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 The Muslim Brothers and the Neo‐Kharijite Challenge

Jeffrey T. Kenney

in Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt

The evocation of Kharijism first occurred in connection with the activities and ideas of the Society of Muslim Brothers. On two separate occasions, in 1948 and 1954, the Muslim Brothers were accused ... More

The evocation of Kharijism first occurred in connection with the activities and ideas of the Society of Muslim Brothers. On two separate occasions, in 1948 and 1954, the Muslim Brothers were accused of being Kharijite. These isolated episodes adumbrate the trend toward accusations of Kharijism that came to inform a range of political and religious rival groups in Egypt — government, official al-Azhar, conservative, Islamist, and secular. This chapter examines the first wave of accusations of Kharijism as they were applied in general to the Society of Muslim Brothers, and in particular to the writing and figure of Sayyid Qutb, a one-time literary critic who became the voice of Islamist militancy.Less

Secularism and Its Discontents in Muslim Societies: Indigenizing the Separation between Religion and State

Nader Hashemi

in Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies

Secularism and its discontents in Muslims societies is the focus of this chapter. The main claim is that the cultivation of an indigenous Muslim understanding of secularism will enhance the prospects ... More

Secularism and its discontents in Muslims societies is the focus of this chapter. The main claim is that the cultivation of an indigenous Muslim understanding of secularism will enhance the prospects for liberal democracy in Muslim societies. The chapter commences with a brief history of secularism in the Muslim world over the past two centuries. It is argued that Muslims have good reasons to be skeptical of secularism because it has bequeathed a negative legacy in large part due to its association with failed modernization paradigms. Failures of the colonial and post‐colonial state are highlighted and related to secularism. A brief discussion of recent events in Turkey and Indonesia and parallel developments in Catholicism in the late 20th century are highlighted as a way towards reconciling Islam and political secularism.Less

Citizenship and Faith

Amina Wadud

in Women and Citizenship

Wadud analyzes citizenship in theocratic states governed by Shari’ah, or Islamic law, states which do not traditionally envisage the equality of women. Against such theocratic systems, Wadud argues ... More

Wadud analyzes citizenship in theocratic states governed by Shari’ah, or Islamic law, states which do not traditionally envisage the equality of women. Against such theocratic systems, Wadud argues that the canonical Islamic tradition of jurisprudence is open to reinterpretation in light of changing conditions in Muslim societies. According to Wadud, the Qur’an does not restrict agency on the grounds of gender. The gender disparity that has developed in Islamic tradition and theory denies women the means of completing their duties before Allah. Wadud calls upon all Muslims, female and male, to reform their societies so as to implement the equality inherent in the “tawhidic” Islamic paradigm, which stresses unity and harmony.Less

Unity in Spirituality: The Focolare Movement

Paul D. Numrich

in The Faith Next Door: American Christians and Their New Religious Neighbors

The Catholic Focolare Movement was founded by the late Chiara Lubich in Italy during World War II in order to rediscover the communal love and spirituality of the early Christians. The movement ... More

The Catholic Focolare Movement was founded by the late Chiara Lubich in Italy during World War II in order to rediscover the communal love and spirituality of the early Christians. The movement includes several “minicities” around the world, each called a permanent Mariapolis (after Mary, Mother of Unity). The Focolare engage in “dialogues of love” with spiritually minded members of other faiths, including Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and Sikhs. This chapter focuses on the relationship between the Focolare movement and the American Society of Muslims, the largest African American Muslim group in the United States, followers of mainstream Islam under the leadership of the late Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. The chapter features testimonies by Focolare members and Muslims about their dialogues of love. “For us it is encountering Jesus in every person,” says the codirector of the Chicago Focolare community. “We love everybody who comes our way.”Less

. Literary Publics in Dacca

Neilesh Bose

in Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal

Traversing one end of urban Bengal to another, this chapter looks at how Dacca (the present capital of Bangladesh), the putative city of mosques, but also a city of Hindu bhadralok (the educated and ... More

