Top Banner
Political Islam: An evolutionary history There is a rightist and a leftist side of Political Islam. The term ‘Political Islam’ is an academic concoction. It works as an analytical umbrella under which political analysts club together various political tendencies that claim to be using Muslim scriptures and historical traditions to achieve modern political goals. The term most probably emerged in the 1940s in Europe, to define anti- colonial movements that described themselves as Islamic in orientation. It is a 20th century construct and its first prominent expression is believed to be Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, formed in 1927.
29

Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Jan 17, 2016

Download

Documents

The term most probably emerged in the 1940s in Europe, to define anti-colonial movements that described themselves as Islamic in orientation. It is a 20th century construct and its first prominent expression is believed to be Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, formed in 1927.Till about the late 1960s, movements associated with rightest aspects of Political Islam were largely intellectual pursuits with limited political influence.During the Cold War, the rightest expressions of Political Islam were backed and supported by Western powers and oil-rich Arab monarchies, mainly due to the fact that the leftist sides of Political Islam had largely moved into what (during the Cold War) was called the ‘Soviet camp.’

However, things in this respect began to change from early 1970s onwards. The right-wing expressions of Political Islam experienced a surge, especially after the death of popular Egyptian leader and ‘Arab Socialist,’ Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1970.Later, the bankrolling of the anti-Soviet ‘Jihad’ in Afghanistan by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the 1980s, also became a catalyst that triggered the shifting of political and social influence in many Muslim countries from left-leaning Political Islam to its rightist expressions.The ‘Afghan Jihad’ also added a more militant dimension to right-wing Political Islam. It reached a peak in the late 1980s after the Afghan conflict resulted in a stalemate and the Soviet forces in Afghanistan had to pull out.
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Page 1: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Political Islam: An evolutionary history

There is a rightist and a leftist side of Political Islam.

The term ‘Political Islam’ is an academic concoction. It works as an analyticalumbrella under which political analysts club together various politicaltendencies that claim to be using Muslim scriptures and historical traditions toachieve modern political goals.

The term most probably emerged in the 1940s in Europe, to define anti-colonial movements that described themselves as Islamic in orientation. It is a20th century construct and its first prominent expression is believed to beEgypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, formed in 1927.

Page 2: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Even though as a political tendency, Political Islam covers a wide range ofmovements involving various Muslim sects, sub-sects, nationalities, leftist aswell as rightist rhetoric and narratives; it is the commonalities in these variedmovements that make analysts study them as a single ideological entity.

Till about the late 1960s, movements associated with rightest aspects ofPolitical Islam were largely intellectual pursuits with limited politicalinfluence.

They were seen with suspicion, even by those movements and groups thatadopted the main aspects of Political Islam and fused them with varied leftistideologies.

Thus one can also suggest that during the Cold War era (1949-90), the centraltheological and political tussle in most Muslim countries was not exactlybetween ‘Islamists’ and secularists, or between religious political groups andcommunists; the main conflict was between the rightest expressions ofPolitical Islam and its leftist versions.

The rightist side produced tendencies such as ‘Islamic Fundamentalism,’‘Islamism’ and ‘Neo-Fundamentalism,’ while the leftist sides came up with‘Islamic Socialism,’ ‘Ba’ath Socialism’ and ‘Arab Nationalism’/‘Arab Socialism’.Balanced at the centre was Muslim Nationalism.

During the Cold War, the rightest expressions of Political Islam were backedand supported by Western powers and oil-rich Arab monarchies, mainly due tothe fact that the leftist sides of Political Islam had largely moved into what(during the Cold War) was called the ‘Soviet camp.’

The rightist sides were severely repressed by Muslim regimes operating fromthe left flanks of Political Islam, but it is also true that the right-wing of PoliticalIslam had by and large failed to attract any worthwhile mass support.

