Intra-Elite Factionalism and the 2004 Majles Elections in Iran

Over the last two decades, the political ideology of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has evolved to proactively advocate a democratic form of government. This evolution has taken place both through protracted internal discussion and through experiments in participatory politics, leading the Brotherhood to further develop Islamic justification for a democratic regime. Despite generational differences within the Brotherhood over the extent of democratic activism, the Brotherhood's emerging political platform asserts the need both for a democratic regime and a ‘civil state’ which guarantees political and civil liberties within the boundaries specified by Islam. Three guiding principles are central to the Brotherhood's current political vision, including legislative compliance with Islamic law, a wide range of civil and political liberties with an emphasis on equal treatment, and a robust electoral process that institutionalizes guarantees of democratic accountability for elected officials. These principles allow the Muslim Brotherhood to effectively challenge the current Egyptian regime on democratic grounds, but are also in tension with one another, highlighting the boundaries of legislative independence under a political system constrained by Islamic law.     

‘Reading the ads in al-Daʿwa magazine: commercialism and Islamist activism in al-Sadat’s Egypt’

ABSTRACT

This article probes the return of the Muslim Brotherhood to prominence in 1970s Egypt through a systematic analysis of advertisements in the organization’s flagship periodical, al-Da?wa (The Call). In every issue of the magazine, which was published between June 1976 and October 1981, entreaties to proper conduct and appeals to Islamic solidarity appeared alongside advertisements for everything from Pepsi to breakfast biscuits to automobiles. We utilize the methodological insights of social and cultural historians to the value of advertisements to cast new light on the reconstruction of the Brotherhood, its relationship with the diverse institutions comprising the Egyptian state, and on how the Muslim Brotherhood’s vision of piety both reflected and challenged a changing economic reality. Moving beyond a story of the Brotherhood’s return as a product of independent Islamist enterprise that had emerged due to both the Gulf oil boom and Egypt’s economic liberalization programme, significant public sector advertising in al-Da?wa, especially prominent across the most valuable advertising real estate, underscores both internal divisions within the Egyptian state as well as the tangible ways that various state institutions were patrons of religious change.     

Institutional journalism in a revolutionary crisis: the press as an aide to the Muslim Brotherhood 2011–2012

This article is based on the hypothesis that the Egyptian institutional media played an active role in the Egyptian ‘Arab Spring’ revolution in 2011 and analyzes how Egypt's official newspapers constructed and presented a moderate and positive image of the Muslim Brotherhood (hereinafter the Brotherhood) despite the fact that they had labeled the Brotherhood ‘the outlawed movement’ a year earlier. In order to examine whether their attitudes changed after the downfall of the Mubarak regime, a critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts has been made of the news columns written throughout 2011 of two of the most popular Egyptian newspapers – al-Ahram (n = 115) and al-Gumhuriyya (n = 94) both of which identify with the Egyptian government's official policy. In addition, an analysis made of three of the Brotherhood's publications (n = 72) (N = 281) revealed that the Brotherhood exploited the printed media not only to replace the regime but also to gain control of its narrative. Ultimately, by controlling the shaping of public opinion, the media contributed to the drawing of a parallel between the motivation that formed the basis of the mass protest and the Brotherhood's agenda.     

Tunisia,Egypt, and Libya After the Arab Spring

This article analyzes the political transitions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya after the Arab Spring. While they share similarities regarding the overthrow of their long-lasting regimes, each country followed different trajectories. Early in the process, Tunisia underwent a smooth transformation, while Egypt witnessed intense polarization following the electoral success of the Muslim Brotherhood—and authoritarianism with the military coup two years later. Different from those two, Libya came to the brink of failure with a civil war, and the country still suffers from rampant violence. The article contends that Tunisia's success in the transition toward democracy lies in its relative homogeneity, consensus-building, and civil-military relations. The focus of the article is on the initial transitions. Tunisia's process appears to have stalled, and future study will be required to understand how such states can consolidate their democratic transitions.     

