Suchergebnisse

As universal religions, both Islam & Christianity make universal claims on the lives of their adherents. Over the last 3 cent's, however, Christianity has been forced drastically to curtail its claims, with the result that religious life in the West has been restricted to a narrow sphere; the secular nature of society is now taken for granted. Nationalism, erupting in the French Revolution, gave pol'al expression to secular tendencies that had heretofore found their outlet in philosophy & sci; it has been one of the strongest forces in bringing about the sharp Western separation of the sacred & the profane. Islam's position today more closely resembles that of the medieval than of the modern Christian church, for it still claims a loyalty that transcends & negates national & secular ties, & in large measure it receives this kind of loyalty even from Moslems who are no longer devout. Arab nationalism sees its main antagonist in Western 'imperialism' & not in the religious & dynastic forces at home. Arab nationalism, therefore, calls on religion as an ally; it has behind it a quasi-religious drive, mobilizes the fanaticism of believers, & exploits hostility to all that is not Islamic. In the Middle East the opposition between secular nationalism & ecumenical religion appears to be dissolved in the larger struggle against the non-Moslem world. J. A. Fishman.

Not sincethe tenth century has Islam been confronted with a greater challenge of self-examination than in the first half of the twentieth century. During its early expansion Islam came into contact with Greek science and philosophy. Its failure to adapt itself to Greek science and philosophy, and to integrate Greek methods and teachings into its own, determined the character of subsequent Islamic thought and institutions. Between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries, Islamic society lapsed into scientific and cultural stagnation, accompanied by political corruption and social disorganization. The Muslims transmitted Greek science and philosophy to Europe without having been influenced by it to any great degree. Whereas Western Europe accepted the Greek heritage and tried to harmonize it with Christian teachings, the Muslim world remained essentially unaffected. Assuming a negative attitude, it finally rejected Greek thought and learning as heretical and, in self-defense, returned to literalism and orthodoxy. Ever since, Islam has been dominated by the theology of its medieval ulama or doctors of Islamic Law.

It is not, I imagine, necessary to argue in this Journal (whose birth I welcome) that the study of African politics should never be separated from the study of African history. There was a time when the political institutions of African states (except in a few special cases, such as Ethiopia) meant 'colonial political institutions, together with such indigenous African institutions as had been permitted to survive within the colonial framework'. For students of colonial government the study of African history had no obvious relevance. For those who wished to explain such institutions as Legislative Councils in British-controlled territories, Communes Mixtes in French-controlled territories, or the Conseil de Gouvernement in the Belgian Congo, the history of the European state which had imposed the institution was understandably more significant than the histories of the African peoples upon whom it had been imposed. As for such indigenous African political systems as had survived, in a modified form, within the colonial administrative structure, their study was—by a kind of unwritten convention—left to the social anthropologists, whose historical interests varied according to the character of the system and the approach of the anthropologist.