Faded networks: the overestimated Saudi Legacy of anti-Shi‘i sectarianism in Pakistan

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-715
Author(s):  
Simon Wolfgang Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Political Idea ◽  
Ayatollah Khomeini ◽  
Sunni Islam ◽  
The Mind

This article questions the often-assumed centrality of Saudi Arabia for the development of anti-Shi‘i sectarianism in Pakistan. I argue that those groups and individuals who have been most vocal about the Shi‘i ‘threat’ since the 1980s lacked (and continue to lack) any strong lineages with the Kingdom. Instead, their local polemics in Urdu foregrounded Pakistan as a political idea and global promise for Islam. This status of Pakistan’s self-view was acutely threatened by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent establishment of a religious state under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. Consequently, Pakistani sectarian scholars transcended earlier Salafi-inspired arguments and tried to render Sunni Islam ‘fit’ to compete with powerful Shi‘i symbols. In doing so, they displayed a remarkable willingness to appropriate and rework Shi‘i concepts, something that is far from the mind of Saudi clerics.

Revolutionary Posturing: Iranian Writers and the Iranian Revolution of 1979

1991 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
Keyword(s):  
Intention To Leave ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
Ayatollah Khomeini ◽  
Abstract Language ◽  
Single Idea

During those eventful days of early January 1979, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran had finally announced his intention to leave the country and the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini had made his return from exile contingent on the shah's departure, a hemistitch by Hafez, the 14th-century Persian poet, suddenly appeared next to an array of revolutionary slogans on display in the streets of Tehran: “Div cho birun ravad fereshteh dar āyad” (When the demon departs, the angel shall arrive). The basic binary oppositions of demon/angel and departure/arrival fit the realities of the situation the country had found itself in; a perfect correspondence had been made between the simple, single idea enshrined in the abstract language of a medieval poetic phrase and the intricate political posturing involved in a modern-day revolution in the making. Furthermore, the stark discourse of antagonism underlying the opposition had become as absolute, as uncompromising as the idea of a total revolution.

The Long Shadow of the State

2018 ◽  
pp. 217-232
Author(s):  
Simon Wolfgang Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
The State ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Islamic Republic

Studies on the conflict between Sunnis and Shi‘as in Pakistan tend to single out intellectual influences emerging from the Arab monarchies of the Gulf as the paradigm for how sectarian ideas have spread more broadly. Yet, Simon Fuchs shows that the focus on Saudi Arabia does not capture the important entanglement of further influences stemming from the Gulf with local dimensions of sectarianism in Pakistan. Local Sunni scholars, although connected to Saudi Arabia, built their own brand of anti-Shiism. After the 1979 Iranian revolution, sectarian arguments based on Salafi-Wahhabi doctrines and emphasizing the doctrinal incompatibility between “proper” Islam and Shiism gave way to more political arguments, as the new Islamic Republic was seen as threatening the identity and the nature of the Pakistani state.

Verdi's Egyptian spectacle: On the colonial subject of Aida

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 149-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE BERGERON
Keyword(s):  
Suez Canal ◽  
Royal Palace ◽  
Political Idea ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Architectural Spaces

In June 1867 Ismail Pasha, the new Viceroy of Egypt, arrived in Paris to represent his country at the Exposition universelle. The Egyptian pavilion, erected on a large corner of the Champs de Mars, featured a marvellous collection of architectural spaces that included a pharaoh's temple, a mediæval palace ‘richly decorated in the Arabic style’, and a modern-day bazaar showing all manner of merchants and artisans at work. If the temple, designed by the French archaeologist Auguste Mariette, was intended to display artefacts from the most remote corners of Egypt's history, other spaces transported spectators directly to the present, offering what one French commentator called ‘a living Egypt, a picturesque Egypt, the Egypt of Ismail Pasha’. An enormous panorama of the Isthmus of Suez, created by the Suez Canal Company with the help of M. Rubé, set designer from the Opéra, drew long queues of paying customers. Elsewhere visitors could gaze at authentic Egyptian peasants, or Bedouins on white dromedaries, all the races governed by the Viceroy ‘personified by individuals selected with care’, as the critic Edmond About put it. Most dazzling of all was the exhibit within the refabricated royal palace, where the Viceroy himself was the featured attraction: poised on a divan in a bedroom painted to look exactly like the place of his birth, he smoked a hookah and daily received guests from the best Parisian society. The whole sumptuous spectacle, About would conclude, ‘spoke to the eyes as well as to the mind. It expressed a political idea’.