The politics of culture and the space for Islam: Soviet and post-Soviet imaginaries in Uzbekistan

This article examines how possibilities for Muslim expression were and are shaped by the political imaginaries in Soviet-era and independent Uzbekistan. It develops the concept of social ‘imaginary’ in Charles Taylor's critique of Western secular modernity. Political imaginaries are the assumptions about the nature of being, the essential categories through which the world is understood and acted upon, that are produced within dominant state discourses and that shape the space for the political. The article compares the Soviet vision of socialist modernity and the logic of the current state ideology in independent Uzbekistan, and discusses how these have framed the possibilities for being Muslim. It argues that the category of culture is produced in distinct and contrasting ways in these imaginaries, and plays a central role in delineating the public space for Islam.     

Contesting the Monopoly of Interpretation: The Uneasy Relationship between Ulama and Sunni Parties in Yemen

Most studies on Sunni Islamism either neglect ulama or portray them as basically diverging from the Islamist movement. Unlike their Islamist counterparts who are contenders for political power in incumbent regimes, the ulama are depicted as loyal quietists. As such, this article problematizes this dichotomy. As is shown by the case of Yemen, the ulama form an integral part of the Islamist Islah party, yet since the position of ulama within the party is crucially dependent on their monopoly over interpretation, and as the lay Muslim Brothers have increasingly digressed from the rulings of the ulama, they have sought alliances with their peers outside the party and attempted to undermine the politics of the Brotherhood by means of ulama associations and founding Salafi parties. By focusing on these developments, the article proposes an alternative reading to the allegedly contradictory politics of Islah which might be valid to other Islamist parties too.     

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s transnational advocacy in Turkey: a new means of political participation

This study examines the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s transnational media advocacy as a shift in the Islamists’ political participation in general and the Brothers’ in particular. The article argues that the Brothers created their own TV channels in order to challenge the new regime’s legitimacy after 3 July 2013 by taking advantage of a sympathetic political environment in Turkey. Their media advocacy embraced a collective Islamic identity in its denunciation of the Sisi regime and called for a democratic restitution as a common Egyptian cause. Based on interviews conducted with TV presenters and a content analysis of the expatriates’ TV channels, this study presents transnational advocacy as a novelty in the Islamists’ repertoire of action.     

Party dualities: Where does political Islam go now?

One of the unusual features of the recent emergence of moderate Sunni Islamist political parties onto the formal political scene in the Arab world as a result of the Arab Awakening is that they nearly always emerge as elements in political dualities. Thus the party – a political movement – is wedded to a social movement and, sometimes, to a trade union as well. In addition, the social movement usually predates its parallel political movement. Furthermore, this structural duality seems to be confined to the Sunni world and often seems to be associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The question then is precisely why this dual structure has been generalized within the political arena now colonized by moderate Sunni political Islam; is it a consequence of formal legal constraints upon such movements or does it respond to their internal dynamics? A further question raises the issue of why these dualities are not replicated within the Shi’a context or amongst secular political movements. And, finally, have they been paralleled amongst political movements arising from different religious traditions and what are the likely outcomes?     

Islam in Indonesia: Its History,Development and Future Challenges

In Indonesian history, Islamic groups have always played an important political role. Jusuf Wanandi, co-founder of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta, states that most of these groups are moderate, tolerant and democratic. In the past few years, however, radical and extreme groups of Muslims have emerged and to some degree have set the agenda in the country with their extreme political interpretation of Islam. The depth of political and economic crises, and the weakness of the national government to resolve the crises have complicated the positive development of Islam in Indonesia. This is the biggest challenge facing young Muslim leaders. If they should succeed, which is quite likely, Indonesia's Islam could become the model for political Islam around the world. Wanandi concludes that this will be Indonesia's biggest contribution against global terrorism.     

