By W. Montgomery Watt, Edinburgh
The Enghsh word 'myth' has two meanings, a good or positive one and a
bad or negative one. According to the negative meaning a myth is something
purely imaginary and so completely false. With this meaning of myth we are
not concerned here. Positively, on the other hand, a myth is a symbolic ex¬
pression of truth about the world in which we live, giving guidance for hu¬
man life. In particular one may speak of the myth of a community, and this
may be a rehgious or political or cultural community. This myth shows how
the community sees the world and its own place in it. This may also be called
its self-image, as being its awareness of its own identity. The myth of the
community of Muslims is their way of thinking about the world and their
place in it. It is a self-image that has developed gradually over centuries, and
it is this self-image that has made possible all the great achievements of the
Islamic community. It is thus something essentially positive.
When the circumstances of a community change, however, so that it ac¬
quires a somewhat different role in world history, then there has to be some
adjustment in its myth or self-image. After the cataclysmic changes in inter¬
national affairs in the present century it would probably be correct to say
that all the nations of the Western world are trying to form a new self-image
for themselves; certainly this is true of my own country. The glasnost' and
Perestroika of the Soviet Union is such an adjusted self-image. My purpose
in this lecture is to examine some aspects of the traditional Islamic self-
image, and to show how it is out of touch with reality in some ways and re¬
quires adjustment.
Within the last century or two the whole non-Western world has come to
be included in a single global economic and political system dominated by
the West. Muslims, like other non-Westerners, feel that their identity is
threatened, and that they are in danger of becoming pale reflections of the
West, minor characters in a drama in which the leading roles are played by
Westerners. This feeling of loss of identity is probably the chief factor under-
The topics here discussed, as well as others, are treated at greater length
in my book Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity. London: Routledge
1988; and references will be found there.
lying the resurgence or renewal of Islam in recent decades. The resurgence is
a popular movement, but it has been supported by the religious institution,
that is, the ulema or religious scholars; these are the persons often referred to
as clergy in our popular media, though they are not priests or pastors but es¬
sentially jurists. Until the middle of last century they had great powers in the
legal, judicial and educational fields, but since then they have lost most of
their power because of their unwillingness to adapt to contemporary con¬
ditions. In the last half-century they have been trying to regain some of their
power by supporting the resurgence and by insisting on the need for a return
to the Islam of the Prophet and his first followers. This traditional self-image
of Islam, as now presented by the religious scholars and accepted by the
masses of ordinary Muslims, is making it difficult for the various communi¬
ties of Muslims to respond adequately to contemporary problems and to play
the role which they might justifiably expect to have in international politics.
In other words the myth by which they are living is in some respects opposed
to reality. Four aspects of the traditional self-image may be singled out for
comment.
First is the belief that the world is characterized by unchangingness, and
that unchangingness is an ideal. This is not so much explicitly stated, as
everywhere assumed. In traditional Islamic thinking there is no place for de¬
velopment towards something better. There is no thought of any Utopian
form of society in the future. The most to be hoped for, it would seem, is
that the whole world might accept Islam and live according to the forms of
hfe in the time of Muhammad and the first four caliphs. This admiration of
unchangingness may go back to the pre-lslamic Arabs, for whom change or
novelty was abhorrent. Because according to this view human life does not
change, there is nothing absurd in supposing that the laws prescribed in the
Qur'än are applicable today. Before the modern Western observer dismisses
this belief in unchangingness he should remember that human beings in the
twentieth century have shown themselves to be just as wicked as those in pre¬
vious centuries. After all it is we who have invented the nuclear bomb. On
the other hand, however, developments in science and technology have led to
great changes in the structures of human societies, and these in turn have led
to altogether novel problems. One need only mention improvements in com¬
munication, both actual travelling and the transfer of information, and note
how this has enabled a few individuals to control the lives of millions. Even
if human character has changed little, the structures of modern society make
it necessary to adapt legal prescriptions to the new conditions.
A second aspect of the self-image of Islam is belief in the finality of Islam.
Muhammad, it is claimed, is the last prophet after whom there will be no
other; and this implies that in Islam is contained all the religious and moral
guidance required by all humanity from now until the end of time. The Qur'än
allows that Muhammad closed a line of prophets, all of whom taught essen-
tially the same truths about God, based on his revelations to them; but in the
first century Muslim scholars elaborated a theory according to which later
Jews and Christians had corrupted in some way the scriptures originally given
by God to Moses and Jesus. This leads many Muslims to the conviction that
Islam and Islam alone has the pure divine truth.