Page 3: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

However, things in this respect began to change from early 1970s onwards. Theright-wing expressions of Political Islam experienced a surge, especially afterthe death of popular Egyptian leader and ‘Arab Socialist,’ Gamal Abdul Nasserin 1970.

Later, the bankrolling of the anti-Soviet ‘Jihad’ in Afghanistan by the US, SaudiArabia and Pakistan in the 1980s, also became a catalyst that triggered theshifting of political and social influence in many Muslim countries from left-leaning Political Islam to its rightist expressions.

The ‘Afghan Jihad’ also added a more militant dimension to right-wing PoliticalIslam. It reached a peak in the late 1980s after the Afghan conflict resulted in astalemate and the Soviet forces in Afghanistan had to pull out.

In the early 1990s, encouraged by their successes in Afghanistan, the militantexpressions of right-wing Political Islam began to pull away from the orbit of itsformer backers (US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan), and tried to trigger ‘Islamicrevolutions’ in various Muslim countries.

Their methods of creating chaos through bombings (to unleash an uprising)antagonised the regimes that had formerly backed them, but now foundthemselves under attack.

The revolutions failed to materialise, but the bombings continued. Frustrated,the militants found themselves bordering on taking nihilistic action that hascaused the deaths of thousands of civilians and members of the security forcesin countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Algeria, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia,Syria and Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the more classical expressions of right-wing Political Islam havetried to repair the damage inflicted to their cause by their more militantcousins, by getting involved in the democratic process in countries likePakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Indonesia, Sudan, and Turkey.

Page 4: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

But on most occasions ‘moderate’ right-wing democratic expressions ofPolitical Islam have proven to be more successful on the social front, but lackthe acumen required to devise and implement coherent economic policies oract decisively against their more violent brethren.

So can one cautiously ask whether the Political Islam that emerged in the1930s-40s and then peaked in the 1980s, is now a withering phenomenon?

The answer to this can be looked up in the historical trajectories of some ofPolitical Islam’s more prominent outcomes.

The first triangle

The earliest manifestations of Political Islam were the so-called IslamicFundamentalism, Pan-Islamism and Muslim Nationalism.

'Islamic Fundamentalism' is a vague term. It is largely associated with variousradical and militant tendencies found in the Muslim world, nut critics of thisdefinition claim that it only means the following of the ritual fundamentals ofIslam.

So, though usually attributed to the beliefs of modern-day extremistmovements in the Muslim world, Islamic Fundamentalism is basically a firmbelief in the theological musings of classical Islamic jurists and traditions.

The ‘political roots’ of this tendency, however, lie in the 12th century, whenafter three hundred years of open debate in the Islamic world betweentraditionalists and rationalists (Mu’tazilites), influential Muslim thinkers suchas Imam Ghazali insisted that a perfect synthesis (between the two) had beenreached and that Islam’s social and spiritual philosophy had achievedcompletion.

Page 5: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Islamic Fundamentalism is rooted in this 12th Century intellectual triumph oftraditionalists.

12th century Islamic thinker, Imam Ghazali, who advocated an end to 'ijtihad'(independent reasoning) with the view that Islamic thought had reachedcompletion.

The 'fundamentalists' usually emerged in the shape of scholars (ulema) andclergymen (maulvis and imams), who worked as advisers to Muslim kings, orin mosques and madrassahs.

Truth is, during the disintegration of Muslim empires from the 19th centuryonwards, the many reformist Islamic movements that emerged in reaction tothe collapse criticised the performance of Islamic Fundamentalists, blamingthem for getting too close to ‘decadent kings’ due to whose ‘negligence ofIslam,’ Muslim political power had crumbled.

This movement has historically been more interested in rectifying ‘cultural andsocial aberrations’ in a Muslim society, and for this it used the mosque andevangelism.

But Islamic Fundamentalism continues to be frozen in an understanding of thefaith and its texts developed centuries ago by ancient Islamic scholars andjurists.