Traversing one end of urban Bengal to another, this chapter looks at how Dacca (the present capital of Bangladesh), the putative city of mosques, but also a city of Hindu bhadralok (the educated and refined classes), and many others besides Muslim elites, hosted Muslim modernist movements just like the ones held in Calcutta. The focus of the chapter is the Dacca University–based Muslim Sahitya Samaj (Muslim Literary Society), formed in 1926, and organized around modernizing forces, such as reform in religion, education, gender relations, and relationships with the colonial state. In this chapter, the differences between Dacca and Calcutta’s literary cultures are analysed along with the effects of the creation of a new university in Dacca, built on the socio-cultural landscape of the city.Less

From Sufism to Salafism, 1905–11

Michael Laffan

in The Makings of Indonesian Islam: Orientalism and the Narration of a Sufi Past

This chapter traces the ongoing debates about Sufism in relation to changing notions of orthodoxy, focusing on the new Salafi movement of Muhammad ʻAbduh and Muhammad Rashid Rida. As a part of their ... More

This chapter traces the ongoing debates about Sufism in relation to changing notions of orthodoxy, focusing on the new Salafi movement of Muhammad ʻAbduh and Muhammad Rashid Rida. As a part of their platform to reorder Muslim society, this movement called upon Muslims to break with the older patronage networks organized around the tariqa and the sayyid. Their goals could be harmonized for a time: both wanted to restrict Sufism to the elite once more and promoted extending a proper understanding of Shariʻa to a widening circle of readers. There were tensions inherent in this “harmony,” however, and they led inevitably to the collapse of the sayyid-led reforms and to the genesis of an increasingly bifurcated public sphere in the Netherlands Indies. Going forward, the various strands of the “modernist” Muslim movement will seek to take the lead under the aegis of the Office for Native Affairs.Less

. Modern Bengali Muslim Literary Culture

Neilesh Bose

in Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal

This chapter discusses the background of modern Bengali Muslim literary cultures through a review of Muslim writing in Bengali from the early fourteenth century through the early twentieth century. ... More

This chapter discusses the background of modern Bengali Muslim literary cultures through a review of Muslim writing in Bengali from the early fourteenth century through the early twentieth century. The chapter discusses the role of British colonialism in the creation of modern vernacular languages, and in particular, how that process affected Bengali Muslim writers of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth-century creation of a modern vernacular dominated by Hindu writers alongside the simultaneous growth of a genre known as ‘Mussalmani Bangla’ (Muslim Bengali) both form the background of developments in the early twentieth century. The key development discussed in this chapter is the rise of a specifically Bengali Muslim and Calcutta-based intelligentsia through literary societies, including the Bengali Muslim Literary Society, which began in 1911. This pivotal salon-type space functioned as the first organization in Calcutta that catered to both the changing elements of colonial society as well as the needs of the Bengali Muslim community.Less

Islam, Democracy and Nationalism after the Second World War

Martin Pugh

in Britain and Islam: A History from 622 to the Present Day

This chapter studies the common assumption that in Muslim societies, religion plays a negative part in the development of democracy. Indeed, some observers uphold the idea of ‘Islamic exceptionalism’ ... More

This chapter studies the common assumption that in Muslim societies, religion plays a negative part in the development of democracy. Indeed, some observers uphold the idea of ‘Islamic exceptionalism’ — in effect the view that Muslims are uniquely resistant to liberal democracy and secularism. Democratic institutions left by departing Western regimes, so the argument runs, have failed to survive everywhere except in Turkey; they have been superseded by autocracy and one-party states. Islamists in particular are thought to endorse democracy, before subsequently suppressing democratic opposition as subversive and irreligious. Another obvious limitation of the negative view is that it focuses on a few Muslim countries around the Mediterranean, and ignores those in the Far East, such as Indonesia, not to mention those that do not have a Muslim majority, such as India. Neither of those countries is consistent with the conventional assumptions. Moreover, the negative view tends to overlook the fact that Oriental societies have good grounds for regarding the Western model of parliamentary democracy as suspect — not least because the United States and Britain have a record of collaborating with Muslim autocracies and undermining and overthrowing democracies when they choose left-wing or anti-Western governments. This is notoriously the case in countries such as Iran after 1945.Less

What is Reform?

