‘Islam in Europe’

(I left out the introduction part, along with other bits that aren’t really relevant to the whole context, and also emphasized two phrases that I find to be very significant – Sphinx)

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“Toward European Identity and integration”
A lecture by
Mustafa Ceric, Ph.D.
Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina

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My declaration of European Muslims is the result of 10 years of my reflection, or of who are we, and what is Europe for me, and what can I offer to Europe, to be my land, my continent and my country, and that my grand-grandchildren will not have to think whether they will get another genocide or not. So, my declaration of Muslims is a personal statement of mine and it is a selfish statement of me as a European Muslim to contribute to the better future of this beautiful and old Europe. I don’t know whether you like “new Europe” or “old Europe”. But anyway, we are here with the “old Europe” and the “new Europe”.

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We Europeans have not received any Messenger of God from Adam and Eve till now. All the Messengers of God came from the East. I don’t know why. Probably because we are so good, that we don’t need Prophets, or we are so bad, that even the Prophets could not help us. But whatever you assume, the fact is that the sun is rising from the East. And all the Messengers came from the East. And all the holy books that we read in Europe have originated somewhere in the Holy Lands.

Now, we here in Europe, have received all these messages. We read the history about the lives of the Prophets, Messengers and so on. So when these messages were coming to us, to Europe, from different times and for different reasons, our grand-grand-grandfathers have accepted one of these Abrahamic religions, or God’s religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Now, somehow we have an assumption that Europe is a Christian land, basically. Which is not wrong, but which is not at the same time the whole truth. Where are the brothers of the Christians: the Jews and the Muslims? Therefore, in order for us to understand Europe in a different way, we have to accept this fact, and the facts have no mercy, they are merciless. That means, I am standing here before you as a European Muslim, or Muslim European, whose grand-grandfathers have accepted Islam in the same way as your grand-grandfathers have accepted Christianity, Judaism, recently some people accept Buddhism, and some Europeans are saying that they have no religion at all. This is the fact of us Europeans.

And all the messages that where coming from the East, they had to go through a filter, here. And we give them meaning which is very European. Now, the history of Christianity is probably longer than this, giving its meaning, than Islam or Judaism. But then, we have to take the challenge to say: When we come to Islam it is clear that Islam came to Europe through two main gates: The gate of Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century, and the Balkan Peninsula in the 14th century. The Islam that came through the gate of Iberian Peninsula created the civilization for 8 centuries together with the Jews, Christians and Muslims, that today we speak of with Respect. Now, this civilization did not survive European history. But it is very interesting: when the Jews and Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, which is Andalusia/Spain, in 1492, Sarajevo (my City in Bosnia) had received 70′000 Jews at the time with their Haggadah which is still a witness of the Jewish heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Now, if the Jews came at that time to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Ottoman time, you can assume that it is reasonable, that also Muslims came with them, isn’t it? But because they were Muslims, they came to Bosnia, they somehow assimilated with the Bosnian population. So probably – no one knows – but probably you are seeing now, here, a Moorish Muslim blood, or Moorish Muslim.. you know.. man. I didn’t go back to see, but probably I will, while I have long time to live.

So what I’m trying to say: When the Muslims where expelled from Spain, Islam came to Balkan Peninsula. We have now a history of Islam in Balkan Peninsula with Bosnians, Albanians, and many others, who survived European history now about 6 centuries. I hope you can see, we have two centuries more. I hope that it will not happen, what happened to my brothers in Spain, to us in Balkan Peninsula.

And this is why I’m here. And this is why I think that we have to speak out. And this is why I think that Europe must understand that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not foreign religions, not foreign cultures, they are their own. But if Europe does not identify itself with all these three branches of the same axis, then we risk not to build the Europe that we dream of, and that is an open Europe which brings unity in diversity. And this is the only future I see for Europe, because in Europe we have never been unified, not only in one religion, but also not in one language, in one culture, in one custom, and all the rest. The United States of America, at least they have one language, the English language, even though it is not official, but at least you know which language you speak in the United States. In Europe, we have no single thing that is unified altogether, so our destiny in Europe is to learn how to live in multicultural, multi-face society, and we have to learn that. But this is not a curse, I believe. This is a beauty of diversity. And we have to accept that by reason, we have to accept that by heart and we should be proud of it.

