The archaeology of Ancient Egypt is the study of the archaeology of Egypt, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. Egyptian archaeology is one of the branches of Egyptology.
English Egyptologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie, known as the "father of Egyptian archaeology",
introduced the archaeological techniques of field preservation,
recording, and excavation methodology in the mid-1880s. Many highly
educated amateurs also travelled to Egypt, including women such as Harriet Martineau, Headley Fellow and Florence Nightingale. In 1882, Amelia Edwards and Reginald Stuart Poole, an employee from the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum, decided to create the Egypt Exploration Fund as a way to raise funds for more excavations in the Nile Delta, which had rarely been visited.
First excavations
The Rosetta Stone was discovered there in July 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard
during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. It was the first Ancient
Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times, and it aroused
widespread public interest with its potential for deciphering this
previously untranslated hieroglyphic script. Jean-François Champollion later broke the code of the Rosetta Stone.
Napoleon's men tried but failed to dig up and remove the statue of Younger Memnon
to France during his 1798 expedition. During this attempt that the hole
on the right of the torso (just above Ramesses's right nipple) is said
to have been made. In 1815, following an idea mentioned to him by his
friend Johann Ludwig Burckhardt of digging up the statue and bringing it to Britain, the British Consul General Henry Salt hired the adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in Cairo
for this purpose. Using his hydraulics and engineering skills, he had
it pulled on wooden rollers with ropes to the bank of the River Nile opposite Luxor by hundreds of workmen. However, no boat was yet available to take it up to Alexandria, so Belzoni carried out an expedition to Nubia, returning by October. With French collectors also in the area possibly looking to acquire the statue, he then sent workmen to Esna to obtain a suitable boat and in the meantime carried out further excavations in Thebes.
He finally loaded the products of these digs, plus the Memnon, onto
this boat and got it to Cairo by 15 December 1816. There he received and
obeyed orders from Henry Salt to unload all but the Memnon, which was
then sent on to Alexandria and London without him.
Archaeological timeline
19th century
The great temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel was discovered in 1813 by the Swiss Orientalist and traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.
An enormous pile of sand almost completely covered the facade and its
colossal statues, blocking the entrance for four more years. The Paduan
explorer Belzoni reached its interior on 4 August 1817.
Amenhotep's mummy was discovered in his original sarcophagus in March 1898, by Victor Loret in the KV35 tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
20th century
The tomb of Nefertari, QV66, was discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli
in 1904. A flight of steps cut out of the rock gives access to the
antechamber, which is decorated with paintings based on chapter
seventeen of the Book of the Dead.
The astronomical ceiling represents the heavens and is painted in dark
blue, with a myriad of golden five-pointed stars. The east wall of the
antechamber is interrupted by a large opening flanked by the
representation of Osiris to the left and Anubis
on the right; this, in turn, leads to the side chamber, decorated with
offering-scenes, preceded by a vestibule in which paintings portray
Nefertari presented to the deities, who welcome her. On the north wall
of the antechamber is the stairway down to the burial-chamber, a vast
quadrangular room covering a surface area of about 90 square metres (970
sq ft), its astronomical ceiling supported by four pillars, entirely
decorated.
The entrance to KV55 was uncovered by Edward R. Ayrton on 6 January 1907. Its discovery was brought to the attention of Theodore M. Davis the following day. The tomb was first entered on 9 January by Ayrton, Davis, Joseph Lindon Smith, and (as the representative of the antiquities service) Arthur Weigall.
On 11 January 1907, the findings were photographed. Ayrton then began
clearing the tomb. On 25 January 1907, the coffin and mummy were
investigated in situ.
In 1921, while excavating south of the tomb, Howard Carter
discovered several items that seem to have originated in KV55. These
included a jasper burnisher and some fragments of copper rosettes from a
funerary pall.
After a systematic search, beginning in 1915, Carter discovered the actual tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62)
in November 1922. By February 1923, the antechamber had been cleared of
everything but two sentinel statues. A day and time were selected to
unseal the tomb with about twenty appointed witnesses that included Lord Carnarvon,
several Egyptian officials, museum representatives and the staff of the
Government Press Bureau. On 17 February 1923, at just after two
o'clock, the seal was broken. There were 5,398 items found in the tomb,
including a solid gold coffin, face mask, thrones, archery bows, trumpets, a lotus chalice, two Imiut fetishes, gold toe stalls, furniture, food, wine, sandals, and fresh linen underwear. Howard Carter spent ten years cataloging the items.
In 1954, Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh discovered a ship buried in pieces right beside the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It was largely built of Lebanon cedar planking in the "shell-first" construction technique, using unpegged tenons of Christ's thorn. The ship was built with a flat bottom composed of several planks, but no actual keel, with the planks and frames lashed together with Halfah grass,
and has been reconstructed from 1,224 pieces which had been laid in a
logical, disassembled order in the pit beside the pyramid.
Though KV5 was partially excavated as early as 1825, its true extent was discovered in 1995 by Kent R. Weeks
and his exploration team. It has proven to be the largest tomb in the
Valley of the Kings, and originally contained the mummified remains of
some of this king's estimated 52 sons. Approximately 150 corridors and
tomb chambers have been located in this tomb as of 2006, and the tomb
may contain as many as 200 corridors and chambers.
21st century
In June 2000,
the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), directed by
Franck Goddio, in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities
discovered the ancient sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion in today's Abu
Qir Bay. The statues of a colossal King and Queen are on display at the Grand Egyptian Museum. Other discovered artefacts are exhibited at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Alexandria National Museum (ANM). The excavations are documented through several publications
In June 2011, an archaeological team led by French Egyptologists Pierre Tallet and Gregory Marouard, organized by the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO),
restarted work at the site. Among other materials, a collection of
hundreds of papyrus fragments was found in 2013 dating back 4500 years.
The papyrus is currently exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass called this ancient papyrus "the greatest discovery in Egypt in the 21st century".
In March 2017, the Egyptian-German team of archaeologists
unearthed an eight-meter 3,000-year-old statue that included a head and a
torso thought to depict Pharaoh Ramses II. According to Khaled El-Enany, the Egyptian Antiquities Minister, the statue was more likely thought to be King Psammetich I. Excavators also revealed an 80 cm-long part of a limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II while excavating the site.
In August 2017, archaeologists from the Ministry of Antiquities
announced the discovery of five mud-brick tombs at Bir esh-Shaghala,
dating back nearly 2000 years. Researchers also revealed worn masks
gilded with gold, several large jars and a piece of pottery with
unsolved ancient Egyptian writing on it.
In November 2017(2000-10-25), the Egyptian mission in cooperation with the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology announced the discovery of three 2,000-year-old sunken shipwrecks dated back to the Roman Era in Alexandria's Abu Qir Bay.
In April 2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of the shrine of the god Osiris Ptah Neb, dating back to the 25th dynasty in the Temple of Karnak
in Luxor. According to archaeologist Essam Nagy, the material remains
from the area contained clay pots, the lower part of a sitting statue
and part of a stone panel showing an offering table filled with a sheep
and a goose which were the symbols of the god Amun.
In July 2018, German-Egyptian researchers' team head by Ramadan Badry Hussein of the University of Tübingen reported the discovery of an extremely rare gilded burial mask that probably dates from the Saite-Persian period in a partly damaged wooden coffin in Saqqara. The last time a similar mask was found was in 1939. The eyes were covered with obsidian, calcite, and black hued gemstones, possibly onyx.
"The finding of this mask could be called a sensation. Very few masks
of precious metal have been preserved to the present day, because the
tombs of most Ancient Egyptian dignitaries were looted in ancient times"
said Hussein.
In July 2018, archaeologists led by Zeinab Hashish announced the discovery of a 2.000-year-old 30-ton black granite sarcophagus in Alexandria. It contained three damaged skeletons in red-brown sewage water. According to archaeologist Mostafa Waziri,
the skeletons looked like a family burial with a middle-aged woman and
two men. Researchers also revealed a small gold artifact and three thin
sheets of gold.
In September 2018, a sandstone sphinx statue was discovered at
the temple of Kom Ombo in Aswan. The statue, measuring approximately
28 cm (11 in) in width and 38 cm (15 in) in height, likely dates to the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
In September 2018, several dozen caches of mummies dating 2,000
years back were found in Saqqara by a team of Polish archaeologists led
by Kamil Kuraszkiewicz [pl] from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Warsaw.
In November, 2018, an Egyptian archaeological mission located seven ancient Egyptian tombs at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara containing a collection of scarab and cat mummies dating back to the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Three of the tombs were for cats, some dating back more than 6,000 years, while one of four other sarcophagi was unsealed. With the remains of cat mummies were unearthed 100 gilded and wooden statues of cats, and one in bronze, dedicated to the cat goddess Bastet. In addition, funerary items dating back to the 12th Dynasty were found beside the skeletal remains of the cats.
In November 2018, France's University of Strasbourg
announced the discovery of two sarcophagi thought to be more than 3,500
years old with two perfectly preserved mummies and approximately 1,000
funerary statues in the Assasseef valley
near Luxor. One of the tombs with paintings where the female body
found, was opened to the public in front of the international media, but
the other one was previously opened by Egyptian antiquities officials.
According to the Al-Ahram, in January 2019, archaeologists headed by Mostafa Waziri revealed a collection of 20 tombs dated back to the Second Intermediate Period
in Kom Al-Khelgan. The burials contained the remains of animals,
amulets, and scarabs carved from faience, round and oval pots with
handholds, flint knives, broken and burned pottery. All burials included
skulls and skeletons in the bending position and were not very
well-preserved.
