Political Islam - Rise, Fragmentation and Possible Fall

7/29/2019 Political Islam - Rise, Fragmentation and Possible Fall

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Political Islam: Rise,fragmentation and possible fallNADEEM F. PARACHA

Unlike most political ideologies whose adherents by and large agree

with the definitional tags attributed to their respective ideologies and

ideologues, Political Islam is more of an academic concoction.

It works as an analytical umbrella under which political analysts

lump various forces that claim to be using historical Islamic texts

and traditions to achieve modern political goals.

One is not quite sure exactly when the term Political Islam was

invented, but there is agreement among many academics, studying

politics in the Muslim world that the word most probably emerged in

the 1940s in Europe to define anti-colonial movements that

described themselves to be religious/Islamic in orientation.

Though it might have some roots in anti-colonial movements that

emerged among the Muslims of India and Arabia in the 19th

century, Political Islam is basically a 20th century phenomenon. Its

first main expression is believed to be Egypts Muslim Brotherhood

that was formed in 1927.

Even though as a political tendency, Political Islam (to analysts)

covers a wide range of Islamic political movements involving

different sects, sub-sects, nationalities and leftist, as well as rightist
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rhetoric and narratives, it is the commonalities in these varied

movements that makes analysts study and define them as a single

ideological entity that they call Political Islam.

So what are the basic, commonly held aspects of Political Islam?

Reaction against foreign (especially Western) political and cultural

influences in Muslim societies.

Offering political and social alternatives to replace Westernpolitical concepts and social values.

The alternatives are based on an understanding of history,

society, economics and society culled from modern-day

interpretations of a (largely imagined) golden age of Islam.

Adoption of modern technology because it does not have any

particular values attached to it and can thus be tagged and used for

the promotion of Islamic values.

Introducing and infusing what are believed to be Islamic precepts

of economics and politics.

Till about the late 1960s, movements associated with classical

Political Islam were largely intellectual pursuits with limited political

influence.


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Nevertheless, they were seen with suspicion, even by those

movements and groups that adopted the main aspects of Political

Islam but fused them with leftist ideologies.

Thus, during the Cold War the central theological and political

tussle in most Muslim countries was not exactly between Islamists

and secularists, or between religious political groups and

communists/Marxists.

The main conflict was between the rightist expressions of Political

Islam and the ideologys leftist versions.

The rightist side produced tendencies like Islamic

Fundamentalism, while the leftist sides emerged with concepts like

Islamic Socialism, Baath Socialism and (to a certain extent),

Arab Nationalism.

Consequently, during the Cold War, the rightist expressions of

Political Islam were backed and supported by Western powers and

Arab monarchies, mainly due to the fact that the leftist sides of the

ideology had moved into what (during the Cold War) was called the

Soviet camp.

Though the rightist sides were repressed by Muslim regimes that

were operating from the left flanks of Political Islam, the right-wing


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of Political Islam had by and large failed to attract any worthwhile

mass support.

However, things in this respect began to change between the late

1960s and 1980s. The right-wing expressions and groups of

Political Islam experienced a surge especially after the defeat of the

Egyptian and Syrian armies and air force at the hands of their

Israeli counterparts in 1967.

Then the bankrolling of the anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad in Afghanistan

by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the 1980s also became

one of the catalysts that triggered the shifting of political and social

influence in many Muslim countries from left-wing Political Islam to

its rightist expressions.

The Afghan jihad also added a more militant dimension to right-

wing Political Islam. It reached a nadir in the late 1980s after the

Afghan conflict resulted in a stalemate and the Soviet forces in

Afghanistan had to pull out.

In the early 1990s, the militant expressions of the ideology began to

pull away from the orbit of its former backers (US, Saudi Arabia,

Pakistan), and tried to trigger Islamic revolutions in various Muslim

countries.


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Their methods of creating chaos through bombings antagonised the

regimes that had formerly backed them but now found themselves

under attack.

The revolutions failed to materialise, but the bombings continued.

Frustrated, the militants found themselves bordering on taking

nihilistic action that has caused the deaths of thousands of civilians

in countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia

and even Turkey.

The more classical expressions of right-wing Political Islam have

tried to repair the damage by getting involved in the democratic

process in countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Indonesia,

Sudan, and Turkey.

