Chapter 11: Islamism or Religious Fundamentalism §

(F) Day of the week: Monday Class: IS301 Created Time: February 1, 2021 2:15 PM Database: Class Notes Database Date: February 1, 2021 2:15 PM Days Till Date: Passed Last Edited Time: September 20, 2021 7:44 AM Type: Presentation Notes

Chapter 11 Islamism - Discussion Questions

• Key Terms
  • Secularization Thesis: The theory that modernization is invariably accompanied by the victory of reason over religion and the displacement of religious values by secular ones.
    • Secularism: The belief that religion should not intrude into secular (worldly) affairs, usually reflected in the desire to separate church from state.
  • Monotheistic and non-theistic religions
  • Anomie: in societies or individuals, a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals.
  • Neo-imperialism: A form of imperialism that operates through economic and ideological domination rather than formal political control.
  • Moral Relativism: The belief that there are no absolute values, or a condition in which there is a deep and widespread disagreement over moral issues.
  • Wahhabism: An ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam, sometimes portrayed as an orientation within Salafism as an Islamic “reform movement” to restore “pure monotheistic worship” by devotees
  • Fundamentalism: is a style of thought in which certain principles are recognized as essential ‘truths’ that have unchallengeable and overriding authority, regardless of their content.
  • Scriptural Literalism: A belief in the literal truth of sacred texts, which, as the revealed word of God, have unquestionable authority.
  • Modernity: The condition of being ‘modern’, typically characterized by the questioning of established beliefs.
  • Orientalism: The theory that western cultural and political hegemony over the rest of the world, but over the Orient in particular, is maintained through elaborate stereotypical fictions that belittle non-western people and cultures.
  • Apostasy: The abandonment of one’s religious faith, sometimes applied to a cause, a set of principles or a political party.
  • Occidentalism: A rejection of the cultural and political inheritance of the West, particularly as shaped by the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
  • The ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis: suggests that the twenty-first-century global order will be characterized by growing tension and conflict, but that this conflict will be cultural in character, rather than ideological, political or economic.
  • Caliphate: A system of government by which, under the original custom of Islam, the faithful were ruled by a khalifa (caliph) who stood in the Prophet’s stead.
  • Imam: The prayer leader in a mosque or the leader of the Muslim community.
  • The Sharia is divine Islamic law based on the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as revealed in the Koran. It details legal and righteous behaviour, including a system of punishment for most crimes, as well as rules of personal conduct for both women and men.

Overview §

• Islamism believes in constructions of the ‘Islamic state’, divine truths of the Islam law, Sharia must be used as a guideline.
• Islamism is characterized by
  • The revolt against the West
  • What it stands for with Islamic beliefs
  • Association with militancy and violence
    • The notion of Jihad (holy war): all Muslims are obliged to support global Jihadism
• Islamism Has many variations between moderate and conservative

Origin of Islamism §

• Religion is getting more connected with Politics
  • Backlash by The Secularization Thesis: encouraging separation of religion and politics
  • Ex: Iran Islamic Revolution (1979)
  • 1980s → Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism all started connecting religion and politics as well
• Why is Religion and Politics more connected?:
  • Identity Politics: modern society is more disconnected, diffused, individualized needing religion to unify them with the same values, world view, morals as a divine source of knowledge
• This link between Religion and Politics in Islam creates Islamism|Political Islam: a political creed or a commitment to the establishment of an Islamic state based on the sharia

Islam Thinking Timeline §

• 1800s: Surge In response to colonialism bad social and political condition (Ex: Deobandi sect in Sunni Hanafi Islam & Taliban )
  • Rapid urbanization
  • Dislocation of traditional communities and crafts
  • Growing unemployment
  • Anomie: societal alienation and separation
• 1900s: The Muslim Brotherhood a model of political, and sometimes militant, activism combined with Islamic charitable works that has subsequently been embraced across the Muslim world.
• Post World War 2: made Islamism a power political force because
  • End of colonialism replaced with Neo-imperialism (US) in the Middle-East
  • Arab-Israeli conflict disperse refugees creating opportunity for religiously-based politics
  • 1973 oil crisis made middle-east oil states influential spreading fundamentalist Islam
  • Afghan-Soviet War created Mujahideen, Al-Qaeda, and War on terror
  • US invasion of Iraq created conflicts between Muslims → creation of ISIS

Core Themes: religion as ideology §

• Enlightenment → secularism: religion separated/replacing ideology
  • Ideology gives salvation of economic and social well-being while religion gives salvation of after-life or reincarnation
  • Both gives people a sense of purpose for existing
  • Ideology also use ceremonies to strengthen their sense of commitment and beliefs.
• Islamism is the transformation of religion into ideology with these themes:
  • fundamentalism and modernity
  • Islamism and Islam
  • revolt against the West
  • the Islamic state
  • jihadism

1. Fundamentalism and modernity §

Islamism takes on ’religious fundamentalism’ meaning common fundamental knowledges are from interpretations of sacred texts from Islam.

💡 fundamentalism refers to a commitment to certain ideas and values from religions that are seen as

• ‘basic & foundational’
• unchallenged & overriding authorities in all thinking
• enduring and unchanging character
• linked to belief system’s supposedly original or classical forms

Usually linked with religious texts (Bible, Sharia, Quran) or even political creeds

“Religion is the only source of truth”

• Islamism is a way of life covering not just faith but society, politics, and relations

Islamism adopting modernist ideas §

• Islamism relies on both activist and dynamic (modern) interpretations of sacred text as well as faith in inherited structures and traditions.
  • doesn’t believe in mysticism or dwell on past glories
  • willing to accept western ideas (internet, tech devices, Islamic science and economics of Economic Liberalism)

Example of a modernist Islamic state is Iran

2. Relations between Islamism $\leftrightarrows$ Islam §

• Islam is faith, it does imply political values but doesn’t endorse a particular form of government
• Islamism is an ideology with political agenda of focus on state order

💡 A Critique of Islamism

• Islamism is an inauthentic distortion of true Islam
• It’s linked with totalitarian, antisemitism, incompatible with democracy, prone to violence

2 Groups thinks Islamism and Islam is linked

• Islamist says Islam and Islamism is linked Islamism’s concern is to revive the true religion of Islam
• Proponents of the ’clash of civilizations’ thinks Islamism has its roots in Islam which already prescribed ways of life, society, and structure already totalitarian making both anti-pluralism in accepting non-Islamic ideas

It’s hard to distinguish between moderate and extreme Islamism because one is just worse than the bad

Revolt Against the West §

Islamism developed not through isolation from the West but through encounters with the West

Islamism is similar to communism and fascism in that it opposed the failing Liberal thinking after WW1 in making a new society devoid of corruption and immorality thats never changing.

Islam being confronted with two possible relations with the rest of the world: ‘peace with a contractual agreement, or war’

• Which is taken to adoption by ISIS and Al-Qaeda
• US and the West has fostered a neo-imperialism agenda to be the hegemon
  • control the oil by supporting Israel
  • invading Afghanistan and Iraq for military intervension for power and control
  • Foster a ‘Islamophobia’ among the world that all muslims are exteremists