Critics Within: Islamic Scholars' Protests Against the Islamic State in Iran

Islamic scholarship, in Iran and elsewhere, has a long tradition of debate and critique. This tradition has come to pose a challenge to the constitutional order of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as a number of seminary-trained scholars have applied their critical methods to basic issues of state legitimacy, in particular the state's right to insist on interpretive closure. The regime has responded with force, convening special clergy courts to silence and imprison scholars, in violation of seminary norms of scholarly debate. These conspicuous acts of discipline seem to have backfired, as each escalating punishment has generated new critics within.     

Islamic political parties and the nature of politics in Pakistan

The ‘war on terror’ has not only increased the operation and significance of Islamic parties but also intensified suspicion against them. The lack of comprehensive theoretical research about Islamic parties has further contributed to misunderstanding of their nature and politics. This article theorizes and classifies Islamic parties, especially of Pakistan, and explores their origin, development and nature. The conventional theories of party origin and traditional classifications of political parties are shown to have limited validity in the case of Islamic parties. Rather, the origin and development of Islamic parties is explored through the theoretical construct of historical crisis situation theory, consisting of four crisis situations. Moreover, a new typology of Islamic parties is developed and the Islamic parties are classified on the basis of six variables into three parties: clerical, conservative and Islamist. The exploration of the role of Islamic parties in Pakistan shows that party variables are not only essential to understand their proper nature but also critical to comprehend their politics. Though unanimously categorized as ‘Islamic’, their politics significantly differ and Pakistan provides a typical case to show the heterogeneous Islamic politics of Islamic parties.     

New geographies of financial power: global Islamic finance and the Gulf

Abstract

A growing body of critical scholarship has examined the recent growth of Islamic finance (IF), unpacking its ethical assertions and highlighting its close affinities with conventional financial instruments. Receiving less attention, however, is the relationship between the global expansion of IF and the emergence of new financial actors and zones of accumulation. This article situates the evolution of global Islamic circuits alongside processes of capital accumulation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), arguing that contemporary IF is deeply bound up with the internationalisation of capital groups headquartered in the GCC. This is evident in the internationalisation of GCC Islamic banks, which has given the Gulf a powerful foothold in new markets and a variety of sectors that are typically considered ‘non-financial’. Simultaneously, the expansion and geographical diversification of Islamic debt (sukuk) issuance is refashioning the Gulf’s relationships with other global spaces, a process that looks set to intensify given the widespread push to utilise IF in development financing. Seen from this perspective, the global growth of IF sits in a mutually constitutive relationship with patterns of capital accumulation in the Gulf, as well as the region’s burgeoning weight within (and new linkages to) the global economy.     

The Islamic Revolution: From the Shah to the Spice Girls

For most of human history, the other half of the species, women, were on the sidelines. Now they are central actors in all our societies as we negotiate the fraught transition from male‐dominated tradition to modernity and beyond. In this section we hear the voices of powerful women who in their own lives are making this historic shift.     

Islamic Fundamentalism and Women's Economic Role: The Case of Iran

It is commonly believed that Islamic fundamentalism is responsible for the low female employment rate in the Middle East and North Africa. I earlier presented evidence from Indonesia indicating that the deteriorating conditions of women's economic role in the 1990s was related to the economic circumstances of the Asian Crisis, not to the rise of political Islam (Bahranitash, 2002). In fact, in Indonesia, increasing support for the Islamic movement was itself spurred by the Asian Crisis. As a contrasting case, I here examine Iran, a country where political Islam has been in power for over two decades. If commonly held views about the impact of the Islamic religion on female employment were true, one would expect a steady or sharp decline of the female employment rate in postrevolutionary Iran. The empirical data show the reverse. Women's formal employment rates increased in the 1990s and did so much faster than they had during the 1960s and 1970s, when a pro-Western secular regime was in power. This sharp increase in women's employment seriously challenges the view that religion explains women's economic status in Muslim countries. The evidence from Iran indicates that the situation of women's employment there has followed a common pattern of elsewhere in the South—an overall increase in female employment. This fact then suggests that the forces of international political economy, rather than religion, appear to be a determining factor in the state of women's economic role in Iran.     

From aid negotiation to aid effectiveness: the case of food and nutrition security in Ethiopia

This paper looks at aid ownership through the lens of negotiations that take place between a country and its development partners (DPs). Based on the case of Ethiopian food security policies, it combines a structural analysis of the negotiation capital of both parties with an actor-oriented analysis of the institutional setting through which negotiations take place. First, it shows that the growing influence donors have come to have in the shaping of Ethiopian public policies results from the relative loss of legitimacy the government has experienced after the 2005 political crisis and its greater need for external economic assistance. Second, the more recent creation of a negotiation platform between the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) and its DPs has allowed the GoE to enhance donor’s alignment with its development policies and regain some control over its development agenda, while giving them more room to contribute to several food and nutrition security policy reforms which have been positively evaluated. The paper stresses the need for donors to better recognise the centrality of politics in any aid intervention.     

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front at 20: State of the Revolution

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has waged a secessionist campaign in the Southern Philippines since 1978, when they broke away from the secular Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Their avowed goal is to establish an independent Islamic state. Though initially armed and supported by the Libyan and Malaysian governments, by the early 1990s, the MILF had lost much of its state support and forged a tentative relationship with Al Qaeda, receiving money through Saudi charities, as well as limited military training. In exchange, they had to give some assistance to groups, such as Al Qaeda's regional affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and Abu Sayyaf group (ASG); ties that they continue to maintain. Thus the ongoing peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the MILF have regional security operations.     

