Snouck Hurgronje: Islam as a human achievement

[Marcus Marulus]

Snouck Hurgronje: Islam as a human achievement

On 8 February 1922 the Leiden University's Dies lecture was delivered by Rector Magnificus and Arabist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. The address was on the then very topical subject of the 'race issue'. The speaker denounced the Western fixation on racial differences, and held up Islamic history as an example to the West. He felt that the university could play an important role: not only was the 'serene atmosphere' of lecture halls and workplaces the best environment for conducting scientific research into the existence, or otherwise, of biological racial differences, he also considered the university to be the best place for dealing with the 'problems of life'. 'Because it is easier here than elsewhere to keep distortive factors such as race egoism, racial fantasies or racial hatred at a distance, and to find a solution for nurturing essential love for humankind.' The university not only has to be the bastion of freedom, but also the bastion of general human love, in the words of the Rector. *

Unorthodox

It also happened to be Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje's birthday that day. He was born on 8 February 1857, 150 years ago. Snouck Hurgronje will be widely commemorated this spring, starting with a symposium on Friday on his life as an innovative scientist and a man of colonial practice, and with a public lecture on modern architecture in Mecca. There will be a re-print and/or translation of a number of his books, and exhibitions in the University Library and the Museum of Ethnology. In his intellectual style and his methodology, Snouck Hurgronje was modern and unorthodox. He never considered Islam as a monolithic entity, but always as a product of historic circumstances and human achievement. He has had an enormous influence on the training of Arabists, Indologists and students of Indonesian. And his influence on Arabic language and culture, on the study of Islam and particularly on the study of Islamic law cannot be over-estimated either.

Primacy of law

‘Snouck Hurgronje was the founder of the academic study of Islamic law,' explains Professor Jan Just Witkam, Professor of Islamic Graphology, and driving force behind the Snouck activities. ‘He made orientalists realise that a fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity is that in Islam it was not theology which was important, but the law. Islam is primarily a system of laws. How have you behaved towards the Almighty and your fellow man? This is the key question which you will be asked at the end of your life. Now it is one of the first things a student learns about Islam, but at that time it was far from natural. Snouck saw it because he was not a theoretical specialist, but because he knew about the lives of Muslims.'

The ‘Islam issue’

As his Dies lecture demonstrates, Snouck Hurgronje did not avoid important social issues. In his book Nederland en de Islam (Netherlands and Islam) published in 1915 he addressed the 'Islam issue for the Netherlands'. Snouck obtained his doctorate in Leiden in 1880, but before he returned as professor, he had already served for seventeen years as adviser to the Governor General in the then Dutch East Indies. He was a firm advocate of ethical politics and saw great potential in the Indonesian people. During the final years of his time in Indonesia he worked closely with Van Heutsz, together with whom he took tough action in ending the war in Atjeh. His recommendations, all of which were translated into Indonesian in the nineties, and which are a rich source of information on colonial history, were based on what he saw in practice. He had extensive knowledge of the informal Islamic environment. Snouck considered that Islam should be left in peace in the private sphere, but he was a cutting opponent of the political variant of Islam, Pan-Islamism, currently known as fundamentalism. He hoped and believed in a steady process of secularisation. As a result of his broad knowledge of Islam, he also saw that the real enemy of colonial authority was not the Atjeh Sultan and aristrocracy, but the 'Islamic religious ministers'. Prior to him the militia had no idea who was the real opponent,' according to Witkam. Snouck was an ethical politicial, but also a political realist.

Abraham

The predecessors of Snouck in Leiden were theoretically trained. From the time he obtained his doctorate, Snouck Hurgronje had other ideas about how science should be practised. For him, science was more than Philology. His dissertation, entitled The Feast of Mecca, was about the origin of the Hadj, the pilgrimage ritual, and it was a revolutionary document, based on the story given by Islamic tradition, but giving a new theoretical explanation to aspects of ritual and myth. According to Snouck, it was a clever strategic move on the part of Mohammed to have Abraham acclaimed as primal prophet of his fresh new religion. There was no book of Abraham in the Jewish bible and the Jews from Medina were therefore unable to bombard Mohammed and his followers with bible texts in order to demonstrate to these modernists the error of their ways. This was a completely new approach.


