Islam is a hybrid religion

There is also no such thing as a pure Arabic language and the Qur’an’s language is itself a hybrid of many languages. According to an Arabian ulama who lived 1100 years ago, in his book Al-Mu’arrab, there are many central terms derived from other languages. For instance the word and term shirath; al-shirath al-mustaqim (the straight path) is derived from the Latin language strada. Al-qisth (justice) is derived from the Greek Qisth which in the English language became just. Qishtash is justice. In short, the Arabic language of the Qur’an is not pure Arabic.

I have just come from Los Angeles
and Berkeley to join an activity regarding Indonesia at both universities, Berkeley
and UCLA. There is a mixed feeling from the outsiders’ point of view toward the
diversity of Indonesia. On one hand there are hopes, on the other hand there
are worries. The problem now is to manifest and increase those hopes and reduce
the worries, and to eliminate it at all if we could.

For example concerning Islam. Indonesia
now is hit by several symptoms that are identified by the westerners as
extremism or fundamentalism. They are very worried of these symptoms. But
whenever we remind them that those all are occurring in the civil liberties
arena, their worries decreased. All the appeared symptoms recently are a part
of the freedom of discussing or liberty discourse. By these liberty discourse,
its not only the clarities which is achieved, but also the process of
relativisation, and even the process of devaluation.

For example: Jihad. Nowadays
jihad becomes a word that is a part of common discourse. In the discussions
about jihad, the productiveness to make an argument belonged by them who are
reading. For who are not, even if they regularly use jihad as rhetoric, sooner
or later lose its base and balance. Then, the word jihad that had been
terrifying formerly, now undertaking the clarifications. By that clarification,
the devaluation upon the meaning of jihad occurred as public rhetoric, and
therefore become merely daily issues.

During the ‘eighties there was an
Islamic revival. Today however the Islamic world is experiencing a crisis. Part
of this lies in its confrontational attitude or feeling towards the West. I
call this a “feeling”, because the actual confrontation does not exist. What
exists is the perception as the result of historical experience, which is
rhetorically repeated: the crusades, invasion, etcetera. So that matter
precipitates within the Muslim’s consciousness and what emerges is a symptom
that appears as anti-Western.

Actually it is an anomaly,
because the Qur’an itself indicates that when the world was divided into Rome
(west) and Persia (east), the Muslims sided with Rome, and not with Persia.
Similarly the surah Al Rum, which delivered the news to the prophet Muhammad’s
followers about the defeat of Rome by the Persians, made the people of Mecca,
the prophet’s enemies happy. Although geographically Arabia was connected with Persia,
much of Arab Jazeera endured Persianisation. Nevertheless, the heart of Muslim
is actually closer to that of Rome because of the connection with the
Christianity.

That potential for conflict is
conveyed by scholars like Simon van Den Berg, the interpreter of the polemic
book of Averroes, Tahafut al-Tahafut, which is so famous and which has
influenced the ways of thinking of many Muslims. In the preface, van Den Berg
said that this connection is one important feature of Islam that Westerners do
not understand. He said: “if it is true that we could say the western culture
is actually Maria Sopra Minerva –the Christian religion adapted to local
cultural conditions — then the Islam is also built upon Greek culture. So, what
is called as Kalam science (logic), theologia, is an adaptation –at
least from the methodological side- of the Greek philosopher’s Aristotlean way
of thinking.

The people called ahlussunah
waljama’ah were followers of al-Asy’ari whose definition of God is very
Aristotelian. For example, we have the sayings of wajib, mubah (allowed),and mustahil (impossible) and think of God as eternal (qadim).
Logically God must be qadim which must be alpha, meaning having
no beginning and making it impossible for God to be jadee (new) or
preceded by his non-existence. So the words wajib and mustahil, which
are central to the kalam discourse among the ahlussunah, are based in
Aristotelian logic.

According to Ibn Taimiyah, God’s
20 Aristotlean attributes are bid’ah. It is true that God is qadim, but,
Ibn taimiyah said, “so what?” rationally it is true, but what is the
function? In those 20 attributes, ghafur (the merciful) and wadud (the
lover) are excluded. The reason is because it is impossible to formulate
through Aristotelian logic that “God rationally must be merciful” though
that God exists without beginning can be understood rationally.

Islamic culture is an amalgam, a
hybrid of several cultures. Consider the mosque as the most basic example. At
Pondok Indah there is a mosque called the blue mosque. There is no mihrab
(chamber) and no small place for an imam in the front. Why? Because its architect,
Ismail Sufyan, believed that the mihrab imitates the structure of churches.
But if he is to take this to its logical completion, there should be no minaret
or tower because the minaret is an adaptation from Persian Zoroastrian
architecture. “Manarah” means the fireplace, because the Zoroastrians understand
God as a substance that cannot be illustrated. So they symbolized him in terms
of fire as fire is a substance that is beyond description. That is why Zoroastrians
are often thought to be fire worshippers. To strengthen the holiness of fire, the
fire is kept in a high building, called manarah, the fireplace, thus the
derivation of the word “minaret”. This explanation has been completely
distorted in the popular saying: when the baby prophet Muhammad was born, the
minaret of the Zoroastrians fell.

So, when the Islamic ummah
developed and the sound of the azan (call to prayer realted to azan meaning
in the high place)was intended to reach the widest radius as possible,
the architects borrowed this feature of Zoroastrian architecture. In the
prophet’s time, azan’s simply used the roofs, for example as in the case
of Bilal, the muezzin of the Prophet. Thus the story of how the minaret became part
of Islamic culture is another example of the hybrid nature of Islam as well as
the fact that culture is not an exclusive and monolithic phenomenon but complex
and constantly changing.

There is also no such thing as a pure
Arabic language and the Qur’an’s language is itself a hybrid of many languages.
According to an Arabian ulama who lived 1100 years ago, in his book Al-Mu’arrab,
there are many central terms derived from other languages. For instance the
word and term shirath; al-shirath al-mustaqim (the straight path)
is derived from the Latin language strada. Al-qisth (justice) is
derived from the Greek Qisth which in the English language became just.
Qishtash is justice. In short, the Arabic language of the Qur’an is
not pure Arabic.

There is also Malay language
Inside the Qur’an: kafur. In an illustration “we would be given in heaven
a beverage of kafur.” (wayusqauna biha ka’san kana mizajuha kafura).
Kafur was at that time an important commodity in the Middle East,
possibly even so in the age of prophet Solomon. The term kafur barus was
not used for bedbug as we use it nowadays, but as a word for an expensive
beverage imported from Barus. “Kafur” thus served as a symbol of luxury in the
Qur’an. Thus you can see that words and their meanings can even dramatically change
over time and that culture is definitely not monolithic and static. Everything
is hybrid.

by: Nurcholish Madjid