But on most occasions than not (as has been the case of Pakistan

for quite some time and recently in Egypt), moderate right-wing

democratic expressions of Political Islam have proven to be more

successful on the social front, but lack the acumen and narrative

required to devise and implement coherent economic policies or act

decisively against their more violent and nihilist brethren.

Also, as was seen in countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey

where large demonstrations were held against their respective

governments attempt to Islamise the Constitution, the social gains


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made by Political Islam too now seem to be challenged and

questioned.

So one can cautiously suggest that Political Islam that emerged in

the 1930s-40s and then peaked in the 1980s, is now a withering

phenomenon.

The answer to just what it will be replaced with, in countries where it

has played a leading socio-political role is still up for grabs.

Political Islam: From right to left

Islamic Fundamentalism:

Though usually attributed to the beliefs of modern-day extremist

movements in Islam, Islamic Fundamentalism is basically a firm

belief in the theological musings of ancient Islamic jurists and

traditions.

Islamic Fundamentalists all agree with Imam Ghazalis (12th

century) dictum that the gates ofijtihad(rational debate) in Islam

are now closed.

After about three hundred years of open debate in the Islamic world

between the conservatives and the rationalists (Mutazilites),

Ghazali insisted that a perfect synthesis (between the two) had


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been reached and that Islams social and spiritual philosophy had

achieved completion.

The Mutazilites influence began declining during the rule of the ninthAbbasid caliph, Al-Muttawakkil, and the conservatives, who had

ferociously debated with the rationalists, began their climb.

Modern-day Islamic Fundamentalism is rooted in this bygone

intellectual triumph of the conservatives. Nevertheless, Islamic

Fundamentalism never did attempt to form a so-called Islamic

state.

Islamic Fundamentalists in the shape of scholars (ulema) and

clergymen (maulvis and imams), mostly worked as advisers to

caliphs and kings, or in mosques and madressas.

They were only interested in advocating Islamic laws, but never

articulated a political plan that would carry these laws.

At the dilapidation of the Muslim empires from the 19th century

onwards, the many reformist Islamic movements that emerged

criticised the performance of Islamic Fundamentalists, blaming

them for getting too close to the decadent kings due to whose

negligence of Islam, Islamic political powerhad crumbled.


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Islamic Fundamentalism has historically been more interested in

rectifying cultural and social deviances in a Muslim society and for

this it used the mosque and evangelism not direct politics.

Islamic Fundamentalism continues to be frozen in an understanding

of the Quran, the hadith and Shariah developed centuries ago by

ancient Islamic scholars.

Though it is vocal in its rhetorical demands for the imposition of

Islamic laws, it has little or no political agenda as such. It never did.

It remains largely associated with apolitical Muslim individuals,

conservative ulema, the clergy and Islamic evangelists.

Most of modern-day Islamic Fundamentalisms activism has been

expressed through established as well as ad-hoc groups that lobbyfor the implementation of the practice of veiling for Muslim women

in public, the eradication of obscenity in the media and society, for

making mandatory certain Islamic rituals, for the enforcement of

laws against the sale and consumption of alcohol, etc.

It never was and still isnt a dedicated political movement but a

social and theological one.


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Early manifestations: Ahmed Inb Hanbal (9th century Arabian

scholar and theologian); Shiekh Ahmed Sirhindi (16th Century

Islamic scholar in Mughal India).

Noted Modern Islamic Fundamentalist Groups: The Tableeghi

Jamaat (Pakistan/Bangladesh/India); Al-Huda (Pakistan/Canada);

Islamic Research Foundation (India); Dawat-e-Islami (Pakistan).

Emphasis:

Islamisation of society through evangelicalism and advocating

rituals and social codes of behaviour (based on sunnah and hadith)

for rulers and their subjects.

Largely rejecting modern interpretations of the Quran.

Islamism:

A word coined in the 1970s (in France), even though it had already

(albeit sparsely) been in use among European writers in the 19th

century.

In the modern political context, Islamism came to explain a series of(post-19th century) Islamic movements that advocated Islam not

only as a religion but as a political system as well.


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Islamisms roots can be found in the Islamic reformist movements

that appeared in the subcontinent and in Arabia in the 18th and

19th centuries.

Incensed by the crumbling of the Mughal and Ottoman empires, a

series of reformist movements emerged, advocating a return to

true Islam (Salafi) that was said to be free of innovation and

corruption.