In February 2019, fifty mummy collections wrapped in linen, stone coffins or wooden sarcophagi dated back to the Ptolemaic Kingdom were discovered by Egyptian archaeologists in the Tuna El-Gebel
site in Minya. 12 of the graves in four burial chambers 9 m (30 ft)
deep, belonged to children. One of the remains was the partly uncovered
skull enclosed in linen. Egypt's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities
announced the discovery of the collective graves of senior officials and
high clergies of the god Djehuty (Thoth) in Tuna el-Gebel in January, 2020. An archaeological mission headed by Mustafa Waziri reported that 20 sarcophagi and coffins of various shapes and sizes, including five sarcophagi made of limestone and carved with hieroglyphic texts, as well as 16 tombs and five well-preserved wooden coffins were unearthed by their team.
On 13 April 2019, an expedition led by a member of the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Mohamed Megahed, discovered a 4,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's Saqqara Necropolis. Archaeologists confirmed that the tomb belonged to an influential person named Khuwy, who lived in Egypt during the 5th Dynasty."The
L-shaped Khuwy tomb starts with a small corridor heading downwards into
an antechamber and from there a larger chamber with painted reliefs
depicting the tomb owner seated at an offerings table", reported
Megahed. Some paintings maintained their brightness over a long time in
the tomb. Mainly made of white limestone bricks, the tomb had a tunnel
entrance generally typical for pyramids. Archaeologists say that there
might be a connection between Khuwy and pharaoh because the mausoleum
was found near the pyramid of Egyptian Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi, who ruled during that time.
Archaeologists discovered 35 mummified remains of Egyptians in a
tomb in Aswan in April 2019. Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini,
professor of Egyptology at the University of Milan,
and Khaled El-Enany, the Egyptian minister of antiquities reported that
the tomb where the remains of ancient men, women and children were
found, dates back to the Greco-Roman period
between 332 BC and 395 AD. While the findings assumed belonging to a
mother and a child were well preserved, others had suffered major
destruction. Beside the mummies, artefacts including painted funerary
masks, vases of bitumen used in mummification, pottery and wooden
figurines were revealed. Thanks to the hieroglyphics on the tomb, it was detected that the tomb belongs to a tradesman named Tjit.
In July 2019, ancient granite columns and a smaller Greek temple,
treasure-laden ships, along with bronze coins from the reign of Ptolemy II, pottery dating back to the third and fourth centuries BC were found at the sunken city of Heracleion. The investigations were conducted by Egyptian and European divers led by underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio. They also uncovered the ruins of the city's main temple off of Egypt's north coast.
In September 2019, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 2,200-year-old temple believed to belong to the Ptolemy IV Philosopher of the Ptolemaic Kingdom
in Kom Shakau village of Tama township. Researchers also revealed
limestone walls carved with inscriptions of Hapi, the Nile god, and
inscriptions with fragments of text featuring the name of Ptolemy IV.
In October 2019, Egyptian archaeologists headed by Zahi Hawass
revealed an ancient "industrial area" used to manufacture decorative
artefacts, furniture and pottery for royal tombs in Luxor's Valley of
the Monkeys. The site contained a big kiln to fire ceramics and 30
ateliers. According to Zahi Hawass, each atelier had a different aim –
some of them were used to make pottery, others used to produce gold
artefacts and others still to churn out furniture. About 75 meters below
the valley, several items believed to have adorned wooden royal
coffins, such as inlaid beads, silver rings and gold foil were
unearthed. Some artefacts depicted the wings of deity Horus.
In October 2019, the Egyptian archaeological mission unearthed thirty well-preserved wooden coffins (3,000-year-old) in front of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in El-Assasif
Cemetery. The coffins contained mummies of twenty-three adult males,
five adult females and two children, who are believed to be from the
middle class. According to Hawass, mummies were decorated with mixed
carvings and designs, including scenes from Egyptian gods, hieroglyphs, and the Book of the Dead, a series of spells that allowed the soul to navigate in the afterlife. Some of the coffins had the names of the dead engraved on them.
According to the Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities, in February, 2020, Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered 83 tombs dating back to 4,000 B.C known as Naqada III
period. Various small pottery pots in different shapes and some sea
shells, makeup tools, eyeliner pots, and jewels were also revealed in
the burial.
In May 2020, Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission head by Esther Ponce uncovered a unique cemetery dating back to the 26th Dynasty (so-called the El-Sawi era) at the site of ancient Oxyrhynchus.
Archaeologists found tombstones, bronze coins, small crosses, and clay
seals inside eight Roman-era tombs with domed and unmarked roofs.
On 3 October 2020, Khalid el-Anany, Egypt's tourism and
antiquities minister announced the discovery of at least 59 sealed
sarcophagi with mummies more than 2,600 years old in Saqqara.
Archaeologists also revealed the 20 statues of Ptah-Soker and a carved 35-centimeter tall bronze statue of god Nefertem.
On 19 October 2020, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
announced the discovery of more than 2,500 years of colorful, sealed
sarcophagi in Saqqara. The archaeological team unearthed gilded, wooden
statues and more than 80 coffins.
In November, 2020, archaeologists unearthed more than 100
delicately painted wooden coffins and 40 funeral statues. The sealed,
wooden coffins, some containing mummies, date as far back as 2,500
years. Other artifacts discovered include funeral masks, canopic jars
and amulets. According to Khaled el-Anany, tourism and antiquities
minister, the items date back to the Ptolemaic dynasty. One of the coffins was opened and a mummy was scanned with an X-ray, determining it was most likely a man about the age of 40.
In January 2021, The tourism and antiquities ministry announced
the discovery of more than 50 wooden sarcophagi in 52 burial shafts
which date back to the New Kingdom period and a 13 ft-long papyrus that
contains texts from the Book of the Dead.Archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass also found the funerary temple of Naert and warehouses made of bricks in Saqqara.
In January 2021, Egyptian-Dominican researchers led by Kathleen Martínez announced the discovery of 2,000-year-old ancient tombs with golden tongues dating to the Greek and Roman periods at Taposiris Magna. The team also unearthed gold leaf amulets in the form of tongues placed for speaking with the god Osiris in the afterlife. The mummies were depicted in different forms: one of them was wearing a crown,
decorated with horns, and the cobra snake at the forehead. The other
was depicted with gilded decorations, representing the wide necklace.
In February 2021, archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of a Ptolemaic period temple, a Roman fort, an early Coptic church and an inscription written in hieratic script at an archaeological site called Shiha Fort in Aswan. According to Mostafa Waziri,
the crumbling temple was decorated with palm leaf carvings and an
incomplete sandstone panel that described a Roman emperor. According to
researcher Abdel Badie, generally, the church with about 2.1 meters
width contained an oven that was used to bake pottery, four rooms, a
long hall, stairs, and stone tiles.
In April 2021, Egyptian archaeologists announced the discovery of
110 burial tombs at the Koum el-Khulgan archaeological site in the Dakahlia Governorate. 68 oval-shaped tombs of them dated back to the Predynastic Period and 37 rectangular-shaped tombs were from Second Intermediate Period. The rest of them dated back to the Naqada III
period. The tombs also contained the remains of adults and a baby
(buried in a jar), a group of ovens, stoves, remnants of mud-brick
foundations, funerary equipment, cylindrical, pear-shaped vessels and a
bowl with geometric designs.
In 2021 September, archaeologists announce the discovery of
ritualistic tools used in religious rituals at the ancient site of Tel
al-Fara in the Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate. Remains included a limestonepillar depicting goddes Hathor, some incense burners with the head of the god Horus.
Dr. Hossam Ghanim, said: "The mission also discovered a huge building
of polished limestone from the inside, representing a well for holy
water used in daily rituals".
In April 2022, an Egyptian archaeological expedition discovered
an ancient Roman pottery workshop at the Tibet-Matrouh site, west of
Alexandria.
In May 2022, the discovery of the nearly 4,300-year-old tomb of
an ancient Egyptian high-ranked person who handled royal, sealed
documents of pharaoh was announced at Saqqara. According to University of Warsaw's Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology,
the elaborately decorated tomb belonged to a man named Mehtjetju who
served as a priest and an inspector of the royal property. Kamil O.
Kuraszkiewicz, expedition director stated that Mehtjetju most likely
lived at about the same time, at some point during the reigns of the
first three rulers of the Sixth Dynasty: Teti, Userkare and Pepy I.
In June 2022, archaeologists from The Cairo Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of an alabaster bust of Alexander the Great as well as molds and other materials for creating amulets for warriors and for statues of Alexander the Great.
In July 2022, archaeologists from the Prague's Charles University,
led by Dr Marslav Barta, discovered the robbed tomb of an ancient
Egyptian military official named Wahibre merry Neith. They also
discovered a scarab in Giza's Abusir necropolis, located 12 km (7.5 mi) southeast of the Pyramids of Giza. Wahibre commanded battalions of non-local soldiers and lived in the late 26th dynasty and early 27th dynasty, around 500 BC, according to the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry.
The tomb's main well was about 6 m (20 ft) deep and it was divided into
separate parts by narrow bridges cut into the natural rock. Inside the
main well there was a smaller and deeper shaft which contained two sarcophagi one inside the other where Wahibre-merry-Neith was buried. The external sarcophagus was made of white limestone while the internal coffin was made out of basalt
rock measures 2.30 meters long and 1.98 meters wide. The inner
sarcophagus contained an inscription from the 72nd chapter of the
Egyptian Book of Dead said Dr Marslav Barta.
In August 2022, archaeologists from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw announced the discovery of a 4,500-year-old temple dedicated to the Egyptian sun god Ra.
