Islamism
Preview
Islam is not merely a religion. It is a total and complete way of life, providing guidance in every sphere of human existence – individual and social, material and moral, legal and cultural, economic and political, national and international. In Islam, then, politics and religion are two sides of the same coin. However, the notion of a fusion between Islam and politics has assumed a more radical and intense character due to the rise, since the early twentieth century, of ‘Islamism’ (also called ‘political Islam’, ‘radical Islam’ or ‘activist Islam’). Although its ideas are embraced by only a small minority of Muslims worldwide, Islamism has had a dramatically disproportionate impact. Its central belief is in the construction of an ‘Islamic state’, usually viewed as a state based on divine Islamic law, the sharia. As such, Islamism extracts a political programme from the religious principles and ideals of Islam. A distinction is therefore usually drawn between the ideology of Islamism and the faith of Islam, although the relationship between Islamism and Islam is deeply contested.
Islamist ideology is characterized by, among other things, a revolt against the West and all it supposedly stands for. Some commentators, indeed, have gone as far as to suggest that Islamism is a manifestation of a ‘civilizational’ struggle between Islam and the West. The most controversial feature of Islamism is nevertheless its association with militancy and violence. While not all Islamists endorse violence, a doctrinal basis for militant Islam has been found in the notion of jihad, crudely translated as ‘holy war’, which has, since the 1980s, been taken by some to imply that all Muslims are obliged to support global jihadism. Islamism, however, has no single creed or political manifestation. Distinctive Sunni and Shia versions of Islamism have developed, the former associated with the related ideas of Wahhabism and Salafism, the latter with Iran’s ‘Islamic Revolution’. In addition, ‘moderate’ or ‘conservative’ trends can be identified within Islamism, characterized by the attempt to reconcile Islamism with pluralism and democracy.
In a process that can be traced back to the early twentieth century but has accelerated markedly since the 1970s, religion has become generally more important, not less important. Although its impact has been different in different parts of the world, this religious revivalism has had various manifestations. These include the emergence of new, and often more assertive, forms of religiosity, the growing influence of religious movements and, most importantly, a closer relationship between religion and politics, through what has been seen as either the politicization of religion or the religionization of politics. This trend has confounded advocates of the secularization thesis, even encouraging some to proclaim the ‘de-secularization’ of society. One of the earliest and most dramatic demonstrations of this was the 1979 ‘Islamic Revolution’ in Iran (see p. 303), but it soon became clear that politicized religion was not an exclusively Islamic development. From the 1980s onwards, the ‘new Christian Right’ became increasingly prominent in the USA, while forms of sometimes militant religious nationalism emerged, in India, in relation to Hinduism and Sikhism, in Sri Lanka and Burma, in relation to Buddhism, and in Israel, in relation to Judaism. (Religious nationalism is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6).
It is difficult to generalize about the causes of this upsurge in politicized religion, because it has taken different ideological and doctrinal forms in different parts of the world, but it has widely been interpreted as part of the larger phenomenon of identity politics (see p. 282). In this respect, religion has proved to be a particularly potent means of regenerating personal and social identity in modern circumstances. As modern societies are increasingly atomistic, diffuse and pluralized, there is, arguably, a greater thirst for the sense of meaning, purpose and certainty that religious consciousness appears to offer. This applies because religion provides believers with a world-view and moral vision that has higher, and indeed supreme, authority, stemming as it does from a supposedly divine source. Religion thus defines the very grounds of people’s being; it gives them an ultimate frame of reference as well as a moral orientation in a world increasingly marked by moral relativism. In addition, religion generates a powerful sense of social solidarity, connecting people to one another at a ‘thick’ or deeper level, as opposed to a ‘thin’ connectedness usually found in modern societies.
RELIGIOSITY
The quality of being religious; piety or devoutness.
SECULARIZATION THESIS
The theory that modernization is invariably accompanied by the victory of reason over religion and the displacement of religious values by secular ones.
Key concept
Religion
Religion, in its most general sense, is an organized community of people bound together by a shared body of beliefs concerning some kind of transcendent reality. However, ‘transcendent’ in this context may refer to anything from a belief in a distinctly ‘other-worldly’ supreme being or creator God, to a more ‘this-worldly’ experience of personal liberation, as in the Buddhist concept of nirvana. There are major differences between monotheistic religions (examples including Christianity, Islam and Judaism), which have a single, or limited number of, sacred texts and a clear authority system, and pantheistic, non-theistic and nature religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism and so on), which tend to have looser, more decentralized and pluralized structures.
Although each of the major world religions has a capacity for politicization, since the 1970s the process has been particularly acute in relation to Islam, deriving from its capacity, among other things, to articulate the interests of the oppressed in less developed countries and to offer a non-western, and often anti-western, world-view. The potency of the link between Islam and politics in the contemporary period is evident in the emergence of ‘political Islam’, or ‘Islamism’, a political creed based on Islamic ideas and principles. At the heart of this creed is a commitment to the establishment of an Islamic state based on the sharia (see p. 312).
Early Islamist thinking emerged in the nineteenth century in response to European colonialism, as in the case of the Deobandi sect, a conservative and traditionally anti-British movement within Sunni Hanafi Islam that developed in British India and which later influenced the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Islamism is nevertheless best understood as a reaction to twentieth-century social and political conditions, including rapid urbanization, the dislocation of traditional communities and crafts, and growing unemployment and anomie (Black, 2011). It gained a powerful impetus from the collapse and carve-up of the once-powerful Ottoman empire in the aftermath of World War I and its carve-up by the UK and France. In this context, the Middle East fell into stagnation, and interest in new ways of thinking about both Islam and politics spread. Building on the ideas of figures such as the Persian activist Jamal al-Din ‘al-Afghani’ (1838–97) and the Syrian Islamist reformer Rashid Rida (1865–1935), the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Ismailia, Egypt, by Hassan al-Banna (1906–49). The world’s first and most influential Islamist movement, the Brotherhood pioneered a model of political, and sometimes militant, activism combined with Islamic charitable works that has subsequently been embraced across the Muslim world.
However, Islamism only emerged as a powerful political force during the post-World War II period, and especially from the 1980s onwards. A variety of developments contributed to the rise of Islamism, including the following:
•The end of colonialism in the early post-1945 period brought little benefit to the Arab world, both because Middle Eastern regimes tended to be inefficient, corrupt and dictatorial, and because traditional imperialism (see p. 166) was succeeded by neo-imperialism, particularly as US influence expanded in the region.
•The protracted Arab–Israeli conflict, and especially the 1967 Six-Day War, which led to the seizure by Israel of the Occupied Territories and greatly increased the number of Palestinian refugees, sparked disillusionment with secular Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, and created opportunities for religiously-based forms of politics.
•The 1973 oil crisis boosted the economic strength and ideological importance of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, allowing them to finance the spread of their distinctive brand of fundamentalist Islam, Wahhabism, across the Arab world.
•The war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, during 1979–89, led to the growth of the Mujahideen, a loose collection of religiously-inspired resistance groups, out of which developed a collection of new jihadi groups, the most important of which was al-Qaeda, founded in 1988. A link can thus be made between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, and the outbreak of the ‘war on terror’.
•The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq fomented bitter sectarian rivalry between Sunni and Shia (or Shi’ite) Muslims, which both spread across the region and contributed to the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham or ISIS (also called Islamic State (IS) or Daesh), whose influence later expanded due to the seemingly intractable civil war in Syria.
MORAL RELATIVISM
The belief that there are no absolute values, or a condition in which there is a deep and widespread disagreement over moral issues.
NEO-IMPERIALISM
A form of imperialism that operates through economic and ideological domination rather than formal political control.
