Journal articles on the topic 'Islam and politics – Arab countries'

The recently political contestations in the Muslim world confirmed a new wave of Islamic politics. The political dynamics that have revolved so quickly and surprisingly, especially in non-Arab countries, are evidence that questioning the harmony between Islam and democracy, pluralism and human rights is no longer relevant. Even though it is not monolithic and is still in the “process of becoming”, the political dynamics that are revolving in a number of Muslim-majority countries actually lead to the same goal, namely the realization of a democratic and civilized politics. Keywords: Political Contestation, Democratization, Process of Becoming

The role of Islam in the politics of Muslim-majority countries has attracted a plethora of scholarly research over the past two decades that generally refers to this phenomenon as political Islam. Much of the focus of this body of literature is concerned with the reconciliation of Islam and democracy. In recent years, the leading scholarship in this field has attempted to anticipate the future of political Islam and the prospect of post-Islamism. Asef Bayet's work on post-Islamists examines various social movements in the Middle East, arguing that Muslims have made Islam democratic by how they have defined Islam in respect to their particular socio-political contexts. However, others have expressed pessimism about the extent to which domestic conditions in Muslim-majority countries and external geopolitical factors will allow the development of an Islamic democracy. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, for instance, sees four main options for Islamists: full revolutionary takeover of their respective countries; completely withdrawing from political office to become Islamic interest or pressure groups; building broader coalitions while maintaining their ideology; or radically restructuring in order to emulate the model of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP). What is missing in this discussion is attention to the capacity of Islamic political parties to draw on Islamic tradition and evolve in response to modernity through a focus on Islam's higher objectives or amaqasidapproach.

In the last decades Iran has become one of the most powerful states in the Middle East. Iran plays a significant role in political, economic, social, religious and ideological issues of the region. An author considers that Iran’s politics shapes major developments in regional security and international relations in the Middle East. Iran’s involvement in the depth of Arab countries; their societies, security affaires and politics strengthens tensions and hostility between Arabs an Iran. The author believes that the search for domestic security serves as the main driver for Arab-Iranian relations and Iranian policy in the Arab World. In his article the author discusses the role of Islam and clergies that dominate Iran’s politics after the Islamic revolution of 1979 The paper stresses that emphasizing Islamic feelings at the expense of nationalism did not contribute to the Arabs’ amicability towards Iran. In this study the author focuses on the fundamental principles of Iranian policy, proclaimed at the beginning of the Islamic revolution and demonstrating its dynamics in the following decades. The paper concludes that many of Iran’s actions in Arab World, including Syria, were dictated by considerations of an internal order and the desire to achieve the status of a nuclear power like Israel and Pakistan by any means.

This book discusses the dynamics of the relationship between Islam as a religious and political teaching with democracy in the context of the effects of the Arab Spring and the subsequent events after it. The authors, who are considered to be “titans” in the field of democracy and Islam, started the book by saying “Many western observers were shocked when Arabs began open rebellions against their governments in December 2010” and this seem to point out not only the unpredictability of the uprisings, but also to the inaccuracy behind several of the most accepted assumptions about politics and governance in the Arab world. The chapters of the book discuss the experiences of political transition in general and how democratisation works in particular through the examples of seven different countries, namely Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Senegal, Tunisia and Egypt.

AbstractThis paper explores the nature and determinants of attitudes toward the political role of Islam held by ordinary citizens in the Arab world. Based on results from nationally representative surveys carried out in seven Arab states during 2006-2007, it engages the pervasive debate about Islam and democracy—showing that the significant divide is not between those who favor democracy and those who favor Islam, but between those who favor secular democracy and those who favor a political system that is both democratic and Islamic in some meaningful way. Furthermore, this analysis finds that the civic values and predispositions of individuals who favor a political role for Islam are overwhelmingly similar to those of individuals who favor a separation of religion and politics. The paper also finds little consistency in the factors that incline individuals towards support for political Islam in the different countries surveyed. Most importantly, this analysis concludes that there is little or no incompatibility between Islam and democracy in the public mind and that a proper understanding of the reasons and ways that Muslim Arab publics think about governance and the political role of Islam is possible only if attention is paid to the particular political and societal contexts within which attitudes are formed.

The emergence of the five independent and predominantly Muslim statesKazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan-in theaftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union raises the issue of the role of Islamin their future development. Since Islam does not allow a separation of religionand politics, Islamic political panies have already been active, albeit with differentintensity, in these countries. None of these countries has had a history ofindependence; for a long time, they were colonized (their most recent history ofcolonization goes back to the 1860s. when the Russians began to conquer andcolonize the Central Asian villages) by czarist Russia, then from 1917 by thecommunist czars. Consequently, after independence their political elite (for themost part, former communists) remain substantially unfamiliar with the practiceof democratic governance. As such, even after changing the names of communistparties in their respective countries, they essentially practice authoritarianpolicies in which little or no political pluralism is tolerated. Therefore. anyevolution of democracy in these statei in the immediate or middle-range futureis unlikely. However. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are two exceptions to thisrule.Not coincidentally. both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan top the list of ethnicallypluralist states, and their economies are doing well compared to their CentralAsian counterparts. However, this ethnic pluralism has not only polarized theirpopulations along indigenous and Russian lines but also keeps their leaders fromallowing any substantial role for lslamist parties. Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan,and Tajikistan have a lesser problem emanating from ethnic pluralism.However, the lion's share of these countries' problems stems from the acutelyauthoritarian nature of their leader hip, and, more imponant, their severe economicunderdevelopment. One has to keep these variables in mind as one readsMehrdad Haghayeghi's book, Islam and Politics in Central Asia.Describing the presence of Islam in Central Asia, The author states that "thesedentary populations of the oasis enclaves and the tribal populations of theSteppe and the surrounding regions" were differently influenced by Islam. Hegoes on to observe:The enormous size and remoteness oft.he Steppe, the lack of adequate military manpower.the political instability at the heart of the Arab empire, and the absence of ...

This article discusses Saudi Arabia (Hijaz), in the early 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century free from Western colonialism. Unlike other Muslim countries, almost all of them were colonized by the West. As a result, at that time many scholars and residents from various Muslim countries came to the Hejaz, especially Mecca and Medina. Things like this have caused Saudi Arabia as a country that has the development of Islam to be maintained until now. The results of this study indicate that political changes and religious understandings certainly bring changes in other fields of social culture. Moreover, the beginning of the 19th century was a time when the renewal movement in Islam had only just begun to rise. The reform movement in Islam certainly has a certain impact on the Islamic social life in the Hijaz at that time and in Saudi Arabia today.

Abstract: This article deals with analyzing the place and the political Islam occupies on the Palestinian territories. The author tries to prove that despite the “Arab spring” and growing popularity of Islamism in the neighbor Arab countries its popular support among Palestinians is low. The main reason for this is Israeli total control of political, economic and - partially - social processes taking place in the West Bank. Position of the officials in Ramallah who together with Tel-Aviv strictly contain spread of Islamism throughout the West Bank also has a strong suppressing effect. Central Palestinian leadership may be called one of the few secular political establishments that are still in power in the Arab countries. The main explanation for this is the desire to make a positive effect on the international community, which Palestine totally depends on in political and financial terms. Also one should keep in mind secular beliefs of the current political elite in Palestine. President Mahmoud Abbas with his counterparts from FATAH and PLO represent old type of Arab nationalist politicians, almost all of who were stripped from power after the beginning of “Arab spring” in 2011. Finally, Palestinian society itself still feels united by the idea of national liberation from the Israeli occupation. This helps Palestinians to put aside the issue of religious self-identification. According to the surveys, most of Palestinians still rank their national identity number while describing their identity, while religion comes only second (despite the strong stable tendency for growing Islamization of their views). The only Palestinian enclave where political Islam has gained ground is isolated Gaza Strip. However ruling there “Islamic Resistance Movement” (HAMAS), despite declared anti-Zionism and Islamism, in reality show pragmatic readiness for certain coordination of its actions with Israel and central government in Ramallah. Nowadays one can witness the deepening conflict within the Islamist camp - between HAMAS and more radical Salafists, who support “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria. In the final end the fate of Political Islam in Palestine will depend on the success of Middle East peace process.

