The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

ideology

An ideology may be defined as a system of ideas and convictions that seeks to stimulate and guide or to resist major social and political change. Muslim political thinking has always been ideological in some respect, but modern ideologies are more consciously and systematically elaborated. They also have a more this-worldly orientation and involve a greater expectation that fundamental social change can be wrought by human effort. Modern Muslim ideologies have arisen mainly in response to Western domination and have been facilitated by the modern, Western-derived education that makes people receptive to them. They may be broadly divided into secularist ideologies, which take their cue from some Western ideologies, and Islamist (or fundamentalist) ideologies, which call for the full implementation of the shari‘a in society. Islamic modernism is an intermediate category.

The most extreme secularists have been the Marxists, who, though antireligious in principle, have usually made some effort to co-opt Islamic institutions and ideas. Far more popular has been nationalism, usually in combination with other ideologies, such as socialism, capitalism, liberalism, or statism. These combine the prestige of the West with, in the case of nationalism, a claim to local authenticity. In most nationalist thinking, sovereignty resides in the nation (not God); Islam may be the religion of state, but the shari‘a is to be replaced by human laws except in matters of “personal status”; and religious institutions are to be brought under state control. Both Iran and Egypt in the 1920s adopted this model, while Turkey under Atatürk (d. 1938) was more radical. The book, Islam and the Principles of Governance, published in 1925 by the Egyptian scholar ‘Ali Abd al-Raziq (1888–1966), was a controversial but influential effort to provide an Islamic justification for secularism. Most of the Muslim countries that became independent after World War II followed a similar line. Particularly notable is the radically nationalist Ba‘th Party that came to power in Syria and Iraq in the 1960s. A more moderate secularism is that of Indonesia’s Five Principles (Pancasila), which include belief in God but not specifically Islam. Secularists may be personally pious and usually give value to Islam as a part of their national heritage.

“Islamic modernists,” the intermediary ideological group, want a society guided by the shari‘a interpreted flexibly and consistently with Western ideas. This was the position of the reformers Afghani (1838–97) and Muhammad ‘Abduh (1842–1905) and of many others since their time, including the poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1876–1938), though rarely of those in political power. The writings of Fazlur Rahman (1909–88) probably best articulate the theory behind modernist thinking. Islamic modernism is well illustrated by the Pakistani constitution of 1973, which affirms the sovereignty of God and “the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam” (Preamble).

Islamists call for “the application of the shari‘a” without the Westernizing interpretations of the modernists, but they manifest many characteristics of modern ideology, such as systematic thinking about society and a conscious desire to make fundamental changes, and so appeal to people who have been exposed to ideology. The first Islamist movement was the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna (1906–49). The second group was the Jama‘at-i Islami, founded in India in 1941 by Mawdudi (1903–79), whose writings spread Islamist ideas worldwide. The Egyptian Brotherhood came to be a mass movement that suffered repression from 1954 to 1970. Out of this repression came the radical writings of Sayyid Qutb (1906–66), which have had wide influence, particularly among the extremists of the following decades. Among other Islamist groups was the Islamic Liberation Party, founded in East Jerusalem in 1952 and influential among students worldwide into the early 21st century. The “resurgence of Islam,” beginning about 1970, fueled by a perceived failure of secularism and a decrease in Western moral authority, included increased support for Islamism and the appearance of many Islamist groups. Islamists came to power by revolution in Iran (1979), with the distinctively Shi‘i doctrine of wilāyat al-faqīh (guardianship of the jurist), and by military coup in the Sudan (1989). Islamists along with others struggled against the Communists in Afghanistan and then were ousted by the Taliban, an extremely traditionalist group, in 1996, who in turn were removed by direct Western intervention in 2001. Elsewhere, secularist governments have resisted Islamist takeovers but have become more “Islamic” in the process. While groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jama‘at-i Islami have sought to work within the existing system, often facing government pressure and restriction, others have responded with violence. Among these are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, such as the al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Particularly notorious are the “martyrdom operations” or “suicide attacks” mounted by al-Qaeda, by Hizbullah in Lebanon, by Hamas in Palestine, and by others (including some secularist groups), mainly against Western targets including Israel. An alternate direction, however, is suggested by the Justice and Development Party, which came to power in Turkey in 2002. Its background is Islamist, but it accepts the official secularism of Turkey while retaining some of its Islamic orientation. Those most prominent in the “Arab Spring” demonstrations for democracy in 2011 appear to have a similar ideological position, though some Islamists have supported these movements.