The mantra, there is no separation between religion and politics in Islam: ‘Islam din wa dawla’ (Islam is religion and state) is of recent vintage in the Arab Middle East going back to the end of the nineteenth century. However, secularization in the sense of the separation of state and religion has been a fact of social life in the Middle East for some considerable time. This is most evident in the generally accepted and widespread encroachment of the state on the jurisdiction of Islamic (Shari'a) law. During the time of the Ottoman Empire and the Qajar dynasty in Iran, imperial rule was most evidently secular. However, this occurred in a way that did not consciously secularize the population. As a consequence, while governments pursued policies reflecting ‘reasons of state’, Islam has remained an important part of the culture and identity of the masses in Middle Eastern societies. Western penetration of the Islamic world from the nineteenth century onward resulted in a conflict between secular and religious conceptions of politics because education and the legal system were being Westernized. Colonialism led to an emerging new public sphere. Islamists set about to reconstruct the political discourse through utilizing the formula, ‘Islam din wa dawla’, to reconquer in the public arena, where din symbolizes people, and where the call for the implementation of the Shari'a critiques the lack of constitutional guarantees that would legitimize the political community.
With the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1978-9, the profile of Islamism intensified and with it the question of whether secularism can be reconciled with Islam: Does Islam prescribe for all matters including daily affairs? Should it be enforced? Are Muslims allowed any area which they can determine for themselves? On the other hand, among those who reject secularism, the debate among Islamists moved more sharply onto the terrain of pluralistic politics and human rights.
In this debate, distinctions are made between those matters that are absolute requirements of the Muslim for the maintenance of his or her relationship with God, for example, the five pillars of Islam (the Shahada—the profession of the faith, Salah—prayer, Ramadan—fasting, Zakat—almsgiving and the Haj—pilgrimage), and those matters about which adjustments are allowed by the religion given the requirements and conditions of the time as long as these adjustments do not contradict the public good. These matters concern economic, political, and family affairs about which there is no explicit scriptural text in the sacred sources. Given these ambiguities, different positions are held among Islamists. There is general agreement that what is done must remain within the meaning of the Shari'a, and the role of the state is to maintain the conditions for the implementation of the Shari'a. This places the focus on two questions—what kind of state and what kind of Shari'a. What is clearer is that the state must be founded on certain principles based on the Qur'an and Sunna of the Prophet, in particular, the principles of justice, equality, and consultation (shura). What is important is that the principles are maintained, the type of government under which this is to occur is of less concern. As to the kind of Shari'a, there has been a debate between secularists and Islamists and amongst Islamists themselves as to what should constitute the Shari'a. The secularists have conceded that the Shari'a is based on God's Word in the Qur'an and also the Sunna. But they argue that its historical development and implementation has been the creation of men and, therefore, subject to question. There is a general consensus among Islamists that the Shari'a is both all-embracing and facilitating as long as any independent interpretation of the sacred sources (ijtihad) follows the established methodological rules in Islamic jurisprudence. The conceptualization of the Shari'a has come to encapsulate abstractly a social normative system expressing social justice. If the Shari'a is not implemented, there is not the possibility of social justice.
It is often observed in traditional literature that sovereignty belongs to God, and the ruler—even an unjust ruler—must be obeyed in order to maintain peace and stability. This led to arbitrary government. Modern Islamists are shifting away from a blanket acceptance of a ruler toward an emphasis on the authority of the community and the responsibility of each believer. With the emphasis upon the implementation of the Shari'a, as the ideal of social justice, Muslims' current concerns are to limit the arbitrariness of governments and to substitute instead the rule of law. The sort of system that is expected is no longer the Classical system in which the leader was chosen, ostensibly by the community via shura, but in reality by the ruling elite, then giving the leader the oath of allegiance leading to arbitrary rule. What is expected now is a constitutional system where there is continuous consultation in which the ruler and government could be constantly monitored and held responsible not only to God but to the electorate. For some, this is a system of a separation of powers between the ruler and the institution of shura with an independent judiciary, even a constitutional court. In effect, it is a system of checks and balances where governance is in accordance with the Shari'a.
There is still considerable debate about the actual relationship between the ruler and shura. Many see shura as a requirement binding on the ruler, that it consists of a formal process and an institution with elected members which would operate on the basis of the principle of majority decision. This may not necessarily be a parliament but more likely would be a council of experts giving Islamically correct advice based on the common good.
