Pan-Islamism
Encyclopedia
Pan-Islamism is a political movement advocating the unity of Muslim
s under one Islamic state
— often a Caliphate
. As a form of religious nationalism
, Pan-Islamism differentiates itself from other pan-nationalistic
ideologies, for example Pan-Arabism
, by excluding culture
and ethnicity as primary factors towards unification.
volunteer Islamist fighters is closely related to pan-Islamic thought. Mujahideen may come from all over the Islamic world to assist in a conflict that they deem to be religiously important.
— the reign of Muhammad
and the early caliphate
— when the Muslim world was thought to be strong and uncorrupted in one united state.
In the modern era, Pan-Islamism was championed by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
who sought unity among Muslims to resist colonial occupation of Muslim lands. Although sometimes described as "liberal", al-Afghani did not advocate constitutional government but simply envisioned “the overthrow of individual rulers who were lax or subservient to foreigners, and their replacement by strong and patriotic men.” In a review of the theoretical articles of his Paris-base newspaper there was nothing "favoring political democracy or parliamentarianism,” according to his biographer.
While Afghani's interest in Islam
ic law
and theology
was scant, later Pan-Islamism in the post-colonial world was strongly associated with Islamism
. Leading Islamists such as Sayyid Qutb
, Abul Ala Maududi
, and Ayatollah Khomeini all stressed their belief that a return to traditional Sharia
law would make Islam united and strong again.
In the period of decolonialism following World War II, Arab nationalism
overshadowed Islamism. In the Arab world secular pan-Arab parties — Baath and Nasserist
parties - had offshoots in almost every Arab country, and took power in Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Syria. Islamists suffered severe repression; its major thinker Sayyid Qutb
, was imprisoned, underwent torture and was later executed.
Following the defeat of Arab armies in the Six-Day War
, Islamism and Pan-Islam began to reverse their relative position of popularity with nationalism and pan-Arabism. In 1979 the Iranian Revolution
ousted Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
from power, and ten years later the Afghan Muslim mujahideen successfully forced the Soviet Union from Afghanistan
.
These events galvanised Islamists the world over and heightened their popularity with the Muslim public. Throughout the Middle-East, and in particular Egypt
, the various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood
have significantly challenged the secular nationalist or monarchical Muslim governments.
In Pakistan
the Jamaat-e-Islami
enjoyed popular support especially since the formation of the MMA
, and in Algeria the FIS
was expected to win the cancelled elections in 1992. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union
, Hizb-ut-Tahrir has emerged as a Pan-Islamist force in Central Asia
and in the last five years has developed some support from the Arab world
.
Organisations:
History:
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s under one Islamic state
Islamic State
An Islamic state is a type of government, in which the primary basis for government is Islamic religious law...
— often a Caliphate
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
. As a form of religious nationalism
Religious nationalism
Religious nationalism is the relationship of nationalism to a particular religious belief, dogma, or affiliation. This relationship can be broken down into two aspects; the politicisation of religion and the influence of religion on politics....
, Pan-Islamism differentiates itself from other pan-nationalistic
Pan-nationalism
Pan-nationalism is a form of nationalism distinguished by the large-scale of the claimed national territory, and because it often defines the nation on the basis of a ‘’cluster’’ of cultures and ethnic groups. It shares the general nationalist ideology, that the nation is a fundamental unit of...
ideologies, for example Pan-Arabism
Pan-Arabism
Pan-Arabism is an ideology espousing the unification--or, sometimes, close cooperation and solidarity against perceived enemies of the Arabs--of the countries of the Arab world, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea. It is closely connected to Arab nationalism, which asserts that the Arabs...
, by excluding culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and ethnicity as primary factors towards unification.
Mujahideen
The concept of mujahideenMujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
volunteer Islamist fighters is closely related to pan-Islamic thought. Mujahideen may come from all over the Islamic world to assist in a conflict that they deem to be religiously important.
History
The model pan-Islamism aims for is the early years of IslamMuslim history
Muslim history is the history of Muslim people. In the history of Islam the followers of the religion of Islam have impacted political history, economic history, and military history...
— the reign of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
and the early caliphate
Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun Caliphate , comprising the first four caliphs in Islam's history, was founded after Muhammad's death in 632, Year 10 A.H.. At its height, the Caliphate extended from the Arabian Peninsula, to the Levant, Caucasus and North Africa in the west, to the Iranian highlands and Central Asia...
— when the Muslim world was thought to be strong and uncorrupted in one united state.