Some of these movements emphasised on applying reason in

religion, but many also added the importance of jihad not only

against western colonialism but also against the clergy, and

especially against Sufi tendencies which these reformists believed

were a negative innovation and an anathema to true Islam.

Such movements, though animated, came to a naught, mostly due

to the adjustments the more moderate/modern as well as traditional

schools of Islam made at the wake of the rise of western

colonialism.

At the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate (1922), a bulk of Muslim

regimes (especially in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey) vigorously

adopted modern western economic, social and political models (i.e.

Liberalism, secularism and nationalism).


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One of the first experiments in Islamism that actually took off was

when (in the early 20th century) the Al-Saud family conquered a

vast tract in Arabia (with the tacit support of the British who weretrying to undermine Ottoman rule in the region).

The Al-Saud were ardent followers of Abd Al-Wahhab an 18th

century puritanical Islamic reformist. The Saud family soon enacted

the worlds first Islamic State, but under the control of a monarchy.

The Saud familys adherence to puritanical Islam and imposition of

harsh Islamic laws went down well with the early Islamists; but the

familys growing ties with the British and its monarchical tendencies

made a lot of them uncomfortable.

As secular-nationalists dominated the liberation movements in most

Muslim countries, politicised Islamic scholars retaliated by labelling

these movements as anti-Islamic.

Pioneering Islamism scholars such as Egypts Hasan al-Banna and

Sayyid Qutb, and the subcontinents Abul Ala Maududi, began

interpreting the Quran and thehadith by using modern political

concepts and lingo.

For example, Maududi expanded the Quranic concept of Tauheed

(oneness of God) by suggesting that it also meant the (political)


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oneness of the Muslimummah that can only be achieved by

Islamising the society and through attaining state power to finally

formulate an Islamic state.

Qutb, on the other hand, implied that 20th century Muslim societies

were in a state ofjahiliyya a term used by classical Muslim

scholars to define the state of ignorance the people of Arabia were

in before the arrival of Islam in the 7th century.

Qutb suggested that a jihad was required in Muslim countries to

grab state power and to rid the Muslims from the modern forces

ofjahilyiya(i.e., secularism, Marxism, western materialism).

It must be emphasised that the concept of the Islamic State is very

much a 20th century construct.

That is why the theory of Islamism purposefully eschewed a

number of ancient commentaries on Quran andShariah. It rejected

these scholarly works as being either stuck in the mosque or

undertaken to serve kings who had divorced Islam from politics.

It is, however, ironic that Islamism (across the Cold War), was

largely supported and funded by Western and Arab powers to prop-

up opposition against Muslim countries and regimes that were in


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the Soviet camp or were seen detrimental to Western economic

and geo-political interests.

For example, it is now well-known how the United States and its

Western and Arab allies (especially Saudi Arabia), funded various

early Islamist movements to undermine left-leaning governments

and elements in the Muslim world. These movements included the

Muslim Brotherhood and Jamat-i-Islami.

The exception in this respect was the (Shia) Iranian Islamists.

Though the main groundwork for the 1979 revolution in Iran was

done by leftists and constitutionalists, the Iranian forces of Islamism

successfully steered the revolution towards becoming an Islamic

one. Iran also remains to be Islamisms only tangible political

enactment though ever since it has greatly suffered from grave

economic and social strife.

The arrangement between Islamists and its Western and Saudi

backers reached a 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 funds Islamisms leading organs were receiving (from the

West), movements attached to Islamism started to weaken and

fragment.


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Consequently, Islamisms less intellectually inclined (and more

brutal) cousin, Neo-Fundamentalism, soon began usurping its

agenda and political space.

Islamism forces tried to rebound after the Cold War through the

democratic process but found themselves being accused of being

apologists of violent Neo-Fundamentalists on the one side and of

being lukewarm towards Islamising the society on the other.

Wherever they did manage to come into power (through

democracy), they have struggled to initiate effective political and

economic reforms mainly due to the fact that they end up creating

polarisation and administrational chaos by trying to couple solutions

to non-religious issues with certain ill-defined religion-orientated

alternatives and manoeuvres.

Early manifestations: Ibn Taymmiya (13th -14th Century Arabian

theologian); Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahab (18th Century Arabian

scholar); Abul Ala Maududi (20th Century Indian/Pakistani Islamic

scholar).

Noted Modern Islamism groups: Muslim Brotherhood (Middle

East); Jamaat-i-Islami (Pakistan); Islamic Republican Party (Iran);

National Islamic Front (Sudan); Hamas (Palestine); Hezbollah

(Lebanon).


