Islamic fundamentalism, by virtue of its enveloping cultural context and medium of expression, appears religious. But it is not.[i] It is a political response to a set of political circumstances, and an ideological interpretation of the social and political elements of the environment that Muslims breathe in. This is evident from the content of the debates that the Islamic fundamentalists are engaged with and the addressee of those debates.[ii] Besides, given Islam’s 1400 years of existence, and fundamentalism’s emergence in the late 20th century only, the undercurrents of this movement appear to be more in relation to recent politics than to centuries’ old religion. This understanding is critical as we explore the factors that shaped the emergence of fundamentalism as a major regional political force in the 1980s.
Indeed, Islamic fundamentalism’s inherent clash with secularism has theological roots. But the music beneath the words of Islamic fundamentalism swings to the tune of politics. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) is a model for the Muslim world in more than one capacity.[iii] He represents a blend of religion and politics, of God and governance. In addition to explaining Islamic fundamentalism’s inherent clash with secularism, this perspective also explains another important point: Islamic fundamentalism emerged as a reaction to western ideologies such as Marxism, capitalism and democracy.[iv]
It is important to understand the context within which Islamic fundamentalism emerged. This context was the rise of the west in the 18th and 19th century.[v] The decline of the Islamic supremacy in governance, society and science (British rule of India-1857 and Egypt-1882) and the following western colonialism (Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia) triggered apparently different responses from the Muslim world. Some took the shape of secularism such as Kemalism in Turkey. Others responded with increased radicalism and a determined return to the origins.[vi] It is tempting to be seduced by the apparent diversity in these responses and interpret them as a step towards modernization of Islam and its reform along those lines. But in essence, these responses had one orienting purpose: sustain and strengthen Islamic interpretation of events and circumstances. In essence, it was all about maintaining the originality of Islam, whichever way possible.
This is not to aim for an absolute negation of the religious power that Islamic fundamentalism has and exercises on the Muslim population. The inherent political nature of Islamic fundamentalism has religious elements. This can be interpreted as both a limitation and a resource in terms of understanding this phenomenon. On one hand it blurs boundaries between faith and politics, making it difficult to comprehend where one ends and the other begins.[vii] But on the other, it serves as a window to the theoretical and practical lives of Islamic fundamentalists, thus aiding the understanding of their perspective. It is in this light that the importance of the Shari’a has to be underscored, which is central to being a good Muslim and which goes beyond the basic five pillars of faith in Islam. It goes to the realm of government and socio-economic laws. [viii]
This brings us to the role that the reform movement has played in the emergence of the Islamic fundamentalism in the 1980s. The urge for the return to the origins, under any interpretation of the word “origin” has had internal elements as well. The rise of Wahabism in the mid 17thcentury in response to Sufi practices or other practices that existed before Islam is important. Wahabism was based on the argument that Muslims had drifted apart from the principles of Islam as given in the Quran, which required a return to the pure Islam and a reform of Islam to purify religion of cultural influences.[ix]
The attempt at reforming Islam was also made by the modernists. Egyptian religious scholar Muhammad Abduh led a late 19thcentury movement to reform Islam. He, inspired by Jamal-ud-Din Al-Afghani, represented renaissance of Islam, but contradicted him by separating politics from religious reform. Though this movement had an easier argument and aimed for adopting the positive values of the western culture and Islamizing it, the essence of their reform was to sustain Islam and restore faith in religion. It was also an attempt at dealing with the loss of supremacy of Islam in the world and the sense of inferiority that it had inflicted upon Muslims. [x]
It was in the aftermath of the modernist movement that thinkers and ideologues associated with Islamic fundamentalism rose, but not in opposition to the modernist movement, because Islamic fundamentalism, in essence, is a modernist movement itself. Abul Ala Mawdudi of India and Hassan Al-Banna of Egypt laid the foundations of modern fundamentalism as we know it today.[xi] The analysis of the Islamic fundamentalism carried out by Gilles Kepel’s Jihad revolves around the perspectives of Mawdudi and Al-Banna, to which Khomeini of Iran gave practical significance. The fact that the two most prominent ideologues of Islamic fundamentalism rose in Egypt and India speak of the colonial legacy of the British rule in these two countries. Colonialism bred resistance, which in this case came in the form of Islamic fundamentalism. Though at a personal level, they were fighting their own fights - Mawdudi for India and Al-Banna for Egypt- their teachings move and lead Islamic fundamentalists around the world, which speaks of the larger global resurgence of religion as well.
