American Footprints » Islamism

Nahda’s Caliphate Concept

Brian Ulrich — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:54:38 +0000

This dispute over whether Tunisia’s Nahda party has a secret radical agenda briefly revealed in a leader’s comment about a caliphate is all about nothing:

“Talks on forming a coalition government halted briefly this week after a secular party questioned the motives of its moderate Islamist partner amid intense jockeying for power.

“The trouble began when Le Maghreb, a Tunisian newspaper, reported that Hamadi Jebali, secretary general of the Islamist Ennahda party and pick for interim prime minister, had likened post-Ben Ali Tunisia to a new caliphate.

“The secularist Ettakatol promptly suspended talks on forming a government, sending Ennahda scrambling to reassure its partners and public opinion of its commitment to democracy…

“‘Mr Jebali was talking to Islamists in the audience, people who think about the caliphate,’ said Said Ferjani, a member of Ennahda’s political bureau. ‘Mr Jebali said that if they want a caliphate, it’s what’s happening now: democracy.’

“Ettakatol has accepted that explanation and agreed to restart talks, said Abdellatif Abid, a co-founder of the party and member of its political bureau.”

The caliphate is actually a Qur’anic concept according to which humans are the regents of God on Earth, and probably did not become a title for an individual ruler until the Umayyad dynasty. In modern Islamist thought, the definition has gained new salience in calling believers to take upon themselves the task of setting the world to right. This is such a common usage that, particularly during a semester in which I’m teaching a course called “Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East,” I thought of it immediately when I heard of the controversy, and therefore certainly believe Nahda’s explanation. That does not mean, however, that Arabs who are suspicious of public religious movements, and there are many among Tunisians who came of age under Habib Bourguiba, would immediately recognize that just because they’re Muslims. A comparison in American politics would be when a conservative Christian candidate speaks of God “calling” them to do something, and more secular people believe they think God is really talking to them.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Ghannouchi on Religion and State

Brian Ulrich — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:44:06 +0000

Rashid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia’s Islamist al-Nahda group, on religion and the state:

“Tunisians agree on the constitutional text even when they deeply disagree about religion. For instance, a move to make the state a neutral religious actor has strong appeal for those who wish to move toward a French-style secularism that minimizes the role of religion in political life. But it also appeals to some Islamists who see it as a way of liberating Islam from the state’s heavy hand. When I spoke with Ghannushi, he talked favorably of what he called the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model as opposed to French secularism — by which he meant a state neutrality that is not unfriendly to religion in the public sphere. The words were not uttered just for my benefit — I saw him expand on the subject in an interview with an Egyptian satellite channel a few days later. Thus, a vaguely worded constitutional provision on religious neutrality would likely be implemented very differently by the opposing camps, but they might still be able to agree on a common text.”

This is fascinating, and gives rise to two questions. First, does he see this “Anglo-Saxon model” as a good idea, or simply better than a French-style alternative? Second, is he more interested in the British or American variant? It might not matter that much, but as someone once commented to me, “We English may not go to church as much as you Americans, but when we do, we go to the Church of England.”

(Crossposted to my blog)

Qaradawi in Egypt

Brian Ulrich — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:16:03 +0000

As I’ve commented before, Yusuf al-Qaradawi matters, as a conservative Sunni Islamist who appeals to massive youth audiences through television even as the older generations remember his connection to Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. On Friday, he gave a sermon in Midan Tahrir. I can’t find a complete English text, but here is some of what he said:

“On Friday, he struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching. He began his sermon by saying that he was discarding the customary opening ‘Oh Muslims,’ in favor of ‘Oh Muslims and Copts,’ referring to Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. He praised Muslims and Christians for standing together in Egypt’s revolution and even lauded the Coptic Christian ‘martyrs’ who once fought the Romans and Byzantines. ‘I invite you to bow down in prayer together,’ he said.

“He urged the military officers governing Egypt to deliver on their promises of turning over power to ‘a civil government’ founded on principles of pluralism, democracy and freedom. And he called on the army to immediately release all political prisoners and rid the cabinet of its dominance by officials of the old Mubarak government.

“‘We demand from the Egyptian Army to free us from the government that was appointed by Mubarak,’ Sheik Qaradawi declared. ‘We want a new government without any of these faces whom people can no longer stand.’ And he urged the young people who led the uprising to continue their revolution. ‘Protect it,’ he said. ‘Don’t you dare let anyone steal it from you.’”

