Can Islamists be secularized? Religion and politics in urban Bangladesh

As in many other Muslim majority states, the Islamist parties play a significant role in the body politic of Bangladesh. Because of their counter-hegemonic modus operandi, the question arises regarding the ability of the Islamists to cohabit democratically in a secular or a quasi-secular political system. The literature on secularization, secularism, and Islam relies on a grand narrative of the reasons to address the question and provides us with polarized answers regarding the Islamists’ ability to accommodate the principle of secularism. However, almost all of the works have been done on the abstract, theoretical level and do not address the interplay of social and political factors in Muslim societies. None of the research on Islamism in Bangladesh addresses Islamist parties’ ability or inability to participate in a quasi-secular, democratic system through acclimating to secularism in the rubric of their political ideology, Islamism. This study therefore examines the grassroots-level socio-political interplays of the Islamist activists with the non-Islamists and analyzes their willingness and ability to accommodate secularism in order to democratically participate in a quasi-secular political system.     

Missing the Third Wave: Islam,Institutions, and Democracy in the Middle East

This article explores why some societies witnessed less political liberalization during the Third Wave of democratization than others, and importantly, the conditions under which opposition forces may refrain from pressing for political reform. Focusing on the Muslim world, it also presents a more complete understanding of when and how political Islam hinders democratization. Specifically, historical experiences with Islamists in the 1970s and institutional structures established by the 1980s created a condition of uncertainty that enabled some incumbents to thwart liberalization during the Third Wave. Incumbents exploited the fear of political Islam, convincing many secularist opponents that they were better off with the current regime than with Islamist rule. The extent to which incumbents could succeed varied, depending on whether or not Islamist movements had been allowed to mobilize openly and the extent that the regime based its legitimacy on Islam. The argument extends beyond the Muslim world. What is fundamentally at stake is not whether Islam exists as a mobilizing ideology, but whether democratically-minded opponents believe that non-democratic opposition groups exist that would potentially subvert a democratic opening.     

Islamist questioning and [C]olonialism: towards an understanding of the Islamist oeuvre

This paper revisits the narratives of two South Asian ‘Islamists' to explore what their questions and critiques offer for a discussion on Colonialism and the Islamist oeuvre. Departing from resilient biases in scholarship that dismiss the need to engage Islamist expressions, I focus on a realm of Islamist self-understandings. This paper highlights key facets of Muhammad Iqbal's and Abul Ala Maududi's questions of Colonialism and their psychological implications, and uncovers their metaphors and reconstructions that operate as technologies of critique. I also emphasize the urgency to engage these Islamists in light of the inadequacies of present scholarship on this topic, and the diverse translation and appropriation of their questions. This study bears implications for the understanding of Islamist consciousness and the broader rubric of Muslim intellectualism.     

Terrorist Victimization: Prevention,Control, and Recovery

The Muslim Brotherhood poses a unique challenge to efforts to combat Al Qaeda and like-minded groups. It is one of the key sources of Islamist thought and political activism, and plays a significant role in shaping the political and cultural environment in an Islamist direction. At the same time, it opposes Al Qaeda for ideological, organizational, and political reasons and represents one of the major challenges to the salafi-jihadist movement globally. This dual nature of the Muslim Brotherhood has long posed a difficult challenge to efforts to combat violent extremism. Does its non-violent Islamism represent a solution, by capturing Islamists within a relatively moderate organization and stopping their further radicalization (a “firewall”), or is it part of the problem, a “conveyor belt” towards extremism? This article surveys the differences between the two approaches, including their views of an Islamic state, democracy, violence, and takfir, and the significant escalation of those tensions in recent years. It concludes that the MB should be allowed to wage its battles against extremist challengers, but should not be misunderstood as a liberal organization or supported in a short-term convergence of interests.     

Now the Elected Islamists Must Deliver

The revolutions of the Arab Spring are twisting and turning on a troubled course. After an uprising overthrew Mubarak last year, elections were held in June in which the Muslim Brotherhood dominated—only to have the military once again assert its authority over any new parliament and constitution. What is at stake is whether Egypt will remain a secular state like Turkey, or take on a moretheocratic bent if ruled by Islamists. In this section, the Arab world's only Nobel laureate in science offers his views about Egypt's future. The Turkish president argues for a secularism that tolerates all religions in Egypt. The CIA's former top analyst on the Muslim world questions whether Islamist parties can deliver once in power instead of opposition.     

