Carl W. Ernst

The media inevitably focus on sensational aspects of these issues, and I find that the international news representation of, for example, the question of Muslim women leading Friday prayers, has often been treated with about the same level of intelligence and insight as the media coverage of Michael Jackson or Madonna.

VIBES: Could you talk about what inspired you to write the book on Prophet Muhammad which also earned you a 2004 Bashrahil Prize? - “Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World”. What particular challenges were you faced with as an academic, writing on Islam’s most revered Prophet?

Dr. Carl Ernst: I had initially been approached by a publisher some years ago to write an introductory book on Islam, but the writing of Following Muhammad did not begin in earnest until I had a sabbatical in Spain beginning in September, 2001. Obviously the terrorist attacks against American targets that month had an impact on the book, although the main difference from my original design was that I added an entire chapter (chapter two) on the historical changes in the European concept of religion. I completed the manuscript in less than a year, and I tried out a number of the chapters in presentations to public audiences in the spring of 2002. I would say that the book summarizes the insights I have developed in teaching and researching the subject of Islam over more than twenty years. But the main challenge and indeed the goal was to get outside of the stereotyped language of east-west confrontation, and the negative images in particular of the Prophet Muhammad, that have dominated Euro-American thinking about Islam for the past two centuries.

VIBES: Your work is often hailed for its original vista on Islam, without harping on the usual orientalist theme taken my most scholars who chose to write on Islam after 9/11. Why did you feel that it was important to move away from the Arab-focused analysis of Muslims?

Dr. Carl Ernst: It’s my feeling that Orientalism, the construction of the Muslim East as an “other” to Europe (and America), is one of the main underpinnings of both the classical colonialism of the nineteenth century and the larger scenario of more recent globalization. I felt that it was important to make two rather simple arguments: first, that Muslims are human beings subject to the usual conditions that affect people (class, education, education, language, etc.), rather than being the only people on earth motivated exclusively by religion; and second, the notion of a separate “Muslim world,” which is somehow unaffected by and opposed to “the West,” is completely inaccurate and further serves as a pretext for conflict. Pointing out that over 80% of Muslims are not Arabs is simply one of the factual corrections that are necessary as part of this process.

VIBES: If you were to recommend three main ideals for Muslims to focus on, in terms of the Prophet’s life, what would they be?

Dr. Carl Ernst: The concern for the welfare of the weaker and more vulnerable members of society (especially women), the dedication to justice with the acute awareness of responsibility before God, and the relentless rejection of the idolatry of the anything that is less than divine – all these qualities seem to me to be well worth the attention of Muslims today. I should add that these are qualities that could also be admired and imitated by others as well. And just to expand upon the last point, I think it should be understood that idolatry does not mean simply the worship of graven images, but the adoration of any material, cultural, or 

The “Islamic state” is inconceivable apart from the modern context of colonialism and nationalism. The postcolonial regime, equipped with legal codes established by European powers may well take the tactic of declaring itself an Islamic Republic.

intellectual object (including ideology) as if it were divine.

VIBES: We see American-Muslims taking the media limelight though activism on women’s equal rights in the mosque, or demands for less hate-speech in religious sermons. Do you feel that this media focus is artificially skewed, or can American Muslims take the lead in harmonizing radical Islam into a more progressive feature?

Dr. Carl Ernst: I agree that American-Muslims can take an important leading role in addressing a number of issues, such as women’s rights and fanaticism, in Islamic contexts, and they have already begun to do so. The media inevitably focus on sensational aspects of these issues, and I find that the international news representation of, for example, the question of Muslim women leading Friday prayers, has often been treated with about the same level of intelligence and insight as the media coverage of Michael Jackson or Madonna. The cultural forces of globalization are mass media that make money by distortion. Responsible leaders who wish to bring about change need to realize that their accomplishments will be measured in the creation of smaller face-to-face communities based on shared ethical values, rather than splashing headlines on newspapers or on the Internet. The real progress will go on, and those who support such progressive movements will be committed to continue despite opposition. Needless to say, this observation has a similar application to progressives in non-Muslim contexts.

VIBES: The new pope is said to have conservative views on women’s rights, gay rights, and Islam. Vis a vis the current state of the Catholic church, would Islam be better off if it had an official clergy and not a scattered unofficial one?

Dr. Carl Ernst: As someone coming from a Protestant background, I’m tempted to say, “We tried that, and it didn’t work!” But seriously, while religion and spirituality are constant dimensions in human life, the way in which they get bound up with political authority can be very problematic. Those who pronounce the official interpretation of religion inevitably view their own authority as practically synonymous with the authority of religion itself, or even as a substitute for the authority of God. Although there certainly have been tendencies to exalt the authority of religious interpreters within the Islamic tradition, one of the distinctive aspects of the history of Islamic religious thought is the way in which multiple local traditions have been able to coexist simultaneously. It seems to me that this is a great strength, and it reflects the important saying of the Prophet, “Difference of opinion is a mercy for my community.” Muslims may wish to celebrate this diversity without succumbing to the dictatorial temptation to force everyone into line with a single opinion.

VIBES: After the death of Prophet Muhammed, there seems to have a vast expanse of bloody political battles, corruptions, emergence of various schools of thoughts and sects, which is largely underplayed in the current algorithms of why Islam is “regressive.” What are a couple of important events or processes that one must understand to know Islam as it is today?

Dr. Carl Ernst: Both the opponents and the advocates of what is called fundamentalism believe it is it possible to talk about Islam exclusively in terms of what can be known of the Prophet Muhammad during his lifetime. However, it is impossible to know anything about the Prophet

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without relying upon the transmission of knowledge by later generations, which includes many debated and disputed interpretations. All the major disciplines of Islamic religious thought emerged slowly over a period of several centuries, through processes of intense conflict as well as interaction with the surrounding non-Muslim cultures. All too often this complexity is dismissed by lofty pronouncements about what constitutes “true” Islam. I would suggest that a couple of major issues deserve consideration in this respect.

