‘All God’s Children’?
The contemporary challenge for the Abrahamic faiths
The Keene Lectures at Chelmsford Cathedral
November 2005
The attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11 2001 and the London bombings of 7July this year have concentrated our minds on the tensions inherent in people of conflicting and mutually-exclusive ideologies sharing the same small planet.
For our Keene Lectures we invited representatives of the three world religions that claim Abraham as their ancestor – Judaism, Islam and Christianity – to explore the challenge that confronts us. While not going as far as dialogue (for each lecture was complete in itself) we hope that this exercise in hospitality and good listening will signal our desire to appreciate and understand one another’s faith and world-view, heal some diseases of past and present, and build a better future.
For the second lecture, on Wednesday 16 November, we welcomed Ms Maleiha Malik, lecturer in the Law Faculty at King’s College, University of London, to give a Muslim perspective.
Andrew Knowles
Canon Theologian
Chelmsford Cathedral
November 2005
'In Broken Images': Faith in the Public Sphere’1
Thank you for your kind welcome. I would like to begin my lecture with a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies):
" Why, when this span of life might be fleeted away . . .
oh, why have to be human, and, shunning Destiny, long for Destiny? . . .
Not out of curiosity, not just to practise the heart, . . .
But because being here is much, and because all this
That's here, so fleeting, seems to require us and strangely concerns us.
Us the most fleeting of all.
Just once, everything, only for once.
Once and no more.
But into the other relation,
What, alas! Do we carry across? Not the beholding we've here
Slowly acquired, and no here occurrence. Not one.
Sufferings, then. Above all, the hardness of life,
The long experience of love; in fact,
Pure untenable things . . .
Here is the time for the Tellable, here is its home. Speak and proclaim. More than ever Things we can live with are falling away, for that Which is oustingly taking their place is an imageless act."
People of faith are faced with a similar challenge when they confront the reality of the contemporary modem world: how can the sincere believer also participate fully in the public life of his nation as a citizen? In this essay I want to examine more closely the private and public identity of citizens in secular liberal democracies. More specifically, I am interested in a narrow question about the relationship between these two aspects of self-identity. Are they positively related: does a secure personal (e.g. religious or cultural) identity facilitate trust of a political community? Or are they negatively related: does a strong personal identity preclude or at the very least makes more difficult identification with the public life of a nation? Following on from this enquiry I want to open up a set of questions about the implications of this relationship for other citizens (from another religion or no-religion); religious communities; and for the State. At each stage I use argument and sources which are general in their application. However, in some parts of this essay I examine the subject from the point of view of Islam. At each stage I hope that the discussion will raise points that are immediately familiar to those of other beliefs and to a wider audience.
In modern secular democracies the public-private dichotomy is almost an article of faith. Its advocates will vigorously defend an individual right to religion in the private sphere whilst at the same time vigilantly guarding the public sphere as a neutral religion-free zone. This idea influences not only politics but more generally our public sphere and common culture. The public sphere, and politics, it is argued, must be free of parochial religious bias. It must be governed according to public reason: which will yield an outcome that all citizens can agree is valid despite their individual beliefs. These reason based forms of public debate are, in Michael Oakeshotf s words, "the enemy of authority, of the merely traditional, customary or habitual. "2 Thus, "the rationalist is essentially uneducable" in relation to issues of tradition and narrative because they require from him "an inspiration which is regarded as the greatest enemy of mankind'.3 Yet where is the space for faith in this analysis? Should the sincere believer be satisfied with the relegation of the most critical aspect of his self-understanding to the private sphere?
At first sight it seems unlikely that such a sharp dichotomy between the public and private, and this all or nothing approach to private and public identity, is realistic. It is worth noticing that it is not just secular liberals who insist on playing this zero sum game. Advocates of religion make a similar mistake when they insist that a private religious identity can be formed or develop in isolation from the secular world. Let me say something more about each of these points to justify my conclusions.
Secular liberalism's insistence on the strict separation of the private (where individuals form and revise their conception of the good) and the public sphere (which preserves neutrality between individuals) are well known. The assumption is that individuals are able to create and sustain a religious (or racial or cultural) identity in their private life; whilst at the same time maintaining a distinct identity in public sphere as citizens. A neutral public sphere where citizens come together to use public reason (rather than religion or culture) as the basis for decision-making is the crucial organising concept. The assumption is that the strict separation of the public and the private can be maintained. In fact, it is an essential part of secular liberal politics that this duality is the pre-condition for justice. The public-private duality ensures the separation of the right and the good: the neutral public sphere provides the framework created through the grant of individual rights (to freedom of speech, religion and association) which leaves citizens free to not only pursue but - and critically - revise their concept of the good in their private life. It is crucial for secular liberalism that each citizen has this option: that each citizen can revise their concept of the good life and the most fundamental aspects of their private identity over a period of time. There is an attractive vision of freedom, choice and control that underlies contemporary secular liberalism. It is often tempting for those with a religious perspective to undertake a wholesale critique of liberalism; to argue that those who find themselves attracted to liberalism are deluded. Such an extreme reaction fails to acknowledge that there is an appealing vision of a 'free person' that drives this particular ideology: supported ideas of human choice, control and individual responsibility. *
Recent critiques of liberalism have highlighted the flaws in its private-public dichotomy. We owe a great debt to Marxist and feminist critiques for highlighting these points. More recently post-modern scholarship and multiculturalism has forced us to notice the way in which relegating important aspects of personal identity to the private sphere is not a plausible solution. This radical critique has perceptively highlighted the fact that individuals want certain aspects of their personal identity to be acknowledged and 'recognised' in the public sphere. This 'recognition', it is argued, is not just a luxury: it is an important aspect of the well being of individuals that they should see their most valued sense of self reflected and respected in the public sphere. This feature of contemporary liberal culture - the 'politics of identity’1 issue - focuses attention on a number of recurring themes in contemporary political writing. Writers such as Raz, Taylor and Macintyre have all addressed these topics. Although there remain important differences between them, their work highlights a number of common concerns. These theorists reject an atomistic picture of individual freedom as radical detachment. Their work recognises an important link between individual freedom and identity on the one hand, and social practices and community on the other. A number of consequences follow from these connections. First, we are forced to notice that an important source of the well being and self respect of an individual arises out of their sense of who they are: through their identification with important beliefs, groups and attachments. Second, where these beliefs, attachments and groups are denigrated this in turn undermines the sources of self-respect and well being of the individual. Raz states this in terms of 'alienation from society" and the 'pivotal importance of self-respect to the well-being of people'.5
