Tariq Ramadan – Ramadan Chronicles #28 Culture

We have been talking about all these resistance,

and there is one which is very subtle.

Not easy,

very difficult sometimes,

but we need to get it as it

is the center of

our,

understanding of Islam.

This has to do with culture. We need

sometimes

very important

dimension here.

As we say, there is no religion without

culture. Any religion has to do with a

specific culture. It happened with the prophet, peace

be upon him, with the Arabic culture,

and there is no culture without a religious

reference. And this is also everywhere,

the case. But at the same time, religion

is not culture. So no religion without culture,

no culture without religion, but religion is not

culture. Having said that, what we need to

get is with our

religious principles,

our ethics, we need to be critical with

any culture and to understand that

some things are very good, very positive, but

there are features

and habits and and way of dealing with

things that should be criticized

from within

as a culture and in all the cultures.

And this happened to the prophet, peace be

upon him, when he was in Mecca. This

was a very specific culture, and he had

to leave after 13 years to Medina. And

in Medina, it's another

culture. Knowing here that the same principles

as Muslims

were in Mecca in Medina, but when the

Muhajirun

went to

Medina, they just,

face another culture. And the first was Omar

Ibn Al Khattab in the way, for example,

women were very,

present, having another role within the society. And

they were answering back to men, and he

was surprised. And he went to the prophet,

alayhis salam, who made it clear, this is

not against Islam, the same principle. But this

culture in Medina

is as Islamic. And we have to be

critical towards the fact that, for example, in

Mecca, in the patriarchal

culture,

things were not done properly. All this was

a step towards something else. The same when

it comes to,

aesthetic and arts where the prophet, alaihis salatu,

was respecting an ansar,

loving to have,

singing during the weddings, for example.

So these are things which are very important.

And it's not because we are coming from

an Arabic culture that everything in this Arabic

culture is good. We have to be critical.

Patriarchal,

attitudes, for example, and putting men at the

center of everything. This is not Islamic. It's

much more cultural than Islamic.

The same when it comes to sometimes arrogance

towards another culture, and we have it in

the Quran.

You cannot just mock and and dismiss another,

community or another culture. It they might be

better than you. So this has to be

done,

with ethical principles

and not,

in the way we deal with

with our culture. So whatever

is your culture,

you need to be critical to ask what

is good and what could be reformed and

what we can keep and what we have

to

change. And when it come to a new

culture, when you are settling down in a

country, you need to take from this culture

everything which is good, and at the same

time,

change or resist things that could be bad.

No way that you can take a culture

per se without being critical. You have to

resist

some dimensions,

some features of specific culture, be it agriculture,

western culture,

whatever, Asian culture. This is the way we

are in the name of our principles

to try to reform

all the culture,

our respective culture into something which is much

more

principled,

much more ethical

than what culture could be. Because every culture

should be improved. That's the way that's the

the way we have to be involved

as believers,

as men and women of principles.

Remember to tell the people you love that

you love them. Life is fragile.