LIBERALS see religion as a distinct ‘private’ matter linked to individual choice and personal development. Religious freedom is thus essential to civil liberty and can only be guaranteed by a strict division between religion and politics, and between church and state.
CONSERVATIVES regard religion as a valuable (perhaps essential) source of stability and social cohesion. As it provides society with a set of shared values and the bedrock of a common culture, overlaps between religion and politics, and church and state, are inevitable and desirable.
SOCIALISTS have usually portrayed religion in negative terms, as at best a diversion from the political struggle and at worst a form of ruling-class ideology (leading in some cases to the adoption of state atheism). In emphasizing love and compassion, religion may nevertheless provide socialism with an ethical basis.
ANARCHISTS generally regard religion as an institutionalized source of oppression. Church and state are invariably linked, with religion preaching obedience and submission to earthly rulers while also prescribing a set of authoritative values that rob the individual of moral autonomy.
FASCISTS have sometimes rejected religion on the grounds that it serves as a rival source of allegiance or belief, and that it preaches ‘decadent’ values such as compassion and human sympathy. Fascism nevertheless seeks to function as a ‘political religion’, embracing its terminology and internal structure – devotion, sacrifice, spirit, redemption and so on.
ISLAMISTS view religion as a body of ‘essential’ and unchallengeable principles, which dictate not only personal conduct but also the organization of social, economic and political life. Religion cannot and should not be confined to the ‘private’ sphere, but finds its highest and proper expression in the politics of popular mobilization and social regeneration.
WAHHABISM
An ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam, sometimes portrayed as an orientation within Salafism.
POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES IN ACTION . . . Iran’s ‘Islamic Revolution’
EVENTS: In February 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini (see p. 317) returned to Tehran from exile in Paris to be welcomed by a crowd of several million Iranians. This occurred after an escalating series of popular protests had forced the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to flee the country. Khomeini’s huge popularity, based on his status as a symbol of resistance against the Shah, enabled him speedily to establish a system of personal rule and out-manoeuvre other opposition groups. In April 1979, following a rigged national referendum (98.8 per cent voted in favour), Iran was declared an ‘Islamic Republic’. A theocratic constitution was adopted in December 1979, under which Khomeini was designated the Supreme Leader, presiding over a constitutional system consisting of an elected parliament and president, while substantive power remained in the hands of the Shia religious elite.
SIGNIFICANCE: Iran’s ‘Islamic Revolution’ had profound implications. Khomeini’s Shia Islamic regime focused on a jihadi approach to organizing and shaping Iran’s domestic and foreign policy priorities. Stressing struggle against infidels and tyranny, this focus was reflected in antipathy to the ‘Great Satan’ (the USA) and the application of strict Islamic principles to social and political life. The wearing of headscarves and chador (a loose piece of cloth worn in addition to clothes) became obligatory for all women in Iran. Restrictions on polygamy were removed, contraception was banned, adultery was punished by public floggings or execution, and the death penalty was introduced for homosexuality. Both Iranian politics and society were thoroughly ‘Islamized’ and Friday prayers in Tehran became an expression of official government policy and a focal point of political life. More widely, in offering a specifically Islamic model of political and social development, the Iranian Revolution inspired and emboldened the forces of Islamism, despite the Iranian Shia regime being out of step with much of the mainly Sunni-dominated Muslim world.
Nevertheless, the survival and stability of the Khomeini regime cannot be explained solely in terms of the potency of its Islamist ideology. In addition to its religious focus, Iran tackled many of the failures of the Shah’s period, bringing benefits especially to rural and underdeveloped parts of the country in the form of access to piped water, electricity and other facilities. A major expansion of the educational system also brought about near-universal literacy rates and greatly widened the social and career opportunities available to girls and women.
(Arabic) An Islamic term literally meaning ‘strive’ or ‘struggle’; although the term is sometimes equated with ‘holy war’ (the lesser jihad), it can also be understood as an inner struggle for faith (the greater jihad).
Core themes: religion as ideology
As a child of the Enlightenment, political ideology has been closely associated with secularism, its advance from the French Revolution onwards contributing significantly to the larger process of secularization. In some cases, ideology has worn an explicitly anti-religious face. Karl Marx (see p. 124), for example, dismissed religion as the ‘opium of the masses’, treating it as an example of false consciousness. Ideologies may even be thought of as political or secular religions, in that their capacity to ‘roll back’ or displace religion derives, at least in part, from the fact they have absorbed some of religion’s key functions and features. For instance, ideologies offer people the prospect of salvation, albeit a decidedly ‘this-worldly’ salvation (usually based on economic and social well-being), as opposed to the ‘other-worldly’ salvation of religion. In establishing a framework of morality, ideologies rival religions in their ability to invest personal existence with a sense of meaning and purpose. Similarly, ideologies have sometimes resembled religion in their use of ceremony and ritual to strengthen a sense of commitment and belief, examples including May Day demonstrations in communist states, and the Nuremberg Rallies in Nazi Germany.
And yet, the distinction between ideology and religion is often blurred. Political ideologies have not only absorbed some of the functions and features of religion, but have also sometimes incorporated religious beliefs and doctrines into their distinctive world-views. Religion has, for instance, commonly been a component of social conservatism, an emphasis on religious values being an important way of strengthening the moral fabric of society. Ethical socialism has been shaped, in a number of respects, by religious influences, including Christianity’s stress on universal brotherhood and Islam’s prohibition on usury and profiteering. The link between religion and ideology has been particularly prominent in the case of ethnic nationalism, where a stress has increasingly been placed on religion rather than the nation, on the grounds that religion provides a supposedly primordial and seemingly unchangeable basis for the establishment of group identity. Nevertheless, the above are examples of essentially secular political ideologies recruiting religious ideas and doctrines to their cause. By contrast, the present chapter considers a more radical and far-reaching phenomenon: the transformation of religion itself into ideology, a tendency that has been particularly evident in the case of Islamism. This is reflected in Ruhullah Khomeini’s (see p. 317) assertion that ‘Politics is religion’. The most significant themes in Islamism are the following:
•fundamentalism and modernity Islamism and Islam
•revolt against the West
•the Islamic state
•jihadism.
SECULARISM
The belief that religion should not intrude into secular (worldly) affairs, usually reflected in the desire to separate church from state.
Fundamentalism and modernity
Islamism is often seen as part of the wider phenomenon of ‘religious fundamentalism’ (see p. 305). This implies that Islamism can be understood in terms of a fundamentalist impulse that can be found in most, if not all, religions, in which case Islamism amounts, at heart, to ‘Islamic fundamentalism’. But what is fundamentalism, and how far can Islamism be seen as a form of fundamentalism? The term ‘fundamentalism’ was first used in a religious context in debates within American Protestantism in the early twentieth century. Between 1910 and 1915, evangelical Protestants published a series of pamphlets entitled The Fundamentals, upholding the inerrancy, or literal truth, of the Bible in the face of modern interpretations of Christianity. In its broadest sense, therefore, fundamentalism refers to a commitment to ideas and values that are seen as ‘basic’ or ‘foundational’. Since fundamental ideas are regarded as the core of a belief system, as opposed to peripheral or more transitory ideas, they usually have an enduring and unchanging character, and are linked to the system’s supposedly original or ‘classical’ form. However, the term religious fundamentalism is both controversial – being commonly taken to imply inflexibility, dogmatism and authoritarianism (see p. 78) – and contested. Many of those who are classified as fundamentalists reject the term as simplistic or demeaning, preferring instead to describe themselves as ‘true believers’, ‘traditionalists’, ‘conservatives’, ‘evangelicals’, ‘revivalists’ and so forth.
