The Three Spheres of Islam

Laila El-Sissi24 CommentsEgypt

Islam has not progressed. With time, due to some inherent issues with doctrine of the religion (decreed that it is words of God written for all times), and due to historical events (Crusades had such a negative impact and forced the Islamic states inwards and totally rejected the foreign influences,..). In addition, the narrow Sunni interpretations rejected, since the 10th century, any new interpretation of the faith.

Islam to the vast majority of the casual practitioners in the Middle East and to most observers is simply one entity with no axis, complexity, and facets. This neither true nor meaningful, but it shows how Islam is in a state of crises as it tries to shed it’s stifled and catatonic state of existence.

On deeper look at Islam, we can identify three spheres of Islam and like Babushkas dolls, each resides inside the other. The first sphere is the internal faith, the second is the outward manifestations of religious piety, and the third referred to as the Political Islam. The existence of these three spheres seems unique to Islam in the Middle East and does not match any other religion except some of the aspects of Judaism in Israel.

The first sphere is the inner faith and personal behavior. This would the core of all faiths that bind a person’s core beliefs to a particular faith. In Egypt, this is likely to be the weakest manifestation of the religion. Witness the chaos of the land, the outright acts of rudeness and deceit commonly practiced in the streets, the lies, the unrestrained accusations against all oppositions, the common practices of commercial cheating and thievery. The depth of personal faith that should be manifest in the first sphere is lacking.

The second sphere, is the outward appearance of the religion, these could be the rituals, the actual dress practice (like head cover, Niqab, hats, short men dresses), personal appearance (facial hair), public prayers, building mosques, and all manifestations of belonging to a special group.

The second sphere seems to be unconnected to the first sphere largely because the outward manifestations are not an indicative of the strength of the inward faith. For example, it could not be that a long beard is an indication of a deep religious faith. Praying five times and reciting Quran without one second of contemplation of the meaning of the words could hardly be an indication to the strength of the faith.

What about the blaring sound of the Quran broadcasting from a moving motorcycle with no one listening, of course, but with the outward believes that an action is an act of piety! The Quran blasting out of speakers in a restaurant as if anyone is listening to words of God while eating kebab! How about the 1000 minarets of the mosques blaring azan (call to prayers) five times a day when people go hungry in the streets while the exploitation and abuse of women are rampant.

In general, the second sphere is a manifestation of the Sharia (religious edicts), as interpreted by the learned ones. The second sphere does not allow the freedom for a person of doing his own interpretation of his faith as the dominant sect in Islam (Sunni) has declared the road to reinterpretation closed a thousand years ago!

The third sphere is the so-called, political Islam

The third sphere is a recent rewriting of the history of the glorious days of early Islam. The theory goes that our current failings are due to our failure to live like our early fathers. Every failed culture during the history (from Ancient Egypt to the Middle Kingdom in China) attempted act with a result of failing again. It is a reaction to the threat of modernity by looking backward as a mean for moving forward.

The third sphere contains a spectrum of position right from the Wahabi-inspired Qaeda to the Moslem Brotherhood to the most modern reinterpretation of MB that encompasses democracy. This third sphere is the most troubling to all of use and presents a threatening face to the modern world.

Below are some of the fallacies associated with the third sphere:

There was Islamic State with well-planned state machinery from the beginning: There was no well-documented state with functioning army, bureaucracy, financial management, rules of successions or any other manifestation of a real state is the early history of Islam. Governance during Mohamed’s life was fully conducted by him; he was the spiritual leader and the governor of the community affairs. The picture did not change much during the first four Khalifa’s (Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman, and Ali). As the Arabs conquered most of the Persian Empire and parts of the Byzantine Empire, they allow the conquered people to manage the state affairs as this was highly developed.
We need a new Caliphate is required because that how we enforce justice and fairness to our people: During the next 500 years of Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate the system degenerated into a more or less monarchy. It was mostly arbitrary and unjust system with few brief interruptions (3 years during Omar Ibn Abdel Aziz). The system was not inspiring, democratic or fair to the public.
Islam encompassed democracy from the beginning: There is no historical proof for such a claim. The early Islamic society with a tribal society and a highly stratified rank were well documented. Shura or consultations were conducted sometime between the upper class (the self-chosen elite) and was not necessarily followed. To be noted, that until recently, the Salafis (and, presumably, the Wahabis as well) specifically rejected Democracy as alien to Islam. However, more recently Salafis adopted the Democracy as means to gain power and enforce their agenda.
It takes not great discovery to see that these three manifestations are not necessarily tightly connected and in many instances are really disconnected.

The weakest is the first sphere, the second is artificial and only deals with rituals, the third is outright out of date and threatens the world peace as well the welfare of the people. Until the Islamic world fully encompasses the first sphere as the only what matters for personal faith and adopt a modern civil governance, there will be no peace or advancement.