Whose's Islam is right? It seems to me that what we are really talking about are the appeal of different types of Religiosity- Generally speaking, we can organize the types in to three categories, Practical/Utilitarian, Gnostic and Experiential Religiosity - lets explore these and see what appeals to Pakistanis understanding of these types, in this particular post lets look at what is generally thought of as Practical or Utilitarian -- See if you can identify in these types, some of the positions presented by forum members:
Pragmatic (utilitarian) religiosity
In this type of religiosity, a view or an action’s ultimate purpose, utility and outcome (this worldly or other worldly) are of paramount importance to the believer. It is a religion for life (not synonymous with life or higher than life). In its purely other-worldly forms, it wears the garb of asceticism and Sufism (Khajeh Abdollah Nesari) and, in its this-worldly forms, the garb of politics and statesmanship (Seyed Jamal Afghani, etc.). Its central axis is emotion and practical rationality. Among the general masses, the emotional aspect gains the upper hand and, among learned people, the practical rationality (that is to say the capacity to match means to ends).
Pragmatic religiosity is mundane, causal (not reasoned), hereditary, deterministic (not arising from choice or free will), emotional, dogmatic, ritualistic, ideological, identity-bound, external, collective, legalistic-juristic, mythic, imitative, obedient, traditional and habitual. Here, the volume of deeds is the measure of the intensity or otherwise of conviction: performing the hajj numerous times, visiting shrines, praying frequently and so on. Through these actions, the religious person feels more successful and closer to God. Mass rituals and rites nourish this religiosity more than anything else. The frequency of collective prayers, mourning ceremonies, Koranic recitations, retreats, Friday prayers, gatherings and preaching sessions, crowds of believers at shrines and mosques, hordes of fighters in the arenas of jihad amount to the glorification and splendor of this type of religiosity and serve as a source of pride to it. It both stirs up emotions and draws strength from them. Since this type of religiosity is hereditary and not based on reasoning, since emulation and obedience play the biggest role in perpetuating it, since it devotes itself to deeds rather than thought and reflection, and since it is constructed upon emotion and excitation rather than rational endeavour and inquiry, it gradually becomes tainted by dogmatism and prejudice and loses the capacity to tolerate dissent. It defends set habits and traditions dogmatically and sees people who tend to raise questions and reflect upon things as crooks and heretics. Hence, slowly but surely it goes down the path of casting out and excommunicating people.
This is the religiosity of the clergy, and clerics like to emphasize the importance of submission and emulation and religious passion and the performance of rites and rituals to believers. In this way, a believer’s religion becomes their identity and they defend it in the way they would defend their homeland or property or life, not in the way a scientist would defend a truth. In other words, they want religion so that they can feel like somebody and distinguish themselves from others, not because they want to arrive at some truth.
Believers, in this type of religiosity, are the slaves and God is the master and the sultan (not the God of wisdom, nor the Alluring Beloved). And the Prophet wears the cloak of a commander, issuing orders about what a believer may and may not do, and speaking of glad tidings and ominous portents (not an insightful man of knowledge with exalted experiences, nor a wise and brilliant thinker). And sin amounts to disobeying his orders rather than being something that causes a contraction of the heart. And obedience is part of a deal aimed at accruing some gain or benefit, not something that causes an expansion of the heart, nor yet a participation in a spiritual experience. And following the Prophet means carrying out his commands. Morality is always relegated to second place in this religiosity and is considered to be decorative at best, entailing no religious burdens or duties in itself.
Since imitative believers do not have the courage and strength to look at the Exalted for themselves or to tackle difficult concepts, they look for mediators and they find what they are seeking in the form of religious personalities past and present, such that they spend more time visiting shrines than going to mosques.
