Chapter IV
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE
An Islamist is one who seeks to increase 'Islamization' of a Muslim society by political means. The ways chosen to achieve such a goal may be by either constitutional or non-constitutional means.1
The Islamic resurgence is a broad based, complex, multi-faceted phenomenon which has embraced Muslim societies from Algeria to Indonesia. It is a manifold, multifarious occurrence that is religious, socio-economic and political in character. It has given rise to a variety of voices and expressions, and has been unrelenting in pursuing its major goal, which is to alter or supplant at least some portion of the existing culture and society either through legal peaceful means or revolutionary methods. The phenomenon of Islamic resurgence has been variously described as the 'fundamentalism,' 'renewal,' 'revival' or 'repoliticisation' of Islam, Islamic 'radicalism' and as 'militant Islam.' However, it is impossible for any single
framework to capture it or provide a meaningful comprehension.
The appellation, 'Islamic fundamentalism' is simplistic because if 'fundamentalism' refers to the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy, then all Muslims are fundamentalists as Quran deemed to be literally the Word of God.2 It is also erroneous because there are significant variations in both the aims and programs of the different Islamic political groups lumped together as 'fundamentalist.' The term 'religious fundamentalism' is in fact little more than a label of convenience used to describe and explain religious-based developments often of quite different qualitative forms. Fundamentalism, according to the dictionaries published in America and England, means a belief in the old teachings of the Christian Church as opposed to modern thought influenced by scientific knowledge.
Originally fundamentalism arose in the USA and Great Britain as a Protestant counter-movement to the Enlightenment and to modernization in the middle of th
e nineteenth century. Its supporters saw themselves as being overrun by social developments such as the consequences of the American Civil War, industrialization and modernization. As a result of the Enlightenment, the words of Bible were subordinated to the rules of reason; a critical interpretation of the Bible had developed. The fundamentalists set their own interpretation against this, according to which the Holy scriptures were infallibly true in their literal meaning. The 20th century Chambers Dictionary defines fundamentalism as "belief in the literal truth of the Bible, against evolution etc.," while according to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary "fundamentalism is the belief that the Bible is literally true and should form the basis of religious thought or practice."
James Veitch corroborates this view by saying: "It is not surprising that labels like 'fundamentalism' and fundamentalist' should be used for Muslim activism, particularly in the political circles wher
e Christianity has been domesticated and where Christian fundamentalism is respected in centre-right politics. However, such terms belong to the theological vocabulary of Protestant Christianity, and have a special meaning within this strand of religion; fundamentalism can be understood only in relation to particular times, places, events and figures.....Outside Protestant Christianity, but still within Western societies these terms are sometimes used loosely for those who appear to hold inflexible and conservative doctrinaire positions in politics, economics and education. But in such usage, there are always overtones of stubborness and an unwillingness born of stupidity, to face up to the challenge of modernity and the secular, technological, scientific world. When the word 'fundamentalism' is used in this context, it is clearly disparging. The use of 'fundamentalism' and fundamentalist' in respect of Islam, or of Muslims who get themselves on the centre of the world stage, has this pejorative meaning
. The word suggests that Muslims are backward and hold defiantly to an archaic religious world view."3
In western media, as well as scholarly writing, the words 'fundamentalism' and 'fundamentalist' are susceptible to a looseness which suggests pejorative overtones rather than an authentic description of Muslim religous behaviour. In this sense, what Andrea Lueg has to say is also very instructive: Instead of knowledge or at least an unbiased examination of Islamic societies, we have clichés and stereotypes, which apparently make it easier to deal with the phenomenon of Islam. The Western image of Islam is characterized by ideas of aggression and brutality, fanaticism, irrationality, medieval backwardness and antipathy towards women.4
Fundamentalism with reference to Christianity is understandable because Christianity and the Bible have undergone a lot of changes. As regards Islam, it is an article of Muslims' faith that the Quran will never change. The basic beliefs of Islam are the same a
s were told by Prophet Mohammed 14 centuries ago. No doubt there are many sects in Islam but differences revolve around details and not on the basic tenets of religion. In this way, Islam does not have the kind of fundamentalism which Christianity has. We have used the term Islamic fundamentalism as a label of convenience for Islamic resurgence or revival.