The recent developments of Islamic political parties in the Arab spring countries show new orientation and agendas, i.e. reconfirmation of their commitment to democratic values, strengthening civil society, and adopting human rights principles. In the same time, they indicate not to be interested in the old Islamic agendas relating to jihad for Islamic states (dawlah Islāmiyah) and “global Islamic government” under one centralized caliphate (al-khilāfah al-Islāmiyyah). It is the case of Justice and Development Party (Ḥizb al-‘Adālah wa’l-Tanmiyah) in Morocco, Freedom and Justice Party (Ḥizb al-Ḥurriyyah wa’l-‘Adālah) in Egypt, and Awakening Party (Ḥizb al-Nahḍah) in Tunis. This paper seeks to explore and explain this new fact. Based on literary research and interviews with the leaders of the Justice and Development Party (Ḥizb al-‘Adālah wa’l-Tanmiyah) in Morocco, the paper concludes that the new orientation and agendas of Islamic political parties in the Arab spring states are related to democratization in the world, strong waves of Arab spring in many Arab states, and the dynamics of the internal parties.[Perkembangan mutakhir partai-partai politik Islam di sejumlah negara Arab “Musim Semi” menunjukkan adanya perubahan orientasi dan agenda baru, berupa penegasan kembali komitmen mereka terhadap nilai-nilai demokrasi, penguatan masyarakat sipil, dan adopsi prinsip-prinsip hak asasi manusia. Pada saat yang sama, mereka tampak kurang tertarik kepada agenda-agenda politik Islam lama seperti jihad bagi pendirian negara Islam dan pendirian pemerintahan Islam global di bawah satu khalifah yang tersentralisasi. Hal ini relevan terhadap kasus Partai Keadilan dan Pembangunan (Ḥizb al-‘Adālah wa’l-Tanmiyah) di Maroko, Partai Kebebasan dan Keadilan (Ḥizb al-Ḥurriyyah wa’l-‘Adālah) di Mesir, dan Partai Kebangkitan (Ḥizb al-Nahḍah) di Tunisia. Artikel ini berupaya mengeksplorasi dan menjelaskan fakta baru ini. Berdasarkan kajian pustaka dan wawancara dengan sejumlah petinggi Partai Keadilan dan Pembangunan di Maroko, penulis berkesimpulan bahwa orientasi baru ini terjadi akibat dari gelombang demokratisasi dunia, “angin kencang musim semi” Arab yang begitu kuat, dan dinamika internal partai.]

This paper examines religious and ethnic identity construction among nationally diverse Muslim women, and shows how Muslim women may reflect asymmetrical power relations regarding their religiousness. While Muslims are usually treated as one homogenous community by those who are not very familiar with the Muslim communities, within the Islamic world, in fact, some Muslim-majority countries may be more strongly associated with Islam than others. Drawing on data gathered through spontaneous conversations, and informal, unstructured interviews during a gathering of four Muslim women, the present study reveals how one Muslim woman belonging to the Arab world authenticates herself in the presence of non-Arab Muslims through her discourse. Several factors such as economic wealth, heritage, politics, and language seem to help her claim “genuine” membership of Islam.

This article aims to examine the legacy and policy of AK Party in Turkey, Ennahda’s political movement in Tunisia, and Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI) in Bangladesh, which is ostensibly identified with Islamic political ideology and acquainted with the world as a ‘moderate-conservative political Islam party.’ The study interrogates the nature, processes, and the characteristic features of the three countries’ administrative system, comparatively from three regions of the world, particularly from the Middle East and Europe region, Africa and Arab region, and the South Asian region. This study also highlights these political parties’ history, political ideology differences, and their practices reflective of democratic principles from a theoretical perspective on politics, policy, and philosophy. It also acknowledges whether the political development of Turkey from 2002 onward is feasible for Bangladeshi and Tunisian Islamic political parties to accept as a role model in their political arena.

The social movements that were present during the Arab Spring have caused political upheaval in Middle Eastern countries. Starting from Tunisia, the revolution spread to neighboring countries namely Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Present in the midst of a prominent Islamic religion and culture, the aim of the revolution is to bring democracy into the government systems of countries that have long been in an autocracy system, but so far democracy with Islam has often been considered incompatible with each other, especially in countries with values deep-rooted Islamic values. This article focuses on the use of Islamic values ​​in the global civil society movement that takes place in the Arab Spring. Reviewing the revolution in a macro, the main argument of the author is that the Arab Spring became a phase which brought Islam a certain degree of flexibility towards democracy and brought democracy to the Arab world. This article generates the conclusion that the trigger for the revolution was not due to religious matters, the demonstrators who joined were not one hundred percent Muslim, and the issue demanded was not related to the religious life of the people, but that Islam, whether its values ​​or religious practices, could not be separated in organizing the masses during the revolution.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the features of a rather specifi c project of Islamism promoted by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian Islamism is based on the ideas of Ayatollah Khomeini about the ideal “Islamic state”, in which Islam has close contact with politics, with the government of the country. However, after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the country’s new elite became more pragmatic about the mission of spreading the Shi‘ite version of Islam. In particular, emphasis was placed on rapprochement with those countries and groups that showed friendly feelings to Tehran. In many respects this concerned the countries of the Arab region in which the Shi‘a community was present or prevailed. One of these states is Yemen. In particular, Iran’s participation in the Yemeni crisis, in which Tehran is trying to strengthen its own positions and prevent the strengthening of Saudi positions in Yemen by means of the Zaydi group of the Houthi, is being considered.

Like all the elites of post-Soviet Muslim countries, the political elite and religious officials in Russia have been in the search of a moderate and strictly national Islamic identity, to keep the Muslim population of Russia separate from Arab or Turkish versions of Islam that could be politicised and thus had the potential to undermine the state structure. ‘Tatar traditional Islam’ emerged through this framework.

The Arab Spring led to a major transformation of political systems of the region’s most countries; an increase in the significance of radical Islam in the political life; a degradation of the security environment. In addi­tion, changes in the region’s economy cannot be overlooked. The events connected with the Arab Spring gave the Russian Federation completely new challenges. The country has to yet again define the character of its relations with Muslim countries and adapt its foreign policy to the new post-revolutionary reality. The Arab Spring also represents a challenge for Russia in its internal affairs.

The religious and cultural system of Islam is not a monolith, although it cannot be claimed that there are many Islams. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the trend of religious fundamentalism has predominated in public opinion. However, this is only one of many forms of Islam. Its other extreme is the liberal one. These two religious interpretations are rather hostile towards one another, which finds reflection in the values each preaches. The movement of Islamic revival is connected with liberal thinking and it goes beyond the Arab countries. It can also be observed in Europe and the Muslim countries in Asia. Each movement is specific and tries to face up to different social and political issues. Given the deficit of democracy and the existence of authoritarian governments in the Middle East, the revival movement of the Arab world provides the best opportunity to scrutinize the challenges and development opportunities for democracy. This tendency is becoming an increasingly significant political force in the Middle East. Its representatives are also referred to as Muslim centrists, democrats or liberal Muslim reformers. They base their visions of political development on the social doctrine of Islam, stemming from the nahda movement, and from the ‘re-opening of the ijtihad’. The paper presents the values of liberal Islam, including the Muslim concept of democracy, social justice, sovereignty, freedom and the equality of women. The purpose of the paper is also to outline the main challenges related to the liberalization of Islam.

The debate on Islam and democracy is one of the most heated in academia,engaging both Muslims and non-Muslims, normative and analytic approaches.It also takes place on two levels: political-theoretical determinationsof the compatibility or incompatibility between Islam and democracy,and empirical discussions over how much Muslims (or Muslim societies)have modernized or resisted modernization. These debates have yieldeda vast literature, to which the present book under review is a significantaddition. It presents an overview of the historical developments regardingIslam and democracy and anticipates future trends in seven major countries:Turkey (Chapter 2), Iran (Chapter 3), Pakistan (Chapter 4), Indonesia(Chapter 5), Senegal (Chapter 6), Tunisia (Chapter 7), and Egypt (Chapter8). The book also includes an introductory chapter (Chapter 1) and a conclusion(Chapter 9).The introduction provides a literature review and brief overview of thedevelopments that served as immediate causes of Arab Spring in variouscountries. Various analysts have cited factors including a ‘youth bulge’ (amajority of the population in the Muslim world is comprised of citizensunder 30), poverty, unemployment, repressive monarchial regimes, andthe mass provocative events of self-immolation (as of Bouazizi in Tunisia)or killing (as of Khalid Said in Egypt) or torture (as of graffiti artists inSyria). Other analysts are of the opinion that the Muslim countries wereat last catching up to the rest of the democratic world. This book considersthese factors, presenting a critical assessment of Huntington’s equation ofmodernization with secularization and his equation of rejecting secularism ...