First is the ongoing struggle to establish an authentic religious and spiritual leadership in the absence of the prophet, whether it took the form of Shi`ism, Sufism, or the establishment of the `ulama’. In other words, like any other text, the central sacred texts of Islam (the Qur’an and hadith) are silent until an interpreter speaks, so who gets to speak? The early history of Islam furnishes a fascinating panorama of the effort to deal with this question.

Second is the interaction with the great traditions of the ancient world, such as Greek philosophy and Persian kingship, as well as the religions of the Peoples of the Book. Without taking anything away from the originality and distinctiveness of the Islamic tradition, it is safe to say that we cannot really understand the historical development of Muslim societies without taking serious account of the engagement of Muslims with the ethical, intellectual, and cultural environments in which they lived. That is a good way to move beyond the stereotypes of Islamophobia, by talking about the significant encounters and exchanges have grounded Muslims in common human experience.

VIBES: Could Sufism and mysticism be one of the emerging belief systems globally?

Dr. Carl Ernst: Spirituality and mysticism attract a great deal of interest in every society, particularly in view of the alienation and emptiness produced by unrelenting globalization. Yet at the same time, it is remarkable to see how spirituality and mysticism can themselves turn into marketing categories. Sufism is a controversial subject in many Muslim societies, especially because of the rise of Salafi reformism, secularism, and the absorption of Orientalist scholarship. Postcolonial governments of majority Muslim countries do their best to control or even outlaw independent spiritual organizations. Nevertheless, traditional Sufi orders have responded to changing conditions by reconfiguring themselves to meet modern needs (both in their traditional homelands and in new diasporic locations), and people continue to draw upon the insights and the writings of the great Sufis of the past, such as Rumi or Ibn `Arabi. This is also the case for non-Muslims who have found in Sufism some of the answers they have been seeking. So I would say that we can expect to see a continuing interest in Sufism, both as one of the major aspects of the Islamic tradition and as a contemporary reality.

VIBES: What notions of the “Islamic state” make it possible or impossible to be a reality sometime in the near future? Can you give examples of Islamic states that have closely mirrored the principles of the “Islamic state”?

Dr. Carl Ernst: The notion of an “Islamic state” is problematic, because it is a modern concept that does not correspond to anything in the past history of Muslim societies. Premodern political regimes ruled by Muslim leaders were based on the structures of pre-Islamic empires, in which Islamic law played a role, but as one of several 

I think it should be understood that idolatry does not mean simply the worship of graven images, but the adoration of any material, cultural, or intellectual object (including ideology) as if it were divine.

elements including local custom and administrative decree (either of which could trump the shari`a). And even Medina at the time of the Prophet, I would argue, contained significant features of pre-Islamic custom and politics along with the clear recognition of non-Muslim citizens. The growth of the modern notion of the “Islamic state” is inconceivable apart from the modern context of colonialism and nationalism. The postcolonial regime, equipped with legal codes established by European powers, and deploying the unprecedented power of the modern nation-state, may well take the tactic of declaring itself an Islamic Republic (as has been done by Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and others). But the net result is that the state is defining Islam, rather than the other way around. The novelty of this concept is clear from the way in which Islam is frequently also defined in political contexts as an ideology, a conception that would have been impossible before the twentieth century.

VIBES: What do you feel an online community such as Naseeb Vibes, with the largest number of Muslims online, can do to play a positive role to live Islam prosperously?

Dr. Carl Ernst: The virtual communities that are made possible by recent communications technologies such as the Internet have a considerable potential to bring people together, who ordinarily would not have the opportunity to know in and learn from each other. In my recent lectures, I have pointed to web sites like Naseeb Vibes and Muslim Wakeup as important examples of emerging new directions in Muslim thinking. Unlike the more authoritarian Islamic websites that you are quite familiar with, the new online communities do not use a rigid definition of textual authority to freeze all independent thinking. One of the great urgent needs of the 21st century is to create ethical communities that draw upon people across national boundaries and, indeed, across religious boundaries as well. The articulation of the relationships between Muslims of different regions and between Muslims and non-Muslims will be one of the great challenges that this kind of online community is uniquely equipped to face.

VIBES: Is there an important part of your ideas I have left out, that you’d like to elaborate?

Dr. Carl Ernst: Most of my writing and scholarly publication has really been aimed at the education of non-Muslims, who particularly in America are remarkably ignorant about the civilization and culture of Islam. In the past few years, evidently since 9/11, the demand for knowledge about Islam has skyrocketed, even as organized Islamophobia has hit new heights (or depths). I have increasingly found that Muslims, both in America and in other countries, have an enormous stake in the way in which they are represented in American scholarship on Islam. They rightly realize that much of the enormous political and military power that America now wields is now largely aimed at majority Muslim countries, and they welcome anything that is seen as fair-minded treatment of Islam by American scholars. While it is certainly not my intention to be an apologetic defender of Islam, I am committed to combating ignorance and to creating genuine bridges between people and cultures. I therefore greatly appreciate the recognition that my work has received on the part of Muslim readrs, and I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to share my views with Naseeb Vibes.

Carl W. Ernst is a specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. His published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of Islam and Sufism. His most recent book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (UNC Press, 2003), has been awarded the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement. He studied comparative religion at Stanford University (A.B. 1973) and Harvard University (Ph.D. 1981), and has done research tours in India (1978-79, 1981), Pakistan (1986, 2000), and Turkey (1991), and has also visited Iran (1996, 1999) and Uzbekistan (2003).