Conference participants. Mourad Wahba and Mona Abousenna, conference organizers, are seated in the center. Paul Kurtz stands between them.

Secularism and Enlightenment in Islamic Countries

The Cairo Conference: A Hopeful Sign

Paul Kurtz

An historic conference was held in Cairo, Egypt, from December 5 to 8,

1994. It brought together Muslim and sec-ularist scholars to debate for the first time the ideals of the Enlightenment and secu-larism. The conference was organized by Professor Mourad Wahba of Cairo University, and the editors of FREE INQUIRY magazine worked closely with him. It took several years of hard work. We were aware that the term secularism is anathema to many in the Islamic world.

The conference was sponsored by the Afro-Asian Philosophy Association (founded by Professor Wahba); the Egyp-tian government; the League of Arab States; and the Federation of International Societies of Philosophy (the leading inter-national philosophical organization); among other groups. Participants arrived from Islamic countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, Turkey, India, Iran, and Indonesia, and from the Western countries of Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, and the United States.

Three editors of FREE INQUIRY—myself, Vern L. Bullough, and Timothy J. Madigan—attended, as did Rob Tielman and Matt Cherry of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. When we informed our relatives and friends of our intention to visit Egypt, we were invari-ably warned not to do so because of the danger of attack foreigners faced. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman has even brought Egyptian terrorism to the United States. Some six hundred people have been killed by fundamentalists in Egypt in the past three years. Moreover, at the time of con-

Paul Kurtz is editor of FREE INQUIRY.

ference, Egypt's Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Naguib Mahfouz, had been stabbed in the streets of Cairo and was still hospitalized.

The Cairo conference was to be held near the Olympic stadium, where Pres-ident Anwar Sadat had been assassinated by extremists in 1981. Nevertheless, we found fears for our personal safety to be unwarranted: our hosts were congenial, the venue was safe, and the atmosphere cordial. The immediate purpose of the conference, entitled "Averroes and Enlightenment," was to celebrate the approaching 800th anniversary of the death of Averroes (Arab name Ibn Rushd). This was the first of many commemora-tions to be held throughout the world.

Averroes is considered to be one of

Islam's greatest philosophers. He was born in Cordoba, Spain, in 1126 and died in 1198. He lived through a period of great cultural and philosophical ferment in Spain, then a pluralistic society in which three religious traditions—Islamic, Christian, and Judaic—peacefully coex-isted. The Islamic world from the eighth to twelfth centuries experienced consider-able intellectual creativity and it preserved many of the classical philosophical writ-ings, which had been lost to Christianized Europe.

Averroes devoted himself to translating Aristotle into Arabic and commenting on his long-forgotten writings. His interpre-tations of Aristotle as a naturalistic, indeed humanistic, philosopher were in sharp contrast to the theological outlook

36 FREE INQUIRY

FREE INQUIRY editors Paul Kurtz, Vern Bullough, and Tim mids.

Madigan (seated on camel) tour the pyra-

that dominated large sectors of the world at that time. Averroës argued for the autonomy of philosophical reason and sci-ence. He accepted Aristotle's view of the active intellect, which denied the exis-tence of personal immortality; and instead of focusing on salvation, he argued that reason can contribute to the good life and must have priority over faith.

Averroës's books were ordered to be burned by his caliph in response to funda-mentalist criticisms of them (though Averroës regained official favor just before his death). His influence waned in the Islamic world in subsequent centuries for he was thought to be dangerous to the faith. However, his work had a strong influence on Jewish scholars who translat-ed his writings into Hebrew and especial-ly on Latin scholars in Europe between 1200 and 1600, where his writings were translated into Latin and widely read, for example, by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas at the University of Paris.

At first banned because they seemed to contradict the Catholic faith, Aver-roës's books had a profound impact in the West. His influ-ence on the Italian universities, espe-cially in Padua and Bologna, helped lead to the emergence of modern science (as Vern Bullough ar-gued in a paper read at the conference), and these develop-ments eventually culminated in the Enlightenment. Indeed, as Professor Wahba pointed out, had Averroës had as much impact in the Muslim world as he did in the Western world, then Muslims might have experienced a similar Renaissance, Enlightenment, and scien-tific revolution. Instead Muslim scholar-ship languished and became sterile, and theologians such as Al-Ghazali attacked rational inquiry and defended the revela-tions of the Koran.

he need for a new Enlightenment in I the Arab world today was expressed

in most of the papers delivered at the con-ference; for example, by Egypt's minister of culture, Farouk Hosney; by Ambass-ador Mahmoud Osman, who read a mes-sage from the minister of foreign affairs, Amr Moussa; and by the deputy chief of the Arab League. Their views were the most gratifying for the participants to hear, especially since the Islamic world is in a convulsive state of confrontation with Muslim fundamentalists. Many flash-points around the world dramatize the explosive character of the situation. We have witnessed brutal conflicts in Chech-nya, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc.; Islamic fundamentalists resist moderniza-tions and secularization; they threaten governments in Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and other countries. In Algeria

the Islamic Salvation Front is carrying on a war of attrition "against all dialogue, all cease-fire, all reconciliation." Even in Turkey, the only avowedly secular state in the Muslim world, the fundamentalists are demanding an end to the secular republic established by Ataturk. Many Arab gov-ernments, including the Egyptian, are fearful of the rise of fundamentalism, but they are hesitant to openly attack religious fanaticism or to defend the virtues of sec-ularism. Some pessimists believe that the

fundamentalists are gaining strength so rapidly in the Islamic world that it will be difficult to overtake them.