The New Egypt: Don't Give Up Hope

The revolutions of the Arab Spring are twisting and turning on a troubled course. After an uprising overthrew Mubarak last year, elections were held in June in which the Muslim Brotherhood dominated—only to have the military once again assert its authority over any new parliament and constitution. What is at stake is whether Egypt will remain a secular state like Turkey, or take on a moretheocratic bent if ruled by Islamists. In this section, the Arab world's only Nobel laureate in science offers his views about Egypt's future. The Turkish president argues for a secularism that tolerates all religions in Egypt. The CIA's former top analyst on the Muslim world questions whether Islamist parties can deliver once in power instead of opposition.     

Egyptian Muslims Should Embrace Secularism

The revolutions of the Arab Spring are twisting and turning on a troubled course. After an uprising overthrew Mubarak last year, elections were held in June in which the Muslim Brotherhood dominated—only to have the military once again assert its authority over any new parliament and constitution. What is at stake is whether Egypt will remain a secular state like Turkey, or take on a moretheocratic bent if ruled by Islamists. In this section, the Arab world's only Nobel laureate in science offers his views about Egypt's future. The Turkish president argues for a secularism that tolerates all religions in Egypt. The CIA's former top analyst on the Muslim world questions whether Islamist parties can deliver once in power instead of opposition.     

Neo-Islamism in the post-Arab Spring

The Arab Spring revealed the rise of Islamists and a wave of Islamic movements across the region. The Islamist agenda is debatable on issues regarding their commitment to democracy, pluralism and individual freedom. Central to this is understanding their evolving definition of Islamism and how the players view themselves. The article provides a brief background on which to describe and define the modern Islamist. The features of Islamist political parties are described. The article offers a definition of neo-Islamism that reflects its most modern trends, including these key characteristics: non-traditional religiosity, gradualism, Islam modernization, nationalism and pragmatic relations with the West.     

The political and theological boundaries of Islamist moderation after the Arab Spring

This paper explores the repercussions of the apparent failure of Islamist experimentations with democracy during the Arab Spring in terms of the moderation hypotheses with a specific focus on the Egyptian case. I build on the existing arguments that repression may paradoxically moderate mainstream Islamist movements with certain caveats: when Islamists eventually come to power, their ideological vision also matters within the nexus of their strategic commitments and the on-going power struggles with other Islamist contenders. The prospects of democratisation, then, may also depend on the theoretical and political success of an Islamist political theology that accords better with rights and freedoms than a simplistic procedural democracy. Repression may indeed lead to moderation of the well-entrenched mainstream Islamist groups. However, such analyses focus only on those who remain within the fold of the mother organisation, rather than the splinter groups that break away with their more radicalised views. Under the post-Arab Spring conditions and given the Salafi factor, current views on the repression–moderation cycle must also account for the defection among certain Islamist constituencies towards jihadi or vigilante Salafism.     

Comparing Motives and Outcomes of Mass Casualty Terrorism Involving Conventional and Unconventional Weapons

Western intelligence analysts fight an uphill battle to avoid parochial habits of thought that lump diverse Islamist identities together. The recent counterterrorism literature gives us tools for understanding a wide spectrum of Islamists, by focusing attention on what they say about themselves rather than on the intelligence labels we must ultimately assign to them. The main challenge for analysts is not the brute diversity of Islamist types, but their plasticity—the Islamist's flexible inhabitation of distinct, sometimes contradictory, identities. Contrary to generalizations about the duplicity of all Islamists, much plasticity is due to ordinary psychological- or ideological strain—the inability to resolve divided allegiances or sustain conflicted principles. Islamist preacher Yussef al-Qardawi and salafist group Hizb ut-Tahrir present prime examples of ordinary Islamist plasticity. In order to understand Islamism in all its complexity, analysts should develop methods for disaggregating and evaluating key components of the Islamist persona.     

Looking for the Pattern: Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia--The Genealogy of a Terror Network

The aim of this study is to analyze the process by which Al Qaeda has sought to co-opt essentially localized struggles in Southeast Asia into an evolving network of worldwide jihad. The article illustrates how, long before it was appropriate to speak of an entity called Al Qaeda, Islamists have been thinking transnationally since the 1980s. The argument attempts to piece together available evidence to reveal a plausible explanation of the origins, growth and direction of the main Islamist grouping in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah, and its deepening relationship with Al Qaeda. The article suggests that the roots of a Southeast Asian terror network can be traced to two geographically separate ethno-religious struggles in the Philippines and Indonesia. The analysis demonstrates that these guerrilla groups orchestrating their distinct struggles were eventually combined through the auspices of Al Qaeda and the globalized franchising opportunities it exploited from the early 1990s.‐     

Beyond the Blame Game

The drama between the secularist legacy of Ataturk and the popular surge of Islamist‐rooted politics continues in Turkey, centered on the debate over the headscarf. Is it a sign of religious reaction, or a sign of non‐Western modernization that will ensure higher education for Muslim women? We represent here all sides of the debate. Elsewhere in the Muslim world are the reformers and critics listening to each other, or impeding progress with a blame game? Europe's most controversial figures in this debate—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—engage here.     

