Islamic Fundamentalism in the Sunni and Shia Worlds
"The West is democratic, but if democracy anywhere gave birth to an Islamic state. they would abort it immediately. Unfortunately, many Western powers do not believe that democracy is an absolute value, a universal, absolute value. There are other values as well, but if democracy breeds Islam, then let us frustrate it completely. This has happened time and again in Turkey and it happened in Algeria. I'm sure it will happen anywhere else."
A Lecture by Dr Hassan al-Turabi delivered in Madrid on August 2 1994 to a mainly non-Muslim audience.

Allow me to start in our own habitual manner by offering the word of Grace to God and then offering a word of greeting to the audience, salaam or peace. Not only to the audience but to this country which I am visiting for the first time and in which I appreciate not only the memories of the past of Southern Spain, which I saw, but also aspects of modern society in Spain.

Another introduction, if you don't mind. I appreciate the introduction of Arab nationalism before fundamentalism, as you call it. Initially, the ignorant vindictive, divided, uncivilised Arabs took the initiative and introduced Islam world-wide. The civilisation of Islam was built by Persians, in the Arabic language, by Turks, by Indians by Africans and by Spaniards. Not by Arabs. So the Arabs took the initiative and the conclusion was Islamic. The Arabs were patriotic to the tribal territory and the nationalist world culturally, again those that don't speak Arabic became Muslim. We told you how it all started as patriotism and then border nationalism and ultimately now it is yielding to fundamentalism.

Allow me in the first place to introduce myself not personally, but as a typical fundamentalist. I come from one of the largest countries of the world. Its roots are Arab and African. Multilingual Arabic is the lingua franca , but there are more than a hundred other languages. It is more than 85 per cent Muslim but there is a substantial Christian community and even more African religions. It's a country with a huge potential, not in its present but in its future. Agriculture and petroleum make it one of the ten most powerful countries in the future, perhaps. Now it is the second state which has declared itself Islamic and it is exciting concern and interest world-wide. Those who are very sympathetic from all over the world visit to see how a poor country, with a poor Islamic legacy, goes Islamic and how other countries, that are richer in history and in material goods, are not proceeding that fast. And there are observers in the other direction, those who are concerned about this model of Islam as a risk to strategic interests worldwide. Myself, I have been an Islamist for about forty-five years, not only ageing but developing actually. More vital now than before, I was like all Islamists in the beginning - only a reactionary against the prevailing liberalist and communist movements amongst elites. I am familiar with the traditional knowledge of Islam, not only do I know the Qur'an by heart and have read hundreds of ancient books, some written 500 years ago, or earlier, but I am also familiar with Western culture.

My career is also diverse. I'm not only the leader of an élite movement, and a mass movement later, and now in a country which is governed Islamically, but also as a fundamentalist I became a Minister three and a half times and also went to prison for more than seven years. I know every Islamic movement in the world, secret or public. But I also meet Heads of State of Arab countries, Muslim countries and many non-Muslim countries. I meet the media a lot and I address platforms all over the world and that says something about fundamentalism itself, about Islam itself.

I will approach fundamentalism as a movement of historical change, in fact. You know that every sector of humanity has played a role, the Greeks with their philosophy, the Romans, both before and after becoming Christians, the Chinese. the Indians. the Arabs, the Muslims and the Europeans, today and perhaps tomorrow as well. This is always changing. Although people claim this is final history, whenever they are in leadership, they think this is the end of history. But history is evolution and change. After the early centuries of the rise of Islamic religion and civilisation, the latter centuries were centuries of decline and shrinkage of Islamic spirit, intellect and action. Compare that with Christian history if you like. Faith at first was aligned with the belief in the Oneness of God and the oneness of life as a programme of worship to God and time in the Here and in the Hereafter, beyond death. That was belief.

But gradually, religion became less of an inspiration that mobilises life and organises life. It became just an identity. You became historically a Muslim. And that allowed space for non-religious spirits to develop into our culture. Religion at first was an active energy on the intellect: the Sufis, mystics, and psychological knowledge. the jurists, jurisprudence was always developing, philosophy, logic, all was developing and therefore, people were developing. Natural sciences, medicine, astronomy, algebra, was always developing, then it declined. The Muslims became ignorant of the natural sciences and even stagnant in their intellectual, jurisprudential research. It's only a legacy which is frozen, which you just imitate and follow rigidly. Religion at first was a bond of brotherhood, of the Ummah, not of the nation or the country, the whole ummah. And beyond that, a relationship with mankind. Not only Muslim, but all mankind. But shrinkage caused religion to become a number of sects and denominations. I'm not going to talk in terms of Sunni and Shia, I think this is only part of history, it's not itself part of Islam.