The fact that important aspects of identity are formed 'dialogically', and the resulting importance of respect and recognition, makes issues of identity and group membership important for the public sphere.6 The link between recognition by others and individual well being raises the stakes in the 'politics of identity' debate. Charles Taylor, for example, argues that an important additional feature of the 'politics of identity" is the idea that the failure to grant recognition, or the misrecognition of the other, is characterised as a harm which can cause damage to the well being of the individual. In this second sense - as the recognition of identity - the argument moves the 'politics of identity" debate from the private to the public sphere. If recognition by others is important for individual well being, then the failure to grant recognition and reflecting back to an individual a demeaning picture of themselves or the group from which they draw their sense of self can be categorised as a serious matter. The failure to grant recognition has implications for their well being and autonomy.7
Where the state and its institutions are implicated in creating and sustaining this distorted image, there is a strong case that the requirements of the demands of the contemporary politics of identity and recognition have been breached. Paul Ricouer makes a similar point in a way that has special resonance for understanding a private religious identity when he concludes that narrative is important for a meaningful sense of self.8
There is then, in some limited circumstances, a strong argument for the recognition of a private religious identity in the public sphere. Those who are religious will agree with this part of the analysis quite easily. Yet, at the same time, they must also accept the corollary of the fact that identities are formed dialogically. If this is the case, then the claim that individual believers in a secular democracy are able to isolate their religious identity from the wider world in which they live becomes more difficult to justify. It also seems to me to be highly improbable that this is a realistic position. Our public life, the public culture that we create is not just a product of each individual action. The public culture in which we are bom and develop as individuals is also an essential condition for our human agency. In fact, to argue that public culture - our community - is an essential ingredient in the production of human agency is to draw on an ancient line of authority. It is essentially an Aristotelian claim to insist that outside society man cannot be truly human: outside society man is either beast or God. This has particular relevance for understanding the relationship between a private religious identity and identity as public citizens. Noticing the causal relationship between a private identity and the public culture in which it develops challenges the view that there is a neutral objective religious 'point from nowhere' to which an individual can withdraw either in understanding their own sense of self or in analysing the world. This claim to neutrality is, in my view, the mirror image of the techniques of traditional liberalism's insistence that there can be a separation between the public and the private.
It seems more likely that in secular liberal democracies there is a complicated relationship between a private religious identity and our public identity as citizens. Even, and perhaps especially, in those cases where individuals turn to religion as a way of escaping and rejecting the modern secular world, they cannot escape being influenced by the reality of the times in which they live. This may be something to regret for those who turn to religion as an escape from reality. However, for others there is some solace in the way in which this analysis forces us to recognise the importance of the 'details' and the 'hard surfaces of life' as the essential context within which private religious identity operates. These hard facts about life - the reality of the social, economic and political stratification of the societies in which we live - act as a constraint on the way in which private religious identity is formed and the way in which this religious identity can realistically manifest itself in the daily lives of believers.
Moreover, rather than being a matter of regret, there is much to be gained by insisting that a private religious identity must attend to the hard features of our daily lives. It is often assumed by those for whom religious or spiritual values are of great importance, that a concern with social justice and the distribution of resources is part of our current malaise: that it reveals a concern with worldly matters; that it is an illusion to assume that our daily and practical lives are significant; and what is required is a radical detachment from the things of the world. In many contexts I have great sympathy with this move, and given modem conditions, it is an understandable and important way of seeking proximity to God. However, I remain fiercely committed to the view that access to basic resources, how individuals are treated and therefore their meaningful experiences in the real world are of critical importance. These are the key determinants of autonomy, well being and the development of individual personality which facilitates the incorporation of a complex balance of religious and human goods over a long life of experience and activity, thereby enabling moral and spiritual excellence.
My main argument in this part of the essay is that the claim that there is a strict dichotomy between an individual's private and public life - whether by religion or secularism - is unrealistic. One cannot help influence the other. So, just as liberal secularism has a causal effect on the private identity of the believer, religion also shapes and influences the public social order of secular societies. Once we notice this more complicated causal relationship a series of other questions open up for consideration. What is the relationship between these two sources of identity - private religion and public citizenship? Are they positively or negatively related? What are the consequences of this relationship?
"Political justice - as a public virtue of the state and its citizens - is the same quality as the virtue of individual justice that resides in the inner-most parts of the soul"
A number of different traditions have argued that private and public virtue is a continuation of the same value. Important texts in Greek Philosophy treat the political virtues of the citizen to be a continuation of the virtue ethics of the individual. There is also a tradition within the Christian (Aquinas) and Islamic (Al Ghazali) thought that explicitly draws on these classical sources. This literature is well known and it has recently been revived in the work of modern writers such as Alasdair Macintyre who regret the way in which the private - public dichotomy of secular liberalism makes it impossible to maintain unity between private and public virtue. Macintyre is perhaps the most compelling authority in this regard: he has persuasively argued that modernity makes it difficult to create and sustain a unity of virtue.9 Individual virtues - trust, love, friendship and justice - are a pre-requisite and a preparation for developing public civic virtues - public duties, an obligation to obey the law and a sense of social justice. It follows that the capacity to form close relationships of trust and friendship in personal relationships, families and communities facilitates the ability to realise grander civic virtues. One further consequence of the break between private and public virtue is a fragmentation of value and a sense of alienation of individuals from the public sphere.
If there is, as I argue, a positive relationship between private and public identity then this leads us in a number of directions. First, we can conclude that the State must take seriously the private aspects of its citizen's identity. Moreover, polices that foster a stable private religious identity and sustain religious communities take on a greater significance not only because they are intrinsically valuable but also because they can yield considerable advantages through creating stable and just public civic institutions. Policies of multiculturalism - the recognition and accommodation of religion in the public sphere - become easier to justify. Finally, those whose private identity draws on religion view themselves as having an important public role: to participate in public life in order to advance the common good for all citizens. It gives these individuals deeper reasons to participate in the public sphere. It may also encourage them to see any compromise that they are required to make as a 'principled compromise' - for the higher goal of a common good - rather than a sign of defeat and an inevitable consequence of their alienation from the public sphere. At an institutional level each religious tradition - Christianity and Islam - may need to consider how it can develop its own resources to support the processes that enable its adherents to enter into a deeper engagement with the public sphere.
