1. ARAB NATIONALISM & POLITICAL ISLAM

2. ARAB NATIONALISM & POLITICAL ISLAM
a. Rise
b. Fall
POLITICAL ISLAM
b. Varieties
Terms to Know
New Mardin Declaration Gamal Abd’al-Nasir jihad
pan-Arabism UAR Baath Party
Michel Aflaq Sati al-Husri Taliban
ibn Taymiyya
Hasan al-Banna

3. Legitimacy in the Middle East
Egypt: 1922 or 1953?
Iraq: 1932 or 1952?

4. Ia. Rise of Arab Nationalism (Anderson, Dawisha)
The nation: an “imagined community” which seeks self-determination and autonomy.
Limited: “finite if elastic boundaries beyond which lie other nations”
“the gage and emblem of a free nation is the sovereign state”
“the absence of a state has not been a barrier to nationalist imaginings, but…all these groups are adamantly, vociferously desirous of a state”

5. Sati’ al-Husri
ex-Ottoman official turned theorist and advocate of Arab nationalism (1920s).
Germany’s Prussian model of nationalism, in which individual's national affiliation is inevitable and predetermined.

6. The Arab League Founded in 1945 Created PLO in 1964 HQ in Cairo

7. The Baath Party (1947) Founded by Michel Aflaq “renaissance”
“resurrection”
socialist
Anti-colonial
Pan-Arab
Syria & Iraq (1963)
1966 split:
Iraq’s Qawmi (Nationalist)
Syria’s Qotri (regionalist)

8. NASSERISM Gamal Abd’al Nasir Led Free Officer’s coup in Egypt (1952)
Anti-colonial nationalism
Arab socialism
Pan-Arabism

9. PAN-ARABISM Arab Federation of Iraq & Jordan (Feb.12-Aug.2, 1958)
United Arab Republic

10. May 30, 1967
"The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of
Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today … the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations.”
- Gamal Abdel Nasser

11. Ia. Fall of Arab Nationalism: 1963-1991
UAR failure
Arab Cold War (Yemen)
Six Day War, 1967
Nasser dies, 1970
Sadat’s “separate peace”, ‘77-79
Iran-Iraq War,
Gulf War, ‘90-91

12. II. POLITICAL ISLAM
Political Islamist: one who believes that Islam as a body of faith has something important to say about how politics and society should be ordered, and who seeks to implement this idea in some fashion.

13. IIa. THE RISE OF POLITICAL ISLAM
UMMA & CALIPHATE
REACTION:
CRUSADERS & MONGOLS
Ibn Taymiyya
INTERNAL DECAY
Al-Wahhab and The Taliban
WESTERN IMPERIALISM & HEGEMONY
EUROPE: Hassan al-Banna & Muslim Brotherhood
SOVIET INVASION: Mujahideen & the Arab Afghans
THE “ZIONIST-CRUSADER ALLIANCE”: Al Qaeda

14. IIb. VARIETIES OF POILTICAL ISLAM
COMMON THEMES
Reactive to perception of external threat (physical or intellectual)
Fueled by anti-colonial sense of injustice and western exploitation
Reactive to perception of internal decay and decline
Secularization of society has left Middle East weak, physically and spiritually
Islam is a “purifying force to drive out corrupt ideas and practices”
DIFFERENCES
Focus on state politics vs. restoration of caliphate
Authority & method of jihad (violent or not? Toward whom? Who decides?)
Whether state must become “Islamic” or merely reflect Islamic law
Conceptions of law
Liberal, moderate & “literal” (conservative)
Sunni-Shi’a

15. Salafism (‘pious ancestors’)
Sunni puritanical movement
Only sources of religious knowledge are the Quran and hadith
The original Medinan community established by Muhammad is the ideal worthy of emulation by Islamic society
Modernists v. fundamentalists

16. Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya (1268-1328)
Salafist literalism (conservative, Hanbali code)
'man made laws’ = jahiliyya (pre-Islamic pagan ignorance)
World divided: Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb
accusations of heresy or apostasy against fellow Muslims
Jihad: obligation to fight infidels (Mongols) and allied apostates and heretics

17. The New Mardin Declaration
The New Mardin Declaration
2010 Conference of Islamic scholars reinterprets ibn Taymiyya:
Division of the world into the "Abode of Islam" and the "Abode of War" is no longer valid, because mankind is bound by international treaties that guarantee security, peace and religious, ethnic and national rights for all
Ibn Taymiyya's fatwa cannot be grounds for:
leveling the charge of kufr (heresy) against Muslims
rebelling against rulers
terrorizing and killing Muslims or non-Muslims
Authorizing and carrying out armed conflict is the exclusive right of heads of state, not individual Muslims or Muslim groups
Only highly qualified religious scholars can issue fatwas
It is the responsibility of Muslim religious scholars to condemn violence and extremism clearly and explicitly.

18. IIb. VARIETIES OF POLITICAL ISLAM
Goals and Means
Radical Goals
Moderate Goals
Radical Means
Trans-national
national ??
Al Qaeda
Islamo-nationalists:
Taliban, GIA
Moderate Means
Hizb’allah, FIS
Reformists:
Pak Governor Salman Taseer (Pakistan People’s Party),
Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, AKP