Mawdudi’s contribution to the emergence and growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the form that we know it today is very significant. He was creative within the confines of his religious ideology, which allowed him to be simultaneously inspired by Islam and Marxism –competition driven inspiration- and introduce the notion of Islamic revolution. The interesting bit is that it was welcomed and adopted despite the negative connotation attached to revolution in Islam, as a form of instability. By doing this, he positioned Islamic fundamentalism as an alternative to capitalism and communism, distinct from a religious battle between Islam and Christianity or between Islam and Judaism. [xii]
Mawdudi revived the notion of worldly power as the essence of Islam and argued that there was no Islamic history after Ali and the rise of the Umayyids. This re-enforced the idea that you need an Islamic state to be able to live in an Islamic society –contrary to the Turkish model- which existed only under the four Caliphs (631-661.) His interpretation supported the need for getting back to the real Islam. He refuted the Deobandi ideas of Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan of India, and underscored the importance of Islamic state. This approach necessitated for Muslims to be Muslim as well as political, thus joining religion and politics, in total opposition to secular ideas.[xiii]
Mawdudi appealed to both the return-to-the-origins faction as well as modernist reformers who wanted to adopt western values and Islamize them. Mawdudi’s notion of Islamic State was different from Caliphate. He was progressive in his approach and did not want to create a medieval structure. Also, he wanted to position Islamic state in competition to western state and win over the liberal factions of society. Mawdudi’s content had another value as well. It addressed the practical needs of Muslims as well as questions of organization, mobilization and engagement in political life. This pattern was followed by the clerics in Iran, who in the first pro-democracy movement in Iran took the side of the protestors and engaged with them in a real way.[xiv] Unlike the modernist movement which lacked a residual middle class to anchor its ideas to, Mawdudi successfully managed to merge intellectual debate with practical implications, defined the internal and external boundaries of Islam and Islamic fundamentalism as a self-contained ideology and offered a set of guidelines to follow.
And they were followed, by Khumeini in the 1979 Iranian revolution, who achieved the “goal” of Islam by implementing the ideas. For him there was no difference between the resistance of 661 and 1979. They were both acts of political resistance and aimed at liberation. The use of the language of liberation has been central to the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1980s. Following the Marxist legacy, Islamic fundamentalism surfaced as a new form of resistance against Imperialism.[xv]Today’s increasing anti-Americanism in South Asia and the Middle East continues to communicate through this language.
The influence and impact of Mawdudi and Khumeini cannot be over-emphasized. If Mawdudi breathed life into Islamic fundamentalism, Khumaini with his apt application of Mawdudi’s ideas mentored the movement for the race. Iranian revolution of 1979 marks the birth of Islamic fundamentalism as we know it.[xvi]
The circumstances that gave rise to Islamic fundamentalism go back to 1920s and 1930s, but it was the events of 1970s that made these ideas become influential. The failure of the Arab nationalism to offer a practical path towards the restoration of Muslim glory reflected in their excessive reliance on the colonial powers, geographic division along non-ethnic lines by those powers, and defeat against Israel. Instead of addressing these real issues, Arab nationalists reacted with suppression of voices of opposition. The execution of Sayyid Qutb by Gamal Abdul Nasser was one form of these reactions that led to enhanced popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as their evolution in a major regional player in the Middle East. This popularity came with an ideological evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood, rendering them politically radicalized along the lines of what Qutb had originally proposed: waging a war against the State and all those who are not “in the fold.” Qutb, in a nut shell, rationalized going to war against other Muslims if they belong to the Jahiliyah. [xvii]
The 1967 defeat and the loss of Jerusalem came as a confirmation of the loss of Muslim power in the world, leading to an abandonment of the idea of secularism or socialism as means to power, and re-enforced the power of commitment to Islam as means for regaining this glory.[xviii]
At another level, many other incidents contributed to the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1980s. The rapid expansion of Cairo, riots in Malaysia, the creation of Pakistan which came in the form of loss of a unified Muslim India followed by the war of 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh, the breakdown of the secular state in Iran, and people’s search for solace after the defeat of the 1967 war offered fertile ground for increased religiosity and thus the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism as a movement with political aims but religions rhetoric. Kepel confirms this argument and suggests that the rise of the Islamic fundamentalism has to be credited to the political vacuum created as a result of the political and economic isolation of certain classes of society such as “educated urban youth” and “devout middle class.”[xix]Alienated by their repressive governments and lacking in space for political participation, these groups looked for solace in a religious interpretation of realities.