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Emphasis:

Advocates Islam as a moral as well as political system.

Open to the modern interpretations of traditional Islamic texts but

only if they accommodate the political goals of Islamism.

Seeks legislative means to impose Islamic moral, economic and

social codes and laws.

Persues state power by infiltrating various state organs such as

the military, bureaucracy, judiciary and the police.

Absorbs secularWestern political and economic ideas to tweak

them with intellectual improvisations and consequently add an

Islamic dimension to them (Islamic banking; Islamic democracy;

Islamic science; etc.).

Vehemently opposed to secularism, even though not immune to

use secular systems and political processes to achieve state and

governmental power.

Analyses modern history as a conflict between revolutionarysocio-political and economic doctrines and movements of Islam and

the economic, cultural and political hegemony of amoral (capitalist


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and [formerly] communist) interests (especially emitting from the

West).

Doesn't directly resort to armed militancy but is known to facilitate

and support it.

Islamic Neo-Fundamentalism:

Neo-Fundamentalism in Political Islam is a tendency that aims to

politicise and radicalise the social and cultural aspects of IslamicFundamentalism.

Neo-Fundamentalism rose with the emergence of the Taliban in

1996 (in Afghanistan and Pakistan), and began filling the void

created by the post-Cold War weakening of Islamism.

Like traditional Islamic Fundamentalism, Neo-Fundamentalism too

maintains that the gates ofijtihadin Islam are closed and there is

no room for reason in the act of understanding religious texts that

are to be taken at face value.

However, unlike Islamic Fundamentalism, Neo-Fundamentalism

looks to impose Islamic laws, morality and piety by force and

through armed struggle (jihad), and through the creation of an

Islamic State (and/or Islamic Emirate).


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Where Islamic Fundamentalists use concentrated evangelical

tactics to supposedly cleanse Muslim societies of un-Islamic

practices, Neo-Fundamentalists use violence, coercion andterrorism.

Islamic Neo-Fundamentalism has further narrowed itself to become

a squarely Sunni sectarian tendency that in the last decade has

exhibited extreme displays of religious and sectarian xenophobia

and violence bordering on nihilism.

It is also devoid of the intellectual tradition associated with

Islamism, settling instead for radical polemical Islamist literature

and thought that advocates violent action and an extremely narrow

worldview.

Early manifestations: The Kharijites (7th Century Arabian

puritans); the Akhwan (an early 20th century Islamic militia that

helped Ibn Saud capture power in what today is Saudi Arabia).

Noted modern-day Islamic Neo-Fundamentalist groups: Al

Qaeda and its many affiliates (international); the Taliban

(Pakistan/Afghanistan); Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Pakistan); Islamic

Salvation Army (Algeria); Armed Islamic Group (Algeria); Union of

Islamic Courts (Somalia); Boko Haram (Nigeria).


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Emphasis:

Totally rejects any modern interpretation of the Quran and insists

that it should be read and understood literally.

Rejects all modern concepts of participatory and constitutional

politics.

Advocates armedjihadas one of the foremost tenants of Islam.

Describes a majority of Islamic sects to be heretical.

Rejects most intellectual works and commentaries on

Quran,hadith and Shariah by both traditional and modern Islamic

scholars, except those by ancient Arabian scholar, Hanabal and

radical Wahabi polemical l texts produced by various modern-day

jihadist/sectarian ideologues.

Not immune to committing genocide-like violence against infidels

and hereticalIslamic sects.

Treats violence as a replenishing force for Islam.

Islamic Socialism:

A term first used by the Muslim Socialist community in Kazan

(Russia) just before the 1917 Communist revolution there.


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Staunchly anti-clerical, the community supported communist forces

but retained its Muslim identity.

The term then became popular with certain Muslim members of the

Indian National Congress Party and among some left-leaning

sections of the All Indian Muslim League.

Islamic Socialism, as an ideology that attempted to equate Quranic

concepts of equality and charity with modern Socialist economics,

was adopted (as Arab Socialism and Baath Socialism) in Iraq,

Syria and Egypt, where secular Muslim leaders fused Islamic

notions of parity and justice with socialism and Arab nationalism.

Though known for its usage of Islamic symbolism, Islamic Socialism

was largely secular, anti-clerical, socially liberal and mostly

sympathetic towards communist powers - Soviet Union and China.