If there is a negative relationship between a private religious identity and certain public virtues of a good citizen then we are led down a different path. We have to conclude that religion is a barrier to participation in the public sphere; that it interferes with a stable identity as equal citizens. This, it seems to me, is the path taken by those who maintain a strict division between religion and state. The recent French headscarf (foulard) cases illustrate this point. In the context of the vicious wars of religion that were fought in Europe between established religion and the state, a settlement that insists on a strict separation between religion and state is understandable. Whether or not such an inflexible model is still required under the current conditions in Europe - where the influence of organised religion and its link with political power is in decline -is perhaps more open to debate.10
Conclusions about whether there is a positive or negative relationship between a private religious identity and a public identity as citizens will have important policy implications in all those European countries that have minorities. Some of these issues are discussed in the case studies from Bosnia, Malaysia and Britain that are discussed later in this book. In the next part of the essay I want to examine more closely one aspect of this discussion: what happens when a private religious identity comes into contact with a public sphere that is based on secular values.
One way of understanding the relationship between religion and a secular public sphere is to examine the distinctive contribution of a religious perspective. What is the public status of a religious perspective? A certain perspective - whether religious or secular - is a way of seeing the world. A religious perspective is a way of discerning, understanding, and grasping reality that is in some ways distinct from other - including secular - perspectives. Yet, at the same time, there are important points at which a religious and secular perspective may overlap. It is often assumed that there is a necessary conflict between a religious and secular perspective. This assumption of an inherent conflict is especially true of discussion of Islam and the modem world. I want to set out an alternative way of exploring this relationship by using the specific example of Islam and leaving it to other faiths to explore the subject in their own way. Analysing these issues in this way reveals - in my view - that the assumption of a confrontation between Islam and the secular world is not always the appropriate starting point for discussions. It is sometimes more useful to explore the relationship between an Islamic and secular perspective rather than seeking to uncover a close identity or stark opposition between them. Clifford Geertz presents three categories that are a part of a world view that allow us to make useful comparisons and explore this relationship in more detail.11
First, the common sense perspective is a "mode of seeing that is a simple acceptance of the world; its objects, and its processes as being just what they seem to be - what is sometimes called naive realism -and the pragmatic motive the wish to act upon the world so as to bend it to one's practical purposes, to master it, or so far as that proves impossible, to adjust to it."12
Second, the scientific perspective accepts reality and leads us to a different approach. The scientific perspective moves beyond acceptance of reality and emphasises a different set of techniques: deliberate doubt; the suspension of the pragmatic motive in favour of disinterested observation; an attempt to analyse the world according to formal relationships and a focus on concepts rather than unchallenged facts backed up by common sense.
Third, and finally, the aesthetic perspective involves another type of distinct response. Like the scientific approach it requires a move away from realism and practical interest. However, unlike the scientific approach the aesthetic perspective encourages attention to appearance using a different set of techniques. For example, an aesthetic perspective will move beyond reason-based analysis and require the engagement of our senses and imagination in an explicit way. It will require not only intellectual but also emotional responses: e.g. understanding the written word as used in poems, literature and drama; attention to the visual impact of architecture, painting and sculpture; and a sensitive appreciation of music.
In exploring the relation between Islam and the secular modern world we can ask ourselves two questions: (a) does Islam have anything distinctive to add to each of these perspectives; and (b) is there anything that Islam can - if not absorb - then at the very least react to and interpret, in the modem secular approach to each of these perspectives. It is worth distinguishing a strong and a weak thesis at this point The weak thesis would claim that it is possible to have a dialogue and exchange - that there are points of contact -between Islam, Muslims and the modem world. The strong thesis would suggest that a deeper relationship is not only possible but - and especially if one accepts some of the conclusions about the relationship between private and public identity- unavoidable. I haven't reached a conclusion about which thesis is more probable. For the purposes of this lecture it is not important for me to take sides. I do not want to provide a conclusive or definitive answer to these issues. Rather, I want to tentatively explore some points of contact between Islam and the secular modem world.
Once we approach the issue in this way it becomes clear that Islam can modify, adapt and supplement some of the claims of a common sense, scientific and aesthetic perspective. In this way, rather than an inevitable confrontation, there is the possibility of a genuine interaction and 'dialogue' between these seemingly opposite world-views. Islam can accept the pragmatism and realism of the common sense perspective. Yet, at the same time, it forces a movement beyond the realities of our everyday life to wider ideas and images which correct and complete them. Islam, like the scientific perspective, questions everyday realities. It can accept most of the methods and techniques of a scientific approach to uncovering the truth. However, it does so not out of institutionalised scepticism which dissolves the reality of the world in probabilities and hypothesis but in terms of what it takes to be wider truths. Moreover, its techniques are not limited to a radical detachment of scientific ideas from other systems such as ethics and concern for the environment.
Attention to art and the use of imagination as a way to the truth are common features of both the aesthetic and Islamic perspective. For Muslims, a close attention to beauty in the natural world and artistic creation can be understood as a kind of freedom: it allows a movement away from reality as expressed within the common sense and scientific perspectives towards more transcendent truths. Contemplation of the natural world and art also renews the ability to see and respond to these truths. There is, within the Islamic tradition, a well established and deep connection between religious truths and beauty. Muslims comfortably endorse Keats' famous remark: "what the imagination seizes as beauty must be the truth."
There are resources within the Islamic tradition that confirm coalescence between its perspective and modern approaches. Islamic civilisation has displayed a sober understanding about the truths about the world. Traditionally, Muslims are advised to adjust to realities about the world in which they live with patience and a quiet faith. They are encouraged to believe that "all is right with the believer"; "God is good, beauty and truth"; man is created in a state of intrinsic purity and goodness; and that "this is the best of all possible worlds". Islam's ability to generate the most outstanding contributions in all fields of science, mathematics; physics; astronomy; medicine is also well known. It is perhaps worth pointing out that these advances were never- and should not be claimed to be -the exclusive property of Islam or Muslims. This knowledge is best understood as the product of a certain communities of thinkers - both Muslims and non Muslims working together. What is significant is that Islamic civilisation was able to create an environment in which Muslims along with non-Muslims were encouraged to pursue scientific enquiry which generated some outstanding results. Finally, it is well known that Islam has made an outstanding contribution in art. This contribution includes architecture; the literature and poetry in all the languages of Islam; calligraphy; art and music across a vast temporal and geographical space. All these achievements are a testimony to Islam's ability to generate the imagination towards beauty.
