Political Islam and the Muslim world

It is claimed that some kind of Judeo-Christian axis has been created to discredit Islam, and there is huge cultural divide separating Muslims and non-Muslims. The Islamic reawakening, or resurgence, is taking many forms. It is said that fear of an Islamic revival and the possibility of a strong Islamic bloc emerging as a consequence has long been a source of concern for anti-Islam forces throughout the world.

Regardless of whether these fears are genuine or totally unwarranted, the fact remains that the Islamic world is targeted and invited to change under the patronage of the United States, which visualizes — after China and Russia — the entire Islamic world as the main threat to its global hegemony.

By equating Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, the U.S. administration is obtaining the support of Russia, China and to some extent India. Russia stands next to the United States in the race to keep Islam in check. In order to regain its hold on the Muslim Central Asian republics, Russia has been hobnobbing with the rulers of those states, most of whom are products of the Soviet system, so Islam will never be allowed to become a dominant force and Islamic opposition should be closely monitored.

For similar reasons, China prefers to side with the United States in nipping any attempts at Islamic revival in the bud and maintaining the Sinkiang Muslim people's docility vis-a-vis the central authorities.

India is another country that has been exploiting to its own advantage the American-sponsored phobia against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. In this respect, we notice that the Indian government is trying to create a rift between Pakistan and the U.S. administration by accusing Islamabad of supporting cross-border terrorism in Kashmir and giving safe haven to many jihadist groups operating in the area. India also gives the appearance of keeping the Afghan cauldron boiling for having isolated Pakistan from the Central Asian republics and for having blocked the formation of any Pakistan-friendly and stable government in Kabul.

It is evident that political Islam has come to the world agenda mainly in the aftermath of 9/11 with the concept of jihad. But, in fact, political or politicized Islam has been a very useful instrument of power throughout history, especially during the last two centuries. Political Islam most probably will serve as a mobilizer and motivator according to the interests of the ruling class or opposition forces.

All the great powers are traveling in a “stream of time” that they can neither create nor direct but which they can only steer with more or less skill and experience. As empires flourish and fall over time, the leaders of those empires are supposed to manipulate all available means and instruments of power, including religion.

When we look to the story of Muslim nations and societies in the stream of time, we can state that the rise and fall of Muslim power began with the death of the Holy Prophet. Differences over succession to the Caliphate and the nature of authority had split the world of Islam into warring Sunni and Shiite camps. In spite of Islamic power spreading and achieving ascendancy during the reign of the Umayyad and the Abbasids, the internal divisions and disharmony of the Muslim world have been increased in the shadow of military conquests and progress made in almost all branches of science and knowledge. But this golden age of Islamic power gave preliminary signs of vanishing when the then-dominant Muslim states failed to transform their might into right and obedience into duty.

In this respect, we can state that the Ottoman Empire, after becoming the dominant power of its epoch, started to decline after the 17th century simply because it failed to obtain and use the dynamics of science and accordingly reform its state structure and economic basis. With the decline and collapse of the Ottoman Empire, nearly all Muslim nations were gradually vassalized and controlled by Western powers.

The decolonization process and subsequent liberation of Muslim countries did little to change this reality for the simple reason that in the conduct of international political and economic relations the dominant position of the West remains nearly intact and omnipotent. With the globalization of the world economic order, we can expect in coming years increased peripheralization of the Muslim world.

In fact, historically, political Islam first came to the world agenda in India after the British conquest of the subcontinent in the middle of the 19th century. The resistance against British occupation gave birth to the most radical Islamic order, the Deobandi branch of the Hanefi school, which is extremely influential not only on the subcontinent but also in Afghanistan and the Middle East. After India, we see later on in the Soviet Union how the leaders of this state were ingeniously successful in implementing “Mollarchy Diplomacy” in order to penetrate and spread their area of influence to Muslim countries. Finally, dominating world politics since the end of World War II, the U.S. administration has tried quite successfully to use Islam as an antidote to communist expansion and later on to combat the Red Army in Afghanistan.

Following the British control of India, the Muslims of the subcontinent had almost lost all their power and started to analyze their position in the face of growing British influence and the gradual “Hinduization” of Islam at the instigation of the leading ulema (Islamic scholars) of the Ahli Hadith (Way of the Prophet) movement. The Deobandi order was founded in the province of Petna, and Maulana Mahmoud Hassan took charge of the school.