Key concept
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is a style of thought in which certain principles are recognized as essential ‘truths’ that have unchallengeable and overriding authority, regardless of their content. Substantive fundamentalisms therefore have little or nothing in common, except that their supporters tend to evince an earnestness or fervour born out of doctrinal certainty. Although it is usually associated with religion and the literal truth of sacred texts, fundamentalism can also be found in political creeds. Even liberal scepticism can be said to incorporate the fundamental belief that all theories should be doubted (apart from its own). Although the term is often used pejoratively to imply inflexibility, dogmatism or authoritarianism, fundamentalism may also give expression to selflessness and a devotion to principle.
Religious fundamentalism is a complex phenomenon, with at least three dimensions. First, it is commonly linked to a belief in scriptural literalism. American Protestant fundamentalists thus reject Darwinian evolutionary theory and instead preach creationism, or ‘creation science’, on the grounds that humankind was created by God, as described in the Bible. A tendency towards scriptural literalism is found in all three ‘religions of the book’, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, but is particularly pronounced in the case of Islam because all Muslims accept the Koran as the revealed word of God, implying that all Muslims are fundamentalists, in this sense.
Second, as religious fundamentalism tends to be expressed through intense and all-consuming belief, it is often associated with a refusal to confine religion to the private sphere. Fundamentalist religion is therefore often expressed through the politics of popular mobilization and social regeneration. While some claim that such a tendency can be identified in all the world’s major religions, others argue that it tends to be restricted to Islam, Protestant Christianity and possibly Catholicism, as only these religious traditions have the capacity to throw up comprehensive programmes of political renewal. In the case of Islam, the tendency may be particularly pronounced, as Islam has never been just a ‘religion’, as such; rather, it is a complete way of life, with instructions on moral, political and economic behaviour for individuals and nations alike. In this light, politics may be far more integral to Islam than it is to Christianity, which has traditionally relied on the God/Caesar distinction to separate the holy from the worldly (Hamid, 2016). Third, religious fundamentalism typically turns its back on a modern world that is associated with decline and decay, typified by the spread of godless secularism. Regeneration can thus be brought about only by a return to the spirit and traditions of some long-past ‘golden age’, often equated with the earliest, or ‘classical’, phase of a religion’s history.
Although Islamism undoubtedly exhibits fundamentalist features – not least in its refusal to separate religion from politics – in other respects it departs from religious fundamentalism. Most importantly, and despite its rhe-torical stress on ‘return’ and ‘revival’, Islamism embraces a modernist view of religion which relies on an ‘activist’ or ‘dynamic’ reading of sacred texts rather than faith in inherited structures and traditions. Islamism is therefore not an example of dyed-in-the-wool reaction, bound by the literal meaning of sacred texts, its back turned firmly against modernity and everything it represents. Rather, it is characterized as much by novelty and innovation as it is by tradition and established belief.
SCRIPTURAL LITERALISM
A belief in the literal truth of sacred texts, which, as the revealed word of God, have unquestionable authority.
MODERNITY
The condition of being ‘modern’, typically characterized by the questioning of established beliefs.
The hallmark of Islamism is that it sets out to remake the world by re-imagining the past, suggesting that the image of religious revivalism is largely a myth. Islamism may call for a return of Islamic history and glory, but the state to which it seeks to ‘return’ is, in Eric Hobsbawm’s (1983) phrase, an ‘invented tradition’. The Islamist utopia, an imagined system of divine governance named hakimiyyat Allah (God’s rule), has thus never existed in Islamic history (Tibi, 2012). Similarly, the constitutional structure of Iran’s Islamic republic (discussed later in the chapter) is not based on an Islamic historical model, but rather on theories and ideas developed by Rudhollah Khomeini while in exile in Paris during the 1970s (Adib-Moghaddam, 2014).
The adoption of an essentially modernist view of religion is, moreover, indica-tive of a wider compatibility between Islamism and modernity. For example, the willingness of Islamists to use the Internet and other new media, as well as the machinery of the modern state, suggests sympathy for the spirit of modernity, respect for ‘this-worldly’ rationalism rather than a descent into ‘other-worldly’ mysticism. In the same way, early interest in Iran in ideas such as ‘Islamic science’ and ‘Islamic economics’ quickly gave way to an acceptance of, respectively, conventional, and therefore western, science, and market principles derived from economic liberalism.
Islamism and Islam
Although Islamism is clearly based on Islamic ideas and principles, the relationship between Islamism and Islam is shrouded in controversy. In one view, Islam and Islamism are starkly different entities. As a faith and ethical framework, Islam implies certain political values but it does not presuppose a particular form of government. Islamism, by contrast, is centrally concerned with the issue of state order (Tibi, 2012). In this view, Islamism is an ideology with a political agenda that differentiates it from the religion of Islam. Some commentators go as far as to suggest that Islamism has ‘hijacked’ Islam for its political purposes, effectively redefining Islam as a project for the construction of a sharia-based state (Baran, 2011). The idea that Islamism can be firmly distinguished from Islam is not ideologically neutral, however. It implies, at the very least, that Islamism is ‘inauthentic’, a distortion of ‘true’ Islam. Indeed, those who take this stance invariably do so as part of a wider critique of Islamism, which is seen, among other things, as implicitly (and possibly explicitly) totalitarian, intrinsically linked to anti-Semitism (see p. 211), irreconcilable with democracy, and intolerant and prone to violence. Such a position suggests, furthermore, that any attempt to counter the spread of Islamism must involve a ‘war of ideas’, designed to weaken support for Islamist ideas and practices, in part by emphasizing that they do not represent the religion of Islam. A war against Islamism does not, therefore, imply a war against Islam.
At least two groups nevertheless dismiss the idea of a clear divide between Islam and Islamism. The first group consists of Islamists themselves, who argue not only that Islam and Islamism are linked, but also that the most basic concern of Islamism is to revive the ‘true’ religion of Islam. ‘Islamism’, indeed, is a term rejected out of hand by Islamists, who see it as demeaning or insulting, an example of Orientalism. In a message echoed by many later Islamists, Jamal ad-Din ‘al-Afghani’ thus called for a revival of Islam to reverse generations of decline and corruption, brought about by the influence of ‘unIslamic’ political leaders and foreign powers (Keddi, 1972). The second group that holds that the roots of Islamism lie within Islam itself are proponents of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis (see p. 310). This implies that there is a basic incompatibility between Islamic values and those of the liberal-democratic West. In this light, it is Islam, rather than Islamism, that is inherently totalitarian. The fact that Islam prescribes a complete way of life, embracing political and economic behaviour as well as moral conduct, implies both stark anti-pluralism and a rejection of the public–private divide. Such thinking was embraced in its most radical form by neoconservative US theorists, who, against a backdrop of the ‘war on terror’, attacked what they called ‘Islamo-fascism’, viewing it not as a perversion of Islam, but as a realization of certain of Islam’s core beliefs.
An alternative approach to the relationship between Islamism and Islam is to identify contrasting tendencies within Islam, specifically between ‘reformist’ or ‘moderate’ Islam and ‘radical’ or ‘extremist Islam’. This distinction underpins attempts to counter Islamism through a strategy of ‘de-radicalization’, which aims to undermine support for radical or militant forms of Islam by bolstering a form of Islam that is compatible with the standards of a liberal, secular society. In effect, this is to encourage Islam to go through a process of structural reform similar to the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which led to a growing acceptance that religion should operate primarily in the private sphere. However, the idea of a distinction between ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ strains within Islam is fraught with problems. For instance, supporters of radical Islam refuse to accept that their beliefs are ‘extremist’, both because the term ‘extremism’ is nakedly pejorative and because they see themselves as paragons of righteous behaviour. Moreover, some of those deemed to support ‘moderate’ Islam, possibly on the grounds that they condemn terrorism (see p. 314) and reject the use of violence, may nevertheless sympathize with views that may be seen as ‘extremist’. These include a stark intolerance of other religions or rival forms of Islam and beliefs such as that apostasy, adultery and possibly homosexuality warrant the death penalty, that blasphemy and the depiction of images of the Prophet Mohammed should be severely punished, and that women and men should be segregated in public events.
