The Dialectic of American Islam

A conference on the dialectic of American Islam would probably be a good thing because there is an interesting situation forcing a rapid evolution of the American Muslim community:

• the orchestrated Islamophobia coming from extremist Jews and Zionists and
• the sheer diversity of the American Islamic community, which probably exceeds that of any previously existent Muslim state or empire.

The Khilafa Movement in India arose in response to the vivisection and dismantling of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of WW1, and the lack of a comparable intellectual center has troubled the Islamic world ever since.

American Islam may be destined to take a leadership role influencing Islam throughout the world as the Ottoman Empire did in the 18th and 19th century but perhaps even more strongly.

Maybe we will see a restoration of the Ottoman Caliphate in a spiritual sense when American Islam reaches maturity.

The subtheme of the conference could be the evolving American Caliphate or Imamate. It would drive the Islamophobes wild and might be best held in December or January before the inauguration of the next president.

A correspondent wrote in response to the suggestion:

I am not sure of this. The Ottoman empire was an extraordinary conglomeration of coincidences, combining superb geographic centrality as a meeting of three continents, a virtually unmatched Islamic empire, and the inheritance of a sophisticated Byzantine bureaucracy.

There is clearly need for some time of a reawakening/deepening/revival (whatever metaphor one wishes to use) of Islam, but it is not likely that this is going to be linked to an Islamic empire. In some ways, we will have to build our institutions without the benefit of a Muslim empire, and quite possibly we might have to do so as a persecuted minority population.

In reply, I offered:

I was not referring to the politics of the Ottoman Empire but to its spirituality and scholarship. I can't guarantee the statistic, but I have read that 60-70% of all Islamic texts were produced within the Ottoman Empire.

Haim Gerber of Hebrew University has argued that the Ottoman legal system by the late 19th century was comparable to those of Germany or of the UK in providing the basis for a Rechtstaat.

My correspondent possibly makes the point better than I if I modify his statement:

The Ottoman empire was an extraordinary conglomeration of coincidences, combining superb geographic centrality as a meeting of three continents, a virtually unmatched Islamic empire, and the inheritance of a sophisticated Byzantine bureaucracy.

Here is the modified version:

The American Empire is an extraordinary conglomeration of coincidences, combining superb geographic centrality (between the Occident and the Orient) as the meeting place of the peoples of six continents (including every Muslim ethnic group and religious sect), an unmatched empire, incomparable scholarship, and the inheritance of sophisticated European bureaucracy, which is itself the heir of the Romano-Byzantine bureaucracy.

In point of fact, as an Imperial system, the USA probably through homologous evolution is probably closer to Ottomanism than any of the 19th century European Empires. It is worth noting that toward its end the Ottoman Empire was depoliticizing the Caliphate as it introduced democracy.

What the British Empire untimely ended is being reborn in the USA even if the Caliphate or the Imamate is never reintroduced in a personal sense. I cannot think of any other plance that could serve as the primary world center of Islamic thought in the 21st and 22nd century. Of course, the development may never complete, and there is certainly a wealthy, influential segment of the American Jewish community that is trying to strangle American Islam in its crib so to speak as the movie Obsession shows.

I briefly discussed the possibility of a non-personal Caliphate in What is the Islamic Caliphate? (in the comments).

If you have any thoughts about the desirability of a conference on The Dialectic of American Islam, please let me know by commenting on this blog entry or by sending me email.

Thanks,

Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)