Page 6: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Though it is vocal in its rhetorical demands for the imposition of ‘Islamic laws’(Shariah), it has little or no political agenda. It never did.

It remains largely associated with apolitical conservative ulema, the clergy andIslamic evangelists – even though at times many such individuals have beenaccused of endorsing militant action to ‘enforce the fundamentals of Islam’ in asociety.

Members of the Tableeghi Jamat in Pakistan. The Jamat is one of the largestIslamic evangelical movements in the world. Observers have described it as agenuine ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ movement but with no political agenda.

Muslim Nationalism was perhaps Political Islam’s first major modernmanifestation (along with Pan-Islamism). Both emerged in the 19th century ascritiques of classical Islamic Fundamentalism which they accused of beingapolitical, frozen in time and anti-progress.

Page 7: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Both were also the reactive products of the rise of European colonialism. Pan-Islamism viewed the Muslims across the world as a single entity (ummah) thatshould be united under single ‘Islamic state’ (a global caliphate).

Pioneering Pan-Islamic thinkers such as Jalaluddin Afghani (1839-97) wereperhaps the first to allude to the creation of an ‘Islamic State’ (albeit a universalone). It was a concept culled from the Western idea of the state and thenfurnished with the theory that the governmental set-ups in Makkah in the 7thcentury during the initial rise and triumph of Islam were organic ‘IslamicStates.’

Though Pan-Islamism eschewed and abhorred the idea of nationalism definedby political borders, it still managed to inspire Muslim Nationalism. MuslimNationalism emerged in India soon after the complete collapse of the MughalEmpire and the victory of the British Colonialists in the 1857 Mutiny (triggeredby sections of rebellious Muslim and Hindu soldiers and the remaining scionsof the Mughal Empire).

Pan-Islamism was in fact critical of Muslim Nationalism that was being shapedby men like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Syed Ameer Ali. For example, Afghaniaccused Muslim Nationalists (in India) of attempting to confine the Muslims ofIndia as a group defined by their geographical location (and thus limitations).

Page 8: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Pioneering 19th Century Pan-Islamic thinker Jalaluddin Afghani. Though headvocated the infusion of modernity in traditional Islamic thought, he wascritical of India’s Muslim Nationalists because he thought they were reducingthe Muslims of South Asia as a nation confined to South Asia.

But just as Pan-Islamism had adopted modern western ideas of the state,Muslim Nationalism adopted another European idea, that of nationalism. Itdefined the Muslims of India as a separate nation of people who were differentthan the Hindus in majority.

Pan-Islamism and Muslim Nationalism were also equally interested inpopularising modern (European) models of education among Muslims, and ofadvocating a more ‘rational’ understanding of Islam’s scriptures. In thiscontext, they were both progressive ideas.

Page 9: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was one of the early architects of Muslim Nationalism(along with Syed Ameer Ali). Pan-Islamists and orthodox clergy criticised himfor adopting the ‘Western concept’ of nationalism for the Muslims of SouthAsia.

But Muslim Nationalism largely remained an urban and reformistphenomenon associated with the Muslim bourgeoisie of India. It was furtherelaborated and bolstered by the scholarly works of philosopher and poetMuhammad Iqbal. By the 1930s, it had become the central plank of the AllIndia Muslim League.

Muslim Nationalism thus became the main driver behind the movement thatcreated Pakistan (in 1947), because it advocated the formation of a separatecountry for the ‘Muslim nation’ of India.

Page 10: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Poet-philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), tried to bridge theuniversalism of Pan-Islamism with the Muslim nationalist identity that SouthAsia was trying to shape up.

The new country was to be based on Muslim Nationalism’s central planks i.e.reforming the Muslims of South Asia into becoming a constructive and distinctnation, and rational modern-day manifestations of the political, militaristic,cultural and scientific achievements associated with Muslim Empires andsocieties of yore.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Muslim Nationalism came under attack once again,this time by Pan-Islamism’s more conservative expressions.

