Islam in Europe: Quest for a Paradigm

Mr. Malik, a journalism fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS), has returned from fieldwork in six West European countries to write a book on the outlook for Islam in the West. The GMFUS is an independent U.S. foundation created to deepen understanding, promote collaboration and stimulate exchanges of practical experience between Americans and Europeans.     

Islam in Kazakhstan: a survey of contemporary trends and sources of securitization

This essay examines the nature of Islam in Kazakhstan and its role in contemporary Kazakh society and politics. It highlights the unique place of Islam in the social and individual experiences of Kazakhs who see Islamic religion as a ‘way of life’, and illuminates several interrelated qualities of the Kazakh religion, such as a strong association of religious identity with ethnic identity of Kazakhs, interpenetration of religious canons with indigenous traditions and a growing tendency toward ‘individualization’ and ‘intimization’ of Islam. Another goal of the paper is to shed light on the worrisome process of the securitization of Islam. The latter phenomenon refers to a discursive practice of presenting Islam as a threat to Kazakhstan despite the prevalence of ‘moderate’ and apolitical manifestations of Islam in the republic. The study documents political interests surrounding securitization of Islam and the context which made the invocation of security in relation to Islam possible.     

Revelation or revolution: a Gramscian approach to the rise of political Islam

This article seeks to conceptualise the contemporary phenomenon of ‘political Islam’, or Islamic fundamentalism as it is usually classified in the West. This paper takes the view that those movements that utilise the ideology of political Islam are not primarily religious groups concerned with issues of doctrine and faith, but political organisations utilising Islam as a ‘revolutionary’ ideology to attack, criticise, and de‐legitimise the ruling elites and the power structure on which their authority and legitimacy is based. Since the one‐party authoritarian state is the norm in most of the Middle East, only Islam has been able to provide the marginalised, alienated, and disgruntled masses with an oppositional force capable of articulating their specific grievances and general displeasure with these regimes. A Gramscian framework helps to demonstrate that these organisations classified as ‘political Islam’, and promulgated by the core Islamic scholars of the twentieth century, are authentic counter‐hegemonic movements focussed on the overthrow of these despotic regimes and the acquisition of political, economic, and social power.