[Note: This article was written sometimes in 2001 or 2002, or perhaps a little earlier. It was set against a Muslim group who looked at religion exclusively to form their identity. Contrary to this, a secular group had shown a diametrical opposite identity. They took at identity chiefly from a lingua-cultural setting. Contrasting the two identities, I casually looked at differentiating elements of identity and their overlapping. But now as I reprint it here, I have edited a few places and added sub-heading].
Introduction: Identity
Identity is a construct from a complex range relating to personhood, family, territory, state, language, religion, history and others. Given the complexity, the subject defies reduction: we cannot say we are the sum and substance of only ‘one thing’ and nothing else. It’s not like one is a Bengali, or a Muslims and nothing else. Compound singularities like British-Bangladeshis, British-Muslims are similar. Identity is a complex whole.
I was born in East Pakistan, in territorial sense of time as a Pakistani. The national geography later changed and I became a Bangladeshi. My home town was in sylhet and as such I am a Sylheti. I settled in the UK and became British. I was born in a Muslim family, and so Islam comprises part of my identity. Further in rligius denomination, I am a Sunni Hanafi. As a lingual group, my mother tongue is Bengali, rather of a Sylheti dialect, and I here is a strong lingual identity: A Bengali. The many facets of identity components are now clear.
If you were to ask about me to a member of my family, they might tell you a different story. They might tell you my identity in terms of my father or grand father, or the village I come from. If the context was made wider, they might tell you about my personality, behaviour, traits, education, skill and expereince of life as part of who I was. All this adds to the complexity.
More complexities
Generally, our psychological disposition, behavioural traits, familial history, education and professional standing, socio-economic status, ideological or cultural group alignment, or even what we like or dislike, preferences of food, clothes: all can throw something to the cauldron. Noticeably, the complexity flaws over many things, and overlaps with many, but it’s like landscape.
There can be contradiction and coherences too. You can be a capitalist, upper class Muslim, committed to an Islamic Movement, preach the virtue of poverty, quote from the poverty-ridden life of the prophet, and define yourself against the unemployed, superstitious (?) group of Muslims who see no point in an Islamic State. Here the incoherence of alignment is absolutely visible. Contrarily, your friend could be a Bangladeshi Sufi, could despise the modern soulless, capitalist, consumerist techno-culture, live in a nice suburbia, away from the polluted urban sprawl, perform the Hajj every year, own a beautiful detached house with a porsche, a satellite dish hanging over the wall; married to a Japanese woman, a practising meditational psychotherapist with two children: one of them heavily committed to the salafi Islam, and the other, a graduate from Oxford, with a load of confusion as to who he is. You can take this example to bear upon the secular groups, leftist, rightist, and godless groups. There, in addition to ideologies within ideologies and their interplay, people could hate the gut of each other. But talking face to face, they might employ euphemistic terms to hide their hatred. Even, we may have clashes of opposing ideologies within ourselves, and those who oppose us. Although people like to maintain coherence, their contradictions often become unambiguously apparent. Yet, the contradiction and coherence, and the history which makes them, are what they are, their undeniable parts, their very identity.
Ideological cross-connections feature in people’s makeup. In addition, the elements of possession, status, likes and dislikes, mental disposition and ethnicity all count. The point is about the multifaceted-ness, attachment and detachment of clustering.
Identy changes and reforms in time. A territory might break up, religion can change (as it happened to the Makkans), linguage change can occur (children can be Bengalis but their language can be English), cultural traits can change too, (Bengali might not be fish eaters, woun’t wear lungi or sari any more), values can be changed too.
Yet despite many changes, there are certain unchanging elements that can be observed such as people’s values and beliefs. There is One God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God, the Quran is Book of God, there is a life after death: In such beliefs there are certain values, they are of fundamental of importance, they transform people’s life and work, they generate an overarching culture and, over all, they remain static, unchanged, much different from other elements. These unchanging features are the universals. Hence Muslim, Christian, Jewish dentities can be sought over a long span of time and over many territories. This is the most important aspect of peoples’ identity.