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This paper is based on three basic questions that are very important today, I think, for all of us. The first question goes:
“What are the key problems impacting interfaith understand at the beginning of the 21st century?”
And this is my humble answer: I will quote a famous French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, who says:

“[W]hat I ask of the free thinker is that he should confront religion in the same mental state as the believer … [He] who does not bring to the study of religion a sort of religious sentiment cannot speak about it! He is like a blind man trying to talk about color. There cannot be a rational interpretation of religion which is fundamentally irreligious; an irreligious interpretation of religion would be an interpretation which denied the phenomenon it was trying to explain.”

These Emile Durkheim’s statements are relevant now as they were at the time of their expression. They are today even more relevant because of the point to “the key problems impacting interfaith understanding at the beginning of 21st century”.

First, from my Bosnian experience, I can witness that the intolerant religious expression is not result of one’s deep and honest religiosity, but rather the lack of it. Those who adopt religious beliefs freely and gradually, express it gradually and peacefully. But those who are denied the right to learn about religious beliefs freely and gradually in a manner of their family or community tradition, tend to be later, when they discover their religious roots, impatient in their desire to make up what they have missed. This observation might be applied to almost all the post-communist societies, which were based on the total or partial denial of religion as such. This is what I saw in my country.

Those previous communists were denied to go to Church or to the Mosque. When they had the freedom to express themselves, those who were traditional like me, they would come to tell me that I am not enough religious, because you know, they want a kind of fast religious feeling, like fast-food. And they like to make up what they missed all their lives. And therefore they want to make me be faster than I am. But you know, traditionally I have no need to tell you that I am Muslim, but those who were not, they will always tell you first: “You know, I am Muslim”. Of course I know. And why should you tell me, anyway. Because of that interruption hour, then we have these extremes. And this is very interesting, that those who were extreme in the past, they were extreme in denying religion, they are extreme in confirming religion. So extreme produces another extreme. And then also we have found that there is a difference between believing and belonging. There are people who believe in God, but they don’t belong to the Church or to the Islamic community. But there are people who belong to the community, but they don’t believe. They just belong. Because everyone belongs somewhere, so he belongs too, or she.

However, the communist approach toward the idea of God and religion as Karl Marx’s “opium” is just an application of the state forced suspension of religious freedom. We have to observe, though, that the Godless movement, particularly in Europe in last few centuries, is also responsible for the lack of “religious sentiment”, the result of which, I believe, are today’s problems of interfaith misunderstanding. We have now generations who are educated on the assumption as if God does not exist, but suddenly they are discovering that God does exist after all and that “religions are founded on and express “the real”, as Emile Durkheim insists.

As we can see, the indifference toward the issue of God and religions cannot hold on any more. People are faced with “the real” of religions, but they are equipped neither with religious experience nor religious knowledge how to deal with “the real of religions”. The ignorance brings about fears. And fear is the most powerful enemy of reason, which often leads to intolerance and violence. It is well known saying: “Men feared witches and burnt women”.

Second, I am aware that it is nothing new to say that ignorance is the main cause for an interfaith misunderstanding, but it would be probably new if I say that some information and certain intellectual concepts may be the reason for interhuman misunderstanding as well. It has been already observed that the Cartesian concept about the human beings led many people to believe that “we are separate from the earth, entitled to view it as nothing more than an inanimate collection of resources that we can exploit however, we like… The old story of God’s covenant with both the earth and humankind, and its assignment to human beings of the role of good stewards and faithful servants, was – before it was misinterpreted and twisted in the service of the Cartesian world view – a powerful, noble and just explanation of who we are in relation to God’s earth. What we need today is a fresh telling of our story with the distortions removed”

Probably this citation is not very plain, but I want to tell you: This I read in a recent book by Al Gore, the former vice president of the United states, in his book “The Earth in Balance”. Probably you had the chance to read it. And he is holding Descartes responsible for global warming, saying that somehow this idea of human beings as being separated from the heavens and from the earth, and just being a kind of thought, an abstract idea, and not complete human being responsible for his or her deeds. This attracted my attention very well, and he is as a politician telling us we should go to the covenant. And this is what tells me, that theology is too precious to be left to the theologists alone. But politics is too much important to be left to the politicians alone. And the issue of war and peace is too dangerous to be left to the generals alone. So we have to be very careful not to allow them to make decisions on our behalf. Whether this way or the other.

