(4 of 4)
Physics at Al Azhar. Within Islam there is a definite modernizing mood. Although the faith has traditionally opposed birth control almost as fiercely as Roman Catholicism, many ulama now justify it on the ground that the Koran allows leniency in the case of suffering. Far from being a static, otherworldly faith, say contemporary Arab philosophers, Islam encourages man to knowledge of the universe through science. But progress is slow. A rigidly fundamentalist approach to doctrine and discipline dominates Islam outside the cities. Moreover, it was only last year that physics, medicine and engineering courses were introduced at Islam's best-known university, Al Azhar in Cairo. In West Africa, Moslem grammar schools do little more than teach children enough Arabic to read the Koran; when one group of Moslem women in Nigeria last year set up a Western-style secondary school, they had to hire as teachers two Christians and a Jew.
The strength of Islam in many cases depends upon imponderable factors of history that are subject to profound change. For black Africa, one of Islam's chief lures is its tolerance of polygamy—a practice sure to wither away with the tribal structure that made it necessary, as it has in much of the Middle East. In the Arab world, the faith that created empires is subsidized by Presidents and dictators partly because it can provide spiritual justification for political ambitions. Egypt, for example, funnels vast sums of money into the propaganda outlets of the Supreme Islamic Council, which praises Nasser almost as much as God. But favors given could be favors withheld when they no longer fulfill a national purpose. Islamic nation-states increasingly take their ideas and institutions—such as penal codes and constitutions—from the secular experience of the East and West, rather than the Shariah (religious law).
One French orientalist cynically concludes that "Islam, as a faith and a law, can no longer exist in modern civilization." Yet the continuing lure of the hajj for all Moslems, from fellah to philosopher, makes it clear that the spirit of Mohammed's faith is not so easily stilled. Far more likely than slow extinction is that Islam will gradually undergo the same kind of transition that Christianity went through, as the concept of Christendom fell before secularization. In time, Islam may lose its overtones of an ideology governing all of life—as Christianity did in the Middle Ages—to become, stripped down and freshened, simply one of man's many ways of encountering the mystery of God.