I don't belong to any sect and most fundamentalists don't. But the Muslims became either sectarian or of the Sufi orders. Sufis after this imam, or sheikh, or priest - as you call it. Schools of jurisprudence, rigid observance of one school or the other. Non-religious associations crept into nationalism, patriotism, later on. Religion essentially was shari'ah. Shari'ah doesn't mean law - it means the way of life. It was a way of life, the closer you are to God the more civilised you are. It should continuously promote your life and your civilisation to become close to God. But, unfortunately, shari'ah became only a legacy. Therefore, civilisation declined and we became vulnerable to inversions by other civilisations, naturally. I'm saying this to explain the background of fundamentalism.

All religions are capable of rise and fall. All cultures rise and fall. There are special Islamic potentialities for return, religious potentialities. One, our doctrine, our creed - Devotion to God - is eternal in its values. It's always vulnerable to decadence and therefore has to be renewed continuously. Islam is not the religion of Muhammed, Islam means devotion to God. It is not the religion of Muhammed but the so-called religion of Abraham, which decayed and later on had to be renewed by Moses, and it decayed, then it had to be renewed by Jesus, and it decayed, then it had to be renewed by Muhammed. This is the last Prophet. But he told us that it would continuously become decadent and fall behind the times, and that we should have to keep renewing it and modernising it perpetually.

The sources of Islam are preserved, in tact, absolutely correct. This Qur'an, directly dictated to the Prophet, written by scribes of the Prophet and learnt by heart by generation after generation. We today, hundreds of thousands of Muslims, know the Qur'an by heart. Even by those who do not know the Arabic language. So it's always directly accessible to the Muslims.

The model of the Prophet himself is important. Correctly. Christians know much less about Jesus Christ than we know of the Prophet. Everything, his private life, how many wives he had, his family life, his politics, his administration, everything is kept. And you can return to it easily. It is a complete way of life, Islam is complete. Not three years, but twenty-three years in persecution, immigration, encirclement, victory, State, community, economic development, expansion, attending to wars with Ambassadors and others - a complete way of life. We don't have any person or institution that is holy and can say that our word is final. No, every Muslim. every believer, has direct access to God and direct access to the sources. He can offer his own proposals for the renewal of religion, so it is always open for renewal and change, no one can close it. We don't have a Church, no holy man or holy institution at all.

But actually, there is also the disillusion, the shock of our decline that provokes us to rise again. We rise religiously because we realise that our rise was associated with the rise of religious spirit. When our religious spirit declined, our religious intellect declined, there was also a material decline in our civilisation. Europeans sometimes think they only developed after the Renaissance, only after they departed with religion, they left the Church behind them, where sciences were on the rise. their imperial expansion, their democracy, their liberal economic and scientific development. Their religion and development rise together and fall together.

Secondly, we never developed a doctrine, an ideology which separates religion from life at all. In practice, politics deteriorated and became irreligious, but there is no secular doctrine at all. Economic life was no longer a pursuit of worship to God, just materialist pursuit of welfare, but no materialist doctrine. Sciences broke away from religious theology but no rational separation between Islamic/religious schools and other schools/universities at all.

But, the most immediate challenge that is responsible for the response of fundamentalism, and you all know that history only moves - that the history of a society stagnates if there is no challenge. African societies that were never challenged culturally, politically or economically just stagnate. But anyone who is faced with a challenge, he is provoked and he responds by mobilising his energy. This is exactly the reason for fundamentalism, or the rise of Islam today. It is an immediate response to the Western challenge. Let us forget the early Crusades, we don't even call them Crusades. These were simply early imperialist incursions, and they failed. But later on, imperialism all over the Muslim world overpowered the Muslims and washed Islam outside public life: education, government and the economy. Islam confined itself - it had to take refuge - in private life. Later on, after the so-called formal independence, Europe remained, by remote control, the dominant imperial force that challenged the Muslims generally.

The world is now very close - transport, the media, communications, it's all very close. Subsequently, the challenge is very close and you have to respond to it. Unfortunately, the early immediate reactions to Western imperialism and domination were at first, patriotic. National struggles for independence. But the champions of national struggle after they achieved formal independence, and they raised the flag of their new state, were bankrupt. They had nothing to offer. The early Arab nationalists played their role. Unity, Pride and Independence, what else? What do you say of economic development? Of justice? Of political systems? What about Arts? Culture? Knowledge? Nothing. It was just an emotion. About unity and defence. Later on came Socialism. Let us cooperate together as more than one state to stand up against the Western challenge. Arab Muslim countries against the West turned to the East. They looked to the Soviet Union and there was a wave of Socialism in almost every Muslim country. But Socialism there fell before it fell in the Soviet Union. It immediately collapsed. The Socialist governments were as corrupt and inefficient as the post-independence Nationalist and Liberal governments. So you can understand why there came to be a vacuum for fundamentalism and Islam.

