Mohamed bin Zayed attends lecture on extremism

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, attended on Wednesday a lecture titled the "Tradition, Extremism and Religious Discourse in the Arab World," delivered by Dr. Abdelilah Belkeziz, a Moroccan thinker and writer.
In the lecture, which was held at His Highness’s Ramadan Majlis at Al Bateen Palace in Abu Dhabi, Dr. Belkeziz, who is Professor of Philosophy at King Hassan II University, called for viewing Islamic and Arabic tradition in a critical manner that takes into account the interest of people in contemporary age and the historical context of the tradition.
He said the Islamic history shows that the State should be the source of power as the Quran and Sunna made no mention of the mechanism of creating a political system, leaving this open to interpretation. "The creation of the State was one of the most important human inventions because it ensured the survival of people," he said. As a result national interest, as defined by the State, was the main reference for deciding the nature of political systems that existed throughout the Islamic history, Dr. Belkeziz added..
He noted Islam should be taken as a unifying factor rather than a tool for disruption and split: "Islam has always been a unifying factor against foreign invasion," he said. "Islam was the custodian of nationalism. Islam can be used as a tool for destruction when it’s brought as a factor into internal conflicts, which is against the tenets of Islam that came to the world as a unifying factor. Religion should be taken out of any political and economic conflicts," Dr. Belkeziz said.
Dr. Belkeziz, who wrote 48 books on Islamic thought, said, "There are two views to tradition, although they appear to be opposing, they are in fact complementary," he said. "The first, which looks down upon tradition in some parts of the Arab though, media and even social outlook. This is a view that calls for disconnecting ourselves from tradition and argues that getting rid of the tradition, lessens our weight and drive us forward towards progress. This view is espoused by what they are termed Westernised or liberal thinkers. I don’t agree with that because Arab liberals were the most who paid attention to Arab tradition, including Goergy Zidan, Shawki Daif and Taha Hussein. This means we can’t accuse the Arab liberals of calling for that. The people behind this call are the nihilists."
"The other view is the one that views tradition as sacred. This is also an unvirtuous view because this glorifying view of the past makes prisoners of the past," he said. "As opposed to these two views of tradition, I call for a positive view of the Islamic tradition. A view that looks at this tradition within its historical context, without treating it as being above history, time and place. This is a view that avoids looking at tradition without taking it as a reference point."
He said the tradition is not only related to religious texts but includes, grammar, language, philosophy, Sufism, jurisprudence and exegesis and other religious sciences. "All of these disciplines and sciences emerged in the periphery of the sacred texts of Islam. These are human sciences. The problem starts when we drop the human nature of these sciences. The glorifying view of tradition mixes between the divine and the human.
"The problem emerged when the early scholars who wrote the founding books of Islam such as Al Shafei, Malik, Al Tabari and Al Ghazali and others. These people wrote their works as forms of interpretation and they added no sacredness to their texts. They thought of their writings as opinions, as interpretations and that’s why they argued with their opponents and debated with them," he added.
Dr. Belkeziz noted, "The problem began with the students of the students of the founders of early texts, who started to strip their masters’ views from their historical contexts, they started looking at them in a sacred manner, and elevated them in some cases to divine sacredness," he said.
"All of these thoughts, we cannot take them out of their historical contexts, including the writings of Ibn Taymiya, whose books are sought after by Islamist groups. The historical Ibn Taymiya is not the same as the one who is being interpreted by Islamists," he said.
"The problem began when we turned Islamic and Arabic tradition from a common property of the Muslim nation into the property of a particular group. This created a phenomenon of conflict over tradition; this conflict treated tradition as a form of capital that can be disputed over. We reached this stage because we prepared the ground in the Arab world for the spread of shallow religious culture starting from religious madrasas to schools and universities. This shallow view of religion is stripped of tolerance and other values espoused by our religion," Dr. Belkeziz said.
The Ramadan series of lectures is part of His Highness’s efforts to spread the spirit of knowledge and learning in the United Arab Emirates, by inviting renowned scholars, experts, officials and entrepreneurs to speak at his majlis at Al Bateen Palace in Abu Dhabi. The lectures are attended by senior government officials, diplomats, business leaders and others.
 

Source: WAM