In the modern era, Pan-Islamism was championed by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
Sayyid Muḥammad ibn Ṣafdar Husaynī , better known as Sayyid Jamāl-ad-Dīn al-Afghānī and Sayyid Jamal-ad-Din Asadabadi , , was a political activist and Islamic ideologist in the Muslim world during the late 19th century, particularly in the Middle East, South Asia and Europe...
who sought unity among Muslims to resist colonial occupation of Muslim lands. Although sometimes described as "liberal", al-Afghani did not advocate constitutional government but simply envisioned “the overthrow of individual rulers who were lax or subservient to foreigners, and their replacement by strong and patriotic men.” In a review of the theoretical articles of his Paris-base newspaper there was nothing "favoring political democracy or parliamentarianism,” according to his biographer.
While Afghani's interest in Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
and theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
was scant, later Pan-Islamism in the post-colonial world was strongly associated with Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
. Leading Islamists such as Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s....
, Abul Ala Maududi
Abul Ala Maududi
Syed Abul A'ala Maududi , also known as Molana or Shaikh Syed Abul A'ala Mawdudi, was a Sunni Pakistani journalist, theologian, Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher, and a major 20th century Islamist thinker. He was also a prominent political figure in Pakistan and was the first...
, and Ayatollah Khomeini all stressed their belief that a return to traditional Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law would make Islam united and strong again.
In the period of decolonialism following World War II, Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world...
overshadowed Islamism. In the Arab world secular pan-Arab parties — Baath and Nasserist
Nasserism
Nasserism is an Arab nationalist political ideology based on the thinking of the former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was a major influence on pan-Arab politics in the 1950s and 1960s, and continues to have significant resonance throughout the Arab World to this day. It also...
parties - had offshoots in almost every Arab country, and took power in Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Syria. Islamists suffered severe repression; its major thinker Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s....
, was imprisoned, underwent torture and was later executed.
Following the defeat of Arab armies in the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, Islamism and Pan-Islam began to reverse their relative position of popularity with nationalism and pan-Arabism. In 1979 the Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
ousted Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
from power, and ten years later the Afghan Muslim mujahideen successfully forced the Soviet Union from Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
.
These events galvanised Islamists the world over and heightened their popularity with the Muslim public. Throughout the Middle-East, and in particular Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, the various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
have significantly challenged the secular nationalist or monarchical Muslim governments.
In Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
the Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-e-Islami
This article is about Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. For other organizations of similar name see Jamaat-e-Islami The Jamaat-e-Islami , is a Pro-Muslim political party in Pakistan...
enjoyed popular support especially since the formation of the MMA
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal is a coalition of Islamist parties that was formed in 2002 to electorally challenge the Pakistan Parliament's incumbent parties...
, and in Algeria the FIS
Islamic Salvation Front
The Islamic Salvation Front is an outlawed Islamist political party in Algeria.-Goals:...
was expected to win the cancelled elections in 1992. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Hizb-ut-Tahrir has emerged as a Pan-Islamist force in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
and in the last five years has developed some support from the Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
.
See also
- CaliphateCaliphateThe term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
- UmmahUmmahUmmah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
- Shi'a–Sunni relations
- Muslim unityMuslim UnityMuslim Unity is a term that refers to establishing a good and peaceful relations among the various Islamic denominations, and usually refers to political unity in the form of a Caliphate some sort of federalism between Muslim nations....
- DiasporaDiasporaA diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
- Divisions of the world in Islam
Organisations:
- Bosnian mujahideenBosnian mujahideenBosnian mujahideen were foreign Muslim volunteers who fought on the side of Bosnian Muslims during the 1992–1995 Bosnian war. They arrived in Bosnia with the aim of fighting for Islam and on behalf of Muslims who were at the time brutally attacked by Serbs and Croats in different parts of the...
- Muslim BrotherhoodMuslim BrotherhoodThe Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
- Hizb ut-TahrirHizb ut-TahrirHizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni. pan-Islamic political organisation but keeps it open for all including shias,some of its beliefs are against sunni school of thought, whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph...
History:
- Khilafat MovementKhilafat MovementThe Khilafat movement was a pan-Islamic, political campaign launched by Muslims in British India to influence the British government and to protect the Ottoman Empire during the aftermath of World War I...
- Silk Letter ConspiracySilk Letter ConspiracyThe Silk Letter Conspiracy refers to a conspiracy by Deobandi leaders to attempt to begin a Pan-Islamic insurrection in British India during World War I by seeking support from Ottoman Turkey, Imperial Germany, and Afghanistan...
Further reading
- Azmi Özcan. Pan-Islamism: Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain (1877-1924), Brill Academic Publishers, 1997, ISBN 9-004-10180-2.
- Nazir Ahmad Khan Chaudri. Commonwealth of Muslim States: a plea for Pan-Islamism, al-Ahibba (Friends of the Muslim World Muhibban-e-Alam-e-Islami), 1972.
- M. Naeem Qureshi. Pan-Islam in British Indian Politics: A Study of the Khilafat Movement, 1918-1924, Brill Academic Publishers, 1999, ISBN 9-004-10214-0.