It eventually became the left-wing of Political Islam.

Egypts popular leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, became Arab

Socialisms leading advocate and practitioner; while in Syria and

Iraq the concept became to be known as Baath Socialism (Bath

in Arabic means renaissance).


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After the political success of Islamic Socialism in these countries,

the idea also gained currency in Pakistan, Algeria, Indonesia,

Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya.

The National Liberation Front that led Algerias independence from

France (1962) described itself as a follower of Islamic Socialism,

and so did the populist Pakistan Peoples Party.

Libya too began calling itself an Islamic Socialist state after

Muammar al-Qadhafi toppled the Libyan monarchy in a coup in

1969. Yasser Arafats Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)

also described itself as being Islamic Socialists.

In Iran, radical anti-Shah militant organisations that fused Islamic

symbolism with Marxist/socialist ideas also appeared. They took an

active part in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, but were then eliminated

or banished by the new Islamic regime.

Islamic Socialism was vehemently attacked and criticised by

conservative Muslim monarchies (mainly Saudi Arabia), as well as

by those forces associated with Islamism (such as Jamaat-i-Islami

and the Muslim Brotherhood).


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The charisma attached to Islamic Socialism began to wither after

the death of Nasser in 1970, and when most Muslim countries

began coming closer to the conservative oil-rich Arab monarchies.

The international oil crises of 1973-74 saw the economic policies of

regimes professing Islamic Socialism come under great stress,

creating disillusionment among the masses that began being drawn

towards the advocates of Islamism.

The last major expression of Islamic Socialism was the (Soviet-

backed) Saur Revolution in Afghanistan in 1978, led by the

Peoples Democratic Party.

By the late 1970s Islamic Socialism had all but withered away, even

though some mainstream right-wing parties in Muslim countries

have (ironically) adopted old Islamic Socialist slogans despite the

fact that most of them had opposed Islamic Socialism during the

Cold War.

Early manifestations: Jamaluddin Afghani (19th Century Pan-

Islamic ideologue); Ubaidullah Sindhi (Early 20th Century

Indian/Muslim nationalist); Ghulam Ahmed Parvez (20th century

Indian/Pakistani nationalist and scholar); Michel Aflaq (20th Century

Syrian sociologist, philosopher and Arab nationalist); Ali Shariati

(20th Century Iranian scholar and activist).


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Noted Islamic Socialist groups: Arab Socialist Party (Egypt);

Baath Socialist Party (Iraq, Syria); National Liberation Front

(Algeria); Pakistan Peoples Party (Pakistan); PLO (Palestine);National Front (Iran); Mojahedin-e-Khalq (Iran); Peoples Fadayeen

(Iran).

Emphasis:

Described socialist doctrines to be the modern manifestations of

Islams emphasis on equality, charity and justice.

In the context of the historicity of Muslim societies, Islamic

Socialism understood the Marxist concept of historical class

struggle as an on-going tussle between the upright have-nots and

the oppressive ruling elites in the shape of kings, dictators and

those exploiting Islam (through distortion of Islamic texts,

superstition and coercion) to safeguard the rulers political and

economic interests.

Defined Islamism, the politicised clergy, conservative ulema and

Arab monarchies as tools of capitalist/feudal exploitation and

Western imperialism.

Contextualised secularism in Muslim societies by suggesting that

Islam was inherently secular because it had no official priesthood


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and that the Prophet Muhammad was exceptionally pluralistic in his

handling of the non-Muslim populations of Makkah and Madina.

Offered itself to be the most effective alternative (in Muslim

countries) to monopolistic capitalism/feudalism/monarchism,

communism and religious fundamentalism.

Was extremely pro-ijtihadand encouraged an understanding and

reading of Islamic texts as reflecting the modern economic, political

and secular manifestations of Islamic Socialism.

Liberal Islam:

Though many liberal Muslims consider 8th and 9th century Islamic

rationalists (the Mutazilites) to be the first political and philosophical

expressions of Liberal Islam, in the political context, Liberal Islamjust like all other branches of Political Islam, too is a late 19th/early

20th century creation despite the fact that there is historical

accuracy in the claim that major Muslim empires of yore were

already largely pluralistic in orientation.

Again, in the political context, Liberal Islam can find its roots in

some 19th century reformist movements and in the way Muslim

countries such as Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey adopted secular

western economic and social models in the early 20th century.