Page 11: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

In fact, it would be these expressions which would evolve to become so-calledIslamism. Early architects of this aspect of Pan-Islamism, such as prolificIslamic scholar, Abul Ala Maududi, attacked Muslim Nationalism of being a‘western idea’ and too ‘secular’ in its political orientation.

He also attacked it for compartmentalising the Muslims of India as an artificialSouth Asian entity, thus negating the universality of Islam.

However, the process of a compromise between Muslim Nationalism and the‘universal’ ideals of Islamism began almost immediately after the creation ofPakistan.

By the mid-1970s, Muslim Nationalism’s disposition had begun to shift fromthe centre and towards the right. And by the 1980s, it had largely incorporatedinto its fold Islamism’s many notions, turning the idea of Pakistan from being anationalistic Muslim-majority state into a state striving to become ‘theepicentre of the ummah.’

Mind the gap

As a term, 'Islamism' first emerged in the early 1970s (in France), even thoughit had already (albeit sparsely) been in use among European writers in the 19thcentury.

In the modern political context, Islamism came to explain a series of (post-19thcentury) Islamic movements that advocated Islam not only as a religion ofmorals and rituals, but also as a distinct political ideology.

Islamism’s roots can be found in the Islamic reformist movements thatappeared in South Asia and in Arabia in the 19th century.

Page 12: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Incensed by the gradual crumbling of the Mughal and Ottoman empires, aseries of reformist movements emerged, advocating ‘a return to true Islam’which was said to be free of innovation and corruption.

Some of these movements emphasised applying reason in religion, but manyalso added the importance of ‘jihad’ not only against western colonialism butalso against traditional Muslim clergy, and especially against Sufi tendenciesthat these reformists believed were a ‘negative innovation’ and an anathema to‘pristine Islam.’

But after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (1922), a bulk of Muslim regimes(especially in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey) vigorously adopted the modernwestern economic, social and political models, such as liberalism andnationalism (sans democracy).

However, not in what today is Saudi Arabia.

One of the first major experiments of Islamism that actually took off was when(in the early 20th century), the Al-Saud family conquered a vast tract in Arabiawith tacit support from the British (who were trying to undermine Ottomanrule in the region).

Page 13: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Ibn Saud.

Head of the Saud family, Ibn Saud, was an ardent follower of Abd Al-Wahhab –an 18th century puritanical Islamic reformist. The Saud family soon enactedthe world’s first ‘Islamic State,’ but one that was under the control of amonarchy.

The Saud family’s adherence to the more puritanical strain of the faith and theimposition of laws (culled from the ideas of literalist 8th century Islamic jurist,Ibn Hanbal, and 14th century Islamic theologian, Ibn Taymmiya), went downwell with the people of the region; but the family’s growing ties with the Britishand its monarchical tendencies made a lot of them uncomfortable as well. Itwas a puritanical monarchy.

Page 14: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

On the other hand, as modern Muslim nationalists dominated the anti-colonialliberation movements in the 20th century in South Asia and the Middle East,early thinkers of Islamism scorned at them and labelled these movements as‘anti-Islamic.’

Pioneering Islamism scholars such as Egypt’s Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb,and South Asia’s Abul Ala Maududi, began interpreting the Quran and otherIslamic texts through the prism of modern political concepts and lingo.

For example, Maududi expanded the Quranic concept of Tauheed (oneness ofGod) by suggesting that it also meant the (political) oneness of the Muslimummah that can only be achieved by ‘Islamising the society’ and throughattaining state power to finally formulate an ‘Islamic state’.

Prolific author and Islamic scholar, Abul Ala Maududi was one of the firstmajor ideologues of what became to be known (in the West) as Islamism.

Qutb, on the other hand, implied that 20th century Muslim societies were in astate of jahiliyya – a term used by classical Muslim scholars to define the state ofignorance the people of Arabia were in before the arrival of Islam in the 7thcentury.