From this conviction there follows a third aspect of the self-image, name¬
ly, belief in the self-sufficiency of Islam. The Muslim traditionalist holds that
no other religious or philosophical system has anything of value which is not
already contained in Islam. This attitude finds expression in a story about the
capture of Alexandria in 642. The victorious general wrote to the caliph in
Medina asking what was to be done with the famous library. He received the
reply: If the books agree with the Qur'än, they are unnecessary and may be
disposed of; if they disagree with the Qur'än, they are dangerous and should
be destroyed. Modern historians regard this story as false, but the attitude it
expresses is still found among traditionalist Muslims. In the nineteenth century
some Western scholars tried to show that most of the ideas in the Qur'än were
derived from Judaism and Christianity; and the traditionalist Muslim scho¬
lars indignantly replied that the Qur'än was the word of God, and that God
was not subject to any mundane influences. Muslims did in fact borrow ma¬
terial from Jewish and Christian sources to fill out Qur'änic references to
Biblical figures, but this was usually done without acknowledgement. For
example, the main early source for the life of Muhammad gives his genealo¬
gy back to Adam, and the early part of this clearly comes from the Bible; but
this is nowhere stated.
In the Islam of the first five centuries there were two points at which bor¬
rowings from other cultures were acknowledged. One was the acceptance of
the Iranian tradition of statecraft, and this produced a literary genre known
as 'mirrors for princes' (Fürstenspiegel). Iranian history was also included in
universal histories like that of at-Tabari, in contrast to the almost complete
neglect of Roman and Byzantine history. The other borrowing was that of
Greek science and philosophy. From a practical interest in Greek medicine
and astronomy some Muslims were led to study Greek philosophy. This
helped to develop the Islamic discipline of Kaläm or philosophical theology,
and also an independent philosophical tradition which included thinkers of
the first rank such as Avicenna and Averroes. Once all the philosophical
ideas thought to be compatible with Islam had been absorbed into Kaläm,
philosophy proper died away in the centre and west of the Islamic world, and
only a theosophical form of philosophy was left in the Iranian region. Thus
in the end all the so-called 'foreign sciences' were rejected by mainstream tra¬
ditionalist Islam; and it still rejects and refuses to study the religious and phi¬
losophical beliefs of non-Muslims.
A fourth aspect of the traditional self-image is constituted by various his¬
torical matters. For a time there were among the Muslims critical historians
seeking objective truth, but about the year 1000 A.D. history came to be do¬
minated by the rehgious scholars and was used by them not to discover ob¬
jective truth but to provide moral instruction and to support theological dog¬
ma. As a result of the vast conquests in the first Islamic century Muslims
came to suppose that gradually the whole world would be brought under Is¬
lamic rule, and this was expressed by regarding the world as divided between
the sphere of Islam (där al-isläm) and the sphere of war (där al-iiarb). The
sphere of Islam was where the ruler was a Muslim and the Sari'a was in
force, while the sphere of war was where that was not yet the case. In the
sphere of war it was permissible to make treaties with non-Muslim rulers, but
only for limited periods such as ten years. The theological conception of his¬
tory also led to an ideahzation of the Islamic community under Muhammad
and the first four rightly-guided caliphs, so that this period is held to provide
a model for all later ages. It may also be noted that Muslims show no aware¬
ness of other religions as having had a long continuous history. Indeed it
may be said that a basic difference between Islam and Christianity is that,
whereas Muhammad was preaching to first-generation believers, Jesus was
preaching to fiftieth-generation believers for whom the centuries had
brought new problems.
These are four important aspects of the self-image of Islam as presented
today by traditionalists or fundamentalists, namely, unchangingness, finali¬
ty, self-sufficiency, historical idealization; and I now turn to consider how
this self-image creates difficulties for Muslims in the contemporary world.