The recently discovered sun temple was made from mud bricks and was
about 60 meters long by 20 m wide. According to Massimiliano Nuzzolo,
co-director of the excavation, storage rooms and other rooms may have
been served for cultic purposes and the walls of the building were all
plastered in black and white. The L-shaped entrance portico had two limestone columns and was partly made of white limestone.
Dozens of well-preserved beer jars and several well-made and red-lined
vessels, seal impressions, including seals of the pharaohs who ruled
during the fifth and sixth dynasties were also uncovered. One of the
earliest seals might belonged to pharaoh Shepseskare, who ruled Egypt before Nyuserre.
In February 2023, archaeologists from Barcelona University
announced the discovery of 16 individual tombs from the
Coptic-Byzantine period and 6 funerary complex from the Roman and
Persian eras at the Al-Bahnasa archaeological site in Minya. Several of the remains discovered within the tombs were wrapped in elaborate shrouds. Two frogs put inside two jars were among the offerings.
In March 2023, archaeologists from the Ain Shams University led by Dr Mamdouh El Damaty announced the discovery of the Roman era sphinx during the excavation at the lower level of the Dendera Temple complex in Qena. The sphinx is depicted wearing a Nemes, a princely headcloth used by pharaohs to represent their authority. An Uraeus, an Egyptian cobra motif, is shown above the head as a sign of sovereignty, majesty, and divine power.
In March 2023, the researchers from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities with University of Tübingen announced the discovery of the celestial reliefs depicting the heavens with the signs of zodiac during re-coloring works in the Temple of Esna. Numerous species, such as a snake with a ram's head, a bird with a crocodile's head, a snake's tail and four wings, and representations of snakes and crocodiles were also uncovered by archaeologists.
In March 2023, German-Egyptian archaeological team announced the new discoveries from the Matriya Sun Temple with a number of quartzite stone from the time of Horemheb and the traces of flooring made from mudbrick and white ash in Heliopolis.
In April 2023, archaeologists from the Leiden Museum and Egyptian Museum announced the discovery of the elite tomb of the noble named Panehsy from the 19th Dynasty with mudbrick walls and offering bearers.
Ministry of Antiquities (Egypt)
An edict issued by the Egyptian governor, Muhammad Ali Pasha,
on August 15, 1835, banned the export and trade of all Egyptian
antiques to another country. The decree helped to protect monuments and
curb the smuggling of ancient Egyptian artifacts.
The Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities
(officially called the "Antiquities Authority") is the Egyptian
government organization which serves to protect and preserve the
heritage and ancient history of Egypt. It was established in 1858.
In December 2019 it was merged into the Ministry of Tourism, with Khaled El-Anany retaining his function.
Tenets of the Islamist movement that have come under criticism include: restrictions on freedom of expression to prevent apostasy from and insults to Islam; that Islam is not only a religion but a governing system; that historical Sharia,
or Islamic law, is one, universal system of law, accessible to
humanity, and necessary to enforcement for Islam to be truly practiced.
Explanation
Explaining the development of Islamism (or at least jihadist Islamism), one critic (Khaled Abu al-Fadl) describes it as not so much an expression of religious revival and resurgence, but a phenomenon created by several factors:
the undermining of the independence and religious authority of Islamic jurists,
who traditionally "tolerated and even celebrated divergent opinions and
schools of thought and kept extremism marginalized". The state seizure
of the private religious endowments (awqaf)
that supported the jurists in most post-colonialist Muslim countries
has relegated most jurists to salaried employees of the state,
diminishing their legitimacy on matters social and political."
the advance of Saudi Arabian doctrine of Wahhabism
into this vacuum of religious authority. Financed by tens of billions
of dollars of petroleum-export money and proselytizing aggressively, the
doctrine billed itself not as one school among many, but as a return to
the one, true, orthodox "straight path" of Islam – pristine, simple,
straightforward.
It differed from the traditional teachings of the jurists in its
"strict literalism ... extreme hostility to intellectualism, mysticism,
and any sectarian divisions within Islam".
added to this Wahhabi literalism and narrowness are populist
appeals to Muslim humiliation suffered in the modern age at the hands
of harshly despotic governments, and interventionist non-Muslim powers."
Limits on freedom of expression
According to Graham Fuller, a long-time observer of Middle Eastern politics and supporter of allowing Islamists to participate in politics,
"One of the most egregious and damaging roles" played by some Islamists
has been in "ruthlessly" attacking and instituting legal proceedings
"against any writings on Islam they disagree with."
Some of the early victims of Islamist enforcement of orthodoxy include Ahmad Kasravi, a former cleric and important intellectual figure of 1940s Iran who was assassinated in 1946 by the Fadayan-e Islam, an Islamic militant group, on the charge of takfir.
Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, a 76-year-old "practicing Muslim" and theologian was hanged in a public ceremony in Khartoum, January 18, 1985, for among other charges "heresy" and "opposing application of Islamic law".
Taha had opposed Sharia law in its historical form, as it was
instituted in Sudan, because he believed the Quranic verses on which it
was primarily based (known as the Medina verses) were adapted for a specific place and purpose – namely ruling the seventh-century Islamic city-state of Medina – and were abrogated by verses revealed in Mecca, which (Taha believed) represented the Islamic "ideal religion".
Maybe the most famous alleged apostate in the Arab world attacked by Islamists was Egyptian Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz,
who was harassed and stabbed in the neck by assailants, almost killed
and crippled for the rest of his life. Others include novelist Egyptian
Salahaddin Muhsin who
... was sentenced to three years hard labor for writings
that `offended Islam`; [Egyptian] feminist novelist Nawal El Saadawi
has been repeatedly tried in court for anti-Islamic writing and her
husband ordered to divorce her as a Muslim apostate, although the
charges were ultimately struck down; Islamist lawyers also charged
Islamic and Arabic literature professor Nasr Abu Zayd with apostasy for
his writings on the background of the Qur'an, and his wife was ordered
to divorce him. ..."
Egyptian author Farag Foda was assassinated on June 8, 1992 by militants of the Gamaa Islamiya as an example to other anti-fundamentalist intellectuals.
While Islamists are often separated into "bad" violent extremists, and "good" moderates working within the system, political scientist Gilles Kepel
points out that in Egypt in the 1990s "Islamist moderates and the
extremists complemented one another's actions." In the case of Farag
Foda's killing, "moderate" Sheik Mohammed al-Ghazali
("one of the most revered sheiks in the Muslim world"), testified for
the defense in the trial of Foda's killers. "He announced that anyone
born Muslim who militated against the sharia
(as Foda had done) was guilty of the crime of apostasy, for which the
punishment was death. In the absence of an Islamic state to carry out
this sentence, those who assumed that responsibility were not
blameworthy."
Takfir
Some
Islamists have evolved beyond targeting liberal and secular
intellectuals to more mainstream Muslims (What researchers Matteo Sisto
and Samir Gurung dub "Neo-Takfirism"). In the Algerian Civil War the insurgent/jihadist Islamist group GIA
viewed all who failed to actively support its jihad as collaborators
with the government, and thus apostates from Islam and eligible military
targets. The group slaughtered entire villages, murdered foreigners,
and executed Algerians for "violating Islamic law," for "infractions
ranging from infidelity to wearing Western clothing."
In the Iraq civil war, Takfir was also defined broadly by Sunni Islamist insurgents. By mid-2006, at least two falafel venders in Baghdad were killed "because falafel did not exist in the seventh century", and was thus an unIslamic "innovation" (Bid‘ah) in the eyes of the killers. This was seen as a reflection of how far the followers of Sayyid Qutb had progressed in their willingness to takfir and kill those who (they believed) were guilty of apostasy according to some (such as journalist George Packer). As of mid-2014, the jihadi Islamist groups Al Qaeda and Da'ish had killed "more than 300 Sunni imams and preachers", according to one "prominent Iraqi Sunni cleric" (Khaled al-Mulla).
Some months later Da'ish reportedly executed one of its own Sharia
judges on the grounds that he had "excessive takfiri tendencies".
Some Islamists have been condemned by other Muslims as Kharijites for their willingness to Takfir
(declare other Muslims to be unbelievers) and kill self-professed
Muslims. While Islamist often argue that they are returning to Islam
unpolluted by Western Enlightenment ideas of freedom of thought and
expression, early Islam also condemned extreme strictness in the form of
the 7th century to the Kharijites.
From their essentially political position, they developed extreme
doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shiʿa
Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for their readiness to
takfir self-professed Muslims.
Emphasis on politics
Neglect of other issues
Although Islamism is a movement devoted to the preeminence of Islam in all fields
some have suggested that belief has been neglected in favor of
politics, and that "organizers, enthusiasts, and politicians," rather
than those focusing on spirituality or religion, have "had the most
impact" in the movement.
Other observers have remarked on the narrowness of Islamism, and
its lack of interest in studying and making sense of the world in
general. Habib Boulares regrets that the movement in general has "devoted little energy to constructing consistent theories" and has made 'no contribution either to Islamic thought or spirituality'. Olivier Roy complains of its intellectual stagnation in that "since the founding writings of Abul Ala Maududi, Hasan al-Banna,
Sayyid Qutb ... all before 1978 ... there are nothing but brochures,
prayers, feeble glosses and citations of canonical authors."
An ex-activist (Ed Husain) of one of the Islamist groups active in Britain (Hizb ut-Tahrir), wrote in his book The Islamist
that he felt politics was crowding out his "relationship with God",
and saw the same in other HT activists. Husain complained "We sermonized
about the need for Muslims to return to Islam, but many of the shabab
[activists] did not know how to pray."