Longing for the State

2019 ◽  
pp. 152-185
Author(s):  
Simon Wolfgang Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Global Leadership ◽  
The State ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Islamic Politics ◽  
Shi‘I Islam

This chapter studies the changing discourses of sectarianism since the 1970s. During this decade, anti-Shi‘i rhetoric was the prerogative of Ahl-i Hadis scholars with close ties to Saudi Arabia. The polemics of the famous agitator Ihsan Ilahi Zahir (d. 1987) were centered on doctrinal points. The chapter contends, however, that for the ‘ulama of Pakistan’s most virulent anti-Shi‘i group, the Sipah-i Sahabah-i Pakistan (Army of the Companions of the Prophet; SSP), the Iranian Revolution constituted a threatening attempt at world domination and subversion of the fundamentals of Islamic politics. Even though these Deobandi scholars—in the vein of Zahir—still highlighted doctrinal incompatibilities between “real” and Shi‘i Islam, the Shi‘is were now primarily framed as a political problem: they blocked Pakistan from being molded into its true form: namely, that of a Sunni state with aspirations to global leadership. In formulating their answer to Khomeini, these sectarian Sunni ‘ulama attempted to reclaim the caliphate as a divinely sanctioned office that strikingly resembled and transcended Iran’s model of government.

scholarly journals Arábia Saudita e Irã: rivalidade e disputa pela hegemonia no Golfo Pérsico

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-84
Author(s):  
Beatriz Pidone Costa
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Legitimacy Crisis ◽  
New Strategies

Resumo O sectarismo religioso, considerado como um dos principais motivos que levaram à disputa entre Arábia Saudita e Irã, é utilizado como instrumento político por esses Estados em prol de seus interesses. As relações entre ambos tiveram um início cooperativo, porém, após a Revolução Iraniana de 1979, passaram apenas a se deteriorar. O embate entre os países islâmicos se acirrou, impulsionado pelas intervenções americanas na região; pela Primavera Árabe; e pela crise de legitimidade dos governos islâmicos. Atualmente, sem perspectivas de reatamento, as relações diplomáticas entre os países encontram-se rompidas. Enquanto o Irã vem ganhando espaço e influência, apesar de sérios problemas internos; a Arábia Saudita, mesmo com força regional e novas estratégias para sua política externa e interna, se vê prejudicada e enfraquecida. Palavras-chave: Arábia Saudita; Irã; Golfo Pérsico; rivalidade; hegemonia.   Abstract Religious sectarianism, considered one of the main reasons that led to the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran, is used as a political instrument by these states for their interests. The relations between them had a cooperative beginning, but after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, they only deteriorated. The clash between Islamist countries has stirred up, boosted by US interventions in the region; by the Arab Spring; and by the legitimacy crisis of Islamic governments. Currently, with no prospect of reattachment, the diplomatic ties of both countries remain severed. While Iran has been gaining space and influence, despite serious internal problems; Saudi Arabia, even with regional strength and new strategies for its foreign and domestic policy, feels undermined and weakened. Keywords: Saudi Arabia; Iran; Persian Gulf; rivalry; hegemony.

Conversation with a Revolutionary

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-32
Author(s):  
M. Reza Ghods ◽  
Thomas W. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Ohio State University ◽  
Personal Relationship ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
State University ◽  
American Universities ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Ayatollah Khomeini

Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, who played a pivotal role in the Iranian revolution of 1979, and who is today a leading figure among Iran’s liberal political dissidents, visited the US in early November 2000 and spoke at several American universities, including Ohio State University. During his visit, we hosted a small reception for Dr. Yazdi at a home in central Ohio and had the opportunity of engaging him in an extended conversation about the events of the revolution, his personal relationship with the Ayatollah Khomeini, his views on the current political situation in Iran, and his thoughts on the future of Iran’s relationship with the US.

3. Defending Islam from the secular world order

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-84
Author(s):  
Nile Green
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
World Order ◽  
Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
Air Travel ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Secular World ◽  
Political Idea ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, new hubs emerged in Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. “Defending Islam from the Secular World Order” compares the different approaches of these regions to protecting Islam during a period of worldwide secularism. Movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Tablighi Jamaat (Preaching Society) propagated activism and evangelism and, in some cases, the political idea of an Islamic state. Sufis had no equivalent organizations. International congresses and organizations promoted a combination of Salafi principles with the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. This variation of Islam was spread further by cheap air travel, with vastly increased numbers going on pilgrimages and promoting Salafi-Wahhabist attitudes on their return.

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