Is secularization a sociological process initiated by the Muslim encounter with and migration to the West?
Answer
A. Introduction
More than twenty years after the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the wave of Islamic radicalism that has engulfed the Middle East since the late 1970s is taking a different course. The mainstream Islamist movements have shifted from the struggle for a supranational Muslim community into a kind of Islamo-nationalism: they want to be fully recognized as legitimate actors on the domestic political scene, and have largely given up the supranational agenda that was part of their ideology, said Roy[1] On the other hand, the policy of conservative re-Islamization implemented by many states, even secular ones, in order to undercut the Islamist opposition and to regain some religious legitimacy has backfired. It has produced a new brand of Islamic fundamentalism, ideologically conservative but at times politically radical. This neo-fundamentalism is largely de-linked from states’ policy and strategy. At first glance it is less politically minded than the Islamist movements—less concerned with defining what a true Islamic State should be than with the implementation of shariat (Islamic law). Though the movement is basically a socio-cultural phenomenon, it has also produced an extremist expression which is embodied in loose peripheral networks, such as the organization Al Qaida, headed by Osama bin Laden, responsible for the destruction of the WorldTradeCenter on 11 September 2001. Consequently, international Islamic terrorism has shifted from state-sponsored actions or actions against domestic targets toward a de-territorialized, supranational and largely uprooted activism. Nevertheless the strategic impact of these new movements is limited by the very fact that they have such scarce roots in the states’ domestic politics. However, this is not the case in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which are now the hotbed of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism.
According to Roy[2] the relationship of Muslims to Islam is reshaped by globalization, westernization and the impact of living as minority. The issue is not theological contents of Islamic religion, but the way believers refer to this corpus to adapt and explain their behaviors in a context where religion has lost its social authority. Roy didn’t consider it to be a different Islam. The corpus, the basic tenets and rituals, the pillars of the faith are absolutely consistent with the learned tradition of theological and legal knowledge. Moreover, certain forms of globalization of Islam are explicitly fundamentalists by stressing the need to return to a ‘pure’ Islam, that of the salaf, the pious ancestors. Global Muslims, said Roy, either Muslim who settled permanently in non Muslim countries (mainly in the West), or Muslims who try to distance themselves from a given Muslim culture and so stress their belonging to a universal ummah, whether in purely quietist way or through political action.[3]
B. Neo-Fundamentalism and Secularization
“Islamism” is the brand of modern political Islamic fundamentalism which claims to recreate a true Islamic society, not simply by imposing the shariat, but by establishing first an Islamic state through political action. Islamists see Islam not as a mere religion, but as a political ideology which should be integrated into all aspects of society (politics, law, economy, social justice, foreign policy, etc.). The traditional idea of Islam as an all-encompassing religion is extended to the complexity of a modern society. In fact they acknowledge the modernity of the society in terms of education, technology, changes in family structure, and so forth. The movement’s founding fathers are Hassan Al Banna (1906–1949), Abul Ala Maududi, and, among the Shi’as, Baqer al Sadr, Ali Shariati and Ruhollah Khomeyni. They had a great impact among educated youth with a secular background, including women. They had less success among traditional ulamas. To Islamists, the Islamic State should unite the ummah as much as possible, not being restricted to a specific nation. Such a state attempts to recreate the golden age of the first decades of Islam and supersede tribal, ethnic and national divides, whose resilience is attributed to the believers’ abandonment of the true tenets of Islam or to colonial policy. These movements according to Roy[4] are not necessarily violent, even if, by definition, they are not democratic: the Pakistani Jama’at Islami and the Turkish Refah Party (now fazilet) as well as most of the Muslim Brothers groups have remained inside a legal framework, except where they were prevented from taking political action, as was the case in Syria, for instance.
In fact, this new brand of supranational neo-fundamentalism is more a product of contemporary globalization than of the Islamic past. Using two international languages (English and Arabic), traveling easily by air, studying, training and working in many different countries, communicating through the Internet and cellular phones, they think of themselves as “Muslims” and not as citizens of a specific country. They are often uprooted, more or less voluntarily (many are Palestinian refugees from 1948, and not from Gaza or the West Bank; bin Laden was stripped of his Saudi citizenship; many others belong to migrant families who move from one country to the next to find jobs or education). It is probably a paradox of globalization to gear together modern supranational networks and traditional, even archaic, infra-state forms of relationships (tribalism, for instance, or religious schools’ networks). Even the very sectarian form of their religious beliefs and attitudes make the neo-fundamentalists look like other sects spreading all over the planet.
C. Conclusion
“Islamism” is the brand of modern political Islamic fundamentalism which claims to recreate a true Islamic society, not simply by imposing the shariat, but by establishing first an Islamic state through political action.
The state the Islamist parties are challenging is not an abstract state, but rather one that is more or less rooted in history and is part of a strategic landscape. The Islamist parties themselves are the product of a given political culture and society. Despite their claim of being supranational, most of the Islamist movements have been shaped by national particularities.
This “nationalization” of Islamism is apparent in most countries of the Middle East.
However, the mainstream Islamist movements, while consolidating a stable constituency inside their own country, are losing their appeal beyond their borders.
Three elements characterize these groups (well embodied by the Taliban/Osama bin Laden coalition).
First, they combine political and militant jihad against the West with a very conservative definition of Islam, closer to the tenets of Saudi Wahhabism than to the official ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The second point is that these movements are supra-national. A quick look at the bulk of bin Laden’s militants killed or arrested between 1993 and 2001 show that they are mainly uprooted, western educated, having broken with their family as well as country of origin.
Third, while Islamists do adapt to the nation-state, neo-fundamentalists embody the crisis of the nation-state, squeezed between infra-state solidarities and globalization. The state level is bypassed and ignored.
[2] Roy, Olivier, 2004, Globalised Islam the Search for New Ummah, p ix-x
[3] In this field Roy has successfully describe globalization within Muslims and Islam; unfortunately, he is too west-minded in his opinions, like other orientalists before him.
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