In view of the difficulties involved in distinguishing between ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ Islam, it is sometimes argued that the distinction can only be sustained when it refers to the choice of political means, and specifically to the use of non-violent or violent strategies. Tibi (2012) thus distinguished between ‘institutional’ and ‘jihadist’ Islamism on this basis. However, as discussed later in relation to jihadism, the idea of a clear and consistent divide between Islamists over the use of violence may also be an illusion. A deeper problem nevertheless confronts the attempt to distinguish between ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ forms of Islam, or, for that matter, between Islam and Islamism. This is that, like other manifestations of human culture, a religion is a porous and variable thing, forever mutating, a constantly evolving dialogue between the present and the past that is made up of multitudes of voices (Holland, 2015). Any attempt to reduce something as complex and multifarious as a religion to its ‘essential’ elements, or to outline an ‘authentic’ interpretation of a religion, is therefore to risk distortion and invite challenge.
ORIENTALISM
The theory that western cultural and political hegemony over the rest of the world, but over the Orient in particular, is maintained through elaborate stereotypical fictions that belittle non-western people and cultures.
APOSTASY
The abandonment of one’s religious faith, sometimes applied to a cause, a set of principles or a political party.
Revolt against the West
Islamism is perhaps most of all characterized by a strident rejection of the West, rooted in the perception that ‘the West’ poses a threat to Islam that is new in both power and scope (Black, 2011). This applies because Islamism developed not through isolation from the West but through encounters with the West, and these encounters invariably had a bruising character. However, Islamist anti-westernism has been understood in a number of ways. For example, Paul Berman (2003) placed militant Islamism within the context of the totalitarian movements that emerged from the apparent failure of liberal society in the aftermath of World War I. The significance of World War I was that it exploded the optimistic belief in progress and the advance of reason, fuelling support for darker, anti-liberal movements. In this light, Islamism shares much in common with fascism and communism, in that each promises to rid society of corruption and immorality and to make society anew in a ‘single block-like structure’, solid and eternal (Buruma and Margalit, 2004). Islamism can therefore be portrayed as a form of occidentalism. From this perspective, western society is characterized by individualism, secularism and relativism; it is a mechanical civilization organized around greed and materialism. Occidentalism, in contrast, offers the prospect of organic unity, moral certainty and politico-spiritual renewal. Such ideas were first developed in the writings of counter-Enlightenment thinkers in Germany in the early nineteenth century, and helped to fuel the growth of European fascism and Japanese imperialism in the inter-war period. However, in the modern world they are most clearly articulated through political Islam.
Islamism’s revolt against the West was starkly expressed by figures such as Abul Ala Maududi (see p. 317) and Sayyid Qutb (see p. 317). Maududi’s scath-ing criticism of the West focused on its supposed moral bankruptcy and preoccupation with sex. Qutb, who was radicalized during a two-year study visit to the USA, expressed a profound distaste for the materialism, immorality and sexual licentiousness he claimed to have encountered there. Qutb’s world-view, or ‘Qutbism’, as it is sometimes called, highlighted the barbarism and corruption that westernization had inflicted on the world, with a return to strict Islamic practice in all aspects of life offering the only possibility of salvation. In Milestones ([1962] 2007), Qutb portrayed a world divided into the dar al-Islam (home or territory of Islam) and dar al-harb (home or territory of war), with Islam being confronted with two possible relations with the rest of the world: ‘peace with a contractual agreement, or war’. This Islamist conception of a global civilizational struggle between Islam and the non-Islamic world (not just the West) was later taken up by groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, especially once, during the 1990s, the object of Islamist hostility shifted beyond the ‘near enemy’ (corrupt or ‘apostate’ Muslim regimes) and came to encompass the ‘far enemy’ (the USA and the West in general). In due course, some western analysts were also converted to the idea of a civilizational struggle between Islam and the West, particularly as the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis gained growing support in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
OCCIDENTALISM
A rejection of the cultural and political inheritance of the West, particularly as shaped by the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
Clash of civilizations
The ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis suggests that the twenty-first-century global order will be characterized by growing tension and conflict, but that this conflict will be cultural in character, rather than ideological, political or economic. According to Huntington (1996), the rise of culture as the key factor in world politics has occurred as ideology has faded in significance in the post-Cold War world and globalization has weakened the state’s ability to generate a sense of civic belonging. Civilizations inevitably ‘clash’ because they are based on incommensurate values and meanings, with tension between China and the USA and between Islam and the West being particularly likely. The thesis may nevertheless underestimate both the complex and fluid nature of civilizations and their capacity for peaceful co-existence.
Radical or leftist theorists have nevertheless developed an account of Islamism that acknowledges tension between Islam and the West but without explaining it in civilizational terms. In this view, the rise of Islamism is best understood in the context of the USA’s bid to establish and maintain global hegemony and the implications of this for the Muslim, and more specifically Arab, world. What has been called the ‘American empire’ is an empire of a new kind. For Hardt and Negri (2000), the empire is a ‘de-centred’ empire governed by a multiplicity of powerful agents, including the USA, the G8 and various transnational corporations. For Harvey (2003), it is an example of capitalist imperialism, linked to the spread of global neoliberalism (see p. 83). The impact of neo-imperialism on the Muslim world has been especially damaging because the desire to control the flow of oil has led to widespread western interference across the Middle East and beyond. This has taken various forms, including steadfast support for the state of Israel, the provision of political, diplomatic and military aid to bolster repressive, ‘pro-western’ regimes, and direct military intervention, in Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. In this light, Islamism can be seen as a counter-hegemonic force, a source of resistance to western, and, more narrowly, US, domination. Western interference has, moreover, been legitimized by the systematic use of ‘Islamophobia’, fostering demeaning or hateful images of Muslim people and/or their religion.
ISLAMOPHOBIA
Negative or insulting representations of Islam or Muslim people in general, portraying them variously as inferior, violent, aggressive or threatening.
The Islamic state
Political Islam is ‘political’ largely in the sense that it is centrally concerned with the issue of political order and the construction of an ‘Islamic state’. Although a clear and developed theory of the Islamic state only emerged during the second half of the twentieth century, the question of political authority and its location has been of vital importance within Islam since the death of Mohammed in 632. Thinking on this matter focused squarely on the caliphate, the term ‘caliph’ meaning substi-tute or stand-in. The first four caliphs acted as imams of the Muslim world, but in 680 the caliphate became hereditary when Mu’awiya passed it on to his son Yazid I, founding the Umayyad line which lasted until 750. The title caliph was revived by the Ottoman sultans, who ruled always as ‘successors to the Prophet’, but it was abolished by the Turkish National Assembly in 1924.
