Not war but ijtihad

Of all the television images after the fall of Baghdad, the most powerful from the point of view of symbolism was the looting and destruction of the Museum of Baghdad. The symbolism becomes even more acute with the revelation by antiquities experts that they foresaw the looting and were assured by US officials that these would be protected. Despite the assurance, American soldiers merely stood by as the museum and its contents were spirited away. By the way, spirited away is so apt given that the importance of the artifacts as material objects are not as important as what they stood for – the spirit of an age when Muslim culture had been superior. The artifacts confirmed the contributions of Baghdad to Western civilization. The artifacts were the evidence of a truth that is not known enough to the world at large and makes for its failure to find other avenues for resolving political conflicts in that part of the world. If there are people who did not approve of the war, it had to do with incalculable loss, of things that cannot be recovered – life being one of them. So, too with the truth that these artifacts represented.

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I had once received a vicious letter from a reader who said he had never heard of Muslim civilization or its contributions to Civilization. As far as he was concerned, the ancient philosophies were recovered by monks in the middle ages. This is only part of the truth. The antiquities in Baghdad so casually neglected by the conquest of Iraq would have helped in balancing both sides of it. Professor McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago was among those who met with Pentagon officials before the war. "We warned them about looting at the very beginning. I was assured it would be secured. Now he said the loss was immeasurable, " says Gibson. Indeed, the feeling of frustration is shared by antiquities experts in the rest of the world. The museum housed key artifacts of ancient Mesopotamia (the old name for region around Iraq) which is referred to as the birthplace of Western civilization. How ironic that it should have been destroyed at a time when those who think themselves superior because of their military strength marched into the city to liberate Iraqis. It is good to hear that the world’s leading archaelogists are meeting in Paris today for a rescue plan for the looted treasures.

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I wonder how things would have been if the origins of western civilization in Mesopotamia (Iraq) were more universally appreciated. It may be time to let the world know that there had been golden age Islam between the eighth and 12th centuries AD. Although it began to decline in the 13th century its influence lasted many more years but like other regions outside the Industrial Revolution it was overtaken by Europe and by extension the United States at least as far as rapid material progress was concerned. It may help those who decide policy to be aware of this past.

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The past never leaves us. It is part of the present. We can deal with the present more competently if the past were a point of departure. The brilliant French historian, Fernand Braudel tells us that for four or five centuries, "Islam was the most brilliant civilization in the Old World. That golden age lasted, broadly speaking from the reign of Mamun, the creator of the House of Science in Baghdad (at once a library, a translation center and an astronomical observatory) to the death of Averroes, the last of the great Muslim philosophers which took place at Marrakesh in 1198 when he was just over 72 years old. But the history of the arts and of ideas is not the only key to the time of Islam’s greatness.

At its higher levels we owe to the golden age of Muslim civilization an immense body of scientific discoveries and an exceptional revival of ancient philosophy . Braudel cites Islam’s for trigonometry and and algebra "In trigonometry the Muslims invented the sine and the tangent. Mohammed Ibn Musa’s Chosranian an algebraic treatise translated into Latin in the 16th century was a primer in the West. Other successes of Islam included mathematic geographers, its astronomical observatories and instruments and its excellent discoveries of latitude and longitude. In his extensively researched history of civilizations Braudels gives high marks to Muslims for optics, for chemistry, the distillation of alcohol, the manufacture of elixirs and for pharmacy. . More than half of remedies in medicine is owed to Muslim civilization.

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The question we must ask is what had become of Islam that from that position of strength, it should now be so vulnerable to be taught lessons on modernity? I have many Muslim friends who are quite open to change and do not see this as in conflict with their religion. In fact, such open-minded Muslims already accept aspects of the modern world although they sometimes feel besieged. There is an important word in the Koran that should be as widely promoted in our day as a counterpoint to jihad — ijtihad. It comes from the Koran and it can open the door to reforms that are needed to bring Muslim countries in step with the modern times. The Prophet had the wisdom to foresee a future when there would be cases that could not be answered by the book or the sounna (tradition). For such cases he asks his followers to use other methods including ijtihad which means a personal effort at interpretation. Indeed ijtihad played a big role in the development of Muslim thought. Every religion indeed has its emergency door exits, Islam may delay or oppose changes but it can also be influenced and outflanked, Braudel writes. For this column’s purpose it also opens new avenues by which future wars because of a clash in civilizations can be avoided.

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Baguio Revisited. I am one of those who might have gone to Hong Kong for the long Easter holidays but opted to stay home. My would-be hosts in Hong Kong had come instead to SARS-free Manila. Veronica (the CNN anchor) and family sans husband Mark Phillips who is covering the war in Iraq extended her maternity leave and do some touring in home country. In fact, she booked our stay at the Manor Hotel in Camp John Hay in Hong Kong via Internet. I would not have known about the facilities of a luxury hotel in the heart of what is arguably the most beautiful part of this mountain city if she had not done that. Ah, the wonders of modern technology! So in a way I became a tourist in a place that for me was suffused with memories.

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Being a tourist, she ignored all precautions and warnings that discourage natives. She was warned of the traffic, that it would be an excruciating six to seven hour journey road. I told her that my recollection of journeys to Baguio as a child was that these were pleasant, that we did not mind at all how long the journey took. Filtered among many insights was the remembrance that a trip to Baguio was considered a major undertaking which included packing pots and pans and linen for a month. I remember being packed in a car still in pyjamas at the crack of dawn so we could avoid traffic and arrive in time for lunch. There was the option of traveling by air but that was immediately rejected as being more hazardous. For both my husband and I, this trip was a sentimental journey — we honeymooned here — and although there had been other subsequent journeys, this time we were traveling as three generations and that was especially poignant, Veronica, her two children Gabriel and Isabel and ourselves. It was an occasion to bridge gaps and we found ourselves pointing to places and points that had once been but were no longer. We searched in vain for that little screened restaurant in San Miguel, Tarlac that had once been de rigueur stop-over for travelers to Baguio because they served the most delicious hamburgers. From others we learned that the owner was the chef and like a true entrepreneur served an original version of hamburgers – he used spring onions instead of onions for the meat mixture and the result was delicious. Veronica assuaged our disappointment at not finding it again and said "but that must be fifty years ago!"

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