POL 3113 Political Islam: Ideology and Politics Spring 2013-14 Instructor Room No. Office Hours Email Telephone Secretary/TA TA Office Hours Course URL (if any) Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed 117 A, Acad Block Ishtiaq.ahmed@lums.edu.pk COURSE DESCRIPTION The ubiquity of political Islam in national, regional and international politics has baffled academics trained in the modernization paradigm of the 1960s, which predicted secularization of modes of thinking and behavior as traditional societies transformed to modern ones as a result of industrialization, urbanization and democracy: an assumption suggesting that the world was destined to evolve in one, universal direction. However, specialists on Islamic politics were reporting that considerable intellectual effort was being invested in the Muslim world to propound Islamic alternatives to Westernization and democracy. During the Cold War, conservative Islamic governments and movements were courted by the USA. The core idea in political Islam has been that all facets of Muslim life should be permeated by authentic Islamic values and norms and alien accretions purged. Most centrally, this means that the main source of law and constitution of Muslim/Islamic states has to be the Quran and Sunna of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Both Sunni and Shia versions of political Islam share this common source of reconstruction of genuinely Islamic polities and societies. One can, however, identify a wide range of Islamic state models within the broad framework of political Islam, though the fundamentalist versions are undoubtedly main stream currently and therefore need to be examined and analyzed. In short, political Islam proffers alternatives to Western modernity. The course will theoretically and empirically examine political Islam as an ideology as well as politics. Political Islam in its various manifestations has been critiqued for anti-women and anti-minority biases and theoretically for being incongruent with contemporary notions of democracy. A central concern would be to discuss this problem in the context of the ideas of alternative modernity/multiple modernities. Class-room discussion on political Islam will consist both of lectures and seminar presentations requiring active participation of the students. COURSE PREREQUISITE(S) POL 100 Introduction to Political Science
EXAMINATION There will be mid-term and final exams as well as two short papers. CLASS SCHEDULE Module 1: The Modernity Debate Session 2: The Concept of Modernity Euben, Roxanne, L., Premodern, Antimodern or Postmodern? Islamic and Western Critiques of Modernity, The Review of Politics, Vol. 59, No. 3, Non-Western Political Thought (Summer), 1997, pp. 429-459. Tobera, Piotr, Concerns of Modernity, Polish Sociological Review, (3(135), 2001, pp. 281-298. Session 3: Modernity, Islam and Muslims Ahmed, Ishtiaq, Looking Backwards into the Future: A Critique of Islamic Modernism, Journal of Futures Studies, Vol.7, No.2, 2002, pp. 75-95. Hefner, Robert, W., Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 27, 1998, pp. 83-104. Module 2: Authoritative Islamic Sources Session 4: Classical Islamic constitutional theory Faruki, Kemal A, The Evolution of Islamic Constitutional Theory and Practice, Karachi: National Publishing House, 1971, 40-50 pages. Session 5: Islamic jurisprudence Qadri, Anwar Ahmad, Islamic Jurisprudence and the Modern World, Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1981, 60-70 pages. Session 6: Islamic political thought: the modern period
Black, Antony, ch. 25 The Age of Modernism c.1830-1920, in Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001, pp. 271-307. Black, Antony, ch. 26. The Age of Fundamentalism c. 1920-2000, in Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001, pp. 308-349. Module 3: Fundamentalist Ideologues Section 7: Syed Abul Ala Maududi: The Islamic state Maududi, Syed Abul Ala, Islamic Law and Constitution, Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd, 1980, 70-80 pages. Session 8: Maududi: The concept of Jihad Maududi, Syed Abul Ala, Al-Jihad Fi al-islam, Lahore: Idara Tarjumanal Quran, 1981, 70-80 pages. Session 9: Syed Qutb: The Concept of Jahiliyyah (Age of Ignorance) Syed Qutb, Milestones, Damascus: Dar al-ilm, no year of publication given, Chs 1-6, pp. 15-92. Session 10: Syed Qutb: The Islamic Alternative: Syed Qutb Qutb, Syed, Milestones, Damascus: Dar al-ilm, no year of publication given, Chs 7-12, pp. 93-160. Session 11: Imam Ruhollah Khomeini: The Islamic state and society Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, Vilayet-e-Faqih (The Rule of the Jurist), Tehran: Government of Islamic Republic, 1979. (Rule of the Jurist), pp. 1-110. Session 12: Imam Khomeini: The Islamic state and society Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, Vilayet-e-Faqih (The Rule of the Jurist), Tehran: Government of Islamic
