Islam and the Cultural Accommodation of Social Change

Abstract

In a previous work entitled The Crisis ofModem Islam, Bassam Tibiargues for the understanding of religion in the social process as it is incorporatedinto reality as a social fact. Toward this goal, his methodology allowsno place for religion as theology and metaphysics. He draws from bothDurkheim’s sociology of religion and Bloch’s philosophy of religion but, ashe explains, his intention is directed toward international relations and towardIslam as a cultural system. This intention evokes some disappointment, fordespite the fact that Tibi sees international relations and the Islamic culturesystem as interdependent, one must conclude that his understanding of thegreat philosophical tradition of Islam is reductionist.In the book under review, Tibi defines his central thesis as follows:“[Religion consists of sociocultural symbols that convey a conception of realityand construe a plan for it. These symbols are concerned with reality butdo not correspond to it, as is the case, for example, with symbols of nature”(p. 8). This is by no means an original thesis. Tibi’s new mentor is the bourgeoisanthropologist Clifford Geertz, who in the late 1960s wrote an essay on“Religion as a Cultural System,” in which he defines religion in the followingterms: Religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful,pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in man by (3) formulatingconceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing theseconceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods of motivationsseem uniquely realistic. Tibi’s focus is, therefore, on the production of meaningin Muslim societies.In order to interpret the religious and cultural reality of contemporaryMuslim societies, Tibi takes on a number of challenges. In the first chapter,he attempts to define Islam by using sociological criteria. Since he dismissesthe spiritual side of religion, Tibi’s endeavor emerges as yet another reductionistapproach to Islam. On the basis of this approach, he ventures to discusswhat he calls “the basic cultural patterns for the perception of change in Islam.”He contends that Muslims from all walks of life have constantly striven tobring their actions into harmony with the message of the Qur’an and, consequently,the need to reinterpret the Qur’an has always arisen.Tibi maintains that Muslim societies are traditional and thus incompatiblewith modern needs and conditions. He claims that there is an important ...