Use of identity
Let us look at why we try to define our identity. There are numerous reasons. Occasionally it is the situation or context that demands defining who we are. But in doing so, we only provide that aspect of identity which serves the need of the context. In a religious situation, we may use the religious determiner, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Atheist, Agnostic etc. In an immigration context, it will be our national identity: Bangladeshi, (never a Bengali), while in a familial situation, it would be the familial identity. In an office, it might simply be our names and the position we hold. Beyond this, the purpose of the universal aspect of our identity relates to our continuity as what we are. As individuals belonging to the Muslim Ummah we we propagate this global identity to our next generation as much as we value it for ourselves and in this comes the central realisation of ourselves as a single body as has been spoken about in the Qur’an and the tradition of Hadith. The strength of ourselves lies in the existence of this realisation and solidarity. This solidarity and power has been, and still is, the concern of the western world about the Muslims. If they could, breaking it they would.
Neverthelesess, situationally, people often define themselves in terms of what they own and what power they possess. At a job interview they speak of them in terms of their skills and experiences. In a state of national crisis they forcefully evoke national (territorial) identity for collective `unity’, and `solidarity’. In the past when religious battles were fought, religious identity was often used to gather support. That’s what the kings, khaliphs, politicians often did. Religions can be found as ‘used victims’ brought under to serve territorial or political interests.
Sublimisation of identity
The danger can always lie in sublimisation of identity, in the paradigm of superiority. National and cultural identities can change in time. As said earlier, national identity changes through annexation, independence or other means. Through subtle and gradual process language and culture change. They borrow items from innumerable sources, and some old is shredded off. Between 150 and 250 years the landscape can be seen very different. In modern time, people of urban location can be seen identifying themselves with language and culture for egocentric reasons. A person can be western from top to bottom, (from dress to food, from lifestyle to adherence of values). Such a person, of Bangladeshi background for example, may not have any attachement to Bengali language or its culture, but on national celebrative occasions such as the 21st of February, he could be seen occupying the middle seat on the stage, firing out speeches as if he is the incarnation of Bengali and its culture. Among such people, some are hatemongers and often the hatemongers are fascists to their own kind. There are fascist Bengalis, fascist British, fascist Germans who take the elements of identity as a means of elevation, often of superiority. The assertion of identity is generally harmless, but the moment it dehumanises others, it becomes dangerous. The Germans went wrong on this, some whites have been wrong for ages and some still are with white supremacy.
Supremacy pulls the humanity down. It is Satan who first said, ‘I am better than him (Adam)’. In fact, it is God, the ultimate value holder and the assigner of value, to whose sight good and bad is determined. A Muslim is ‘better’ in sight of God, for his belief and good work, (taqwa). A Muslim is not allowed to be haughty in saying I am better. ‘Very well, He knows you, when He produced you from the earth, and when you were yet unborn in your mothers’ wombs; therefore hold not yourselves purified; God knows very well him who is godfearing.’ (53:32).
Islamic identity
Islamic identity is simply about stating the difference in terms of one’s membership to a concept which holds that God is One, life is meaningful and continuous after death, and the differentiating term is ‘humble’, a Muslim: the one who has ‘surrendered’ his ego’s will to the One who is the Most Powerful. Muslim identity is not a demi-god, and not a difference to be sublimated in any case by dehumanising others. Islam takes a global view of the human race and the Quranic statement is this: ‘This nation of yours is a single nation and I am your Lord, worship Me’. (21:92). It can also be taken to mean ‘this nation that surrenders to God is a single nation’.
Differences in all things give their identity and so too in the naming of things. I have been given a name which is different from that of my brother. My family has certain make-up that may be different to the next family. So too a tribe, a wider territory, a nation, or people having different languages. We can be black or white, male or female. These can be significant in many ways –so far as they are differences, but when a difference is sublimated, it can become dangerous, (as said before), it can be jingoistic, chauvinist, or satanically superior. Difference must not be that. Allah said in the Quran, ‘O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise [each other]). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (49:13).