Another source mentioned this:

“Qaradawi, a spiritual leader to the Muslim Brotherhood here, sought to reassure Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority saying ‘in this square sectarianism died’ and praised Copts for linking hands to symbolically protect Muslims while they prayed during the uprising.

“‘The regime planted sectarianism here … in Tahrir Muslims and Christians joined hands for a better Egypt,’ said the theologian, who has lived in semi-exile in Qatar for decades.”

In my post from a week ago, I commented that the illiberal opinions of many Egyptians was a greater problem for developing a pluralistic society than the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization, and that there is no reason to suspect the latter of secretly planning a theocratic dictatorship. While I still expect to see an increase in, for example, blasphemy trials, there is an optimistic scenario in which strong comments by respected leaders such as Qaradawi mute popular attitudes towards, say, conversion much like American popular Islamophobia remained somewhat muted when President Bush repeatedly worked against it.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Egyptian Revolution and Islamic Revival

Brian Ulrich — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 04:13:49 +0000

With the fall of long-time Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, many fear that Egypt will evolve into a theocracy under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood. In that light, this statement is significant:

“Preserving the people’s freedom is more important than setting up a system of Sharia (Islamic law), even though freedom remains part and parcel of Sharia, said Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Friday evening in an interview with Al Jazeera television network. Al-Qaradawi, who is an influential Islamic thinker and president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group.

“Recently, some members of the Brotherhood have tried to alleviate concerns that they want to establish an Islamic state by asserting that the Brotherhood does not seek to the rule the country or establish an Islamist government in Egypt.”

I don’t know on what show this interview was conducted, but prior to his retirement he was central to the highly rated al-Jazeera show Shari’a and Life. He was also an early follower of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, though he has resisted involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership. Although despised by al-Qaeda types, he is one of the undisputed leaders of conservative Islam in the world today, and his views are significant.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s support for democracy is not a momentary tactic, but has roots in its theological foundations. The group draws on the traditional of Islamic reformism associated with Jamal al-Din al-Afghani in the 19th century, which taught that instead of traditional Islamic jurisprudence, Muslims should rely on contemporary interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith. These modern interpretations can be harsh and puritanical, as well as liberal, and the Muslim Brotherhood has interpreted criminal law, for example, fairly literally. Politically, however, a key principle is “shura,” or consultation, which at least since the Young Ottomans opposed to the Tanzimat reforms of the mid-1800′s has for many carried connotations of democracy. Richard Mitchell, whose 1969 book on the Muslim Brotherhood remains a standard, explained it thus:

“‘The nation,’ ‘the people,’ in fact, are the source of all the ruler’s authority: ‘The nation alone is the source of power; bowing to its will is a religious obligation.’ The ruler has no legal existence and deserves no loyalty except as ‘he reflects the spirit of the society and is in harmony with its goals.’ Banna described the relationship of ruler and ruled as a ‘social contract’ in which the ruler is defined as a ‘trustee’ and ‘agent’…Since the ruler is the ‘agent contracted for’ by the nation, he is ‘elected’ by it.”

Not all or even most of the specific systems of government proposed under this framework could be called “democratic,” as many involve religious tests for office, limited electorates, and clerical councils with important powers, but the point I make is that for the Brotherhood, there is no break between advocating democracy and core political theory.

In the present context, I’m not even convinced that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to exercise power. It has pledged not to run a candidate for president, which is probably about reassuring those fearful of its influence, but may also cover uncertainty about the effects of actually having responsibility for things on its image and overall message. A further point is that there are several strains of thought within the MB, and I am not certain they will hold together in a common organization without the unifying concern for strength and unity in the face of military government.

If there is a related concern going forward in Egypt, it does not involve the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization, but rather the generally illiberal impulses of Egyptian society. The specific form of Islamic Revivalism involving puritanical intolerant religious ideas has been growing steadily in Egypt for many years. I know its broader context from anthropological studies by Charles Hirschkind and Saba Mahmood, and there is a decent journalistic account by Geneive Abdo. One factor seems to be returning guest workers from Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. Migration from conservative rural areas to the cities is also spreading that conservatism through urban society. Physical manifestations of the movement are seen widely attended unlicensed, often open-air mosques led by independent preachers and the circulation of salafi cassette sermons. Legally, there is a steady drumbeat of court cases involving alleged blasphemy. I expect all these trends to make themselves felt more publicly in a freer political environment.