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The emergence of the secular-nationalist movements in the Muslim

world too gave impetus to the thought attached to Liberal Islam,

and so did the coming to prominence of effusive ideologies such asIslamic Socialism.

Liberal Islam has been a flexible entity. Both the anti-West as well

as pro-West sections profess it, with the acknowledgment of

secularism being the common link between the two.

Many democratic political parties of the left as well of the right, and

also authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world can be termed as

having liberal views about Islams political and social role.

These parties and regimes are highly suspicious of the clergy and

repulsed by the political ambitions of Islamism and Neo-

Fundamentalism.

They encourage ijtihadin matters like the understanding of the

Quran and Shariah, and emphasise that Islam is best served

through the mosque instead of through state or the government.

An emphasis on multiculturalism, nationalism and democratic

pluralism too is made, even though, as mentioned before, some

Liberal Muslim organs have been authoritarian as well.


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Most mainstream political parties in the Muslim world today can be

said to be following various degrees of Liberal Islam. Not all of them

are secular in the western sense of the word, but they are flexible intheir outlook towards matters such as Islamic laws, and concepts

and practices that are deemed as un-Islamic by their Islamist

opponents (such as co-education, non-segregated events, womens

rights, films, music, alcohol, etc.).

Early manifestations: Al-Kindi (9th Century Arabian philosopher

and scholar); Akbar (16th Century Mughal emperor); Sir Syed

Ahmed Khan and Syed Amer Ali (19th Century Indian Muslim

scholars); Mustafa Kamal Pasha (Turkish general, nationalist and

founder of modern Turkey); Mohammad Arkoun (20th Century

Algerian scholar);

Noted Liberal Islam political parties with large vote

banks:Indonesian Democratic Party; Peoples Alliance (Malaysia);

National Liberation Front (Algeria); Bangladesh Awami League

(Bangladesh); National Democratic Party (Egypt); Maldivian

Democratic Party (Maldives); Socialist Union (Morocco); Popular

Movement (Morocco); Action Congress (Nigeria); Pakistan Peoples

Party (Pakistan); Muttahida Qaumi Movement (Pakistan); Awami

National Party (Pakistan); Peoples Democratic Party (Tajikistan);


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Republican Peoples Party (Turkey); Liberal Democratic Party

(Uzbekistan).

Emphasis:

Encourages constantIjtihadand the contextualised, metaphorical

and rational reading of the Quran and related Islamic texts.

Also advocates an individual (non-clerical) reading of the Quran

and the hadith; some strands of Liberal Islam reject the hadith forbeing unreliable and being manipulated manifestations of the

political and theological interests of ancient Muslim kings

and ulema and thus dangerous in the hands of modern-day clerics

and Islamists.

Understands Quran to be a book of moral guidance as opposedto a political manifesto (as proclaimed by Islamism).

Advocates the complete separation of the state and religion

because politics (that, by nature, is amoral), ends up staining Islam

that is supposed to be pristine and dignified.

Abhors coercion in matters of dress, ritual and social behaviour

(imposed in the name ofIslam) because according to the Quran

there is no compulsion in religion.


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Insists that the Quranic concept ofaqal(reason, observation and

logic) should be given precedence over the ritualistic aspects to

form an educated and progressive Muslim society that can throughreasoning come to a democratic consensus on what is right or

wrong as long as it does not retard the societys economic, social,

cultural and political evolution.

Also insists that faith should be a personal matter because when it

is dragged out into the public it might come into conflict with certain

rules and regulations prescribed by the state and the government

and with the sentiments of other religions and differing sects.

References:

Oliver Roy, The failure of Political Islam (Harvard University Press,

1998) p.2

Muhammad Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam (University of

Michigan, 2007).

Roger Hardy, The Muslim Revolt, (Harsh Publishers 1999) p.18

Ziauddin Sardar, Islam, Post-Modernism & Other Futures (Pluto

Press 2001) p.100


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Martin Kramer, Fundamentalists or Islamists? (Middle East Qutarly,

2003) pp.65-70

Abdullah Saeed, Freedom of Religion, Apostasy & Islam (Ashgate

Publishing, 2004) p.90

James Toth, Syed Qutb (Oxford University Press, 2013) p.324

Nadeem F. Paracha, Islamic Socialism: A history from left to

right(DAWN.COM, February 21, 2013).

Political Islam - Rise, Fragmentation and Possible Fall

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