The movement of Islamic revival has phases. First, spiritual revival, that's why they call it the revivalist movement - the revival of Islam - sometimes. It was an identity and an awakening of the spirit. Then came a Renaissance, intellectual renaissance. Not the old, traditional literature but let us produce new literature and address it to contemporary problems and challenges. And then a resurgence of new action, not just preserving your religion defensively, but a resurgence. There were a few intellectuals, pioneers of fundamentalism in North Africa, in the Middle East, in India and later on came movements. Most of them were elitist movements because the elites were the ones that were directly exposed to the West. Therefore, they were the ones who responded first to the challenge. Not the masses. Later on they became mass movements. The latest movements are mass movements. e.g. the Iranian revolution, the Algerian FIS. Not the Jam'aat-e-Islami in Pakistan or the Brotherhood movements in most of the Arab world, these are elitist movements of quality and quality matters more than quantity. As I mentioned, for security first and then for a beginning. But all Islamic movements at first start by educating their members in ritual practice and moral conduct. Only very rarely do they address this message of the re-education of the soul to the masses.

Only a few could overcome our traditional custom of leaving women behind. This is meant for men who aspire to change, who want to lead change. But some Islamic movements were responsible for the movement of womens' liberation in Muslim societies in the name of religion itself. And the model of the Prophet's wives, they crushed customary conduct of segregating women or ignoring women.

In politics, Islamic movements wanted, in principle, to integrate politics and religion. nothing called State and Church. Politics and religion, religion is a whole way of life. Politics is only one dimension of religion, in principle. When they advocate the supremacy of Shari'ah, the higher values, like the natural law here in Europe in earlier times. Only a few Islamic movements developed these general slogans towards offering policies and programmes, economic programmes, political programmes, foreign policy, how to organise a state etc... Very few, unfortunately, yet because most of them are still in the state of persuading the whole society, politics has to be integrated into religion.

Regarding the economy, in principle, they are against materialism and all of them say that Islam is an economic way of life and they also pursue the principle of justice. Perhaps Socialism has influenced them to concentrate on that priority, but very few Islamic movements are directly involved, as such, in economic life. What new institutions do you propose? How would you mobilise religious energy for economic development and how would you realise justice exactly? Not only in principle, as a slogan, but as a programme.

Culturally, all fundamentalists believe that culture is one - no separation between scientific culture and religious culture. But unfortunately, very few Islamic movements want to develop a university that is both Islamic and modern. Where there is a Faculty of Medicine, that is Islamic and a faculty of engineering and agriculture, that is Islamic. Not only studying the Arabic language and ancient literature about Islam with a typical Islamic university life.

Modern Islamic movements don't believe in schools of jurisprudence, they don't define themselves as Shia, or Sunna, or of this Sufi order or that Sufi order. They recognise this as quite a heritage and they can learn a lot from such history. They don't want to break with history altogether, but they want to go forward and develop.

Fundamentalists also are conscious that Islam is not a religion to govern only Muslims and to occupy the world as Muslims, as an Islamic humanity. So they are actually more tolerant of non-Muslims but very developed in their approach to how non-Muslims can relate to an Islamic society. The dialogue with non-Muslims, Western Europe, or the rest of the world, most of them still talk internally, domestically, to the Islamic audience. But some of them have gone beyond and are now talking to the world.

Finally, I would like to say a word about how they relate to the old systems, or regimes, of power domestically and internationally. The principle of Islam that taught the other that you have to talk, have a dialogue, in order to have a state of peace. Basically, to have cooperation with the other. Don't sever yourself don't break away from the other at all. If he's a Muslim or a non-Muslim, or someone who doesn't believe in any religion at all, talk to him and make peace prevail as a means of communication with him. But, if he takes the initiative of aggression or force, then don't turn the other cheek, don't surrender to him. Reciprocate and defend yourself, word for word, force for force. That is literally what the word jihad means. Just struggle against the other, but you have to relate to him peacefully. You can take the initiative in the peaceful relationship with the other, and you have to take the initiative to talk to him before he talks to you, but don't take the initiative of aggressive force at all. But take the defence, that is the principle.

