When it is said, “Terminology may differ,” it certainly means that differing terms do not harm as long as they express the same content. However, if the content is different, this statement will inevitably lose its validity and will not be objective in its implication.
The problem with foreign ideas that come to us from the West is that they are often misleading and deceptive. Therefore, it would be foolish to pass these terms and be drawn behind the glamour of their apparent meaning without delving into their depths and understanding their true meaning and content.
Among these misleading foreign terms that need clarification of their meaning and content is the term “globalization,” which appears on the surface to be a positive direction for humanity towards harmony, cohesion, and openness under the values of justice and equality.
If globalization is synonymous with universality in the perception of many who are deluded, then it is necessary upon us to present a model of universality that is characterized the message of Islam, as opposed to the perceived universality of many who fall into the trap of globalization.
The Universality of Islam
Previous messages before Islam were local, linked to specific peoples or certain national and geographical scopes, and did not have a universal character, unlike Islam, which carried this character as the final message and the eternal representative of the religion that Allah approved for humans until the Day of Judgment.
The universality of Islam appeared from the time the Quran was revealed in Mecca, despite it being a phase of weakness, as Allah says, “And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds.” (Al-Anbiya: 107)
Islam's universality is a divine methodology free from deficiency, ensuring the practical application of human dignity and freedom.
This universality is based on what the Quran confirms about the wisdom behind creating people into nations and tribes: “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.” (Al-Hujurat: 13)
The goal is to know and interact based on respecting the human creation that Allah has honored, resulting in mutual respect, acceptance of the other’s right to exist, along with mutual benefit.
This ayah has summarized the universality of Islam by defining two circles: the circle of human society in which all people are equal, which is the human origin, and the circle of distinction where one human is superior to another by righteousness. Ibn Kathir says, “All people in honor in terms of lineage to Adam and Eve are equal, and they only differ by religious matters, which are obedience to Allah and following His Messenger.” (1)
From this standpoint, Islam preserved its uniqueness through its principles and maintained its universality by encompassing humanity through its branches and rulings under which all humans willingly gather. The rules and branches include dealing with non-Muslims of various colors, languages, and nationalities based on justice and mercy, establishing noble principles in dealing with them while preserving their cultural or national identities.
If Islam is a universal religion, its civilization is consequently a universal civilization based on harmony among nations. Just as Islam does not compel anyone to enter it, the Islamic civilization, founded on its methodology, did not establish itself by coercion but through inclusion, choice, understanding, and meeting. Therefore, followers of other religions and sects lived under the justice and mercy of Islam, contributing to and participating in the establishment of that civilization. Hence, there is Islamic belief and also what can be called the civilization of Islam, which is the interaction and integration of non-Muslims with the Islamic society while retaining their identity.
Of course, this concerns those who lived in countries and regions under Muslim administration. As for those who lived in countries not under Muslim administration, they were included in the universality of Islam through fair principles regulating the framework of dealing with them according to Islamic values, now known as the international system or the international community or international legitimacy.
Thus, the universality that Islam is characterized by, as Dr. Muhammad Imara (2) explained, is the result of free and voluntary interaction among multiple and distinct civilizations, representing the common and collective denominator of these nations and civilizations; i.e., the common human element among them, which does not negate their distinction in particularities and localities.
Western Globalization
If the universality of Islam is like Noah's Ark, gathering various races willingly, desiring salvation in this world or the Hereafter or both, Western globalization also resembles a ship gathering the world with its diverse peoples. However, it lacks two essential elements: first, the ship needs a captain, and the captain of the globalization ship is not a divine system guaranteeing human freedom and justice but a dominant Western capitalist liberalism that drives people under the theory of the end of history, which sees this model as the highest evolution humanity has reached, despite it being based on military and cultural imperialism, exploiting the wealth of nations, and creating global crises.
Globalization is nothing but the product of a Western imperialist unipolar thought based on colonial ambitions.
This leads to the second element: globalization imposes the Western model forcibly, cramming nations and peoples into its ship without choice, sweeping away their cultural, value, and civilizational characteristics.
The West proposes the concept of globalization as a rational system that encompasses the world, ensuring the flow of capital, goods, and information across borders and geography. Through multinational corporations, a considerable degree of openness and democracy is achieved globally, ensuring stability and justice for all, and avoiding cultural and identity conflicts—as the West claims.
However, the reality is that globalization is a process of molding peoples and societies, imposed by capitalist liberalism led by America, through international institutions enforcing laws that strip the value and cultural framework of southern societies, and multinational corporations representing the most prominent mechanisms of globalization.
This molding is about making peoples and societies live in a material reality far from ultimate references embodied in religion, claiming to remove barriers to the free flow of capital and turning societies into consumer societies and markets for Western products.
To expose the falsehood of Western definitions of globalization, it’s enough to say that 90% of multinational corporations belong to the West, mostly American, but they are global only in their operational arena, meaning they have branches worldwide.
Dr. Abdel Wahab El-Messiri sees that globalization aims to erase historical memory to erase human awareness of itself as an entity independent of the natural and material world, adopted by the West to divert people from jihad and so they do not realize its exploitative nature and dominance. (3)
Therefore, we say: globalization is an American Western invasion of southern countries, to which our Ummah belongs, aiming to integrate societies and cultures into a global market dominated by the liberal capitalist system under the umbrella of Western democracies, resulting in a radical impact on the culture and identity of those societies.
We can say that the most significant fundamental differences between the universality of Islam and the globalization of the West are that the universality of Islam is a divine methodology free from deficiency, ensuring the practical application of human dignity and freedom, while globalization is nothing but the product of a Western imperialist unipolar thought based on colonial ambitions.
On the other hand, the universality of Islam is synonymous with freedom and choice, while globalization is synonymous with invasion, coercion, oppression, and eliminating the unique civilizational characteristics of peoples and societies.
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- Tafsir Ibn Kathir (7/385).
- The Dangers Globalization on Cultural Identity, Muhammad Imara, p. 13.
- Secularism, Modernity, and Globalization, Interview with Dr. El-Messiri conducted by Suzanne Harfi, p. 296.
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