The article examines the leading centers of democratic transformation in Arab countries and the formation of an institutional base for democratization processes. It is emphasized that the parameters of the political system of the Arab East are comparable to the some countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the former USSR, which reveals a problem beyond the limits of purely regional research. The attention has been focused on the socio-cultural specificities of the Arab countries as a factor requiring special attention to consider the social environment of the political system, which affects the organization of power and the specifics of political participation. It is noted that such traditional democratic institutions as active political participation, political leadership, and public activity should be considered through the prism of the traditional guidance of political Islam. It is argued that attempts to realize their own model of modernization of the political system are faced with the failure of political institutions. It is substantiated that in the Arabian countries the level of representation and realization of social interests of citizens has proved to be insufficient. The importance of the national Arab model of political adaptation of society to the conditions of globalization is considered.

AbstractConclusions from empirical analyses on how Islam influences democratic attitudes in Arab countries differ widely, and the field suffers from conceptual ambiguity and largely focuses on “superficial” democratic support. Based on the non-Middle Eastern literature, this study provides a more systematic theoretical and empirical assessment of the linkages between Islamic attitudes and the popular support for democracy. I link belonging (affiliation), commitment (religiosity), orthodoxy, Muslim political attitudes, and individual-level political Islamism to the support for democracy and politico-religious tolerance. Statistical analyses on seven WVS surveys for Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia show that tolerance levels are remarkably lower than “democratic support”; the influence of being (committed or orthodox) Muslim and Muslim political attitudes are negligible however. Political Islamist views strongly affect tolerance negatively. They also influence “support for democracy,” but if the opposition in an authoritarian country is Islamic, these attitudes actually strengthen this support.

The political turmoil in Tunisia at the end of 2010 opened the door to the democratization of Arab countries. This event, widely known as The Arab Spring, presented a dream for the Arab community to live a better life under a democratic system. However, after a decade of progress, only Tunisia has succeeded in consolidating its democracy among the Arab countries that have been affected by the political turmoil. This paper tries to read the success factors for Tunisia in consolidating its democracy by using the theory of democracy from Robert Dahl, Jack Snyder, and Georg Sorensen. This study concludes that democracy in Tunisia is already included in the category of matured democracy according to Snyder's theory or has entered the category in which a democratic culture has begun to develop (Sorensen) and fulfills the elements of a democratic state according to Dahl. This success is inseparable from internal and external factors. The internal factor is the foundation of a civil society built before The Arab Spring and the openness of viewpoints of political actors after the political upheaval. Meanwhile, the external factor is the absence of America as the dominant actor in Tunisia because Tunisia is considered a ferry country. Tunisia also proves that Islam and democracy can go hand in hand, and this is a refutation of the pessimistic views of the scholars on Islam and democracy that can go hand in hand.

This article looks at one important aspect of globalization in the Arab World, namely the provision of international finance by the US, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank in support of economic liberalization programs. This flow of international finance has been partly determined by geopolitical factors and in some countries has resulted in a decline in state provision of social welfare, increased poverty, and increased inequality. Not only has this form of globalization been increasingly challenged by Islamist groups, but many such groups have moved in to provide social capital and fill the welfare gap created by the gradual withdrawal of the state from socio-economic affairs. Globalization has thus strengthened the hand of political Islam and undermined the political legitimacy of incumbent regimes.

The article analyzes the transformation of the parties of political Islam in and after coming to power as a result of the revolutionary events of the Arab Spring. It was then, in the 2010s, after decades of repression and isolation, that adherents of political Islam had the opportunity to become key players on the new political scene in the region. Political Islam as a modern ideology faces fundamental existential questions about the nature and relevance of Islamism as a political project, and the issue of Islamists’ participation in the political life of the Muslim world is becoming increasingly relevant. In Tunisia and Morocco, parties of political Islam have been given the opportunity to integrate and be recognized in the political arena. The inclusion of Islamists in legal political life in Tunisia and Morocco contributed to their ideological and political transformation, especially in relation to such complex issues as the relationship between religion and politics, issues of individual freedoms, human rights, minorities and women's issues. Scholars use the terms “post-Islamism” and “neo-Islamism” to define the changes that have taken place over the past decade. Which imply the transformation of socially conservative parties towards the adoption of the rules of a civil democratic political system and the rejection of the Islamization of society from above. The Tunisian Islamist party Ennahda and the Moroccan Justice and Development Party have gone through somewhat similar paths over the past decade, having passed through the crucible of power and taking responsibility for the processes taking place in their countries. They have also shown flexibility in finding compromises and drawing dividing lines between their religious preaching activities and politics. Both parties continue to strike a balance in combining the right doses of Islamism, democracy, pluralism, secularism and national interests.

