1. Political Islam in International Relations PSIR 432
Islamic Reformation

3. Islamic Civilizational Decline
Colonization
Loss of influence on the world stage
Scientific and technological stagnation
Stagnation of independent inquiry
Modernism vs Universalism

4. Al-Afghani
How could Islam, which had so long reigned as a dominant civilisation, producing a wealth of literary, scientific, medical and cultural achievements, guided by God, have fallen so far behind the West after extensive periods of such exceptional dominance?
Islam as a complete social, political and economic system provided all the tools necessary for society to function.

5. Three lines of Political Islam
Traditional: the ulema (al Azhar)
Liberal Reformists (al Wasat)
Conservative Reformists
Jihadism (al Qaeda)
Neo-traditionalists (Muslim Brotherhood)
The New Conservative Branch? (ISIS)

6. Jamal al din al Afghani Conservative Reform Rashid Rida
Liberal Reform Muhammed Abduh

7. Reformation Schism
Al banna
Sayid Qutb
Al Zawahiri M. Morsey

8. Legacy of Abduh Wasatiya, The Middle Path
Abu al Al-Madi founder of al Wasat, legalised in 1996 in Egypt
Liberal democracy within an Islamic Framework
Flexible sharia
Relaxation of Dar al Harb\ Dar al Islam
Dar al Ahd

9. Ijtihad
“the total expenditure of effort in the search for an opinion as to any legal rule in such a manner that the individual senses an inability to expend further effort” al Ghazali
maximum effort by the jurist to master and apply principles and rules of legal theory for the purpose of discovering God’s law” Wael Hallaq
Personal Reasoning, but for what purpose and for whom?

10. Closing the Gates 10th C Natural decrease of the practice
All questions on positive law have been answered
Interpretation at an end
Ijma (Consensus) Fiqh (Juris-prudence)
Concerns over abuse by ruling powers
Undermining the legitimacy of the ulema
Created the conditions for reformation
Limited the ability to bring and Islamist voice to contemporary questions.
Taqlid, Unquestioning imitation replaces ijtihad

11. Scope of Ijtihad
Is it only a practice that related to matters of religious law, or does it extend to the very nature of society itself and into science, rationalism and philosophy
Quran and Sunnah are more than simply a textbook for the development of Sharia, but rather, a guide for human civilization in totality
Preisthood of the individual
“an individualist revolution that no amount of clerical effort can contain”

12. Muslim Brotherhood Marginalization, subjugation or radicalisation
Founded 1922
The crisis of the Caliphate
“God is our objective; the Qur’an is our constitution; the Prophet is our leader; Struggle is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”

13. New Jahiliya Revival of Ibn Taymiyya’s concept
Jahiliya: Ignorance of God’s will
Maududi, “Muslims have overthrown God’s sovereignty.”
Islam “is a revolutionary ideology that seeks to alter the social order of the entire world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals.”

14. Sayid Qutb
Using Maududi’s method transforms al Banna’s approach of escaping society into a revolutionary idea
“Everything around us is jahiliya, people’s perceptions and beliefs, habits and customs, the sources of their culture, arts, literature and their laws and legislations. Much of what we think of as Islamic culture, Islamic sources or Islamic philosophy is in fact jahiliya.”
“The American girl is well acquainted with her body’s seductive capacity, she knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs and she shows all this and does not hide it.”

15. Qutb lays the foundation for the al Qaeda Salafi Jihadist ideology
Blends the Salafist method with Jihadist action
Increasing tension between Islamist movements
Assassination of al Sadat, Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The origins of the hijra
Mubarak, Crackdown on Islamist organizations

16. Al Wasat (Middle Path) Egyptian Revolution
“We distinguish between missionary and political activities, because mixing of the two is extremely dangerous, threatening both the nation and religious groups themselves.”
“We are glad to see that a party established by the Muslim Brotherhood It confirms that the new Center Party has no connection.”
“Any Person who talks about the abrogation or review of the Camp David Accords is not aware of the reality of the situation

17. Al Azhar 2011
1961 al-Nasser nationalizes al-Azhar, takes control of budgetary allocation
Increased co-option of the ulema to legitimise regime rule.
Post Mubarak al Azhar independence
2012 Egyptian Constitution
The Azhar Document for the Independence of Egypt (al-Azhar Sheikhdom 2011a), In Support for the Arab Spring Revolutions (al-Azhar Sheikhdom 2011b) and The Document for Religious Freedoms (al-Azhar Sheikhdom 2012).

18. Ulema as Reformers?
“Al-Azhar views education and scientific research as the main way of culture in Egypt, and so there is need to dedicate all efforts to compensate what we missed in such fields.”
“Serious scientific research in humanities, physics, mathematics, etc., is the driver of human progress and the means to discovering the laws of the universe so as to use them for the goodness of humankind”

19. Free Thinking
“If thinking in general is an Islamic duty in all branches of knowledge and arts, as held by the scholars of ijtihad, theoretical and experimental scientific research is the instrument for the discharge of this duty”
The commitment to freedom of thoughts and opinion with a full respect of humans”
The scholars of ijtihad and legislation have attached great significance to the mind in Islam and left us a golden rule that says: If the mind and the text are apparently conflicting, the mind should be given precedence and the text reinterpreted