Of course Muslims will not find any of this analysis difficult to accept. What they will find more troublesome is the claim that they should be more open to secularism. They will object to the argument that a secular perspective may have something valuable to say to them. Does a secular perspective have any contribution to make to Islam? Of course to allow a deeper dialogue gives secularism an opportunity to offer a critique of Islam. Would such a critique be an unacceptable threat to Islam and Muslims? Muslims will want to stress that there is a discemable essence to Islam which cannot be challenged. Yet, it is possible to accept this claim without falling into the error of a strict essentialism that claims that Islam has an 'all or nothing' monolithic structure. Islam - the Muslim community - like any complex system of ideas and group contains not just one but a plurality of ideas and arguments. Some of these ideas and voices have been and are backed by existing power structures whilst others are relatively silent, do not have access to public space and are struggling for recognition. To accept this sophistication, breadth and depth within Islam is not to collapse into unacceptable social constructivism. Once this complexity - within Islam and Muslim communities - is accepted there is the possibility of a role for criticism by 'outsiders'. This is exactly the space where 'outsiders' - from another religion or with a secular perspective - can play a pivotal role. International conflicts and the War on Terror* have meant that Islam has been uniquely associated with irrationality and violence with the consequence of a growing anti-Muslim prejudice that can cause significant harm to individuals and their communities. As well as offering a critique, it is important for non-Muslims to also show solidarity for Muslims during this difficult period in history. However, Muslims should not seek the rectification of Islam by outsiders. An uncritical and automatic grant of approval is not what is required: it can sometimes collapse into condescension rather than solidarity. The challenge for outsiders - for anyone offering a critique of Islam and Muslim communities - is to strike a balance between showing solidarity for religious groups such as Muslims whilst at the same time maintaining an authentic critical perspective. A particularly British example illustrates the willingness of secular commentators to undertake exactly this task. Seumas Milne writing in The Guardian on 16 December 2005 suggested that this balance is possible. He argues that existing political movements can form alliances with religious groups such as Muslims without compromising a critical stance on issues such as gender and sexuality.13 His colleague Polly Toynbee -often and unfairly portrayed as being hostile towards Islam - is more sceptical. She poses the dilemma faced by liberal democrats in its most vivid form: "Atheists, feminists and anti-racists are paralysed by Islam. Whichever way they turn, they find themselves at risk of alliances with undesirables of every nasty hue." She quite rightly and perceptively insists that "Muslims must also accept the right of others to criticize their religion without smearing any critic as racist."14
Encouraging criticism and safeguarding free speech is obviously important to liberal democrats, it is also in the interests of Muslims to ensure that contemporary critics are not 'paralysed by Islam' as Toynbee suggests. One of the most valuable contributions that outsiders can make is to 'hold the line' in their analysis of Muslim communities. Commentators such as Toynbee often provide the most prescient critique of Muslim communities. Insiders can turn to this critique as a precious source of information and ideas. It is a strongly held belief amongst Muslims that Islam contains within it the resources to allow them to challenge injustice and oppression within their own communities. However, this belief should not prevent them from appropriating legitimate arguments from outside their own tradition; using the experience of other political movements as a precious source of ideas and experience; and making demands for dignity by citing successful examples from other traditions. Criticism of Muslim communities is not the problem. What is lamentable is the way in which constructive scepticism often collapses into a less coherent position: the view that Muslims must shed all their religious affiliations before they can be considered legitimate partners in public debate. This is a significant barrier to Muslims establishing intellectual and political alliances that would assist them in challenging injustice within their own communities. The failure to encourage an exchange of ideas and alliances in public life which transcend difference - and the resulting alignment of the public sphere, and politics, along the lines of race, culture and religion - is one of the more damaging by-products of the public recognition of private identity. This shift entrenches and emphasises differences that are often irrelevant which in turn contributes to the fragmentation of our public sphere. One criterion - race, religion or culture - cannot provide a definitive marker in all contexts. A single aspect of personal identity should not be allowed to pre-determine the vast range of possibilities for public speech and action open to minorities such as Muslims. Participation in the public sphere, modem politics, and multiculturalism requires a nuanced and sophisticated version of social and political equality: one in which race and religion are restructured in conjunction with other valid and urgent categories such as international justice, gender and class. Muslims should re-evaluate the terms of their involvement in the public sphere of their individual countries to take account of a full spectrum of issues if they are to move towards meaningful forms of participation. They should intervene to support the common good for all citizens. Islam is not - and it never was - a ghetto for parochial religious bias. There is also some work to be done in the field of secular approaches to legitimate public participation. Public institutions in secular liberal democracies need to reach out to excluded and marginalized groups such as Muslims. They may also need to relinquish some of their tighter disciplines about what constitutes a legitimate contribution to public debate and participation in favour of greater plurality in the realm of ideas, policies and also in fields such as science and art.
If Islam is to be a credible voice in the modem secular world then it must be able to respond to these hard surfaces of life - the economic, social and political - in an intelligent way. Obviously Islam - like all other traditional religions - also has an immense amount to learn from modern science. Yet, at the same time, it can also make an important contribution to a contemporary scientific perspective by emphasising that the techniques of modem science, although invaluable, need to pay greater attention to ethics and the environment. Even in the sphere of aesthetics - which many argue is the most powerful illustration of the corruption of the modem world - there is something to learn as well as contribute. The modern secular world produces some outstanding cultural products that provide an invaluable resource. Works of art are the product of individuals. Of course, the individual beliefs of these individuals are a critical influence on their work. These individuals may not have a formal religious perspective, they may be explicitly hostile to religion or they may be writing about purely secular matters. However, this does not stop them - or modern secular art - from capturing essential truths that are invaluable to religious traditions.
