"On Unity and Diversity: Islam as a Religion and a Way of Life"

The relationship between the Muslim and, in particular, the Arab world on the one hand and Europe, especially Germany, on the other, is full of resentment on both sides. In our view Islam is often identified with power-mongering and aggression. This posture often leads the Muslims to believe that the West has only a negative view about them and they feel obliged, if not actually forced, to justify themselves and also adopt an apologetic stance.

These reciprocal perceptions are accompanied by strong feelings which are certainly embedded in reality. There is only a limited knowledge about Islam in the Federal German community. In such a brief overview I can only deal with a few aspects which I consider important regarding the formulation of our questions to enable a dialogue to be conducted with more empathy.

In this connection the literary academic Edward Said continues to consider the question of whether it is even sensible or legitimate to discuss Islam, indeed, to regard Islam as a unified whole because, in doing this, one standardises the extremely rich culture, reduces it and only stirs up a lack of understanding. I will go no further into this argument about orientalism but try instead to uncover something about the major topic of Islam and, in taking into account Said's criticism, speak more in-depth about three things:

?    he normative tradition, i.e. the written fundamental principles of Islam,

?    the current practice, which has to be regarded separately from this tradition, and

?    the ideas which exist nowadays about Islam and the correct way of life according to Islam.

Islam, in its context as the obligatory code of Muslim life, is to a great extent founded on a scriptured revelation supplemented by tradition. To this extent the fundamental principle is comprehensible to anyone who has grown up in the Christian way of life. The difficulties in reciprocal understanding have their origins in the differing understanding of the text by the Christians and the Muslims: the Muslim views the Koran as the direct word of God to the believers, whilst the Bible, according to the (majority) belief of Christians was compiled and edited by human beings in a lengthy process. The Koran was revealed to only one person, Mohammed, as God's messenger and, within the space of 20 years, was set down in final and binding form in writing and as a book. According to Muslim belief this is evidence of the special character of the Koran as God's word, never to be questioned or doubted, whereas the holy scriptures in the bible do refer to God but, because they have been composed by man, they are open to interpretation.

Besides the text of the Holy Koran there are the records (Sunna) of the things Mohammed, as the messenger of God and his last prophet said, did and - according to Muslim conviction - handed down to the faithful upon direct revelation from God. This written information about Islam occupies a meaningful place in cultural life because reciting the Holy Koran established trends in the sense that it shaped the linguistic expression in poetry, literature and political rhetoric. Against this, music enjoyed no particular status in the narrower sense of religion. However, the Koran offers no reason that would forbid music. Restrictions do apply to the performing arts with regard to portraying the living human being. The view that pictures have absolutely no place within a religious context is one explanation of the fact that no pictures are to be seen in mosques. But this does not mean that pictures are forbidden or that there is a hostility in principle towards the arts, for how could the exceptional artistic creativity and output in architecture, calligraphy and decoration be otherwise explained?

Such written and verbal orientation in Islam is the basis for the way in which the relationship to other religions is classified. For these to be accepted as a religion it is necessary, from a Muslim point of view, that only one God be worshipped and that there be only one scripture about the revelation. Only within this framework can religious behaviour, thinking and feelings be justified as normative traditions for Muslims, which have their basis in the Koran and Sunna, or for other faiths in the Bible or the Torah.

Besides this scriptural orientation in "High Islam", the power of the sacred and of magic in "People's Islam" was most significant for the way in which the Muslims saw themselves. This differentiation derives from the common idea that the Muslim man or woman who could neither read nor write tries to find his or her path to God in People's Islam through the mediation of saints or by means of certain magic practices. Especially when one views Islam historically this orientation via living examples gains importance and contributes to the overall picture that Islam was understood and lived in differing ways in the past and that nowadays, too, the practices of 1.2 billion Muslims are extremely diverse.

Against this, the unity of Islam as propagated by Islamists - meaning those activists who appear politically in the name of Islam and are labelled by many as fundamentalists - simply does not exist. It must always be remembered that plurality is donned and lived to a greater extent in Islam than in Christianity, because for example in a rural Muslim community in Malaysia other things are declared to be fundamental to establish identities and to be Islamic than in a municipal environment in Cairo. If there is no such thing as unified Islamic thinking, then where is the unifying normative core to be found?

A Muslim is the person who recites the creed: "There is no God besides the one God and Mohammed is his prophet". This confession is as sufficient for the Muslims of today as it was in the past to be able to be part of the Muslim community. The additional requirement that, for example, contravening Islamic law and its system of values (Shariah) shall be viewed as the betrayal of Islam and thus fought against, is the stance adopted by the minority. The majority, however, does accept that this belief in the one God and his prophet must be reflected in its behaviour and that Islam is constituted through the right creed, but that correct behaviour must also accompany the faith. These questions about the correct way to conduct life and the relationship between religion and politics determine the internal Muslim debate just as much as does the investigation of the Muslims by the outside world. Only the fundamentalists have a simple answer to this because they assume, that Islam represents a closed and coherent way of life which cannot be lived individually but must be rendered collectively instead. Islam must mould and fashion law, politics, the State and the economy of an Islamic society as a wholly encompassing way of life.

The abridged formula reads: Shariah legal code must be applied. This is a formula for political strife. No explanations are given, instead unambiguity and clarity are implied and also taken on board by many.

