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Commentary :: International Relations
Understanding Political Islam Current rating: 0
08 Jun 2003
The ethnocentric, parochial, temporocentric and myopic view of Islam has led some ignorant â€Ĺ"uncivilized” â€Ĺ"Western” intellectuals to talk of â€Ĺ"clash of civilizations”. They are those who do not understand their own â€Ĺ"civilization” and ignore how â€Ĺ"West” has been cradle of fascism and Stalinism while take credit for secular humanist thought and achievements of industrial revolution. It has become necessary to present holistic view of Islam not merely black and white picture and differentiate between Islam as a political ideology and Islam as a religion.
Understanding Political Islam

(4174 total words in this text)
(58 reads)




By M.A.HUSSAIN



The ethnocentric, parochial, temporocentric and myopic view of Islam has led some ignorant “uncivilized” “Western” intellectuals to talk of “clash of civilizations”. They are those who do not understand their own “civilization” and ignore how “West” has been cradle of fascism and Stalinism while take credit for secular humanist thought and achievements of industrial revolution. It has become necessary to present holistic view of Islam not merely black and white picture and differentiate between Islam as a political ideology and Islam as a religion.

In Islamic societies, in addition to secular humanist thought and education, there are three systems of social communications or streams of thought which make a Muslim's culture what it is. The influence of these, in a Muslim's life, makes his mind-set and his psyche different from that of a non-Muslim.

The first is the Islamic scriptures --Quran and Hadith as interpreted by Ulamas, Mullahs, Muftis and Maulavis, and communicated through Madrasahs and Mosques and administered through the Islamic state wherever there is one. This is Islam as a political ideology. Let us call it as political Islam or Islamism. This should not be confused with Islam as religion.

The second is Tasawwuf (Islamic mysticism) which seeks truth through personal religious experience, not through the scriptures and is espoused by the Sufis (religious mystics).

The third is Adab (a concept broadly meaning art and literature) as a sub-culture of broad-minded and urbane people of high learning and literary tastes. Poets, writers and artists are its communicators. Among Indian Muslims the medium of Adab was Persian. Now it is Urdu.

All the three modes of socialization and modes of thought differ in aims and objectives to be attained and the methods to be adopted. Whereas orthodox Islam of the Ulamas seeks to control collective affairs of the society by capturing political power, as in Algeria, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan. Sufis, messengers of love, advocated the principle of Sulh-i-kul: peace with all and conflict with none. Poets, Sufis and liberal Muslim intellectuals have invited the wrath of Mullahs and Ulmas from the very beginning. Often they have been accused of blasphemy and heresy by Islamists. Whereas UlamasIslam is political tied with state and political power, the folk Islam was spiritual and existentialist. The Ulama's wworld viewis completely antagonistic to that of Tasawwuf and Adab. The degree of animosity between Ulamas and Sufis can be gauged by the fact that long after the death of a Kashmiri Sufi Sheikh Noor Din, his shrine at Chrare-Sharif was reduced to ashes as the perpetrators of violence -- foreign mercenaries and their local counterparts in Kashmir have no respect for the Sufi's wworld view


Tasawwuf
Tasawwuf in essence is self-education and self communication (or intra-personnal communication) where one’s own self and one’ relation with God is subject of study. For the Sufis the knowledge was not the knowledge of Quranic do’s and don’ts but that of one’s self, Ma-rifah. For a Sufi, a man’s inner self and not the Sheriah was the true moral guide. These existentialist communicators thus deepened the spiritual concerns of the Muslims. Their love of God was disinterested, without hope for paradise and without fear of hell, a love in which the distinction between God and the world (including man), between lover and beloved, and between non-Muslims and Muslims disappears.

Islamic mystics seek to find the truth of the divine love and knowledge through direct experience of God, not by reciting Quran or by observing Islamic rituals. For a Sufi, the truth of divine unity and divine love has to be realized in the existence of each individual and so its expression will differ.
The Sufis were not apolitical or “spectators on the fence” but socially responsible and politically active people. They were zealous missionaries and have contributed more to propagation of Islam than their critics (Wahabis) have. Although Sufis unlike Ulamas had no official recognition of their religious status and no authority to impose their views. They had their own mass base and the political clout. That is the reason why Ulamas (executive agents of Islam) could not wipe out or suppress them. In spite of the facts that Sufis were strong critics of Mullahs and Islamism, they managed to spread their message and survived attempts to suppress or censor their views , most of which were propagated orally through poetry.
The Sufi tradition as a socio-culutral movement is dead because of schism, ritualism and elitism (regimentation of its ranks and file). Presently Islamism has become politically active and has bridged the gap in fractured Ummah. Islamists have succeeded to a large extent spreading the gospel of political Islam in cities and among educated Muslims.

