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" Science and technology belong within
the domain of civilization, religion and art to
culture. The first is the expression of human needs
(how do I live), the second of human aspirations
(why do I live). "
On Death and
Failure ...........
by Alija Izetbegovic
During those years I began to work on my book Islam
izmedu Istoka i Zapada (Islam between East and
West). Indeed, I could say that I had written it
much earlier, just before my imprisonment in 1946.
The manuscript remained concealed for more than 20
years. When I was arrested in 1946, my sister Azra
(who died in 1997) hid it under the beams in the
attic of our house. When I later found it, it was a
bundle of half-decayed paper. I added some new data,
re-wrote the text and sent it to a friend in Canada;
finally an American publisher issued it in 1984,
when I was already serving my second prison sentence
of 14 years with hard labor.
My aim with that book was to consider the place of
Islam in the present-day world of ideas and facts.
It appeared to me that it lay somewhere between
Eastern and Western thinking, just as the
geographical position of the Muslim world occupies
the space on the globe between East and West. I
tried to show that some general ideas and some
values are common to all humanity. To summaries
briefly, these are the contents of the book: there
are only three world-views, and more there cannot be
- the religious, the materialist and the Islamic.
Everything is created in pairs (Qur'an). Man is a
dual being: body and soul.
The body is merely the `carrier' of the soul.
That carrier has evolved, which means it has a
history, but the soul has not; it was inspired by
the touch of God. The first aspect of mankind is the
subject of science, the
second of religion, art and ethics. This is why
there are two accounts and two truths about mankind.
In the Western world, they are symbolized by Darwin
and Michelangelo. Darwin has nothing to say
about Michelangelo's man, and vice versa. Their
truths are different, but not mutually
exclusive.
Over time they manifest themselves as the opposition
of civilization and culture. Science and technology
belong within the domain of civilization, religion
and art to culture. The first is the expression of
human needs (how do I live), the second of human
aspirations (why do I live).
This is the Contradiction between utopia and
drama. Utopia does not recognize the individual,
drama, morality. Study and meditation are two
different spiritual activities, with opposing foci:
the first is outwardly oriented -towards nature, the
second inwardly - towards the spirit and the Self.
Every scientific method leads towards a negation of
God and man, whilst all art announces religion. If
there is no God, there is no Mankind either. And
without Mankind humanism, human dignity and human
rights are empty phrases. Civilisation knows nothing
of the notion of duty, and every culture is an
affirmation of the victim. Civilisation's aim is an
`earthly empire' with utopian equality, and
religion's is the `kingdom of heaven'. This is
Campanella's `Civitas Solis' as against the `Civitas
Dei' of St. Augustine. There is no moral order
without God. Morality is merely `another physical
condition' of religion. While civilization is
evolution; history, religion and art have no true
development. Every religion was pure in its origins
(ur-monotheism).
It becomes corrupted in the course of its
history, as is the case with art and morality; hence
the opposition between Jesus and the Church. Every
true law is dual, and medicine is never purely
science. Cavemen's
drawings or the aboriginal masks from Polynesia are
in essence works of art no less stirring than modern
creations. The whole of human life is marked by this
primary dualism, and its `signs' may be found in
every phenomenon linked with the name of man. Here
too is the difference in spirit between the Old and
the New Testament, between Moses and Jesus. One was
a leader of the people, the other a preacher of
morality. And there, too, lie their two different
justices and aims: the Promised Land and the Kingdom
of Heaven. These opposites are reconciled in
mankind and in Islam. Islam is a synthesis, the
`third way' between these two poles that denote all
that is human.
I must admit that I was afraid of experts and their
reading of the book `line by line'. I felt confident
that a reader who followed the vision outlined in
rough, or even hinted at, in the book would find
something more in it than the pedantic, analytical
mind. I was aware that my attempt at stating my
vision remained understated, merely conjectural, and
in places incoherent. I gave a number of familiar
concepts a metaphorical rather than conventional
meaning: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and so on are
mere metaphors, with a general rather than a
specific meaning. For example, Islam is a major
metaphor for the `third way', for every form of
life, with a formula that fulfils the human person.
In fact, the book was no more than testimony to a
vision of the world.
I enjoyed identifying new parallels, theses and
antitheses, coincidence and symmetries, but this was
not the subject that interested me most deeply.
There was one issue that always preoccupied me more
than any other: the issue of famous losers. I
regarded it then, and regard it to this day, as the
deepest religious problem. It can be posited in a
number of ways: whence the tragic and pathos in the
Darwinian-Euchdian world? What are the great losers
like, and why do we admire them so if this life is
the only one we have? Were Antigone, Socrates and
Jesus really losers? And if so, why are they so
great in our eyes? What is the origin of our `
admiration for the fallen heroes that has
accompanied us ever since the prehistorically Iliad
and The Epic of Gilgamesh? Do not even films such as
cheap Westerns exploit our innate sympathy for the
victim (that is, for' losers) and resistance to the
calculated, to self-interest? Sympathy for the
victim is not something we can find in the
intellect, but only in the soul, by which I mean,
essentially, that is not `of this world'. And I say
sympathy, not understanding, for this is not, and
cannot be, under standing. No amount of reasoning,
cogitation and sagacity can explain or justify a
single case of a life sacrificed for justice and
truth. Something that is very close and
comprehensible to every human soul eludes
explanation by all our science and philosophy.
Between the act approved and the approbation there
is no mediation of reflection, no apportionment of
reasons pro et con. It may even be said that there
is no time lapse. It is the instant reaction of the
soul to good and justice, to something that is
identical to the soul itself. In the world that
atheists regard as the one and only, the tragic and
tragedy are impossible. In such a world there are
only incidents and misfortunes.
In this mind-set, tragedy manifests itself to us as
a religious parable. In tragedy, villains fall on
their feet and great and sincere souls suffer. And
because there is no `intellectual' operation to
proclaim these eternal losers as mad and demented,
the entire story, and in particular its tragic end,
appears to us as merely the first act of a greater
drama - one that only God could think up. For
suffering and death - which are the end of
everything to the intellect - are here merely an
interval between two acts in a continuing drama. Our
admiration and sympathy for the fallen hero are
completely meaningless from the intellectual point
of view, but for that very reason - whether we are
aware of it or not - it is deeply religious. For
only in such experiences do death and failure or
loss have an entirely different meaning.
I dedicated many pages of Islam between East and
West to this question, seeking to resolve it in a
variety of ways, but I was never wholly satisfied
with the answer. It continues to preoccupy me to
this day.
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