Another observer (Olivier Roy) complained that even systematic study of human society and behavior is dismissed as un-Islamic:
There is neither history, since nothing new has happened except a return to the jahiliyya
of pre-Islamic times, nor anthropology, since man is simply the
exercise of virtue (there is no depth psychology in Islam: sin is not an
introduction to the other within), nor sociology, since segmentation is
fitna, splitting of the community, and thus an attack on the
divine oneness the community reflects. Anything, in fact, that
differentiates is seen as a menace to the unity of the community...
Dependence on virtue
Roy
also argues that the basic strategy of Islamism suffers from "a vicious
circle" of "no Islamic state without virtuous Muslims, no virtuous
Muslims without an Islamic state".
This is because for Islamists, "Islamic society exists only through
politics, but the political institutions function only a result of the
virtue of those who run them, a virtue that can become widespread only
if the society is Islamic beforehand."
The process of choosing a leader involves not issues such as the
structure of elections, of checks and balances on power, but searching
for "subjective" qualities: the amir must "abstain from sin", incarnate "sincerity, equity, justice, purity" have "sincerity, ability and loyalty","moral integrity as well as ... other relevant criteria" (Hassan al-Turabi).
Vagueness
Author
Tarek Osman has criticized Islamism as promising "everything to
everyone", leading to unsustainable conflicts and contradictions: an
alternative social provider to the poor masses; an angry platform for
the disillusioned young; a loud trumpet-call announcing `a return to the
pure religion` to those seeking an identity; a "progressive, moderate
religious platform` for the affluent and liberal; ... and at the
extremes, a violent vehicle for rejectionists and radicals."
Irrelevance in modern times
Olivier Roy
argues that, while Islamism has been wonderfully successful as a
"mobilising slogan", it "just does not provide the answers to the
problems of governing a modern states." Roy points to Egypt, the largest
Arab Muslim country, where in the wake of the Arab Spring, the party of
the oldest and largest Islamist movement (the Muslim Brotherhood) was
by far the largest vote getter. It won the 2012 presidential election
but within a year was overthrown and crushed by the military after
massive protests by millions.
Another critic, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im
argues that, even in family law, where Islamic jurisprudence provides
an abundance of rulings, Sharia law does not provide a clear basis for a
centralised administration, because the very idea of centralised
administration did not exist at the time when the various schools of
Muslim family law were developed.
Emphasis on early Islam
Some critics (such as Tunisian-born scholar and journalist Abdelwahab Meddeb)
have bemoaned the Islamist belief that in 1400 years of Muslim history,
true Islam worthy of imitation was enforced for only a few decades. Sayyid Qutb
(d. 1966) preached that Islam has been extinct for "centuries" and that
it is "necessary that the Muslim community be restored to its original
form," and follow the example of the original companions of Muhammad (Sahabah),
who not only cut themselves off from any non-Islamic culture or
learning – Greek, Roman, Persian, Christian or Jewish logic, art,
poetry, etc. – but separating themselves "completely" from their "past
life," of family and friends.
Nor do Islamists agree on when true and original Islam was in
existence. Abul Ala Maududi indicates it was the era of the Prophet and
the 30-year reign of the four "rightly guided caliphs" (Rashidun).
Qutb's brother Muhammad thought the only time "Islam was ... enforced
in its true form" was for fifteen years, during the first two caliphs,
plus three years from 717 to 720 A.D. For the Shiite Ayatollah Khomeini, the five-year reign of Caliph Ali was the truly Islamic era Muslims should imitate.
Meddeb protests that this excludes not only any non-Muslim culture, but most of Muslim history including the Golden Age of Islam:
"How can one benefit from the past and the present if one comes to the
conclusion that the only Islam that conforms to the sovereignty of God
is that of Medina the first four caliphs? ... Can one still ... love and
respond to the beauties handed down by the many peoples of Islam
through the variety of their historic contribution?"
He and at least one other author (Tarek Osman) have questioned how
perfect an era was where three of the first four caliphs were
assassinated, while "enmities" and "factional disputes" and "almost continuous embarrassing episodes of blood-letting and internal struggles" were played out. Meddeb points out the celebration of rightly guided originated a century later with Ibn Hanbal.
Unification of religion and state
One of the most commonly quoted slogans in the movement is that of the Muslim Brotherhood: `al-islam dinun was dawlatun` (Islam is a religion and a state). But, as one critic complains, the slogan "is neither a verse of the Qur'an nor a quote from a hadith but a 19th century political slogan popularised by the Salafi movement".
– an origin in 19th-century being problematic for a belief system
predicated on following the scripture revealed, and the ways of those
who lived, twelve centuries earlier.
Historical context
Critics
contend that this unification is not unique to Islam but to the
premodern era, or at least the era around the time of Muhammad.
This was also an era in which religion and the state were one unified entity. ... no Jew, Christian, Zoroastrian,
or Muslim of this time would have considered his or her religion to be
rooted in the personal confessional experiences of individuals. ... Your
religion was your ethnicity, your culture, and your social identity ...
your religion was your citizenship.
The post-Julian Roman Empire was Christian, with one "officially sanctioned and legally enforced version" of (Nicene) Christianity. The Sassanid Empire in Persia was Zoroastrian,
again with one officially sanctioned and legally enforced version of
Zoroastrianism. On the Indian subcontinent, Vaisnava kingdoms (devotees
of Vishnu and his incarnations) fought with Savia kingdoms (devotees of
Shiva) for territorial control. In China, Buddhist rulers fought Taoist rulers for political ascendancy. "Thus every religion was a `religion of the sword.`"
Historical necessity
Critics
also suggest that the early combination of religion and state in Muslim
society may have been a product of its creation in the stateless world
of Arab society where Muslims needed a state to protect themselves,
rather than the timeless essence of Islam.
Christianity was based within the "massive and enduring" Roman Empire. The Hebrews had "ethnic bonds before becoming Jews." But unlike these other Abrahamic religions, "the Muslims depended on their religion to provide them with an authority and an identity."
Mohammad founded a religious community ex nihilo.
He lived in western Arabia, a stateless region where tribal
affiliations dominated all of public life. A tribe protected its members
(by threatening to take revenge for them), and it provided social
bonds, economic opportunities, as well as political enfranchisement. An
individual lacking tribal ties had no standing: he could be robbed,
raped, and killed with impunity. If Muhammad was to attract tribesmen to
join his movement, he had to provide them with an affiliation no less
powerful than the tribe they had left behind".
Scriptural basis
The scriptural basis of the Islamist principle that God – in the form of Sharia law – must govern, comes, at least in part, from the Quranic phrase that `Hukm is God's alone,` according to one of the founders of Islamist thought, Abul Ala Maududi. However, journalist and author Abdelwahab Meddeb questions this idea on the grounds that the definition of the Arabic word hukm is broader then simply "to govern", and that the ayah Maududi quoted is not about governing or government. Hukm
is usually defined as to "exercise power as governing, to pronounce a
sentence, to judge between two parties, to be knowledgeable (in
medicine, in philosophy), to be wise, prudent, of a considered
judgment". The full ayat where the phrase appears says:
Those who you adore outside of Him are nothing but names
that you and your fathers have given them. God has granted them no
authority. Hukm is God's alone. He has commanded that you adore none but Him. Such is the right religion, but most people do not know. [Quran12:40]
Which suggests that the Quran is talking about God's superiority over pagan idols, rather than His role in government. According to Meddeb, Quranic
"commentators never forget to remind us that this verse is devoted to
the powerlessness of the companion deities (pardras) that idolaters
raise up next to God…"
Islamist interpretation of Sharia
Criticisms of Sharia law – or orthodox historical sharia law
– are varied and not always in agreement. They include: that Islamist
leaders are often ignorant of Islamic law, the Islamist definition of
Sharia is in error, its implementation is impractical, and that flexible
solutions have been ignored, that its scriptural basis has been
corrupted, and that its enforcement is un-Islamic.
Ignorance
Despite
the great importance Islamists gave to strict adherence to Sharia, many
were not trained jurists. Islamic scholar and moderate Abou el Fadl
complains that "neither Qutb nor Mawdudi were trained jurists, and their
knowledge of the Islamic jurisprudential tradition was minimal.
Nevertheless, like `Abd al-Wahhad, Mawdudi and Qutb imagined Islamic law
to be a set of clear cut, inflexible and rigid positive commands that
covered and regulated every aspect of life."
Dale C. Eikmeier
points out the "questionable religious credentials" of many Islamist
theorists, or "Qutbists," which can be a "means to discredit them and
their message":
With the exception of Abul Ala Maududi and Abdullah
Azzam, none of Qutbism’s main theoreticians trained at Islam’s
recognized centers of learning. Although a devout Muslim, Hassan al
Banna was a teacher and community activist. Sayyid Qutb was a literary
critic. Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj was an electrician. Ayman
al-Zawahiri is a physician. Osama bin Laden trained to be a businessman.
Sharia as single universal set of laws to obey
Islamists
such as Sayyid Qutb and Ayatollah Khomeini have argued that true Islam
and a Muslim community cannot be said to exist without the application
of Sharia law. According to Qutb, "The Muslim community with these
characteristics vanished at the moment the laws of God [i.e. Sharia]
became suspended on earth."
Khomeini preaches that Islamic government is needed
if the Islamic order is to be preserved and all individuals are to pursue the just path of Islam without any deviation,
if innovation and the approval of the anti-Islamic laws by sham parliaments are to be prevented,
and in this Islamic government, (in fact "in Islam")
the legislative power and competence to establish
laws belongs exclusively to God Almighty. The Sacred Legislator of Islam
is the sole legislative power. No one has the right to legislate and no
law may be executed except the law of the Divine Legislator.
Abou El Fadl replies that the Quran itself seems to deny there is one sharia for everyone to obey:
`To each of you God has prescribed a Law [Sharia] and a
Way. If God would have willed, He would have made you a single people.
