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Understanding Islamism

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Understanding Islamism UNDERSTANDING ISLAMISM Middle East/North Africa Report N°37 – 2 March 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... i I. ISLAM, ISLAMISM AND ISLAMIC ACTIVISM..................................................... 1 II. THE MAIN CURRENTS OF SUNNI ISLAMIC ACTIVISM................................... 3 III. SUNNI POLITICAL ISLAMISM: HARAKAT AND HIZB ....................................... 6 IV. SUNNI MISSIONARY ACTIVISM: AL-DA'WA........................................................ 8 V. SUNNIS ON THE WAR PATH: JIHAD ..................................................................... 14 VI. SHIITE ISLAMIC ACTIVISM................................................................................... 18 A. BACKGROUND.....................................................................................................................18 B. THE LEADERSHIP OF THE SCHOLARS ...................................................................................19 C. THE BASES OF VARIETY IN SHIITE ISLAMISM ......................................................................20 VII. CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS OF THE DIVERSITY OF ISLAMIC ACTIVISM FOR THE "WAR ON TERRORISM" ................................................. 24 APPENDICES A. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP .......................................................................27 B. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA ................28 C. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES ...................................................................................30 Middle East/North Africa Report N°37 2 March 2005 UNDERSTANDING ISLAMISM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Reacting to the spectacular and violent events of 11 Political: the Islamic political movements (al- September 2001, many Western observers and policy- harakât al-islamiyya al-siyassiyya), exemplified makers have tended to lump all forms of Islamism by the Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt together, brand them as radical and treat them as hostile. and its offshoots elsewhere (including Algeria, That approach is fundamentally misconceived. Islamism Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Sudan and Syria) and by -- or Islamic activism (we treat these terms as locally rooted movements such as the Justice and synonymous) -- has a number of very different streams, Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, only a few of them violent and only a small minority AKP) in Turkey, and the Party for Justice and justifying a confrontational response. The West needs a Development (Parti pour la Justice et le discriminating strategy that takes account of the Développement, PJD) in Morocco, whose purpose diversity of outlooks within political Islamism; that is to attain political power at the national level. accepts that even the most modernist of Islamists are These now generally accept the nation-state, operate deeply opposed to current U.S. policies and committed within its constitutional framework, eschew violence to renegotiating their relations with the West; and that (except under conditions of foreign occupation), understands that the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, articulate a reformist rather than revolutionary the war occupation of Iraq, and the way in which the vision and invoke universal democratic norms. The "war against terrorism" is being waged all significantly characteristic actor is the party-political militant. strengthen the appeal of the most virulent and dangerous jihadi tendencies. Missionary: the Islamic missions of conversion (al-da'wa), which exists in two main variants In understanding the different streams of Islamic activism, exemplified by the highly structured Tablighi the starting point is to distinguish between Shiite and movement on the one hand and the highly diffuse Sunni Islamism. The concept of "political Islam" first Salafiyya on the other. In both cases political power appeared in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution, with is not an objective; the overriding purpose is the Shiite activism then viewed as the most worrying threat. preservation of the Muslim identity and the Islamic In fact, however, because Shiism is the minority variant faith and moral order against the forces of unbelief, of Islam (Sunnis constitute over 80 per cent of Muslims) and the characteristic actors are missionaries (du'ah), and because Shiites typically are minorities in the states and the 'ulama. in which they find themselves, the most widespread and natural form of Shiite activism has been communal -- Jihadi: the Islamic armed struggle (al-jihad), which defending the interests of the Shiite community in exists in three main variants: internal (combating relation to other populations and to the state itself. For nominally Muslim regimes considered impious); this reason, and also because of the leading political role irredentist (fighting to redeem land ruled by non- played by scholars and religious authorities, ('ulama] Muslims or under occupation); and global Shiite Islamism has remained unified to a remarkable (combating the West). The characteristic actor is, degree and has not fragmented into conflicting forms of of course, the fighter (al-mujahid). activism as has Sunni Islamism. All these varieties of Sunni activism are attempts to Sunni Islamism -- on which most Western emphasis is reconcile tradition and modernity, to preserve those today placed, and about which most fears are held -- is aspects of tradition considered to be essential by widely viewed as uniformly fundamentalist, radical, and adapting in various ways to modern conditions; all select threatening to Western interests. Yet it is not at all from tradition, borrow selectively from the West and monolithic. On the contrary, it has crystallised into three adopt aspects of modernity. Where they differ is in how main distinctive types, each with its own worldview, they conceive the principal problem facing the Muslim modus operandi and characteristic actors: Understanding Islamism Crisis Group Middle East/North Africa Report N°37, 2 March 2005 Page ii world, and what they believe is necessary, possible and Which of these three main outlooks will prevail in the advisable to do about it. medium and longer term is of great importance to the Muslim world and to the West. While the West in Political Islamists make an issue of Muslim general and the U.S. in particular ought to be modest misgovernment and social injustice and give priority about their ability to shape the debate among Islamists, to political reform to be achieved by political action they also should be aware of how their policies affect it. (advocating new policies, contesting elections, etc.). By adopting a sledge-hammer approach which refuses Missionary Islamists make an issue of the corruption of to differentiate between modernist and fundamentalist Islamic values (al-qiyam al-islamiyya) and the weakening varieties of Islamism, American and European policy- of faith (al-iman) and give priority to a form of moral makers risk provoking one of two equally undesirable and spiritual rearmament that champions individual outcomes: either inducing the different strands of virtue as the condition of good government as well as of Islamic activism to band together in reaction, attenuating collective salvation. Jihadi Islamists make an issue of differences that might otherwise be fruitfully developed, the oppressive weight of non-Muslim political and or causing the non-violent and modernist tendencies to military power in the Islamic world and give priority to be eclipsed by the jihadis. armed resistance. Cairo/Brussels, 2 March 2005 Middle East/North Africa Report N°37 2 March 2005 UNDERSTANDING ISLAMISM I. ISLAM, ISLAMISM AND ISLAMIC and Asia over the last three years, the general phenomenon ACTIVISM of Islamic activism was perceived to have mutated in an alarming way, taking the form of spectacularly violent terrorist movements attacking Western as well as Islamism is defined here, and will be in future Crisis non-Western targets. But this monolithic concept is Group reports, as synonymous with "Islamic activism", erroneous in its assumptions and misleading in its policy the active assertion and promotion of beliefs, prescriptions, prescriptions. laws, or policies that are held to be Islamic in character.1 The most extreme instance of the tendency to lump all There are numerous currents of Islamism in this sense: forms of Islamic activism together is the "clash of what they hold in common is that they found their civilisations" thesis, which views the entire Muslim activism on traditions and teachings of Islam as world, qua civilisation ("Islam"), as a single whole, as contained in scripture and authoritative commentaries. one problem and, by implication, target. But the same Western discourse has tended to represent Islamic tendency is apparent in other, notionally less simplistic, activism as a more or less unitary phenomenon, whether theses regularly articulated by leading Western voices. labelled "Islamism" -- or "political Islam" or "Islamic A notable case in point is the dichotomy, often taken for fundamentalism", and to counterpose this phenomenon granted by Western leaders, between on the one hand, to the practice of Islam as religious belief by "ordinary Islam qua religion and its adherents -- "ordinary decent Muslims". This tendency has intensified markedly in the Muslims" for whom "Islam" is a matter of personal context of the so-called "war against terrorism" declared
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