Page 15: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Qutb suggested that a jihad was required in Muslim countries to grab statepower and rid the Muslims from the ‘modern forces of jahiliyya’ (that to himwere secularism, Marxism, nationalism and ‘Western materialism’).

Egyptian Islamic ideologue S. Qutb (right) with an American intellectual in1950. He was hanged by the government of Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt in1966 (on charges of treason and inciting violence).

Islamism purposefully eschewed a number of ancient commentaries on Islamicscriptures and Shariah. It rejected these scholarly works as being either ‘stuckin the mosque’ or undertaken to serve kings who had divorced Islam frompolitics.

It is, however, ironic that Islamism (across the Cold War), was largelysupported and funded by Western and oil-rich Arab powers to prop upopposition against Muslim regimes that were in the ‘Soviet camp’ or were seendetrimental to Western economic and geopolitical interests.

Page 16: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

The exception in this regard was the Islamism associated with the ShiaIslamists in Iran. Though the main groundwork for the 1979 revolution in Iranwas done by leftists and constitutionalists, the Iranian forces of Islamismsuccessfully steered the revolution towards becoming an Islamic one. Iran alsoremains to be Islamism’s only tangible ruling enactment – though it has greatlysuffered from constant economic, political and social strife.

The arrangement between Islamism and its Western and Saudi backers reacheda peak in the 1980s during the ‘anti-Soviet jihad’ in Afghanistan.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, and the drying up of the patronage and fundsIslamism’s leading organs were receiving (from the West), movementsattached to Islamism started to weaken and fragment. Consequently,Islamism’s less intellectually inclined (and more brutal) cousin, Neo-Fundamentalism, soon began usurping its agenda and political space.

Forces attached to Islamism tried to rebound after the Cold War through thedemocratic process but were (on the one end) accused of being apologists ofviolent Neo-Fundamentalists and of being lukewarm towards 'islamising' thesociety on the other.

Wherever they have managed to come to power (through democracy), theyhave struggled to initiate effective political and economic reforms mainly dueto the fact that they end up creating polarisation and administrational chaos bytrying to address solutions to non-religious issues with certain ill-definedreligion-orientated alternatives and manoeuvres.

Page 17: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Post-Cold War Islamism triumphed at the polls but failed at governance.Muhammad Morsi, a member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was electedPresident of Egypt in 2012. Within a year he fell from grace as millions of hisopponents took to the streets demanding his resignation. He was ousted in amilitary coup in July 2013.

Decent into madness

Neo-Fundamentalism in Political Islam is a tendency that aims to politiciseand radicalise the social and cultural aspects of Islamic Fundamentalism.

The term was popularised by French author, Oliver Roy, who suggested thatNeo-Fundamentalism rose with the emergence of the Taliban in 1996 (inAfghanistan and Pakistan), and began filling the void created by the post-ColdWar weakening of Islamism.

Like traditional Islamic Fundamentalism, Neo-Fundamentalism too maintainsthat there is no room for reason in the act of understanding religious texts thatare to be understood literally.

Page 18: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

However, unlike Islamic Fundamentalism, Neo-Fundamentalism looks toimpose laws, morality and piety by force and through armed struggle (andthrough the creation of an ‘Islamic Emirate’). Apart from the Taleban, Roy alsodescribes outfits such as Al Qaeda and various modern militant and sectariangroups that emerged in its wake as Neo-Fundamentalist (including the recentemergence of the Islamic State (ISIS).

Where Islamic Fundamentalists use concentrated evangelical tactics tosupposedly ‘cleanse Muslim societies of un-Islamic practices,’ Neo-Fundamentalists use coercion.

Neo-Fundamentalism has further narrowed its world view to become a squarelyanarchic tendency that in the last decade has exhibited extreme displays ofreligious and sectarian xenophobia and violence. It is also devoid of the richintellectual tradition associated with Islamism, settling instead for radicalpolemical literature that advocates violent action and an extremely narrow andpolemical worldview.