But God's purpose is to test you in what he has given each of you, so
strive in the pursuit of virtue, and know that you will all return to
God [in the Hereafter], and He will resolve all the matters in which you
disagree. [Quran5:48]
According to these dissenters the definition of Sharia as being the
body of Muslim jurisprudence, its various commentaries and
interpretations, only came later in Islamic history. Many modernists
argue this jurisprudence is "entirely man-made, written by Muslim
scholars according to their various schools, based on their best
understanding of how the Qur'an should be translated into codes of law."
One scholar, Muhammad Sa'id al-'Ashmawi
a specialist in comparative and Islamic law at Cairo University, argues
that the term Sharia, as used in the Qur'an, refers not to legal rules
but rather to "the path of Islam consisting of three streams: 1)
worship, 2) ethical code, and 3) social intercourse.
Thus al-`Ashmawi and many other modernists insist that the Shari'a is
very different than Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and that fiqh must be
reinterpreted anew by scholars in every age in accordance with their
understanding."
Thus "there is no one Sharia but rather many different, even
contesting ways to build a legal structure in accordance with God's
vision for mankind."
One difference between this interpretation and the orthodox
Sharia is in the penalty for apostasy from Islam. According to
non-Islamist Sudanese cleric Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im,
the Islamist interpretation of sharia, "is fundamentally inconsistent
with the numerous provisions of the Quran and Sunna which enjoin freedom
of religion and expression."
An illustration of the lack of a single universal Sharia is the fact
that its proponents do not agree on one. Legal scholar Sadakat Kadri
complains that
"the supposed purists cannot even
agree on which sins to repress. Saudi Arabia forces women to be veiled
and forbids them to drive, while Iran allows females to show their faces
behind wheels but threatens them with jail if they expose too much
hair. Sunni rigorist insist that God hates men to be clean shaven,
whereas Tehran's Ministry of Culture suggests in July 2010 that He was
more perturbed by ponytails and mullets. Some extremists have even
attached spiritual significance to customs that mandate physical
violence, such as female genital mutilation and so-called honor
killings, oblivious to the pagan roots of the first practice and the
unequivocal hostility of the Qur'an and hadiths to the second one.
Overly simplistic
A related criticism is that Islamist "politics of identity
have relegated the Sharia to a level of political slogan, instead of
elevating it to the level of intellectual complexity at which our
jurisprudential forefather discussed it, debated it, and wrote about it.
.... Superficial political chants claiming that the Qur'an is our
constitution or that the Shari'a is our guide," are heard but not
discussion "of what a constitution is, which parts of the Qur'an are
'constitutional,' or how the Shari'a is to guide us on any particular
matter of legal relevance."
Historical record
Leading
Islamists maintain that in addition to being divine, Sharia (or again
orthodox Sharia), is easy to implement. Qutb believed that Sharia would
be no problem to implement because there is "no vagueness or looseness"
in its provisions. Khomeini contended
Islam has made the necessary provision; and if laws are
needed, Islam has established them all. There is no need for you, after
establishing a government, to sit down and draw up laws, or, like rulers
who worship foreigners and are infatuated with the west, run after
others to borrow their laws. Everything is ready and waiting.
But critics complain that strict application of orthodox Sharia law
has been tried repeatedly throughout Islamic history and always found to
be impractical.
Olivier Roy refers to the call to enforce Sharia,
as a periodic cycle of Islamic history "as old as Islam itself." But
one that is "still new because it has never been fulfilled. It is a
tendency that is forever setting the reformer, the censor, and tribunal
against the corruption of the times and of sovereigns, against foreign
influence, political opportunism, moral laxity, and the forgetting of
sacred texts."
According to Daniel Pipes, "the historical record shows that
every effort in modern times to apply the Shari`a in its entirety – such
as those made in Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Libya, Iran, and Pakistan –
ended up disappointing the fundamentalists, for realities eventually had
to be accommodated. Every government devoted to full implementation
finds this an impossible assignment."
Quran as Constitution
"The Quran is our Constitution" or "the Quran is our law," is "the slogan encountered from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to the Afghan Islamists."
But non-Islamist criticism replies that only 245 of the 6000 verses in
the Quran concern legislation. Among those only 90 concern
constitutional, civil, financial or economic matter, scarcely enough to
form a constitution.
There is a resolution in Constitution of Pakistan that no law or policy can go against "the principles of Islam".
Ignoring Maslaha
A
solution to this problem embraced by modernists and usually ignored by
Islamists, is the inclusion of the principle that Islamic law must serve
the general common good or maslaha. This open-ended requirement clashes with Qutb's idea that there is "no vagueness or looseness" in Sharia.
"Many modernist use as the point of departure the
well-established Islamic concept of maslaha (the public interest or
common good.) For those schools that place priority on the role of
maslaha in Islamic thinking, Islam by definition serves the common good;
therefore, if a given policy or position demonstrably does not serve
the public interest it simply is "not Islam". This formulation is used
by the huge Muhammadiyah
movement in Indonesia, among others. The pioneering Egyptian Islamic
thinker Muhammad `Abdu spoke in similar terms when he criticized Muslim
neglect of the concept of `common good` and rulers' emphasis on
obedience above justice."
Ibn Aqil
believed Islamic law could consider the welfare of those who broke
Islamic law and go beyond what was "explicitly supported" by the Quran.
Islam approves of all policy which creates good and
eradicates evil even when it is not based on any revelation. That is how
the Companions of the Prophet understood Islam. Abu Bakr, for example,
appointed Umar to succeed him without precedent. Umar suspended the
Quranically mandated punishment of hand amputation during a famine, he
suspended it also when he discovered that two thieves, the employees of
Hatib, were under-paid. And so on.
Ignoring problems with the development of orthodox Sharia
Finally there is the question of accuracy of the ahadith
or sayings of the Prophet which forms the basis of most Sharia law. The
sayings were not written down for some generations but transmitted
orally. An elaborate method has been developed to verify and rate hadith
according to levels of authenticity, including isnad
or chains of the hadith's transmission. Nonetheless these were often
not essential elements "in the dissemination of a hadith ... before the
9th century, when the collections were completed. Joseph Schacht's
extensive research on the development of the Shariah has shown how
quite a large number of widely acknowledged hadith had their chain of
transmission added conjecturally so as to make them appear more
authentic. Hence Schacht's maxim: `the more perfect the isnad, the later
the tradition.`" But as a non-Muslim Orientialist, the persuasive authority of Schacht and his works are limited.
Aside from these doubts of ahadith, orthodox and Islamist
teachers ignore the history of the development of Islamic jurisprudence
over centuries maintaining that "Islamic law has not come into being the
way conventional law has." It did not begin "with a few rules that
gradually multiplied or with rudimentary concepts refined by cultural
process with the passage of time."
When in fact, according to Aslan, "that is exactly how the Shariah
developed: `with rudimentary concepts refined by cultural process with
the passage of time.' This was a process influenced not only by local
cultural practices but by both Talmudic and Roman law. ... the sources
from which these [early schools of law] formed their traditions,
especially ijma, allowed for the evolution of thought. For this reason,
their opinions of the Ulama ... were constantly adapting to contemporary
situations, and the law itself was continually reinterpreted and
reapplied as necessary."
In the meantime at madrassas in the Muslim world, thousands of
"young Muslims are indoctrinated in a revival of Traditionalist
orthodoxy especially with regard to the static, literalist
interpretation of the Quran and the divine, infallible nature of the
Shariah."
Compulsion in Sharia
Islamist
governments such as Iran's have emphasized compulsion in personal
behavior (such as the wearing of hijab) enforced with religious police.
The question here is, if compelling people to obey Shariah law means
they may be obeying out of fear of punishment by men rather than
devotion to God's law, and whether this obedience from fear negates the
merit of the act in the eyes of God. Compulsion in religious observance
deprives "the observant of the credit for following God's order through
personal volition. Only free acts of piety and worship have merit in
God's eyes."
Case of hijab
Hijab, or covering of a woman's head and body, is arguably "the most distinctive emblem of Islam". Compulsory wearing of the hijab is also a hallmark of Islamist states such as Iran and famously the Taliban Afghanistan. In the Islamic Republic of Iran,
the Prosecutor-General, Abolfazl Musavi-Tabrizi has been quoted as
saying: "Any one who rejects the principle of hijab in Iran is an apostate and the punishment for an apostate under Islamic law is death" (August 15, 1991).
The Taliban's Islamic Emirate requires women to cover not only their
head but their face as well, because "the face of a woman is a source of
corruption" for men not related to them. The burqa
Afghan women were required to wear in public was the most drastic form
of hijab with very limited vision. Both states claim they are simply
enforcing Sharia law.
"True terror" has reportedly been used to enforce hijab "in Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan," according to a Rand Corporation
commentary by Cheryl Benard. "[H]undreds of women have been blinded or
maimed when acid was thrown on their unveiled faces by male fanatics who
considered them improperly dressed," for failure to wear hijab. An example being use of acid against women by Islamist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the 1970s,
and a 2001 "acid attack on four young Muslim women in Srinagar ... by an unknown militant outfit, and the swift compliance by women of all ages on the issue of wearing the chadar (head-dress) in public."
Islamists in other countries have been accused of attacking or
threatening to attack the faces of women in an effort to intimidate them
from wearing of makeup or allegedly immodest dress.
But according to some critics there is a real question as to the
scriptural or historical basis of this basic issue of Muslim women's
lives.
According to Leila Ahmed, nowhere in the whole of the Quran is "the term
hijab applied to any woman other than the wives of Muhammad."