This Sufi order, or tarikat, started to preach via its affiliated scholars and disciples that the abandoning of Islam was a major cause for their political downfall. The only way to escape British rule and the Hinduization of Islam was to return to pure Islamic values and models of society. Not only did the Muslims of India immediately start to oppose British rule, they also demanded a separate homeland for Indian Muslims and the creation of one center of power for all Muslims internationally. This demand paved the way for the establishment of the powerful Khilafat movement in India, which later on supported the Turkish War of Independence.

This concept of the Muslim Ummah, the demand for a separate Muslim state, the jihadist interpretation of resistance and research to return to pure Islamic values and ideals have all been influential in the course of history, especially with the inception of Pakistan, the radicalization of Islamic movements and the spread of religious schools (dini madrasahs) around Jamiatu Ulemau Islam, Jamiatul Islam, Hareketul Islam, Laskhari Taiba, Jaishi Mohammed, Sipahii Sahabe, etc., all affiliated with the Deobandi order, which emerges as the most intransigent, radical and uncompromising among various Islamist schools. Today the activities of these radical groups play a very important role in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan) Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq.

The leaders of this order consider that jihad is a very legitimate struggle against tyranny and coercion for the sake of Islamic Ummah. The corrupt and inefficient rulers of Muslim countries are completely discredited in the eyes of the impoverished Muslim masses. As the current Muslim leaders have failed to resolve any of the big issues facing the Muslim Ummah, such as the Palestine or Kashmir questions, jihad seems to be the only way to resolve the outstanding Muslim issues under the given circumstances.

This bigger concept of jihad and the return to pure Islamic values, as demanded by such religious scholars, requires not only opposition to external powers but also the elimination of the current rulers of Islamic countries in order to completely build new and purified Islamic societies in which the basic law is Shariah.

It goes without saying that this extensive interpretation of jihad is unavoidably a source of concern for the current leaders of Muslim countries, who are being squeezed into finding the appropriate answers to urgent problems by imitating some inevitable democratic and economic reforms.

It seems that from the big powers the former Soviet Union used Islam a most efficient way by envisioning and meticulously implementing Mollarchy Diplomacy, especially during the reign of Brezhnev, who successfully expanded the “Galaxy Sovietica” to many Muslim countries.

The Marxist ideology considers Islam, as other religions, to be an opium for the masses, an instrument of exploitation and an obstacle to progress. For this reason, Islam should be eliminated, persecuted and closely monitored. But, seeing the power of church and mosque in influencing the masses, Stalin did not hesitate to call on the clergy to revive nationalist and religious sentiments for combating the invading Nazi armies.

In the same way, looking to create and expand its sphere of influence, and especially to counter-balance the imposing American policy in the Middle East, Brezhnev started to pursue very smart diplomacy consisting of presenting Islam as a friendly and progressive religion compatible with communist ideology and sending Islamic scholars as emissaries and diplomats of the Soviet state to Muslim countries. These religious envoys and Muslim diplomats paved the way for a normalization of relations with the targeted countries.

In this vein, we notice that the activities and foreign contacts of such scholars as Z. Babakhanov, A. Nourroulayev, Y. Chakirov, A. Abdulahev, etc., have been very useful for correcting the tarnished image of the Soviet Union in the Islamic world. With the help of its Islamic emissaries and obedient religious leaders, the Soviet government even tried to alleviate and mitigate the reaction of the Muslim world to the invasion of Afghanistan by holding an Islamic conference on September 1980 in Tashkent.

In fact, there were two Islams in the former Soviet Union. The official Islam was state administered and controlled with the four religious directions affiliated to the federal state minister in charge of religious affairs. This mechanism of closely monitoring Islamic movements did not yield the expected results for the simple reason that a parallel, secret and disguised Islam succeeded in surviving in the Soviet Union.

This parallel Islam organized around Sufi orders such as the Nakhchbandia, Quadiria, Kubravia, Yasavia, Kalenderia, etc., was very influential in keeping Soviet Muslims almost unaffected by communist propaganda and in reviving Islamic survival with vigorous opposition to Slavic domination over Muslim elements. The fallout of the Afghanistan misadventure, the state economic collapse, the unsolvable national question of so many ethnic groups and finally the disguised but vigorous resistance of its own Muslim people to the Red Army's invasion of Afghanistan have all been determinant factors in the demise of the Soviet Union.

Finally, the United States — the only remaining superpower of our era after the collapse of the Soviet Union — also used Islam in quite an efficient way. During the Cold War years, the U.S. administration considered Islam a natural antidote to communist and Soviet expansion. A marriage of convenience was established between Islamist and American-instigated liberal movements. The American flirtation with Islamic fundamentalists became a serious affair with, for example, anti-Nasser groups in Egypt and anti-Soviet groups elsewhere in the Muslim world.

