In drawing the boundaries between the believers and the unbelievers, he broke down the boundaries between various Arab tribes. While drawing a circle around the Ummah, and designating them as Dar-ul-Islam -- The House of Peace -- he erased the battle lines between black and white, Arab and non-Arab. In essence, the Prophet launched a spiritual movement that completely annulled narrowly defined identities and taught his followers the message of universality and Ummatic unity. It is my contention that one of the most significant elements of the revelation of Islam and the transformation from Jahiliya to Islam, is the transcendence of narrow identities. In other words, the journey from Jahiliya to Islam is also a movement away from tribalism and towards universalism. Tribalism is a characteristic of Jahiliya. It is indeed a pre-Islamic condition.

Unfortunately tribalism, the instinct to privilege identities based on ethnic and place-specific origins, has proved to be one of the greatest enemies of Islam. It can also be described as one of the greatest weaknesses of Muslims, regardless of place or time. Immediately after Allahtala chose to deprive us of the benevolent presence of the Holy Prophet, Abu Bakr, the first Khalifa, had to militarily assert that primacy of Islam over tribalism. In fact his entire Khilafah was dedicated to this task. But the nemesis persisted. Soon Osman, the third Khalifa, was accused of nepotism. After the sad departure Ali Ibn Talib, the fourth and the last of the rightly guided leaders of Islam, tribalism completely usurped political domination. This also heralded the end of democratic politics in the Muslim world. The history of Islam is a chronicle of the ills of tribalism: nepotism, authoritarianism, internal strife, decline of internal cohesiveness and external effectiveness, and the gradual decay of the moral fabric of society.

Tribalism, under a new name, nationalism, was celebrated and universally legitimized by the political reforms and philosophic renaissance in Europe. It became the constitutive character of modern political organization as well as the primary source of human identity. Nationalism was exported to the Muslim world during the colonial experience. Only "the Mahdi's" battles against the British in the late nineteenth century in Sudan were fought in the name of Islam. Most other independence movements, were fought under the banner of nationalism. While thinkers like Jalaluddin Afghani and Muhammed Abduh were strongly opposed to imperialism, it is perhaps only Maulana Maududi of the sub-continent of India who vociferously denounced nationalism. He condemned it as the greatest decease that had plagued humanity and especially the Muslims. Maududi's arguments were extremely valid. While Islam taught the virtues of the universal, nationalism celebrated the particular. While Islam united, nationalism divided.

Consider the formation of Bangladesh. In essence it was an assertion that Bengali language and cultural identity was more important than Islamic unity. While one cannot deny the widespread prevalence of authoritarian tendencies and ethnic bigotry in Pakistan (so vulgarly displayed in the frequent riots in Karachi), which is cited as the primary motive for cessation of the Bengalis, the partition of Pakistan was one more battle won by tribalism against Islam. At every such moment when ethnicity, or geographic element is privileged over Islam in the assertion or exercise of identity, to my mind, it is one more step towards the reversal of our dear Prophet's work. It is a step backwards, from Islam to Jahiliya. And as I argued earlier, they are clearly accompanied by the social ills such as intolerance, bigotry, fasad and human misery. Tribalism truly reveals the ugliest face of humanity. If this seems far fetched and unfair, one merely has to look at Bosnia, Karachi, Rwanda, Sudan and Afghanistan, the evidence is compelling.

Unfortunately Muslims in America are beginning to cluster along ethnic and racial lines. There seems to be a growing divide between immigrant Muslims and indigenous Muslims. While there is much talk about stemming this, there is very little action being taken to bring the two communities together. Yes, there are cooperation on some important issues, but the cooperation is like an alliance and not unifying. Similarly there is a widening gap between the two large immigrant groups, Arabs and South Asians. This divide is manifest in some of the prominent Islamic movements in North America. In America we have an opportunity to create a microcosm of an Ummah but unfortunately our tribal instincts never seem to allow us to escape from the darkness of ignorance in to the light of Islam. This situation also indicates that Muslims who are coming to the West are really bringing their provincial and narrow perspectives along rather than the message of "truth and universality" -- the essence of Islam.

Once again the specter of tribalism, divisiveness, and internal strife has followed us across the Atlantic. This is a very dangerous phenomenon. Muslims, who claim to be Muslims and are sincere about their Islamic beliefs should shrug this transitory and superficial comfort and sense of security that accompanies the ethnic seduction and think long term. Many contemporary Islamic scholars believe that if anything good in the name of Islam is going to happen, then it is the Muslims in the West, liberated from poverty and political repression, who will precipitate it. But in order to realize this hope. We must all act and think, universally and boldly. We must strengthen the lines that the our Dear Prophet sketched while erasing the lines which some colonial employ of a foreign crown arbitrarily drew. If Islam has to rise from the West, then the Muslims will have to come out of their ghettoes, into the open, open their arms and embrace humanity. Tribalism should be eliminated. Remember the Prophets last Qutbah. Transcend racial and ethnic perspectives. Think big. Think bigger. Think the world. Think Ummah. Think universal.

Posted: 11.05.1999
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