Roman Loimeier

in Islamic Reform in Twentieth-Century Africa

This chapter defines the central terms of the book: What is reform, what are the markers of reform, what characterizes processes of reform, what is Salafi-oriented reform and how is Salafi-oriented ... More

This chapter defines the central terms of the book: What is reform, what are the markers of reform, what characterizes processes of reform, what is Salafi-oriented reform and how is Salafi-oriented reform different from Sufi-oriented reform? The chapter presents doctrinal distinction, symbolic distantiation, social separation and spatial segregation as the major features of Salafi-oriented reform. It introduces major intellectual trends of Salafi-oriented reform, it also introduces the major intellectual exponents of Salafi-oriented reform in Africa and stresses the importance of generational change. The chapter points out that movements of reform are not monolithic organizations but characterized by the existence of traditions of dispute on many different levels. The chapter presents the major trends within Salafi-oriented reform that are informed by different approaches to political strategy, education, militancy and piety. The chapter finally discusses different ways of constructing Muslim societies and concludes that such epistemic constructions usually rely on essentialisations that are often misleading when applied to larger social and historical contexts.Less

Pluralism in Muslim Societies

Filali-Ansary Abdou

in The Challenge of Pluralism: Paradigms from Muslim Contexts

This chapter discusses pluralism in Muslim societies. While it is generally believed that Muslim societies inherently possess the characteristics of a generic unity and internal coherence, it is ... More

This chapter discusses pluralism in Muslim societies. While it is generally believed that Muslim societies inherently possess the characteristics of a generic unity and internal coherence, it is argued in this chapter that there exists a “Muslim position” on pluralism. In this chapter, the historical experience of Muslim societies of pluralism is considered and examined. Overall, the classical Muslim historical experience presents sets of precedents of plurality and pluralism which would not be recognizable to modern notions of pluralism, or which would provide “sources of inspiration” for them. And, in any case, classical pluralism in Muslim societies extended beyond the formal arrangements provided for by law, for these were societies of a highly composite nature. They were differentiated by language, dialect, locality, ethnic origin, clan relations and genealogies, social group, cultural baggage, and much else. Except for the revivalist discourses of Muslim traditionalism, there is no reason to maintain that these differences were subject to the logic and institutes of Muslim jurisprudence, or that it was these institutes that governed social life.Less

The Great War and the Re-drawing of the Ottoman Empire

Martin Pugh

in Britain and Islam: A History from 622 to the Present Day

This chapter details how, during the 14 years before the outbreak of the First World War, Britain comprehensively revised her diplomatic alignments, readjusted her military strategy, and rearranged ... More

This chapter details how, during the 14 years before the outbreak of the First World War, Britain comprehensively revised her diplomatic alignments, readjusted her military strategy, and rearranged her armed forces to meet the threat posed by the European powers. In the process, she signed an alliance with Japan and ententes with France and Russia, she concentrated her fleet in the North Sea and the Channel, and developed a plan to prevent Germany from imposing a quick defeat on France by mobilising a new British Expeditionary Force. However, there remained one flaw in all this: she had not really considered the Ottoman Empire or, indeed, the wider question of her relations with the Muslim societies in Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and especially India. This oversight was a by-product of her new strategy, which frankly made security in Europe the chief object and in effect downgraded the importance of the imperial world. As a result, Britain failed to take full account of changes in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa engendered by the Great War.Less

Introduction:Secularism in Pakistan: A Failed Experiment?

in Secularizing Islamists?: Jama'at-e-Islami and Jama'at-ud-Da'wa in Urban Pakistan

This book tries to disrupt the teleology that denies the possibility of secularism, with all its positive normative associations, in Pakistan, and also highlights the differences between the ... More

This book tries to disrupt the teleology that denies the possibility of secularism, with all its positive normative associations, in Pakistan, and also highlights the differences between the Jama'at-e-Islami and the Jama'at-ud-Da'wa. The important similarity between the two groups lies in the overlap in their constituency and the salience of political engagement in their rhetoric and practice. The book demonstrates the variety in religious practice and its effect on forcing a certain consciousness about the availability of different paths toward leading a pious life. Moreover, it emphasizes the implications of a close and continued multistranded entanglement between what is called the “West” and those labeled “Muslim societies.” The secular or the secularists are those who identify consciously with some version of the ideology and project of secularism. This Introduction provides an overview of the chapters included in the book.Less