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Index of Daily Report
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
COMMENTARY: On Turning 60
By AKBAR S. AHMED
c. 2003 Religion News Service
(Professor Akbar S. Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies
and professor of international relations at American University in
Washington, D.C. His most recent book is "Islam Today: A Short Introduction
to the Muslim World," published by I.B. Tauris.)
(UNDATED) 2003 is of special significance to me. It is the year I reach
60 years of age.
It is a point in a person's life when he or she raises the eternal
questions: Why am I here? What is my role? How can I contribute to the sum
of human understanding? And, finally, how long do I have?
No one can really expect an accurate answer for the last question.
As for the other questions, the terrible actions of the 19 Muslim men
who caused unprecedented death and destruction on Sept. 11, 2001, have forced all of us to confront the answers. Their actions have plunged the
world into what appears to be a violent confrontation between Western and
Muslim civilizations.
This confrontation is now seeping into every country where Muslims live
and affecting the lives of millions of people. There can be no more
important task than that of creating better understanding between the two
civilizations.
On my 60th birthday I reflect on the series of seemingly unrelated
developments in my life, which led me to resign from the bureaucracy of
Pakistan and head for PrincetonUniversity as a visiting professor in July
2000. I was delighted to be back in Princeton where I had spent a happy year
two decades earlier at the Institute for Advanced Study. After an idyllic year on campus I took up the Ibn Khaldun Chair of
Islamic Studies at AmericanUniversity in Washington, D.C., in late August
2001.
A few days later the Muslim hijackers changed the world and my
decade-long work of interfaith dialogue now appeared of urgent relevance.
I was on a roller-coaster ride appearing on an unending series of
platforms to bring understanding between Islam and the West: from small
campus classrooms, to groups of important policy-makers, to appearing on
"Oprah" thrice. It has been a physically and emotionally punishing exercise.
But it has also been rewarding.
After September 2001 so many central questions have been thrown up about
Islam. Does Islam believe in democracy? Is Islam a tolerant religion? What
is Islam's relationship to the other world religions? Although these questions are now widely asked everywhere, especially in
the media, I had already raised them over a decade ago when I arrived at
CambridgeUniversity in 1988. It was to answer these questions that I
launched two major projects: first, to understand and explain the
compassionate nature of Islam, and second, to project a viable democratic
model of Muslim political leadership.
The BBC six-part television series "Living Islam," which I presented,
was broadcast for the first time in 1993. It was based on my book
"Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society."
The project that came to be called the "Jinnah Quartet" was completed in
1997-98. It was comprised of a feature film called "Jinnah," starring
Christopher Lee; a documentary, "Mr. Jinnah: The Making of Pakistan"; a
scholarly book, "Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity"; and a graphic novel
for children called "The Quaid: Jinnah and the Story of Pakistan." I had become interested in the question of Muslim leadership and its
impact on Muslim society in the 1980s when I was commissioner in
Baluchistan, the senior-most officer in the field. I had come to the
conclusion that unless a strongly defined democratic model of leadership
emerges in the Muslim world, it will be caught between ruthless military
dictators and corrupt royal dynasties.
In the early 1990s I began to write and speak about Jinnah in opposition
to alternative forms of political leadership in the Muslim world, including
that of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. I warned of the coming storm that
would engulf the world.
These projects made a global impact. Debate and discussion were created.
I was praised and reviled. Some hailed me as the modern Ibn Khaldun, another
Iqbal; others condemned me for being too keen to have dialogue with the
Jews, Christians and Hindus. The price for completing the projects was high. My health had almost
collapsed and whatever little family savings I had were sunk into the
projects. My family life was disrupted.
But the projects laid the foundations for serious interfaith initiatives
in which I took part. I could not conceive of more important initiatives,
particularly in the United States, where the dialogue between the Abrahamic
faiths remains weak and underdeveloped.
Through the ups and downs of the last 60 years I have been sustained and
inspired by my late father, a gentle and wise man, and by my saintly mother.
My wife, children and grandchildren have been a constant source of joy and
pride. Their love has been unwavering and unconditional. I look back on the journey and am wonderstruck at how the seemingly
unrelated and incongruous kaleidoscopic pieces of my life somehow fall into
a pattern. I think of my birth in Allahabad, a small dusty town by the great
Ganges river in the heart of what was then British India and a part of the
British Empire on which the sun never set, and my life now in Washington,
the grand capital of the sole superpower of the world.
Even as a growing boy I was aware of the rapidity with which the British
Empire shrank and then disappeared and the equally amazing rise of the
United States as the world power.
I think of my father who believed in the Sufi motto "sulh-i-kul," or
peace with all, and who inspired me to explore and project the compassionate
nature of Islam. His example propelled me into the life-changing and
irreversible commitment to dialogue and understanding. I think of the journey of Zeenat, my wife, my companion and my friend
for over half of my 60 years, who has helped me selflessly through my
tumultuous life with her love, devotion and intelligence. I wonder at the
distance she has traveled -- the princess from the conservative royal house
of Swat, in the remote northern hills of Pakistan, actively committed with
me on campus, in offices and in the different houses of God.
So while wishing myself a happy 60th birthday and pledging renewed vigor
in interfaith dialogue and understanding in which I am involved I take the
opportunity to utter my first words as someone who has just become a genuine
elder citizen of the world: God bless you all.