The global spread of Salafism, though it began in the 1960s and 1970s, only started to attract significant attention from scholars and analysts outside of Islamic studies as well as journalists, politicians, and the general public following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda Central. After the attacks, Salafism—or, as it was pejoratively labeled by its critics inside and outside of the Islamic tradition, “Wahhabism”—was accused of being the ideological basis of all expressions of Sunni militancy from North America and Europe to West and East Africa, the Arab world, and into Asia. According to this narrative, Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Za- wahiri, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other Sunni jihadis were merely putting into action the commands of medieval ‘ulama such as Ibn Taymiyya, the eighteenth century Najdi Hanbali Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and modern revolutionary ideologues like Sayyid Qutb and ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam. To eradicate terrorism, you must eliminate or neuter Salafism, say its critics. The reality, of course, is far more complex than this simplistic nar- rative purports. Salafism, though its adherents share the same core set of creedal beliefs and methodological approaches toward the interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith and Sunni legal canon, comes in many forms, from the scholastic and hierarchical Salafism of the ‘ulama in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority countries to the decentralized, self-described Salafi groups in Europe and North America who cluster around a single char- ismatic preacher who often has limited formal religious education. What unifies these different expressions of Salafism is a core canon of religious and legal texts and set of scholars who are widely respected and referenced in Salafi circles. Thurston grounds his fieldwork and text-based analysis of Salafism in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and home to one of the world’s largest single Muslim national populations, through the lens of this canon, which he defines as a “communally negotiated set of texts that is governed by rules of interpretation and appropriation” (1). He argues fur- ther that in the history of Nigerian Salafism, one can trace the major stages that the global Salafi movement has navigated as it spread from the Arab Middle East to what are erroneously often seen as “peripheral” areas of the Islamic world, Africa and parts of Asia. The book is based on extensive fieldwork in Nigeria including interviews with key Nigerian Salafi scholars and other leading figures as well as a wide range of textual primary sourc- es including British and Nigerian archival documents, international and national news media reports, leaked US embassy cables, and a significant number of religious lectures and sermons and writings by Nigerian Salafis in Arabic and Hausa. In Chapter One, Thurston argues that the Salafi canon gives individ- ual and groups of Salafis a sense of identity and membership in a unique and, to them, superior religious community that is linked closely to their understanding and reading of sacred history and the revered figures of the Prophet Muhammad and the Ṣaḥāba. Salafism as an intellectual current, theology, and methodological approach is transmitted through this can- on which serves not only as a vehicle for proselytization but also a rule- book through which the boundaries of what is and is not “Salafism” are determined by its adherents and leading authorities. The book’s analytical framework and approach toward understanding Salafism, which rests on seeing it as a textual tradition, runs counter to the popular but problematic tendency in much of the existing discussion and even scholarly literature on Salafism that defines it as a literalist, one-dimensional, and puritani- cal creed with a singular focus on the Qur’an and hadith canon. Salafis, Thurston argues, do not simply derive religious and legal rulings in linear fashion from the Qur’an and Prophetic Sunna but rather engage in a co- herent and uniform process of aligning today’s Salafi community with a set of normative practices and beliefs laid out by key Salafi scholars from the recent past. Thurston divides the emergence of a distinct “Salafi” current within Sunnis into two phases. The first stretches from 1880 to 1950, as Sun- ni scholars from around the Muslim-majority world whose approaches shared a common hadith-centered methodology came into closer contact. The second is from the 1960s through the present, as key Salafi institutions (such as the Islamic University of Medina and other Saudi Salafi bodies) were founded and began attracting and (perhaps most importantly) fund- ing and sponsoring Sunni students from countries such as Nigeria to come study in Saudi Arabia, where they were deeply embedded in the Salafi tra- dition before returning to their home countries where, in turn, they spread Salafism among local Muslims. Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, as with other regions such as Yemen’s northern Sa‘ada governorate, proved to be a fertile ground for Salafism in large part because it enabled local Muslims from more humble social backgrounds to challenge the longtime domi- nance of hereditary ruling families and the established religious class. In northern Nigeria the latter was and continues to be dominated by Sufi or- ders and their shaykhs whose long-running claim to communal leadership faced new and substantive theological and resource challenges following the return of Nigerian seminary students from Saudi Arabia’s Salafi scho- lastic institutions in the 1990s and early 2000s. In Chapters Two and Three, Thurston traces the history of Nigerian and other African students in Saudi Arabia, which significantly expanded following the 1961 founding of the Islamic University of Medina (which remains the preeminent Salafi seminary and university in the world) and after active outreach across the Sunni Muslim world by the Saudi govern- ment and Salafi religious elite to attract students through lucrative funding and scholarship packages. The process of developing an African Salafism was not one-dimensional or imposed from the top-down by Saudi Salafi elites, but instead saw Nigerian and other African Salafi students partici- pate actively in shaping and theorizing Salafi da‘wa that took into account the specifics of each African country and Islamic religious and social envi- ronment. In Nigeria and other parts of West and East Africa, this included considering the historically dominant position of Sufi orders and popular practices such as devotion to saints and grave and shrine visitation. African and Saudi Salafis also forged relationships with local African partners, in- cluding powerful political figures such as Ahmadu Bello and his religious adviser Abubakar Gumi, by attracting them with the benefits of establishing ties with wealthy international Islamic organizations founded and backed by the Saudi state, including the Muslim World League. Nigerian Salafis returning from their studies in Saudi Arabia actively promoted their Salafi canon among local Muslims, waging an aggressive proselytization campaign that sought to chip away at the dominance of traditional political and religious elites, the Sufi shaykhs. This process is covered in Chapter Four. Drawing on key sets of legal and exegetical writ- ings by Ibn Taymiyya, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and other Salafi scholars, Nigerian Salafis sought to introduce a framework—represented by the canon—through which their students and adherents approach re- ligious interpretation and practice. By mastering one’s understanding and ability to correctly interpret scripture and the hadith, Salafis believe, one will also live a more ethical life based on a core set of “Salafi” principles that govern not only religious but also political, social, and economic life. Salaf- ism, Thurston argues, drawing on the work of Terje Østebø on Ethiopian Salafism, becomes localized within a specific environment.As part of their da‘wa campaigns, Nigerian Salafis have utilized media and new technology to debate their rivals and critics as well as to broad- en their own influence over Nigerian Muslims and national society more broadly, actions analyzed in Chapter Five. Using the Internet, video and audio recorded sermons and religious lectures, books and pamphlets, and oral proselytization and preaching, Nigerian Salafis, like other Muslim ac- tivists and groups, see in media and technology an extension of the phys- ical infrastructure provided by institutions such as mosques and religious schools. This media/cyber infrastructure is as, if not increasingly more, valuable as the control of physical space because it allows for the rapid spread of ideas beyond what would have historically been possible for local religious preachers and missionaries. Instead of preaching political revo- lution, Nigerian Salafi activists sought to win greater access to the media including radio airtime because they believed this would ultimately lead to the triumph of their religious message despite the power of skeptical to downright hostile local audiences among the Sufi orders and non-Salafis dedicated to the Maliki juridical canon.In the realm of politics, the subject of Chapter Six, Nigeria’s Salafis base their political ideology on the core tenets of the Salafi creed and canon, tenets which cast Salafism as being not only the purest but the only true version of Islam, and require of Salafis to establish moral reform of a way- ward Muslim society. Salafi scholars seek to bring about social, political, and religious reform, which collectively represent a “return” to the Prophet Muhammad’s Islam, by speaking truth to power and advising and repri- manding, as necessary, Muslim political rulers. In navigating the multi-po- lar and complex realm of national and regional politics, Thurston argues, Nigerian Salafi scholars educated in Saudi Arabia unwittingly opened the door to cruder and more extreme, militant voices of figures lacking the same level of study of the Salafi canon or Sunni Islam generally. The most infamous of the latter is “Boko Haram,” the jihadi-insurgent group today based around Lake Chad in Nigeria, Chad, and Niger, which calls itself Jama‘at Ahl al-Sunna li-l-Da‘wa wa-l-Jihad and is led by the bombastic Abubakar Shekau. Boko Haram, under the leadership first of the revivalist preacher Mu- hammad Yusuf and then Shekau, is covered at length in the book’s third and final part, which is composed of two chapters. Yusuf, unlike mainstream Nigerian Salafis, sought to weaponize the Salafi canon against the state in- stead of using it as a tool to bring about desired reforms. Drawing on the writings of influential Arab jihadi ideologues including Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and the apocalyptic revolutionary Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, the lat- ter of whom participated in the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Yusuf cited key Salafi concepts such as al-walā’ min al-mu’minīn wa-l-bara’ ‘an al-kāfirīn (loyalty to the Believers and disavowal of the Disbelievers) and beliefs about absolute monotheism (tawḥīd) as the basis of his revival- ist preaching. Based on these principle, he claimed, Muslims must not only fulfill their ritual duties such as prayer and fasting during Ramadan but also actively fight “unbelief” (kufr) and “apostasy” (ridda) and bring about God’s rule on earth, following the correct path of the community of the Prophet Abraham (Millat Ibrāhīm) referenced in multiple Qur’anic verses and outlined as a theological project for action by al-Maqdisi in a lengthy book of that name that has had a profound influence on the formation of modern Sunni jihadism. Instead of seeing Boko Haram, particularly under Shekau’s leadership, as a “Salafi” or “jihadi-Salafi” group, Thurston argues it is a case study of how a group that at one point in its history adhered to Salafism can move away from and beyond it. In the case of Shekau and his “post-Salafism,” he writes, the group, like Islamic State, has shifted away from the Salafi canon and toward a jihadism that uses only stripped-down elements from the canon and does so solely to propagate a militaristic form of jihad. Even when referencing historical religious authorities such as Ibn Taymiyya, Thurston points out, Boko Haram and Islamic State leaders and members often do so through the lens of modern Sunni jihadi ideologues like Juhay- man al-‘Utaybi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, figures who have come to form a Sunni jihadi canon of texts, intellectuals, and ideologues. Shekau, in short, has given up canonical Salafism and moved toward a more bombastic and scholastically more heterodox and less-Salafi-than- jihadi creed of political violence. Thurston also pushes back against the often crude stereotyping of Af- rican Islamic traditions and movements that sees African Muslims as being defined by their “syncretic” mix of traditional African religious traditions and “orthodox” Islam, the latter usually a stand-in for “Arab” and “Middle Eastern” Islam. Islam and Islamic movements in Africa have developed in social and political environments that are not mirrors to the dominant models of the Arab world (in particular, Egypt). He convincingly points out that analysis of all forms of African Islamic social and political mobi- lization through a Middle East and Egypt-heavy lens obscures much more than it elucidates. The book includes useful glossaries of key individuals and Arabic terms referenced in the text as well as a translation of a sermon by the late, revered Salafi scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani that is part of the mainstream Salafi canon. Extensive in its coverage of the his- tory, evolution, and sociopolitical and religious development of Salafism in Nigeria as well as the key role played by Saudi Salafi universities and religious institutions and quasi-state NGOs, the book expands the schol- arly literature on Salafism, Islam in Africa, and political Islam and Islamic social movements. It also contributing to ongoing debates and discussions on approaches to the study of the role of texts and textual traditions in the formation of individual and communal religious identity. Christopher AnzaloneResearch Fellow, International Security ProgramBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University& PhD candidate, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University