Such critics claim that the veil predates the revelation of the Quran
as it "was introduced into Arabia long before Muhammad, primarily
through Arab contacts with Syria and Iran, where the hijab was a sign of
social status. After all, only a woman who need not work in the fields
could afford to remain secluded and veiled. ... In the Muslim community
"there was no tradition of veiling until around 627 C.E."
Traditionally ridda, or converting from Islam to another
religion is a capital crime in Islam. Islamists have been noted for
their enthusiasm in enforcing the penalty. But like hijab however,
there is question over the scriptural or historical basis of the
proscribed sentence of death. According to reformist author Reza Aslan,
belief in the death sentence for apostates originated with early Caliph
Abu Bakr's "war
against tribes that had annulled their oath of allegiance to the
Prophet." The war was to "prevent Muhammad's community from dissolving
back into the old tribal system," but was a political and not a
religious war. "Still, the Riddah Wars did have the regrettable
consequence of permanently associating apostasy (denying one's faith)
with treason (denying the central authority of the Caliph)," which made
apostasy "a capital crime in Islam."
Innovations to Islam
Tendency towards modernism
Critics
have noted that Islamists have claimed to uphold eternal
religious/political principles but sometimes change with the times, for
example embracing "far more modern and egalitarian" interpretations of
social justice – including socialist ideas – than the rightly guided
caliphs would ever have conceived of.
Islamists in power in the Islamic Republic of Iran, have had to "quietly
put aside" traditional Islamic divorce and inheritance law and replace
them with statutes addressing "contemporary Iranian social needs,"
according to Graham Fuller.
Another critic, Asghar Schirazi, has followed the progress of changes
in divorce law in Iran, starting with the western innovation of court
divorce for women – a deviation from traditional Islamic Talaq
divorce introduced before the Islamic Revolution. Court divorce went
from being denounced by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1960s as the
product of orders by "agents of foreign powers for the purpose of
annihilating Islam," to the law of the land in the Islamic Republic by
1992.
Other loosening of prohibitions on previously unIslamic activity in the
Islamic Republic include allowing the broadcast of music, and family planning.
Church-like structures
According to Shahrough Akhavi, church-like behavior is found in the Islamic Republic of Iran where the state demand for obedience to the fatawa of supreme cleric Khomeini strongly resembled the doctrine of Papal infallibility
of the Roman Catholic Church(despite the infallibility has not been
invoked by any Pope in more than 400 years), and where the demotion of a
rival of Khomeini, Ayatollah Muhammad Kazim Shari`atmadari (d. 1986),
resembled "defrocking" and "excommunicating," despite the fact that "no machinery for this has ever existed in Islam."
Other trends, such as centralized control over budgets,
appointments to the professoriate, curricula in the seminaries, the
creation of religious militias, monopolizing the representation of
interests, and mounting a Kulturkampf in the realm of the arts, the
family, and other social issues tell of the growing tendency to create
an "Islamic episcopacy" in Iran.
Western political concepts
One
critic has compiled a list of concepts borrowed from the West and alien
to the Sharia used in the constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran:
'sovereignty of the people' (hakemiyat-e melli), 'nation'
(mellat), 'the rights of the nation' (hoquq-e mellat), 'the
legislature' (qovveh-e moqannaneb), 'the judiciary' (qovveh-e
qaza'iyeh), 'parliament' (majles), 'republic' (jomhuri), 'consultation of the people' (hameh-porsi), 'elections' (entekhabat).
Idea of historical progress
Sayyid Qutb adopted the "Marxist notion of stages of history", with the demise of capitalism and its replacement with communism,
but then adding yet another stage, the ultimate Islamic triumph. Islam
would replace communism after humanity realized communism could not
fulfill its spiritual needs, and Islam was "the only candidate for the
leadership of humanity."
Feminism
But
in explaining Islam's or Islamism's superiority in its treatment of
women, many Islamists take positions unknown to the early Muslims they
seek to emulate. Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna
believed "Muslim women have been free and independent for fifteen
centuries. Why should we follow the example of Western women, so
dependent on their husbands in material matters?" President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Khatami boasted that "under the Islamic Republic, women have full rights to participate in social, cultural, and political activities;"
as did Islamist Hasan at-Turabi, the former leader of Sudan: "Today in
Sudan, women are in the army, in the police, in the ministries,
everywhere, on the same footing as men." Turabi explains that "a woman
who is not veiled is not the equal of men. She is not looked on as one
would look on a man. She is looked at to see if she is beautiful, if she
is desirable. When she is veiled, she is considered a human being, not
an object of pleasure, not an erotic image."
Ideology
Traditional
Islam emphasized man's relation with God and living by Sharia, but not
the state "which meant almost nothing to them but trouble ... taxes,
conscription, corvée labor." Islamists and revivalists embrace the
state, in statements like: Islam "is rich with instructions for ruling a
state, running an economy, establishing social links and relationships
among the people and instructions for running a family," and "Islam is not precepts or worship, but a system of government."
Rather than comparing their movement against other religions,
Islamists are prone to say "We are not socialist, we are not capitalist,
we are Islamic."
In his famous 1988 appeal to Gorbachev to replace Communism with
Islam, Imam Khomeini talked about the need for a "real belief in God"
and the danger of materialism, but said nothing about the five pillars,
did not mention Muhammad or monotheism. What he did say was that
"nowadays Marxism in its economic and social approaches, is facing a
blind alley" and that "the Islamic Republic of Iran can easily supply
the solution the believing vacuum of your country". Materialism is
mentioned in the context of "materialistic ideology."
Innovation in Sharia
Traditionally
Sharia law was elaborated by independent jurist scholars, had
precedence over state interests, and was applied to people rather than
territories. "[T]he caliph, though otherwise the absolute chief of the
community of Muslims, had not the right to legislate but only to make
administrative regulations with the limits laid down by the sacred Law."
Islamists in Iran and Sudan extended the purview of Sharia but
gave the state, not independent jurists, authority over it. The most
extreme example of this was the Ayatollah Khomeini's declaration in 1988
that "the government is authorized unilaterally to abolish its lawful
accords with the people and ... to prevent any matter, be it spiritual
or material, that poses a threat to its interests." Which meant that,
"for Islam, the requirements of government supersede every tenet,
including even those of prayer, fasting and pilgrimage to Mecca." Something not even Atatürk, the most committed Muslim secularist, dared to do.
Traditionally Sharia applied to people rather than territories –
Muslims were to obey wherever they were, non-Muslims were exempt. The
idea that law was based on jurisdictions – with towns, states, counties
each having their own laws – was a European import. "Turabi declares
that Islam `accepts territory as the basis of jurisdiction.`
As a result, national differences have emerged. The Libyan government
lashes all adulterers. Pakistan lashes unmarried offenders and stones
married ones. The Sudan imprisons some and hangs others. Iran has even
more punishments, including head shaving and a year's banishment.
Under the new Islamist interpretation, the "millennium-old exclusion" of non-Muslims "from the Sharia is over." Umar Abd ar-Rahman, the blind sheikh, "is adamant on this subject: `it is very well known that no minority in any country has its own laws.`
Islamic economics
Criticism of Islamist (or Islamic) economics have been particularly contemptuous, alleging that effort of "incoherence, incompleteness, impracticality, and irrelevance;" driven by "cultural identity" rather than problem solving.
Another source has dismissed it as "a hodgepodge of populist and
socialist ideas," in theory and "nothing more than inefficient state
control of the economy and some almost equally ineffective
redistribution policies," in practice.
In a political and regional context where Islamist and
ulema claim to have an opinion about everything, it is striking how
little they have to say about this most central of human activities,
beyond repetitious pieties about how their model is neither capitalist
nor socialist.
Riba
One complaint comes from Pakistan were Islamization, includes banning of interest on loans or riba, got underway with military ruler General Zia al-Haq
(1977–1988), a supporter of "Islamic resurgence" who pledged to
eliminate `the curse of interest.` One critic of this attempt, Kemal
A. Faruki, complained that (at least in their initial attempts)
Islamizers wasted much effort on "learned discussions on riba" and ...
doubtful distinctions between `interest` and `guaranteed profits,`
etc." in Western-style banks, "while turning a blind eye" to a far more
serious problem outside of the formal, Western-style banking system:
usury perpetrated on the illiterate and the poor by soodkhuris
(lit. `devourers of usury`). These officially registered moneylenders
under the Moneylenders Act are permitted to lend at not more than 1%
below the State Bank rate. In fact they are Mafia-like individuals who
charge interest as high as 60% per annum collected ruthlessly in monthly
installments and refuse to accept repayment of the principal sum
indefinitely. Their tactics include intimidation and force.
Social justice
On
the same note, another critic has attacked Islamist organizations in
that country for silence about "any kind of genuine social or economic
revolution, except to urge, appropriately, that laws, including
taxation, be universally applied." In the strongly Islamic country of
Pakistan for example, this despite the fact that "social injustice is
rampant, extreme poverty exists, and a feudal political and social order
are deeply rooted from eras preceding the country's founding."
This lack of interest is not unique to Pakistan. "The great questions
of gross maldistribution of economic benefits, huge disparities in
income, and feudal systems of landholding and human control remain
largely outside the Islamist critique."
Major Islamist figures such as Sayyid Qutb and Ayatollah Khomeini
emphasize antipathy towards non-Muslims and anything un-Islamic. Sayyid
Qutb, for example, opposed co-existence with non-Muslims and believed
the world divided into "truth and falsehood" – Islam being truth and
everything else being falsehood. "Islam cannot accept or agree to a
situation which is half-Islam and half-Jahiliyyah ... The mixing and
co-existence of the truth and falsehood is impossible," Western civilization itself was "evil and corrupt," a "rubbish heap."