On all these fronts - political, social and economic; the scientific; and the aesthetic - Islam can make a contribution. Also, and more controversially, it has something to gain by opening itself up to the modern secular world. Of course, there are risks in such an intimate encounter. The chief victim is certainty as the secure sense of reality that Muslims experience in their private identity is challenged by their public experience. Is this a bad thing? Only if you think that the function of a private religious identity is to give you access to absolute truth by eliminating shades of grey. There are some aspects of this claim to certainty in all religions. For example, Islam tells us that there are certain universal human goods such as the maqasid of Ghazali's legal and political theory: life; family; knowledge; religion; and property. Islam also guides us to universal ethical values and emotions: compassion and mercy; truth and justice. Islamic law provides a guide on how these can be inculcated in a daily life; it even resolves some conflicts between goods and values for Muslims by acting as a guide to individual choice. All of these resources call into question modern secularism’s fatal error: the slide into subjectivism. However, this insistence on certain objective values and truth does not eliminate the fact of uncertainty. A private religious identity in the modem secular world cannot generate 'one right answer’1 that can answer all difficult questions. My suspicion is that this is not just a fact about the modern world but it is better understood as an aspect of the human condition. However, what is distinctive about the modem condition is that it has removed certain 'horizons of significance' and made disbelief a plausible and widely endorsed option. This does provide a more significant challenge to individual private religious belief. In the face of this scepticism, what is needed is the humility to recognise that the devout believer- Muslims - like many other citizens will experience moments of confusion. There will always be those unsettling episodes where one's moral insights are inadequate to explain one's moral experience. These moments of ethical confusion are a fact about human beings. We will always face ethical conflicts; we cannot avoid paradox. This will be especially true where religion co-exists with a modem secular perspective that crowds out the public space for unshakeable faith. Modernity leaves all believers -including Muslims - with no choice other than to accept these conflicts and to learn to think in what Robert Graves calls 'broken images1.15
Islam has, as noted earlier, something to contribute to the common sense, scientific and aesthetic perspectives. The Islamic intellectual tradition and its civilisation have made, and can continue to make, an outstanding contribution in all these categories. The distinctive about Islam, however, does not lie in the way in which it overlaps with the secular perspective. Islam's unique contribution is its ability to reveal the 'spiritual limits' of the modem condition. There is no conflict or uncertainty about this issue: Islam gives unequivocal and crystal clear priority to the centrality of ritual, religious observance and spirituality. Ritual prayer which is conducted five times a day, and which gives a central place to the sacred liturgy of Islam, has a particular significance in this context. Other rituals such as fasting, alms giving and pilgrimage, as well as supererogatory acts such as the remembrance of God, are also important These sacred acts are motivated by private belief but they are also public: they are performed and observable by others in the public world. For Muslims, they are the alpha and the omega of their faith. It is in ritual - in the act of consecrated behaviour - that the distinctive and unique perspective that Islam brings to bear upon the world and the reality of the modern secular world meet. In ritual, a world that is perceived, understood and imagined by Muslims is made real. Ritual uses the symbolic act and gesture to fuse the world that is lived and the world that is imagined. It is in sacred ritual that these are transformed into the same world.16 It is through these concrete acts of religious observance that Islam - and the religious conviction of individual Muslims - makes its most astonishing mark upon the modem secular world.
To stress the importance of ritual is not to imply that women or men can live within a system of religious observance or symbols for the whole of their life. Hence, the earlier insistence on understanding the hard facts - of social, economic and politics - of life as an essential pre-requisite for understanding the place of religion. The majority of Muslims live within this sacred space for only some brief moments of their life. The everyday world of common objects and practical acts is the paramount reality of their human experience. This is not a startling fact for Islam or Muslims who are comfortable with the idea that their rituals are a preparation for their everyday daily life. The dispositions of character and personality that ritual induces in Muslims - in their private life - have their most important impact outside the world of religious symbols. These dispositions reflect back and influence the perceptions of Muslims when they seek to understand the established modem secular world. Moreover, as I have argued, these aspects influence the self-identity of Muslims as public citizens. There is then - for Muslims - a movement back and forth between the religious perspective and the common sense everyday perspective. The religious belief that they experience in moments of ritual and religious observance -which transports them to another mode of existence -continues into their everyday existence. In this way the experience within private ritual influences the public identity of Muslims in the modem world in critical ways. Private ritual also links individual Muslims to the unfolding of human history beyond the current conditions of modernity. Within their rituals Muslims use set actions which date back to the first Muslims, and fixed language from the Qur'anic text in Arabic, ritual prayer links Muslims to a narrative tradition beyond their personal history - to an unfolding of human history in the Qur'an. This narrative history places Muslims as part of the monotheistic tradition of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is through acts of ritual - that can be observed by others - that there is the most startling link between two worlds: the reality of Islam and the modem secular world. It is exactly in this space - at this point of contact- that Muslims have something truly distinctive to offer the modern secular world. Not a critique; not a wholesale rejection of all its products; not disillusion. From this perspective, Islam is well placed to offer a prescient critique of the 'spiritual' limits of a public sphere pre-occupied with politics and individual fulfilment. This invaluable contribution should not, however, collapse into a wholesale critique of modernity. What is needed, instead, is a patient and insistent reminder of some basic and eternal truths that are the essence of Islam but that have been inverted in our current civilisation with its pre-occupation with politics and work, production and consumption. Most important, is the stark truth of monotheism - the reality of one God - that is above all else the constant theme of the Qur’an. Islam can also offer a picture of the 'concept of the person' that is a dramatic challenge to modem ideas of the person as merely voter, worker and consumer. In a vivid contrast to this vision, Islam insists that women and men are created in dignity with an inherent capacity for goodness. Islam can also challenge modernity's slide into subjectivism by affirming the objective universal values that permeate the whole of its ethical structure of Islam - e.g. compassion and mercy; justice and truth - as well as the human goods - e.g. family, friendship and knowledge - which are the ultimate goals of all human co-operation. In many cases this critique will not reveal something new: it is better understood as the more modest but essential work of reflecting back to individuals the values that underlie their most cherished assumptions. The proper image for this activity is not one borrowed from science: the discovery and creation of a brave new world. Rather, this mission is more like archaeology: recovering, recognising and remembering virtues and goods that will be immediately familiar to individuals; adding them to the pool of ideas available in the public sphere; and providing a language that allows them to be expressed. This last task, to allow a greater articulacy of these values that may have become corrupted or muted in recent limes - to the self and in dialogue with others - is of critical importance.17 In all these ways Islam contains within it resources that offer a radical critique of modernity's concept of the person, its ambition for relationships between persons and its vision about the proper ends of social life.