For instance, Afghanistan was going through radical reforms by the then secular and later socialist governments in the 1970s. With origins in the 1919 reforms of Amanullah Khan, the Soviet-backed regime of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) launched extensive social and economic reforms and brutally suppressed religious voices of opposition, including the Al-Azhar educated Burhan-U-Din Rabbani, who is said to have had deep appreciation for Qutb and had developed close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood while there.[xx]Taliban may not qualify to be Islamic fundamentalists for reasons of lack of a competing notion of state in response to the west and extreme opposition to modernization[xxi], but the Northern Alliance of the 1990s and the United Front of 2000s continue to uphold the ideals of Mawdudi, Al-Banna and Qutb, whose writings and teachings were like drops of rain in a dry desert. They had to be absorbed and absorbed instantly.
[i] Nasr, Vali. “Introduction: Approaches to the Study of Islam and Politics Before and After the Arab Spring.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. January 24, 2012.
[ii] Nasr, Vali. “1970s and the Rise of Islamism.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 28, 2012.
[iii] Nasr, Vali. “Introduction: Approaches to the Study of Islam and Politics Before and After the Arab Spring.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. January 24, 2012.
[iv] Nasr, Vali. “Early Thinkers and Foundational Ideas: Jihad, Revolution and Islamic State.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 14, 2012
[v] Nasr, Vali. “Historical Legacy and Theological Roots.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. January 31, 2012.
[vi] Nasr, Vali. “Early Thinkers and Foundational Ideas: Jihad, Revolution and Islamic State.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 14, 2012.
[vii] Nasr, Vali. “Introduction: Approaches to the Study of Islam and Politics Before and After the Arab Spring.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. January 24, 2012.
[viii] Nasr, Vali. “Introduction: Approaches to the Study of Islam and Politics Before and After the Arab Spring.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. January 24, 2012.
[ix] Nasr, Vali. “Early Thinkers and Foundational Ideas: Jihad, Revolution and Islamic State.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 14, 2012
[x] Nasr, Vali. “Early Thinkers and Foundational Ideas: Jihad, Revolution and Islamic State.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 14, 2012
[xi] Nasr, Vali. “Early Thinkers and Foundational Ideas: Jihad, Revolution and Islamic State.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 14, 2012
[xii] Nasr, Vali. “Early Thinkers and Foundational Ideas: Jihad, Revolution and Islamic State.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 14, 2012.
[xiii] Nasr, Vali. “Early Thinkers and Foundational Ideas: Jihad, Revolution and Islamic State.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 14, 2012.
[xiv] Nasr, Vali. “Shi’a Islamism.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 21, 2012.
[xv] Nasr, Vali. “Introduction: Approaches to the Study of Islam and Politics Before and After the Arab Spring.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. January 24, 2012.
[xvi] Nasr, Vali. “Shi’a Islamism.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 21, 2012.
[xvii] Nasr, Vali. “Shi’a Islamism.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 28, 2012.
[xviii] Nasr, Vali. “Shi’a Islamism.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 28, 2012.
[xix] Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (London: I.B.Tauris and Co. Ltd, 2002), 107.
[xx] Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, (London: I.B.Tauris and Co. Ltd, 2004), 66.
[xxi] Nasr, Vali. “Shi’a Islamism.” DHP263 Islam in Global Politics. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Medford. February 28, 2012.