The participants at the conference deplored this violence and they defended the ideals of the Enlightenment and secu-larism. Ambassador Osman told the con-ferees that Egypt is becoming a secular society, a development he welcomed. "We need to modernize," he said, "if we are to compete and to participate in a rapidly changing world; and if we are to raise our material and cultural standards of life. Al-though Egypt is an Islamic state, we wish to proclaim democracy and human rights, and we oppose any kind of terrorism." The revival of Averroism is all for the good, he said, for it is important that Arabs ap-preciate the rich Islamic philosophical tra-dition and the roots of the Enlightenment in Averroës. These views were reported in

the press. Indeed, I was interviewed on Egyptian television, where I made the same points. De-fending an Islamic scholar who lived eight centuries ago, however, is not viewed as dangerous as publicly defend-ing secularist ideals.

Before the estab-lishment of the

state of Israel, Egypt had a large Jewish community. Most of the Jews have since fled. However, an ancient Christian Copt community of six million persons still remain in Egypt;

they feel beleaguered by the surrounding larger Islamic population. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the secretary general of the United Nations, is a Copt, and incidentally is married to a Jewish woman. And Professor Wahba, our host, is also of Copt background. There is a powerful impulse among Egypt's influential Christian minority to defend pluralism, freedom, tol-erance, and human rights. If Egypt and other Islamic countries are to solve their severe problems of rapid population

Spring 1995 37

growth and poverty, they need to empha-size education, cultural enrichment, and scientific research, but this can only be pursued where there is freedom of inquiry. If economic growth is to be stimulated, then Egypt must enter into the modern world. These advanced views are shared by many educated Egyptians. Unfor-tunately, there is tremendous opposition to them by dogmatic Islamists.

Mona Abousenna, secretary of confer-ence and professor at University Ain Shams, has written that freedom of inquiry has a long way to go in the Muslim world. If there is to be an advance, then the Koran itself needs to be read as any other book, and so there is a vital need for Koranic criticism analogous to the kind of bibli-cal/literary criticism that thrives in the West.' Freedom of inquiry into the founda-tions of the Muslim religion and the claims of Muhammad is almost impossible to attain in Arabic culture, she said, but if there is to be progress, she argued, it needs to be not only permitted, but encouraged. Professor Ioanna Kuçuradi, secretary gen-eral of the Federation of Philosophical Societies and commissioner for human rights in Turkey, was also forthright in her defense of freedom of conscience and the need for an Islamic Enlightenment.' Although the West hears the loud voices of militant fundamentalists from Islamic countries, it does not hear the views on the behalf of freedom, which are more often than not muted by intimidation. There is great fear of possible retaliation from fun-damentalist forces.

At a summit meeting of the fifty-two member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which convened in Morocco just after our conference, a plea was made for moderation in the Islamic world. The conference began by stating that there is a need for "an alternative image to a Western world whose percep-tion of Islam is been dominated by the fundamentalists and not by the forces of development and moderation."' On December 13, 1994, Moroccan King Hassan II (a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad) attacked Muslim extremists. He said, "No one and no authority is enti-tled to ... take the path of extremism and resort to aggression." Speaking of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood he said: "In Islam, nobody can tell you what to believe."

Clearly, there are liberal forces in the Muslim world who welcome rapproche-ment and peace. Moreover, with the peace process underway between the Israelis and Palestinians, perhaps an era of mutual coexistence and prosperity can develop in the Middle East, and perhaps a new Islamic Enlightenment, long overdue, can emerge. But it is an uphill struggle against powerful opposition.

In my view, significant liberalizing of Islam will come from growing Islamic minorities in Western countries. There are an estimated twenty million Muslims living in the West—five million in the United States, four million in France, three million in Great Britain, and sig-nificant minorities in Germany, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, and elsewhere. These minorities are asking for equal rights. In some countries, where the state funds Christian or humanist schools,

"The Cairo conference was a sig-nificant though very modest first step in bridging the barriers be-tween Islam and secularism."

Muslims are demanding equal support of their schools. When I petitioned the Congress as a secular humanist to open the House and the Senate with a nonreli-gious statement six years ago, I was denied that right by a federal court, because I did not intend to engage in prayer. But one can ask if Christians and Jews can open the Congress with a prayer, should not the same right be accorded to mullahs to intone the Koran? What will fundamentalist Bap-tists or conservative Catholics who con-sider the United States to be a Christian state say to that?

With the rise of Islam, perhaps the mer-its of secularism, where the state is neutral about religion, will be better appreciated. In many Western countries Muslim women now demand the right to wear the head scarf in classes. In France this had been denied by the government, which is defending France's secular tradition in the public schools. At an inauguration of the Grand Mosque of Lyons in France recent-ly, it was encouraging to read that the mosque's leaders praised the French Revolution and its ideals of tolerance and

human rights. Is this not a great opportuni-ty to defend the separation of church and state and also to cultivate a respect for sec-ular principles among a new generation of young people of Islamic descent in Western democratic countries? We hope this same respect will in time spread to the rest of the Arab world.

This issue is especially important for secular humanists in Islamic countries, for Islamic fundamentalists have refused to extend the right of nonbelief to them—as the cases of Taslima Nasreen in Bangladesh and Salman Rushdie so poignantly demonstrate. Blasphemy is considered the cardinal sin, punishable by death. But how can Islam be a full partic-ipant in the world community without rec-ognizing the right of individuals to express dissenting opinions?

The Cairo conference was a significant though very modest first step in bridging the barriers between Islam and secular-ism. At the very least, it stands as a sym-bol of the need to moderate the shrill voic-es of Islam and allow people from the Islamic world to enter into the broader planetary community, a community in which the ideals of humanism and democ-racy prevail and in which the basic human right of freedom of conscience—the right to believe or not to believe—is a cherished first principle.

Notes

1. See her new monograph, Language and Culture (Cairo: 1994).

2. See the article on p. 39. 3. The Egyptian Gazette, December 13, 1994. •

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