In the Chronicle Review, Ali A. Allawi discusses the two, often conflicting, currents of Islam that have dominated his life— “the mystical, inner dimension of the faith, and the outer political and social expressions of it”—and concludes by questioning the future of Islamic civilization:
The crisis in Islamic civilization arises in part from the fact that Muslims have been unable to chart their own path into contemporary life. Islam as a religion—or even as a remnant of a civilization—has never fully surrendered to the demands of a desacralized world. Those who rule over Muslims may behave atrociously, continuing a venerable tradition of misrule, violence, and corruption that has long plagued the Muslim world, but tantalizing thoughts of “what might be” still reverberate among the masses—and even among some of the elite.
In the past, the Shariah connected Muslims’ outer world with their inner realities. The eclipse of the Shariah by secular civil, commercial, and criminal law severed that connection. Some people see a desacralized world as a fertile ground for nurturing the private faith of the individual. Other religious traditions, especially those that form the basis of Western civilization, long ago withdrew from the public arena, effectively putting their seal of approval on the separation of church and state. But Islam cannot easily coexist with a political order that takes no heed of its inner dimensions. The integrity of Islam requires a delicate balance between the individual’s spirituality and the demands of the community as a whole.
Islam’s encounter with the West and the ascendant forces of modernity have made deep inroads into the outer world of Islam and, equally important, into the minds of Muslims. Some may deny it and fight numerous rear-guard actions, but this reality cannot be effaced until Muslims confront another harsh fact: All civilizations have an inner and outer aspect, an inner world of beliefs, ideas, and values that inform the outer aspects of institutions, laws, government, and culture. But the inner dimensions of Islam no longer have the significance or power to shape the outer world in which most Muslims live. Most Muslims—knowingly or not —have lost sight of the centrality of sacredness to their historic civilization. The Muslim world has effectively become desacralized, and that has changed how Muslims think, believe, and behave. Islam’s outer expressions—laws, institutions, governing structures, economic and cultural principles—have been in constant retreat.
Read the entire piece here.