scholarly journals Introduction: Islamic reformism in South Asia

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 247-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
FILIPPO OSELLA ◽  
CAROLINE OSELLA
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Islamic Fundamentalism ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Secular Education ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Specific Meaning

The authors in this volume discuss contemporary Islamic reformism in South Asia in some of its diverse historical orientations and geographical expressions, bringing us contemporary ethnographic perspectives against which to test claims about processes of reform and about trends such as ‘Islamism’ and ‘global Islam’. The very use of terminology and categories is itself fraught with the dangers of bringing together what is actually substantially different under the same banner. While our authors have often found it necessary, perhaps for the sake of comparison or to help orient readers, to take on terms such as ‘reformist’ or ‘Islamist’, they are not using these as terms which imply identity—or even connection—between the groups so named, nor are they reifying such categories. In using such terms as shorthand to help identify specific projects, we are following broad definitions here in which ‘Islamic modernism’ refers to projects of change aiming to re-order Muslims' lifeworlds and institutional structures in dialogue with those produced under Western modernity; ‘reformism’ refers to projects whose specific focus is the bringing into line of religious beliefs and practices with the core foundations of Islam, by avoiding and purging out innovation, accretion and the intrusion of ‘local custom’; and where ‘Islamism’ is a stronger position, which insists upon Islam as the heart of all institutions, practice and subjectivity—a privileging of Islam as the frame of reference by which to negotiate every issue of life; ‘orthodoxy’ is used according to its specific meaning in contexts in which individual authors work; the term may in some ethnographic locales refer to the orthodoxy of Islamist reform, while in others it is used to disparage those who do not heed the call for renewal and reform. ‘Reformism’ is particularly troublesome as a term, in that it covers broad trends stretching back at least 100 years, and encompassing a variety of positions which lay more or less stress upon specific aspects of processes of renewal; still, it is useful as a term in helping us to insist upon recognition of the differences between such projects and such contemporary obsessions as ‘political Islam’, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and so on. Authors here are generally following local usage in the ways in which they describe the movements discussed (thus, Kerala's Mujahid movement claims itself as part of a broaderIslahi—renewal—trend and is identified here as ‘reformist’).2But while broad terms are used, what the papers are actually involved in doing is addressing the issues of how specific groups deal with particular concerns. Thus, not, ‘What do reformists think about secular education?’, but, ‘What do Kerala's Mujahids in the 2000s think? How has this shifted from the position taken in the 1940s? How does it differ from the contemporary position of opposing groups? And how is it informed by the wider socio-political climate of Kerala?’ The papers here powerfully demonstrate the historical and geographical specificity of reform projects, whereas discourse structured through popular mainstream perspectives (such as ‘clash of civilizations’) ignores such embeddedness.

scholarly journals THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY OF THE ARAB-ISLAMIC WORLD

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Raul Ludovic Bereczki
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Islamic Fundamentalism ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Religious Sects ◽  
Crisis Of Modernity ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Perverse Effect

The Westernization of Islam, which began at least two hundred years ago, has two major consequences: a positive one, meaning the enlightenment of the elites which tried to reform Islam; and a negative one, "the perverse effect of contact with the West", as the experts often call it, which consists of the development of religious sects within the Muslim societies. The direct and striking conclusion, upon first analysis, is that Islamic fundamentalism is the product of Western modernity. Of course, the line of explanation has its origin in colonial times, seen as a major disappointment by those Muslims who believed in the benefits of a European-style modernity, and continues with the Cold War period, with the examples of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the mobilization of Islamist elements was beneficial in the fight against the Soviet enemy and the active proselytism practiced by the latter.

The Challenges of Modernity: The Case of Political Islam

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 215-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Parvizi Amineh
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
First Case ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Traditional Cultures ◽  
Fault Lines

AbstractSince the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century in England, all traditional cultures at one point in history have been challenged by modernity. This happened first in Europe and later in the rest of the world as a result of the late nineteenth century expansion of European capitalism and civilization. When confronted with modernity, individual traditional cultures conflict with the increasing plurality of lifestyles and values. There are two ways to solve this conflict: either remain in the past or innovate. In the first case, tradition prevails. In the second case, the challenges of modernity are embraced by adapting to the new circumstances. This will eventually lead to the renewal of one's own culture. Since the late nineteenth century, the challenges of modernity have resulted in a variety of often contradictory Islamic political ideologies and practices. In contrast to the cultural-essentialist and a-historical assumptions of some scholars, such as Samuel Huntington, who see the phenomenon of political Islam as a characteristic of an inevitable "clash of civilizations"—according to which conflicts and threats to world peace and security in the twenty-first century will be carried out along "civilizational fault lines"—this article argues that the actual fault-lines are socio-economic, not geo-cultural, and that conflicts in today's world do not take place between cultures but within them. Those societies that are more successful in adapting to the challenges of modernity show a relatively stronger capacity to cope with the growing complexity of political and cultural pluralism.

