The ‘formal’ Marjaʿ: Shiʿi clerical authority and the state in post-2003 Iraq

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the name of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Grand Shi?i cleric, has come to prominence. Sistani emerged as a key player in the processes that constituted and sustained the post-2003 Iraqi political order, as manifested in key events such as the writing of constitution or the mobilization against the Islamic State (I.S.). Nevertheless, Sistani did not have an official position in Iraq. Unlike the Iranian experience after the 1979 revolution which institutionalized the leading position of faqih (jurist), the Iraqi constitution set Iraq as a democratic, parliamentary state whose religious leaders held no formal offices. Indeed, Sistani rejected the Iranian model as unfit for Iraq’s conditions and societal fabric. Thus, given the absence of a constitutional status for Sistani, how do we understand his authority in Iraq? This article argues that although Sistani’s authority has not been constitutionalized, it was indirectly and roughly ‘formalized’ through practices and laws adopted after 2003. This formalization established a unique and unprecedented relationship between the state and the Shi?i religious authority in the form of arrangements that, to a degree, blurred the lines between formality and informality and created a shared space of governance.     

Ahmadis or Indonesians? The polarization of post-reform public debates on Islam and orthodoxy

Since the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesian public discourse about “mainstream” Muslim identity and practice has polarized sharply into various factions. This article offers a detailed analysis of a subset of this discourse that focuses on the Ahmadiyya in order to grasp how the new normative contours of Islam are being shaped in Indonesia. I make three arguments: First, the discourse is homogenizing what was once a wide spectrum of identitarian positions, and that consequently, Islamic diversity in Indonesia is shrinking. Second, the various internally homogenized sets of arguments for and against the Ahmadiyya mis-engage with each other in a way that produces social fragmentation and further polarization. Third, these arguments produce exclusionary mechanisms that reinforce each other. Both the opponents of the Ahmadiyya and their defenders exclude Ahmadis from conceptions of an Indonesian “majority.” This dynamic in Indonesian public discourse has resulted in the acceleration of the marginalization of the Ahmadiyya within an increasingly fragmented Indonesian society.     

Taqrib al-Madhahib – Qaradawi's Declaration of Principles Regarding Sunni–Shi‛i Ecumenism

This article discusses the Centrist (Wassatiyya) position regarding Sunni–Shi?a relations, as articulated by the head of this stream, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Because Centrists deem themselves the ideological heirs of Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, analysis of their position is also instructive of the Brotherhood's view on this important issue. The discussion is founded on al-Qaradawi's ‘Principles for Sunni–Shi?i Dialogue’, which derive historically from the Society for Reconciliation (Jama?at al-Taqrib) that was active in Egypt during the late 1940s. Centrists hold Shi?ites to be religious innovators (mubtadi?un), but not infidels, from which it follows in their view that Sunna and Shi?a divide over ‘branches of religion’, but not over ‘roots of faith’. In this the Centrists are completely opposed by the Salafi Jihadi ideology, the ideological underpinning of the modern Global Jihad. With the desire to reconcile Sunna and Shi?a and unite them against a common global enemy, the Centrists must resolve the inevitable sectarian tensions as they crop up, e.g. the Sunni accusation that the Shi?a seek to actively proselytize the Sunni faithful in Sunni majority countries. In the Centrist view, Sunni–Shi?i reconciliation and dialogue are of practical necessity as regional politics diverge dangerously into a definite Shi?a bloc led by Iran, and a clear-cut Sunni bloc led by Saudi Arabia.     

Abbasid Panegyric: Badīʿ Poetry and the Invention of the Arab Golden Age

This study argues that the third AH/ninth CE century panegyrists (praise poets) of the Abbasid caliphal court at Baghdad (and briefly at Samarra) were responsible for constructing the image of a Golden Age of Arab-Islamic dominion that was subsequently adopted by the poets and thinkers of the Nah?a or ‘Arab Awakening’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Challenged to create a poetry that would serve as the linguistic correlative of the astounding and unprecedented might and dominion of the rulers of the Arab-Islamic state, the Abbasid Modernist Poets (al-shu?arā? al-mu?dathūn) invented a powerfully and radically innovative poetic style, termed badī?. The panegyric odes of poets such as Abū Tammām and al-Bu?turī were canonized so as to promote a vision of an Arab-Islamic Golden Age and, further, to serve as models for the expression of Arab-Islamic hegemony and the conferral and contestation of legitimate authority. In the Nah?a of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Neo-Classical poets such as A?mad Shawqī recouped the Abbasid master poets to both retroject and project a vision of an Arab-Islamic ‘Enlightenment’. Finally, this study examines the fraught relationship of the post-Naksa (1967) Arab poet, as exemplified in the modern Yemeni poet ?Abd Allāh al-Baradūnī, with the poets and poetry of the Golden Age.     