Some observers have defined Neo-Fundamentalism as an anarchic anddesperate symptom foretelling the final, violent collapse of Political Islam.

Page 19: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Some observers have defined the violence associated with ‘Neo-Fundamentalism’ as an anarchic and desperate symptom foretelling thecollapse of Political Islam.

If this indeed is the case, one is not quite sure exactly what (in Muslimcountries) will replace it. And whatever happened to the leftist tendencies ofPolitical Islam? Are they still relevant?

The left flank

One of the strongest among the left-leaning tendencies of Political Islam wasdubbed Islamic Socialism. As a term it was first used by the Muslim Socialistcommunity in Kazan (Russia) just before the 1917 Communist revolution there.Staunchly anti-clerical, the community supported communist forces butretained its Muslim identity.

The term then became popular among some left-leaning Muslim Nationalists ofthe All Indian Muslim League.

Page 20: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Islamic Socialism – an ideology that attempted to equate Quranic concepts ofequality and charity with modern Socialist economics and (consequently)trigger a cultural, intellectual and political renaissance in the Muslim world –was adopted as ‘Arab Socialism’ and Ba’ath Socialism in Iraq, Syria andEgypt; where nationalist Muslim leaders fused Islamic notions of parity andjustice with socialism and Arab nationalism.

Though known for its usage of Islamic symbolism, Islamic Socialism was anti-clerical, socially liberal and mostly sympathetic towards communist powers –Soviet Union and China.

It eventually became the left-wing of Political Islam. Egypt’s popular leader,Gamal Abdel Nasser, became Arab Socialism’s leading advocate andpractitioner; while in Syria and Iraq the concept became to be known as ‘Ba’athSocialism’ (Ba’ath in Arabic means renaissance).

Page 21: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Gamal Abdul Nasser (right) with famous Marxist revolutionary, Che Guvara, inCairo (1960).

Page 22: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

After the political successes of Arab Socialism and Ba’ath Socialism (in the1950s and 1960s), the idea of Islamic Socialism also gained currency inPakistan, Algeria, Indonesia, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. The NationalLiberation Front that led Algeria’s independence from France (1962) describeditself as a follower of Islamic Socialism, and so did the populist PakistanPeoples Party in Pakistan.

Libya too began calling itself an Islamic Socialist state after Muammar al-Gadhafi toppled the Libyan monarchy in a coup in 1969. Yasser Arafat’sPalestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) also described itself as being IslamicSocialists, and during the same period (late 1960s/early 1970s) IslamicSocialists also came to power in Pakistan, Sudan and Somalia.

Poet, painter and author, Hanif Ramay, is considered one of the main

Page 23: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

ideologues and theorists of modern Islamic Socialism in Pakistan. He was oneof the founding members of PPP.

A 1970 poster of the Young Socialist Alliance, an international group of leftiststudent outfits allied to Ba’ath/Arab Socialist parties and regimes in Egypt,

Page 24: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Syria and Iraq, and with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

In Iran, radical anti-Shah militant organisations that fused Islamic symbolismwith Marxist/socialist ideas also appeared. They took an active part in the 1979Iranian Revolution, but were then eliminated or banished by the new Islamicregime.

Iranian thinker and activist Ali Shariati expressed revolutionary Islam throughMarxist symbolism. He was assassinated in 1975 by the agents of the Shah ofIran.

Islamic Socialism was vehemently attacked and criticised by conservativeMuslim monarchies, as well as by those forces associated with Islamism.

Page 25: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

They accused Islamic Socialism of being a concoction constructed by ‘atheistpowers’ (Soviet Union and China), and (according to Maududi) was the ‘Trojanhorse used by anti-Islam forces and ideas to enter Muslim societies andpolitics.’

The charisma attached to Islamic Socialism began to wither after the death ofNasser in 1970, and when most Muslim countries began coming closer to theconservative oil-rich Arab monarchies.