Olivier Roy explains Islamist attacks on Christians and other non-Muslims as a need for a scapegoat for failure.
Since Islam has an answer to everything, the troubles
from which Muslim society is suffering are due to nonbelievers and to
plots, whether Zionist or Christian. Attacks against Jews and Christians
appear regularly in neofundamentalist articles. In Egypt, Copts are
physically attacked. In Afghanistan, the presence of western
humanitarians, who are associated with Christian missionaries [despite
the fact that many if not most have secular often leftist backgrounds]
is denounced.
Verses of the Quran and enmity
But whatever the explanation, the sentiments of Qutb and Khomeini seem to clash with Quranic calls for moderation and toleration according to critics:
`all those who believe – the Jews, the Sabians, the
Christians – anyone who believes in Allah and the Last Days, and who
does good deeds, will have nothing to fear or regret.` [Quran5:69]
`We believe in what has been revealed to us, just as we
believe in what has been revealed to you [i.e. Jews and Christians]
Our God and Your God are the same; and it is to Him we submit.` [Quran29:46]
Another points out ayat endorsing diversity:
"If thy Lord had willed, He would have made humankind
into a single nation, but they will not cease to be diverse ... And, for
this God created them [humankind]" [Quran11:118]
"To each of you God has prescribed a Law and a Way. If
God would have willed, He would have made you a single people. But God's
purpose is to test you in what He has given each of you, so strive in
the pursuit of virtue, and know that you will all return to God [in the
Hereafter], and He will resolve all the matters in which you disagree." [Quran5:48]
... and ayat that seem to be at odds with offensive jihad against non-Muslims Qutb and others promote:
"If your enemy inclines towards peace, then you should seek peace and trust in God" [Quran8:61]
"... If God would have willed, He would have given the
unbelievers power over you [Muslims], and they would have fought you
[Muslims], Therefore, if they [the unbelievers] withdraw from you and
refuse to fight you, and instead send you guarantees of peace, know that
God has not given you a license [to fight them]." [Quran4:90]
As Abu al-Fadl says, "these discussions of peace would not make sense
if Muslims were in a permanent state of war with nonbelievers, and if
nonbelievers were a permanent enemy and always a legitimate target."
Sunna and enmity
The policies of the prophet – whose behavior during the 23 years of his ministry makes up Sunnah
or model for all Muslims – after conquering Mecca were notably light on
bloodletting. While everyone was required to take an oath of allegiance
to him and never again wage war against him, he "declared a general
amnesty for most of his enemies, including those he had fought in
battle. Despite the fact that islamic law now made the Quraysh his
slaves, Muhammad declared all of Mecca's inhabitants (including its
slaves) to be free. Only six men and four women were put to death for
various crimes, and not one was forced to convert to Islam, though
everyone had to take an oath of allegiance never again to wage war
against the Prophet."
Alleged conspiracies against Islam
Khomeini
believed "imperialists" – British and then American – had 300-year-long
"elaborate plans for assuming control of" the East, the purpose of
which was "to keep us backward, to keep us in our present miserable
state so they can exploit our riches, our underground wealth, our lands
and our human resources. They want us to remain afflicted and wretched,
and our poor to be trapped in their misery ... "
One complaint of this approach by critics is that these "conspiracy
theor[ies]" revolving around the "ready-to-wear devil" of the West are
"currently paralyzing Muslim political thought. For to say that every
failure is the devil's work is the same as asking God, or the devil
himself (which is to say these days the Americans), to solve one's
problems."
Christian Crusades
The belief of some, such as Sayyid Qutb, that the Crusades were an attack on Islam,
or at least "a wanton and predatory aggression" against Muslim
countries from which Muslims developed a rightful mistrust of
Christians/Europeans/Westerners, has been called into question.
According to historian Bernard Lewis, the Crusades were indeed religious wars for Christians, but to
recover the lost lands of Christendom and in particular
the holy land where Christ had lived, taught and died. In this
connection, it may be recalled that when the Crusaders arrived in the
Levant not much more than four centuries had passed since the Arab
Muslim conquerors had wrested theses lands from Christendom – less than
half the time from the Crusades to the present day – and that a
substantial proportion of the population of these lands, perhaps even a
majority, was still Christian."
The Arab Muslim contemporaries of the Crusaders did not refer to them
as "Crusaders or Christians but as Franks or Infidels". Rather than
raging at their aggression, "with few exceptions, the Muslim historians
show little interest in whence or why the Franks had come, and report
their arrival and their departure with equal lack of curiosity." Crusaders and Muslims allied with each other against other alliances of Crusaders and Muslims.
Rather than being event of such trauma that Muslims developed an old
and deep fear of Christians/Europeans/Westerners from it, the crusaders'
invasion was just one of many such by barbarians coming from "East and
West alike" during this time of "Muslim weakness and division."
Lewis argues that any traumatization from the Crusades felt by
Muslims surely would pale in comparison to what European Christendom
felt from Islam. The Crusades started in 1096 and the Crusaders lost
their last toe-hold when the city of Acre, was taken less than two
hundred years later in 1291, whereas Europe felt under constant threat
from Islam, "from the first Moorish landing in Spain [711] to the second
Turkish siege of Vienna [1683]."
All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm
had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast majority of the first
Muslims west of Iran and Arabia were converts from Christianity. North
Africa, Egypt, Syria, even Persian-ruled Iraq had been Christian
countries, in which Christianity was older and more deeply rooted than
in most of Europe. Their loss was sorely felt and heightened the fear
that a similar fate was in store for Europe. In Spain and in Sicily,
Muslim faith and Arab culture exercised a powerful attraction, and even
those who remained faithful to the Christian religion often adopted the
Arabic language."
William Cantwell Smith observes that
until Karl Marx and the rise of communism, the Prophet
organized and launched the only serious challenge to Western
civilization that it has faced in the whole course of its history ...
Islam is the only positive force that has won converts away from
Christianity – by the tens of millions ...
Division of Muslim world into many separate states
According
to the Ayatollah Khomeini and other Islamists, one glaring example of
an attempt by the West to weaken the Muslim world was the division of
the Ottoman empire,
the largest Muslim state and home of the Caliph, into 20 or so
"artificially created separate nations," when that empire fell in 1918. Western powers did partition the Arab world (which made up most of the Ottoman empire) after World War I, while the general Arab Muslim sentiment in much of the 20th Century was for wahda (unity).
In exampling the question of whether this was a case of "divide and rule" policy by Western imperialists, international relations scholar Fred Halliday
points out there were plenty of other explanations for the continued
division: rivalries between different Arab rulers and the reluctance of
distinct regional populations to share statehood or power with other
Arabs, rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Yemen in the Peninsula or
between Egypt and Syria. Anger in Syria over Egyptian dominance in the
United Arab Republic that led to its division in 1961. The difficulty of
unifying a large group of states even though they share much the
desire, the same language, culture and religion is mirrored in the
failure of Latin America to merge in the first decades of the 19th
century after the Spanish withdrawal, when "broad aspirations, inspired
by Simon Bolivar, for Latin American unity foundered on regional, elite
and popular resistance, which ended up yielding, as in the Arab world,
around twenty distinct states."
The more general claim that imperialism and colonialism
divide in order to rule is, in broad terms, simplistic: the overall
record of colonialism has been to merge and unite previously disparate
entities, be this in 16th century Ireland, 19th-century India and Sudan
or 20th century Libya and Southern Arabia. The British supported the
formation of the League of Arab states in 1945 and tried, in the event
unsuccessfully, to create united federations first in Southern Arabia
(1962–67) and then in the Gulf states (1968–71). As Sami Zubaida
has pointed out in his talks, imperialism in fact tends to unite and
rule. It is independent states such as India and Pakistan (later
Pakistan and Bangladesh), as well as Ireland, Cyprus and indeed, the
USSR and Yugoslavia, that promote fragmentation."
Islamists
from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood on the moderate end ("Such are the
Jews, my brother, Muslim lion cub, your enemies and the enemies of God"), to the bin Laden at the extreme ("Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery"), have issued powerful and categorical anti-Jewish statements.
Among Islamist opinion makers, both Qutb and Khomeini talked
about Jews as both early and innate enemies of Islam. Qutb believed
that
At the beginning the enemies of the Muslim community did
not fight openly with arms but tried to fight the community in its
belief through intrigue, spreading ambiguities, creating suspicions.
And goes on to say, "the Jews are behind materialism, animal
sexuality, the destruction of the family and the dissolution of
society."
Khomeini mentions the "Jews of Banu Qurayza", who were eliminated
by Muhammad, as an example of the sort of "troublesome group" that
Islam and the Islamic state must "eliminate."
and explains that "from the very beginning, the historical movement of
Islam has had to contend with the Jews, for it was they who first
established anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in various stratagems."
Qutb's anti-Judaism has been criticized as obsessive and irrational by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon who quote him saying
that
`anyone who leads this community away from its religion and its Quran
can only be Jewish agent` – in other words, any source of division,
anyone who undermines the relationship between Muslims and their faith
is by definition a Jew. The Jews thus become the incarnation of all that
is anti-Islamic, and such is their supposed animosity that they will
never relent `because the Jews will be satisfied only with destruction
of this religion [Islam].` The struggle with the Jews will be a war
without rules, since `from such creatures who kill, massacre and defame
prophets one can only expect the spilling of human blood and dirty means
which would further their machinations and evilness.`
Alleged Jewish conspiracy against Muhammad
But specifically there is the issue of Jews conspired against Muhammad, those Jews being the Banu Qurayza
mentioned by Khomeini, a tribe that collaborated with the Quraysh, the
Muslims' powerful enemy, and whose men were executed and women and
children sold into slavery in 627 AD as punishment.