At the same time, however, it may be that the salafi wave has crested. I suspect it is too soon to proclaim a post-Islamist Middle East, but several factors may gradually reduce its attractions. For one thing, a less corrupt government that spent more on economic and human development could reduce the incentive to become a guest worker in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the moderate clerics favored by Mubarak may no longer suffer from government associations in the court of public opinion.

Most important, however, is the sudden upsurge of new, competing ideologies and paths to dignity and meaning in life. I don’t have the materials at hand to provide concrete examples, but I was struck by the way in which the reasons many protesters gave for wanting to participate in the uprising paralleled those of people attending conservative shari’a classes at their local mosque. This passage by Mohammed Bamyeh is kind of what I mean:

“Third, remarkable was the virtual replacement of religious references by civic ethics that were presumed to be universal and self-evident. This development appears more surprising than in the case of Tunisia, since in Egypt the religious opposition had always been strong and reached virtually all sectors of life. The Muslim Brotherhood itself joined after the beginning of the protests, and like all other organized political forces in the country seemed taken aback by the developments and unable to direct them, as much as the government (along with its regional allies) sought to magnify its role.

“This, I think, is substantially connected to the two elements mentioned previously, spontaneity and marginality. Both of those processes entailed the politicization of otherwise unengaged segments, and also corresponded to broad demands that required no religious language in particular. In fact, religion appeared as an obstacle, especially in light of the recent sectarian tensions in Egypt, and it contradicted the emergent character of the Revolution as being above all dividing lines in society, including one’s religion or religiosity. Many people prayed in public, of course, but I never saw anyone being pressured or even asked to join them, in spite of the high spiritual overtones of an atmosphere saturated with high emotions and constantly supplied by stories of martyrdom, injustice, and violence.

“Like in the Tunisian Revolution, in Egypt the rebellion erupted as a sort of a collective moral earthquake—where the central demands were very basic, and clustered around the respect for the citizen, dignity, and the natural right to participate in the making of the system that ruled over the person. If those same principles had been expressed in religious language before, now they were expressed as is and without any mystification or need for divine authority to justify them. I saw the significance of this transformation when even Muslim Brotherhood participants chanted at some point with everyone else for a ‘civic’ (madaniyya) state—explicitly distinguished from two other possible alternatives: religious (diniyya) or military (askariyya) state.”

I remember G’Kar from Babylon 5:

“There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost it’s way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities. It is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hopes, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.”

President Obama also spoke of the power of human dignity in his speech yesterday afternoon. If that is right, then the future is on the right track.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Islamist Politics at MESA

Brian Ulrich — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:35:57 +0000

Greetings from the 2009 annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, where I’ve had the pleasure of attending four panels so far, all of which were interesting. One which probably has some interest for readers was Islamist Parties and the Political Process, which examined Islamist political movements in Morocco, Kuwait, and Algeria with eyes on inclusion in the formal political process, trends toward moderation, and competition among movements for members.

I write this based on my notes and the abstracts on the panel web site, but warn anyone who clicks through that ideas can shift between the submission of the abstract and the actual paper, and I think something like that happened with the paper “Public Religion, Democracy and Islam: Examining the Moderation Thesis in Algeria” by the University of Notre Dame’s Michael Driessen. At the very least, while I guess some of what’s in the abstract makes sense given the paper, my own notes picked up on different themes, perhaps because history is a less theory-driven field than political science and the abstract couched its topic in terms of theory. That said, he talked about the nationalization of religion which has taken place during the past decade or so as a means of co-opting Islamists and government attempts to manage religion, but also notes that, once the religious ideas are floating around, ideas, attitudes, and behaviors develop independent of both government and opposition Islamist influences, which he called an “individualization” of Islamist ideas. (Or was the government competing with the Islamists? The abstract suggests the former, but my memory the latter.)

The well-known Algerian Civil War of the 1990′s was an influence seen in the paper of Noureddine Jebnoun of the University of Montana, which was called “The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG): From Armed Confrontation to Ideological Reversal.” That conflict led the Libyan government to perceive and sell the perception of Islamist forces in their own country as a major threat, and quelling that threat was one of the objectives behind the Qadhafi regime’s reconciliation with the United States. Since then the LIFG has come to seek its own reconciliation with the Libyan regime, renouncing both violence and the practice of takfir, or rejecting another’s claim to me Muslim, in what Jabnoun sees as a sincere change of attitude.

