CULTURE
A rationalist's religion
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`Had Sardar pondered on ... the evidence of a composite culture, perhaps he would have reached a different existential basis for the possible paths to paradise.'
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ZIAUDDIN SARDAR is a writer and broadcaster of Pakistani origin now living in London. According to the blurb of this book, he is the author of more than 40 books on science, religion and contemporary culture. In his writings on science, Sardar contends that the present backwardness of non-European countries in science is mainly due to their past colonisation by Europeans. In addition, Sardar makes two points, which are often overseen, or even rejected: firstly, that science needs money to go forward, and secondly, that non-Western cultures are no obstacles in themselves to the practice or dissemination of science. The Japanese case is a good illustration of the latter proposition.
The present book, however, is not about the paradise that science may bring, but about the author's search for a spiritual paradise. According to a review of this book in the London Independent "... The brittle certainties of secular humanism are an obstacle in understanding the world today. In order to find genuine enlightenment, one needs to go beyond the prevailing secular world-view, and there can be few better guides in this journey than Ziauddin Sardar... A rationalist who is not afraid to doubt reason, Sardar exemplifies a kind of scepticism unknown to the anxious, certainty seeking secular mind."
It is as a rationalist, educated through school and college in England, that Sardar begins his search for paradise. The book is an account of several attempts that he makes to come to terms with Islam, its teachings, and their relevance to life in the 21st Century, particularly for someone educated in terms of liberal secular values. The aim of Sardar's quest is to find an approach to Islam which corresponds with the values that he has imbibed through his socialisation in British society. He starts by attempting to come to terms with Islam, firstly by associating with Islamic groups in Britain, and later in spending varied amounts of time in countries of West Asia, specifically Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Activist history
Sardar has been an activist from his school days, active both in terms of the general issues that agitated British youth in the early 1970s, and also in terms of registering his own form of protest by establishing an Islamic Society in his school. Muslim students in Britain at the time consisted of three broad groups: expatriates who were studying at various Universities and other Institutions of higher learning; various British and American hippies who after great searching had travelled through the path of Sufism and eventually converted to Islam; and the third group, consisting of students such as Sardar himself, who was born of immigrant parents, brought up and educated in Britain. FOSIS or the Federation of Students Islamic Society in U.K. and Ireland became a major part of Sardar's life from his school days. Although it was a response to the urges towards revolt of its members, FOSIS distinguished itself by concentrating on "... the overlooked, unfashionable issues that struck a chord and mattered to Muslims." Most of these issues were connected with West Asian developments.
In his adult life Sardar has continued his search. He starts the book by describing a farcical encounter with a group of Tablighis about whose approach he writes: ""Observance of religious practice was a quid pro quo with the Almighty, one merely applied the ready-made formula and one could relax, confident in the assurance that paradise would be the outcome, the consummation of a lifetime of duty done." This is followed by accounts of a set of experiences with various other Islamic Organisations and by visits to Islamic societies, some short, others as in the case of Saudi Arabia, which lasted for some years. All in search of a truly Islamic path to Paradise.
This is interesting in itself, but a reader of the book is forced to ask: Why should the child of immigrant parents in England, born on the very border between what was to become India and Pakistan, search for an Islamic path, or rather an Islamic identity rather than a South Asian identity? Sardar seems to be aware of the effects of colonialism on South Asian (and other cultures), as his characterisation of the obstacles to the development of science in such societies, quoted above, shows. What is not clear is why colonialism, in his understanding, affects the sphere of culture alone. Had he pondered on why the division of the subcontinent took place at all, or even on the evidence of a composite culture evidenced in the old Hindi films that his parents were so fond of seeing in London perhaps he would have reached a different existential basis for the possible paths to paradise. In turn, this might have avoided so many of the dead ends, however entertaining they are in the telling, that seem to have accompanied his search for the path to paradise.
NASIR TYABJI
Desperately seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim, Ziauddin Sardar, Granta Books, Rs.495.
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