Adab
The word “adab” simply means norms of conduct or customs including good etiquette, deemed praiseworthy in the medieval Muslim world. But here the word "adab” is a broad term meaning a sub-culture or a “taste culture” of a certain social stratas of Muslim community.
Adab means a well-bred and cultivated person who possesses knowledge of poetry and literature including oratory. Adib – author of adab- produces Adab or literature, elegant prose or poetry written in a style rich in vocabulary and the good of the humanity as its subject.
In Islamic society Adibs were “free thinkers” who did not view the world in black and white like a Mullah but in all shades and colours. The Persian as well as Urdu Adibs have always been at war with Mullahs who often issued Fatwas against them. They are active in fighting the forces of darkness. This Urdu culture can rightly be called “counter culture” or “adversary culture.”
Tasawwuf and adab are closely related. Sufis have used poetry as a vehicle for expression for their ideas. The only difference between the two seems to be that Adab was urbane and high brow and Tasawwuf belonged to common folk and rural masses.
In India Urdu adab has played a key role in the freedom movement fighting divisive forces in the sub-content, in emancipation of people and enlightened their minds with progressive ideas. But presently discrimination against Urdu pursued as a state policy has dented its fighting spirit. It has resulted in a cultural divide between Indian Muslims and their fellow countrymen, one more divide in already fragmented Indian society. Urdu adab is silenced in India and Pakistan, no longer a potential adversary of intolerance and fascist forces.


Islamism

The Madrasahs as locus of Islamism emerged as structural necessity of transition of Arab society from a non-literate to literate society and emergence of new trans-tribal power elite, which was to be educated formally and socialized for trans-tribal governance.
As Quran marked a shift in Arab society from non-literate(oral culture) to literate society, dominated by tribal chiefs to society dominated by trans-tribal power elite. It gave an impetus to learning and writing Arabic language compilation of law and philosophy and science, printing and publishing.

It was seen as a great revolution in tribal Arab society, which threw literate trans-tribal elite to the political power. This divided tribal society vertically. The pagans were annihilated and illiterates(particularly rural masses) put to a disadvatgous position as Arab society progressed under Islam. This gave rise to Islamic clergy as power elite and Islamism as political ideology of governing class as opposed to counter-Islam or folk Islam of common Arab masses. The folk Islam driven by Arab cultural traditions has been ruthlessly suppressed by Islamists.
In addition to sectarian division in Islam, there emerged two Islam’s: one written, formal, official (Islam rulers) and other folk non-literate Islam of those who were ruled dividing all Islamic sects vertically. The two are at perpetual war against each other: one imposes laws and social code of conduct in the name of Islam and the other seeks new ways to subverts and defy these laws.
As the Islamic societies are getting secularized, a traditional power elite with Madrasah mind-set finds himself in a 1400 year old world constantly in confrontation with the present day world and entangled in the mother of all battles the so-called Jehad a war against all non-Muslims (including non-Islamic Muslim states like Turkey, Egypt, Algeria etc.) and also against the Muslims and Muslim women, not willing to be guided and governed by Ulamas and Mullahs.

Madrasahs
Madrasahs have originated from mosques where “scholars” congregated to discuss the Quran considered as the ultimate authority in all legal and religious matters. There emerged a few who were recognized as an authority on these subjects and others grouped around their seat in a semi-circle as their teacher. With the passage of time, the situation became somewhat formalized and a rudimentary Islamic school, known as a Halqa, took shape. A Halqa was generally a one teacher school and represented a school of thought in Islamic theology (later this bred sectarianism amongst Muslims). The Halqa grew into Madrasah, an institution of higher learning of Quran, Islamic tradition, Arabic literature and history. It was funded by the rulers and rich men. (In addition to Madrasah, a Maktab, a small school is attached to almost every mosque, where pupils are taught reading and reciting and memorizing Quran's necessary portions required for the daily prayers. Some Maktabs also teach writing and elementary arithmetic’s. The whole educational system is un-integrated and undifferentiated and is fractured by denominational and sectarian interests and unrelated to practical life.)