scholarly journals Antisemitism in the Muslim Intellectual Discourse in South Asia

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Navras J. Aafreedi
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Global Impact ◽  
Intellectual Discourse ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
The World ◽  
Islamist Movements

South Asia (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) has produced some of the greatest Islamic thinkers, such as Shah Wali Allah (sometimes also spelled Waliullah; 1702–1763) who is considered one of the originators of pan-Islamism, Rahmatullah Kairanwi (1818–1892), Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), Syed Abul A’la Mawdudi (also spelled Maududi; 1903–1979), and Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi (1914–1999), who have all played a pivotal role in shaping political Islam and have all had global impact. Islamism is intertwined with Muslim antisemitism. Some of the greatest Islamist movements have their bases in South Asia, such as Tablīghi Jamā’at—the largest Sunni Muslim revivalist (daw’a) movement in the world—and Jamā’at-i-Islāmi—a prototype of political Islam in South Asia. The region is home to some of the most important institutions of Islamic theological studies: Darul Ulūm Deoband, the alleged source of ideological inspiration to the Taliban, and Nadwātu’l-’Ulamā and Firangi Mahal, whose curricula are followed by seminaries across the world attended by South Asian Muslims in their diaspora. Some of the most popular Muslim televangelists have come from South Asia, such as Israr Ahmed (1932–2010) and Zakir Naik (b. 1965). This paper gives an introductory overview of antisemitism in the Muslim intellectual discourse in South Asia.

Cosmopolitanism, the clash of civilizations and multiple modernities

2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Casanova
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Normative Claim ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Multiple Modernities ◽  
The World ◽  
Secular Modernity

The article examines the three alternative conceptions of the emerging global order with special reference to the place and role of the world religions in that order. (1) Cosmopolitanism builds upon developmental theories of modernization that envision this transformation as a global expansion of western secular modernity, conceived as a universal process of human development. Secularization remains a key analytical as well as normative component. Religions that resist privatization are viewed as a dangerous ‘fundamentalism’ that threatens the differentiated structures of secular modernity. (2) Huntington’s conception of the ‘clash of civilizations’ maintains the analytical components of western modernity but stripped of any universalist normative claim. Modernity is a particular achievement of western civilization that is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The world religions are the continuously vital core of what are essentially incompatible civilizations doomed to clash with one another for global hegemony. (3) The model of ‘multiple modernities’ is presented as an alternative analytical framework that combines some of the universalist claims of cosmopolitanism, devoid of its secularist assumptions, with the recognition of the continuous relevance of the world religions for the emerging global order.

Recycling Baraka: Knowledge, Politics, and Religion in Contemporary Algeria

2007 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Scheele
Keyword(s):  
Political Islam ◽  
Western World ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Local Religion ◽  
Radical Islam ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Knowledge Politics ◽  
Social Causes

Since the overwhelming electoral victory of Algeria's main Islamist party, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), in 1990 and 1991, the annulment of the elections by the Algerian army in 1992, and a decade of apparently random killings that followed throughout the country, religion has been at stake in most contemporary debates on Algeria. Algeria has thereby entered the field of larger debates within the Western world about radical Islam, the rise of religion, the rejection of “Western models,” and other expressions of the putative “clash of civilizations.” At the same time, relatively little has been said about what “Islam” actually means in the Algerian context, even by more perspicacious authors and analysts who are keen to stress the economic and social causes for the success of political Islam in Algeria (e.g., Burgat 1988; 1995; Charef 1994; Martinez 1998). This is not to say that the variety of religious practices in Algeria has attracted no attention from researchers. Rather, it means that those writers who focus on ‘local’ religion, such as Andezian (1993; 2001) and Hadibi (1999; 2002), tend to produce local accounts of the veneration of saints and pilgrimages, without referring to broader cultural dynamics and political struggles, and without attempting to link their findings in more than superficial ways to the emergence of modern Islamism.

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