Islam and Modernity

Most Muslims do not really think of Modernity in terms of a break with the Past. Modernity means new and better technology and an improved standard of living. But unlike in Western societies, it also means a renewal with the Past, a return to the original ethos of Islam, of Mecca and Medina. If that society remains the perfect society, which must be copied in the late Twentieth century, then the idea of Progress, or a break with the Past is a nonsense.
This mind set has other subtle and important implications. Universal suffrage is welcomed, but not necessarily the idea that individual freedom or freedom of opinion are essential preconditions for the exercise of democracy. An Islamist would understand Hurriyat al-ra'y, or Freedom of Opinion, to mean the right to think what you like but only within the boundaries of what is permitted in Islam. Too often, it seems, Islam is defined in a narrow and restrictive sense.
The dilemma raised by Hurriyat al-ra'y is rooted in Islam's early history. The first century of the Islamic state is marked by murder, intrigue and civil war, epitomized by A'isha's struggle against Ali, and, soon after, by the bloody schism between Sunni and Shi'i which resulted in a state of fitna or chaos. Freedom of Thought, for many Muslims, therefore is synonymous with dissent and fitna and must be avoided at all cost. For a traditional Muslim, freedom of thought therefore signals a return to Jahiliyya, the Age of Ignorance and Darkness.
Western cultures, in varying degrees, claim that human beings should act and think according to their own desires and beliefs. But for many traditionalist Muslims, individualism thus defined also opens the door to selfishness, a denial of God, and, once again, chaos or Fitna. Passions, desires and, above all, the human imagination, must therefore be tightly circumscribed. Loudspeakers outside the compound of the Tabhlik-i-Islami (a powerful Islamic missionary society) in Raiwind ( Pakistan) declare apostate anyone who dares to praise Reason. Reason is an attempt to set oneself up above God. Human Reason is an act of blasphemy that must be punished! the loudspeakers blare. At such moments, the most innocent and unspoken thoughts can take on the terrors of blasphemy.