Naturally, all social change is like that. The old régimes don't like changes, they want to maintain power. Anything new is a threat, whether it is Islamic, Socialist, or whatever else, they are a threat. And therefore, they would rather step on it and persecute it and not allow it any liberty. This is unfortunately, the experiences of the fundamentalist movement world-wide. I know the fundamentalist movement from Indonesia to Morocco, say, and I know the movements in countries where Muslims are in a minority, from Japan to America. At the beginning there is always a pressure on this new movement, always like that. Islam is better developed to evolution because it's a religion. Like Christianity, it's a religion. It has to be introduced gradually, peacefully and conscientiously. Not by force, but unfortunately, if your circle is persecuted by force you have to repel that aggression. I'll give you examples only of Islamic movements that are developing peacefully.

In Algeria, they started peacefully and they wanted to compete as another party. They were at a disadvantage, they had no place in the media. I went to Algeria, so I know. Not a single newspaper, not even a share of television and radio. But, once it was realised that they would win the election, in the first round of elections, they were immediately crushed, completely. Egypt, they started that way. The Muslim Brotherhood, very peaceful. Every member was listed and recorded with the police, just as an ordinary organisation. A social organisation. Every member was reported to police records, but what happened to them later on? After 1948, and ever since. you know what is happening to them. And that goes for Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, all over the Muslim world, unfortunately.

In some places there is a measure of freedom. In Yemen there was a measure of freedom, and now they are a party in coalition with the major party in government. In Jordan, to some extent, they were members of the coalition and there is still today, an atmosphere of peace and liberty. In the Sudan, there was quite a measure of peace, except when the Communists took over. And gradually Islam developed in the Sudan, not under this regime as the papers tell you. It started with the ex-Communist President, Nimeiri. Many, many years back, from elites to mass movements to prevalent public opinion. It crept into public policy and government and gradually introduced ever since.

I will answer questions on the Sudan. Today, it is an Islamic state. Not the government, but what are the structures of government? The system of elections? The consultation? How do you develop the economy Islamically? What economic institutions? What are Islamic banks? Insurance companies? What is Islamic justice? How do you develop Art and Music? How do you develop education? That is happening in the Sudan today. In some other countries there was no way forward except revolution. Iran is an example. There in someone who will probably explain that to you. And you know that revolutions world-wide, sometimes this is the only course to adopt the future. France, America, Russia, China, sometimes a change of history can only proceed through revolution. They are underneath, they load up energy and then they explode. When it explodes, it is more of an international danger and revolutionaries take a while before their slogans can be realised as ways of life. Revolutions are always busy undermining those regimes. Unfortunately, internationally, and I think I can speak for Europeans because I know Western Europe and America very well, they hardly understand this new wave of Islamic revival, which they call fundamentalist. The Americans first called it fundamentalist because they have a fundamentalist Christian movement and they thought that this must be another reactionary, dogmatic, religious movement. Unfortunately, they know very little about it because Orientalist literature is about history, not about he current history of the Islamic world.

The West is democratic, but if democracy anywhere gave birth to an Islamic state. they would abort it immediately. Unfortunately, many Western powers do not believe that democracy is an absolute value, a universal, absolute value. There are other values as well, but if democracy breeds Islam, then let us frustrate it completely. This has happened time and again in Turkey and it happened in Algeria. I'm sure it will happen anywhere else.

Human rights? Not all human beings. If fundamentalists are in jail, in tens of thousands in more than ten countries of the world, let us close our eyes, let us forget about that. But anyone else who is persecuted, who is sent to jail, or should try to defend himself, you should mobilise world public opinion and the UN against any attack on human rights.

Modernism is probably against fundamentalism. They don't understand fundamentalism, so-called fundamentalism, in a way that modernises the old literature of Islam, the old ways of life of Islam generally. It's not only modern, but would even go for the post-modern future. And they think to be religious you have to go forward, always, permanently, but they hardly understand you.

Judging by the experience of the Islamic State of Sudan, Sudan is more open to the world than it has ever been before. Not because the Sudan is more open, to the Arab world. the African world and the world generally, but because it is more tolerant of minorities, Christian minorities, than any other country in the world. It is the only country in the world where law is decentralised and personalised. No national law of family, every family will have its own law according to it's own choice and even those aspects of penal law that are derived directly from the Qur'an are not applied to the whole of the Sudan, even though the population is 85 per cent Muslim. There is more Christian-Muslim dialogue in the Sudan than ever before. But communication and dialogue is a two-way process, the other has to listen and respond. If he will not listen to you and will condemn you according to his own prejudices, it's only unfortunate.