Although the Islamic state is often portrayed as the restoration of the caliphate, significant differences exist between traditional forms of Islamic administration and the Islamic state as conceived by modern Islamists (Feldman, 2012). As the caliphs possessed Mohammed’s authority, but not his direct access to divine revela-tion, they were inclined to consult and consider the views of the scholars, a group of people who claimed legal expertise and came to be regarded as the guardians of the law. This created a constitutional balance of power, in which executive power, represented by the caliph, could be restrained by the scholars’ ability to interpret and administer the sharia. The position of the scholars in this respect was bolstered by the influence they could exert over succession. This constitutional balance was nevertheless destroyed under Ottoman rule, resulting in unchecked executive dominance, the Ottoman caliphate effectively becoming a system of divinely-ordained personal rule.
Islamist notions of the Islamic state emerged from the 1920s onwards, often through debates within the Muslim Brotherhood. Key figures in these disputes included Rashid Rida, in many ways the founding theoretician of the Islamic state in its modern sense, and Ali Abdel Raziq (1888–1966), who rejected the belief that in Islam, religion and politics form a unified whole, on the grounds that it associates politics primarily with the caliphate, and thus with despotic rule. Nevertheless, in Rida’s conception, the Islamic state was far from being a system of regulation whose authority extended over every detail of social, political and cultural life (Enayat, 1982). Over time, however, the Islamic state has been defined increasingly by the predominance given to the enforcement of the sharia, so much so that the Islamic state has come, in effect, to be a sharia state. This development has effectively involved the reinvention of the sharia itself. Instead of being a system of interpretive law, mostly restricted to civil law and the penal code, and largely based on an accumulated body of individual judgements in particular cases, the sharia has come to be seen as the constitutional foundation of the Islamic state (Tibi, 2012). However, insofar as this implies that the purpose of the state is to uphold a single, authoritative set of values, it makes it difficult to reconcile the Islamic state with ideas such as party competition and ideological pluralism (see p. 290), conventionally seen as core features of democratic governance. This may be particularly the case because most calls for the restoration of sharia are not accompanied by calls for the restoration of the scholars to their former position of influence, thus implying that constitutional balances are absent from the Islamic state (Feldman, 2012).
CALIPHATE
A system of government by which, under the original custom of Islam, the faithful were ruled by a khalifa (caliph) who stood in the Prophet’s stead.
IMAM
The prayer leader in a mosque or the leader of the Muslim community.
Sharia
The sharia (literally the ‘way’ or the ‘path’) is divine Islamic law. The sharia is based on the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as revealed in the Koran, supplemented by the sunnah, or ‘beaten path’, the traditional customs observed by devout Muslims and said to be based on the Prophet’s own life, and the hadith, reports of the statements and actions of Mohammed. The sharia lays down a code for legal and righteous behaviour, including a system of punishment for most crimes, as well as rules of personal conduct for both women and men. Although it is widely believed to constitute broad principles and guidance from which responses to particular situations may be derived, Islamists attempt to transform the sharia into a set of fixed laws.
However, the Islamic state is not merely a theory, it has also existed in practice. Although Saudi Arabia has been a fundamentalist Islamic state since the eighteenth century, and ‘Islamic republics’ have been set up in, for example, Pakistan in 1956, Mauritania in 1958, and Afghanistan, both during the Taliban period, 1996–2001, and since, the most systematic and elaborate attempt to establish an Islamist form of government has occurred in Iran since the 1979 revolution. The Iranian system of government is a complex mix of theocracy (see p. 313) and democracy. The Supreme Leader (currently Ali Khamenei) presides over a system of institutionalized clerical rule that operates through the Islamic Revolutionary Counsel, a body of 15 senior clerics. While a popularly elected president and parliament have been established, all legislation is ratified by the Council for the Protection of the Constitution, which ensures conformity to Islamic principles, with the sharia being strictly enforced throughout Iran as both a legal and moral code. However, although the Iranian model of the Islamic state has clearly brought about the revival of the scholarly class, it has, arguably, created a new form of autocracy through the construction of an unfettered, supreme scholarly executive (Feldman, 2012).
Theocracy
Theocracy (literally ‘rule by God’) is the principle that religious authority should prevail over political authority. A theocracy is therefore a regime in which government posts are filled on the basis of people’s position in the religious hierarchy. Theocratic rule is illiberal in two senses. First, it violates the public/private divide, in that it takes religious rules and precepts to be the guiding principles of both personal life and political conduct. Second, it invests political authority with potentially unlimited power because, as temporal power derived from spiritual wisdom, it cannot be based on popular consent, or be properly constrained within a constitutional framework. Strict theocratic rule is therefore a form of autocracy, while limited theocratic rule may co-exist with democracy and constitutionalism (see p. 37).
Jihadism
The most controversial aspect of Islamism is its association with militancy and violence in general, and with terrorism (see p. 314) in particular. Groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda (in its various manifestations), ISIS and Boko Haram have been viewed as exponents of ‘Islamist terrorism’, a distinctive form of terrorism characterized by both its religious motivation and the use of suicide tactics. Although the vast majority of Islamist parties are engaged in democratic or at least electoral politics (in South and South East Asia in particular), and many of those who subscribe to Islamist beliefs, even in their radical guise, eschew the use of violence in principle, militant Islamism is a prominent tendency within the larger Islamist movement.
The chief doctrinal basis for Islamist militancy lies in the notion of jihad. Jihad literally means to ‘struggle’ or ‘strive’; it is used to refer to the religious duty of Muslims. However, the term has been used in at least two contrasting ways. In the form of the ‘greater’ jihad, struggle is understood as an inner spiritual quest to overcome one’s sinful nature. In the form of the ‘lesser’ jihad, it is understood more as an outer or physical struggle against the enemies of Islam. This is the sense in which jihad is translated (often unhelpfully) as ‘holy war’. Bernard Lewis (2004) argued that jihad has a military meaning in the large majority of cases, although other scholars stress the importance of non-violent ways of struggling against the enemies of Islam.
The notion of military jihad, or ‘jihad by the sword’ (jihad bis saif ), has gained particular prominence since the 1970s. Religiously inspired guerrillas fighting the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s portrayed themselves as the Mujahideen (sometimes translated as ‘holy warriors’), denoting that they were engaged in a jihad . Jihad may nevertheless have either a defensive or an offensive character. ‘Defensive jihad’ refers to the individual obligation to defend the ‘home of Islam’ whenever it is threatened by aggression from the ‘home of war’. As it focuses on the protection of Muslim communities and the expulsion of foreign invaders from Muslim lands, figures such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi (see p. 317), who oppose the wider use of violence, see defensive jihad as a legitimate basis for the use of force. Such a position may be bolstered by the claim that jihad, in its defensive sense, is compatible with modern international law and just war theory (Hashmi, 2012).
MILITANCY
Extreme commitment; that is the level of zeal and passion typically associated with struggle or war.
Terrorism
‘Terrorism’ is a controversial and contested term. Conventionally, it refers to the use of violence to further a political end by creating a climate of fear, anxiety and apprehension. Terrorism is therefore clandestine violence, its most common forms including assassinations, bombings, hostage seizures and plane hijacks.
However, as all forms of violence or warfare aim, at some level, to strike fear into the wider population, it may be difficult to distinguish between terrorism and other forms of political violence. Moreover, as the term is deeply pejorative, it may be used to de-legitimize a group and its cause, ‘terrorists’ being enemies of civilized society. Finally, although terrorism is usually associated only with non-state actors, the notion of ‘state terrorism’ is sometimes used.
In contrast, ‘offensive jihad’ means a struggle, by fighting if necessary, to establish Islamic order over all unbelievers, a goal that Maududi upheld on the grounds that Islam constitutes a programme of ‘well-being for all humanity’. As the number of jihadi groups started to proliferate during the 1990s, offensive jihad came to stand for a global struggle for supremacy. For militant Salafi Muslims in particular, jihadism (the waging of global jihad) became the core feature of their ideology, a development especially evident in relation to figures such as Abdallah Azzam (see p. 317) and the Saudi al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (1957–2011). Some advocates of offensive jihad nevertheless cast it in non-violent terms, portraying it not as a justification for expansionism, terror campaigns and forcible conversion, but as ‘waging war with tongues and pens’.