Mecca: dangerous adventure

In 1884 Snouck Hurgronje decided to travel to Mecca himself, in order to study the lives of Muslims and the Hadj at first hand. As well as being a theological historian, he was also an ethnologist, who made use of the most modern resources, such as photography. His trip to Mecca, of which the book Mecca (with a collection of prints) is the lasting result, was a 'dangerous adventure', according to Witkam. For non-Muslims the holy city was strictly out of bounds. Snouck converted to Islam and lived, with his Islamic wife, as a Muslim among Muslims. In 1885 the adventure came to a sudden end, when the Turkish governor ordered his immediate departure from Mecca and Arabia. He left behind the wife with whom he had lived in Mecca.

Polemic

Snouck Hurgronje was a legend in his own lifetime. Witkam: ‘In Indonesia stories circulated among the general population about this legendary mufti or hadji. But later in Leiden he was also regularly the subject of news articles ain the local press. 'History at times judged him very harshly. In modern Indonesia his attitude of: 'You either rule the country or you don't, and it's impossible to do half a job' was condemned. In the Netherlands, too, he was vilified in leftist circles because of his attitude towards Atjeh. The most biting polemic among Islam specialists was conducted at the start of the eighties. The attack was based on the question of whether or not Snouck Hurgronje was sincere in his conversion to Islam. 'It was a real head to head,' says Witkam. 'Which is quite understandable if you consider that for Muslims religious hypocrites are the worst possible enemies of Islam. It is just not acceptable for someone to convert, to win the trust of Muslims and then to betray them. The supporters of Snouck's sincerity were largely the last remaining of his adherents. They revered the master. But, of course, there is no solution to the problem. Even the Spanish inquisition was not successful in determining whether or not those who converted were sincere.' In the present-day debate on Islam, Snouck is a shining and refreshing example for those who want to make a distinction between political and non-political Islam.

Pamphlets

Witkam himself was most influenced by Snouck Hurgronje in the time that he managed the Eastern collections in the University Library, and the countless unsightly books and pamphlets which Snouck had amassed: 'He had the foresight to recognise that these could be important research sources. He taught me that this was the way to create a collection, and I followed his advice.' In addition, Snouck Hurgronje donated thousands of Eastern scripts and 10,000 printed works to the University Library either in the form of gifts or in his will. Witkam: ‘Some still have his own page markers. These collections are truly unique. Once we have made good descriptions of these works, we will have a much better idea of the life and work of Snouck Hurgronje.’ Because as yet there is no biography of this remarkable scholar.

Victim

Snouck was a complex personality. According to Witkam, this is another reason why no biography of him has yet been published. 'Nice' is in any event not the right word to describe him. Witkam: ‘He was capable of mercilessly attacking his colleagues. There were four elements to the profile of his potential victims: 1. You have a good social position, 2. You earn a good salary, 3. Through marriage you are also apeson of substance, and 4. Nonetheless you are a slovenly academic.' But, while researching the life of Snouck, Witkam also came across a number of things in his private life, which he found 'quite nasty.' Some examples of these are given in the 130 page introduction to the Dutch translation of Mecca, which will be published in March by Atlas.

All activities and publications relating to '150 years of Snouck Hurgronje' can be found on the website www.oostersinstituut.nl
*De Islām en het rassenprobleem. Lecture given at the 347th commemmoradion of the foundation day of Leiden Unviersity, 8 February 1922

By the Rector Magnificus C. Snouck Hurgronje
(with thanks to Prof. Dr Willem Otterspeer)
(13 February 2007/HP)

[source]

And an interesting book on Islam, written by Hurgronje, downloadable here.