Cold war era relations between West Germany and Turkish political Islam: from an anti-communist alliance to a domestic security issue

ABSTRACT

West Germany played a significant role in the growth of Political Islam in Turkey during the Cold War. By recruiting from among Turkish workers in West Germany, Islamist organizations and the religious communities known as cemaats acquired significant economic revenues, which they used to fund their activities in Turkey. Moreover, West Germany served as a liaison between Turkish Islamists and Syrian and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members, who have influenced Political Islam in Turkey since the 1960s. Prominent Muslim Brotherhood representatives in West Germany took on important roles in the recruitment of Turks and also played some part in shaping the ideological development of Turkish Islamists. Due to the pervasiveness of anti-communism in West Germany and Turkey during the Cold War, the established orders in both countries viewed Political Islam as an antidote to the ascendancy of the Left. However, in the 1980s, Bonn and Ankara grew concerned about Islamist organizations becoming further radicalized and impossible to control; the two governments often cooperated in order to bring Political Islam under their own authority.     

The 2014 Parliamentary Elections in India: A Study of the Voting Preferences of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh

This paper analyses the manner in which over the past few years, the major political parties in the largest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have calibrated their policies with the objective of wooing Muslim voters. It examines the factors which shaped Muslim electoral behaviour in the general election of 2014 to the Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Indian Parliament) and how the electoral arithmetic was transformed in the run-up to this election. By analysing institutional, political and intra-community factors, it explores the reasons for the declining importance and representation of Muslims in the electoral arena of Uttar Pradesh.     

The development of Kuwaiti Islamists’ political ideology: the administration of the Kuwaiti Supreme Committee and the Free Kuwait campaign during the Second Gulf Crisis 1990–91

Abstract

This article aims to explore how the intellectual thinking and political actions of an Islamist could be developed and changed toward a more realistic view. The Kuwaiti Islamic Students’ movement in the UK was led by the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood under the Free Kuwait Campaign during the Second Gulf Crisis in 1990-91. This movement went through a significant development and change of ideas and practices with other political and societal groups. Dealing with all segments of Kuwait’s society as partners in the country and its destiny, and not as intellectual or party opponents, was the main change in ideas. Moreover, a qualitative leap in realistic political thought emerged among these young people and affected the future of the movement. In the immediate post-invasion era, this action was not invested towards building an open national platform. However, the students’ actions were influenced by the event, and pro Islam al-’i’tilafiyah became more accepting of others, leading to many students from other ideologies joining the ranks. Moreover, nationalistic ideas crept into Islamic thoughts in the post-invasion era, leading to a mixture of ideologies rendering one ‘moderate’ or ‘conservative’ that was described by stricter Islamists as ‘lenient’.     

国家与民族整合的困境:20世纪以来泰国南部马来穆斯林社会的裂变

本文试图从社会结构变迁的角度分析泰国南部穆斯林分离主义运动产生的内在原因,并就泰南地区如何走出民族整合困境提出若干见解。泰南马来穆斯林社会的失衡状态表现为政治精英的缺失和伊斯兰教的政治化倾向。从表面上来看,泰国政府通过实施教育促进计划成功地实现了伊斯兰传统教育机构——波诺的现代转型,然而事实证明,教育改革政策并没有加强马来穆斯林的国家认同,而是导致了相反的结果。因此,泰国只有尊重马来穆斯林的文化传统,恢复马来穆斯林社会结构的内在平衡和提供多样化的制度选择,才有可能走出民族整合的困境。     

Islamic Campus Preaching Organizations in Indonesia: Promoters of Moderation or Radicalism?

ABSTRACT

This article asks whether campus preaching organizations such as the Indonesian Muslim Students Islamic Union (KAMMI) and Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) serve as potential breeding grounds for radicalism or, alternatively, do they serve as institutions that promote political moderation and prevent radical action among young university-age Muslims. Utilizing insights from inclusion-moderation thesis, it concludes the answer to these questions depends on whether these groups are willing to accept Indonesia’s democratic political system. These determine the tactics the groups chose to promote their agenda to potential recruits. While KAMMI is willing to moderate its strategies, HTI is unwilling to do so and continues to promote its agenda through secretive means, although it formally rejects radicalism and extremism.     