The international oil crises of 1973-74 saw the economic policies of regimesprofessing Islamic Socialism come under great stress, creating disillusionmentamong the masses that began being drawn towards the advocates of Islamism.

The last major expression of Islamic Socialism was the (Soviet-backed) ‘SaurRevolution’ in Afghanistan in 1978, led by the People’s Democratic Party.

By the late 1970s Islamic Socialism had all but withered away, even thoughtoday some mainstream right-wing parties in Muslim countries have(ironically) began to adopt old Islamic Socialist slogans despite the fact thatmost of their conservative predecessors had opposed Islamic Socialism duringthe Cold War.

The demise of Islamic Socialism (and its manifestations) finally created theroom the more right-wing expressions of Political Islam needed to become thedominant force in the Muslim world. But this rise (especially after the ColdWar) was also paralleled by the evolution of what is casually called LiberalIslam.

The last bastion

Though many liberal Muslims consider 8th and 9th century Islamic rationalists(the Mu’tazilites) to be the first philosophical expressions of Liberal Islam, inthe political context, Liberal Islam too is a late 19th/early 20th century creation

Page 26: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

(despite the fact that there is historical accuracy in the claim that major Muslimempires of yore were already largely pluralistic and non-theocratic).

Again, in the political context, Liberal Islam can find its roots in some 19thcentury reformist movements and in the way Muslim countries such as Iran,Afghanistan and Turkey adopted western economic and social models in theearly 20th century.

The emergence of the nationalist movements in the Muslim world too gaveimpetus to the thought attached to Liberal Islam, and so did the coming toprominence of effusive ideologies such as Islamic Socialism.

The founder of modern Turkish nationalism, Kamal Ataturk, was one of thestaunchest expressions of Liberal Islam (in the political context).

Page 27: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Liberal Islam has been a flexible entity. Sections in both the anti-West as well aspro-West segments in the Muslim world profess it, with the anti-clergy factorbeing the common link between the two.

Many democratic political parties of the left and of the right and alsoauthoritarian regimes in the Muslim world can be termed as having liberalviews about Islam’s political role.

These parties and regimes are highly suspicious of the clergy and repulsed bythe political ambitions of Islamism and Neo-Fundamentalism.

They encourage ijtihad in matters such as the understanding of the Quran andShariah, and emphasise that Islam is best served through religious institutionsinstead of through the state and the government. They also believe faith to be astrictly private matter that should not be soiled by the amorality of politics.

An emphasis on multiculturalism, nationalism and democratic pluralism too ismade, even though, as mentioned earlier, some Liberal Muslim organs havebeen authoritarian as well.

Page 28: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, tried to bridge the politicalgap between Muslim Nationalism and Liberal Islam in South Asia.

Page 29: Political Islam - An Evolutionary History

Most mainstream political parties in the Muslim world today can be said to befollowing various degrees of Liberal Islam. Not all of them are secular in thewestern sense of the word, but they are flexible in their outlook towardsmatters such as the Shariah, and concepts and practices that are deemed as ‘un-Islamic’ by their more conservative opponents.

References:

Oliver Roy, The failure of Political Islam (Harvard University Press, 1998) p.2Muhammad Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam (University of Michigan,2007)Roger Hardy, The Muslim Revolt, (Harsh Publishers 1999) p.18Ziauddin Sardar, Islam, Post-Modernism & Other Futures (Pluto Press 2001)p.100Martin Kramer, Fundamentalists or Islamists? (Middle East Qutarly, 2003)pp.65-70Abdullah Saeed, Freedom of Religion & Islam (Ashgate Publishing, 2004) p.90James Toth, Syed Qutb (Oxford University Press, 2013) p.324Nadeem F. Paracha, Islamic Socialism: A history from left to right(DAWN.COM, February 21, 2013)

dawn.com (http://www.dawn.com/news/1139847) · October 23, 2014