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Islamism: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Islamism
On the 17th of November 1922, the last Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed VI, departed the city of Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, marking the end of an empire that had stood since 1299. This event did not merely change a border on a map; it shattered the political consciousness of the Muslim world, creating a vacuum that would be filled by a new, modern ideology. The abolition of the Caliphate by the Turkish National Assembly in March 1924 was a shock to the Sunni clerical world, forcing thinkers to reimagine Islam not just as a private faith but as a comprehensive socio-political system capable of governing a modern nation-state. In the wake of this collapse, Syrian-born theologian Rashid Rida began publishing a series of articles in the seminal Al-Manar magazine titled The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate. Rida argued that the Muslim community, or umma, could only be revitalized through the restoration of a Caliphate guided by Islamic jurists, proposing gradualist measures of education and purification through the efforts of Salafiyya reform movements across the globe. This intellectual response to the death of the Ottoman Empire laid the groundwork for what would become known as Islamism, a movement that sought to purify Islam of foreign elements and reassert its role in social, political, and personal life.
The Brothers Who Built A State Within A State
In 1928, a schoolteacher named Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailiyah, Egypt, with the motto the Qur'an is our constitution. This organization became arguably the first, largest, and most influential modern Islamic political and religious group, offering a blueprint for how Islam could function as a state within a state. Al-Banna believed that a truly Islamic society would follow Sharia law, reject the blind imitation of earlier authorities, and eliminate all Western imperialist influence. The Brotherhood sought Islamic revival through preaching and by providing basic community services including schools, mosques, and workshops, effectively creating a parallel society that rivaled the competence of the Egyptian government. While some elements of the Brotherhood did engage in violence, assassinating Egypt's premier Mahmoud Fahmy El Nokrashy in 1948, the movement's core strategy was reformist, aiming to re-Islamize society through grassroots social and political activism. Al-Banna himself was assassinated in retaliation three months after the premier's death, but his legacy endured. The Brotherhood expanded to many other countries, particularly in the Arab world, and despite periodic repression, it remained the only opposition group in Egypt able to field candidates during elections. In the 2011 to 12 Egyptian parliamentary election, Islamist parties won 75% of the total seats, and Mohamed Morsi, the Brotherhood's candidate, became the first democratically elected president of Egypt before being deposed in 2013.
When did the Ottoman Empire end and what event marked its conclusion?
The Ottoman Empire ended on the 17th of November 1922 when the last Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI departed Constantinople. This departure marked the end of an empire that had existed since 1299 and shattered the political consciousness of the Muslim world.
Who founded the Muslim Brotherhood and when was it established?
Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 in Ismailiyah, Egypt. The organization adopted the motto the Qur'an is our constitution and became the first large modern Islamic political and religious group.
What ideology did Sayid Qutb formulate and how did it influence global jihadism?
Sayid Qutb formulated a radical ideology known as Qutbism during the 1950s and 1960s that urged a two-pronged attack of preaching and offensive jihad. His ideas were disseminated by later generations including Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Ayman Al-Zawahiri to normalize offensive jihad among followers.
What system of government did Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini implement during the Iranian Islamic Revolution?
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini implemented the Velayat-e Faqih system during the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978 to 1979. This system placed the leading Islamic jurist in absolute authority over all individuals and the Islamic government.
How did United States foreign policy contribute to the rise of militant Islam during the Cold War?
The United States spent billions of dollars to aid the mujahideen Muslim Afghanistan enemies of the Soviet Union from the 1950s through the 1970s. This strategy backfired as international volunteers like Osama bin Laden returned home with weapons and ideology to target the United States and other governments.
When did the term Islamism reappear in English usage after disappearing from scholarly vocabulary?
The term Islamism reappeared in English usage during the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978 to 1979. It had virtually disappeared from English usage by 1938 when Orientalist scholars completed The Encyclopaedia of Islam.
Sayyid Qutb, an influential figure of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 1950s and 1960s, formulated a radical ideology known as Qutbism that would eventually inspire global jihadism. Qutb argued that since Sharia was not in force, Islam did not really exist in the Muslim world, which was instead in a state of Jahiliyya, or pre-Islamic ignorance. To remedy this, he urged a two-pronged attack: preaching to convert and jihad to forcibly eliminate the structures of Jahiliyya. Qutb believed that truth and falsehood could not coexist on this earth, necessitating an offensive jihad to eliminate Jahiliyya not only from the Islamic homeland but from the face of the Earth. Although Qutb was executed before he could fully spell out his ideology, his ideas were disseminated and expanded on by later generations, including Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who became a mentor to Osama bin Laden. Zawahiri helped pass on stories of the purity of Qutb's character and the persecution he suffered, playing an extensive role in the normalization of offensive jihad among followers. This ideological shift transformed Islamism from a movement of social reform into a revolutionary force that viewed secular institutions as enemies of Islam, advocating for the establishment of a new Caliphate through violent means.