From mosque to mosque: past and present images of Islamic space in Greece

This essay is an attempt to chart recent developments in the field of Modern Greek Studies, focusing on shifting perceptions regarding Islam and Muslims. To do so, the essay positions the relevant literature in its historical context, touching upon both accomplishments and limitations. Its main proposition is that the Greek case is distinct yet connected to contemporary global contingencies and broader long-term regional dynamics. Athens remains the only European capital without a mosque. Moreover, despite recent academic endeavors, there exists today no coherent Greek field of Islamic Studies. That these absences have been brought recently under political and academic scrutiny constitutes, however, a noteworthy change. Most important, the traditional exclusion of Islam from the field of Modern Greek Studies does not suggest lack of relevance between the two but, quite to the contrary, reveals a set of loaded and complex socieconomic, geopolitical, and historical links that deserve to be studied in their own right.     

Culturalism and the rise of the Islamic State: faith,sectarianism and violence

This paper looks at the ways in which culturalist discourses have influenced our understanding and representation of the rise of the so-called Islamic State. It argues that, in keeping with older narratives on the motives of ‘bad’ Muslims, its political and economic objectives have been overlooked and/or downplayed. Instead, I propose, there has been a strategically efficacious focus on its appeal to Islam, on its sectarian rhetoric and on its use of violence. By continuing to emphasise the ethical over the political in these ways, the culturalism that underpins the dominant representation of the Islamic State’s emergence has, I conclude, served three key purposes – the mobilisation of the ‘good’ Muslim, the exculpation of Western foreign policy and the legitimisation of force.     

The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and nation building by Muslims/Bosniaks in the Western Balkans

The disintegration of the former Yugoslavia posed challenges for the universal concept of the Yugoslav Muslim nation for which several development paths were imaginable under the new circumstances. The concept of Bosniakdom, which was initially developed to address the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, gradually grew to become a new and coherent national program to include all the Muslims of former Yugoslavia, primarily due to its new pan-Bosniak orientation. The present article traces the conceptual history of the national ideas of Muslimdom versus Bosniakdom within the former Yugoslav states, as well as the conceptual and institutional history of the pan-Bosniak idea and movement during the 1990s and 2000s. It does this by emphasizing the decisive role the Official Muslim Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina played in their development and divulgence. This article claims that, contrary to some expectations, the strategy of internationalization and universalization of the hitherto territorial concept of Bosniakdom toward Muslims in neighboring countries during the second half of 1990s and 2000s was closely linked to the idea of the construction of the Bosniak national state. It also proposes that the evolution of Bosniakdom into pan-Bosniakdom during that time primarily followed concerns related to that goal.     

Shia political development in Iraq: the case of the Islamic Dawa Party

The invasion of Iraq and its subsequent occupation by US‐led forces has allowed the majority Shia population to assert itself politically. Much of the debate regarding its political development has focused on the role of the religious scholars, at the expense of other Shia political groups. The Dawa Party has the longest history of organised communal political activity in Iraq among the Shia and is the only main party headed by a non‐scholar. The persecution it suffered under Saddam Hussein and the sacrifices it made have earned it support among the Shia population, but its fractious nature and the other Shia political groupings will make it difficult for the party to regain its former influence amongst the Shia.     

Terrorist Attacks on the Energy Sector: The Case of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State

The article focuses on the attitudes of two militant Islamist groups, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, toward the issue of terrorist attacks in the energy sector. The main aim of the article is both to analyze the importance of attacks on energy infrastructure for the strategies of these two organizations, and to describe specific examples and manifestations of terrorist activities from the side of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State with regard to the energy sector in the Middle East and North Africa. The article is based on the concept of terrorist attacks on the energy sector.     

Corruption and the Decline of the State in Pakistan

Pakistan is generally included in most discussions of ‘failing states’ that pose the maximum danger to global security, with the rise of Islamic militancy being the most commonly cited reason for the ‘failure’. However, Islamic militancy is a result of impending state failure, not a cause of it. This article argues that the state's inability, caused by decades of systemic corruption, to provide any appreciable level of public goods or services, broadly defined, is responsible for the delegitimization of the state and its inability to maintain law and order in the cities or suppress Islamist insurgents in the rest of the country.     

Switzerland and the EU: the puzzling effects of Europeanisation without institutionalisation

Switzerland is not a member of the EU and in 1992 refused to join the European Economic Area (EEA) treaty in a popular vote. A conservative majority preferred to keep utmost national autonomy, and consequently, relations between the EU and Switzerland are regulated by a series of bilateral treaties. This process of Europeanisation without institutionalisation has led to profound changes of Swiss politics over the last two decades. While many effects of economic liberalisation and internationalisation are similar to those found in EU countries, some specific problems like the acceleration of immigration present rising social conflict. Social cleavages between urban and rural regions, and between capital and labour are deepening. The continuous rise of the conservative nationalist Swiss People's Party and the growing polarisation between the political Right and Left have put the traditional political culture of accommodation and power sharing at risk. Twenty years after the No-vote on the EEA-treaty, Switzerland is a divided country. Why do Swiss politicians still practice consensus democracy, and what does the divide mean for the future relations between the EU and Switzerland?     

Identity,Ideology, and Information: The Sources of Iraqi Public Support for the Islamic State

ABSTRACT

This article explores the amount and sources of support for the Islamic State among Iraqis. We argue that, in addition to shared identity and ideology, a neglected factor in debates about support for Islamist militancy is the messaging and information that individuals receive about a given group. We test these arguments using regression analysis on public opinion data collected in Iraq in April 2015. The analyses largely support our contentions, showing that exposure to news coverage of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant substantially reduces support for the group, even among alienated Sunnis or ideological Islamists.