The Necessity of Rereading: History and Identity

H: 'The historian's task is to offer a "true" narrative in order to give the "best possible" representation of the past, one that is separated from the present and which, in principle, implies the belief that there are discontinuities and differences between times.'1 How is it that in the Arab world, even today, there is a glaring lack of any historical study in the modern sense of the term, that our touchstones remain Tabari2 and Ibn Kathir,3 authors from the early centuries of the Hijra, who confuse history and legend? Why can't we blow away the cobwebs and produce some more modern readings of history?

A: Even from a poetic point of view, the Arabs haven't, for example, written a single book on the aesthetics of Arabic and its specificity. We might put this down to a lack of a spirit of research and innovation. It is as if the Arabs of today have no questioning spirit. In terms of history, the Arabs can't seem to think objectively about the first so-called Arab-Muslim state, which was founded on the power and cohesion of the tribe. The word tribe implies an absence of the idea of plurality. The Quraysh, the tribe of Muhammad which held power in the caliphate after the Prophet's death, was a single family that founded a state based on Saqifa.4 Even the Ansar, who defended Muhammad against his Quraysh enemies, were excluded from the exercise of power at the point of a sword. The Ansar proposed a form of coalition. Sa'd ibn 'Ubada al Ansari asked for a share of power; in other words, for a form of democracy allowing them to participate in political life alongside the Quraysh. But 'Umar and the Quraysh refused to share power. Sa'd was attacked and chased out of Saqifa along with other Ansar. Power was in the hands of the tribe. Since then, history has been closely connected to the power of the tribe.

H: But why has writing on history not been brought up to date? Why, despite a renaissance in the Arab world from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth, have intellectuals failed to produce modern readings of ancient texts?

A: When I wrote Ath-thabit wa'l muta?awwil (The Static and the Dynamic),5 academics criticized me for reading or rereading history differently. In an attempt to restrict interest in my work they accused me of being a Shi'ite who was distorting the history of the Arabs. In other words, my reading wasn't the product of personal reflection, deep thinking and research, and a genuine desire to move beyond traditional, impoverished and repetitive readings, but rather motivated solely by my 'hostility towards the Sunni'. In this work I talked about the Sunni state and revolutions against this state over the course of history. But those academics who criticized me didn't propose any alternative studies to discuss my theses or points of view. They attacked my place of birth. This is the voice of the tribe, not that of an objective researcher.

H: It was as if your study were based on a purely ideological position. Did you defend yourself?

A: I didn't defend myself, even though, deep down, I was very unhappy that my work had been so badly read and interpreted. But over time the reading of this book evolved. People became less reticent.

H: It was even translated into Indonesian and superbly received. Your experience with Ath-thabit wa'l muta?awwil reminds me of that of Taha Hussein and his book Fi ashshi'r al-jahili (On Pre-Islamic Poetry). Taha Hussein was condemned and forced to rewrite his work, simply because he tried to rethink pre-Islamic poetry with reference to the cogito, even though it contained no critique of religion and cast no doubt on Qur'anic verses.

A: It is unfortunately the case that Arab thinking, even that which has been labelled modern, remains dogmatic and trapped within the tribal mentality. Nothing is to be changed, nothing shaken up. Everything must stay exactly the same as before, set in stone. What we have called 'a?r an-nah?a (the Arab renaissance) turns out to have been a false renaissance. But we can't reread history or analyse it or move it forwards if we don't free ourselves of this tribal mentality.

H: What happened to Taha Hussein makes one thing clear to us. Basically, it is the critical spirit itself that is condemned, not its questioning of pre-Islamic verses.

A: The 'Islamic regime' was born as a political and economic power. Without the tribal mentality it would not have enjoyed the success that it has. Drawing, among other things, on the force of the tribal mentality, Islam very quickly became a means of power and conquest.

H: By 'very quickly' and 'from the start' I assume you mean 'since the death of the Prophet'?

A: Yes. Since the death of Muhammad. As I said earlier, the drama all started at Saqifa. In fact, Saqifa has never ceased to be a presence in the Arab space. It inhabits this space. We remain enshrouded in Saqifa. For fifteen centuries, the Arab-Arab war has been waged incessantly. This problem is still with us today. We haven't left the Middle Ages yet.

H: In his L'Identité nationale, une énigme, Marcel Detienne writes: 'to be born of your own place, to be the product of it, and why not?, to be agent of your own history'. I get the feeling that something in our history is preventing us from being agents of our own history.

A: We have discussed the shackles of religion. Since Islam was born perfect, it stands against everything that came before and everything that has followed since. That 'everything' includes philosophy, art, thought, creativity, a vision of the world, etc. With thinking abolished and art condemned, the only illumination we have is that offered by the reigning power. The drama of Saqifa is still playing out today. Why is Saudi Arabia conducting a war in Yemen? The roots of this war lie deep in the tribal spirit of our history. But instead of analysing the reasons for this havoc, we are supposed to just carry on repeating these wars without ever questioning the basis of them. In the traditionalist mindset, you have to be a 'follower' (tabi') and not a 'questioner'. We have to simply repeat and reproduce.

H: And reproduce identically.

A: Identically, because perfection has already been attained. The past embraces this perfection, which to this day remains the only model, the only example to follow. We are called upon to remain in complete concordance and agreement with the past. Thus identity is reduced to sheer repetition. If you want to be a Muslim, or rather an Arab-Muslim, you have to imitate the perfection of history.

H: In psychoanalysis we call this state of things 'a frozen time'. It is the frozen time of a suffering psyche. However, Daesh merely repeats the dark side of history. Daesh does not repeat the genius of an Averroes,6 an Alhazen7 or an Ibn 'Arabi,8 or the bold speculative thinking of the Mu'tazilites.9

A: Daesh repeats what is connected to power, not thought or research. That's another reason why we are still in Saqifa, why the spirit of Saqifa still reigns and dominates everyday life today. So identity, in this way of seeing things, remains a repetition. It's a heritage, not something that has been freely chosen. Individuals are born Arab-Muslims or Muslims. And fundamentally an Arab-Muslim is a Sunni not a Shi'ite, or a Shi'ite not a Sunni. Arab history is one of constant war.

H: You are highlighting what I picked up in my reading without daring to think it. The first Arab-Muslim society began to enrich itself through conquests, not from the time of the caliphate, but even earlier. The Prophet conducted wars and grew richer with each victory. The spoils were enormous. The earliest Muslim society enriched itself in this way. Later the first great fitna (war between Muslims) broke out because 'Uthman plundered the public treasury to enrich his clan.

A: 'Uthman, as all historians agree, spent enormous sums on enriching his family with no regard to the wider community. You're right to talk about enrichment through war and conquest, because Islam's fortune came from ghana'im (spoils of war). From the start Islam adopted the violence of wars and conquests.

H: Apart from the ghana'im, there was the tribute paid by non-Muslims or those who wanted to keep their own religions. Women were part of the spoils. They were kept or sold as captives of war.

A: Historically, Islam, as I said earlier, was founded on the tribal mentality, conquests and the power of money. Today, Daesh is enriching itself thanks to ghana'im and control of oil and gas supplies, money from banks and the sale of women .

H: Daesh extracts a tribute from non-Muslims, loots and takes women as captives of war, which is why I think that it repeats the dark side, not the enlightened side of the Mu'tazilites, the philosophers or...