The majority of Moslems associates Shariah law with something quite different to that which is voiced by many Western observers. They do not think of hands being chopped off or backs being whipped but believe instead that Shariah law incorporates ethical values like, for example, respect for one's neighbours, love of parents and children, helping the weak and disabled, the poor and the sick. They believe that applying Shariah law can rid lawlessness, suppression and unfairness, because it represents a God given way of life for them. Shariah law also includes practical norms and directives which shall inspire, if not totally mould, Muslim life in all its facets. These duties, to be carried out at an individual level, are the so-called "Five Pillars" of Islam: reciting the creed, praying five times daily, fasting during the month of Ramadan, dispensing charity and undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Shariah law has a third component besides ethical values and religious duties. It involves legal norms such as family law and criminal law. As is well known these legal norms contain draconian corporal punishment and death penalties which would certainly have raised no eyebrows in the eighth, ninth or tenth centuries of the Christian calendar, because they were taken completely for granted in the sense of justice of those times and many of the rules were indeed more civilised than in other legal systems. This was the case, for example, with women who were granted an independent law of inheritance.

Nowadays though, many eyebrows are raised by Muslims and non Muslims alike when one talks about these punishments because, under our present sense of justice, it is difficult for us to accept that corporal punishment, which goes as far as to amputate a hand, has to be meted, because the Lord God has directed that it be so in the Holy Koran. Since these rules are an explicit part of Shariah law the question arises as to how an individual should treat this and what he might think about the stipulation that Shariah law shall be applied.

Does he think first of all about the ethical values and religious duties or does he have a completely integral picture, in which corporal punishment also plays a part? This question of what Shariah law actually is and how comprehensively it is defined, is part of the discussions within and outside the Muslim community. The answers differ in Pakistan, Iran, Egypt or the Sudan, i.e. States which they themselves testify to applying the Shariah legal code. Hands are not amputated in Egypt and mutilating hands is not part of the criminal law in the Islamic Republic of Iran, whilst such draconian measures are

applied in the Sudan and Pakistan.

These differing applications of Shariah rules depend on the question as to how far moral values and the norms of law go together, whether moral feelings on the one hand coincide with legal norms on the other. In short: should Shariah law be employed fundamentally or is it a question of the principles and if so, what are the principles? Only the Islamists have unambiguous answers to this whereas Islamic lawyers dispute the coincidence of moral and legal norms.

This leads to a further problem: how shall the legislator know exactly what the Lord God wanted concerning legal questions. Can it be God's will that every commonplace theft should suffer such draconian punishment? From the onset lawyers have limited the facts concerning theft to such an extent that, as a general rule, amputating a hand may not be used as punishment. But how are we to interpret the will of God and who interprets this? How are we to recognise the difference between that, which is explicitly stated as the will of God in the Koran as sacrosanct, holy and forever valid on the one hand and the comprehension of human beings in such matters on the other? What are the consequences of the answers we seek on society and the rule of law of a State?

After all, the question arises as to how extensively and how watertight God wanted to regiment human behaviour. Some are of the opinion that nothing is second rate before God and infer from this, for example, the duty regarding a certain mode of dress. For them there is a clear instruction concerning every expression of life, be it even so banal, through the word of God in the Koran as well as by the actions of the Prophet in the Sunna. The Muslim simply needs to devote himself to thorough study of the subject matter.

The contrary opinion - briefly touched on here - is that God is anything but narrow-minded, neither is He interested in the length of an outer garment, whether or not it covers the ankle. In the Holy Koran God has conveyed the basic values of Islamic ethics, which call for the principles of justice, freedom, equality and solidarity. Furthermore it is argued that there are also binding guidelines in the Koran such as, for example, propriety, consideration, partnership in marriage and the welfare of children, the aged and the weak. Everything else mirrors human interpretation or rulings at some point in time, so formulated by God as to be understandable to the people in Mecca and Medina in the seventh century of the Christian calendar.

In principle this grants enormous freedom of action to Muslims in the 21 st century. The basic values are fixed from the outset, their translation allows much freedom of movement but it must be undertaken Islamically and pay due attention to the prevailing facts. The extreme positions referred to here -identity of morals and law, equating divine utterance and human comprehension and the all-encompassing or very broadly stretched comprehension of Shariah law - are of course the subjects of intense debate in the world of Islam. They profoundly influence artistic, academic and family life as well as the legal systems of the various States.

Unfortunately these differences are also reflected in the actions of the political activists who, in their role as Islamists or fundamentalists, appear throughout the world to claim, that Islam and the State are linked in an absolutely unambiguous manner. But other voices also exist such as, for example, the Central Committee of Muslims in Germany.

An "Islamic Charter" was published in February 2002 which postulated the position of Muslims with regard to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany and towards their existence as Muslims of the Diaspora. In this charter one reads that the Muslims are striving for their own identity; that they accept the German legal system including the rights of the family and of inheritance (there is no mention at all of Islamic criminal law); that there are no demands to legalise polygamy; that they accept German law and administration of justice; that they accept freedom of religion including the right to change one's religion, i.e. also the right of a Muslim to either convert to another religion or to belong to no religion.

These almost quite sensational positions illustrate the thought being given to such questions and show that they are extremely explosive subject matters in the Islamic States and also in Europe and on the American Continent.

In conclusion, were Islam to be as simple as suggested by many of its most vociferous representatives then there would be no need for a lecture such as this and the situation in the Muslim world would not be as complex as it actually is. One has to occupy oneself with this diversity and first of all listen and observe and not come with preconceived judgements regarding what Islam can do or whether it is dangerous or not. This creates difficulties on both sides because relationships are anything but relaxed and because so many reservations and feelings of resentment exist. We - Muslims and non Muslims alike - must come to terms with these difficulties. Otherwise dialogue is impossible.