Replacing what Rilke has called the "imageless act haunting modernity” cannot be done without operating in the public world. It must be undertaken by attending to the reality of the hard facts of life and a sober acceptance of the modern secular world. Muslims have a distinct perspective to communicate but this cannot be done through acts of wholesale and abstract rejection. Rather, the challenge is to bring a unique perspective - developed in the most intimate private acts of ritual - to bear upon the reality of the modem world. Rilke's Ninth Elegy reminds us of the appropriate manner for performing this supremely delicate task:
"Praise this world to the Angel, not the untenable: you
Can't impress him with the splendour you've felt; in the cosmos
Where he more feelingly feels you're only a novice. So show him some simple thing"
There is a significant cost in any move from a stable religious experience in the private sphere to functioning as full citizens in public life. Muslims, like many other people, are faced with a public order in the modern world that fails to reflect and often contradicts their deepest and most passionate beliefs. Muslims who seek to intervene in the public sphere will face insuperable difficulties. Many may prefer to withdraw from public life to guard their faith. This is a legitimate response to modernity: it is a mistake to assume that all individuals must participate in public life to lead a life of religious and human value. Islam does not assume that the grand heroic virtues can only be realised through public and political acts. In fact, many of the most important values of Islam - compassion and mercy - can be realised within the private and domestic sphere. Those Muslims who choose to follow a different path, to move out of the private sphere and intervene in the modem world, will face a different set of questions. They will need to ask themselves whether they are willing to make sacrifices - to their individual sense of certainty and private self-identity - in order to challenge some of the most pernicious errors of modern secularism. This need not necessarily be a negative process. Facing the reality of the public world in which they live provides Muslims with some significant opportunities if they can prevent the unnecessary closure of their identity. This in turn can force them to focus on the present to avoid a preoccupation with a perfect future that often prevents them from seeing and learning from the reality that is in front of them. Maintaining this more 'porous' attitude to present reality can make Muslims more open to questions about how they can be more available to transform themselves. However, there can be no way of avoiding the fact that in confronting the modem secular world Muslims will need to reconcile their private faith with public action, that this will challenge their sense of reality and it may in some cases require them to compromise cherished beliefs. Muslims often see compromise along these lines as a defeat that is forced upon them and a confirmation of their powerlessness in the modern world. This attitude ignores the way in which the Islamic intellectual tradition contains considerable resources for developing a 'principled compromise' which may be a legitimate response to modernity. Conflict between public life and private belief, and the need for a 'principled compromise', is especially difficult for Muslims for whom the theological doctrine of unity (tawheed) is of great importance. This focus on unity leads to a preference that all sources of normative authority in the lives of individual Muslims should point in the same direction. This in turn encourages Muslims to search for coherence in all aspects of their lives as part of their quest for spiritual perfection and proximity to God. The public order which faces Muslims in the modern world makes such a high degree of coherence impossible.
Muslims operating in public life will have to develop skills rather like those of an alchemist: the ability to recognise and maintain fine distinctions between those precious activities and relations with which there should be engagement and struggle, and those areas of contemporary life which need to be rejected or endured in silence. Such a Herculean task invariably introduces the prospect of conflict, remorse and anguish. It is therefore easy to understand why a strategy of self-sufficiency and closure from the world seems preferable and why many Muslims, along with many other people, develop a distaste for the times in which they live. The result is a state of disengagement with public life and disenchantment with the social world. Muslims need to resist such pessimism. They need to constantly nudge back into perspective their vision of the inherent dignity of persons in the face of a modem public culture that often reduces human beings to mere workers, voters and consumers. They need to act to create and sustain a community in which all people - Muslims and non-Muslims - can realise the most fundamental goods and virtues in their daily lives.
This important work for Muslims is captured most vividly by Rilke in his Ninth Elegy:
"Here is the time for the Tellable, here is its home.
Speak and proclaim. More than ever
things we can live with are falling away, for that
which is oustingly taking their place is an imageless act."
Replacing the imageless act is the great contribution that Muslims can make if they can find the courage to move out of the safety of being 'believers in private'; and participate fully in secular liberal democracies as ‘citizens in public'. Muslims need to maintain a fine balance between optimistic intervention in support of their vision of the concept of the person and the common good for all people whilst at the same time being realistic about the substantial obstacles that they face in communicating the truth about Islam. Once we move away from crude assumptions of a clash between civilisations - and the spectre of an inherent conflict between Islam and the modern world - then a wider range of possibilities becomes clear. It becomes easier to imagine the way in which Islam can not only adjust itself to the reality of the modern world but also the myriad of ways in which it can make an invaluable contribution to the times in which we live. There are, in my view, good reasons to believe that Islam will not only survive but also - perhaps surprisingly for some - flourish in the modern secular world.
©Ms Maleiha Malik. School of Law, King's College, University of London, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS. Draft: not for quotation or citation without permission. Comments to maleiha.malik@kcl.ac.uk
Footnotes:
I would like to thank the participants at the Building Bridges Seminar 15-20 May 2005 in Sarajevo, Bosnia for their invaluable assistance with this project. I would also like to thank the organisers of The Guardian seminar on Islam, Race and Identity in January 2005 for providing a forum for discussions and all the participants for their thoughtful comments.
M. Oakshott, ‘Rationalism in Politics’, in Rationalism in Politics, (London: Methuen, 1962) at p.1.
Ibid at p.32.
C. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambs, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989).
See for example Raz: “Duties of Well Being” ibid. at p.27. See also ‘Multiculturalism’ and Taylor: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, (NJ, USA: Princeton University Press, 1992).
For a discussion of the untenability of Rawls’ distinction between private and public reasons for action see Finnis: “Natural Law Theory and Limited Government” in Natural Law, Liberalism and Morality, George (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) at p.9.
C. Taylor, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press (1994) at pp.25-27. The importance of ‘recognition’ finds an analogy in Hume’s idea of the importance of ‘sympathy’ which is a ‘fellow feeling or other-regarding concern […] establishes the essential link between the individual and the community’ See Postema: Bentham and the Common Law Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, (Tr. Kathleen Blarney), Chicago, US: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd Edition, Notre Dame, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.