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.     

Where Are the Muslim Moderates?

The drama between the secularist legacy of Ataturk and the popular surge of Islamist‐rooted politics continues in Turkey, centered on the debate over the headscarf. Is it a sign of religious reaction, or a sign of non‐Western modernization that will ensure higher education for Muslim women? We represent here all sides of the debate. Elsewhere in the Muslim world are the reformers and critics listening to each other, or impeding progress with a blame game? Europe's most controversial figures in this debate—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—engage here.     

Beneath the Headscarf: A Modern Individual

The drama between the secularist legacy of Ataturk and the popular surge of Islamist‐rooted politics continues in Turkey, centered on the debate over the headscarf. Is it a sign of religious reaction, or a sign of non‐Western modernization that will ensure higher education for Muslim women? We represent here all sides of the debate. Elsewhere in the Muslim world are the reformers and critics listening to each other, or impeding progress with a blame game? Europe's most controversial figures in this debate—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—engage here.     

Foreign Fighters and Transnational Jihad in Syria

Foreign fighters arrive in Syria from across the Muslim world, yet the configuration of their countries of origin remains a puzzle. Examining alternative explanations for joining transnational jihad, the article draws insights from the cases of Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, two major countries of foreign fighters' origin, compared with Egypt, from where limited figures of volunteers have joined the Syrian war. The article shows that the sources of volunteering fighters may be well understood in combined terms of religious sentiments and national politics. Foreign fighters come largely from Muslim countries where restrained state–Islamists relations channel Islamic grievances to transnational arenas.     

The Islamic Awakening's Second Wave

Hassan al-Turabi, often referred to as the most significant Muslim cleric since Ayatollah Khomeini, had a central influence during the 1990s on the rise of Sunni Islamist movements across the Middle East and North Africa. He was a mentor of Ayman al-Zawahiri and had a close personal relationship with Osama bin Laden, sponsoring his presence in Sudan before the Al Qaeda leader fled to Afghanistan. Al-Turabi was the ideological force behind the coup led by Omar al-Bashir, with whom he has since fallen out, that brought Islamists to power in Sudan in 1989. As an opposition leader al-Turabi has been in and out of jail for years, most recently over the issue of Darfur.
The soft-spoken philosopher of Islam sat down with me for a lengthy and candid discussion in the summer of 1992. We met in a dilapidated townhouse near DuPont Circle in Washington, where he had come, as it turned out without success, to repair relations with the United States.     

Woman's Turban Is Sign of Rebellion Against Ataturk

The drama between the secularist legacy of Ataturk and the popular surge of Islamist‐rooted politics continues in Turkey, centered on the debate over the headscarf. Is it a sign of religious reaction, or a sign of non‐Western modernization that will ensure higher education for Muslim women? We represent here all sides of the debate. Elsewhere in the Muslim world are the reformers and critics listening to each other, or impeding progress with a blame game? Europe's most controversial figures in this debate—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—engage here.     

Headscarves Are Secular Turkey's Waterloo

The drama between the secularist legacy of Ataturk and the popular surge of Islamist‐rooted politics continues in Turkey, centered on the debate over the headscarf. Is it a sign of religious reaction, or a sign of non‐Western modernization that will ensure higher education for Muslim women? We represent here all sides of the debate. Elsewhere in the Muslim world are the reformers and critics listening to each other, or impeding progress with a blame game? Europe's most controversial figures in this debate—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—engage here.     

Secularism Is a Women's Affair

The drama between the secularist legacy of Ataturk and the popular surge of Islamist‐rooted politics continues in Turkey, centered on the debate over the headscarf. Is it a sign of religious reaction, or a sign of non‐Western modernization that will ensure higher education for Muslim women? We represent here all sides of the debate. Elsewhere in the Muslim world are the reformers and critics listening to each other, or impeding progress with a blame game? Europe's most controversial figures in this debate—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—engage here.