The politics in the Muslim world during the last two decades or so has been transformed by a general Islamic resurgence while practically all other political creeds have been in decline. By the 1980s, Islam was the chief vehicle of political opposition in North Africa and the Middle East, regardless of official state ideology, political system or leadership. Whether in communist Afghanistan, socialist Algeria, revolutionary Libya, secular Tunisia, pro-Western Egypt, divided Lebanon or puritanical Saudi Arabia, the generalization holds true. Elsewhere, in states as diverse as Turkey, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Trinidad, Islamic groups strained th
e relationship between governments and governed. In addition, Islam was the leitmotif of rebellions in Burma, Chad, Ethiopia, Thailand and the Philippines.5
Islam was the banner of numerous opposition movements throughout the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere where Muslims were substantive groups. The socio-political conditions that were necessary for the emergence of political Islam were by and large the same. They included the experience of one-party or dictatorial regimes which disallowed political opposition; the underpinning cultural effects of Islam; long-term, close ties with either the capitalist West or communist East; political and economic corruption of elites; attempts to develop religion as a tool of the state; and, finally, disenchantment with secular ideologies, including capitalism, socialism, communism and, on occasions, state-centric nationalism.6 Popular Islamism in the modern era always contains an element of challenge to ruling elites, who may be led by monarchs, secular lead
ers or military absolutists.7
The Islamic resurgence may be traced to several interrelated conditions. Islamic resurgence is a worldwide phenomenon. It has to be understood in its historic context. Perhaps the way to understand the Islamic resurgence as a modern phenomenon will be through an understanding of the modern milieu in existing Muslim societies -- their economies, politics and cultures. Jochen Hippler asserts convincingly that the modern political-religious movements are the outcome of the distorted process of secularisation to which Islamic societies were exposed, of the economic crisis that capped their encounters with international capitalism, and of the crisis of identity engendered by the cultural encounter with modernism.8 John Voll, on the other hand, provides a more general thesis on the origins of Islamic resurgence: "Islamic fundamentalism is .. a distinctive mode of response to major social and cultural change introduced either by exogenous or indigenous forces and perceived a
s threatening to dilute or dissolve the clear lines of Islamic identity, or to overwhelm that identity in a synthesis of many different elements."9
It may also be argued that the nature of the West itself as a capitalist system, has a direct bearing on the emergence of resurgence initially, at least, as the movement of the oppressed. To borrow from Samir Amin: It seems realistic to start from the old observation that capitalist development and imperialist conquests have created the situation [of Islamic resurgence] we are experiencing. Like it or not, the problems facing us are those engendered by this development.10 The continuos, steady and relentless taking over the lands of the peoples of one religion by the governments of another religion, starting from 1800, was an extraordinary historical phenomenon, which brought crushing political pressure to bear on Islam from Christian Europe. Islam's political counterpunch to the challenge of Western colonial domination has been wholly succ
essful and for Muslims wholly gratifying, for most of the battles in that struggle were fought under the banner of Islam.
Jansen, poses a question, Could there have been an Afro-Asian movement without Islam? and then provides a detailed description of the role of Islam in anti-colonialism: This may seem a surprising question because the assumption is that the nationalist movements that rolled up the imperial carpet in Afro-Asia in twenty swift years after 1947 were 'modern' and therefore secular. So they may have been in such leading Afro-Asian countries as Indonesia, India, Egypt and Ghana, but the secular nationalist inheritors came late to the political scene. The foundations as well as much of the new national superstructure were laid down and erected during the preceding 150 years by Muslim forces and Muslim leaders. Without politically militant Islam freedom would have taken decades longer, that is if militant Islam and the freedom struggle had not been one and the same thing e
arlier on in Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Somaliland, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and West-central Africa - in addition to the very large infusion of Islam in the national movement of Iran and some in that of Egypt.11
In his assessment of Islam's role in the struggle against colonialsim, Jansen also explains why, in many diverse Muslim countries, should Islam and the freedom movement have been so close together as to be in action one and the same thing? ... There was no nationalism, structured or unstructured; that came later and was the product not the cause of the national movements which for many decades were simply movements of revulsion against the Western presence. Not until the 1920s did the secular nationalist political parties appear, and then only in a few Afro-Asian countries the usual leadership groups, the princely rulers aristocrats or landlord class, usually sided with the foreign ruler. But the village sheikh, being that much closer to the people, partook of their nationalist feelings
and could not but become the local leader. After all the struggle was against Westerners who were Christians, and Christian missionaries were waging war against Islam. De Lesseps (the builder of the Suez Canal), speaking in an Algerian context, expressed this intertwining very concisely when he said: What nonsense has been written about the intractable fanaticism of the Algerian Arabs ... Fanaticism had not nearly so much to do with the resistance of the Arabs as patriotism. Religion was the only flag around which they could rally.12