The global spread of Salafism, though it began in the 1960s and 1970s, only started to attract significant attention from scholars and analysts outside of Islamic studies as well as journalists, politicians, and the general public following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda Central. After the attacks, Salafism—or, as it was pejoratively labeled by its critics inside and outside of the Islamic tradition, “Wahhabism”—was accused of being the ideological basis of all expressions of Sunni militancy from North America and Europe to West and East Africa, the Arab world, and into Asia. According to this narrative, Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Za- wahiri, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other Sunni jihadis were merely putting into action the commands of medieval ‘ulama such as Ibn Taymiyya, the eighteenth century Najdi Hanbali Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and modern revolutionary ideologues like Sayyid Qutb and ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam. To eradicate terrorism, you must eliminate or neuter Salafism, say its critics. The reality, of course, is far more complex than this simplistic nar- rative purports. Salafism, though its adherents share the same core set of creedal beliefs and methodological approaches toward the interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith and Sunni legal canon, comes in many forms, from the scholastic and hierarchical Salafism of the ‘ulama in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority countries to the decentralized, self-described Salafi groups in Europe and North America who cluster around a single char- ismatic preacher who often has limited formal religious education. What unifies these different expressions of Salafism is a core canon of religious and legal texts and set of scholars who are widely respected and referenced in Salafi circles. Thurston grounds his fieldwork and text-based analysis of Salafism in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and home to one of the world’s largest single Muslim national populations, through the lens of this canon, which he defines as a “communally negotiated set of texts that is governed by rules of interpretation and appropriation” (1). He argues fur- ther that in the history of Nigerian Salafism, one can trace the major stages that the global Salafi movement has navigated as it spread from the Arab Middle East to what are erroneously often seen as “peripheral” areas of the Islamic world, Africa and parts of Asia. The book is based on extensive fieldwork in Nigeria including interviews with key Nigerian Salafi scholars and other leading figures as well as a wide range of textual primary sourc- es including British and Nigerian archival documents, international and national news media reports, leaked US embassy cables, and a significant number of religious lectures and sermons and writings by Nigerian Salafis in Arabic and Hausa. In Chapter One, Thurston argues that the Salafi canon gives individ- ual and groups of Salafis a sense of identity and membership in a unique and, to them, superior religious community that is linked closely to their understanding and reading of sacred history and the revered figures of the Prophet Muhammad and the Ṣaḥāba. Salafism as an intellectual current, theology, and methodological approach is transmitted through this can- on which serves not only as a vehicle for proselytization but also a rule- book through which the boundaries of what is and is not “Salafism” are determined by its adherents and leading authorities. The book’s analytical framework and approach toward understanding Salafism, which rests on seeing it as a textual tradition, runs counter to the popular but problematic tendency in much of the existing discussion and even scholarly literature on Salafism that defines it as a literalist, one-dimensional, and puritani- cal creed with a singular focus on the Qur’an and hadith canon. Salafis, Thurston argues, do not simply derive religious and legal rulings in linear fashion from the Qur’an and Prophetic Sunna but rather engage in a co- herent and uniform process of aligning today’s Salafi community with a set of normative practices and beliefs laid out by key Salafi scholars from the recent past. Thurston divides the emergence of a distinct “Salafi” current within Sunnis into two phases. The first stretches from 1880 to 1950, as Sun- ni scholars from around the Muslim-majority world whose approaches shared a common hadith-centered methodology came into closer contact. The second is from the 1960s through the present, as key Salafi institutions (such as the Islamic University of Medina and other Saudi Salafi bodies) were founded and began attracting and (perhaps most importantly) fund- ing and sponsoring Sunni students from countries such as Nigeria to come study in Saudi Arabia, where they were deeply embedded in the Salafi tra- dition before returning to their home countries where, in turn, they spread Salafism among local Muslims. Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, as with other regions such as Yemen’s northern Sa‘ada governorate, proved to be a fertile ground for Salafism in large part because it enabled local Muslims from more humble social backgrounds to challenge the longtime domi- nance of hereditary ruling families and the established religious class. In northern Nigeria the latter was and continues to be dominated by Sufi or- ders and their shaykhs whose long-running claim to communal leadership faced new and substantive theological and resource challenges following the return of Nigerian seminary students from Saudi Arabia’s Salafi scho- lastic institutions in the 1990s and early 2000s. In Chapters Two and Three, Thurston traces the history of Nigerian and other African students in Saudi Arabia, which significantly expanded following the 1961 founding of the Islamic University of Medina (which remains the preeminent Salafi seminary and university in the world) and after active outreach across the Sunni Muslim world by the Saudi govern- ment and Salafi religious elite to attract students through lucrative funding and scholarship packages. The process of developing an African Salafism was not one-dimensional or imposed from the top-down by Saudi Salafi elites, but instead saw Nigerian and other African Salafi students partici- pate actively in shaping and theorizing Salafi da‘wa that took into account the specifics of each African country and Islamic religious and social envi- ronment. In Nigeria and other parts of West and East Africa, this included considering the historically dominant position of Sufi orders and popular practices such as devotion to saints and grave and shrine visitation. African and Saudi Salafis also forged relationships with local African partners, in- cluding powerful political figures such as Ahmadu Bello and his religious adviser Abubakar Gumi, by attracting them with the benefits of establishing ties with wealthy international Islamic organizations founded and backed by the Saudi state, including the Muslim World League. Nigerian Salafis returning from their studies in Saudi Arabia actively promoted their Salafi canon among local Muslims, waging an aggressive proselytization campaign that sought to chip away at the dominance of traditional political and religious elites, the Sufi shaykhs. This process is covered in Chapter Four. Drawing on key sets of legal and exegetical writ- ings by Ibn Taymiyya, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and other Salafi scholars, Nigerian Salafis sought to introduce a framework—represented by the canon—through which their students and adherents approach re- ligious interpretation and practice. By mastering one’s understanding and ability to correctly interpret scripture and the hadith, Salafis believe, one will also live a more ethical life based on a core set of “Salafi” principles that govern not only religious but also political, social, and economic life. Salaf- ism, Thurston argues, drawing on the work of Terje Østebø on Ethiopian Salafism, becomes localized within a specific environment.As part of their da‘wa campaigns, Nigerian Salafis have utilized media and new technology to debate their rivals and critics as well as to broad- en their own influence over Nigerian Muslims and national society more broadly, actions analyzed in Chapter Five. Using the Internet, video and audio recorded sermons and religious lectures, books and pamphlets, and oral proselytization and preaching, Nigerian Salafis, like other Muslim ac- tivists and groups, see in media and technology an extension of the phys- ical infrastructure provided by institutions such as mosques and religious schools. This media/cyber infrastructure is as, if not increasingly more, valuable as the control of physical space because it allows for the rapid spread of ideas beyond what would have historically been possible for local religious preachers and missionaries. Instead of preaching political revo- lution, Nigerian Salafi activists sought to win greater access to the media including radio airtime because they believed this would ultimately lead to the triumph of their religious message despite the power of skeptical to downright hostile local audiences among the Sufi orders and non-Salafis dedicated to the Maliki juridical canon.In the realm of politics, the subject of Chapter Six, Nigeria’s Salafis base their political ideology on the core tenets of the Salafi creed and canon, tenets which cast Salafism as being not only the purest but the only true version of Islam, and require of Salafis to establish moral reform of a way- ward Muslim society. Salafi scholars seek to bring about social, political, and religious reform, which collectively represent a “return” to the Prophet Muhammad’s Islam, by speaking truth to power and advising and repri- manding, as necessary, Muslim political rulers. In navigating the multi-po- lar and complex realm of national and regional politics, Thurston argues, Nigerian Salafi scholars educated in Saudi Arabia unwittingly opened the door to cruder and more extreme, militant voices of figures lacking the same level of study of the Salafi canon or Sunni Islam generally. The most infamous of the latter is “Boko Haram,” the jihadi-insurgent group today based around Lake Chad in Nigeria, Chad, and Niger, which calls itself Jama‘at Ahl al-Sunna li-l-Da‘wa wa-l-Jihad and is led by the bombastic Abubakar Shekau. Boko Haram, under the leadership first of the revivalist preacher Mu- hammad Yusuf and then Shekau, is covered at length in the book’s third and final part, which is composed of two chapters. Yusuf, unlike mainstream Nigerian Salafis, sought to weaponize the Salafi canon against the state in- stead of using it as a tool to bring about desired reforms. Drawing on the writings of influential Arab jihadi ideologues including Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and the apocalyptic revolutionary Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, the lat- ter of whom participated in the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Yusuf cited key Salafi concepts such as al-walā’ min al-mu’minīn wa-l-bara’ ‘an al-kāfirīn (loyalty to the Believers and disavowal of the Disbelievers) and beliefs about absolute monotheism (tawḥīd) as the basis of his revival- ist preaching. Based on these principle, he claimed, Muslims must not only fulfill their ritual duties such as prayer and fasting during Ramadan but also actively fight “unbelief” (kufr) and “apostasy” (ridda) and bring about God’s rule on earth, following the correct path of the community of the Prophet Abraham (Millat Ibrāhīm) referenced in multiple Qur’anic verses and outlined as a theological project for action by al-Maqdisi in a lengthy book of that name that has had a profound influence on the formation of modern Sunni jihadism. Instead of seeing Boko Haram, particularly under Shekau’s leadership, as a “Salafi” or “jihadi-Salafi” group, Thurston argues it is a case study of how a group that at one point in its history adhered to Salafism can move away from and beyond it. In the case of Shekau and his “post-Salafism,” he writes, the group, like Islamic State, has shifted away from the Salafi canon and toward a jihadism that uses only stripped-down elements from the canon and does so solely to propagate a militaristic form of jihad. Even when referencing historical religious authorities such as Ibn Taymiyya, Thurston points out, Boko Haram and Islamic State leaders and members often do so through the lens of modern Sunni jihadi ideologues like Juhay- man al-‘Utaybi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, figures who have come to form a Sunni jihadi canon of texts, intellectuals, and ideologues. Shekau, in short, has given up canonical Salafism and moved toward a more bombastic and scholastically more heterodox and less-Salafi-than- jihadi creed of political violence. Thurston also pushes back against the often crude stereotyping of Af- rican Islamic traditions and movements that sees African Muslims as being defined by their “syncretic” mix of traditional African religious traditions and “orthodox” Islam, the latter usually a stand-in for “Arab” and “Middle Eastern” Islam. Islam and Islamic movements in Africa have developed in social and political environments that are not mirrors to the dominant models of the Arab world (in particular, Egypt). He convincingly points out that analysis of all forms of African Islamic social and political mobi- lization through a Middle East and Egypt-heavy lens obscures much more than it elucidates. The book includes useful glossaries of key individuals and Arabic terms referenced in the text as well as a translation of a sermon by the late, revered Salafi scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani that is part of the mainstream Salafi canon. Extensive in its coverage of the his- tory, evolution, and sociopolitical and religious development of Salafism in Nigeria as well as the key role played by Saudi Salafi universities and religious institutions and quasi-state NGOs, the book expands the schol- arly literature on Salafism, Islam in Africa, and political Islam and Islamic social movements. It also contributing to ongoing debates and discussions on approaches to the study of the role of texts and textual traditions in the formation of individual and communal religious identity. Christopher AnzaloneResearch Fellow, International Security ProgramBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University& PhD candidate, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University