In this type of religiosity, personalities are transformed into myths and lose touch with human history and geography.. Dogmatic distinctions drawn between us and them and believers and infidels, the firm and unyielding categorization of people, the simplification of the world and the refusal to see the complexities, subtleties and variations of human existence, and, subsequently, engaging in unsubtle behavior inappropriate to the elaborate and mysterious nature of life, creating strict ideological divisions, seeing people as either heavenly or hellish, viewing God as an impatient avenger, imagining God as one’s own God and the Protector of one’s own sect who is uncaring about everyone else, narrowing the definition of truth and broadening the definition of falsehood, highlighting the differences between sects and seeing one’s own sect as the axis and measure of truth and falsehood and the creator of the true human identity, ignoring the common attributes of human beings and emphasizing every small difference in belief, and compartmentalizing humanity into so many different sects are some of the characteristics and defining features of this kind of religiosity.
But learned, pragmatic religiosity is itself of two types: this worldly and other worldly; and, of course, it has important differences with the pragmatic religiosity of the general masses. Here, the central axis is practical rationality, not emotion. And practical reason engages in planning and measures means against ends. But, whatever it does, it is practical and it wants religion for its utility.
Since this-worldly, learned, pragmatic religiosity acts rationally, it has no affinity with myths, it does not blow the horn of emulation, it does not rouse blind emotion, it does not spare tradition the rod of criticism, it has no particular fondness for the clergy; nonetheless, and most importantly, it seeks movement rather than truth, which is precisely the main attribute of ideologies. It sees religion as the servant of politics or revolution or democracy, etc. And, concentrating on the ultimate goal or purpose, it tries to pick out what it finds useful in religion and to set aside anything in it that is of no use.
The God of this kind of religiosity is an observing, supervising God who expects people to act responsibly. His servants are hardworking, shrewd, reward-minded and responsible employees. His Prophet is a prudent politician and a methodical planner. The other-worldly joy or wretchedness of his followers depend on their this-worldly joy or wretchedness. Its religious personalities are historical and non-mythical, and as subject to criticism and analysis as anyone else. There is no element of wonder or secrets or the inner world in this type of religiosity. Seeing human beings, the world and history in simple, ideological terms remains the order of the day.
The collective and demonstrative aspect of religion (apart from its ritualistic dimension) is firmly in place. Political, social, revolutionary or democratic religions are products of this kind of religiosity. Sin is like breaking the law and reward is synonymous with achieving the goal or reaching the desired destination. And obedience to the Prophet is like the shrewd obedience of an employee to a superior, not of a devoted follower to a master, nor of a lover to the beloved. The element of practical endeavor is still prominent, but here it is purposeful endeavour directed towards a this-worldly goal. Religious law and jurisprudence [fiqh] are justified in rationalistic terms. Morality, too, takes on a revolutionary or democratic sense and, ultimately, neither morality nor fiqh are seen as possessing any mysterious qualities or secret and hidden aims. Most modern religious intellectuals and reformers fall into this category and distinguished personalities such as Seyed Jamal, Shariati, Seyyd Qutb and Ubdah are its prominent representatives in this century.
Most clerics in all religions throughout history have fallen into the opposite category: other-worldly, learned, pragmatic believers. And their only difference with the pragmatic general masses is that what the masses obtain second hand, they obtain from the source.
And, in the words of Mowlana Jalaleddin Rumi they are " well versed in the traditional sciences and brimming with historical accounts (hadith) and narratives". Apart from this, their religiosity is no different from that of the masses in terms of its being causal, hereditary, dogmatic, ritualistic, collective, juristic, mythic and obedient. Their God and Prophet and This interpretation was directed by Mowlana Jalaleddin Rumi to Noah’s son who disobeyed his father, relied on his own swimming skills and knowledge, and subsequently drowned in the relentless storms and floods: "Would that he’d never acquired learning/ so that he’d have been driven onto Noah’s ship/or that he’d been less well versed in the traditional sciences/ and more enamored by revelation instead" devotion and sinfulness are also of the same variety. In fact, they are the ones who teach the masses their utilitarian religiosity.
Their morality is a religious (not rational) morality. And, in terms of knowledge, they are single-sourced. And their world is a world filled with hidden powers and mysterious acts of assistance and invisible hands. Among these believers, the performance of duty gains the upper hand over the pursuit of purposeful designs and shrewd policies. Most jurists and, in our times, belong to this category.
