Islam, the West and the need for honesty

October 16, 2004
Patrick Sookhdeo says Muslims must rethink literal interpretations of the Koran.

Patrick Sookhdeo says Muslims must rethink literal interpretations of the Koran.
Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones



"I think the West has made a strategic mistake in seeking to distinguish al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden from the rest of Islam, by arguing they are extremists, and therefore cannot be authentic Muslims," he says. "This is highly questionable.




The distortion of classical Islam down the centuries has come to be used as justification for a warrior theology, which has no distinction between religion and state, and sanctions violence against non-believers.

Western societies, too, must revisit fundamental principles, he says. Political leaders in the West will do nobody any favours if, under the rubric of multiculturalism, they allow the emergence of Muslim enclaves, with sharia-style practices.

"The problem with Islam is greater than most in the West realise," Sookhdeo says. "One of the strengths of the West is the development of liberal societies based on pluralism. The difficulty with classical Islam is that, ultimately, it does not accept pluralism in that form."

So why should a Christian minister have any expertise on the challenge posed by radical Islam, or urge what amounts to reformation on another faith?

Sookhdeo was born in Guyana in 1947, when it was still a British outpost in South America, populated largely by the descendants of either slaves from Africa or indentured labourers from India. His father was a Hindu who converted to Islam to marry his Muslim mother. At the age of four, Sookhdeo was sent to an Islamic seminary, or madrassa, and educated according to strict precepts that insist there is only one true god, his messenger was Muhammad and to say or think otherwise is blasphemy.

In the early '60s, his father took the family to Britain. In 1965, as a student, Sookhdeo had his first encounter with a Christian prayer group. "I had associated Christianity with racism, colonialism and violence. But when I met this group of people with religious values, they were not violent . . . they were people with genuine concern for a foreigner like myself. That began the change in my thinking."

By 1969, Sookhdeo had converted to Christianity and taken up studies to become an Anglican priest. He combined this with a doctorate in Oriental and African studies, and began exploring avenues for dialogue between the great religions. He and his New Zealand-born wife, Rosemary, became alarmed by the ill-treatment of Christian minorities in Islamic nations. The Iranian revolution of 1979 and the revival of sharia law in parts of the Islamic world were creating societies where non-Muslims were sometimes brutalised, and where those who dared convert from Islam risked punishment by death.

In 1989, Sookhdeo created the London-based Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, and from this emerged an extensive database on extremist movements and ideologies across the Muslim world. By 1991, Sookhdeo was warning that an "Islamic storm" was about to be unleashed. He has published eight books, including his latest, Understanding Islamic Terrorism (Isaac Publishing). He also runs the Barnabus Fund, a charity that supports persecuted Christian minorities. Prominent supporters include Professor Graeme Clark, a former Australian of the Year and founder of Melbourne's Bionic Ear Institute.

In Melbourne for a private visit, Sookhdeo argued it was crucial to understand the dynamics driving hostility by Islamic extremists towards the West. Fear of modernity and globalisation is far from confined to Muslim societies. But it is more acute in the Arab world, in particular, where the West's relative economic and technological prowess creates a profound sense of humiliation.

"As they see it, globalisation is collapsing their societies, and materialism and neo-colonialism are destroying traditional values," he says. "So they begin to ask: 'Why don't we have all of these things? Why don't we fight back?' I believe it is time they addressed that sense of humiliation differently, and recognised this is an interdependent world."

Sookhdeo sees important advances in countries such as Malaysia, where Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is promulgating a model of "progressive Islam", in which Muslim societies strive to be more inclusive of other cultures and more open to innovative thinking in science and technology.

Sookhdeo says there is a growing suspicion in the non-Arabic Islamic world of more extreme doctrines emerging from the Middle East. With Saudi Arabians pumping $US100 billion ($A140 billion) in the past 20 years into promoting their version of Islam across the world, is this another form of colonialism at work?

"East Asian Islam is much more peaceful because it integrates the secular and sacred, and it has always understood the constraints of operating in a multi-ethnic and multi-faith society," he says.

"In the Middle East, in contrast, Islam was paramount and everything else was subsidiary and subservient. If that model is imposed on East Asia, it will bring with it greater conflict."

He cites the tragedy in Darfur, Sudan, where Muslim militias have launched a genocidal assault on black Africans, as evidence of an ideology of exclusion and subjugation. Likewise, the targeting of Somali refugee Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who requires a 24-hour bodyguard after entering Dutch politics and renouncing Islam as oppressive and misogynist.

Sookhdeo points out that while Muslim communities claim full legal protection and civil rights in Western societies, the same privileges are not always reciprocated.

He says it is crucial to meaningful dialogue that Muslim leaders recognise no culture is without blemish: "They see our history as a negative: 'You are colonialists. You have humiliated us. You are evil.' To which the West says, 'Yes, we plead guilty.'

"I think it is better to say: 'Yes, we have made mistakes, but so, too, has the Muslim world'. Both sides need to admit their errors in the past. It is not racism to say no culture or religion is without fault. This is honesty. It emphasises our common humanity."

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