Chapter 4

Third Study

Leonard Binder's Islamic
Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies is the most sophisticated
Western study of the relationship between Islam and society in the modern Arab
world to appear in the United States recently. Binder maintains that liberalism
is not only rational, universal, and politically feasible, but it is the only
alternative to the political and moral predicament of the Third World,
especially the Muslim world.

Binder claims that his main goal behind writing a
book on "Islamic liberalism" is to help Muslim intellectuals produce
"a liberal Islamic discursive formation which poses a challenge to the
existing scripturalist and fundamentalist alternatives." Modern Muslim
theologians and thinkers are aware of the Straussian distinction between
political philosophy and political theology. According to Leo Strauss, [21]
political theology is made up of those teachings that are based on divine
revelation, whereas political philosophy is limited to what is accessible to
the unassisted human mind. Western political philosophy rejects any divine
intervention in the historical and political process. Political philosophy, as
advanced by Binder, is based on the notion that the best context for political
action is that of a democracy. Therefore, according to this view, the main
assumptions, trends, and manifestations of political philosophy are sustained
by a democracy.

Binder contends that liberalism, as a political
philosophy and Western ideological formation, is viable in the contemporary
Muslim world, especially in the Middle East. He points out that "political
liberalism can exist only where and when its social and intellectual
prerequisites exist ... These preconditions already exist in the Middle
East." [22] Political liberalism rests on the fundamental assumption of
the state‑religion separation. Although the latter has been a de facto reality in many Middle East
societies, Muslim theorists of contemporary state and politics have not
appropriated it yet.

It is clear that Binder does not question the
inherent notions of superiority underlying modernization theories. He argues
that modernization theory is only "an academic transfer of the dominant,
and ideologically significant paradigm employed in research on the American
political system." Classical as well as contemporary American modernization
theorists have only recently begun to take into account the importance of Islam
as a cultural system and an ideological social phenomenon. For a long while,
the only factors considered were education, urbanization, media exposure, and
economic productivity. As a result, modernization theorists, including Binder,
have failed to present an adequate formulation of the relationship between
Islam and society in the post‑colonial phase. In one sense, Binder
"atomizes" [23] Islam to such an extent where he holds the
comfortable notion that "Islam in its various forms, and categories, and
applications, is only a part of Middle East culture, and by itself accounts for
little." Such an inaccurate statement makes one doubt the coherence and
vitality of a liberal project' in an Islamic context.

One of Binder's implicit assumptions is that Western
liberalism has been a major cause behind the transition of the modern Arab
world from "the closed society" to "the open society."
Binder contends along the same lines of the famous "open society"
theoretician, Karl Popper, [24] that the main characteristics of "closed
society" are defined by its organic ties, tribal and collectivist
mentality, lack of individuality, and religious rigidity. The open (liberal)
society, on the other hand, is marked by individuality, freedom of expression,
rationalism, social mobility, and a critical appraisal of social reality. In
other words, according to Binder, liberalism has assisted modern Arab society
in maintaining a degree of tolerance and openness to outside influences.
Furthermore, the transition from the "closed society" to the open one
signals a total breakdown of tribalism and religious rigidity. Then, to
Binder's mind, any reaction against liberalism in the modern Arab World, either
in the form of "Islamic fundamentalism" or anti‑Western
nationalism, is, in fact, a reaction against socio‑economic progress, and
the scientific culture of the Western civilization. One can, therefore,
theorize that Binder's political project for the Muslim Middle East is
superimposed from the outside since it fails to express the aspirations of
Muslims as people.

Notes:

[21]. See Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1988).

[22]. Leonard Binder, Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1988), p.102.

[23]. In one of his major studies on modern Islam,
Hamilton Gibb argues that the Arab‑Islamic mind is atomistic. Consult,
Hamilton Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1947), especially chapter one.

[24]. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, two volumes (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1962).