During recent decades, third world countries, especially Arab nations, have become concerned about their image in Western mass media. Arab commentators claim that coverage of their region “is often one-sided and one-dimensional” (Al-Nowais, H.E.A., 1980), and that their cultural characteristics have been falsely depicted. Such misrepresentation is one factor that leads Western viewers to misunderstand the social and political norms of the Arab world. Islam, as both a religion and a political force in Arab nations, is frequently misinterpreted. The topic that has most recently crystallized concern about the misrepresentation of Arab culture has been the role of women in Islamic societies. This paper tries to examine such misrepresentations, and to highlight Saudi culture and Islamic law, through an analysis of Antony Thomas’s docudrama Death of a Princess.

The article examines and analyzes the spread of Islamism or Political Islam movements in the Greater Mediterranean and their increasing influence on the socio-political situation in 2011-2021. The historical factors, which contributed to the emergence of the hearths of Islamic culture in the countries which entered the Arab Caliphate in the Greater Mediterranean parallel with the Antique centers of European civilization, are retrospectively exposed. The Islamist ideologues called the Ottoman Imperia the heir of the Arab Caliphate. The main doctrinal conceptions of Political Islam and its more influential movement Muslim Brotherhood (forbidden in Russia) are discovered. The factor of the Arab Spring, which considerably influenced the strengthening of the Islamist movements, as well as its continuation of the protests in the Arab countries in 2018-2021, is examined. The main attention is allotted to analyzing the actions of the Islamic movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and in the Libyan and Syrian conflicts too. The influence of external actors, the most active of which was Turkey, is revealed. The author also analyzes the situation in the Arab-Muslim communities in the European Mediterranean on the example of France, where social-economic problems, aggravated by COVID-19, have contributed to the activation of radical Islamist elements. It is concluded that confronting the Islamist challenge is a complex and controversial task. Its solution depends on both forceful opposition to radical groups and an appropriate foreign policy. An important negative factor is the aggravation of socio-economic problems and crisis phenomena in the institutions of Western democracy, in response to which the ideologues of Islamism preach an alternative world order in the form of an Islamic state. At the moment the Western society and the countries which repeat its liberal model do not give a distinct response to this challenge.

One of the most controversial topics that are argued about among many scholars nowadays is Political Islam. The significance of this appeared widely after the success of Iranian revolution in the previous century, and then the Soviet Union's breakdown in the beginning of 1990s that flamed the desire for recruiting and supporting Islamists, and the active participating in elections in some Arab and Islamic countries. Despite that, the occurrence of some other factors, in previous century, caused momentum to the appearance of political Islam. Hence, this paper comes to shed light on the most important of those reasons and factors.

This essay argues that El-Saadawi, in her novel God Dies by the Nile, does not oppose Islam and does not claim that it is Islam that oppresses women, but rather that it is the abuse of Islam and the melange of Islam, traditions, and superstitions that oppresses the women in Kafr El Teen, which is symbolic of many Arab countries. This paper takes a socialist feminist perspective and analyzes the ways in which political institutions, patriarchy. and power structures in El-Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile falsely and maliciously resort to religion and distort it in order to oppress women. This abuse is manifested in all aspects of the villagers’ lives—political, economic, social, and sexual.

The uprisings that led to regime change during the early period of the Arab Spring were initially inclusive and pluralistic in nature, with men and women from every political and religious orientation engaging actively in political activities on the street and in virtual spaces. While there was an opening of political space for women and the inclusion of demands of marginalized groups in the activists’ agenda, the struggle to reimagine national identities that balance Islamic roots and secular yearnings is still ongoing in many countries in the region. This paper seeks to deepen understanding of the extent to which the pluralistic sentiments and openness to accepting the rights women have persisted following the uprising. We aim to examine changes in attitudes towards women’s equality in countries that underwent regime change through popular uprisings during revolutionary upheavals of the Arab Spring and in countries where regimes have remained unchanged. Using available data from consecutive rounds of the Arab Barometer survey, we examine changes in attitudes in nine countries with two rounds of Arab Barometer during and post Arab Spring (Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Sudan, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine). We find that support for “Muslim feminism” (an interpretation of gender equality grounded in Islam) has increased over the period and particularly in Arab Spring countries, while support for “secular feminism” has declined. In most countries examined, relatively high degrees of support for gender equality co-exist with a preference for Islamic interpretations of personal status codes pertaining to women. We discuss the implications of these findings for academics and activists concerned with women’s rights in the Middle East North Africa (MENA).

The subject of the research is the degree of influence of Sunni and Shi’ism on political processes in Arab countries. The object of the research is Islam as the legal basis of the state. The authors examine in detail such aspects of the topic as the historical analysis of the origin of Islam, the reasons for the division of Islam into Sunnis and Shiites, a comparative analysis of the two branches of Islam, the peculiarities of the legal schools of Islam, the interaction of Sunnis and Shiites with state power. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of interpretations (kalams) of the Qur’an and Sunnah. The study is fundamental and is aimed at the historical and political analysis of Islam in the XXI century. The relevance of this topic is confirmed by numerous studies of the described problems. The main conclusions of the study are that one of the key problems in the Arab states is the issue of the origin of power, which remains relevant even in the XXI century. The authors’ special contribution to the study of the topic is the hypothesis that the radicalism of Islam is associated with its short history in comparison with Christianity. Thus, Islam in the XXI century. is still at an active stage of formation, which leads to the emergence of Islamic terrorist organizations. The novelty of this scientific study lies in the consideration of historical processes in the political discourse of the XXI century.

