Antony Green : Diversity of cultures enriches the religion

Green was in Muscat on the invitation of the Diwan of Royal Court to deliver a series of lectures in the city on “Islam in the light of contemporary challenges,” on “the best way of life” and “happiness.”

He embraced Islam 21 years ago and since then has been actively delivering lectures on Islam in Britain and across the world. Formerly known as Anthony Green, he has practised many religions including Budhism before converting to Islam in 1988. Green, who worked for five years in the London Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre, now runs Green and Chambers Consulting with his friend and fellow convert Yusuf Islam and makes regular appearances on Peace TV and Islam Channel. He is well known for his efforts at the renowned “Speaker’s Corner” in London’s Hyde Park.

Green finds it interesting that the experts have started looking at the Islamic economic system when the world is shaken by one of the worst financial crises. He said that Islam provides a viable alternative economic system. However, he says that moralities and ethics are the biggest issue of the time.

Excerpts from the interview: You call yourself a British or European Muslim. In the modern intellectual parlance, Islam and the West are considered two worlds apart. Islam is defined as antithetical to whatever the West stands for. What is your take on this?

The Holy Quran is one and Islam is one all over the world, but the flavour of Islam differs according to the cultures and traditions of the land where it was cultivated and evolved as a religion. When we examine the Islamic societies all over the world, from Malaysia to Libya or in the western countries, we find a mosaic of diverse cultures and traditions. Islam is so flexible that it has never tried to impose a monolithic culture anywhere in the world. Even in the heartlands of Islam, the cultural difference is there among different countries. For instance, the Omani culture is different from the Saudi culture in many respects. Although Muslims living in the West and the East practise the same religion, their Islam has accommodated the flavour of their respective cultures. I call myself a British Muslim in the sense that the flavour of my Islam is British.

Some western Islamic thinkers such as Ziauddin Sardar and Tariq Ramadan are strong advocates of what they call a ‘European version of Islam’ which, according to them is as authentic as, if not superior to, the Islam of the so-called Islamic world. Does the cultural difference have anything to do with superiority or inferiority?

The cultural difference has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority. They also call for a moratorium on Sahri’a in the western countries. I don’t agree with such claims. How can we say one culture is more important than or superior to other culture? Each culture in the world is a reaction to a given environment. European culture was and has been a reaction to a specific European environment which differs in many respects from any oriental culture. But the Muslims in the West, like the followers of other faiths and ideologies, are part of the countries where they live and have absorbed certain features of their respective cultures. The modern western societies have evolved through the experiences of industrial revolution, modern science and Renaissance which have a defining role in the formulation of the western social fabric. Even the social etiquettes were influenced by these historical factors.

The overriding importance of clocks in the post-industrial societies has a big role in the evolution of punctuality as an important social etiquette in the West. If you fail to turn up at an arranged time, you will be considered treacherous in the West where everything is decided on the basis of the division of the time to its smallest molecules. But that may not be the case in a society where the diktats of clock do not have that kind of influence in deciding the daily routines. For instance, if you arrange the meeting after Fajr or Asr, you are not referring to the time as seconds or minutes. The precision of the time is more important in the West.

But how can you say the world is in need of Islam? What is the significance of Islam in the present world? What and how can Islam contribute to the development of humanity?

The world is desperately in need of Islam. As a student of world religions, I understood and experienced Islam as the only religion that satisfies the needs of human beings. Islam is the way of life that addresses the spiritual and physical dimensions of human life. Remembering and obeying the Almighty is the food of soul. Without this provision man will be starved of the essential nutrition required for his overall health.

Though all other religions have their own spiritual agendas, Islam’s concept of the Almighty based on monotheism makes it different from other religions. The concept of the Almighty of many religions is not as perfect as that of Islam. When Buddhism has nothing to do with the Almighty, Hinduism has a very limited concept of the Almighty. Though Christianity is closer to Islam in terms of the concept of the Almighty, the trinity has weakened and adulterated its concept of the Almighty to a large extent. You cannot mix food with poison. 

It was secularism and democracy that emerged to fill the void left by the waning of Christianity in Europe in recent centuries. Why did Islam as a religion fail to project itself in such an advantageous circumstance?

Before the 1960s or1940s, Islam did not have an opportunity in the West. Till the second half of the previous century, Islam was not really known to Europe. Barring a few exceptions, there was hardly any serious attempt to introduce Islam in the mainstream intellectual and ideological discourses of the West. Given some well-known historical factors, Christianity was the official religion in the region and the authorities have seen the advent of any other religion with suspicion. Europe was not that tolerant and multicultural before some years. Secularism and all other modern ideologies, including modern science, had to fight against a closed feudalist and religious tradition before they made inroads into the European society. The tragic history of religious persecutions in Europe point to this. It was not books but travellers who journeyed extensively in the East and Islamic lands who introduced to Europe certain liberal values. But though Europe tried to accept and adopt certain cultural traits of the far-off lands especially in the Near East, it was very circumspect about the religion of the East. Multiculturalism and religious tolerance are new to Europe while they were the hallmarks of all eastern civilisations.

Maybe the contributions of Islam or Muslim societies to science and modernity were great in the past. But why does the present Islamic world lag far behind compared to the unprecedented growth of modern science and technology in the West?

I think it is because Muslims stopped practising Islam. Muslims the world over started to practise Islam more as a culture than as a religion. The so-called ‘Islamic cultures’ that developed among Muslims have nothing to do with Islam the religion. Instead of pursuing the progressive agenda of Islam, Muslims have focused on several recalcitrant cultural practices and conventional customs which are hardly related to Islam or are even discouraged by it. The influence of many excesses such as mysticism on Islam was so heavy that it distracted the Muslims away from the programme of the Holy Quran which has very clearly synthesised the spiritual and physical requirement of man.

Why don’t you consider it part of Islam’s cultural diversity?

Diversity is different from distortion. The diversity of cultures and denominations has always enriched Islamic traditions and added to Islam’s dynamism all over the world. Islam has always endorsed all diversities which it consider good for human development. But cultural practices should not be allowed to violate and distort the essentials of Islamic faith and prevent the progress and development of society as envisaged by the Holy Quran. In short, Muslims have restricted Islam to certain cultural practices and have long forgotten its potential as a vibrant and dynamic social agenda capable of rewriting their life and situations.

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