Utopia means 'no place'

It seems that the world has drifted into a trance of utopianism. Whether they be secular or religious, people have crafted new visions of the world that no longer resemble or aspire to resemble reality.

At a time when secularists are scrambling for progressive ways to advance humanity toward the pinnacle of evolutionary enlightenment, religionists of many brands have themselves evolved into idealist thinkers and radical utopians.

There are two ways of understanding ‘utopia’ – the commonly referenced way and the correct way. Contrary to the popular understanding of the term utopia, it doesn’t mean ‘the perfect place’. That is what it may advertently describe, but utopia actually means ‘no place,’ and most people have either ignored the correct meaning or simply shrugged it off in place of a ‘progressive’ version that fits into the post-modern evolutionary paradigm.

Before the complete monoculturation and secularization of knowledge, people had a much more authentic approach to understanding human nature and the realities of the world around them. They understood that a ‘prefect place’ does not and cannot exist on this planet. Sir Thomas More’s fictional Utopia (1516) is a prime example of this. Yet it is exactly this text that inspired enlightenment thinkers to reconstruct this ideal or ‘perfect place’ and translate it into our own reality (as evident in later promotions of Marxian communism). Utopia was no longer just an impossible fantasy, but an attainable goal for humanity to strive towards. In other words, humanity no longer had to wait for heaven, it could and should create a heaven on earth.

Every classical interpretation of religion is utopian in the sense that it describes some kind of an ‘ideal’ society, or at least it established the framework for a ‘perfect’ society; however, most religions recognized the inherent fallacy of utopianism because they understood the realities of human nature. Human beings are either sinful, or forgetful or brutish, or otherwise destined to suffer in this world do to their delicate and fragile animal-like attributes. Classical religion understood that we had a potential to become greater, and it encouraged humanity to strive toward that goal, but ultimately it taught humanity that it was impossible to be ‘perfect’, and therefore a ‘perfect’ social order was also out of the question. That is why religion consoled its believers with another-worldly, heavenly place where everything will indeed be perfect for them.

In contrast to the classical religious understandings of ‘utopia’, new visions of utopian societies have emerged among many religious groups in the last century – including Muslim groups.

Specific Muslim groups that call for a ‘pure Islam’ are in fact utopian. These particular Muslims are radical visionaries that have set out to recreate a perfect society that they believe existed during the time of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him); yet much of that Islamic history has been extremely romanticized and, in the process, dangerously distorted.

Let’s take a small pause here and reflect on what this really means.

We must understand that prophet Muhammad was a realist. He understood things for what they were, not what he wanted them to be. He understood the realities around him, and he strove to improve the conditions of his community based on those realities. He didn’t seek to impose a utopian vision of human nature, nor of life. He understood that even he was only a human being, and repeatedly stressed this fact to his companions (as evident in many of his narrations).

But the ‘purists’ romanticized, iconoclastic view of Islamic history doesn’t permit us to view the Prophet and his companions as mare human beings – they became in a way infallible and ‘perfect.’ Today’s revivalists have in fact done to Islam that which they blame ‘secularism’ for – they have deprived it of a soul, and a reality.

These revivalist movements across the world, and their accompanying visions, are no accident of course. They were born out of a proselytizing secularism itself, and hence acculturated much of its idealist thinking.

The reality is that we cannot re-create a society that looks like the one at the time of the prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions. The reality is that we live in a world that makes us believe we can. But we can’t.

This is not only true of revivalists, but of reformers too. It is just that with the reformers it is more apparent, do to their relative understanding of Islam and close ideological resemblances to secular liberalism.

The parallels between secularist and revivalist utopian thinkers are striking. Both wish to create a ‘global community’ – the one world motto, or in the revivalist’s case the one ummah – that is uniform in its philosophy, language, culture etc. The secularist utopia is one where humanity eventually evolves out of religion, while the revivalist utopia is one where everyone evolves into an ideal global religious community. Placed on a continuum, these very real utopian ideals stand as polar opposites (it is in part what fueled the entire 'clash of civilizations' theory). Islam is at neither of these two extreme ends.

We have to realize that Islam is above all about realism. Both the secular and religionist utopias do not recognize the inherent diversity that exists within humanity. The diversity in culture, language, philosophy etc. The revivalist utopia is one in which every Muslim would dress, talk, live like an Arab; and the sad thing is that many Muslims around the world have developed this Arab-envy or inferiority-complex. I can empathize, because I was there once.

In fact revivalist dogma undermines Arab culture itself by dividing classical Islamic history into the ‘jahiliya’ and what came after it, even though Islam itself never claimed to be a ‘new’ religion, but a continuation of the old revealed religions (as I have discussed prior in this article). It was there to correct bad practices, but it didn’t do away with the good. All cultures have good and bad aspects to them, Islam is there to correct the bad; it is not there to monopolize on cultures and make them feel inferior. And here I am talking about ‘culture’ in the anthropological sense of the word.

The great paradox of utopianism is that it almost always creates the opposite - dystopia and terror. Every ideology that had a utopian vision in this world has turned out to be a great misfortune for humanity at large. Hitler’s utopian vision turned out to be a nightmare for the Jews of Europe. Stalin’s utopia erected many concentration camps around the Soviet Union in which millions of his fellow citizens died, building up his ‘ideal society.’ American imperialists share a similar vision of dystopia and terror, and so do the Muslim revivalists (‘Islamists’).

As Muslims, we should be able to recognize the inherent destructiveness that comes from this utopian thinking. We have to get real about the world we live in. We have to understand the prophet as he really was, not as we imagine him to have been. Only when we face reality in this way, can we confront problems head on. We have to realize that ‘utopia’ really means ‘no place’ – and that a 'pure Islamic society’ will never exist in this world.