cultural isolation by saying, “This is not Islamic.

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This is coming from the Arab countries,” or, “This is coming from Asian culture.”
This is why we have a challenge here, and I would say that what is important
now, coming from Qatar or Asia or Africa, to see young women now, the new
generation, freeing themselves and saying, “I am a Muslim. I am a Muslim
woman. I am a practicing Muslim woman. I have my principles. I dress the way I
want, but I am not accepting any kind of cultural discrimination or wrong
understanding of Islam.”

I would once again say to every one of us, if you are serious about talking to
Muslims and understanding the situation of Muslims, don’t only talk to the
Muslim women who seem like you. They might, for example, cover their hair but
at the same time be very committed to freeing the Muslim women from
discrimination. Don’t judge the people on the way they are dressed. Judge the
people in the way they think; in the way they are committed; in the way they
are free. Freedom is not coming from your appearance. Freedom is coming from:
are you free from your ego, and are you free to think the way you want to think?
Are you free and autonomous in your intellectual thinking?

This is something which is, for me once again, important. And let me just finish
by saying, with culture; with women, there is another challenge which is
important for me, and I’m always adding this: creativity. Very often Muslims
today say, “Go back to Andalusia and you'll see the great architecture and what
we did in the past.” I would like Muslims today to be as creative as we were in
the past. I am meaning by this, the arts. I know that some Muslims, that are not
going to be here tonight, would say that music is forbidden in Islam. Movies are
forbidden in Islam. That’s fine, this is their opinion and no one among us here
could say it is not Islamic. There is an opinion, and as long as they go for this for
themselves, that’s fine.

But there are other opinions where music is possible; movies are possible; arts –
it’s part of beauty. God is beautiful and he likes beauty; this is our message. For
this, we need Muslims not only to be there in solidarity, because we have many
Muslims who think that to be a good Muslim is just to show solidarity. That’s
good, but it’s also to be creative in all the fields: good musicians; good
producers of movies. All of this is also important. What I can see is that now we
have more and more young Muslims being involved around the world, not only in
the West.

You have here a picture of all the challenges that we have: more creativity, but
also creativity with meaning; it’s not only entertainment. I like Umberto Eco
when he says it’s the “carnivalization” of the world today. Even if you don’t need
a phone or mobile today, just get one. It’s the way you are today. I think that if
we come back to what I said in the beginning, art is also about meaning; its
beauty that elevates your soul to something which is dignified. Even arts have a
dignity and express meaning, which is rest without forgetting yourself. Have a
good time with music without being lost.

All these are challenges and what I have been saying is that these are challenges
that Muslims are facing. If you listen to me and you are not Muslim, tonight

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here, you would say, “I think that I might have some common challenges.” This
is exactly my point. Thank you.

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