These ideas and debates are the results, after the First World War, of the further development and elaboration in the Sunni world of the Islamic reform movement (see Islamism) challenging the basic character of the secularist, colonialist state. The key originators and contributors to the development of this perspective were Hassan al-Banna (1906-49, an Egyptian, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928), Abu al-A'la Mawdudi (1903-79, a British Indian Pakistani, founder of the Jamaat-e Islami in 1941), and Sayyid Qutb (1906-66, an Egyptian, Muslim Brother). This approach to Islamic reform which became ideologized spread widely in the Islamic world. It was an Islamic world that was still essentially traditional, with its orthodox and traditional establishment, its particular configuration of Sufi (mystical Sunni) orders, history, and conditions. In response to international and globalizing influences, Islamists have demonstrated a wide range of views from the moderate to the extreme or jihadist. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been under the influence of one of the most influential Islamic movements of the subcontinent both before and after Partition. This is the Jamaat-e Islami, founded and led, from 1941, by Abu al-A'la Mawdudi, whose Islamic ideas were popularized for more general consumption and which have been a significant influence on the Muslim Brotherhood of the 1950s and 1960s. The Jamaat-e Islami have contributed to the long-running internal debate and struggle in Pakistan on whether or not it was to be an Islamic state or simply a state for Muslims. Since its founding, Pakistan governments have vacillated on defining the ultimate character of the state. Where attempts were made to give the laws an Islamic character, the measures that were proposed were seldom given institutional means of enforcement. Not only in Pakistan but elsewhere in the Middle East and South Asia, the intellectual heritage of Mawdudi has formed the ideological backdrop for the debates concerning the Islamization of the state.
Central Asia, where the new Muslim republics of Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; and the Transcaucasian republic of Azerbaijan are to be found, has not had the same opportunity of association for the past 70 years with the mainstream of either the Sunni or Shi'i Islamist thought circulating in the Middle East. This region, having been dominated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Tsarist rule, was subjected to the restrictive policies of the Soviet government which promoted atheism and limited Muslim education and Qur'anic knowledge at the local level. The number of mosques was reduced and imams were officially appointed with the result that the development of traditional religious-philosophical thought was undermined and the modernist Islamic trends uprooted. On the other hand, what came to be called ‘unofficial’ Islam or popular Islam dramatically increased via the spread of Sufi orders and the lowest stratum of clergy. The result has been that, as far as Central Asia is concerned, there has been little influence of Sunni or Shi'i political theological arguments that are current in the Islamic world. The lowest stratum of clergy comprised the unofficial imams of the ‘non-mosques’ or underground mosques, teachers of secret schools and reciters of the Qur'an. It is from this stratum that an Islamic revival began. This revival, in one sense, has been directed against the official imams and muftis. On the other hand, Central Asian Muslims comprise diverse linguistic, ethnic, and religious groups with differing historical experiences which made it difficult to cooperate in the past and unlikely to bring about cooperation in the future. In the post-Soviet transition to independent statehood, Islam has become an important symbol associated with national identity. It can be and has been utilized by all the forces unleashed by the new situation whether conservative, nationalist, democratic, or other. It is unclear whether any of these forces will combine politically.
Afghanistan, like other parts of the Islamic world, has had a rich and complex religious history with its traditional and orthodox establishments and Sufi orders. The population is largely Sunni with a Shi'i minority. Islamism is a fairly recent development in the religious life of Afghanistan emerging in the late 1950s as a challenge to the secular state. The inspiration for Islamist views came from those Afghans, some of whom later became leaders of the various Mujahedin groups, who had been educated at the al-Azhar University in Cairo and had absorbed the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamists came to prominence after the Marxist coup of 1978 with the most effective Mujahedin groups opposing Soviet intervention and the Communist government. Though the struggle against the secular state and foreign involvement intensified, Islamists remained divided. After the fall of the Communist government, power coalesced around two main groups—Jamiat-i Islami (not to be confused with the similarly named group in Pakistan) led by Burhanuddin Rabbani and the other, Hezb-e Islami, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan a transnational Islamist movement was given a boost, bolstered by the dispersal of the principally Arab Muslims who had answered the call of jihad. New networks created in Afghanistan followed those Arabs who returned to their countries of origin and those who turned their focus on other areas where Muslims were under attack, such as Bosnia, Chechnya, Philippines, and others. These latter have been described as a ‘deterritorialized’ movement of radicalized jihadis who move from one location to another unattached to any particular state. Success in defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan has led to their belief that other invaders of Muslim territory elsewhere should also be confronted and defeated. The United States, because of its suspect involvement in the Middle East and support of Israel and elsewhere has itself became a target of the jihad. (See also al-Qaida.)
— Barbara Allen Roberson
