The Foreign Service Journal, April 2008

What Is Political Islam? Let’s begin with the basics. Islam is a religion and political Islam, sometimes called Islamism, is the applica- tion of those religious ideas in the political arena. Among the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, there is wide cultural and political diversity. Islam is a dominant motif in the political mosaic of most Muslim countries, but it is not the only pattern. Ethnic and tribal values, colonial experience and economic endowments also weigh strong- ly, both on the importance of Islam and its nature. Practice varies greatly. In Morocco, the king hosts an annual liturgical music festival during which American gospel singers have inspired thousands of young Moroc- cans to shout “I love Jesus.” But in Saudi Arabia, the murawwah (pre-Islamic code of manly virtues) shapes a strict Wahhabi interpretation. And in Indonesia, pancasi- la merges the five pillars of Islam into a civic code empha- sizing tolerance, diversity and acceptance. So the first les- son from the primer is that political Islam is idiosyncratic, making generalizations problematic. Furthermore, globalization has blended Islam and the West. Islam in the West is commonplace, including a growing Muslim population with increasing numbers of mosques and halal markets (stores selling food permissi- ble under Islamic law). Similarly, the West has penetrat- ed deeply even into the cradle of Islam itself. Indicative is the Golden Arches barometer: McDonald’s serves halal hamburgers not only at its three franchises in the holy city of Mecca, but also at locations in Michigan and London. Who Are the Islamists? Practitioners of political Islam can be broadly classified into three groups: quietists, activists and jihadists. Whereas the first two emphasize that jihad is an inner struggle to submit one’s self to God’s will (jihad of self, the hand and the tongue), jihadists stress external or military struggle (jihad of the sword). Although there are no reliable statistics, the prepon- derant group, encompassing three-quarters or more of all Muslims, is the quietists, who generally believe that God can take care of Himself, thank you. While Islam perme- ates their lives, only occasionally do they feel compelled to act politically for religious reasons, usually when they believe there has been an affront to Islam or interference with the practice of their faith. A well-known quietist is the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Iraq. While all Muslims take inspiration from the Quranic injunction to promote virtue and prevent vice, activists go beyond just setting a good example in society to political action and leadership. In Saudi Arabia, the religious police (mutawaa) enforce prayer times and dress codes and confront anyone who offends their strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. Activists are the leaders of Islamist political parties and movements. Mawlana al- Mawdudi founded the first modern version in India in 1941 with the aim of establishing an Islamic state. In the contemporary context, the leaders of the Shiite religious parties who head the Iraqi government are examples. The jihadists are activists who believe in the use of vio- lence. Their origins go back to the Kharjites, who in 661 assassinated the Caliph Ali, who they believed had betrayed God’s will because he had allowed his son Hasan to negotiate away his caliphate. Prominent jihadists today include Sunni terrorists such as the al-Qaida leaders. They take inspiration from Ibn Taymiyya, a 14th-century cleric who elevated violent jihad (lesser jihad) over the internal struggle for righteousness (greater jihad). They also take inspiration from Hasan Banna and his disciple Sayed Qutb. Banna formed the Muslim Brother- hood in Egypt in the 1920s to oppose Britain’s de facto rule and provide social services that the government was failing to deliver. The local groups evolved into secret cells for violent action for political ends in the 1940s. Qutb’s contribution was largely doctrinal: after attending college in Greeley, Colo., he returned to Egypt to brand the West as jahilliyya, the Arabic name for the sinful, unenlightened times before Mohammad. Among the Shia, the Hizbollah leaders and Iraqi firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr draw on a populist tradition of using Shiite reli- gious organizational structures and rites to seek revenge. All Islamists seek to ensure that civil law is at least con- sistent with Shariah, or Islamic law. Shariah consists of God’s revelations to Mohammad recorded in the Quran, as well as Mohammad’s sayings and example (hadith), consensus among the Muslim community (ijmaa) and in- terpretation by religious scholars (ijtihad). Separating the jihadists from the others politically, however, are their the- F O C U S A P R I L 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 17 Allen Keiswetter is a retired Senior Foreign Service officer who spent most of his diplomatic career (1967-2003) working on Middle Eastern affairs. He is an adjunct scho- lar at the Middle East Institute and has taught courses on Islam at the National War College and National Defense Intelligence College.