For a recent discussion of these issues see Seumas Milne: ‘The struggle is no longer against religion, but within it’, The Guardian, 16 December 2004.
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, (London: Fontana Press, 1993) at pp.110-115.
Ibid at p.111.
Seumas Milne, ‘The struggle is no longer against religion, but within it’, The Guardian, 16 December 2004.
Polly Toynbee, ‘We must be free to criticise without being called racist’, The Guardian, 18 August 2004.
“ He is quick, thinking in clear images; I am slow, thinking in broken images. […] When the facts fail him, he questions his senses; When the facts fail me, I approve my senses. He continues quick and dull in his clear images; I continue slow and sharp in my broken images. He in a new confusion of his understanding; I in a new understanding of my confusion”. ‘In Broken Images’, Robert Graves, Selected Poems, (London: Penguin, 1986).
For a fuller discussion of ritual along these lines see Clifford Geertz’s in The Interpretation of Cultures, (London: Fontana Press, 1993) at pp.110-115.
For a discussion of the modern problem of ‘articulacy’ see Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, Cambs, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Keene Lecture 2 Questions
Q.
Muslim communities are often
challenged to assimilate
into modern British
society. What specific compromises would you think should be made and
what
resisted?
Maleiha Malik addressed this issue in an article for the Guardian, as follows:
Most Western liberal democracies are characterised by a deep diversity in terms of race, culture and religion within their populations. Many of the resulting minority groups no longer ask for equality: their most urgent political demands are now for the accommodation of difference. British Muslims who cast their political demands as ‘accommodate our religion’ pose the most acute challenge to liberal democracies. The resulting shift in focus from race to religion, discussed in Section 1, challenges the most fundamental beliefs of secular liberals. For this group, the public-private dichotomy is almost an article of faith: they will vigorously defend an individual right to religion in the private sphere whilst at the same time vigilantly guarding the public sphere as a neutral religion-free zone. Moreover, an international context that ensures coalescence between violence, terrorism and Islam has rendered problematic any sustained analysis of these thorny issues. Commenting on the global context Jonathan Freedland concludes: “These questions have long smouldered - but now they're on fire”.
“ Multiculturalism is the solution” is the response of many thoughtful commentators. It is true that that liberal multiculturalism gives minorities an unprecedented opportunity to be equal citizens without suffering the worst excesses of forced assimilation. Multiculturalism is not, however, a panacea. It carries within it dangers: the risk of harm to vulnerable individuals within minority communities; and the prospect of the fragmentation of our political communities. Two examples can usefully make these abstract points more concrete: a discussion of Islamic mortgages reveals the considerable benefits of multicultural accommodation; whilst the case of separate family law tribunals for Muslims highlights the risks of multicultural vulnerability.
Multicultural Accommodation: Islamic Mortgages
The first example illustrates the way in which multicultural accommodation can work successfully. The Finance Act 2003 abolished an excessive and double stamp duty on mortgages that comply with the Islamic law (Sharia) prohibiting the charging of interest. As most UK mortgages involve the house buyer borrowing money, the regime of a double stamp duty on those mortgages that complied with Islamic law was a significant barrier to the development of more widespread home finance for Muslims. The abolition of this penalty by the Treasury has laid the foundation for cheaper mortgages for those Muslims who are unable to buy normal financial products because their faith prohibits it.
This legal change could have short term results in terms of greater financial stability through making home ownership easier for British Muslims. It should make the mortgage market operate in a fair and accessible way. There are also longer term and more subtle benefits. These types of modest concessions can yield considerable and magnified political benefits for minorities. Such moves have the potential to reduce the gap between the experiences of Muslims in their daily and practical lives and their experience of mainstream legal and political institutions. This in turn can encourage the meaningful identification of minorities such as British Muslims with mainstream political and legal institutions.
Multicultural Vulnerability: Muslim Women and Family Law
At first sight the grant of separate jurisdiction to traditional groups in areas of family law seems unproblematic. There is some limited evidence that some British Muslims would welcome this option. Ontario’s Arbitration Act 1991 allows individuals to resolve civil disputes within their own faith community, providing all affected parties give their consent to the process and the outcomes respect Canadian law and human rights codes. From the perspective on multicultural accommodation there are clear advantages to such a move. Family law governs some of the most private and intimate aspects of who we are. It relates to our personal identity in the most profound way. It therefore seems appropriate to allow citizens in a liberal democracy to reach an agreement about the rules that will govern these aspects of their life. If all persons, and women, freely choose to be governed by a traditional justice system – the argument goes – then there seem to be no conclusive reasons why the state should not respect these choices.
This is at first sight an attractive argument. However, it moves too quickly from free choice to separate family law without paying sufficient attention to the myriad of ways in which granting control over family law to a traditional culture or religion has the potential for causing harm to vulnerable group members such as women. This is because unlike the accommodation of Islamic mortgages which is unproblematic for individuals within minority groups, a separate system of family law raises the specter of ‘multicultural vulnerability’. This term refers to the risk faced by certain individuals within a minority group whose rights as citizens are compromised by the grant of public recognition to traditional rules and practices. Family law illustrates this vulnerability in its most acute form. Women and family law become a focus – sometimes an obsession - for traditional groups concerned with the preservation and transmission of their culture or religion because it is women who recreate collective identity through the reproduction and socialising of children. From this perspective, it becomes a critical matter that women should enter into their most intimate relationships and functions in a way that preserves the identity of the whole community. For these reasons the control of women - especially in areas such as sexuality, marriage, divorce and in relation to their children - is a recurring feature of traditional cultural and religious communities. This explains why traditional communities prioritise family law when they make demands for public accommodation.
