Christian C. Sahner reviews Dan Diner’s book, Lost in the Sacred: Why the Muslim World Stood Still, in Public Discourse:
Diner’s analysis of the AHDR introduces a particularly controversial thesis. In it, he argues that the problems of the Middle East derive from cultural and religious characteristics. Obvious socio-economic factors like income inequality or repressive governments are pushed to the side; they are treated as symptoms of a deeper crisis, the failure to delineate sacred and secular space. Embedded in this argument is a more general suspicion of religion itself. According to Diner’s view of the Middle East, religion can only retard, never stimulate progress. But even as Diner condemns a “deficit of secularization” in the Muslim world, he forgets that the historical apogee of Muslim culture—the so-called “renaissance” of the ninth and tenth centuries, which fertilized the European renaissance—was ultimately a religious enterprise.
To identify the “deficit of secularization,” Diner wanders far and wide. One “problem” he cites is that of the Arabic language. On the one hand, Arabic exists in the form of “Fusha,” the classical, quasi-Qur’anic dialect used in mosque sermons, political speeches, newspaper articles, and other formal settings; on the other, it exists as “Amiyya,” the colloquial dialect of everyday life. Even in a secular context, Fusha is infused with a sacred quality, and as a sacred language, it responds slowly to changing cultural circumstances. It is also inaccessible to vast sections of the Arab public, who speak and experience life through local dialects. According to Diner, the tension between these “registers” hampers intellectual growth, since the real language of cultural and social change is not sanctioned as intellectually respectable, while the intellectually respectable language is somewhat archaic.
Read the full review here.
[via: RealClearPolitics]