The article is devoted to the study of the formation of the intellectual basis and geopolitical conditions for the emergence and growth of political Islam in the Middle East in the second half of the twentieth century. A comparative empirical analysis of the formation of political Islam at specific historical stages indicates the existence of a causal relationship between the colonial and post-colonial policies of European countries, the policies of socialist and nationalist regimes, the competition between regional leaders in the struggle for the palm in the Islamic world and the growth of political Islam, and also more radical movements. This article examines two factors in the emergence and growth of political Islam in the Middle East: 1) colonialism and post-colonial pan-Arab regimes in the Middle East as the reasons for the emergence of an intellectual basis for political Islam and 2) political Islam within the framework of pan-Islamism and confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Concise, succinct, and informative, this book skillfully elucidates andassesses the patterns, prospects, and complexities of Arab-European relationscontextualized in a globalizing (read “Americanizing”) world. It alsoidentifies the ambiguities and limitations of social movements and struggleswithin the Arab world, as well as their implications for mutual relationships(p. vi). The authors’ main thesis is that both global capitalism and theAmerican determination to construct a “new” Middle East in its own imagehave undermined the possibilities of domestic reforms and external realignmentsin most Arab countries. American hegemonic influence, together withthe growing sway of politicized Islam on public life, have added more limitationsand constraints to other failures to transform the underlying economicand political structures defining the relations between members onboth sides of the Mediterranean.The book comprises four chapters: three written by Amin (chapters 1, 2,and 4), and one (chapter 3) by El Kenz. The first chapter is a critical surveyof conditions in the Arab world in general and that of the Arab “state” in particular.Amin designates the latter structure as a manifestation of “mamelukepower,” reflecting a complex traditional system that has merged the personalizedpower of warlords, businessmen, and men of religion (p. 3). The Arabstate, he argues, has never really embraced or understood modernity. Egypt,Syria, and the Ottoman Empire underwent a first phase of ineffective modernizationduring the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The secondphase was associated with the populist nationalism of Nasserism, Baathism,and the Algerian revolution between the 1950s and 1970s. With the end ofthis phase, a multiparty system gave way to a paradoxical regression into themameluke type of autocracy (pp. 10-12). Whereas Europe broke with itspast, which allowed for its modern progress, the Arabs have not. Amin identifiesmodernity with such a historical break as well as with secularism, thedifferentiation of religion and politics, the emancipation of women, and therest of the term’s conventional elements (pp. 2-3).He criticizes currents “claiming to be Islamic” (p. 6), particularly thoseof the Wahhabi type, viewing Islamic militant groups as manifestations of arevolt against “destructive” capitalism and “deceptive” modernity (p. 6),more interested in sociopolitical issues than in matters of theology. Amin dismissesIran as being no different, although he provides no details (p. 8), and ...

Using Arab Barometer data (2011), the authors examine Muslim men’s gender attitudes in four predominantly Muslim Middle Eastern and North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen) during the Arab Spring. They examine if living in insecurity – which may threaten men’s ability to attain masculine ideals – is related to male overcompensation, evident in strong support for patriarchal gender ideology. They then investigate if Islamic religiosity influences this relationship. Results reveal that political Islam is strongly related to Muslimmenamen’s patriarchal gender attitudes across the region. The effects of living in insecurity and other facets of Islamic religiosity on men’s gender ideology vary by country. The results on the many effects of insecurity and Islam on men’s gender ideology challenge stereotypical representations of the region as uniformly Islamic and patriarchal.

This article is dedicated to the issues of relations between the state and Islam in Arab countries (Algeria, Egypt, Syria) and in Russia in the contemporary era. Despite the fundamental diff erences between political systems and diff erent experiences in relations between the state and religion, all these societies are facing similar threats and challenges in recent years, causing certain parallels between policies towards Islam. This work is based on both published materials and around 20 interviews with experts, politicians and religious leaders from the researched countries recorded by the authors. The research allowed to defi ne common and diff erent traits of implemented political strategies, made it possible to show the infl uence of such processes as securitization of religion administrating, growing individualization of faith practicing, integration of religious institutions in the civil society structures on the transformation of StateIslam relationship models.

Political developments in North Africa and the Middle East that have begun in January 2011 are gaining strength and involve an increasing number of Arab countries. The participants of the Roundtable – experts from IMEMO, Institute of Oriental Studies (RAS), Institute of the USA and Canada (RAS) and Mrs. E. Suponina from “Moscow News” newspaper analyzed a wide range of issues associated with these events. Among them are: 1) the reasons for such a large-scale explosion, 2) the nature of the discussed developments (revolutions, riots?) and who are the subjects of the current “Arab drama”, 3) the role of Islam and political Islamism, 4) the role of external factors.

In this article, the author considers two most important, in his opinion, aspects of the activities of the Islamist movement «Muslim Brotherhood» (MB) in Europe today – a rupture that has emerged in the system of the highest governing bodies of the MB (the formation of two rival centers – in Istanbul and London) and the intensification of attempts of MB groups participation in the political life of European countries under the «banner of Islam». The author draws attention to the fact that the observed «renaissance of the brothers» in Europe not only clearly contrasts with the position of their associates in most Arab countries, in whose social and political life they are failing after failure, but can also be considered as an attempt to lead the MB precisely through his European experience to preserve the movement itself, to support the dynamics of its activity, to formulate its upcoming goals. In other words, to demonstrate the ability of the movement and its ideology to transform and adapt to the conditions of the 21st century. To do this, the Islamist «brotherhood» is actively exploiting the potential of the welfare state and political freedoms in the Old World. The author explores the mechanisms used by the Islamists of the BM to penetrate into state structures and influential layers of European societies. It is noteworthy that the activities of the MB are increasingly mentioned by European experts and politicians in the context of growing internal threats to their countries.

Antagonism with Western civilization in the course of colonial expansion and the subsequent struggle for independence, had a significant impact on the formation of the political elite of the Arab world. At the level of mass public consciousness and perception of historical reality, a transformation of worldview occurs with the active influence of Islam and its spiritual leaders. how the suppression of communist, socialist and other left-wing and reformist political movements in the region after the Second World War influenced and continue to influence the economic and political development of the region.

Islam entered the territory of Malaysia, especially in the Malacca kingdom, through Muslim merchants from India and Arab-Persia around the 7th century AD The broad development took place around the 13th century, with the discovery of inscriptions nuanced by Islam. Islamic political thought and movement was more intensive since the struggle for political compromise to gain independence from British colonialism. The Islamic political movement has a spectacular momentum when the Malaysian Constitution places Islam as the official religion of the state and makes ethnic Malays as a special group (special privileges) over other ethnic groups. The development of Islam is supported by an Islamic political movement that is controlled by political parties holding power, namely UMNO, even though Islam is inclusive and upholds the value of nationalism, its work still prioritizes Islamic values. Opposition parties such as PAS which are more fundamaentalist in their ethical sense have actually been adopted by the ruling party. This means that the two parties benefited the existence of Islam. Referring to the peaceful Islamic political movement in order to uphold the teachings of Islam in Malaysia, both legally and formally and constitutionally and culturally, it can be an inspiration to other Muslim-majority countries.

This paper seeks to underline two features of transformation in the Arab world since the late 1960s. First, that region’s religious transformation or ṣaḥwah(awakening) has been a general and overwhelming phenomenon. The pulse of Islam’s global surge can be easily observed at various levels of contemporary Arab countries: the individual and the collective, as well as their political behavior and organization. Second, the great tension between the West and Islam, particularly after 9/11, constituted a sort of change in the relationship between these two parties. I argue that these tensions could be reduced and minimized if the West were to improve its linguistic and cultural ties with Arab societies. The perspective of cultural sociology is very helpful in clarifying how to enhance such a dialogue. I shed light on these two topics through what I call a Homo Culturus perspective.

This paper seeks to underline two features of transformation in the Arab world since the late 1960s. First, that region’s religious transformation or ṣaḥwah(awakening) has been a general and overwhelming phenomenon. The pulse of Islam’s global surge can be easily observed at various levels of contemporary Arab countries: the individual and the collective, as well as their political behavior and organization. Second, the great tension between the West and Islam, particularly after 9/11, constituted a sort of change in the relationship between these two parties. I argue that these tensions could be reduced and minimized if the West were to improve its linguistic and cultural ties with Arab societies. The perspective of cultural sociology is very helpful in clarifying how to enhance such a dialogue. I shed light on these two topics through what I call a Homo Culturus perspective.

Abstract Gramsci recognised the inestimable historical contribution of Muslim and Arab civilisations, writing on these in his newspaper articles, his pre-prison letters and the Prison Notebooks. The Islamic world contemporary with him was largely rural, with the masses heavily influenced by religion, analogous in some ways to Italy whose economy was still largely oriented towards a peasantry among whom the Vatican played a leading (and highly reactionary) role. In addition to factors such as the politics-religion nexus, what Gramsci was also analysing, without saying as much explicitly, was the upheaval caused by the disintegration and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and the inter-imperialist rivalries over the spoils and the construction of new states from its ruins. Here he draws attention to the first hesitant and contradictory anticolonial stances being adopted among the traditional leaders, as well recognising the basis for more popularly-based movements. In both Catholic countries and, as Gramsci knew especially from the experience of his Comintern work, in parts of the Muslim world, these movements could at times assume a left and politically radical orientation. What emerges is a picture of conflicting hegemonies involving principally religion, class, the political ambivalence of many religious leaders, and a burgeoning nationalism contraposed to the supra-nationalist claims of religion. But the factor underlying everything is the potential of the masses who, if awakened from torpor and detached from European colonialism, were judged capable of rupturing previous imperially-determined equilibria.