The doctrine of jihad may not be the only link between Islamism and violence, however. An alternative, or additional, explanation for Islamist militancy may be the unusual emphasis that Islam places on the afterlife. Not only does this perhaps suggest that ‘bodily’ life-and-death is a matter of lesser importance, but also the nature of the afterlife, in which, according to the hadith (reports of the statements and actions of Mohammed), 70 virgin maidens await each young man who has sacrificed himself for his religion, may encourage this view.
However, Islamist terrorism may be better understood less in terms of the doctrine of jihad or expectations relating to the afterlife, and more as part of a broader tendency for terrorism to become entangled with religious motivations and justifications. This tendency can be found not just in Islam but, arguably, in all religions and religious cults. Examples of this include the 1994 assassination of the Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi by militant Sikhs, the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo attack on the Tokyo subway system, and the bombing of abortion centres in the USA by fundamentalist Christians. In this view, the inclination towards violence and terrorism may be a feature of fundamentalist religion generally. This applies because, as a form of identity politics, fundamentalist religion tends to be associated with the idea of a hostile and threatening ‘other’, which serves both to create a heightened sense of collective identity and to strengthen its oppositional or combative character. This demonized ‘other’ may take various guises, from secularism and permissiveness to rival religions, westernization, the USA and so forth. Fundamentalist religion therefore tends to be based on a Manichaean world-view, which emphasizes conflict between light and darkness, or good and evil. If ‘we’ are a chosen people acting according to the will of God, ‘they’ are not merely people with whom we disagree, but a body actively subverting God’s purpose on earth. This not only makes violence against ‘them’ easier to justify; it may suggest that such violence amounts to a religious duty.
SALAFISM
A Sunni school of thought that is associated with a literalist, strict and puritanical approach to Islam.
Islamist terrorism may, alternatively, be understood as an example of subaltern violence. The idea of subaltern violence (subalterns being the economically dispossessed) was developed in Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1965). For Fanon (see p. 185), decolonization pits two incompatible forces and two mutually exclusive world-views against one another. As successful decolonization requires that these forces and world-views should be reversed, so that ‘the last shall be first and the first shall be last’, it requires nothing less than the creation of ‘new men’. Violence plays a crucial role in this process. Violence serves both a political and a strategic function, in that the violence that sustains colonial rule has to be turned against the settlers themselves, and, in ridding the native of his sense of powerless-ness and inferiority, it plays an equally important psycho-therapeutic role. Such thinking may go some way to explaining the inclination within Islamist politics toward violence, its source being the desire, among at least sections of Muslim society, to rid themselves of their sense of injustice and humiliation.
Types of Islamism
Not all Islamists think alike, however. In particular, contrasting forms of Islamism have developed within Islam’s two main sects, the Sunni and the Shia. This division in Islam developed within fifty years of Mohammed’s death and stemmed from a disagreement over succession. Whereas Sunnis regarded the first four caliphs as ‘The Rightly Guided Caliphs’, Shias treated Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, as the rightful successor to Mohammed. The Sunni sect represents the large majority of Muslims, including 90 per cent or more of the populations of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, while the Shia sect contains just over one tenth of Muslims, mainly living in Iran and Iraq. The Sunni–Shia divide within Islam has sharpened significantly in recent years. This occurred as the 2003–11 US-led occupation of Iraq left an inheritance of bitter sectarian rivalry, which then spread to Syria thanks to the civil war, in which pro-Assad forces, generally linked to Iran, have been pitted against anti-Assad fighters mainly supported by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. However, in addition to Sunni and Shia versions of Islamism, a third type can be identified, in the form of ‘conservative’ or ‘moderate’ Islamism.
Sunni Islamism
Sunni Islamism is rooted in the linked ideas of Wahhabism and Salafism (Wahhabis are Salafis, but not all Salafis are Wahhabis). Wahhabism (a term often considered to be derogatory by its adherents) is the official version of Islam in Saudi Arabia, the world’s first fundamentalist Islamic state. The Wahhabi movement was started by Muhammad ibn Wahhad (1703–92), who championed a militant and puritanical form of Islam, which, unlike later forms of Islamism, was entirely a movement for internal reform and not in any sense a response to foreign intervention. In a pact agreed in 1744 between ibn Wahhad and Muhammad ibn Saud, then a minor tribal chief, an alliance was established between Wahhabism and the House of Saud, which has continued until the present day. Wahhabism advocates a return to the Islam of the first generation and opposes everything that has been added since. In that sense, there are parallels between Wahhabism and ultra-orthodox religious groups such as the Amish in the USA and the Haredim in Israel. Among other things, Wahhabis ban pictures, photographs, musical instruments, singing, videos and television, celebrations of Mohammed’s birthday, and the cult of Mohammed as the perfect man. Any deviation from the sharia is treated by Wahhabis as an innovation, and therefore classified as ‘unIslamic’. And any Muslim who disagrees with the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is regarded as an unbelieving apostate who deserves severe punishment.
The origins of Salafism are different from those of Wahhabism. Salafism emerged as a school of Islamic thought in the second half of the nineteenth century, largely in reaction to the spread of European ideas and influences. Salafism advocates a return to the traditions of the devout ancestors (salaf ), guided by the most literal, traditional interpretation of the sacred texts. In the process, it seeks to expose the roots of modernity within Muslim civilization, with a view to eradicating them. Initially, the Salafi mission of a return to primaeval Islam was entirely in harmony with the puritanism of the Wahhabi movement, both of them embracing a ‘purification’ creed that was consistent with a quietist political stance. However, these two faces of Sunni Islamism later drifted apart. Although ‘reformist’ trends could still be found in Salafism, associated with figures such as the Egyptian jurist Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), the more prominent tendency within Salafism was drawn in an increasingly activist and revolutionary direction. Wahhabism, in contrast, continued to represent staunch conservatism. The jihadi groups that emerged out of, or drew inspiration from, the Afghan war in the 1980s transformed Salafism into an ideology of global anti-western struggle, giving rise to ‘jihadist-Salafism’, or ‘Salafi-jihadism’ (Kepel, 2006). The most influential militant Salafi groups have been al-Qaeda and ISIS. However, only after the outbreak of the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011 did openly Salafist parties and groups enter the political arena, usually offering a radical alternative to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in North Africa and elsewhere.
ORTHODOXY
Strict adherence to an established or traditional view, usually enjoying ‘official’ sanction or support.
PURITANISM
Scrupulous moral vigour, especially reflected in the shunning of physical pleasures and luxury.
Rudhollah Khomeini (1902–89) An Iranian cleric and political leader, Khomeini was the architect of the ‘Iranian Revolution’ and leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989. Khomeini’s world-view was rooted in a clear division between the oppressed (understood largely as the poor and excluded of the developing world) and the oppressors (seen as the ‘twin Satans’: the USA and the Soviet Union, capitalism and communism). In Khomeini’s Shia Islamism, Islam is a theo-political project aimed at regenerating the Islamic world by ridding it of occupation and corruption from outside.
Abul Ala Maududi (1903–79) An Indian-Pakistani scholar, philosopher, jurist and early exponent of Islamism, Maududi founded (in 1941) Jamaat-e Islami (the Islamic Party), which has developed into the most influential Islamist organization in modern Pakistan and Bangladesh. Committed to the spread of Islamic values in the subcontinent, Maududi viewed Islam as a ‘revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals’. Maududi rejected any identification of Islam with modern creeds, such as capitalism, communism and democracy.