The Ayatollah Who Redefined Power
The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978 to 1979 brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's concept of Islamic government to the forefront of global politics, creating a unique form of Shi'i Islamism that differed significantly from Sunni movements. Khomeini's system, known as Velayat-e Faqih, placed the leading Islamic jurist in absolute authority over all individuals and the Islamic government, arguing that no legislature was needed since divine law provided instruction for every topic in human life. This plan was disclosed to his students and the religious community but not widely publicized until the revolution succeeded. The constitution of the Islamic Republic included a legislature and president, but supervising the entire government was a Supreme Leader or guardian jurist. Khomeini believed that foreigners, Jews, and their agents were conspiring to keep Muslims backward, and that the rule of an Islamic jurist was the only thing standing between abomination and justice. The Islamic Republic executed more than 3,400 political dissidents between June 1981 and March 1982 in the process of consolidating power, demonstrating a ruthlessness that distinguished it from the more reformist Sunni movements. This revolution changed militant Islam from a topic of limited impact to a subject that few, either inside or outside the Muslim world, were unaware of, establishing Iran as the de facto leader of the Shi'i world.
The Cold War That Fueled The Fire
During the Cold War, particularly from the 1950s through the 1970s, the United States and other Western Bloc countries occasionally attempted to take advantage of the rise of Islamic religiosity by directing it against secular leftist and communist insurgents, particularly against the Soviet Union. In 1957, U.S. President Eisenhower and senior foreign policy officials agreed on a policy of using the communists' lack of religion against them, stressing the holy war aspect that had currency in the Middle East. The U.S. spent billions of dollars to aid the mujahideen Muslim Afghanistan enemies of the Soviet Union, and non-Afghan veterans of the war, such as Osama bin Laden, returned home with their prestige, experience, ideology, and weapons, having considerable impact. This strategy backfired as these international volunteers, originally organized by Abdullah Azzam, sought to continue waging jihad elsewhere after Soviet forces left Afghanistan. Their new targets included the United States, perceived as the greatest enemy of the faith, and governments of majority-Muslim countries, perceived as apostates from Islam. The connection between the lack of an Islamic spirit and the lack of victory was underscored by the disastrous defeat of Arab nationalist-led armies fighting Israel under the slogan Land, Sea and Air in the 1967 Six-Day War, compared to the perceived near-victory of the Yom Kippur War six years later, when the military's slogan was God is Great.
The Money That Bought A Faith
Starting in the mid-1970s, the Islamic resurgence was funded by an abundance of money from Saudi Arabian oil exports, with tens of billions of dollars in petro-Islam largesse funding an estimated 90% of the expenses of the entire faith. This funding supported religious institutions for people both young and old, from children's madrassas to high-level scholarships, and more than 1500 mosques were built and paid for with money obtained from public Saudi funds over the last 50 years. The interpretation of Islam promoted by this funding was the strict, conservative Saudi-based Wahhabism or Salafism, which preached that Muslims should always oppose infidels in every way and hate them for their religion for Allah's sake. While this effort has by no means converted all, or even most Muslims to the Wahhabist interpretation of Islam, it has done much to overwhelm more moderate local interpretations and has set the Saudi-interpretation of Islam as the gold standard of religion in the minds of some or many Muslims. Qatar, though smaller, also sponsored Islamist groups, backing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt even after the 2013 overthrow of the regime, and supporting Islamist factions in Libya, Syria, and Yemen with tens of millions of dollars in aid and more than 20,000 tons of weapons. This financial power allowed these movements to provide social services that governments could not, creating a deep bond of loyalty and dependence that sustained the growth of Islamism across the Muslim world.
The Youth Who Rejected The Past
The demographic transition caused by the gap in time between the lowering of death rates from medical advances and the lowering of fertility rates led to population growth beyond the ability of housing, employment, and public transit to provide, creating urban agglomerations in cities like Cairo, Istanbul, Tehran, Karachi, Dhaka, and Jakarta, each with well over 12 million citizens. Millions of these citizens were young and unemployed or underemployed, alienated from the westernized ways of the urban elite but uprooted from the comforts and more passive traditions of the villages they came from. This demographic, described by one American anthropologist in Iran in the early 1970s as using religion as a substitute for their lost communities, was favorably disposed to an Islamic system promising a better world. Gilles Kepel notes that Islamist uprisings in Iran and Algeria, though a decade apart, coincided with the large numbers of youth who were the first generation taught en masse to read and write and had been separated from their own rural, illiterate progenitors by a cultural gulf that radical Islamist ideology could exploit. Their rural, illiterate parents were too settled in tradition to be interested in Islamism, but their children were more likely to call into the question the utopian dreams of the 1970s generation, embracing revolutionary political Islam as a way to make sense of their alienation and economic stagnation.
The Word That Changed Meaning
Originally the term Islamism was simply used to mean the religion of Islam, not an ideology or movement, first appearing in the English language as Islamismus in 1696 and as Islamism in 1712. By the turn of the twentieth century, the shorter and purely Arabic term Islam had begun to displace it, and by 1938, when Orientalist scholars completed The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Islamism seems to have virtually disappeared from English usage. The term remained practically absent from the vocabulary of scholars, writers, or journalists until the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978 to 1979, which brought Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of Islamic government to Iran. This new usage appeared without taking into consideration how the term Islamist was already being used in traditional Arabic scholarship in a theological sense as in relating to the religion of Islam, not a political ideology. In heresiographical, theological, and historical works, such as al-Ash'ari's well-known encyclopaedia Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, an Islamist refers to any person who attributes himself to Islam without affirming nor negating that attribution. To evade the problem resulting from the confusion between the Western and Arabic usage of the term, Arab journalists invented the term Islamawi instead of Islami in reference to the political movement, though this term is sometimes criticized as grammatically incorrect. Today, the term has been applied to non-state reform movements, political parties, militias, and revolutionary groups, often carrying connotations of violence, extremism, and violations of human rights by the Western mass media, leading to Islamophobia and stereotyping.