That this event was the beginning of a Jewish-Muslim struggle is disputed by religious scholar Reza Aslan:
The execution of the Banu Qurayza was not, as it has so
often been presented, reflective of an intrinsic religious conflict
between Muhammad and the Jews. This theory, which is sometimes presented
as an incontestable doctrine... is founded on the belief that Muhammad
... came to Medina fully expecting the Jews to confirm his identity as a
prophet ... To his surprise, however the Jews not only rejected him but
strenuously argued against the authenticity of the Qur’an as divine
revelation. Worried that the rejection of the Jews would somehow
discredit his prophetic claims, Muhammad had not choice but to turn
violently against them, separate his community from theirs ...
Aslan believes this theory is refuted by historical evidence:
The Banu Qurayza were not executed for being Jews. Non-Jews were also executed following the Battle of the Trench.
"As Michael Lecker has demonstrated, a significant number of the Banu
Kilab – Arab clients of the Qurayza who allied with them as an auxiliary
force outside Medina – were also executed for treason." Other Jews did not protest or side with the Banu Qurayza, and these Jews were left alone.
Most Jews were untouched. The 400 to 700 Banu Qurayza men killed
were "no more than a tiny fraction of the total population of Jews who
resided in Medina" who are estimated to have been between 24,000 and
28,000
These "remained in the oasis living amicably alongside their Muslim
neighbors for many years" until they were expelled "under the
leadership of Umar near the end of the seventh century C.E." along with
all the other non-Muslims "as part of a larger Islamization process
throughout the Arabian Peninsula."
"Scholars almost unanimously agree, the execution of the Banu
Qurayza did not in any way set a precedent for future treatment of Jews
in Islamic territories. On the contrary, Jews throve under Muslim rule,
especially after Islam expanded into Byzantine lands, where Orthodox
rulers routinely persecuted both Jews and non-Orthodox Christians for
their religious beliefs, often forcing them to convert to Imperial
Christianity under penalty of death. In contrast, Muslim law, which
considers Jews and Christians `protected peoples` (dhimmi), neither
required nor encouraged their conversion to Islam. ... In return for a
special `protection tax` called jizyah, Muslim law allowed Jews and
Christians both religious autonomy and the opportunity to share in the
social and economic institutions ..."
"Finally and most importantly, ... Jewish clans in Medina –
themselves Arab converts – were barely distinguishable from their pagan
counterparts either culturally or, for that matter, religiously."
They spoke a language called ratan, and "[t]here is no evidence that they either spoke or understood Hebrew.
Indeed, their knowledge of the Hebrew Scripture was likely limited to
just a few scrolls of law, some prayer books, and a handful of
fragmentary Arabic translations of the Torah – What S. W. Baron refers
to as a `garbled, oral tradition.`"
They "neither strictly observed Mosaic law, nor seemed to have any real knowledge of the Talmud,"
nor were Israelites, which, according to J.G. Reissener, precluded them
from being considered Jews. A non-Israelites Jew being required to be
`a follower of the Mosaic Law ... in accordance with the principles laid
down in the Talmud,` according to the strong consensus of opinion among
Diaspora Jewish communities.
In "their culture, ethnics, and even their religion, Medina's Jews
... were practically identical to Medina's pagan community, with whom
they freely interacted and (against Mosaic law) frequently
intermarried."
Archeologists haven't found any "easily identifiable archeological
evidence of a significant Jewish presence" at Medina. The usual
"indicators – such as the remnants of stone vessels, the ruins of
immersion pools (miqva'ot), and the interment of ossuaries – must be
present at a site in order to confirm the existence there of an
established Jewish religious identity."
Hopes for world success and mass conversion
The
worldwide ambition for both Islam and Islamist systems by Islamist
leaders is indicated by Maududi who describes Islam in one of his books
as
a comprehensive system which envisages to annihilate all
tyrannical and evil systems in the world and enforces its own programme
of reform which it deems best for the well-being of mankind.
Mass conversion around the world of non-Muslims to Islam would
greatly facilitate enforcing an Islamist program, and according to
Olivier Roy, "today's Islamist activists are obsessed with conversion:
rumors that Western celebrities or entire groups are converting are
hailed enthusiastically by the core militants."
Aside from the complaint that pushing for mass conversion of
non-Muslims to a different religion and culture is intolerant of their
beliefs and aggressive, Olivier Roy argues "the age of converting entire
peoples is past," and it is simply unrealistic in an era where
religious belief is considered a personal matter. Likewise, a strategy
to gradually convert non-Muslims "until the number of conversions shifts
the balance of the society," is also problematic. Converts to Islam "in
a Christian environment" are generally "marginalized", "fanatics" or a
"true mystics," in any case people who seldom have any desire or ability
to join or build "a mass movement."
Failure of results
Failure of Islamists in power
Examples
of the failure of personal virtue and disinterest in "building
institutions" capable of handling the corruption of power and human
frailty is manifest, (Roy believes), in the Islamic Republic of Iran and
mujahideen Afghanistan.
In both cases the heroic Islamic self-sacrifice that brought Islamist
insurgents to power was followed by notably un-heroic and un-virtuous
governance of the victorious warriors "demanding their due" in spoils
and corruption, or abandon politics to "climbers, careerists, and unscrupulous businessmen." Islamists were no more successful than "other ideologies", in proving immune to the corruption of power.
In Iran the failure is seen not just in lack of support for
Islamist government, but in the decline of the Islamic revival. "Mosques
are packed" where Islamists are out of power, but "they empty out when
Islamism takes power." In "Islamist Iran ... one almost never sees a
person praying in the street."
Islamic jurists, which form a politically privileged class in Iran
"were generally treated with elaborate courtesy" in the early years of
the revolution. "'Nowadays, clerics are sometimes insulted by
schoolchildren and taxi drivers and they quite often put on normal
clothes when venturing outside Qom."
Disillusionment with what he calls the "faltering ideology" can
also be found in Sudan, with Erbakan in Turkey, or in the Algerian
guerilla war.
Writing in 2020, Mustafa Akyol suggests a "Post-Islamist"
backlash against Islamism among Muslim youth has come from all the
"terrible things" that have happened in the Arab world recently "in the
name of Islam" – such as the "sectarian civil wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen".
In Turkey, the "moderate Islamist" AKP (Justice and Development Party) government of President Tayyip Erdogan
has been in power for nearly twenty years and worked assiduously to
cultivate a new "pious generation." Yet a report by a local branch
Turkey's Ministry of Education recently warned of a "spread of deism among the youth" even in state sponsored religious schools.
(Akyol does not include Erdogan or his AKP party in any post-Islamist
configuration.) Akyol quotes religious conservative (Temel
Karamollaoglu) who broke with Erdogan government and warns of "an empire
of fear, a dictatorship in Turkey by those who claim to represent
religion," which is "pushing people away from the religion." Sociologist
Mucahit Bilici describes Turkey having undergone an "organic
secularization, entirely civic and happening not at the behest of, but
in spite of, the state. It is the consequence of a local, indigenous
enlightenment, a flowering of post-Islamist sentiment."
In Iran, Akyol quotes Nicolas Pelham saying that from all visible signs in the capital Tehran, the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution has not re-Islamized Iranian society as much as the de-Islamized it. Islamic laws to enforce hijab and forbid alcohol all but openly flouted.
In Sudan, following the 2019 Revolution toppling Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir "security forces found over $350 million dollars in cash" in his residence alone.
According to Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Islamism has come "to signify
corruption, hypocrisy, cruelty and bad faith" in that country. "Sudan is
perhaps the first genuinely anti-Islamist country in popular terms."
Polls taken by Arab Barometer
in six Arab countries – Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq and Libya
– found "Arabs are losing faith in religious parties and leaders." In
2018–19, in all six countries, fewer than 20% of those asked whether
they trusted Islamist parties answered in the affirmative. That
percentage had fallen (in all six countries) from when the same question
was asked in 2012–14. Mosque attendance also declined more than 10
points on average, and the share of those Arabs describing themselves as
"not religious" went from 8% in 2013 to 13% in 2018–19. In Syria, Sham al-Ali reports "Rising apostasy among Syrian youths".
Failure of Islamist policies
Separation of the sexes
Thorough hijab
covering for women and separation of the sexes has been advocated by
Islamists such as Abul A'la Maududi who argue it prevents men from
"being distracted by women" and allow them "to successfully carry out
their jobs in society",
but critics have complained of the lack of correlation between
separation and respect for women. In the country with perhaps the
strictest policy of separation of the sexes (Saudi Arabia) one
disillusioned Islamist (Ed Husain), who worked as an English teacher
was startled at the attitude of Saudi Arabian men towards women.
Husain complained that despite the strict Saudi policy separation of the
sexes that he wished to emulate as an Islamist, he heard harrowing
stories of kidnapping of women and encountered downloading of hard core
pornography by his students that he never encountered in Britain or the
more "secular" Syrian Republic where he also taught. Despite his wife's
modest dress
out of respect for local custom, she wore the long black abaya and
covered her hair in a black scarf. In all the years I had known my wife,
never had I seen her appear so dull ... Yet on two occasions she was
accosted by passing Saudi youths from their cars. ... In supermarkets I
only had to be away from Faye for five minutes and Saudi men would hiss
or whisper obscenities as they walked past. When Faye discussed their
experiences with local women at the British Council they said, `Welcome
to Saudi Arabia`
Had I not reached Saudi Arabia utterly convinced of my own faith
and identity, then I might well have lost both. Wahhabism and its
rigidity could easily have repelled me from Islam.
