To be a Muslim today—or any day—is to live in accordance with the will and pleasure of Allah. Muslims often say, with joy and pride, that it is easy to be a Muslim since Islam is ‘the straight path’ leading to paradise. What this means, in other words, is that the principles of Islam are simple and straightforward, free of ambiguities, confusions, inconsistencies or mysteries, and that comprehending them or living in accordance with them is not difficult. The assumption here is that if one somehow comes to ‘the straight path’ by accepting Islam, which is Allah’s last and final revelation to humanity, one will fairly effortlessly arrive at the destination which is a state of eternal blessedness in the presence of Allah. I must confess that I am totally amazed, and overwhelmed, by this assumption. To me, being a Muslim today—or any day—seems to be exceedingly hard, for to be a Muslim one has constantly to face the challenge, first of knowing what Allah wills or desires not only for humanity in general but also for oneself in particular, and then of doing what one believes to be Allah’s will and pleasure each moment of one’s life.

In view of the stereotyping of Islam and Muslims which has gone on in the West for many centuries, and especially since the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979, it is necessary to state at the outset of this article that ‘the world of Islam’ is not a monolith and that Muslims differ as sharply within their “ummah” of one billion persons as do adherents of other major religious traditions within their own respective communities.

During General Zia-ul-Haq’s tenure, the escalating conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan brought Pakistan to the centre stage of international politics. However, at the popular level, it was Zia’s Islamisation campaign, particularly its more brutal manifestations, that drew shocked world attention. Following hard on the heels of the Iranian revolution, it raised fears of another Muslim fundamentalist sweep in the region. These fears were unfounded. Comparisons between the outcome of a mass movement and the impact of state-imposed measures introduced by a military dictator are unwarranted and one needs to remember that the religiously defined political parties (Islam-pasand) in Pakistan have consistently failed to mobilise wide-spread popular support. Furthermore, the current use of the term ‘fundamentalism’ is so loose that it obscures important differences between various religious political forces.

Described by some as the high point of fundamentalism in Pakistan, the last decade should be seen as one which witnessed the convergence of interests between the military rulers and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The former needed political support for credibility; the latter saw in the situation the possibility of access to power, otherwise remote. Thus the slogan of Islamisation became the meeting point. If viewed in terms of social configuration this was the opportunity for the emerging class of traders and entrepreneurs to attain political power.

‘How does it feel to be a Muslim in Britain?’ asked a young student during one of my lectures in a British school.

Having been brought up in Egypt, where freedom of worship is a matter of course, the question was something of a surprise to me. It just did not occur to me that, in the Britain of today, a young student would wonder about a question like that.

‘It is easy,’ I answered. ‘I can pray any time and anywhere, I can fast any day of any month, I can give alms to the poor, I can go on pilgrimage, and I can freely declare my faith. And as for the moral values of Islam, I can see no contradiction there. On the contrary, I see respect for the Islamic moral code.’

The question did, however, reverberate in my mind, and, I have to admit, I am one of the privileged few who can do what they want when they want to, simply because I am my own boss. I know of fellow Muslims who are not permitted by their employers to pray on time, or to fast the month of Ramadan. On the major Muslim feast days, many Muslims cannot take time off to celebrate without putting their jobs at risk or losing an important school day. Many Muslims cannot take time off work to go for the mandatory Friday prayer, even though it takes place during their lunch hour.

Historically speaking, human beings have now lived for centuries in multi-religious or multi-ethnic societies. It is very difficult to ensure uniformity of faith or ethnicity in a human society, much less so in a modern industrial one with its own migratory inducements and shifting patterns. Faith as an identity, not as an ideology, has been one of the most powerful factors responsible for much bloodshed in modern history, particularly in the third world countries. Most of the third world countries are multi-religious and multi-ethnic, and these cleavages have often caused grave situations of violence and bloodshed.

India saw a great bloodbath in 1947 when it got divided apparently on religious lines. More than a million people were slaughtered then and thousands continue to be killed even now manifestly on account of religious differences. Similarly, the ethnic conflict in far-away Southern Africa and next-door neighbour Sri Lanka is rocking our conscience. Hundreds of innocent persons are getting killed in these ethnic conflicts. It is, therefore, necessary to understand not only the political and socioeconomic causes of this conflict but also its religious and ideological dimensions. If communal violence is to be successfully combated it is necessary to grapple with the religious aspect of the problem too.

Much has been written on religion and culture from the perspective of the sociology of religion, as well as from the perspectives of anthropologists and sociologists in general. The last two groups have largely tended to absorb the one into the other, and, as has been the case with most modern epistemologies in the social and human sciences, religion is the element which is always dislocated from its rightful place. There has been a tendency to look at religion itself as acultural phenomenon, rather than viewing the dialectic between the two as necessary for a proper understanding of both.

In the modern vision, however, both religion and culture have come into disrepute. Religion is seen basically as those myths and superstitions which hold back rational and scientific development in society; and culture is also viewed as an impediment which keeps people from participating in the fruits of the Enlightenment (primarily rationality) and the techno-scientific developments of western society. Emphasis on the social presence of religion and culture is therefore seen largely as a problem of ‘underdeveloped third world societies’.