Much is said about Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) publics opposing gender equality, often referring to patriarchal Islam. However, nuanced large-scale studies addressing which specific aspects of religiosity affect support for gender equality across the MENA are conspicuously absent. This study develops and tests a gendered agentic socialization framework that proposes that MENA citizens are not only passively socialized by religion but also have agency (within their religiosity). This disaggregates the influence of religiosity, highlights its multifacetedness, and theorizes the moderating roles that gender and sociocognitive empowerment play via gendered processes of agentic dissociations. Using 15 World Values Surveys and multilevel models, our analyses show that most dimensions of religiosity fuel opposition to gender equality. However, the salience of religion in daily life is found to increase women’s support for gender equality and cushion the negative impact of religious service attendance. Also, gender and education moderate the impacts of several religiosity dimensions; for instance, women’s (initially greater) support for gender equality more sharply declines with increased service attendance than men’s. Altogether, this study finds that religious socialization is multifaceted and gendered, and that certain men and women are inclined and equipped to deviate from dominant patriarchal religious interpretations.

The Arab revolts of 2011 raised new questions regarding democracy. On the one hand, a new kind of democracy is apparently born: the democracy of the multitude. On the other, Islam has been a major actor in the Arab revolts and presumably will play a growing role in the future. The article investigates if there is a new political model put forward by the foreseeable Islamic developments of the revolts. If we take for granted that there is not only one kind of democracy and that there is much more space for Islamic organizations in the present and future political arena of the Muslim countries, then it will not sound like a heresy to ask whether there is an Islamic way to democracy. In order to demonstrate this original point of view, it is necessary to deal with the principles of Islamic political thought. The Arab revolts promise to renew and update these principles. The article will try to peruse this revision from the point of view of Antonio Gramsci and his theory of hegemony.

Based on historical fact, between Islam and the West theologically has strong bond which is on the meeting points and similarities between Islam and the West that inherit Jewish and Christian traditions. These three religions inherited the tradition of Prophet Ibrahim. However, theological similarities between Christianity and Islam precisely become t he cause of collision between two of them. Historical problem between Islam and the West can be seen from the root of the conflict that includes: theological and political. Conflict between Islam and the West is covered by political motives. On the contrary, theology is only become justification to distinguish culturally and theologically between Islam and the West, basically this difference is more encouraged by political interest. Conflicts happen in Syiria is not because of religious factor, but it is more dominated by political and economic interest. The facts prove that most of Arab countries are the eternal alliance of the Western block, which was directed by The United States as the Solely Super Power in the world. Therefore, in the effort to build agreement and global coalition, actively promote cooperation. So that, the most important thing right now is the encounter between Islam and the West, that must be interpreted as building a dialogue of Civilization, not confrontation or mutual suspicion, building ideal relationship and also the need of harmonization between Islam and the West. Keywords: West, Islam, Conflict Berdasarkan fakta sejarah, antara Islam dan Barat secara teologis mempunyai ikatan yang kuat yakni ada titik temu dan persamaan antara Islam dan Barat yang mewarisi tradisi Yahudi dan Kristen. Ketiga agama ini mewarisi tradisi Nabi Ibrahim. Namun, persamaan teologis yang ada antar Kristen dan Islam justru menjadi penyebab benturan di antara keduanya. Problem historis antara Islam dan Barat dapat dilihat dari akar konflik yang meliputi, teologis dan politis. Konflik antara Islam dan Barat tertutupi dengan motif politik. Sebaliknya, teologis hanya dijadikan justifikasi untuk membedakan secara kultural dan teologis antara Islam dan Barat, pada dasarnya perbedaan ini lebih didorong oleh kepentingan politik. Adalah konflik yang terjadi di Suriah bukanlah karena faktor agama namun lebih didominasi oleh faktor politik dan ekonomi. Fakta membuktikan, bahwa sebagian besar negara Arab adalah aliansi abadi blok Barat, yang dinakhodai langsung oleh Amerika Serikat sebagai kekuatan Super Power tunggal dunia. Oleh karena itu dalam upaya untuk membangun kesepakatan dan koalisi global, untuk secara aktif mempromosikan kerja sama. Oleh karena itu, yang terpenting saat ini perjumpaan Islam dan Barat harus dimaknai sebagai membangun dialog peradaban, bukan konfrontasi atau saling curiga, membangun hubungan yang ideal serta perlunya harmonisasi antara peradaban Islam dan Barat. Kata Kunci: Barat, Islam, Konflik

As Arab monarchies increasingly adopt and empower consultative assemblies, women’s representation varies markedly across countries. What leads citizens in these new electoral systems to vote for women? This study investigates the determinants of support for women’s representation using the first electoral survey ever conducted in Oman, prior to the October 2015 Majlis al Shura elections. It considers cross-nationally recognized factors – gender ideology and religion – and tribalism, a factor heretofore largely unexplored. Confirming prior studies, citizens with traditional gender ideology are much less supportive of women’s representation. Developing a simultaneous equations model, we show that religiosity and tribalism shape gender ideology. Unlike in Western countries, education is unassociated with attitudes, and there is no generational shift towards equality; younger men are less supportive of women’s representation than are older men. Increasing women’s representation requires not only increasing citizen demand for female leaders, but also changing informal tribal and formal electoral institutions.

The relation between Islam and modernity as modern civilization is frequently faced contradiction. The disclaimer of a secular state for instance, leads to the debate by which the articulation of some Muslims who reject it is much more than those who accept it. Another example is humanism such as religious freedom and capitalism, although the disclaimers of these two issues are softer than those who denied the nation-state. However, the conceptual analysis points out that Islam is compatible with modernity as modern civilization. The main reason is that Islam was first emerged as a critic against the previous religion that was not engage the social transformation for the Arab society before Islam. Islam is also encouraged contemporary thought and social reform with the concept of ishlah (reform) and tajdid (renewal). If this case is measured based on the dimension of modernity, it obvious that Islam Islam as a teaching/conceptual frame/mindset in this article does not have conflict with it. Islam is in line with the nation state, secular country or secularism itself, democracy as political system, rationalism and empirical science, and capitalism. This paper is expected to strengthen the Integration of Islam as society with the modernity as modern civilization in the East and West countries.

A religious minority of Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, the Pomaks now live dispersed in five Balkan countries: Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Albania and Turkey. A living legacy of the complexities of Balkan history, the Pomaks represent a perfect case to study interstate political intricacies around the unsettled identity of small inter-communal groups. An examination of this community should enrich the knowledge about the nature of Balkan Islam that stands on the periphery of the Arab-Iranian-Turkic Islamic heartland, the three peoples who carried the major burden of Islamic history.

“Middle East in all its complexity, has always been an area of ​​concern to humanity from time to time. So much history is engraved in this area, began its cultural golden stretches in the valley of the Nile, Euphrates and Tigris, until the major political forces of Iran with the birth of Islam were able to change the form of government of the Islamic Republic, until the blood battle in a variety of domestic political interests, regional and international level in various conflict situations; Arab-Israeli war, the US-invasion of Iraq until the political revolution "Arab Spring" in some Arab countries. Not only that, The Middle East is also a spiritual direction with the birth of the great religions of the world, whose influence was felt hundreds of millions of human beings until today. But ironically, The strategic location of the region with all the wonders that should make this a more stable, but otherwise This area is known as "Hot area" with conflicts of interest. From this condition, I am interested to analyze why the frequent conflicts in the Middle East and the factors that cause these conflicts.”

Mediating the Middle East engages social and political constructions that articulate sentiment within the United States, with consequences not only to foreign policies and relationships, but also to experiences of Arab and Muslim citizens. Engagement with media narratives is expected to become particularly relevant when people do not share a resonating identity or direct experience with the community being projected. I position this research as an entry into how we might understand the primacy of dominant media narratives in shaping norms that contribute to discriminatory practices. Through this analysis, I focus on the concerns of Arab and Muslim Americans, considering the consequences of negative media characterizations of Islam, of Arab communities, and of the Middle East. This study builds on a national survey of adult United States citizens (n = 1416), with a targeted proportion of Arab American residents. These attitudes toward fellow citizens as well as foreign countries are considered in relation to extent of engagement with popular culture, specifically action-adventure given its role in Hollywood narratives featuring the Middle East. Attitudes toward Arab and Muslim communities within the United States as well as in the Middle East are demonstrated to be related to this form of media engagement.