Sayyid Qutb (1906–66) An Egyptian writer and religious leader, Qutb is sometimes seen as the ‘father’ of modern political Islam. A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Qutb recoiled from what he saw as the moral and sexual corruption of the West, but, influenced by Maududi, highlighted the condition of jihiliyyah (‘ignorance of divine guidance’) into which the Muslim world had fallen. In the face of this, Qutb advocated Islam as a comprehensive political and social system that would both ensure social justice and sweep away corruption, oppression and luxury.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi (born 1926) An Egyptian Islamic theologian based in Doha, Qatar, Qaradawi is a leading exponent of ‘new’ or ‘moderate’ Islamism. While aiming to demonstrate Islamist support for such things as democracy, pluralism and human rights, Qaradawi has opposed the assimilation of ‘western values’ and insisted that Islam should be treated as a ‘complete code of life’. Qaradawi supports military jihad in its defensive form, especially in relation to the Palestinian cause, but argues that offensive jihad is best pursued through the use of non-military means.
Abdallah Azzam (1941–89) A Palestinian Sunni theologian, scholar and founding member of al-Qaeda, Azzam played a leading role in developing, during the 1980s, a more radical ideological movement within Islamism dedicated to global jihad. Azzam implored Muslims to rally in defence of Muslim victims of aggression, to liberate Muslim lands from foreign domination, and to uphold the Muslim faith. Azzam was the mentor of Osama bin Laden (1957–2011), under whose leadership al-Qaeda extended Azzam’s thinking by sanctioning struggle by ‘all means’ and in ‘all places’, justifying attacks against the USA and its allies.
Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj (1954–82) An Egyptian radical Islamist, Faraj was the leader of the Cairo branch of the Islamist group al-Jihad. Building on Qutb’s belief that jihad is an individual duty incumbent on all Muslims, Faraj emphasized the role of armed combat and portrayed jihad as the sixth, ‘forgotten’ or ‘neglected’ pillar of Islam. Although for Faraj the primary target of the struggle was apostate Muslim rulers (the ‘near enemy’), in The Neglected Duty, probably written in 1979, he maintained that jihad would enable Muslims to rule the world and to re-establish the caliphate.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been the most enduringly important Sunni Islamist organization. Initially focused on building up a network of schools, hospitals and social services, the Brotherhood turned to politics during the 1930s, although its concern with social welfare continued to be important. The Brotherhood was at first committed to the use of peaceful and democratic means, but, when these failed, turned to violence, operating in and out of the shadows until it was banned in the 1950s by President Nasser. By this time, it had developed into a transnational organization, having spread from Egypt into Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Libya, Sudan and elsewhere. Although it remained outlawed in Egypt under President Mubarak, 1981–2011, the Brotherhood fielded ‘independent’ candi-dates in the 2005 parliamentary elections, winning 88 seats and becoming, in effect, the first legitimate opposition force in modern Egypt. Following the overthrow of Mubarak in 2011, the Brotherhood formally entered politics under the banner of the Freedom and Justice Party. When parliamentary elections were held in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco in late 2011 and early 2012, in each case, parties set up, or inspired, by the Muslim Brotherhood were brought to power. Mohamed Morsi, the Brotherhood-backed candidate, became Egypt’s president in 2012. However, Morsi was removed by the military in July 2013, after massed protests provoked by what many Egyptians saw as a power grab by Morsi. The Egyptian courts later outlawing the Muslim Brotherhood and any organization or activity associated with it. These events nevertheless raise questions about the extent to which the Brotherhood can adjust to a pluralist and constitutional political environment given its Islamist orientation.
Shia Islamism
While Sunnis tend to see Islamic history as a gradual movement away from the ideal community which existed during the life of Mohammed and his immediate successors, Shias have believed that divine guidance is always available in the teachings of the infallible imam, or that divine wisdom is about to re-emerge into the world with the return of the ‘hidden Imam’, or the arrival of the Mahdi. Shias thus see history as a movement towards the goal of an ideal community, not away from it. Such ideas of revival and imminent salvation have given the Shia sect a messianic and emotional quality not enjoyed by the traditionally more sober Sunnis.
MAHDI
Literally, ‘one rightly guided’; a prophesied spiritual and temporal leader who is destined to be the redeemer of Islam.
The religious temper of the Shia sect is also different from that of the Sunnis. Shias believe that it is possible for an individual to remove the stains of sin through the experience of suffering and by leading a devout and simple life. The prospect of spiritual salvation has given the Shia sect its characteristic intensity and emotional strength. When such religious zeal has been harnessed to a political goal it has generated fierce commitment and devotion. The Shia sect has, at least since the sixteenth century, sometimes been seen as more political than the Sunni sect. This has been because it is especially attractive to the poor and the downtrodden, for whom the re-emergence of divine wisdom in the world has represented the purification of society, the overthrow of injustice, and liberation from oppression. Nevertheless, there continues to be a tradition within Shia Islam that is reluctant to engage fully in politics, as represented, for instance, by Ali al-Sistani (born 1930), the spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shias.
However, the politico-religious propensities of Shia Islam were clearly illustrated by the popular demonstrations that in Iran precipitated the overthrow of the Shah and prepared the way for the creation of an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. The revolutionary enthusiasm generated by the Islamic Revolution reached new heights during the Iran–Iraq war, 1980–88, sustained as it also was by the continuing messianic influence of Khomeini himself. The end of the war and the death of Khomeini in 1989 nevertheless laid the foundations for more moderate forces to surface within Iran. The Iranian economy had been devastated by the massive cost of the eight-year war and a lack of foreign trade and investment. There was a growing recognition that economic revival would be impossible unless Iran’s diplomatic isolation from the industrialized West was brought to an end. This was reflected in the emergence of Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament (the Islamic Consultative Assembly), and his election as president in 1989 marked a more pragmatic and less ideological turn in Iranian politics.
Nevertheless, the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president in 2005 signalled a return to conservative politics and the emergence of a form of explicit ‘Khomeinism’. The brutal suppression of popular protests against Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009 intensified the polarized nature of Iranian politics and emphasized the extent to which the continued ascendancy of radical Islamism is dependent on the support of paramilitary forces. However, deepening concern about the economy, linked to the impact of the US-led sanctions regime, and a widening divide between Ahmadinejad and the clerical elite, and especially the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, led in 2013 to the election as president of the pragmatic conservative, Hassan Rouhani. This laid the ground for the historic 2015 deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and the EU, under which economic sanctions were lifted in return for Iran accepting restrictions on its pursuit of nuclear technology. For some, this development underlined the fact that exclusive and militant Islamism is unworkable in an increasingly globalized world. It is notable, however, that greater pragmatism (see p. 9) in political and economic life in Iran has not so far been matched by a decline in religious observance or commitment, or by an end to Iran’s links to, and support for, radical Islamist groups in Palestine and elsewhere.
