TOO DUTCH:

Fundamentalism begins at home: A French author on how new forms of Islam owe more to Western identity politics than to the Koran. (Josie Appleton, 12/17/04, Spiked)

In Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, the French sociologist Olivier Roy criticises this 'confused' and 'sterile' debate. 'It is based on an essentialist view', he tells me, 'the idea that Islam is this or that. But you can find anything in Islam. The problem is not what is in the Koran, but what people think is in the Koran'. His concern is to look at the lived reality of Islam, rather than its canonical or historical background. For example, in the book he argues that the idea that Islamic suicide attacks are an attempt to win virgins in paradise is 'not very helpful. Why should Muslims have discovered only in 1983 that suicide attacks are a good way to enter paradise?'.

In a decade of research for the book, Roy travelled throughout the Middle East, searched Islamic websites on the internet, and studied Muslim immigrants in France. Far from having roots in the seventh century, he found that new religious forms are a response to Westernisation - to the modernisation of Muslim societies, and the migration of increasing numbers of Muslims to the West.

Roy deals with everything from the nihilism of al-Qaeda to the French schoolgirls determined to wear veils; from personal Islamic webpages to Pakistan's madrasas (religious schools). What new breeds of Islam have in common is their focus on the fulfilment of the self, rather than on community obligations. In these terms, re-Islamicisation is the recourse of isolated, Westernised individuals seeking to find a spiritual pattern and meaning for their lives.

In traditional Islamic societies, religion is tied up with culture: with the food people eat, the mosques at which they pray, their social and political networks. Modernisation has led to a weakening of family and community ties and the undermining of religious authorities. Increasingly Islam is becoming detached from Middle Eastern culture, and the Koran is being seen through the spectrum of individual needs and desires - in his book, Roy notes that cyberspace is full of people that could be 'Mr Anybody' pronouncing on what 'Islam means…'.

These more individualised forms of Islam are linked to fundamentalist violence. 'Dutch public opinion is blaming foreign culture for the murder of Theo van Gogh', Roy tells me, 'but if you look at the background of the guy who did that, he is fluent in Dutch, he is a Dutch citizen, and you even have two converts from an American father and a Dutch mother who played a big role in the plot. Clearly the more radical violence is linked to the deterritorialisation and globalisation of Islam'.

Islam, like Judeo-Christianity, needs to be more fundamental and less modern.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 20, 2004 9:30 AM