From Religious Eulogy to War Anthem

This article looks to two songs, “Layla Said” and “Mammad, You Weren't There to See,” to examine the politics of representation, race, religion, and nationalism in late twentieth-century Iran. “Layla Said,” a religious eulogy sung by Jahanbakhsh Kurdizadeh, would serve as inspiration for the most popular song of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) in terms of melody, rhythm, and lyrics. Kurdizadeh, a visibly Black Iranian, is not popularly remembered as the source of the eulogy, an omission that compounds many of the politics of Black representation in Iran. Through an investigation of film, aural recordings, photographs, and more, this article follows the many mutations of the eulogy-turned-anthem to identify the various ways ethnography and documentary works frame blackness in Iran. Kurdizadeh's life and marginalized legacy highlights the tacit erasure of blackness on the national stage in Iran.

Muslim Modernism in Turkish: Assessing the Thought of Late Ottoman Intellectual Mehmed Akif

Late Ottoman intellectual Mehmed Akif (1873–1936) was for decades depicted in Turkish public discourse in generic terms as an Islamist radical opposed to the secular nation state. Through Akif’s poetry, articles, translations, correspondence from his exile in Egypt, and biographical detail revealed in the scattered memoirs of students and colleagues, this article offers a reappraisal of his thought as a leading Muslim modernist who adapted the thinking of Egyptian religious scholar Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905) to an Ottoman and then Turkish audience in the formulation of an early, prescient compromise between religion and nationalism. The article also notes remarkable similarities between Akif and Indian thinker Muḥammad Iqbāl (1877–1938), whom Akif was instrumental in introducing to Arab audiences, and suggests that, once political Islam had later gained currency across all fields of public life, Akif became an alternative to nationalist icon Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924) as an intellectual symbol of the republic.

Formation of Identity through the Presentation of Motherhood in Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age

Tahmima Anam is the first Bangladeshi novelist in English who draws international attention to the Liberation war of 1971 of Bangladesh through the publication of her first novel A Golden Age in 2007. The Liberation war is replete with the incident of genocide, rape, inhuman torture, abductions etc. The war has instilled a kind of horror into the psyche of Bangladeshi people. During the war the Muslim majority of people of East Pakistan are in an acute identity crisis. Pakistan was formed on the basis of religion Islam. But even religion cannot unite the two wings of Pakistan. Therefore people are in an identity dilemma between religion and nationalism. They are also in a fix as to whom to support- East or West Pakistan. Anam captures this particular complexity in her novel through the protagonist Rehana Haque. In this paper, I will bring forth the complexity of identity formation through the depiction of motherhood of Rehana Haque from feministic standpoint.

Dialektika Keagamaan dan Kebangsaan dalam Tarekat Shiddiqiyyah

The purpose of this study was to describe the history of the Shiddiqiyyah Tarekat, the forms of nationalism in the Shiddiqiyyah Tarekat, and the meeting point of religion and nationalism in the Shiddiqiyyah Tarekat. The research approach used a qualitative approach with a descriptive research type. The data collection techniques used were observation, in-depth interviews, and literature study. The results showed that the Shiddiqiyyah Tarekat was a tarekat with very rapid development and had its own uniqueness that was different from other Sufi groups or tarekat. The forms of nationalism of the shiddiqiyyah tarekat were the eight abilities that must be held, the national monument, the poetry of the source of the independence of the Indonesian nation and the establishment of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia and the establishment of a brotherhood of love for the Indonesian homeland. The meeting point of religion and nationalism in the shiddiqiyyah tarekat was the concept of hubbul wathan minal iman, which means that love for the country was part of faith.

Secular Perspective on The Islamic Political Discourses in Indonesia: A Critical Analysis

This article aims to critically analyze the secularization perspective on political Islam, focusing on the Indonesian context. The secular perspective has its fundamental doctrine that democracy, separation of State and Religion, and nationalism should be the only system to manage one State. Many people always use kind of argument, even scholars, including in Indonesia, to reject the concept of the Islamic State. This article used descriptive analysis to elaborate the secularization perspective on political Islam in Indonesia and the critical analysis from the Islamic perspective. Furthermore, it also explains the impact of using such a perspective in analyzing the discourse of Political Islam. This article found that the responses of the Muslim figures or people on political Islam in Indonesia are influenced by the secularization perspective instead of using the Islamic perspective. Islamic perspective on political Islam is derived from the Islamic methodology that authoritative scholars have formulated in the past. The secular perspective on politics, as a result, contributed to the decline of the Islamic civilization and colonization from the western power.

Capturing Social Issues Through Signs: Linguistic Landscape in Great Malang Schools, Indonesia

This study aims to analyze the signs associated with social issues in school spaces by using the Linguistic Landscape approach. Data were obtained from 10 public and private schools in Great Malang, Indonesia through photography. The study reports several findings, namely (1) Indonesian schools are monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual with the dominant use of Bahasa, English, Arabic and Javanese, (2) phrases and clauses dominate the appearance of data in linguistic aspects, compared to words. Therefore, they are very effective in mediating messages conveyed in signs, (3) it comprises of eight themes, namely environment, juvenile delinquency, health, discipline, motivation, attitude and behavior, religion, and nationalism, (4) there are 9 out of 18 values of character education, namely hard work, creative, discipline, national spirit, religious, honest, environmental care, reading hobby, and love for peace. In conclusion, Bahasa Indonesia is associated with the symbol of nationalism and language policy, where English, Arabic and Javanese symbolize modernization, Islam, and the local culture, respectively. Furthermore, the themes and values of character education that emerge represent the conditions of the problems faced by students. This finding suggest education through signs, evoke perceptions and attitudes which is used to strengthen character education in schools to solve social problems.

Nationalism and Religion in Comparative Perspective: A New Typology of National-Religious Configurations

Does religion motivate and intensify nationalism, or does religion moderate and even suppress nationalism? Six kinds of relationships between nationalism and religion are critically reviewed: nationalism as a modern religion in competition with traditional religions; religious origins of the “Chosen People” as the mythomoteur of nationalism; religious exclusion as nation-building; religious influences on national policies; influence of religious observance on national identification; and religiously based “civilizations” transcending nationalisms. Western Christian experience with nationalism is not generalizable due to the institutional autonomy and supranational organization of the Catholic Church. Western European nationalisms were premised on religious sectarian homogeneity, and the homogenous “confessional state” served as the template of European nation-states. Furthermore, I argue that the late medieval eradication of Muslims and Jews across Western Europe prefigured sectarian and ethnonational purges of the following centuries. Finally, I argue that different configurations of religion and nationalism depend on two critical conditions: the degree to which the dominant religious tradition is doctrinally supraethnic and institutionally transnational, and the religious identity of the main adversary in the constitutive conflict that culminated in national statehood. The crises of Marxism and liberalism provide the context for the resurgence of religion and nationalism at present.