HOLDING THE WEST AS THE MORAL STANDARD

An ancient Mosque in Cordoba, Spain, a remnant of Muslims
before they were ethnically cleansed (80% of the population
then) from Spain by Elizabeth and Ferdinand.

Today, almost everywhere in the world, Islam is in constant need of defense and justification. Defense and justification against Western moral values. The Islamic political thinkers, the bloggers, the activists, all have to defend Islam against Western values. Often, many of us turn apologetic, trying to match up a particular Islamic moral with the counter or parallel Western moral. As if though, the Western moral system is the standard of morality for humanity, and for any ideology to have legitimacy, it must match up to this said moral system.

For example, one of the most controversial Islamic moral guideline is stoning of the adulterer. Many Muslims in their zeal to sound modern and make Islamic law valid and acceptable to Westerners, either water down this punishment, or say that there is a difference of opinion on the matter, and some will go as far as to deny the well accepted law, or call for a reinterpretation of the text (such as, the Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan, listed on Times' 100 most influential people), all in an effort to defend and justify Islam.

I'm sure we all do this with good intention. However, this method is ineffective. It turns into a vicious cycle of apologizing for Islam in an effort to gain approval of the Western audience. In return, the reaction of Westerners usually is, "eh, I guess Islam isn't as bad as CNN makes it out to be." So, they walk away, with no effect at all, while making ourselves sound inferior to their values.

We need to step back, go back to the drawing board, and ask some very fundamental questions: Why should we defend Islam? Why does Islam need to match up to Western values to gain validation? Who's to say that Western morals are the correct morals, and we need to match up to those morals? Who decides morality? The West? The governments? The will of the people? So if any ideology wants to gain validation it must match up to the people's expectation?

Where's the foundation for morality?

In Islam, the foundation for morality is God. We, as Muslims, believe Islam to the be the ultimate guide from God. It is perfect, without any flaws, whether our limited minds understand its wisdom or not. Thus, naturally, the Islamic moral guideline is superior to any other guideline in the world. Is a moral guideline set by the people superior or the one set by God?

Islam is the truth, so, obviously it's superior. Also, let's not forget, we, Muslims, believe in salvafic exclusivity. We're the ones with the truth, why should we have to defend, water down, or be apologetic about our religion? Why do we deny, shy away from, call to reinterpret fundamental parts of Islam just to match up to Western values? We, Muslims have to remember that the Qur'an and the Sunnah are the ultimate truth, where we derive our moral guidelines from. Whatever they say is the truth, and we follow that truth.

The reason, however, Muslims become so apologetic is because we suffer from this inferiority complex, where we subconsciously think that Westerners are someway, somehow, better than us. Maybe it's because Westerners are better educated, more advanced in science and technology, have stable governments, strong militaries and an abundance of wealth? Also, let's not forget that they physically colonized us for centuries and trained our ancestors to think inferiority (part of the reason our Muslim majority societies are so dysfunctional). Now, the West isn't colonizing us physically, however, they do have our minds colonized.

How do we break out of this cycle of the inferiority complex? Education. Muslims need to go back to the drawing board. Learn our history. Our rich and diverse 1400 year old history. Once we do that, we will realize that for 1300 years of that history, Muslims dominated the world. We were at the forefront of science and technology. We had the mightiest militaries and empires. We were the ones giving refuge to persecuted Europeans. And we were the ones that were a bunch of Arab desert dwellers who erased the corrupt Persian empire from the map, and brought the Roman empire to its knees. We are the Muslims, the ones with the truth.

[Disclaimer: I am not advocating for a West vs Muslim mindset. I am a Westerner myself by culture, but Muslim in religion, and this place is my home. What I am trying to provoke through this post is that we, Muslims, need to embrace our identity and heritage as Muslims, and stop acting so inferior by imitating things that Islam despises. The West is a pluralistic society. And Muslims are as much part of it is as are the Jews, Christians, and Atheists. And of course, we, Muslims, need to constantly give Dawah by explaining the virtues of our laws, not by denying or watering down our seemingly controversial values.]