The other two papers (a fifth presenter was unable to attend) dealt with Morocco, and were focused to some extent on the Justice and Development Party’s position in Moroccan politics and society. The government has legalized its political participation, and today it is the largest opposition party in parliament. However, St. John’s University’s Azzedine Layachi argues in “Official and Popular Islam: The PJD and the Struggle for Legitimacy,” this cannot be seen as a successful co-option of Islamism into the Moroccan regime as the PJD does not represent the bulk of Moroccan Islamists. Layachi put forward the idea that it might ultimately be on the same path as socialism in North Africa, gradually losing contact with its grassroots in gaining inclusion without being able to act on any of its agenda.

The University of Texas’s Avi Spiegel focused exactly on those grassroots supporters with his study of the political attitudes of youth in Rabat, Casablanca, and the belt along the train tracks between them. In addition to the PJD, he looked at the JSO, or Justice and Spirituality Organization, an illegal rival of the PJD, as a means of conceptualizing not the relationship of an Islamist movement to the state, but the relationship of Islamist movements with each other. In this case, the two organizations acted as rivals competing for supporters and therefore resources. Spiegel portrayed a fluid world, but argued for a broader trend in which, instead of disillusioned youth pushing seasoned movement leaders to take more radical stances, movements’ desire to broaden their base among youth led to an increasing moderation of an initially highly conservative religious message. I forget if this was addressed by Speigel, Layachi, or both, but in entering parliament, the PJD has added to its traditional focus on public morals and family law one on political reform which it uses to compete for public support.

Similar ideas came up later in the day in a panel on political change in Iran and Kuwait in a paper by the University of Oslo’s Bjorn Olav Utvik called “Electoral Religion: Salafis and Muslim Brothers Competing for Votes in Kuwait.” One of his points was that due to Kuwait’s somewhat open political system, one gains relevance in that country through election to parliament, and therefore in order to compete with the Muslim Brotherhood in the country, the Salafis had to enter the political fray. Since doing so, however, the Salafis have drifted well away from the common image of Salafism: The slogan of the most prominent hadhar Salafi MP is “Shari’a, stability, development,” and all have taken on broader social and economic causes. In response to a question, Utvik, who was also at the morning session on North Africa, thought the idea of parties moderating to successfully compete for influence among the broader public made sense.

This has been a long post, so I won’t say much about my own thoughts stimulated by all this, but I did think of Hamas, which has entered politics but focused on aspects of government other than moral reform, even in Gaza which it now dominates. The group has thus in a sense “moderated,” but one side effect is that hardline elements then form their own groups, such as the al-Qaeda-like one from a few months ago. This, I think, represents a response both to Hamas’s moderation and its inability to achieve much through its chosen strategy. The base unit of politics is not the autonomous organization, but the individual, and when individuals are free to choose whether or not to join organizations, those organizations will permutate based on their view of the benefits of recruiting new members and the strategies they employ to do so.

(Crossposted to my blog)

The Iranian Meaning of Hizbullah

Brian Ulrich — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:32:53 +0000

Anyone interested in transnational Islamist political movements or the politics of the Gulf countries, especially the Arab ones, should read Laurence Louer’s Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf. I won’t be able to finish it right away as I return it to the library tomorrow in advance of moving, but it has lots of information on major Shi’ite political movements and how they manifest themselves within different national states.

This isn’t a major point within the book, but it may explain some of the references to Hizbullah in the current Iranian crisis:

"’Hezbollah’ is initially a Quranic term meaning the ‘party of God’. After the revolution, it became a recurring concept of Ruhollah Khomeini’s speeches to designate those truly committed to the defence of Islam and the Islamic revolution. The term was then appropriated by vigilante groups constituting a loose network of volunteers supported by some individual figures of the regime and claiming to act in order to safeguard the revolution against its enemies. While, in Iranian parlance, the word ‘Hezbollah’ designates the hardliners in general, it can also refer to structured pressure groups, often used by the regime to intimidate or even assassinate this or that recalcitrant person. While many self-describe as ‘Hezbollah’, many others often prefer to speak about them as partisans of the ‘Imam’s Line’, that is those who keep faithful to the heritage of so-called ‘Imam Khomeini’. This is the case, for example, of those who perpetrated the attack on the American embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Over the years, the label ‘Imam’s Line’ has been preferred by the vigilantes because ‘Hezbollah’ came to have a pejorative connotation in an Iranian society weary of revolutionary language and favourable to a more relaxed implementation of the Islamic ethic."

I don’t know if the term’s appropriation by vigilante groups refers specifically to the Ansar-i Hizbullah, or is a more general phenomenon.

(Crossposted to my blog)