Republic, 1979, pp. 111-222. Session 13: Muslim modernist versions of Islamic state: Pakistan Ahmed, Ishtiaq, The Concept of an Islamic State: An Analysis of the Ideological Controversy in Pakistan (Muhammad Asad, Ghulam Ahmad Perwez, Khalifa Abdul Hakim, Dr Javid Iqbal, S. M. Zafar, Professor Muhammad Usman), London: Frances Pinter, 1987, pp. 122-162. Session 14: Muslim modernist version of Islamic state: Iran Algar, Hamid (ed), and Shariati, Ali, On the Sociology of Islam: Lectures of Ali Shariati, Tehran: Mizan Pir, 2000, 40-50 pages. Session 15: Mid-term exam Module 4: Politics of Contemporary Islamic/Muslim States Session 16: Pakistan Ahmed, Ishtiaq, The Politics of Religion in South and Southeast Asia, London: Routledge, 2011, ch. 6, Religious nationalism and minorities in Pakistan: constitutional and legal basis of discrimination, pp. 81-101. Ahmed, Ishtiaq, The Politics of Religion in South and Southeast Asia, London: Routledge, 2011, Ch. 7, Women under Islamic law, pp. 102-119. Session 17: Iran Axworthy, Michael, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic, New York: Oxford University Press, Amazon paperback, 2013 40-50 pages. Session 18: Iran Axworthy, Michael, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic, New York: Oxford University Press, Amazon paperback, 2013, 40-50 pages. Session: 19: Saudi Arabia Delong-Bas, Natana, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, 40-50 pages on Wahhabism. Session 20: Egypt Munson, Ziad, Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2001 (Autumn), pp. 487-510. Pargeter, Alison, The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition to Power, London: Saqi Books, 2013, 20-30 pages.
Session 21: Afghanistan Ahmed, Ishtiaq, Pakistan: The Garrison State Origins, Evolution, Consequences (1947-2011), Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013, ch. 12, The Afghan Jihad, pp. 253-269. Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban, Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, London: I. B. Tauris, 2008, 30 pages. Session 22: Turkey White, Jenny, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks, Princeton University Press, 2012, 40-50 pages. Module 5: Regional and Global Political Islam Session 23: The Middle East Thompson, Elizabeth F., Justice Interrupted: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Middle East, Harvard University Press, 2013, 20-30 pages. Session 24: The Middle East Avon, Dominique, Hezbollah: A History of the "Party of God", Harvard University Press, 2012, 20-30 pages. Session 25: South East Asia Hasan, Noorhaidi, Political Islam in Indonesia, in Ahmed, Ishtiaq (ed), The Politics of Religion in South and Southeast Asia, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 136-156. Mohamad, Maznah, Creating a Muslim majority in plural Malaysia: undermining minority rights and women s rights, in in Ahmed, Ishtiaq (ed), The Politics of Religion in South and Southeast Asia, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 174-194. Session 26: Europe Ahmed, Ishtiaq, Muslims in Europe: The Changing Realities, India Quarterly, 69 (3), 2013, pp. 265-282. Ahmed, Ishtiaq, Multiculturalism in Sweden: Riots Spark Debates About Identity and Policy, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, (forthcoming) Spring 2014. Vidino L., The Muslim Brotherhood s Conquest of Europe, Middle East Quarterly, 2005 pp: 25-34. Session 27: Global Jihad Peter, Mandaville, Global Political Islam, London and New York: Routledge, 2011 (not 2007 edition). Ibrahim, Raymond, The Al-Qaeda Reader, New York: Broadway Books, (2007), Part II, Messages to the Americans, pp. 192-269; Message to the Europeans, pp. 230-241. Session 28: A review of the readings
Theoretical Jonathan Fox, Introduction to Religion and Politics: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge, 2012. The introductory chapters of the book to different sections are of theoretical and conceptual nature. Beinin, Joel and Stork, Joe (eds), Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report, University of California Press, 1997. The introductory chapters to different sections are of a theoretical nature. Ideology Politics Beinin, Joel and Stork, Joe (eds), Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report, University of California, 1997. Axworthy, Michael, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic, New York: Oxford University Press, Amazon paperback, 2013. Donohue J. and Esposito J. (ed.) (2006) Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, 2 nd ed., New York: Oxford University Press. Ruthven, Malise, Encounters with Islam: On Religion, Politics and Modernity, London: I. B. Tauris, 2012. Both theoretical and empirical material in this book. Selections from the literature given above will be included in the course pack. Ayub, Mohammed, The Many Faces of Political Islam, Singapore: NUS Press, 2008, ch. 7, Transnational Islam, pp. 131-151. Session 6: Political Islam: the current period
Butterworth, Charles E., Political Islam: The Origins, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 524, Political Islam, 1992 (November), pp. 26-37. Mamdani, Mahmood, Good Muslim Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 104, No. 3, 2002 (September), pp. 766-755.