This marriage of convenience took on jihadist proportions in Afghanistan, where Washington very successfully organized a vigorous resistance to the invading Soviet troops around not only indigenous Afghans but also Pakistani, Chechen, Bosnian, Palestinian and other jihadist groups pouring into the country.

The Afghan war significantly modified the parameters of regional and international terrorism for the simple reason that all jihadist groups got some kind of upper hand in the conduct of so-called Islamic resistance to Western domination. Only in Pakistan, it is claimed that some 50,000 madrasahs affiliated mainly with the Deobandi and Quaderia Sufi orders annually give a basic military training, along with Islamic instruction, to nearly 3 million students. Thus, a culture of “militant Islam” with all kinds of smuggling of weapons and narcotics as well as wrongdoing has come to the world agenda.

Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989, the subsequent American disinterest and neglect of Afghanistan was a strategic mistake. Jihadist groups flourished during the subsequent civil war and Taliban rule. Now Afghanistan returns to the world agenda with more powerful jihadist groups, more radicalized Islam and destabilized regional states.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the chain of subsequent events that took place on the international chessboard had a highly demoralizing effect on the Muslim world. These developments offered a golden opportunity to the enemies of Islam, not only to further shatter the unity of Islamic nations but also to subjugate a number of Muslim countries. The Muslim community did not learn any lessons from the catastrophes that it encountered.

They made no serious effort to change their economies from agriculture to industry, finding it more convenient to continue providing raw materials to keep the mighty industrial wheels of the West turning. At the same time, they kept providing vast markets for the finished goods of the dominant powers. Their economies, tailored according to the interests of the West, had been kept nearly unchanged even after their independence. This is how neo-colonialism was born.

Over the years the majority of underdeveloped Muslim countries have become poorer and more vulnerable. The gravity of the pitiable state in which one finds the Muslim Ummah is undeniable. As weakness invites aggression, the Muslim world has become easy prey for dominant powers. The lack of any effective organization that could defend the Muslim world's interests and the absence of powerful Islamic print and electronic media capable of projecting the Muslim point of view have been the main factors in the exploitation of the Islamic world.

Unfortunately, the 57 nations of Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) give the appearance of a toothless talk shop. This body has so far failed miserably to prove its worth. When the specter of Islamic terror and the bogeyman of fundamentalism have been raised by West, this body has preferred to maintain a low-profile attitude and do nothing to correct the image of Islam.

The OIC has never been a monolithic body. Its membership encompasses countries with often-conflicting interests, to say the least. Some of the member states' economies are resource based (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait), while others are industry based (Malaysia, Turkey). Their global trade is largely conducted with advanced countries rather than among themselves. Their political systems range from authoritarian to democratic.

The majority of the member states have the dubious distinction of having an ethos dominated by illiteracy, poverty, a total lack of response to current challenges and a corrupt elite acting as “yes-men” to the tin-despots suppressing their hapless people. In such a perverse millieu, Dr. M. Mohammed, the former Malaysian prime minister, finds the way the Muslim countries are administered to be “shameful and un-Islamic” and criticizes their unending demands to developed countries for more help and pity.

The Muslim world is in the vortex of an emerging global crisis. In this turbulent and troubled moment in history, the Muslim nations have to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities. A restructuring of the OIC and the implementation of a damage-control strategy are the requirements of the times.

The crisis confronting the Islamic world is not only external; it is also internal. The Muslim world has to address and overcome its internal vulnerabilities. While rejecting recourse to militancy and extremism, the Muslim world's shortcomings in human development such as extreme poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment should be gradually overcome. As economic underdevelopment relegates the Islamic world to the sidelines of the international power game, a global and comprehensive development strategy should be undertaken and trade among the Muslim countries should be promoted. Socioeconomic progress and growing prosperity together with a certain degree of democratization will provide the best antidote to extremism and militantism.

Concerning external threats, Muslim leaders are supposed to modernize their state apparatus and defense potential. But a new concept of “enlightened moderation” can facilitate the possibility of a global pact between civilizations and religions. A clash of civilizations and religions and a confrontation with the West are inconceivable and harmful for the Muslim world.

In this respect, the image of the Muslim world as a sponsor of terrorism should be corrected by multidimensional international cooperation and by bringing a minimum of justice to ongoing conflicts such as Palestine.