So Physics is our story about physical, chemistry about chemical, biology about living, psychology about inner human and sociology about inter-human dimension of our life, whereas religion attempts to provide a comprehensive explanation of the entirety of life. Religion tends to be absolute in the sense of unlimited truth claims. Hence, we humans are aware more and more that our statements about “the ultimate meaning of life” are limited. However, those who want to make their statements as “unlimited truth clams” tend to assume the place of religion. They make religion part of the problem rather than of the solution through a comprehensive knowledge. For, there is a difference between information and knowledge. One may be well informed but not necessarily knowledgeable. Thus, ignorance and poor knowledge are two problems impacting interfaith understanding at the beginning of 21st century.

The second question was: “Can reason and the experience that derive from the Enlightenment and secular life provide common ground for people of different beliefs, or are they necessary an impediment keeping them apart?”

I think this is the most difficult question and the most important question that is asked today. And I’ll try to answer it this way:

I do not see “Enlightenment and secular life” as two faces of the same coin. Neither the modern Enlightenment did come about as the result of “secular life”, nor the modern secular life was brought about by “Enlightenment”. On the contrary, these two modern phenomena have derived from a deep faith and a sincere search for human morality. For, neither the Enlightenment nor the secular life excludes the experience of faith and religious life.

And since we are in Munich, and since you know that the German philosophy, modern philosophy, contributed probably the most in the movement of Enlightenment, I just want to say that all those people who were talking about ‘Enlightenment’, about ’secular life’ or ’secular reasoning’, they were deeply faithful people. If you go into Kant, into Hegel, even Nietzsche.. Nietzsche came from a very deeply religious family, didn’t he. These people had the sense of religious experience. I think we have difficulty that we have almost two generations that did not have this experience even intellectually or philosophically. This is what I worried about. Because these people who were teaching us Enlightenment, who were teaching us secular life, separation of the State and the Church, and the so-called religion of the social labour and so on.. They were religious people, they knew very well the Old Testament, New Testament.. They knew all these ideas about God and man, the relationship between them, and the Covenant and the contract and so on. But we have now people who said that philosophy is useless, that the question of the meaning of life.. Why should we worry if we have a good car, or job and other things? So why should we worry about these unsolved and very difficult questions?

In fact, it is a wrong assumption that to be “enlightened” one should be free from religious feelings that have brought us not only to the lack of interfaith understanding, but also to the crisis of intercultural communication. And it is the misinterpretation of the secular as a Godless life that have created the tension between the State and the Church.

I believe that we are today at the most interesting crossroad of interchange of religious and secular as well as of rational and spiritual life because we are aware that religion without reason cannot fulfill its mission, but also we know that reason without faith cannot diliver. In the same way as the minds of secular thought have been disturbed by the incompetence of rationality of religious men, the minds of religions thought today are irritated by the corruption of morality of secular men. Historically, the minds of rationality were able to reshape the religious life for the last few centuries. It remains to be seen whether the minds of religion are capable to bring into the secular life its lost spirituality.

We need a new Enlightenment, indeed – we need to enlighten “the Enlightenment” by putting into it the spirit of morality and decency. We need a new Westphalia where the reason and faith should meet in the manner of mutual trust and humility. The faith should provide reason with a strong confidence in its search for the meaning of human life and the reason should provide faith with a right balance in its endeavor to find the link between spiritual and physical world.