The failure to acknowledge that there have been changes in the structures
of society has various adverse effects. It leads traditionalist ulema to claim
that, if Muslims will return to the exact forms of the earliest Islam (as they
suppose these to have been), all problems will be solved and there will be an
ideal society. This return to the earliest Islam includes such barbaric practices
as cutting off a hand as a punishment for theft and stoning as a punishment
for adultery. It also includes in some cases the application of the lex talionis
or law of retahation, by which it becomes a duty for the relatives of a mur¬
dered person to exact vengeance from the murderer or his family. While
most Westerners now regard the concept of retaliation and vengeance as pri¬
mitive and uncivilized, it should be noted that it is not wholly bad. It is pre¬
scribed in the Old Testament as well as in the Qur'än, and is probably the
best way of maintaining security of life in a society where there is no strong
central power with an effective pohce force. On the other hand, in modern
states with their relatively efficient police forces private retaliation is forbid¬
den, because when people 'take the law into their own hands' many abuses
are liable to creep in. This is the sort of point which is forgotten or neglected
by the enthusiasts for a return to the earliest Islam. The external observer of
contemporary traditionalist Islam can hardly avoid coming to the conclusion
that, when the Muslim masses realize that the return to the earliest Islam is
not in fact going to lead to an idyllic state of society, there may well be a re¬
vulsion of feeling against the traditionalists.
Again, because they do not admit that there have been fundamental
changes in human society, the traditionalist scholars have done little so far,
even in Iran, to adapt the Sari'a to solve the fresh problems which occur in
contemporary conditions. In theory the Sari'a can be adapted to all possible
new circumstances. Thus in the case of beverages such as whisky and
schnapps, which were not known in Muhammad's time, it can be argued that
the Qur'änic prohibition of the drinking of hamr or wine has as its ground
('illa) the fact that this beverage intoxicates; and it then follows that other in¬
toxicating beverages are also forbidden. To apply the Sari'a with its basis in
Qur'än and Hadit to all the social, political and economic problems of today
would require both much attention to detail and also further methodological
studies; and little has so far been done by Muslims in these respects.
The idea that Islam is self-sufficient in religion and morality, and has
nothing to learn from other religious and philosophical systems, has had
some unfortunate effects. In medieval times the body of Islamic religious
scholars used various methods to suppress heretical views, including those of
philosophers like Avicenna and Averroes. The discussion of such views was
discouraged and made difficuU, so that the views were forgotten and dis¬
appeared from the consciousness of the main body of Muslims. In the six¬
teenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Ottoman empire was establishing
itself in Eastern Europe, the religious scholars made no attempt to learn
about intellectual movements in Western Europe, doubtless hoping that any
dangerous ideas would in course of time disappear through neglect. Had the
Ottomans conquered Western Europe, this strategy might conceivably have
been successful. It is amazing to find that the Ottomans showed no interest
even in acquiring knowledge of practical matters which would have been po¬
litically useful. As late as 1770, when a Russian fleet appeared in the Aegean
Sea the Ottoman authorities still thought there was a canal from the Baltic to
the Adriatic, and protested to the Venetians because they had allowed the
Russians to come through this supposed canal. They did not realize that
there was open seaway from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.
Until the early part of the present century it was held to be improper and
undignified for Muslim religious scholars to learn infidel languages like Eng¬
lish, French and German. On the other hand, from the early nineteenth cen¬
tury Muslim statesmen and wealthy merchants had seen that it was necessary
for Muslims to study the subjects currently taught in Western Europe. At
first a few European teachers were imported to instruct army officers in such
subjects as mathematics; but from this beginning education of a Western
type was developed in virtually all Islamic countries, until nowadays the gre¬
at majority of young Mushms are being educated at Western-type schools
and universities in their own countries.
An awareness of this situation and its dangers was shown by the conserva¬
tive religious scholars who dominated the First International Conference on
Muslim Education held at Mecca in 1977. They considered that the growing
lack of religious belief among young Muslims was due to the fact that the
subjects included in Western education were taught in a form based on secu¬
lar non-religious assumptions; and their solution of the difficulty was that
Muslim researchers should be encouraged to produce Islamic concepts as a
basis for all natural, applied and social sciences and for the humanities. Just
how this was to be done was not explained. Even more significant, however,
was the assumption that no change was required in any of the so-called
'sciences' of Islam.
