Reputed author and journalist M J Akbar says that one has to look at the Muslim world through a 'kaleidoscope and not through a telescope' in order to better understand it.
"If we do that then, we will realize that there are many fragments (in that world) and we may have a better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses," Akbar, who is an Asia Society Associate Fellow, said at the Asia Society in New York during a discussion on Islam vs. the West: Myth and Misunderstanding.
Akbar, who is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said there is no single 'monolithic Muslim world' as is usually believed in the West.
Noting that it's 'very dangerous and inaccurate' to see people with one label, he said while Muslims have spread around the world, and that there is a sense of Umah (brotherhood) among them, it does not go beyond a certain point.
He said as a human being he would feel bad and would have the same sense of anguish if a bomb goes off and kills people in a country say like Indonesia, beyond that one has to realize that Muslims live in different countries and cannot have the same kind of affinity that they feel with fellow citizens within their country.
"While you share the religion and the emotion to your religion with Muslims, (you have to admit) there are different countries and there are different politics and there is nothing in common between a Muslim from India and (say) one from Indonesia," he said.
"What I have to do with Indonesia, after all," he asked.
'If Islam was synonymous with nationhood, (as many believe) why would there be 22 Arab nations,' he asked.
For instance, he said, there is nothing in common between Indonesian art and those from Persia. 'There is actually nothing called Islamic art,' Akbar said.
"Similarly, there is something called the idea of a modern nation state which many Muslim nations have not been able to achieve," he said.
The point he was driving home was that not all Muslim nations have made progress towards becoming a modern nation state and the blame for that should not be laid at the door of Islam.
"The failings of those parts of the Muslim world that have not achieved modernity in their formations are not because of Islam, but due to a variety of reason which need to be analyzed individually and in the right context," Akbar said.
He said in South Asia, the Indians and the Pakistanis are actually the same people, who had the same strengths and same weaknesses sixty years ago when the partition took place.
"We began the process of creating modern nation states and the most important thing to remember about India and Pakistan is that we were the first nations to achieve freedom from the European colonial rule. So, why it is that Pakistan has gone into one trajectory and India gone on the other?' he asked.
"My understanding is that the idea of India is stronger than the Indian and the idea of Pakistan is weaker than the Pakistani. Pakistan in my view is a medieval idea (where) a faith can be the basis of nationalism," Akbar said.
India, he said, has three equalities and one equity.
'There is political equality, which means one citizen has one vote; religious equality, which means that irrespective of one's religion, one is equal before the Constitution and third and the most important is that gender equality which is a lacking in many Muslim countries,' he said.
'I keep telling people that if you do not have gender equality you will not enter into 19th century. Who is inviting you into the 21st,' he said.
Fourthly, he said, India has economic equity.
'There has never been something called economic equality. But in post-colonial society, if the elimination of poverty is not a primary objective of a state, you would never achieve modernity,' Akbar said, adding that Indian Muslims have enjoyed democracy unlike in many parts of the Muslim world.
Buttressing his point that there are many different scenarios within the Muslim world, and that there is no co-relation between religion and nationhood, Akbar drew the audience's attention to the fact that Bangladesh, a Muslim majority nation, grew out of a Muslim majority nation that is Pakistan.
"So, where is the concept of monolithic (Muslim world)?
To a question, he admitted that there are Muslims in the world who are fascists, but he cautioned against blaming Islam for that.
"Islam is 1,400 years old whereas fascism rose with the emergence of Benito Mussolini. We do not go around blaming Christianity for Hitler or the Roman Catholic Church for Mussolini. So, why blame Islam," he asked.
In response to a question Akbar described Pakistan as a jelly state.
"A jelly state is one that cannot rise, or become a modern state, but nor can it disappear. Because it has nuclear weapons, Pakistan has become a toxic jelly state," he said.