Ours is not the time of separation of the essential elements of social life. Ours is the time of unity in diversity. Hence, the faith is too important to be left to the theologians alone, and the politics is too serious to be left to the politicians alone. There is no one-reason solution for our today’s problems and there is no one-faith domination for our today’s needs. We have no choice but to share the space with many reasons and many faiths. The three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam must accept the fact that they share the same idea of cosmogony and eschatology; that they share the same space of the link between the Heaven and Earth – Jerusalem; that they share the same God’s Commandments of Sinai – you shall worship One God, you shall be good to your parents, you shall not kill, you shall not steal…

And the third question was: “Can possibilities for cross-religious cooperation be developed, or are hopes that tolerance and reconciliation might transcend religious boundaries simply unrealistic?”

I am coming from the country which has a long history of cross-religious
cooperation. But, also, I am coming from the city of Sarajevo which is known by the war at the beginning and the end of last century. I want to tell you that the 21st century started without a war in Sarajevo. This is a good sign of hope that this whole century will end up without wars in Balkan, Europe and the world. After all, Sarajevo deserves to be the symbol of peace, the city of tolerance and the inspiration for reconciliation.

You know that the first world war started in Sarajevo, I don’t need to tell you that. And you know that the last century ended with the war in Sarajevo from 1990 to 1995, and it is quite new to tell you that we are now at peace in Sarajevo. And please pray for us that we continue. We need your help. Please, Balkan is again talking in a way that we don’t like. I hope that it will not be repeated. And I hope that you here in Europe will not allow to be deceived once again, that somebody commits genocide in its lands. Europe should be awaken, in case. Watch carefully what is happening in Balkan nowadays.

The fact that the postwar time or postpeace agreement in my country witness no violence and no revenge for genocide demonstrate that the aggression against my country and my people was not religious. On the contrary, the war against Bosnia and Herzegovina was against all religions and all moral values. It is the evil of man which religion cannot control that makes some people violent in the name of religion. But those who kill innocent people in the name of God are not men of God. They are men of evil.

Hence, it is the voice of sound reason that those who want truth and justice instead of revenge and those who work for reconciliation instead of continuous conflict to be awarded not punished.

I say that because it is really humiliation for us Bosnians to stand before European embassies in Sarajevo for visas. The good Bosnian are saying now that the humanitarian aid which was coming from Europe during the four years of Sarajevo besiege is taken back through the visa charges.

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But this is not matter of money. It is the matter of honor and respect.
I believe that the Bosnians have shown to the whole world that they are worth of respect for their cross-religious cooperation and tolerance. Because Sarajevo is not only a symbol of the eternal city of tolerance, but also a sign of the European unity in diversity of faiths and cultures.

Indeed, if the last century started and ended with war in Sarajevo, we should declare here and now that the war should never happen again to no one and nowhere. Because Bosnia is not only the heart of Balkan, but also the soul of Europe. Thus, the soul of Europe will not be at peace until Bosnia takes its place in the European family of nations. This fact Europe should understand now more than ever before. For, Europe should not allow to be deceived once again by those who have no respect for human life.

And let me finish my presentation – I hope it was short, you did not fall asleep – because I want to tell you the story about sleeping when someone is preaching. They say that in the hereafter, if you believe of course, and I believe.. There was a taxi driver and a preacher, a priest, whichever religion you take. So, the taxi driver was told to go to heaven. And the preacher was told to go to hell. And then of course the priest thought that he was going straight away to heaven. He complained and said: “My God, I was preaching all my life for you. Why are you not sending me to heaven, while this taxi driver was driving people crazy on the street? I know him!”
And the voice came and said: “You know, while you have been preaching, people have been sleeping. But while this taxi driver was driving people crazy in the streets, everyone was praying for salvation.”

So let me finish then with a prayer that I like very much:

“Bismillah el Rahman el Rahim (In the name of God, most gracious, most merciful):

Sometimes God breaks our spirit to save our soul.
Sometimes God breaks our heart to make us whole.
Sometimes God allows pain so we can be stronger.
Sometimes God sends us failure, so we can be humble.
Sometimes God allows illness, so we can take better care of ourselves.
Sometimes God takes everything away from us, so that we can value everything God has given to us.“

 

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