One of the functions of the Madrasah is to prepare the students for the administrative and judicial posts like Qazi, Muhasib, etc. and also for various religious functions in a mosque like Imam, Mozin, Mo-alim, Maulavi, etc. Naturally the "degree Holders” of Madrasah will have a vested interest in establishing an Islamic state where they are locus of power and have tremendous scope for employment. It explains why even those Ulamas and Maulavis (like Moulana Maudoodi), who had opposed Jinnah, went to Pakistan as they saw no role in India for themselves.

(Furthermore, because of its sectarian and divisive nature, Madrasah system cannot have any equation with the secular educational system, and Madrasah-qualifications cannot be taken at par with non-dogmatic educational qualifications. In fact, there is no place for Madrasah education in societies not governed by the Ulamas and Maulavis. Where there is no Islamic state (mullah raj), there should be no Madrasah education. The educational system needs to be modernized.)

Seeds of Intolerance

The seeds of intolerance were sown into the Muslim societies, when the Islamic scholars and Ulamas succeeded in winning over the rulers to their sides, and became an arm of the Islamic state and started suppressing their contemporaries who, after interaction with the humanist philosophy, dared to oppose their teachings and started questioning the established religious ideas. To meet the challenge of new the thinking, a sharp distinction was made between the religious or dogmatic and non-dogmatic sciences. The latter were excluded from the curriculum of the Madrasah. The gap between the two began to widen because secular and scientific knowledge is deduced from self-evident principles (not from divine sources), and is constructed and critically analyzed anew by each learner. Whereas the theological knowledge is beyond doubt, questioning is considered as blasphemous or heretic. Madrasahs tend to reinforce accepted values rather than develop and disseminate new ideas.

Moreover the conflict between the aims and objectives of religious and secular education are irreconcilable as far as Madrasah system is concerned. This is because the sole aim of Madrasah education is attainment of the pleasure of God, not material prosperity and progress of mankind. To understand and to seek knowledge has not been the aim of the Madrasah as it considers attainment of bliss in the other world the only goal of the life.

As the Ulamas turned into power elite’s, Madrasahs became places of indoctrination where critical and free-thinking meant blasphemy, a cognizable offence!. The critical attitude and freedom of thought was suppressed as teachers took the role of the "thought police". The physical punishment and strict discipline became a part of the Madrasah milieu. (Taliban Chief Mullah Umar's slapping one of his generals in the presence of journalists tells the whole story of authoritarian Madrasah milieu). The learning was confined to memorization which impoverished the intellectual creativity of Madrasah. There is no academic freedom left and stick is regarded as a valuable teaching-aid for a teacher. Madrasah has been a closed system characterized by intolerance towards everything which is new, creative and not prescribed in the Quran. Even Aurangzeb, when he grew older, is said to have complained to his teacher about narrowness of Madrasahs' curriculum and its being unrelated to practical life.

Censorship

As Madrasahs were part of the state and Mullahs, Ulama, Muftis and Qazis as its executors, some kind of censorship was built into Muslim society, particularly in the field of printing and publishing. The office of special public prosecutor, known as Muhtasib was created. He was placed in-charge of public morality. He would direct police, judge offences against the public morality and supervise weights and measures. It was his duty to suppress views that were not in agreement with the accepted (or official) religious teachings. He had to make sure that people observed Islamic dress code, Namaz and fast in the month of Ramadan. His job was to impose fine against those who dared to violate these. It was he who could decide what was within the religious code and what was socially acceptable. What Taliban's religious police are doing in Kabul is nothing new. Muhtasibs were there in Afghanistan before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

In a totalitarian or a collectivist society socio-cultural governance and political governance (the sociological processes like "social control" control over social behaviour of an individual) overlap and get centralized, killing personal liberty and autonomy of the individual. That is what is happening in the Muslim societies like the ones in Pakistan, which are dominated by Ulama and Mullahs.

Not surprising that banning and burning of books and libraries, flogging and public punishment for moral lapses and death or imprisonment for holding un-islamic views have become characteristics of such societies. Madrasah mind-set not only impoverished Muslims culturally but also whichever society and culture came under their domination. The hostility towards everything alien to Ulamas and their world-view resulted in cultural subjugation of so many non-Islamic cultures and societies.

In India we have seen Madrasah mind-set in action in Aurangzeb when he reversed Akbar's policies of democratization and secularization of education that aimed at enabling every student to receive education according to his religion and his world view by widening the scope of the curriculum based on needs of the student and the practical necessities of life.


Cultural_impoverishment

Anything heretical or un-Islamic and alien had no chance to survive or get circulated in the society dominated by the Ulamas. Whatever was not expressly sanctioned by Islam had no value. Art, literature, music, painting, drama etc. were considered to be against Islam. The chanting of Quran has been --for centuries together -- the only music for Mullahs and Ulamas. For a Mullah who thinks of man as a puppet, God is the only actor and there is no place for drama and films. God is the only law-maker (and Ulama the only interpreter and executor of such a law) who can provide with Shariah to man, and man has no capacity to enact laws of his own because they will be imperfect. God is a great knower, man should surrender his reason before His book, Quran, which is the complete manual of Good Living. God is a great artist. Man should not mimic His creations through visual art. It is piracy!

The epistemological basis of this world-view is that man is a puppet in the hands of God, not a creative and active being -- and his reason is fallible, imperfect and limited. Man is incapable of shaping his own life, developing the code of his social conduct and managing his collective affairs without God's intervention. This view of man is not in tune with the scientific and secular traditions of the Indian civilization, and it has already resulted in the cultural impoverishment of the Indian people.

Fractured_Ummah

As Islam is the mainspring, atleast in theory, of all the activities of Muslims and as it embraces everything: morality, law, politics, economics and education it makes Muslims a political community, Ummah, worldwide. In the Muslim societies dominated by the Ulamas, who are a part of the power structure and ever actively engaged in power struggle, Islamic theology became a vehicle for power struggle rather than for understanding of the Quran and Hadith. The purpose of the Madrasah-education is to secure the allegiance of the students to a particular theological school sponsoring that Madrasah. Thus Madrasahs not only divide the humanity between the Muslims and the non-Muslims but also Madrasahs divide Muslims themselves on sectarian lines and fill their hearts with poison against each other. This often leads to the Shia-Sunni riots. Mullahs struggle for power has played havoc in Algeria, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At places where Islam was preached by Sufis (as in India and particularly in Kashmir), Madrasahs' education created a sharp cleavage between the orthodox Islam of the Ulamas and the folk-Islam of the people. This resulted in an everlasting tussle between the two. Thus Madrasahs have divided the Muslim community according to their world-view too, besides the other divisions: nation, state, class, divisions between Arabs and non-Arabs, ethnic and racial divisions. It has fractured Ummah, the brotherhood of Muslims further.

Pan_Islamism
Among all the three streams of thought, Madrasah mind-set is the most dominant mode of thought among the middle class Muslims in third world countries due to under-development and lack of human resource development.

Despite creating the sectarian divisions, the Madrasah curriculum and milieu is almost similar worldwide. Madrasahs have promoted cross-cultural communications at unprecedented scale during medieval times amongst the Muslims. And even now Madrasahs are playing the very important role in creating a Pan-Islamic mind set amongst Muslims. A single language, Arabic, had become the medium of scholarship and theology.

On the one hand, Madrasahs have divided the Muslim community on sectarian lines but on the other hand, these are helping in transforming the fractured Ummah into a transnational political community. The Madrasahs are torch-bearers of Pan Islamism, cutting across all barriers of ethnic, racial, lingual and political divisions among Muslims.

But as the Madrasah teaches a very narrow world outlook and seeks to overthrow all non-Islamic states world over, and Islamists have associated themselves with violence and terrorism through out the world including the Muslim countries, Madrasah mind-set has become a threat to international understanding and world peace.

Pan-Islamism seems to be internationalist but it is essentially driven by nationalist interests and fought within nationalist framework. The Islamist movement can be viewed as a local response to a global situation: capitalist decadence, globalisation and underdevelopment, couched in religous terms. Pan-Islamic ummah(Islamic brotherhood) is a facade. We have seen how Islamist guest fighters were hated in Afghanistan and they are being hated by Kashmiris too. How the guest fighters in Bagdad were betrayed by the local population there.
But there are elements in Islamists who see nationalist movements as vehicles to promote Pan-Islamic brotherhood. It can be also an attempt to form alternative power center at world level by working against American hegomony. Earlier Islamists were allies of America in their fight against communism. After the collapse of Soviet block and emergence of uni[plar world. Pan-Islamism (after Eurocentricism) is being viewed as an anti-American and anti-imperialism political force. Islamism is inherently anti-left and against Urban values as they both try to win over working class.

Hezbullah

As Islamists views a non-Islamic state as well as the Muslim states like Turkey, Egypt and Algeria ruled by liberal Muslims as ruled by the Satan, Ulamas and Mullahs consider themselves as a party of Allah in such a society, as if assigned the role of opposition to the Satanic secular rule. (Hence the name Hezbullah.) Therefore where the state is not an Islamic one, Mullahs and Ulamas consider active practical and criminal disobedience and overthrowing such a state as their religious duty. Thus Madrasahs pose several problems and are a potential threat to a pluralistic society and hence no place in the modern Muslim societies.

It is not that every Mullah and Ulama turns against the states. Some even favour non-Islamic states and seemingly work in their favour -- amongst the Muslims: by preaching status quo and territorial nationalism, and allying themselves with one or the other faction of the ruling class; to share the political power with them. It is not out of conviction but out of compulsion that they are doing so, because Ulamas cannot remain "out of power" without the usual perks and berths, even for a day. These status quoists are equally dangerous as the fundamentalist Mullahs. In Kashmir we have seen that Mullahs (including Jamaat-e-Islamia Mullahs began supporting the insurgents as soon as the latter gained the upper hand. It shows how Mullahs adapt to the changing circumstances to safeguard their interests. They were against late Maqbool Bhat and would oppose celebrating his death anniversary, now he is their hero.

India being a non-Islamic state it is very dangerous to let Madarasah-education flourish amongst the Muslims. It is very important to deprive the Mullahs of their role in any political process in India. Madrasah mind-set is a stumbling block in establishing a uniform civil code for the members of our society -- and the Muslims' social and psychological integration with the rest of the people is hampered.

Decadent_Values

The Islamists and Madrasah milieu nurses decadent values. At the present times when politics, economics, ethics, philosophy, education and culture have been liberated from the clutches of religion, the Maulavis want to reverse the process. They do not understand the truth that moral values cannot be preached. These must be cultivated and are determined by the nature of social relations. Moral values do not come from the heavens. These change with the change in the mode of existence of man's social life and the structure of social relations in a society.

Feudal and tribal values cannot operate in a capitalistic society. Hence they cannot be imposed upon the capitalistic man. In a world where the market economy is dominating every aspects of our lives, religion has lost its pre-eminence. Now market is deciding what is good and what is bad for us, what we should do and what we should not.

As a result Madarasah mind-set sees itself at war with all and everything -- from the Barbie doll to the Dish antenna, from the condom to the TV ad on a napkin. They have enemies within their own families: i.e. their own daughters, their own sisters and wives. They are a frustrated lot. Even All Mighty late Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan faced resistance against the adoption of Islamic dress code from as meek women as the newsreaders on the Pakistan television. Islamists need to understand that women's empowerment, autonomy and personal liberty of an individual, democratization and secularization of education, globalization of communication and domination of economics over all aspects of our lives cannot be reversed through coercive means.

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See also:
http://www.savekashmirmovement.org
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Re: Understanding Political Islam
Current rating: 3
08 Jun 2003
Modified: 02:05:00 PM
This article got off to a rocky start but for the most part I thought it was quite illuminating. This article offers candid snapshots of a society & a religion that is often misinterpreted by other cultures. Personally, I would not choose to live in an Islamic society or be totally obedient to a mullah's directives nor do I endorse their view of the world. I sincerely hope this comment section does not degenerate into an avalanche of derogatory criticism's of particular Islamic intolerances taken out of context.---ED