Distinction between religion and culture questionable

Alia Hogben – The Kingston Whig Standard, Kingston, Ontario

Nov 10/12.

In recent times, many Muslims insist that religious teachings should take precedence over cultural values or practices. Religions’ pure message should not be contaminated by cultural practices that are seen as negative and of little value. This means religious teachings should override the culture of a people of any geographic area.

Some of us Muslims are discomfited by such insistence and pressure. Why should individuals be denied part of their identity? We are not one dimensional, and it is not necessary to negate or ignore other aspects of our identity to be good, practicing Muslims. What this insistence has done is to make people feel that their national, ethnic cultural practices are somehow anti-Muslim and therefore must be given up.

For example, some Muslims are told that our God is Allah, as if calling God by other more familiar cultural names, such as Khuda, is treachery. It matters not that Christian Arabs also use the word Allah to address God. Another example is the requirement to use more Arabic phrases even when most of us non-Arabs don’t know what they mean. Yet another is the requirement that national clothing be given up in preference for an approved uniform for both men and women to identify them as Muslims.

I have attended events where the majority of participants are non-Arabic speaking, but the main speech is in Arabic.

Why are the individual cultural values and practices seen so negatively that they should be discarded in preference for what is believed to be an Islamic, religious culture? I don’t think I become a better Muslim if I suppress the other parts of my identity.

Who decides what constitutes Islamic cultural practices? The leadership around such issues seems to come from states such as Saudi Arabia, which funds and influences the local leadership.

Islam does have a culture of its own which binds different peoples together with its shared and common characteristics. This religious global community is called the ummah – community of believers – and is an important and wonderful part of our identity.

But we need to ask if religion can or should be disentangled from culture as if they are two distinct threads, or if religion adapted to each culture can become an integral part of that particular culture. For example, a Somali Muslim will share her religious practices with an Indian Muslim, but both will also have distinct cultural values and norms. The Indian Muslim may identify with other Muslims everywhere, but also have a strong identification with fellow Indians based on the Indian culture.

What is wrong with that?

Can there be such a thing as pure Islamic culture? How is the religious culture defined? What is culture anyway?

One of the crucial characteristics of a religious culture†is that it is divinely inspired and its values are directed towards teaching individuals how to live a virtuous life on earth but with the ultimate goal of life after death.

But what would a pure Islam be if not understood and practiced by humans? Islam did not come in a vacuum nor did it come to a people without culture, and the teachings did take into consideration the cultural practices of the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula.

For academic specialists, culture is difficult to define as it is seen as a complex concept. But in simple terms, culture is about how humans build a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, language and artefacts. It is through culture that groups identify themselves and conform to shared values.

Culture is essential as we do not live in a vacuum or in isolation and therefore need the structure of cultural groups which fosters our feeling of belonging and identity. Culture is not limiting and can be further broken into subcultures based on ethnicity, race, gender or interest.

Isn’t culture dynamic, adaptive and subject to change? And as the world has become so interactive aren’t all cultures influencing each other?

In reality, religions have adapted themselves to local communities by often accepting the local customs. For example Christmas is celebrated in the middle of winter because that was the time of the celebration of the winter solstice. Islam continued the Arab practice of the pilgrimage and the sanctity given to the black stone or meteorite, both practices of pre-Islam.

I think this distinction between religion and culture is questionable because it often demeans peoples’ cultures that are meaningful to them. We humans are complex, and in our identity, we can comfortably include all aspects of ourselves, such as our ethnicity, our culture, our religion and our gender.

Is it fair to ask if Christians, the world over, to believe that there is a Christian culture distinct from other cultures and of greater significance than their national or ethnic cultures? The same question could be asked of other religious communities.

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