It is commonly held by traditionalist Muslim scholars that Islamic theolo¬
gical doctrine is fully in accord with reason, but their conception of reason
and rational argument has remained unchanged since about the twelfth cen¬
tury. There is no awareness among such scholars of the intellectual move¬
ments in the West during the last two or three centuries, and of the need to
find fresh arguments for the defence of religious belief. This neglect or rejec¬
tion of Western intellectual movements, whether religious or philosophical,
in contrast to the acceptance of the Western natural and social sciences, they
justify by regarding the latter as purely practical and instrumental, whereas
religious and philosophical movements deal with matters about which Islam
has the final truth. By thus trying to exclude from the general Muslim con¬
sciousness these Western religious and philosophical ideas the traditionalist
scholars might see themselves as creating a 'fortress Islam' in which truth in
its purity and fullness is preserved; but non-Muslim observers might rather
think that they are shutting themselves into a kind of ghetto.
The medieval distinction between the sphere of Islam and the sphere of
war still continues to influence the thinking and attitudes of traditionalist
Muslims. For one thing they tend to see the rest of the world as essentially
hostile to Islam, and not as containing people with whom some forms of co¬
operation might be possible. Again, though the various Islamic states are
members of the United Nations and form part of the international political
system, traditionalist Islam sometimes disregards the generally accepted rules
for the conduct of international affairs, such as diplomatic immunities. The
treatment of the 'American hostages' in Iran in 1980 was a notable example.
Part of the reason for this disregard may be that in the period of the ^Abbä¬
sid caliphate (750—1258) there was no international community such as exists
today. The only state comparable to the caliphate was the Byzantine empire,
though there were also minor states round the frontiers. The main reason,
however, may be that when Muslim rulers had diplomatic relations with non-
Muslims and presumably observed some forms of diplomatic protocol, yet
this was an aspect of government in which the religious scholars were not al¬
lowed to intervene. In consequence the scholars made no attempt to work
out the apphcation of the Sari'a to international affairs, apart from some
minor points such as forbidding permanent treaties with non-Muslims in the
sphere of war. This means that when nowadays Western powers complain
about the infringement of diplomatic immunities, this is seen by the Muslim
masses, following the traditionalist scholars, as a colonialist attempt to im¬
pose 'foreign' ideas on Muslims in the interests of the colonialists. Pre¬
sumably, if religious scholars worked out the application of the Sari'a to
contemporary international relationships, they would produce something
like the conventions currently recognized by non-Muslim states; but this is
something which has not yet been done.
The conception of the sphere of Islam probably also underlies the claim of
conservative religious scholars that Islam is incomplete without a political
embodiment. This is sometimes stated in the form that in Islam religion and
politics are inseparable. To the non-Muslim observer this assertion seems in¬
tended to give support to the attempts of the religious scholars to recover
some of their former power by exercising control over legislation. Against
this it may be noted that the continuing presence of Muslims in India and the
voluntary settlement of many Muslims in Western countries shows that it is
possible to be a practising Muslim under non-Muslim rule.
Sufficient has now been said about the difficulties created for today's
Muslims by the influence on their thinking of the traditionalist self-image.
The chief danger is that the Islamic community will cut itself off completely
from the intellectual and cultural life of the rest of humanity. There are of
course many Muslims of liberal outlook who are aware of this danger and
are trying to form a more adequate self-image; but none has so far found
wide acceptance for his ideas, and in some Islamic countries the conservative
scholars obstruct the free expression of liberal ideas. There are three direc¬
tions in which a move forward is desirable.
Firstly, Muslims need to become more open to historical truth. The tradi¬
tionalists have tended to see the application to the Islamic world of Western
historical criticism as an attack on Islam, and have spoken of Western
orientalists as being involved in a colonialist plot. This is completely mis¬
taken. Western critical methods try to discover objective historical fact. In
theological terms it could be said that they are trying to discover what God
actually did (the objective fact) as distinct from what some Muslim theolo¬
gians have thought he ought to have done. In particular Muslims need to ad¬
mit that God sometimes works through imperfect human beings. Because of
their theological assumptions Muslims insist that David could not have com¬
mitted adultery with Bathsheba and sent her husband to his death, as is sta¬
ted in the Bible. Yet this is undeniable historical fact, and the Bible shows
that David, despite this serious lapse, was a great man, and one through
whom God chose to work. The acceptance of the results of historical criti¬
cism will mean that Muslims have to give up some aspects of their idealized
picture of early Islam, but on the other hand they will have stronger reasons
for being proud of the solid achievements of Islam throughout the centuries.
