Islamic Liberation Theology

Islamic Liberation Theology Are we today witness to a renewed confrontation between ‘‘Islam and the West’’ or are the signs of an imperial domination of globalized capital versus new modes of resistance to it already evident? This book is a radical piece of counter-intuitive rethinking on the clash of civilizations theory and global politics. In this richly detailed criticism of contemporary politics, Hamid Dabashi argues that after 9/11 we have not seen a new phase in a long-running confrontation between Islam and the West, but that such categories have in fact collapsed and exhausted themselves. The West is no longer a unified actor and Islam is ideologically depleted in its confrontation with colonialism. Rather, we are seeing the emergence of the United States as a lone superpower, and a confrontation between a form of imperial globalized capital and the rising need for a new Islamic theodicy. Expanding on his vast body of scholarship in reading political Islamism during the last quarter of a century, Dabashi here lays the groundwork for a progressive rethinking of the place of Islamic cosmopolitanism in navigating modes of legitimate resistance to globalized imperialism. The combination of political salience and theoretical force makes Islamic Liberation Theology a cornerstone of a whole new generation of thinking about political Islamism and a compelling read for anyone interested in contemporary Islam, current affairs and US foreign policy. Dabashi drives his well-supported and thoroughly documented points steadily forward in an earnest and highly readable style. Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Com- parative Literature at Columbia University in New York, USA. He is the author of several books including: Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads (1989/1992); Iran: A People Interrupted (2007); Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1993/2005); Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema (edited with an Introduction, 2006); and Close up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future (2001). Islamic Liberation Theology Resisting the empire Hamid Dabashi First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” # 2008 Hamid Dabashi All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Dabashi, Hamid, 1951- Islamic liberation theology : resisting the empire / Hamid Dabashi. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. [etc.] 1. Religious awakening–Islam. 2. Islam and world politics. 3. Islamic countries–Politics and government. 4. Islamic renewal–Islamic countries. 5. Globalization–Religious aspects–Islam. 6. Islam–21st century. I. Title. BP163.D3 2008 297.2’72–dc22 2007042488 ISBN 0-203-92838-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN13: 978-0-415-77154-2 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-77155-9 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-92838-7 (ebk) For my children Kaveh, Pardis and Chelgis My signs of hope for their America ‘The revolutionary situation which prevails today, especially in the Third World, is an expression of this growing radicalization. To support the social revolution means to abolish the present status quo and to attempt to replace it with a qualitatively different one; ... it means to attempt to put an end to the domination of some countries by others ...’ Gustavo Gutie´rrez, Roman Catholic theologian and Peruvian Dominican Priest ‘Power never takes a back step – only in the face of more power.’ Malcolm X, American Muslim Revolutionary Contents Introduction 1 1 Resisting the empire 25 2 The end of Islamic ideology 59 3 Blindness and insight 99 4 Islam and globalization 143 5 The Shi’i passion play 171 6 Liberation theodicy 196 7 Malcolm X as a Muslim revolutionary 234 Conclusion: Prolegomena to a future liberation theodicy 254 Notes 267 Index 295 Introduction There’s a friend of mine who lives in New Orleans, is black, and I wrote down exactly, word for word, what she said, because I think it bears repeating. She said, ‘‘After 9/11, I was American. Now [after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005] I’m back to being black.’’ And I think among the feathers in George Bush’s resume is that I think he has lost a whole generation of black people who might have felt that way after 9/11, and now are like, ‘‘You know what? I can’t believe I started to buy into that bullshit.’’’ Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO, 15 September 2005) A global rise in terrorist attacks and the terrorizing US military cam- paigns during the first decade of the twenty-first century have once again raised the specter of Islam as the principal nemesis of ‘‘the Western civilization.’’ The daily headlines across the world report of deadly terrorist attacks and even more devastating carnage caused by the US-led military invasions and colonial occupations of sovereign nation-states. In the midst of this violent spiral of fear and fury, ‘‘Islam and the West’’ are once again posited as the principal coded categories of this global confrontation between two irreconcilable adversaries. While sharing the fear of millions of others from this frightening pre- dicament around the world, I differ in my reading of its causes and con- sequences. My primary point of departure in this book is that contrary to the assumptions of a clash of civilization between ‘‘Islam and the West,’’ we have in fact concluded the period of civilizational conflict. The period of civilizational thinking had a very short but crucial role in the course of the colonial encounter of Muslims with European modernity. That mode of civilizational thinking has now effectively exhausted its uses and abuses in facilitating the operation of the globalized capital. In this book I wish to propose, in direct opposition to Samuel Huntington’s thesis of ‘‘the clash of civilizations,’’ that in fact we have already entered a post-civilizational period in global conflict – one in which we need a fresh understanding of the nature of globalizing power and the emerging revolutionary manners of resisting it. 2 Introduction Predicated on this argument, my principal purpose in this book is to investigate the emerging modes of Islamic revolutionary mobilization in the aftermath of the collapse of ‘‘Islam and the West’’ as the most potent dia- lectical binary that was generated and sustained in the course of the Muslim colonial encounter with European modernity. My argument in this book is predicated on the counter-intuitive suggestion that with the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11 2001 also imploded the twin towers of ‘‘Islam and the West’’ as the most potent binary oppositions crafted and constructed in the course of colonial modernity. At once postcolonial and postmodern, the emerging global reconfiguration of power has no use for that outdated binary, but plenty of room for the globalized empire and manners of revolutionary resistance to it. This is not a war between ‘‘Islam and the West’’ any more. We are at the threshold of a whole new reconfiguration of power and politics, empire-building, and moral and normative resistances to it. In this book, I wish to investigate the specifically ‘‘Islamic’’ manners of opposing this imperial upsurge in the aftermath of the ‘‘Islam and the West’’ binary opposition. The signs of this resistance are all over the globe – but difficult to read because the dying ashes of the old dialectic and the emerging fire of the new confrontation are still mixed and too early to decipher. Released from the binary nexus of ‘‘Islam and the West,’’ Islam as the faith of a globalized community, and the imperial proclivities innate to the operation of capital continue to be evident and operative. What precisely is the nature and function of that globalized imperial power and what an Islamic (or any other) mode of resistance to it would be is still too early to tell. A few facts are evident and articulating them in some detail will clear the air for further urgent reflections. If, as I suggest, the supposition of an eternal conflict between ‘‘Islam and the West’’ is no longer a legitimate category, and if, as I will demonstrate, ‘‘the West’’ has lost all its categorical legitimacy to be an antagonistic interlocutor for Islam – what then? Today Muslims, as millions of other people around the globe who do not confess their faith but share their fate, face an incessantly globalized empire whose amorphous shape has not yet allowed for an articulated response. The purpose of this book is to articulate and historicize the contours of that response. What I propose in this book is radically different from the current wisdom of looking into political Islamism in order to understand the nature and function of spectacular acts of violence that militant Muslims commit. The prevalent understanding of contemporary militant Islamism, whether generated by the US propaganda machinery or otherwise, continues to operate on an outdated epistemic assumption that we have inherited from the colonial phase of Muslim encounter with European modernity.

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