What is “Modernization” in Islam?

Muslim modernists have stressed the need and urgency of reconstructing the medieval deductive ilm al-kalam (theology) and fiqh (jurisprudence) in the light of modern inductive knowledge.

What they  have  not emphasized so far is the long overdue all-round education of ulama in the ideology of Islam  as  well  as  in that  of Modernity along with  the impact of the explosion of knowledge in recent years on our social life, so  that  they  may  recognize change  as something desirable and  that society can and should be changed, and may reopen the gate of  absolute ijtihad closed more than a thousand years ago.

Education of the ulama alone on the lines suggested above will unlock the door to modernization Islam and Modernity in the world of Islam.

This is because lay Muslims with liberal education could speak for themselves only, but could not, by themselves, lay the foundation of a new Islamic theology and jurisprudence in the light of modern knowledge.

Now a word about the meaning of modernization coupled with a definition of it which may fit in our framework of values. We are living in an age of explosion of knowledge. 

Since knowledge is the root of culture and culture is the fruit of knowledge, any change or increase in man's knowledge of himself or his environment directly affects culture and provides an impulse to adjustment to it. 

This process of social change initiated by it is called modernization or social reconstruction.

However, modernization is not a straight path. It cannot take place in one go, nor can it take place rapidly and smoothly.

It is a lengthy and tedious process. Man - the subject of modernization - has a negative tendency to cling to the old and familiar as well as to the new and novel, giving rise to a tug of war within himself.

He has to carve out his way between these two opposing tendencies carefully and cautiously. Thus it is within the framework of the tension between conservatism on the one hand and liberalism on the other that all modernization takes place.

Let us now define modernization. E. Vojas, for one, defines it as "a  process  of  manifold interrelated changes  in  the  economic, social, political,  and  cultural fields  through  which  less  developed societies acquire the characteristics of more developed societies." The emphasis here is on rapid and all-round change and on the transference of institution from the less developed to the more developed societies. This is a culturally colored definition and does not suit our purpose. It is a definition of Westernization rather than that of modernization.

A rather general and culturally neutral definition of modernization, equally applicable to both developed and developing societies, is that of Prof. C. E. Black. He defines it as "the dynamic form that  the  age-old process  of  innovation has assumed  as  a  result  of explosive proliferation  of  knowledge  in  recent centuries. 

It owes a special significance to its dynamic character and to the universality of its impact on human affairs." He conceives of modernization as a mullet-dimensional process by which historically evolved institutions are adapted to rapidly changing functions that reflect the unprecedented increase in man's knowledge."

This definition has an edge over others. It regards modernization as a mullet-dimensional complex process, gives historical evolution its rightful place and rejects reductionism outright.

The pointed emphasis it lays on the transformation instead of the transference on institutions makes room for diverse developments to take place, as different societies set out to modernize themselves in the context of their own cultural framework. Above all, it resolves the opposition between Modernity and tradition, by assigning a key-role to historical evolution.  "Modernization," Black continues, "must be thought of not as a simple transition from tradition to Modernity, but as a part of an infinite continuum from the earliest times to the indefinite future." Needless to say, it is Black's moderate and comprehensive views of modernization that suits our purpose.  It makes room for integrating modern knowledge, after carefully sifting it, into the cultural framework of Islam, as opposed to blind wholesale adoption of it. Cultural borrowing is a selective process. 

A growing culture does not resort to uncritical wholesale adoption of a foreign culture. It adapts it to its own requirements.