Interviewer: Do we have, should we answer each questions or do you have the?
Karim: Maybe collect a few maybe collect a few, yeah. Hi Mack good to see you have you…
Person: I’m David Mack from the Middle East Institute and I’d appreciate it if you would address a question that you haven’t gotten to so far and that is reaction of Islamic thinkers and Muslim institutions to this ongoing debate in the west began in the 19th century between the proponents of the Darwinian evolution and natural selection on the one hand and the adherence to the idea of self creationism and so called intelligent design on the other?
Interviewer: Other questions?
Person: Yes the idea of [modernity], we all know that [IB] are based on the number system that came from the Arab world. We know that, so it isn’t like Arabs aren’t modern. Is it part of it come from, okay, [IB] we did mention that but is it also a fact that Mongols afterwards came in and sacked and burned and looted just about anything that was knowledge in the Arab world and that set them back into the dark ages. And even in our own modern society people are [IB] food and organics, come on they had that back in 1776 where to get them?
Karim: Yeah. Thank you, I’m not sure I really got your question. I mean it’s true the Mongols did a lot of destruction and they destroyed the central Islamic lands, but they rebuilt. And they imported captured populations and artisans and they created actually rather rapidly a new high level form of artistic and social achievement. So it’s a double picture with them; they wipe away and then they rebuild. It wasn’t just all negative. We have to take that into balance, into account. Modernity could have emerged before even in Europe in the sense that we understand it today. A new vision of the human a new role for the person as an individual liberated from a tutelage of a dominant religious institution or some kind of a monarchical pattern where people have to obey authority blindly. And it’s true; there could have been moments in historical experience when something modern could have emerged. Modern in our understanding today, but that didn’t happen. We were looking at what did happen and [white] perception is that Muslims haven’t become modern yet. They are not like us, so something’s wrong with them, they can’t be modern because their religion is teaching them to be un-modern or whatever. That’s all I’m trying to address here and show some aspects that will put that simplistic view in question.
Coming back to the first question which is I believe if you can jog my memory Claire….
Interviewer: War and the situation that might have led to a rejection of modernity in Germany and occupation and [IB]
Karim: Yes the Nazis, you say that they’re anti-modern? And I understand what you mean in the sense of the anti the civilizing and humanistic spirit of let’s say the 20th century which we hold up the most as one of the characteristic features of our modernity. But you know as various students of the enlightenment especially German people in their study of National socialism which is the official use of the word that the Nazis used for their ideology. They made the point that Nazism and fascism were the children of enlightenment and that in the sense it kind of the logical dead end of enlightenment forces where even the anti-enlightenment romanticism and then the positivists. That the idea that the idea that social engineering and mastery of science and technology can produce a paradise here. Or a perfect society, or a perfect realm, or a perfect state and that it had to be centralized or authoritarian otherwise it wouldn’t work well. And in the sense it’s one of the bastards of the enlightenment if you will. It’s the dark side of enlightenment, same as communism. And there is a very famous book, I mean, The Dark Side of Enlightenment which goes into this in-depth by two German authors, their name escape me but it’s well known butt if you Google the name, ‘Dark Side of Enlightenment’ you come up with this famous book that exposed for the first time it made people aware that enlightenment included very unsavory things including mass murder of the type indulged in by a Stalin and Mao. And so we have to take it a little bit more complex thing and I’m not an advocate of Nazism by means but in a way it’s a modern phenomenon. Our problem of course if I may just step beyond that, we are all orphans of the enlightenment and we are all searching for a new way of seeing how we work together, a new way of having a common life in a society this includes so many pluralistic and multi-cosmopolitan aspects. We can no longer go back to our cocoon of monolithic identities that we’re all Muslims here. Like if you go to Arabia and when you see Saudi Arabia all the workers that to do the menial jobs imported from Southeast Asia and India and Bangladesh. And you realize that it’s no longer a monolithic place and I remember going to the gulf and the guy taking my bag from the airport and I saw the Christian cross tattooed on this wrist. He was an Indian Christian but he was the guy who handled the baggage for you in to your taxi. Right away you will met my Christian enter that Muslim country. It was a little bit of insight into their social reality and if anyone has been in airport to Dubai or in Sharjah or it sounds like you are in Islamabad, all the Urdu being spoken. So we have this new reality and it’s impossible for us to go back and capture a monolithic view of ourselves or religion or society pure unadulterated. We are all jammed up together where your armpit is in my face and we can’t escape each other anymore and that’s our reality today. We have to find a way to not just coexist or tolerate each other but we can actually have some kind of conversation and get to know each other a little better.