Secondly, Muslims need to make careful studies of other intellectual
movements with a view to reaching a positive appreciation of what is of
value in them. In medieval times there was some study by Muslims of other
religions, but it was mostly made in order to discover their weaknesses and
show the elements of falsity in them. The need for Muslims now is to look
for what is of value in other religious and philosophical systems. In this way
they will discover how far they may be able to co-operate with non-Muslims
in bringing into being a better world-order. In the course of such studies
Muslims might find ways of reconstructing the intellectual basis of Islamic
belief in order to make it more credible to Muslims with a Western-type edu¬
cation.
Thirdly, Muslim religious scholars require to work at the elaboration of the
Sari'a in order to make clear its position on such matters as the problems of an
industrial society, the problems of a world economic system and the problems
of a world political system. It would seem that in applying the Sari'a in such
areas further attention would have to be givven to the Islamic discipline of usül
al-fiqh or legal methodology. Such studies should open up the way for Muslim
jurists to co-operate with non-Muslim jurists in framing the political-moral
basis for a world-order which will secure justice and peace for all.
In this paper I have been very critical of some aspects of the Islamic self-
image; but I should like to conclude by emphasizing that the important cen¬
tral points of the self-image have not been questioned. Among these central
points are the following. Muhammad was a great religious leader and a
prophet in the sense that he brought messages from God to the people of
Mecca in his time. Though these messages were primarily for the people of
Mecca and then of Medina, later events showed that they were relevant and
valid for people of many different races and cultures. The system of law, and
more generally the self-image elaborated by Muslim religious scholars,
brought into being a community in which people were able to live satisfying
and meaningful lives, and where they experienced a large measure of social
stability even amid vast political upheavals. The fact that changes in the self- image are now necessary is due to the effects of technological and industrial
developments. As Dr. Hans Küng has suggested, Islam is to be regarded as a
distinctive form of Abrahamic monotheism with a unique place in God's
purposes, such that even Christians may have something to learn from it.
Leitung: Egbert von Weiher, Köln
DIE ARAMÄISCHEN IDEOGRAMME
IM MITTELPERSISCHEN*
Von Christopher Toll, Kopenhagen
Zum 100. Geburtstag von H. S. Nyberg
am 28. Dezember 1989
Man sieht in den aramäischen Ideogrammen im Mittelpersischen sowohl
ältere (reichsaramäische) als auch jüngere (ostaramäische) Formen.' Falls die
Ideogramme schon unter den Achämeniden^ oder unter den parthischen
* Als H. S. Nyberg (Professor für semitische Sprachen an der Universität Uppsala 1931 — 1956) 1974 starb, hatte er seinen iranistischen Nachlaß B.
Utas, seinen semitistischen Nachlaß mir testamentarisch vermacht. Bei der Herausgabe von Nybergs Edition des Fraliang i Pahlavik hat B. Utas mich deshalb für die Bearbeitung der aramäischen Ideogramme herange¬
zogen. Bei dieser Arbeit wurde mir immer deutlicher, daß die bisherigen
Versuche, die aramäischen Formen zu deuten, unbefriedigend waren,
aber Nybergs Edition war nicht der geeignete Platz für die Veröffentli¬
chung meiner Gedanken. Ich habe dankbar die Gelegenheit genutzt, sie
stattdessen dem XXIV. Deutschen Orientalistentag vorzulegen und sie in
erweiterter Form in dessen Akten zu veröffentlichen. Während der Ar¬
beit an dem Frahang und dem vorliegenden Aufsatz konnte ich meine
Gedanken dauernd mit B. Utas besprechen; ich danke ihm herzlich für
seine wertvollen Hinweise und kritischen Bemerkungen. Mit bleibender
Dankbarkeit denke ich an unseren gemeinsamen Lehrer H. S. Nyberg,
der mich in das Studium der semitischen und iranischen Sprachen ein¬
führte.
' Für die aramäischen Ideogramme im allgemeinen verweise ich auf die Ar¬
beiten von Altheim u. Stiehl, Dresden, Henning, Kutscher, Ro¬
senthal 1964, Schaeder und Utas 1984.
2 So Herzfeld und Rosenthal, Rosenthal 1964, S. 81, und Schae¬
der, zitiert von Altheim u. Stiehl S. 4 ff.