Secularizing Islamism and Islamizing Democracy: The Political and Ideational Evolution of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers 1984–2012

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) emerged in Egypt in the early twentieth century to resist secularism and political pluralism in favour of religious revival and a unitary Islamic state. After three decades of political participation culminating in its formation of a government in Egypt, the MB has prioritized electoral paths to power, while claiming to defend individual rights, popular majorities and a civil state. Nevertheless, the MB's discourse continues to straddle religious and secular terrain: in recent election campaigns, MB leaders promised to build an ‘Islamic state’ and a ‘caliphate’, all the while insisting that the people, not God are the source of all power. What explains these contradictions, and what do they tell us about the Brotherhood's apparent adoption of political and ideational pluralism and democratic values? The article contends that the MB's ambivalence about democracy is not a sign of dissimulation or lack of ideological evolution. Instead, it has its roots in a 30-year process of partially adapting to democratic and ‘secular’ political ideas by reframing them in religious terms which, however, resulted in creating what the article discusses as a hybrid ‘secularized’ Islamism. This hybridization has both enabled and constrained the Brothers' adaptation to democracy in the post-Mubarak period.     

Wedge Politics and Welfare Reform in Australia

The election of the Howard Government has marked a paradigm shift in welfare policy with the implementation of far reaching reforms around the concept of mutual obligation. At the same time, there has been media speculation about the Government's use of 'wedge politics' to sustain its political agenda with respect to welfare and other policies. Wedge politics, however, is yet to receive detailed analysis in Australian political science. We define wedge politics to be a calculated political tactic aimed at using divisive social issues to gain political support, weaken opponents and strengthen control over the political agenda. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: to develop a definition of wedge politics and to investigate how the Howard Government's welfare reform agenda might be understood as an example of such politics, drawing out its longer-term implications.     

马来人的服饰

服饰是全世界穆斯林区别于其他宗教信仰者的重要特征之一,但由于每个国家和地区的穆斯林都要受当地文化传统和社会环境的影响,因此,他们在服饰上呈现出丰富多彩的面貌。本文主要介绍了马来西亚马来穆斯林的日常服饰,希望由此揭示出人类文化的多样性,并在一定程度上反映出地方政治环境对人们的服饰规则的影响。     

The Indian Red Crescent Mission to the Balkan Wars

Indian Muslim political development during the early years of the twentieth century contained a significant pan-Islamic component of solidarity, especially with the peoples of the beleaguered Ottoman Empire. Although this sentiment was later to be channelled into organized internal political activity such as the foundation of the Muslim League, it had its beginnings in various agitations such as the Khilafat Movement. The Indian Red Crescent Mission to Turkey may be said to have provided the initial mise-en-scène for the expression of political sympathy towards Turkey and the generation of a local freedom movement among the Muslims of India.     

伊斯兰原教旨主义与马来西亚穆斯林妇女

伊斯兰原教旨主义推动了马来西亚社会和政治的伊斯兰化,并影响到马来穆斯林妇女的权利和地位.本文从分析伊斯兰原教旨主义妇女观入手,探讨马来西亚政府、政党、宗教部门和非政府组织如何从法律、法特瓦、政策、宣传来规范妇女的行为,并分析联邦政府与州政府、执政党与反对党、乌来玛与非政府组织围绕妇女权利展开的争论和斗争.     

Turkey's Protean Regional Policy: Does It Happen on the Ground?

How has regional planning been transformed in increasingly changing socio-economic and political contexts in transition economies? Why do regional planning policies and practices change? This paper explains how the policy ideas of regional development have been formulated and incorporated into the Turkish context since the establishment of modern-day Turkey in 1923. The transformation process shows how, in one way or another, policy ideas have been brought into or appeared in Turkey to shape regional policy. It emphasizes that this sort of acquisition of thinking has been translated into policy frameworks. In other words, Turkey has been taking on policies that have been devised using ideas from outside Turkey which are being dominated by growth-oriented strategies that represent a neoliberal political agenda.