Osama bin-Laden, al-Qaeda, 9/11, Iraq, the Taliban, Afghanistan, and Ft. Hood or what some would describe as terrorism and murder have become the symbols of Islam in the West. They have shaped, sadly, what Americans know about Muslims. And that has led to our increasingly irrational and overemotional, “you are the enemy” policies toward the Islamic world.
Not all Muslims are, as I can personally attest, fundamentalist jihadists. In fact, moderate Muslims outnumber extremists significantly. Interestingly they are growing in power and influence in places such as Turkey and Dubai.
Moderate Muslims are growing in power so much so that Vali Nasr, a professor at Tufts University and currently an advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan to State Department envoy Richard Holbrooke, believes that they will be the “forces” that will eventually topple the Osama bin-Ladens menacing the world. It is a thesis we should all take a look at.
His tremendous book Forces of Fortune analyzes the rise of a moderate class of Muslims who embrace a conservative brand of Islam but reject anything that resembles the jihad.
An Iranian-American, Nasr previously authored The Shia Revival, knows all-too-well about the dangerous affects of jihadi ideology. That makes him a convincing authority we should listen to on how to best defeat it. That doesn’t mean, however, we shouldn’t question some of the things he says.
Some of the things he says pertain to the rise of a moderate Muslim class in places like Turkey and Dubai. Nasr devotes a lot of ink to the “Anatolian tigers” who are conservative businessmen from central Turkey who took advantage of the country’s economic reorganization in the late 1990s and became lucrative entrepreneurs. They helped create jobs and draw large-scale investments into Turkey. That has helped bolster Turkey’s standing in the globalized world. And that has helped devout Muslims to rethink their attitudes toward capitalism – and extremism.
For so long, secular governments in the Muslim world such as Turkey and Indonesia denied their Islamic origins, dismissing pious Muslims as “yokels.” But with economic liberalization, places like Turkey and Dubai saw that despite their religious disposition, observant Muslims were no different from their secular brothers and sisters.
Nasr uses the example of Dubai to illustrate his point that observant Muslims want to stay at “five star hotels and pray at five star mosques.” They are religious and interested in fine service and luxury – one does not preclude the other. Thankfully so, Nasr says, because it is this desire to blend Islam with high-quality living that has allowed a moderate Muslim class to emerge in Dubai and in Turkey. And that, Nasr believes, provides a welcome alternative to extremism. No one who shops for Prada wants to die.
It is a persuasive point, but Nasr fails to mention that Saudi Arabia has long mixed Muhammad with bling. In fact, many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis who were not poor yokels, but hailed from the middle class.
In person Nasr acknowledges this point. He says that it is true that the 9/11 hijackers were well off. But they weren’t self-made entrepreneurs. Saudi Arabia, he maintains, is an oil-rich country that suppresses its people and doesn’t allow them to innovate. And that is the root of extremism.
In Forces of Fortune Nasr argues that it is the entrepreneurs of Turkey, Dubai and Indonesia that are transforming the Muslim landscape. And that the West can help them succeed by removing tariffs and providing investments. He argues that instead of trying to promote “free and fair elections” in the Middle East, the U.S. should develop an economic-based policy toward the region that will lead to more job creation and growth. More jobs, Nasr rightly points out, give young men and women who make up the majority in the Middle East a stake in their communities.
One point that Nasr ignores in his book is the role of women within this new moderate Muslim class that he admires. He touches upon the headscarf issue, pointing out that contrary to belief that men strong-arm women to don the veil, many Muslim women voluntarily cover themselves. He tells us about progressive threads within Muslim communities in Egypt and elsewhere where women have become imams and lead prayer. He cites a Muslim cleric that talks about the equality of women in Allah’s eyes.
The trouble is Allah doesn’t run governments. And none of the moderate Muslims Nasr praises includes women in decisions or leadership. This is true in Turkey with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) that Nasr admires and hopes will be an example for other Muslim-majority countries, especially his own Iran. In the AKP there are a handful of female parliamentarians but none have decision-making power or are in Turkish Prime Minister and AKP party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inner circle.
That is unacceptable, but a point that Nasr believes we must unfortunately accept. In a conversation I had with him he told me that while these moderate Muslims were progressive they were not liberalizing. Many draw their roots from small towns and villages where traditional values still dominate. The unfortunate consequence of that, he says, is that they are not as open to women’s rights as they should be.
Still, Nasr believes that while it is not good news for women today, the rise of this new moderate Muslim class will lead women to the economic and political equality that they deserve. There’s no doubt that he has a point, and that Forces of Fortune is a great value add to our knowledge about the Middle East, but as a Muslim woman I’m tired of waiting.
One Comment
I think we’ll need a generational change before we see women in Muslim countries have more overt public power at higher levels. I’m an American woman who married into a Kurdish family and have lived in western Turkey for the past 11 years. Women in our family and in the larger community generally wield control of the home, but they are also actively participate in all areas of business in our small town. Our family doctor, lawyer, accountant are all women, as is the landlord of our shop. Some are religious and wear a headscarf, most are secular and do not. While my father-in-law’s generation would never vote for a female mayor or parliamentarian, my 39 year old husband and his generation probably would.