Crude versions of multiculturalism may suggest that the State should hand over jurisdiction to groups over family law but a more sophisticated analysis must return to fundamental principles: why are we so concerned with the accommodation of minorities? One of the most powerful arguments for multiculturalism is that there are power hierarchies between minority groups, majorities and the State that should be re-negotiated. However, this recognition of external hierarchies should not blind us to the fact that there are also power hierarchies within groups. Internal inequalities of power may cause vulnerable individuals such as women to bear a disproportionate cost of any policy of accommodation of cultural or religious practices. These costs can include entering into a marriage without the right to divorce; inadequate financial compensation in the case of divorce; giving up the right to custody over children; restriction on the right to education, employment or participation in the public sphere; giving up the right to control over their own reproduction and bodies. It is often argued that many women choose to remain members of a group despite the fact that traditional rules and practices undermine their interests. “They have a right to exit but they freely choose to remain” is the response to any challenge. But this right to exit argument is not a realistic solution to the problem of oppression within groups. It offers an ad hoc and extreme option to what is often a systematic and structural problem within traditional cultures and religions. It puts the burden of resolving these conflicts on individual women and relieves the state (which has conceded jurisdiction in this area to the group) of responsibility for the protection of the fundamental rights of its citizens. Most significantly, the right to exit argument suggests that an individual woman at risk from a harmful practice should be the one to abandon her group membership, her family and community. The stark fact is that emotional attachment, economic circumstances and religious commitment makes the ‘exit’ not only an unrealistic but also a tragic choice for many Muslim women.
The accommodation of Muslim family law in Britain along the lines developed in Ontario is certainly a debate worth having but only if we can be sure that the State is able to protect individual women against their communities. There need to be procedures which ensure that women are fully informed about the nature and consequences of their choices. There also needs to be more detailed discussion about the limits of individual consent: is there a floor of individual rights that minority women cannot negotiate away? Bypassing mainstream family law procedures and safeguards in a liberal democracy in favour of traditional forms of justice in special tribunals is a serious decision which deserves sober reflection.
Multicultural Fragmentation: Identity and the Politics of Difference
Multiculturalism should not mean that traditional cultures and religions are immune from interventions and criticism where they harm their members. One of the great errors of some forms of multiculturalism is the assumption of essentialism of groups: the claim that it is possible to identify one fixed definition of a tradition or culture or religion. This error often leads to a false dichotomy: reduction down to the worst features of the group; or rectification through an act of uncritical acceptance. The British Muslim community, like any complex group, contains not just one but a plurality of ideas and arguments. Some of these voices are backed by existing power structures whilst others are relatively silent, do not have access to public space and are struggling for recognition. This is not just a matter for ‘insiders’ within Muslim communities. It is exactly the space in which the State and outsiders can play a pivotal role. The challenge is to strike a balance between showing solidarity for religious groups such as Muslims whilst at the same time maintaining an authentic critical perspective. Milne’s article which opens the debate in this section suggests that this balance is possible. He argues that existing political movements can form alliances with religious groups such as Muslims without compromising a critical stance on issues such as gender and sexuality. Toynbee is more sceptical and poses the dilemma faced by liberal democrats in its most vivid form: “Atheists, feminists and anti-racists are paralysed by Islam. Whichever way they turn, they find themselves at risk of alliances with undesirables of every nasty hue.” She quite rightly insists that “Muslims must also accept the right of others to criticize their religion without smearing any critic as racist.”
Safeguarding free speech is obviously important to liberal democrats. It is also in the interests of British Muslims to ensure that contemporary critics are not ‘paralysed by Islam’ as Toynbee suggests. One of the most valuable contributions that outsiders can make is to ‘hold the line’ in their analysis of Muslim communities. These commentators often provide the most prescient critique of Muslim communities. Insiders can turn to this critique as a precious source of information and ideas. It is a strongly held belief amongst Muslims that Islam contains within it the resources to allow them to challenge injustice and oppression within their own communities. However, this belief should not prevent them from appropriating legitimate arguments from outside their own tradition; using the experience of other political movements as a precious source of ideas and experience; and making demands for dignity by citing successful examples from other traditions. Criticism of Muslim communities is not the problem. What is lamentable is the way in which constructive scepticism often collapses into a less coherent position: the view that Muslims must shed all their religious affiliations before they can be considered legitimate partners in political movements. This is a significant barrier to Muslims establishing political alliances that would assist them in challenging injustice within their own communities. The resulting alignment of politics along the lines of race, culture and religion is one of the more unfortunate consequences of multicultural politics. It emphasises differences that are often irrelevant which in turn contributes to the splintering of our public sphere. One criterion – race, religion or culture – cannot provide a definitive marker in all contexts. A single aspect of personal identity should not be allowed to pre-determine the vast range of possibilities for political action open to minorities such as British Muslims. Multicultural politics requires a nuanced and sophisticated version of social and political equality: one in which race and religion are restructured in conjunction with other valid and urgent categories such as international justice, gender and class. Muslims should re-evaluate the terms of their involvement in politics to take account of a full spectrum of issues if they are to move towards meaningful forms of political participation. Mainstream political movements and established political parties need to reach out to excluded and marginalized groups such as Muslims; they will have to relinquish some of their tighter disciplines in favour of greater plurality in the realm of ideas, objectives and policies; and they should allow more autonomy for their individual members and political representatives. These strategies may also usefully limit the damaging fragmentation of politics that is often a byproduct of multiculturalism.
Conclusion
The two examples – Islamic mortgages and Muslim family law – confirm the complexity of translating multiculturalism into practice. The Treasury's accommodation of the needs of British Muslims for mortgages is a salutary reminder that an imaginative and sensitive response to a real practical problem can sometimes yield more promising results than abstract definitions of multiculturalism and citizenship. The introduction of a separate system of family law for Muslims highlights a different point. It forces us to acknowledge that the injustice of forced assimilation of a minority by a powerful majority is not the only challenge that faces multiculturalism. We must also be vigilant about the risk of harm to vulnerable individuals from oppression within minority groups. The institutional context of multiculturalism is critically important in all these cases. The debate about accommodating British Muslims, and the resulting negotiation between majorities and minorities, needs to be carried out within mainstream political and legal institutions. Civic society and the media are also important actors within this process. This procedure is likely to ensure the broadest range of participation in public debate and political negotiations. In this way the painful compromises that are an inherent part of multicultural politics are more likely to command the consent of all those involved. Points of difference and friction between majorities and minorities can often act as a catalyst towards a stable form of integration that avoids the worst injustices of forced assimilation. In some cases we must be satisfied with an outcome that is a patient and resigned modus vivendi. More optimistically, this technique also has some potential to redeem the worst excesses of multicultural politics: to generate a deeper and more meaningful identification with national institutions for the majority and minority, in a joint enterprise, that creates and sustains a coherent political community. A sense of belonging for all citizens, including British Muslims, can be effectively hammered out through debate and compromise carried out in our public sphere.
________________________________________________________________________
©Ms Maleiha Malik. School of Law, King’s College, University of London, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS.