“This is part of the character of Great Britain. Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.” So says novelist Wole Soyinka, in order to justify his assertion that Britain is a “cesspit of Islamists.” Innate arrogance? Postcolonial piffle!
Latest Updates: islamism RSS
-
plimfix
-
johnpi
A new study has been released with some projections about the future of Pakistan. I’m still reading it, but here’s the Reuters Pakistan blog’s highlights on it:
Pakistan is likely to drift further away from the west in the years ahead as pressure from Islamist groups and anti-Americanism undermine the traditional moorings of the secular pro-western elite, according to a report just released by the Legatum Institute.
The report rules out the possibility of a Taliban takeover or of Pakistan becoming a failed state, predicting it is most likely to ”muddle through” with the army continuing to play a powerful role behind the scenes in setting foreign and security policy. “Rather than an Islamist takeover, you should look at a subtle power shift from a secular pro-Western society to an Islamist anti-American one,” said Jonathan Paris, the author of the report.
I disagree with that conclusion, but then again I only read Pakistani-English language media and Pakistani bloggers, and presumably the author of the report has access to a great deal more information than I do. He continues:
Pakistan has been down the Islamist road before, particularly during the Zia years. And public opinion turned against the hardline Islamist practices of the Taliban when they occupied the Swat valley last year. But while people may be willing to argue against the Taliban, it is less clear that society as a whole will resist the creeping Islamisation wrought by Islamist political parties and militant organisations, particularly in Punjab province, unless the state can deliver economic growth along with a reliable and speedy legal system.
I thought the strong independent judiciary was a point of pride for many Pakistanis.
-
johnpi
Somali Islamists: A potential ally?
There are three key points that the international community must now understand about Somalia’s Islamist groups.
The first is that they are not homogenous.
The second is that Islamic values play a central role in how this Muslim society is run.
And the third is that the overwhelming majority of Somalia’s Islamist movements have a Somali agenda – they want a peaceful and prosperous homeland.
Thus in order to build a functioning state, they should be considered an ally.
-
johnpi
Two stories about Hezbollah.
Hezbollah publishes new manifesto that tones down Islamist doctrine and goals, drops demand for an Islamic republic in Lebanon.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who read the new “political document” at a news conference, said it was time the group introduced pragmatic changes without dropping its commitment to an Islamist ideology tied to the clerical establishment in Iran.
“People evolve. The whole world changed over the past 24 years. Lebanon changed. The world order changed,” he said via a video link.
Hezbollah promotes mutaa marriage, even for virgins and women who have never married.
Hezbollah’s recent encouragement of this phenomenon highlights the compromises it had been required to make in order to remain the preeminent force among its domestic Shiite constituency. As the party gained strength due to its effectiveness in fighting Israel, it was forced to cope with the reality that many Lebanese Shiites did not share the Iranian-inspired religious beliefs of Hezbollah’s leaders. They came to dominate a community that was shaped by the secular leftist trends of the 1970s and 1980s, and the cosmopolitan culture embodied by Beirut.
-
johnpi
Inayat Bunglawala says the Nidal Hasan attack and Hasan’s relationship with Anwar al-Awlaki are being used to press a new ‘witch-hunt’ against UK Islamic organizations and Muslim leaders.
…it should be made clear that those same Muslim organizations that had in the past invited Al-Awlaki to the UK are horrified by his more recent extremism and are well aware of the damaging impact his views could now have on British Muslims. Following Al-Awlaki’s praise for the Fort Hood suspect, some of these UK Muslim organizations (including the Islamic Society of Britain and the Jam`iat Ihyaa’ Minhaaj Al-Sunnah) issued public statements disavowing his latest comments.
However, this was not enough for the new McCarthyists. A group of them — including the Centre for Social Cohesion (whose director, Douglas Murray, advocated in 2006 that “conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”), Shiraz Maher from Policy Exchange, and the pro-Israel blog Harry’s Place — have not been slow in seeking to smear those Islamic organizations that had invited Al-Awlaki to the UK in the past.
These new McCarthyists must be firmly resisted.
Former Hizb ut-Tahrir member-turned-anti-’Islamism’ activist Shiraz Maher responds here.
-
johnpi
In case you haven’t read it before, Maajid Nawaz, the director and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation is telling his story in a Malaysian newspaper about being radicalized into Hizb ut-Tahrir, and then leaving the group. I guess it’s part of his job description to tell this story because I keep seeing it again and again. He also has some commentary on Islamism and Islamists.
Islamism is a modern ideology masquerading as an ancient religion. As such, it shares a common trait with many other constructed ideologies. This trait is its fundamental, theoretical justification for change regardless of circumstances. Ideologies do not merely provide “solutions” to perceived problems; they provide a framework within which to define problems in the first place.
By doing this, they effectively “discover” problems where there may be none, and can act as an obstacle to solving other problems when the solution doesn’t fit certain dogma. Islamism is formed by superimposing certain western political paradigms onto the religion of Islam. The absence of such modern Islamist notions in Muslim political systems and society is subsequently equated to the absence of Islam itself. Whatever institutions are found in place are subsequently described as Kufr (disbelief), which must be overthrown as a religious obligation.
A bit of back history: At Talk Islam, the Quilliam Foundation has been blasted with disdain and criticism by my fellow frontpagers Thabet and Plimfix. Maajid Nawaz’s cofounder, Ed Hussain, has been especially criticized. Quilliam has been accused of being “neoconservative,” ‘money grubbing,’ “idiot” and “stupid” (about Ed Hussain), and lambasted for being written about favorably by otherwise Islamophobic pundits like ‘Mad Mel’ (who turned around and villified the Quilliam Foundation when it criticized the Gaza massacre).
-
johnpi
-
aziz
via POMED, Abu Aardvark on moderate Islamists and democracy.
-
johnpi
Kadyrov, 33, was once a separatist but switched sides, recasting himself as an Islamic leader who is also loyal to Moscow.
At first, his injection of national pride along with lots of money from the central government in Moscow soothed war-weary Chechens.
And at first, the process of Islamization was voluntary. Any female student who wore a headscarf initially earned a prize of $1,000. Now all females, regardless of their religious convictions, must cover their heads in schools and government offices.
Kadyrov has banned the sale of European-style wedding dresses in the republic’s bridal salons. Polygamy is increasing. Members of the team around Kadyrov openly have several wives. Kadyrov has also supported honor killings.
Lipkhan Bazaeva, who runs a nongovernmental organization promoting women’s rights, says Chechnya is going back to the Middle Ages.
“Yes, we are a traditional, conservative society, with our own values, but the government has gone overboard, declaring unacceptable limits on women — that they should sit at home, they should obey their husbands,” she says. “As an individual, she has no rights even if her husband beats her, despite Russian laws to the contrary.”
-
johnpi
Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam Muslim women’s advocacy group is in that country’s highest court today challenging a ban against a book they published titled: “Muslim Women and the Challenge of Islamic Extremism.”
“It is submitted that the order is clearly not designed to preserve public order but rather to prevent legitimate criticism of the way in which Islamic laws and the system of administration of Islamic personal laws are conducted in Malaysia and internationally,” he [SIS lawyer] said.
The book is available for digital download from Amazon, and here is the write-up:
The ascendancy of political Islam since the 1960s and 1970s throughout the Muslim world has spawned a variety of ‘Islamist movements and activisms’. They range from those that engage in political violence (often referred to as ‘militant Islam’ or ‘jihadic Islam’) to those with peaceful but politicized missionary, proselytizing and social reform projects (also known as ‘dakwah or da’awa’ Islamic movements) and also to those seeking complete social change or revolution through the establishment of an ‘Islamic state’.
The first part of this article identifies the issues and major challenges confronting Muslim women in Southeast Asia in the face of increasing religious extremism within the region’s Islamist movements.
The second part of the article describes what strategies women’s groups in Southeast Asia have employed to engage with these movements and surmount the challenges they posed to women’s rights and women’s access to justice under the law, particularly Muslim family laws and the state’s administrative policies and procedures relating to religion. It argues that in order for Muslim women to advocate reforms and change of laws that are detrimental to them, there is a need for Muslim women’s groups to form broad coalitions and alliances and to work with progressive and democratic Muslim intellectuals and scholars. In order to reclaim their rights and justice in Islam and under its laws, Muslim women must also be actively engaged with the project of interpretation of texts and laws.
-
johnpi
-
johnpi
Islam’s growing role in Malaysian politics.
For two decades, the ruling Umno-led government invested enormous public resources in building up a network of Islamic institutions. The government’s initial intention was to deflect radical demands for an extreme version of Islamic governance. Over time, however, the effort to outdo its critics led Umno to over-Islamicise the state.
Umno’s programme has put syariah law, the Syariah Court and an extensive Islamic bureaucracy in place, an effort that has taken on a life of its own. The number of Islamic laws instituted has quadrupled in little more than 10 years. After Iran or Saudi Arabia, Malaysia’s Syariah Court system is probably the most extensive in the Muslim world. The accompanying bureaucracy is not only big but also has more bite than the national Parliament.
Islamic laws in Malaysia are based on religious doctrine, but codified and passed as statutes by state legislatures. Not much debate attends their enactment, for the fear of being accused of heresy keeps most critics from questioning anything deemed Islamic.
-
thabet
Charles Tripp says the politics needs to be put back into analysis of ‘Islamist politics’ in his review of Gilles Kepel’s Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East and Ali A. Allawi’s The Crisis of Islamic Civilization.
-
buzz
Interesting piece in the American Muslim
Problems with Hitchens and Islam
Herman Roborgh, S.J.
Modern atheists in the West and modernist Muslims in Islam are both abusing religion. Since the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, some Western writers on religion and also some Muslim thinkers are interpreting their scriptures with a literalism that has become a characteristic of modernity. Their discourse about God has been influenced by the popular demand for scientific empirical verification, and they have lost confidence in the ability of figurative language to open a way to truth.
Modern atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens make use of Enlightenment discourse to reduce God to a scientific hypothesis. Like other modernist writers, they presume that the Bible must provide scientific information since it claims to be inspired by God. Having failed to understand the nature of scripture and religion, they reject them both as products of the ‘God Delusion’.Both modern atheists in the West and Muslim modernists in Islamic countries adopt an abstract notion of religion that remains unaffected by the historical and social changes taking place in society. Hitchens’ oft-repeated phase, ‘religion poisons everything’, refers to an abstract religion devoid of morality and spirituality and with no concern for human rights.
In the Muslim world, Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) advocated a return to the pristine form of Islam that acknowledged God as the only Sovereign in all spheres of life. Abu A’la Mawdudi (1903–1979) developed a form of Islam in Pakistan that reduced the law of God to a code of commands and prohibitions that all pious believers were expected to accept and obey. An influential teacher in Indonesia today, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, maintains that Muslims will be able to revive the quality of their life only by going back to models provided by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions in the seventh century.
Modern atheists and modernist Muslims reach their extreme conclusions by bypassing the intellectual tradition of the Abrahamic religions. Traditional religious discourse has always been familiar with realities that take us beyond empirical observation and measurement, respecting the language of myth and symbol.
-
johnpi
The progressive Islamist position on homosexuality:
“As an Islamist I cannot condone homosexuality, and I cannot render halal that which is seen as haram in Islam, anymore than I can declare alcohol to be halal. But this I can say: when confronted by things like this, we have two choices: the hard choice or the soft choice. We can take the hard line and say that homosexuals are wrong and they ought to be punished. Or we can take the soft line and say that they are a gendered minority, and while they are practicing something we do not approve, we should defend them when they come under attack and we should counsel them. As an Islamist, I choose the latter, because for me Islam is still the religion of love, not hate.”
Noor comments:
For Islamism to even remain relevant today, Islamists (like the ones I mentioned above) will have to understand that we live in modern democratic societies where laws and governance are measured in the public eye in terms of concrete long term results. All the hate-campaigns and pogroms of groups like Fron Pembela Islam in Indonesia have done nothing for Muslims there, but only worsened the prejudice against Islamists in toto. Rather than hot air and fiery rhetoric, Islamists need to demonstrate that they can govern justly in plural societies and learn to live with difference and diversity. Demonising gays, non-Muslims, women and other minorities is no longer a gimmick that works, and in fact is now counter-productive.
To this it should be added that the ’soft’ Islamist approach to dealing with real social issues should not be seen as the ‘weak’ approach neither. Just because an Islamist renounces violence and violent hateful rhetoric, doesnt make him/her a lame Islamist with no teeth. In fact, the reality is precisely the opposite: It is only when Islamists stop wasting our time with silly bans on concerts and movies, and stop scaring us with threats of demonstrations and pogroms, that they will be taken seriously. If Islamists really want power, then they ought to demonstrate an adult and rational ability to deal with power and its mechanics. Anything else is just empty sloganeering and posturing, and ought to be left on the soap-box with the other peddlers of nonsense and hype.
-
johnpi
‘There’s nothing Islamic about a state.’
In his new book, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia, the Sudanese-born academic Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im points out: “You will not find any reference to an Islamic state or to state enforcement of sharia before the mid-20th century – it’s a post-colonial discourse based on a European-style state.”
Many Muslims fall back on a romanticised view of the very first community of believers in 7th-century Medina, ruled by the Prophet himself, and cite it admiringly as their precedent for an Islamic state, but this approach is flawed. First, any historical precedent that revolves around the presence of a divinely guided prophet-as-political-leader seems wholly irrelevant, in an era in which we have no divinely guided prophet to lead us.
Second, the Medina “state” should be seen as a purely political and pragmatic, rather than Islamic or religious, construct. The celebrated pact that the Prophet signed with the various tribes of Medina involved the non-Muslims of the city – chief among them the Jews, who were granted formal equality with the Muslims – recognising only his political and temporal, rather than his religious or spiritual, authority. As the historian Bernard Lewis puts it: “Muhammad became a statesman in order to accomplish his mission as a prophet, not vice versa.”
Third, Medina lacked fixed borders, a standing army, a police force, permanent civil servants, government ministries, foreign ambassadors and a public treasury. To pretend that it can serve as a practical model for the large, complex, post-industrial societies of the 21st century is fanciful.
-
johnpi
Malaysia’s Islamists embrace women at work.
Initially shy of encouraging mothers to work, the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) which is Malaysia’s fastest-growing political party, now actively encourages it.
“Islam liberates women and with supporting this culture of strong businesswomen, we are legitimising them,” said Husam Musa, a PAS official who is part of the state executive council running Kelantan.
“Most of the receipients of state’s business development funds are women,” Husam said, although he did not specify the size of the fund.
PAS spiritual leader and Kelantan chief minister Nik Aziz Nik Mat had said earlier that mothers should stay at home as long periods of separation could affect the children.
….Analysts say the move to support Kelantanese women might be a way to soften the image of a party that has said women wearing lipstick and sexy clothes would attract rapists and that hiring beautiful women would be a distraction to men in the workplace.
“PAS is trying to show it can encourage women and business. Perhaps it is shaping itself up for the next general elections in 2013,” said Osman Bakar, deputy chief executive of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies Malaysia.
-
johnpi
Like many transsexuals in Malaysia, a conservative and mostly Muslim country, the clash between ID card and appearance means Tasha is shunned by employers, and forced to make her living as a sex worker.
“It’s a hard life, people don’t like us, they’re always making fun of us,” she says as she prepares for another night in the grimy alleyways of Chow Kit, the red light district of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Tasha endures drunken clients, violent pimps, and aggressive competition from other transsexual prostitutes, but what really frightens her are the raids mounted by police and religious authorities.
….It was not always this way for transsexuals in Malaysia, where they are known as “mak nyah”.
“Until the early 1980s transsexuals were usually accepted in Malaysia, they could go for a sex change and amend their identity card,” says Teh Yik Koon from the National Defence University who has written a book on mak nyahs.
“At that time quite a few had sex changes, some became happily married and even adopted children.”
But in 1983 a “fatwa”, or Islamic ruling, that prohibited gender-reassignment surgery as well as cross-dressing was imposed on all Malaysian Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the multicultural population.
-
thabet
If Sayyid Qutb was the ‘father of Islamism’, then perhaps Syed Abul A’ala Maududi is its long forgotten (desi) uncle.
I may get panned for saying this, but the widespread links of British Muslim organisations to Maududi and his organisation shows that, until fairly recently, ‘Islamism’ of one kind or another was pretty much the only politics available to Muslims (cf. communism and the left). Personally, I expect these links to die off due to a combination of public scrutiny, lack of interest, and simply old age.
It’s only now that we’re in a ‘post-Islamism’ phase, and Islamism as an ideology is but one of the political languages out there. (How this phase comes to be characterised — liberalism, traditionalism, perhaps something new altogether, etc — is up for grabs I think.)
-
thabet
A report says Tariq Ramadan is to be fired from his role as an adviser to the Rotterdam municipal government, due to his television show on the Iranian-funded Press TV.
The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad which ran a very critical opinion piece of Ramadan by Afshin Ellian, has been good enough to give Ramadan a chance to respond.
-
johnpi
Jund Ansar Allah, the group that announced an “al-Qaida-style” Islamic emirate in the southern Gaza Strip and that claims to be the keeper of the flame of true Islamic virtue there, has changed its focus to revenge.
A radical Muslim group “Warriors of God” on Monday said it works to appoint a new leader after its late Imam was killed in clashes with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“We are now waiting our new Emir,” the group said in a statement
Moreover, the group vowed to target the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers in retaliation for the killing of their leader and some followers in recent clashes.
….“We will revenge your blood and will widow your (Hamas) women in the same way you widowed our holy fighters’ women,” the statement said.
The Muslim group, that sometimes calls itself “Army of God followers,” rejected Hamas’ accusations that it was behind a series of attacks that targeted internet cafes and wedding parties over the past months.
-
johnpi
Hamas forces blew up the home of Sheikh Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi, leader of the radical group Jund Ansar Allah, or Soldiers of the Partisans of God, Hamas sources said.
