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Book review: The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought, by Andrew F. March
Get PDFNeo-traditionalist Sufis and Arab politics: a preliminary mapping of the transnational networks of counter-revolutionary scholars after the Arab revolutions
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Locating ḥākimiyya in global history: the concept of sovereignty in premodern Islam and its reception after Mawdūdī and Quṭb
Get PDFThe concept of ḥākimiyya (sovereignty), as understood by its leading proponents, refers to the notion that it is God, rather than humans, Who possesses the prerogative to make laws. A concomitant of this is that Muslims with political power and authority must recognise the supremacy of Islamic law. This notion, perhaps most notably articulated in modern times by Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, may be viewed as the rearticulation of ideas latent in the premodern Islamic juristic tradition, but whose modern incarnation as ḥākimiyya emerged in response to the legislative norms of the liberal colonial state. Despite its modern articulation, and against the views of several scholars, I argue that ḥākimiyya qua sovereignty finds its antecedents quite clearly in the Islamic scholarly tradition. Such an understanding leads into a discussion of how Islamic conceptions of sovereignty can help us reassess influential Western articulations of the concept. I also show that Mawdūdī's influential younger contemporary, the Islamist alim Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī Nadwī, upholds ḥākimiyya despite his critique of Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb's conceptions of it. I conclude with a brief reflection on how our understanding of ḥākimiyya as sovereignty can help us provincialise Europe in global historical studies
The Embedding of an Islamophobic Trope in the Media: Radical versus Moderate Muslims
Get PDFHow does the deployment of the label of “radical” to refer to Muslims and Islam operate within contemporary British and, more generally, Western culture as a way of governing, controlling, and policing Muslims? Taking this question as its starting point, this chapter explores the ways in which the very notion of radical Islam or Muslims is constructed in contemporary culture as a core facet of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and a key mechanism of othering Muslims as a threat or menace that needs to be brought to heel. Part of this chapter frames this discourse in light of the well-known “propaganda model” of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky first articulated in their 1988 classic, Manufacturing Consent. In the main, this chapter illustrates the ways in which the media and political classes work in concert to discursively construct the perception of a “Muslim problem.
Legitimizing Political Dissent: Islamist Salafi Discourses on Obedience and Rebellion after the Arab Revolutions
No full textModern Islamic Political Thought: Islamism in the Arab World from the Late 20th to Early 21st Centuries
No full textReligious movements like the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and the innumerable popular groups and organizations around the globe that share a similar socio-political ethic inspired by Islam reflect the social changes wrought by modernity upon Muslim societies. However, modernity’s impact is also felt at an intellectual level by Islamic scholars who enjoy considerable esteem if not always influence among such popular Islamist movements. This dissertation presents, evaluates, and critiques a selection of religio-political writings of noteworthy Islamist intellectuals from the past four decades. These include the writings of three veteran Islamists, Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī (b. 1926), Muḥammad ʿImāra (b. 1931), and Rāshid al-Ghannūshī (b. 1941), as well as two younger Islamist scholars, Muḥammad al-Ḥasan al-Dadaw (b. 1963) and Jāsir ʿAwda (b. 1966). Through an examination of their writings and statements over the past several decades, the present study offers an up-to-date treatment of mainstream Islamist engagements with core modern political ideas including secularism, democracy, and the nation-state. The thesis argues that mainstream Arab Islamists have carved out a theoretical space in modern political discourse that seeks to affirm, with democratic support, the religious identity of Muslim-majority polities while making a principled effort to eschew religiously grounded authoritarianism
‘Abdullāh bin Bayyah and the Arab Revolutions: Counter‐revolutionary Neo‐traditionalism’s Ideological Struggle against Islamism
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