ALIJA IZETBEGOVIĆ: ISLAM IZMEĐU ISTOKA I ZAPADA

In his work Islam između Istoka i Zapada (Islam between the East and the West) Alija Izetbegović strives to show that Islam is the idea which reconciles opposites, bringing them to a relative balance. Briefly said, Islam is a synthesis. The basic hypothesis of the book, as well as its methodological orientation (which can, in a way, be see as early as after the introductory pages) are contained in the author's belief that it is possible to synthesize the world, that it is possible to reconcile its dialectic complexity – a belief which today, at the time of theoretical dispersion, deconstructed totalities and rising nihilism and deprived of any utopianism sound very anachronous.

With this qualification (“a book of synthesis“) we want to historically position the book Islam između Istoka i Zapada in its, figuratively speaking, home historical epoch. Even a cursory look at the references Izetbegović refer to confirm this claim; in literature they are: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Flaubert, Gide and Hugo, and in philosophy: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Berdyaeev, Bergson, Whitehead and Russel. However, besides the preferred literature, it is about concepts, about the categorial apparatus, a style of thinking which are typical of speculative modernism which follows the rule that philosophical thinking is generally systematic, whereby systematic implies dialectical. The dialectics, in turn, is not only a method but rather, as Hegel pointed out, „the own, true nature of things themselves ˮ. In Izetbegović's wording it reads as follows: “’Islamic' is here more a name for the method than a finalized solution and signifies the principle of the synthesis of contradictory principles.”

For Izetbegović Islam is a synthesis of pure religion and materialism, of morality and politics, of the profane and the sacral. He believes that the world has its foundation, that history has its goal and that life has a meaning. His work is completely free of cynicism, postmodern Ludism and narrative tolerance. Instead, we often encounter extremely generalized statements, somewhat rigid dichotomies, broad definitions and theoretical reductionism, which is openly announces as early as in introductory sentences: “There are only three integral views of the world and there cannot be more of them: religious, materialistic and Islamic.”

However, this view is understandable. Izetbegović who writes Islam između Istoka i Zapada still ives in a bipolarly structured global order, which is stable and canned, an order which Izetbegović does not like (he is looking for the third view) but to whose spirit and context he fully belongs. This, primarily geopolitical order (which Izetbegović later develops into epistemological and ontological) is already announced in the title, in the phrase “between the East and the West”, which adds the third entity to the ossified, now also outdated al-Afghani's opposition “Islam and the West”, “the East” which, as a concept, as a metaphor, encompasses a wide spiritual and cultural space from socialism to Buddhist ascetism.

 However, the concepts of the East and the West are problematic in many ways. The world is no longer bipolarly structured; besides the East and the West, both as geopolitical entities, as historical narratives and as metaphors, are completely leveled in the large crucible of globalization. There are no longer the East and the West, they have been syncretized, though not through Islam, which Izetbegović perhaps hoped for, but rather through fluid capital, through postmodern eclecticism, through supra-national political, economic and cultural forms which gained their shape from multiple networks of hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies and multiple symbolic and substantive exchanges. Deprived of a dialectic charge, global postmodern scene reconciles warm and cold, big and small, spectacles of violence and inner peace, pornography and mysticism, and the world therefore sinks into the complete indifference, purposelessness and nihilism. The world and history are experiencing their big synthesis.

In what way does Izetbegović reflects on Islam? It is obvious that he understands Islam as the very idea of balance, harmony, middle and believes that, regardless of the historical or civilizational domain this idea has come to life, that it is Islam. In the chapter “The Third Way” beyond Islam, Izetbegović claims that the Anglo-Saxon world has achieved its Islamic age. “England is a special part of European history, which must be viewed separately. Without England, Europe has only two ages: the age of the church and the age of the state. The middle, Islamic age in the history of Europe exists only as the age of England.” Izetbegović supports this claim with the data that in Spengler's system of isotherms, the emergence of the Anglo-American spirit in the history of the West corresponds to the emergence of Islam in the history of the West. The Anglo-Saxon world has achieved the unity of church and state, which is the Islamic element of this world.

In other words, Islam is not an exclusivity of Muslims. Any Muslim distancing from the ideal of balance has also been distancing from Islam. Judaism and Christianity are two ideas, two metaphors between which Islam permanently oscillates. For instance, tasawwuf is Islam which has come close to Christianity (whereby Izetbegović speaks extremely affirmatively about Christianity: “-Revelation of the crystal- clear and radical view of the Gospels marked a crucial moment in history. It was the first to make humanity fully aware of the value of the man and thus achieve not primarily historical but 'quality' progress. The appearance of Jesus Christ thus marks a landmark of the world history, and the visions and the hopes which he revealed incorporated him in all the later human endeavors.”)

Unlike other Muslim thinkers of the 20th century, Izetbegović does not defend Islam but religion itself; in the vulnerability of Islam, he sees vulnerability of religions per se and in this way he wants to guarantee universality of Islam itself.

Although it is an important work of great reflective courage a work which includes brilliant sections of extremely authentic reflections, and even a certain number of interesting anticipations, we are not contemporaries with the book Između Istoka i Zapada. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, the world has changed radically, and the terms which Izetbegović discusses are today viewed in essentially different contexts. Secondly, some issues which Islam između Istoka i Zapada deals with are no longer current. Thirdly, the world can no longer be methodologically reduced to any individual synthesis. Instead of ontological bifurcations which we find in Izetbegović's methodology, the world can now be understood only by means of complex systems and networks of dominant macro-trends which determine our present. Today, Islam can be discussed meaningfully and responsibly only by means of these macro-trends, such as migrations, terrorism, unemployment, the future, globalization, debt, info-neuro-nano-bio technologies, social networks, minorities etc. There are no such topics in the book Islam između Istoka i Zapada. Oswald Spengler, an author who certainly influences Izetbegović, wrote the following in his book the Decline of the West: “Every philosophy is the expression of its and only its own time. No two ages possess the same philosophic intention... The immortality of thoughts-become is an illusion. The essential is, what kind of man comes to expression in them. The greater the man, the truer the philosophy.”