T. J. Winter, Olivier Roy & Irshad Manji in Dialogue

A friend sent me this link to the transcript of a dialogue that took place on the BBC last December:

The Search for Certainty
BBC Transcript of a Recorded Documentary

This interesting exchange is hosted by Bruce Clark and includes quite an interesting cast of characters, some of whom are:

• Olivier Roy, prominent French academic and author of Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (2003) and The Failure of Political Islam (1996).


• Irshad Manji, victim of dyspepsia and author of The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith (2004).


• Tim Winter, Sheikh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies, and Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge University, and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology (forthcoming in 2005).

Don't get your hopes up, since Irshad Manji doesn't contribute much to this otherwise interesting exchange. Indeed, her only significant statement is an unqualified generalization that Muslims are "not taught to ask questions", which proves once again that not only are her thoughts on Islam all but useless, but so-called "Progressives" remain their own worst enemy.

In regards to Olivier Roy, years ago I remember wondering (rather unfairly) about what a French neo-Orientalist had to contribute to my understanding of the contemporary Muslim World. Since then, I've developed a healthy respect for his thoughtful and informed writings. Although I certainly don't endorse everything he says, quite often his analyses of the Muslim World, Muslim psychology and the appeal of extremist Islamic movements are right on the money.

Indeed, one of the main points that Roy tries to make (and makes rather convincingly) is that modern fundamentalist Islamic movements are far from a manifestation of Islamic revival in the traditional sense, but rather these movements are reactions to the post-colonial era, are heavily influenced by Western revolutionary ideologies, and are ultimately products of the modern industrial era of nation-states. As such, they really don't have anything to do with traditional Islam -- in spite of their oft-abused slogan of returning to the way of the noble Salaf.

But make no mistake -- Olivier Roy's criticism of so-called Islamism sometimes overflows into a critic of Islam itself, so he's certainly not writing in order to please Muslims. However, when one considers all of the bigoted and shallow books that have been published by so-called "experts" on Islam and the Middle East in recent years, Roy's books tend to stand out amongst the most cogent of them. The mere fact that the likes of Daniel Pipes gave The Failure of Political Islam a one-star rating (out of a possible five) should be enough to demonstrate that the book contains a modicum of truth -- since Pipes' main line of work seems to be criticising anyone who doesn't buy into his own triumphantly anti-Islamic and rabidly pro-Zionist worldview

I remember reading a rather shallow review of Roy's The Failure of Political Islam in which a hot-headed Muslim critic repeatedly, and rather dogmatically, reminded the reader that Islam has not failed. Unfortunately, had the reviewer in question conducted a more careful reading of the book's title, or had even actually read the book itself, it would have been made clear that Roy's thesis in no way asserts that Islam has failed. Rather, Olivier Roy points out how Political Islam -- a heretical modernist distortion of Islam -- has failed. As I've said before so-called "Political Islam" should never be confused with Islam being political, since Muslims (both as individuals and as state actors) can certainly be rightfully involved in politics without buying into the entire worldview and fundamentalist ideology (in the worst sense of both words) of the Islamists. That having been said, I recommended picking up one of Olivier Roy's books since he offers some interesting insights that are likely to enhance your understanding of what's going on in the world today. If you don't agree with him, as I sometimes don't, at least he'll make you ponder and reflect on why you don't -- so be careful or you might actually learn something.

Anyway, here are some key excerpts from the dialogue:

Roy: "So this shows that the revolt in the name of Islam is not I would say backlash of the traditional Muslim identity against liberalisation, but on the contrary; it is seen by many uprooted young boys as the new cause to fight Society with a big 'S' and the US imperialism."

Clark: "Among Muslim scholars, too, there are those who regard fundamentalism as modern, in the worst sense of the word. Tim Winter sees a huge difference between traditional or orthodox readings of Islam on the one hand - and the views on the other of a militant fringe that is both unrepresentative and very recent in origin."

Winter: "Well I think everybody can see that twenty or thirty years ago, nobody had really heard of the kind of fundamentalist movement that we see today in the Islamic world. The mosques were still full, but this kind of targeting of civilians, for instance, the aberrant use of terrorist violence is something that really is very new. It's novel in the history of the religion and it reflects a particular decadence in Muslim religious discourse in certain places."

The critical point of the entire exchange, and it's an extremely important point for understanding what's going on within the Ummah today, is when Shaykh T. J. Winter asks the key question of our age: How do we reassert orthodoxy in the face of a growing groundswell of fundamentalist revolt? That, my dear brothers and sisters, is indeed the challenge of our oft-confusing and disconcerting times and a goal that all of us should busy ourselves in accomplishing...with Almighty God's help.