I don't think that anyone can stop history. We are now at the end of history because America is at the top and it is the supreme god of the world and now this is the end of history. We know it's not the end of history, but if someone wants to remain there, then that's up to him. But the world will change and history will evolve forever until God ultimately destroys the earth and humanity completely. But in the name of fundamentalism, I like speaking to the other much more. I want the other to understand me because there is much that is covered. When I speak to Christians, not those that are historically Christians but those that are religious, I find them much closer to me. I've read the Bible more times than the average Christian reads it. In those jail years I read it closely and I found that it is a translation, one book is almost a translation of the other. So, religion is basically based on the same, common, eternal values. Only if people don't take it as identities, it contrasts each other, confronts each other and fights against each other.

Finally, it is also a habit to start with a word of peace and to conclude also with a word of peace. As-salaam, as we say in our language.

Questions

Q. [The questions were too faint to be heard on the tape of the speech]

A. I will answer the last question first. Unfortunately, the word Islam is confined to the followers of Muhammed, but, we don't use it that way. All the religions from Abraham are called Islam. The word means 'Devotion to God', just an Arabic word which means devotion to God. It's not after his name, or the place he was born, or anything. But actually, anyway, religion is free. It is a platitude. God himself did not coerce us. He could have coerced us, the laws of nature are binding. Gravity, this is a binding Divine law that is dictated to nature. There is no free will of things, but, human beings are given free will by God. To believe or not to believe, to believe this way or to believe the other, and this is a fundamental principle of Islam. Islam is the legacy of all traditional religions. In the Qu'ran it says, "No coercion in religion," this is a verse of the Qur'an. If you coerce someone you won't get a believer, you'll get a hypocrite at best. A hypocrite is worse than someone who doesn't believe, in Qur'anic standards. It says so, a hypocrite is at the bottom. If under social pressure or political pressure he pretends to believe what he doesn't internally believe, it is worse than someone who says "No, I don't believe."

Why the war among Muslims, among Christians, or between them? The Muslims didn't fight wars between different denominations. The Shi'a and Sunni war wasn't really Shi'a and Sunni. There were two candidates for the succession of the Prophet, you know that succession in government for the Muslims was by consultation, by consent. For the third candidate there was an election, a normal election where all women and all men were asked. There was a majority for one over another. Unfortunately, the fourth successor, he wasn't allowed to be voted. He would have had a majority, but there was a coup d'etat against him and ever since the hereditary principle became important in succession to power. It was only then that there was war between powerful parties. They were not religious actually in their attitude, they were just tempted to believe in power as the ultimate end in life. They were less religious and politics moved away from religion. Therefore, the Muslims became vulnerable to internal Islamic wars. Ever since it was just nationalities fighting in their midst. Among Christians, why weren't there any wars against different denominations? I'm sure if the Christians were left alone without any leadership that would probably exploit this mass against that mass. They are not fighting against each other today because nobody is exploiting it for political ends any longer.

The Muslims never fought against Christians. You know, the first Islamic state, organised by the Prophet himself, was not a state of Muslims. It was a state of Muslims and Jews, established on a written constitution and the Jews were constituent members of those that wrote the constitution. Christians have always lived in the midst of Muslims. In Egypt, in Syria, in Yemen, all over, and the Muslims never fought against the Christians. They fought against the Roman Empire, as an imperialist power, and against the Persian Empire. Later on all the Persians became Muslim and so that power was overcome. That is all there is to it. We never waged an Islamic war as such. Actually, the Crusades against us, we don't call it the Crusades, we don't think it was a war in favour of the Cross. It was just an imperial war but they wanted to mobilise the masses to fight for those imperial objectives, and the masses were very religious in those days, so they exploited the word Crusade to mobilise armies in Europe against the Middle East. Later on, when the masses in Europe became less religious, you don't have to use the word Crusade. Just go to Africa, or India, or the Middle East as an open imperialist that wants to exploit that wealth for his own country or nation.

Q.

A. Of course when there is a phenomenon of force which you don't like you call it violence. If you like it, you won't call it force. if there is a movement which is using force against the old régime of power you call it La Resistance, otherwise you call it a violent, subversive movement if you take power, you call it a coup, and if you don't like it, you call it a revolution.

The word Jihad, I explained, is literally translated as struggle. Effort for effort. Jihad means effort for effort, never take the initiative of aggression against the other. These movements which are now called violent, terrorist movements, please understand, they hear the whole world speaking about democracy and freedom and in their own countries they don't have any freedom.

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