The death toll has risen to 21, injured to 121.
Jund Ansar Allah is part of the radical Islamist movement that follows the doctrines of the “Salaf,” or the predecessors — referring to the early generations of Muslims. They reject all modern influences such as politics and government.
The group accused Hamas of not being Islamic enough, saying they care more about pleasing “tyrants” than “obeying God.”
-
johnpi
‘Islamic Emirate’ declared in Gaza, battle with Hamas kills 13, injures 100.
Speaking before weekly prayers, Abdul Latif Moussa — known to followers by the al-Qaeda-style nom de guerre Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi — announced the start of theocratic rule in the Palestinian territories, starting at Rafah.
“We declare the birth of the Islamic Emirate,” declared Maqdessi, a heavily-bearded, middle-aged cleric in a red robe who was guarded by four black-clad, masked men with assault rifles. One wore what appeared to be an explosive suicide belt.
An audience of several hundred men filled the mosque with cheers and shouts. Al-Qaeda uses the historical term “emirate” to mean clerical rule across the Islamic world.
Ismail Haniyeh, who heads Gaza’s Hamas government, denied in his Friday sermon that there were any non-Palestinian gunmen in the territory, as alleged by Israel which charges that veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken up residence.
-
thabet
Maybe someone should tell Brenden Brogan that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades is not ‘Islamist’ and are one of the armed factions maintained by Fatah. Then again, since Fatah is (loosely) on the political left, this is probably more evidence of The Left-Islamist Conspiracy Against Western Civilisation to right-wingers like Brogan.
-
johnpi
Yesterday I linked to a story about Hamas forcing women lawyers to wear headscarves despite the group’s vow to never force its beliefs on others. This story shows Hamas coercion is expanding into other areas:
In government schools, head scarves for female students are supposed to be optional. But one high school has made robes and head scarves a condition for enrollment. Teachers are now being asked to pressure the girls to put them on, said Education Ministry spokesman Khaled Radi.
Police are enforcing the restrictions on mannequins and salesmen say they ripped off the tags on packages of panties and bras which showed women in underwear.
Other shopkeepers said they were told to remove the mannequins’ heads so they don’t violate the Islamic ban on copying the human form.
Enforcement is spotty and seems restricted to working-class markets. Most traders said they moved the mannequins back after police left.
Lingerie seller Mohammed Helu, 23, hid his under-clad mannequins but was allowed to display an outfit of a plunging top and miniskirt with the mannequin’s head covered by a plastic bag.
On a Gaza beach, Mohammed Amta, 18, said a plainclothes security man told him to put on a shirt, saying his appearance was un-Islamic, and to remove his two silver rings and woven bracelet because they were a sign of Western culture.
-
johnpi
How conservative Islamic political movements lose trust and support:
Gaza judge: Female lawyers must wear headscarf.
Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 and vowed never to impose its conservative values on others. But it has taken a series of steps in recent months that appear to be aimed at forcing residents to accept its Islamic-oriented social agenda….
Subyiya Juma, a female lawyer, said the judge’s decision would affect only 10 or so lawyers — since the vast majority of the 150 registered female lawyers already cover their hair.
Juma, who does not wear a headscarf, said the point wasn’t the number of women, but that freedoms were being eroded.
“This is dangerous — it’s a clear violation of the law, it is taking away our personal freedoms — and by whom? The very person who is meant to defend our freedoms,” Juma said.
-
thabet
I don’t understand what this discussion at The Spittoon blog, on Muslim views and beliefs regarding other religions, especially the People of the Book, has to do with ‘Islamist doublespeak‘.
I don’t object to the author being highly critical of Muslim doctrines and beliefs (Muslims can, and do, respond in kind if they so wish), but I don’t see why or how every Muslim who happens to believe his (or hers!) is the True Religion, as opposed to some other set of beliefs, is an ‘Islamist’. Might as well dump the label if that is the case.
-
thabet
Yahya Birt is not happy with this attack on The City Circle.
-
aziz
A Seattle man has pleaded guilty in Minnesota to terrorism-related charges in connection with the disappearances of dozens of U.S. Somali youths, some of whom turned up fighting with suspected terrorists in Somalia and at least one of whom became a suicide bomber, according to court documents and interviews.
Court records show Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, 25, a 2002 Roosevelt High School graduate and a former economics student at Eastern Washington University, traveled to Somalia to train with Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based radical Islamist group that last year was designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.
-
aziz
Question – what countries are most hospitable to extremist groups like Al -Qaeda? My list would be Afghanistan, Somalia, and Sudan. Agree? disagree? less? more?