Re-confessionalising the Shi‘ites and the Druzes: The Failure of Secularism in Lebanon

This paper examines the history of the relations between the Shi'ite and Druze communities in independent Lebanon. Suggesting that these have turned on the issue of secularism, it argues that the attitude towards the state and its political structure has always taken front stage. Three stages in the relationship can be discerned: mobilization, cooperation, and political dissension. The defeat of the Left and the failure of the secular project constituted a historical watershed in the political behavior of both communities, leading to a regression to primordial loyalties and exclusivism. While this development reflects structural weakness and vulnerability amongst the Druze, amongst the Shi'ites it is indicative of increasing communal consciousness, growing empowerment, and the adoption of new strategies in the attempt to change Lebanese political reality. At the same time, the historical circumstances the two communities have experienced within independent Lebanon demonstrates that the confessional system continues to serve as an obstacle to the creation of a coherent and crystallized political community in Lebanon.     

Power,Tradition and Challenge: The Resilience of the Elite Shi‘ite Families of Lebanon

This article deals with the main processes and challenges that the Shi‘ite elite families experienced, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the first decade of the twenty-first century. It argues that although the turbulent times caused the socio-political standing of these families to weaken, the change in their status was more moderate than usually acknowledged. Prominent Shi‘ite families remained important factors in the political sphere. In fact, most of them were able to adapt successfully to the changes, particularly by cultivating beneficial relationships with Amal and Hizbullah. This demonstrates that these families, as well as the socio-political phenomena they represented, remained relevant.     

Turkish secularism and Islam under the reign of Erdoğan

ABSTRACT

This article introduces a collection of articles that explore the role of religion (Sunni Islam) in the transformation of Turkey under the reign of President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, AKP). This special issue argues that the Turkish understanding of secularism was also one of the building blocks or/and constitutive elements of Turkey’s modernisation until the rise of the AKP. Currently, however, it seems that religion has become a new or re-born element of the new Turkey and has been transforming many areas such as: the media, the Kurdish issue, implementation of the rule of law, foreign policy and gender issues. This special issue aims to scrutinise the question: how does a religion-based transformation in Turkey influence the raison d’etat of the state?     

Islam and politics in a Malay state: Kelantan 1838–1969

Abstract

The contention of this book is that it is necessary to study political activity at the level of the common individual. This position is in clear contrast to the common assumption that individuals are ineffectual in asserting their political rights, unaware of political issues and unimportant in the course of national history. Bowen has aimed his study deliberately at the actions and associations of the commoners involved in the Meiji popular rights movement. He focuses upon three gekka jiken (“incidents of intensified violence”)—the Fukushima Incident of 1882 and the Kabasan and Chichibu incidents of 1884—seeking “to learn why they happened; what they tell about general social, economic, and political conditions; and what consequences they had for society and politics as a whole” (p. 6).     

‘Saddam's Qadisiyyah’: Religion and History in the Service of State Ideology in Baʿthi Iraq

Rhetoric espoused by the Ba?thi regime of Iraq reflected a deliberate mix of nationalistic and religious elements, most clearly expressed in the discourse surrounding the war with Iran, termed ‘Saddam's Qadisiyyah’, after a battle during the Arab-Islamic conquests, which Saddam Husayn turned into a metaphor for Arab-Iranian relations. As the memory of the seventh century engagement was popularized in Iraq, Qadisiyyah nomenclature spread throughout the Arab world (and beyond) and Saddam's political paradigm found acceptance among Arab governments and western observers alike. Saddam used this propaganda campaign to three ends: (1) to portray the political conflict with Iran as an ancient ethnic clash; (2) to promote his cult of personality; and (3) to present a successful precedent for Arab victory over Iran. In doing so, Saddam forged a new ‘Arab-Islamist’ discourse, combining religious faith with nationalist sentiment, which he embraced with increasing reliance to the end of his rule. Today, radical Sunni Islamist groups have assumed the mantle of this rhetoric.     

‘Fadaeeyan-i Islam’: the prototype of Islamic hard-liners in Iran

The voyages of the HMS Doris along the Mediterranean coast near Alexandretta (modern Iskenderun, Turkey) in the winter of 1914–15 had a dramatic effect on the Ottoman Empire that far exceeded the scope of the operations. This article uses British, German, and Turkish archival sources to focus on the ship's operations in the vicinity of Dörtyol and on the strategic impact these had on Ottoman perceptions of threats to the empire. The Doris figures prominently in two critical strategic outcomes – the relocation of the Armenians in 1915 and in the activation of three Ottoman army divisions for coastal defence and internal security.     

Constructing Peaceful Development: The Changing Interpretations of “One China” and Beijing’s Taiwan Strait Policy

For rationalists, China (PRC)’s current conciliatory policy toward Taiwan is merely “calculative.” Hence, Chinese leaders must act patiently with Taiwan to dampen the “China threat theory.” This article contends that strategic considerations cannot entirely justify Beijing’s Taiwan policy. Given the PRC’s steadfast position on reunification, it is unclear why Beijing has, since the 1990s, allowed for a looser construction of the “one China” principle and even tacitly acknowledged the existence of Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC). In line with the constructivist theory of argumentative persuasion, my position stresses that changing discourses have affected Chinese leaders’ perceptions of the Taiwan Strait problem. New identities and interests have been reconstituted to redefine the PRC relations vis-à-vis the ROC. While it is unlikely that Beijing would formally accept the ROC, the current trajectory raises hope that cross-strait ties may become more stabilized in the long run.