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Of course we instinctively want to maintain that we are different, that we are better, that we have
answered these questions in our own way and therefore there is no need for foreign ideas to help us.
But is this really the case? Have we really answered these questions? I keep mentioning questions
and answers, but I have not named them.
What is remarkable is that these are all questions that we know surface in our Islamic societies
and yet we push them away with the claim that we are different and that these are foreign questions.
The most important justification for the claim that these questions are foreign is that other societies
have taken many steps to begin to answer these questions.
These are brave and courageous steps, even if we do not like the answers provided. Rather than
condemning Western society in particular for having examined and theorized these matters, we should
open our eyes and ears to the fact that we share these problems.
What we face within our Islamic communities today is mostly a reaction to the fact that the
questions are out in the open, and we can no longer hide from them. This explains to me why we have
a rising push toward the simplifying and simplistic Salafi worldview, which is the view that looks to
those early Muslims (Salafis) of the Prophet’s era and the two generations of Muslims who followed.
It is a desire to return to the certainties of seventh- and eighth-century Islam. The purity signified by
this early era of Islam is held up to be a possibility for Muslims in the twenty-first century. It is an
imagined group that we are all invited to return to, by some of the most ferocious Islamist groups of
the day, such as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and Al Qaeda. The invitation is to remove ourselves from the
twenty-first century, and the reality that we and the foreign are no longer separable, and to return to a
mythical state of pious nonknowledge.
What do I mean by pious nonknowledge? I mean the state where we pretend that by ignoring the
questions, and the issues that led to these questions, we can somehow remove this knowledge from
our minds. This includes questions around sexuality, gender equality, political and social rights, and
the right to discover yourself rather than comply with the ideals of the community. We know that other
societies and other religions have faced these questions and have developed many different answers.
Perhaps some of these answers are relevant to our lives as Muslims as well? And remember that
knowledge does not consist simply of answers. Great knowledge consists of being familiar with the
questions, the doubts, the possibility that things might be different.
The truth that you must become accustomed to is that this world of ideas that have no specific
religion or ethnicity or even loyalty is not a world to accept or reject. It is like eating. Whatever you
consume must be digested. There is no other way. These ideas, once comprehended, must be
absorbed and perhaps modified, intellectually or emotionally, to suit your identity and perspective.
The reality of non-Muslim ideas and concepts and technologies being a part of one’s existence—
physically, philosophically, politically—is something that will prove to be a great challenge and yet
fruitful in the long run.
In the twenty-first century, it is still unusual for Arabs and Muslims to think of the very dynamic
and mixed relationship we share with the West. In almost all ways, we in the Muslim world are