A Sceptical Islamist

Balancing the external and internal elements of the Islamic movement's work

(Perspectives, Crescent International, July 2010.)

The key objectives of the Islamic movement are the reassertion of Islamic values in Muslim societies, and the establishment of Islamic states in place of the corrupt, self-serving regimes that currently predominate in the Muslim world. Achieving these broad objectives depends on two key elements of the movement’s work. The first is external, to defeat the enemies of Islam whose aim is to prevent this from happening and to ensure that the Muslim world remains divided, weak and easily exploited. The second is internal, to understand what is involved in the reassertion of Islamic values and the establishment of Islamic states, and to make progress towards these objectives. The inability of many Muslims to understand that both these elements are equally important, and to balance them, accounts for many of the issues that the movement currently faces.

The Islamic movement needs institutional platforms for intellectual discourse

"The global Islamic movement is not organizationally or institutionally a single entity; instead it consists of countless scholars, intellectuals, activists, groups and movements, operating separately and independently, and following different strategies, methods and priorities according to their perceptions of the circumstances in their own parts of the world. Despite their theoretical understanding of the unity of the Ummah, most of these activists and movements have trouble relating their own struggles with those of other movements and of the fragmented Ummah as a whole...

"The movement is full of writers, commentators, analysts and scholars producing information, insights and ideas, and putting them out for public consideration as articles and papers; but most unfortunately are reaching only limited audiences, and few are effectively engaging in any meaningful exchange of ideas with others in similar positions. The main reason for this is that the platforms on which such writings are published tend to be of limited perspective and reach; and the few that aspire to be something more usually fail because of the limitations of their resources, quality and management. What the Islamic movement lacks is a larger institutional infrastructure for the circulation and exchange of ideas"

Book Review: The Islamic projects of Muhammad Asad and Alija Izetbegovic

"Discussing these early analytical works by Asad and Izetbegovic, Sherif points out that, without any influence from political Islamic movements in the Middle East, both men conclude from their reflections on Islam that it contains public and political elements as much as personal, spiritual ones, and that it is impossible to be a Muslim individually without striving also to build a community based on Islamic values...

"Fortunately for Sherif’s argument, and unlike so many Islamic activists whose lives have been cut short in one way or another, Asad and Izetbegovic both lived beyond their periods of activism to be able to look back and reflect on their lives and experiences in maturity. And in doing so, Sherif emphasises, both re-affirmed their commitment to the ideals they had expressed in their youths, despite the hardships and difficulties they had faced."

British Muslims and the problem of mainstream politics

"As in all general elections, British Muslims have been bombarded with advice as to whether and how they should vote. All the parties have appealed to the Muslim vote in constituencies where it has the potential to affect the result, while making sure they do not make promises to Muslims that can be used against them by their opponents... At the same time, there has been a variety of voices from within the Muslim community giving equally conflicting advice... Faced with this confusion, several British Muslim organizations have organized meetings to discuss how Muslims should engage with mainstream politics, and how they should use their votes to maximum effect.

"The problem is that the months and weeks before an election is the wrong time to be thinking about such issues, simply because there is no time to do anything about it. The immediacy of the situation forces Muslims into reactive and short-term responses, instead of more considered ones..."

Muslims intellectuals must take on the universal myths of democracy

"Sooner or later Muslim intellectuals, particularly those operating within Islamic movements, must take on the task of challenging the universal myth of democracy instead of pandering to it, and dare to define their ideas and the aspirations of the Ummah in purely Islamic terms. Until that happens Muslims will never achieve the conceptual clarity that will enable them to articulate their political ideas in terms that will offer a genuine and credible alternative to the seductive but oh-so-dangerous myths of democracy."

The importance of history for resisting the "imperialism of the mind"

"The decades of colonialism and postcolonial neo-imperialism have established another kind of hegemony over the Muslim world, which intellectuals such as Malek Bennabi and Ali Shari‘ati recognised long ago (and which was also discussed by non-Muslims such as Franz Fanon), but which is still un-noticed by most Muslims. This is a cultural and intellectual hegemony that takes different forms but has a single net effect: that of encouraging (if not forcing) people to think in terms defined by Western discourses, whatever subject they are thinking about...

"Winston Churchill, a proud imperialist himself, famously said that “the empires of the future are the empires of the mind”; that unfortunately is where we are today."

Paper on the thought of Ali Shariati (September 2007)

In a footnote to the paper on Imam Khomeini that I posted a few days ago, I referred to a paper on Ali Shariati that I had written in 2007. A couple of people have asked that I post that as well. So here it is.

Dr Ali Shariati, who died in London in June 1977, was among the most important figures of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which unfortunately he did not live to see; and yet, 30 years after his death, his contribution and legacy are largely forgotten. During the 1970s, his lectures and writings played a crucial role in preparing young Iranians, brought up during the secularising and “Westoxicated” policies of the Shah’s regime, for the possibility of Islamic rule. This paper analyses major elements of his thought, particularly his belief that Muslims need what Dr Kalim Siddiqui would later call “an intellectual revolution” in their understanding of Islam.

Iran’s real crime: refusing to venerate the West’s holy cows

"In the West, and in the westernised elites of the rest of the world, even those who criticise the policies of Western powers, and the working of international institutions, seldom question the myths on which they are based. Iran’s real crime is that it does precisely that. Its refusal to allow the Western powers to dictate its energy policy, through the spurious authority of the UN and the IAEA, is bad enough. The fact is it is doing so not only on grounds of its interests, but because it rejects the mythical moral foundations of that authority (the same foundations that supposedly legitimise the zionist state) makes it not just an outlaw, but a revolutionary threat..."

The unity of the Ummah: a state of mind above all else

"In recent times, there has been a sustained campaign to promote sectarianism in the Ummah in order to isolate Islamic Iran and minimise its influence over the rest of the Ummah... We should recognise, however, that these campaigns were successful only because they appealed to receptive minds...

"The unfortunately reality is that Muslims have long tended towards sectarianism; there have always been ‘ulama and political leaders, of all schools of thought, who have preferred to emphasise differences between Muslims instead of what we have in common. This has been the case even among Sunnis and Shi‘as who recognise each other as being Muslims of different schools of thought, rather than being outside the Ummah.

"Yet throughout Muslim history there have been voices in the ummah that have sought to minimise differences and focus on what Muslims have in common, rather than focusing on differences and areas of disagreement..."

Contemplating the possible end of Iran's Islamic experiment

"The unfortunate reality is that the ideals, vision and significance of the Islamic Revolution have not been understood even by many of its own officials and representatives, and have therefore not been effectively communicated either to the rest of the world, or to many of Iran’s own people.

"For 30 years Iran has stood virtually alone as a beacon of Islamic political power in a West-dominated world. Its example has inspired Islamic movements elsewhere, including many that would not recognise its leading role, totally transforming the political dynamics of the entire Muslim world. But there has never been a guarantee of its success; Islamic Iran it may yet fail, like numerous other attempts to re-assert the power of Islam in recent centuries."