Some political analysts maintain that poverty and illiteracy are the social bases of fundamentalism in the Muslim world. As Jochen Hippler has said: The sometimes catastrophic economic and social conditions -- partly determined by the West -- in which people there must live are another major reason for the enormous success of Islamist groups. Whoever wishes to weaken them would be well advised to think first about how to solve the real problems of the region.13 Acc
ording to Mary Jane of American University, "Islamic fundamentalism is very closely tied to the economic problems of the Islamic states face."14 Islamic activists looking for new recruits find fertile ground among unemployed university graduates in the metropolitan centers of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Pakistan and Bangladesh. They offer their converts a home and a dream. Their leaders are often middle-class professionals such as doctors, engineers and teachers who believe that Islam offers the only realistic option. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and leader of Hamas, grew up in the congested streets of Gaza City and worked for many years as a teacher of Arabic and Islamic studies at a local school. His second-in command, Mahmoud Zahar, is a doctor at the Islamic University of Gaza.15
However, if economic problems were the only cause of Islamic revival then Pakistan should be the first stronghold of fundamentalism since it is near the bottom of t
he list among Muslim countries in the socio-economic benchmarks, just above Sudan and Afghanistan. But Iran, where fundamentalism continues to thrive, has a per capita income of US $ 2,160 and a literacy rate of 48 per cent in 1977 -- that is, on the eve of the Iranian revolution -- compared to US $ 200 per capita income and a literacy rate of 24 per cent for Pakistan for the same year. Per capita income of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Indonesia range between 720 dollar (Egypt) to almost 1700 dollars (Jordan). Literacy rates in these countries are from 40 to 64 per cent. Only Sudan and Afghanistan come near Pakistan, with respective per capita incomes of US $370 and US $168 and literacy rates of 20 and 10 per cent. It is clear that fundamentalism does not attract the poor and uneducated alone. It also appeals to the educated youth, who are drawn towards it as an alternative political system in post-colonial societies ruled by corrupt and inefficient political elites. Most of
the Muslim countries suffered under colonial rule and the masses expected a better dispensation after liberation from the foreign yoke. But disillusionment grew as the people continued to suffer under unscrupulous and corrupt generals, bureaucrats and politicians.
In this respect what John L Esposito comments is very instructive: "In the nineties Islamic revivalism has ceased to be restricted to small, marginal organizations on the periphery of society and instead has become part of mainstream Muslim society, producing a new class of modern-educated but Islamically oriented elites who work alongside, and at times in coalition with, their secular counterparts."16
ISLAMIC RADICALISM: A HOME GROWN PROBLEM
Islamic radicalism is perhaps a home-grown problem -- an expression of revolt against repressive, and often corrupt, governments that are failing to attack
poverty. Its adherents speak out against the developed world's policies in their countries that contribute to the preservation of inequality.17 The negligence of masses provided more than enough fodder for fundamentalism, which led to a simultaneous condemnation of capitalism, nationalism and socialism. The puritanical lifestyle of many fundamentalist leaders, along with their stress on honesty and other worldliness, has sometimes led people to think that they would be able to end the corruption and dishonesty if they were in power.
In addition to the indigenous causes, analysts cite several factors -- in which Western policies have played a part -- that have helped to create a climate conducive to Islamic militancy. These include the psychological and political repercussions on the Islamic movement of the 1991 Gulf war, a perception by Islamic militants that the West has a double standard when it comes to enforcing UN resolutions, and the "message" sent to Islamic militants by Algeria
's military crackdown, with Western acceptance, on its radicals in 1992. "First Islamic fundamentalists have concluded that the West is ready to fight on behalf of rich Muslims against the poorer ones, and that the West is now more willing to engage in military operations in the Muslim world than it was during the Cold War," according to Ghassan Salame, Middle East expert at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. In addition, "Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War has also given Islamist groups strong arguments that nationalized, secular-oriented regimes are no match for the West," Salame says.18
TRANS-NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Besides the internal and external factors that prompt contemporary Islamic militant politics, there is the factor of trans-national consciousness among Muslims. It figures especially in relation to issues involving injustice ag
ainst Muslims. It is a powerful phenomenon which both defines and strengthens Islamic activism. Today's Islamic militancy draws its inspiration from no single reformist or revivalist ideologue. Its militancy comes from the lived experience of its followers. Its ideology is electric -- a mixed bag from Ibn-i-Tammiya, Syed Qutub, Maududi and Khomeni's writings. Within the anguished environment of the Muslim World, especially the Middle East, Muslim political activists opting mainly for Islamic revivalism, not moderate, reformist thinkers were able to capture the imagination of the Muslim masses.
The Islamic revival in all its forms is also viewed as a reaction of the Muslims against the advancing process of secularization in which religion is retreating from many areas of modern society and economy, giving way to science and industry and scientific methodology for understanding social, natural and historical phenomenon. The world social transformation which has been, since the sixteenth century, gr
adually changing the agrarian-feudal society into an industrial society. This profound socio-economic change is essentially embedded in the fast-developing capitalist world economy leading to the integration of Muslim society into the western-dominated global economy.19
