chapter 10 The New Islamism: Remembrance and Liberation
Sophia Rose Arjana
Islamism, Orientalism, and the Post-Islamist Milieu
Islamism, which can be broadly defined as a political vision that has Islam as its foundational ethic, has largely failed on its promise to deliver Muslims from oppression, poverty, and suffering. New Islamism offers a vision of reform that relies on a conscious, engaged and activist Islam. It restores Islam’s intended path of human transformation from the inside out through the remembrance of Allah and meditation on the Islamic value of justice, which leads to personal and social liberation. In contrast, much of Islamist discourse has called for a transformation from the outside inward, and that is a significant reason for the failure of Islamism. This article argues that liberation can only be won through reclaiming an ethic that has been largely forgotten. As the Qurʾān reminds us, ‘Remember me, I shall remember you.’1 Throughout the twentieth century, Islamic thinkers have offered a complex set of responses to the economic, political, and social realities that Muslims who are living in colonial and postcolonial spaces must negotiate. Today, pov- erty, war, colonialism, neocolonialism, occupation, and political oppression mark the lives of millions of Muslims and most articulations of Islamism have not eliminated these problems. Prophet Muhammad said it was a person’s duty to solve these ills, instructing, ‘If one of you sees an abhorrent action, let him correct it with his hand; if he cannot, let him do it in words; if he cannot, let him do it in his heart – which is the weakest degree of faith.’2 Because all moral action comes from the heart, these acts are intimately related. Islamist articulations have been aligned with two main positions. The first is represented by Islamist movements that look to the West as a model for sys- tems and institutions. They typically rely on American or European models and fail in an Islamic society due to their over-reliance on foreign ideologies and values. One alternative to this approach comes from Tariq Ramadan, who suggests that instead of using the West to reform Islam, Islam should be used
1 Qurʾān 2: 152. 2 Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 94.
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According to commentators of the Qurʾān, the one who was dead refers to having a dead heart, which God revived with the light of guidance that one may walk straight and honorably among human beings. Also, the
3 Tariq Ramadan, Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 148. 4 Sari Kuovo and Dallas Mazoori, “Reconciliation, Justice and Mobilization of War Victims in Afghanistan,” The International Journal of Transitional Justice 5 (2011): 500. 5 See Kevin J. Ayotte and Mary E. Husain, “Securing Afghan Women: Neocolonialism, Epis- temic Violence, and Rhetoric of the Veil,” nwsa Journal 17, no. 3, States of Insecurity and the Gendered Politics of Fear (2005): 112–133.