‘Moderate’ or ‘conservative’ Islamism
Not all forms of Islamism are militant and revolutionary. Although, as discussed earlier, much confusion surrounds the idea of ‘moderate’ (as opposed to ‘radical’) Islamism, there is a school of Islamist thought that is distinguished by the attempt to reconcile political Islam with democratic elections and party pluralism. The issue of democracy has been particularly problematic in this respect, since it appears to place popular sovereignty ahead of the will of God. Rashid Rida nevertheless saw no threat to Islam in the principle of popular sovereignty. For Rida, democracy for Muslims is ensured by both the implementation of the principle of shura, or consultation, between the rulers and the ruled, and the predominance of the ulama, who he argued are ideally placed to act as the natural and genuine representatives of the people. Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1990), for his part, argued that democracy can be reconciled with the rule of God providing that democracy is put on an Islamic basis. This, he suggested, could be achieved through the introduction of a single constitutional provision stipulating that ‘any legislation contradicting the incontestable provisions of Islam shall be null and void’. By rectifying what Islamists see as the normative shortcomings of secular democracy, this would create a system of ‘true, not false democracy’. In line with such thinking, both the Afghan constitution of 2004 and the Iraqi constitution of 2005 contain what is sometimes called a ‘repugnancy clause’, under which the judiciary is authorized to overturn laws that are repugnant to Islam.
Political developments in modern Turkey provide a particularly telling example of the relationship between Islamism and democracy in the sphere of practical politics. This is because tensions have existed between the military, committed to the strict secular principles on which the state of Turkey was established, and a growing Islamist movement. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been in power since 2003, advancing a form of constitutional Islamism. The AKP has attempted to balance moderate conservative politics based on Islamic values with an acceptance of Turkey’s secular democratic framework. Rather than choos-ing between East and West, it has tried to establish a Turkish identity that is confident in being part of both. A key aspect of this compromise is continuing attempts by Turkey to gain membership of the EU.
Critics have nevertheless warned that the AKP plans to overturn the secular nature of the Turkish state, possibly establishing an Iranian-style Islamic republic through a process of ‘Islamification’. The ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in Turkish universities (which had been enforced only since the 1980s) was lifted in 2010, and restrictions on the sale of alcohol have been imposed in some parts of the country. Turkey has also increasingly looked to build ties with the Arab world and has become more critical of Israel. In July 2016, deepening tension between elements in the military, possibly supported by wider forces, and the AKP government headed by President Tayyip Erdoğan resulted in a failed coup. In the aftermath of the coup, over 4,000 institutions were shut down and tens of thousands of public servants, teachers, academics and others were sacked or suspended in a purge through which the Erdoğan government solidified its control over the police, the military, the judiciary, the media and the education system. These events sparked intensified concerns about the fate of political pluralism in Turkey. Turkey may thus be facing a predicament that is the opposite of Iran’s. While in Turkey democracy may be under threat from invigorated Islamism, in Iran radical Islamism may be under threat from the pressures generated by democracy.
ULAMA
A body of Muslim scholars who are recognized as having specialist knowledge of Islamic sacred law and theology.
Islamism in a global age
Islam, like Christianity, has had a global orientation from its earliest days. This has been the case for two reasons. First, Islam often served as the cultural dimension of imperial expansion, reflecting, in broad terms, the fact that conquerors and colonists have frequently used religion as both a moral justification for expansionism and as a means of consolidating political rule. Islam thus spread across central and western Asia and into North Africa and parts of Europe through the activities of successive Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman empires, in the same way that Christianity was spread throughout Europe and into Asia Minor by the Roman Empire, and later arrived in the Americas thanks to the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores. Second, Islam, once again in common with Christianity, has exhibited a strong global orientation by virtue of its doctrinal character, and especially its tendency towards evangelicalism. This reflects the tendency within both Islam and Christianity to claim to be the one, true religion, and to preach that salvation in the afterlife will be restricted to believ-ers; non-believers, in effect, being damned. Converting others to Islamic or Christian beliefs can therefore be seen as nothing less than a religious duty, inspired by the need to counter ‘false’ religions and gods, as well as to save people’s immortal souls.
Such globalizing tendencies have nevertheless become more pronounced due to the rise of Islamism. During the 1970s and 1980s, domestic jihad predominated over global jihad, as hostility to the USA and the idea that Islam was engaged in a larger struggle against the West provided merely a backdrop to attempts to achieve power at the national level. This nevertheless changed from the 1990s onwards, and did so, according to Kepel (2006), largely through the failure of political Islam to achieve its domestic goals. ‘Apostate’ regimes often proved to be more stable and enduring than anticipated, and, in cases such as Egypt and Algeria, military repression was used successfully to quell Islamist insurgents. In this context, jihad went global, as growing elements within the Islamist movement realigned their strategies around the ‘far enemy’. This process was significantly assisted by the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion, which served to forge a ‘corporate’ sense of belonging among Islamist groups that often had different backgrounds and sometimes different doctrinal beliefs.
EVANGELICALISM
The theory and practice of spreading (in origin, Christian) religious beliefs, usually through missionary campaigns.
This shift to a global strategy was facilitated, in part, by the process of globalization (see p. 20). Global jihadism could, indeed, be portrayed as a by-product of globalization (Gray, 2003). This can be seen in at least two senses. In the first place, increased cross-border flows of people, goods, money, technology and ideas have generally benefited non-state actors, and there is no doubt that Islamist groups have been particularly adept at exploiting this hyper-mobility. For example, new media, and especially the Internet and mobile phones, have been widely used by jihadi groups, both for recruitment purposes and to increase their operational effectiveness. Similarly, increased international migration flows and the growth in the West of substantial Muslim communities have helped to sustain and extend Islamist terrorist campaigns, in part through the phenomenon of ‘home-grown’ terrorism. Second, globalization has generated pressures that have contributed to the growth in Islamist militancy generally. This has occurred either as a backlash against cultural globalization and the spread of western goods, ideas and values, portrayed by Barber (2003) as the clash between ‘McWorld’ and ‘Jihad’, or as a consequence of imbalances in the global capitalist system that have impoverished and destabilized much of the Middle East, and especially the Arab world.
The global character of the modern Islamist or jihadist movement should not be overstated, however. For example, the Islamist movement is by no means a single, cohesive entity; rather, it encompasses groups with often very different beliefs and goals, many of them being better classified as religious nationalists, or perhaps pan-Islamic nationalists, than as global revolutionaries. Thus to treat attacks such as September 11, the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, the 2002 Moscow theatre hostage crisis and the 2008 Mumbai bombings as manifestations of the single phenomenon of ‘jihadist terrorism’, implying that they had a common inspiration and purpose, may be seriously to misunderstand them.
To what extent is Islamism part of a larger phenomenon of religious revivalism?
Is Islamism best understood as an example of religious fundamentalism?
Can a meaningful distinction be drawn between Islamism and Islam?
To what extent is Islamism a manifestation of a ‘civilizational’ struggle between Islam and the West?
Is ‘moderate Islamism’ a contradiction in terms?
Should the Islamic state be viewed as the restoration of the caliphate?
Is Islamism necessarily linked to militancy and violence?
Is there such a thing as ‘Islamist terrorism’?
How did Salafism come to be associated with the doctrine of global jihadism?
In what ways does Shia Islamism differ from Sunni Islamism?
Can Islamism ever co-exist with pluralism and democracy?
How, and to what extent, can Islamism be seen as a by-product of globalization?
FURTHER READING
Buck-Morss, S., Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left (2006). A study of Islamism that argues that we should look beyond the ‘twin insanities’ of terrorism and counter-terrorism, drawing, variously, on ideas from critical theory, feminism and postcolonialism.
Martin, R. C. and Barzegar, A. (eds), Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam (2009). A stimulating collection, written by Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals, that examines contrasting approaches to Islamism and explores their implications.
Osman, T., Islamism: What it Means for the Middle East and the World (2016). A provocative exploration of the development of the largest and most influential Islamist groups in the Middle East over the past century, which also speculates on prospects for the future.
Tibi, B., Islamism and Islam (2012). A trenchant analysis of Islamism as a political ideology based on a reinvented version of Islamic law, which highlights the gulf between Islamism and its emphasis on political order, and the faith of Islam.
