In fact, such a reaction is a manifestation of the great inner fear of kufr before the phenomenon of Islam, which is fighting for the restoration of its political subjectivity. Islam never lost its higher metaphysical subjectivity, but its lower level subjectivity was lost several generations ago with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
The pathos of Islam lies in the fact that its subjectivity of the highest metaphysical plane should be carried out on the lowest layers. And today Muslims are fighting to become a subject and a player in a great history. The kind of story that has movement, a plot, and an ending. Islam is the only ideology that expresses this principle of history. The point is that liberals can integrate this insight that animates Muslims because they cannot imagine being ideologically eschatological. They cannot imagine that it is possible to fight for the real fulfillment of all historical promises, for history to stop, for everything in it to be brought to a conclusion, for the end of this old world, the resurrection, the judgment, the “new earth and the new heaven.” For Christian believers, all these points were relevant 300 years ago.
No references to medieval Muslims are out of place. It can be said unequivocally that the current state of Western civilization accurately reproduces the era of late antiquity. Its liberalism, religious syncretism, obscurity, these are all characteristics of late Rome before the end. On the other hand, in late Rome there were traditionalists, represented by the Neoplatonic and Gnostic schools, the entire pillar line of great philosophy. There were also radicals – Christians who were persecuted and destroyed. Today, such radicals are represented by political Islam. These three forces—radicals, liberals, and traditionalists—were in late antiquity. Methodologically, 2,000 years later, we are recreating the same picture. There were also technological advances then. Not electronics, of course, but the steam engine was invented in Rome, although it was forgotten after the collapse of the empire.
What should the ideology of Muslims be based on? First of all, subjectivity must be restored. You cannot fight for the end of the world, because only the Almighty knows about the end of the world. The Almighty is the author of the plot, according to which the events of our human life are built over time. We cannot know anything about how it will develop. But we know that there is a global world community that excludes Islam as a factor of objective spirit. For a global society, religion is an institution. This is the Pope, who is a class teacher and a mentor, the keeper of the keys to the concept of “good”. And suddenly there is a force that says that spirit is absolutely objective, it is beyond human space, beyond human experience and perception. Spirit goes against expectations, imagination, intellectual paradigms. It is completely unknown and foreign. And it is here and now the main factor for which we Muslims will fight and die. Here is the fundamental paradigm of ideology.
This ideology is practically implemented through the approval of Sharia. Muslims occupy the territory and declare that they have established sharia. They raise the flag and begin to unite with other territories where Sharia is so established. This is the formation of the subject. Different people, regardless of ethnic origin, come to the space organized in this way, and Sharia unites them.
What is Sharia? Sharia is codified justice that does not depend on human arbitrariness. Next, the new subject is challenged. Challenged by liberals, for whom the end of the argument from the body, from the sensual perception of the world is unimaginable. Traditionalists are also opposed, because for traditionalists the most important thing is symbolism, this idea of identity that permeates the world.
Many people wonder: why in Syria in 2013, when Assad’s forces have already practically lost, IS appears, which squeezes territory from the winners and practically forces the Syrian opposition to fight on two fronts. So, experts and analysts come to the conclusion that someone is in charge of IG and is pushing Muslims head-to-head. But is this enough to convince us that there is a conspiracy between IS and the Assadites? Has there ever been a revolution without a conspiracy?
It always was for me
the big question is why the Red Army did not take Warsaw. The fall of Warsaw opened the gates to Berlin, and the capture of Berlin meant a world revolution. Did not the capture of Warsaw lead to the arrival of Stalin, the Soviet Union closed in on its contours, then the Second World War, and Gorbachev and Yeltsin on the way out. Gorbachev and Yeltsin were programmed already in the 20th year. Is this a conspiracy? Manipulation? Stalin’s betrayal? Why was the world revolution abandoned after the 20th year? Why did the Comintern get angry? It seems to me that the leaders of IS considered that the issue with Assad has already been decided, and it is necessary to determine who will sit in Damascus – Jabhat al-Nusra, the Free Syrian Army or, in fact, IS.
A wave of Islamic awakening and revolutions passed. What happened in the end? Tunisia is on the brink of bankruptcy, Libya lies in ruins, Egypt has a junta. Why did this happen? Because anti-Islamic forces have risen, a wide range of confrontations has arisen. Liberals inside Tunisia, Libya, Egypt began to vote with the support of the West. Sisi relied heavily on Saudi Arabia, on the support of the West. After all, the West stands behind Arabia, which hated the Ikhwan all the way and welcomed the junta’s coup. It is important to understand the following – what is the Arab Spring and the streak of Islamic revolutions. This is not a series of coups, which should create a convenient and comfortable society, where science and education will work right away, it will become cheaper to live, and the counters will be filled. This is not an Islamic dream. It’s more like a 90’s scoop dream.
The second point is that we are in the war zone, the process is not over yet.
Most of the Muslim elite, active and thinking, was forced to emigrate from Russia. The Caucasus was emptied. And even in these conditions there is a constant dispute. Even in such a difficult situation, people do not unite. For any occasion, discussions begin. These debates exist because there is no real Islamic philosophy, no political philosophy. There are no certain methods, there is no habit of serious political thought on the basis of Islam. There are certain influences of various alims, which are mixed with fragments of enlightened Western ideologization (not even science). This applies not only to ordinary people, but also to serious thinkers, founders of entire schools of thought.
We take Said Qutb and find in him the discourse of Western rationalist deists. He has deism in his head, a model of the French Enlightenment, who have not yet completely broken with religion, but have already turned God into a ticking clock like the winding clocks of the cosmos. This person writes that the immutability of the laws of the cosmos proves the existence of God. That is, the philosophical loading in the head of Muslims is completely borrowed from Western thinkers, and from third-rate thinkers. Because Neoplatonism was cut down during the time of the Mongols, until the 16th century it survived only in Qum among the Shiites. The Sunnis do not have a serious big philosophy, only some nonsense is left, which is nevertheless combined with fragments of Sharia’s attitude to the issue.
Of course, in such conditions, people will argue. It’s like after a ship explosion, everyone grabs at whatever they can to avoid drowning: someone has a board, some swim in a boat, someone has a lifebuoy. A common ship is a method, a concept. We have the Koran. It is the base, it is the key to understanding the world. This key must enter the lock (understanding of the world). Here, for example, what does a Muslim think about the devices of matter? What does he think about biological life? What does being have to do with the concept of society? If you ask a Muslim these questions, he will answer – everything is under the authority of the Almighty. Everything was created by Allah, who has power over everything. And what is matter? Is it there or isn’t it? And if a Muslim is educated, he will repeat some passages of Western thought.
And in fact there is a lock into which the Koranic key enters and opens it. This castle must be found, and then the arguments will cease. There must be an ideology and a philosophy that explains everything from top to bottom from the perspective of the Qur’an. Such a common ideology was Marxism. He explained everything from the point of view of a reworked Hegelianism. The work of creating an Islamic ideology is the task of the next two generations. Today we stand on the eve of the beginning of the forty-year period, the year 1440 Hijri will begin in 2019, and will last until the year 1440 according to the solar calendar, which will be 2060. These 40 years when Musa led his people in the desert, 40 years on the same date lunar and solar calendar. During this time, a new Ummah must be built with a new vanguard and a new core that will possess a political philosophy that explains everything.
Heydar Cemal (December 16, 2015)