Islamic awakening

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The so-called Islamic Awakening ( Arabic الصحوة الإسلامية, DMG aṣ-ṣaḥwa al-islāmīya ), also rebirth or re-Islamization describes the renewed germination of Islam in the entire Islamic world , which began in the 1970s and is expressed in greater religiosity and a growing influence of Islamic culture .

One of the first to use the term was the Egyptian finance scholar Ahmad an-Naggār, who is considered one of the founding fathers of Islamic banking . He published a book in 1977 called The Path of Islamic Awakening. Banks without interest ( Manhaǧ aṣ-ṣahwa al-Islāmīya. Bunūk bilā fawāʾid ). In it he describes the early history of Islamic banking. This developed when, at the beginning of the “Islamic awakening” in Egypt, the Muslim preachers became aware of the danger of the banking system based on the ban on interest “for the religion and beliefs of the Umma as well as for the spiritual development of the people of the various Islamic peoples”.

The "Islamic Awakening" is a departure from the westernization or modernization that was common in many Arab and Asian governments in the 20th century. It is often associated with the political Islam movement, Islamism , and other forms of Islamization . While the Islamic awakening was also accompanied by religious extremism and attacks on civilians as well as military targets by extremists, only a small part of the movement represents this extremism.

An outstanding example is the increase in participation in the Hajj , the annual pilgrimage to Mecca , which grew from 90,000 pilgrims in 1926 to two million in 1979.

From a Western perspective, the two main events that sparked the resurgence were the Arab oil embargo and the subsequent quadrupling of the oil price in the mid-1970s, as well as the 1979 Iranian revolution that created an Islamic republic in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini . The former caused billions of dollars in inflows from Saudi Arabia to fund Islamic books, scholarship and mosques around the world; the second event undermined the belief that westernization strengthens Muslim countries and is irreversible.

The trend was particularly mentioned by historians such as John Esposito and Ira Lapidus . A related development is that of transnational Islam , which is described by the French Islam researchers Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy . It encompasses the perception of a growing “universalist Islamic identity ” that is often shared by Muslim immigrants and their children living in non-Muslim countries.

"The increasing integration of world societies as a result of improved communication, media, mobility and migration makes the concept of a single Islam practiced in the same way everywhere and an Islam that transcends national and ethnic customs important."

- Ira Lapidus

However, this development does not necessarily encourage transnational political or social organizations:

“Worldwide Muslim identity does not necessarily or ordinarily require organized group activity. Though Muslims feel a global sense of belonging, the real heart of Muslim religious life beats outside of politics - in local associations for worship, discussion, community service, education, charity, and other community activities. "

- Ira Lapidus

development

Previous movements

The modern movement of Islamic rebirth has been compared to examples from the past:

“The call to fundamentalism, centered on Sharia law : This call is as old as Islam itself and still new because it has never been fulfilled. It is a tendency that always places the reformer, the censor and the moral judge against the changing times and sovereigns, against foreign influences, political opportunism, moral negligence and the forgetting of sacred texts. "

- Olivier Roy : The Failure of Political Islam

Some of the more influential supporters of the revival movement were the dynasties of the Almoravids and the Almohads in the Maghreb and Spain (1042-1269), the Indian Naqschbandit Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624), the Indian Ahl al-Hadith movement of the 19th century, the preacher Ibn Taimiya (1263–1328), Shah Waliullah (1702–1762) and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792).

Regardless of whether it was part of a historical cycle, the increasing piety of the Muslim community was noted by scholars such as Michael Cook :

“What is striking about the Islamic world is that of all the important cultural spheres it seems to be the one which has been least permeated by irreligion ; and in the last few decades it has been the fundamentalists who have always represented the latest state of culture. "

- Michael Cook : The Koran, a very short introduction

History and origins

A renewal movement in Islam did not just begin with the immigration of Muslims to the countries of the western world in the second half of the 20th century, but much earlier with the intensive contact between the Islamic and the European world, which began with Napoleon's Egyptian expedition 1798– Began in 1801. The great intellectual movement for the reconciliation of Islam and modernity was or is the so-called Nahda movement, which on the one hand influenced the modern discourse in Arab-Islamic philosophy and on the other hand is also at the origin of Salafism .

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by numerous shocks for the Islamic world: These include the decline of Ottoman rule , which culminated in the establishment of secular Turkey under Ataturk and the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, as well as British and French colonial rule across much of the Islamic world, which led to a widespread feeling of inferiority towards Europeans and the questioning of traditional structures. The socialism and Arab nationalism competed mainly in the interwar period as ideologies with the growing political Islam.

The man seen as the forerunner of re-Islamization was Jamal al-Din al-Afghani , one of the most influential Muslim reformers of the 19th century who toured the Muslim world. His temporary follower Muhammad Abduh had been the most influential figure in the early Salafist movement . Salafism, a movement that wanted to return to the origins of Islam such as the Koran and Sunna and thus change the encrusted structures of the Islamic world, split into the followers of Muhammad Abduh, who strived for a compatibility of Islam and modernity, and into a fundamentalist wing who rejected western modernity. In 1928, Hassan al-Banna established the Muslim Brotherhood as the first mass Islamist organization that continues to be regarded as the largest and most influential Islamic group in the world. The influential rebirth activists and thinkers also include Raschīd Ridā and ʿAlī zählenAbd ar-Rāziq , the latter in particular combining a religious society and a secular system of government and law in his ideas .

In South Asia , Muhammad Iqbal , Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and other Muslim leaders established the Muslim League , which led to the establishment of the first Islamic Republic in Pakistan . Abul Ala Maududi was the later leader of this movement that founded the Jamaat-e-Islami in South Asia. Today it is one of the largest Islamic parties on the Indian subcontinent and spans the four countries Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka , although the various national parties have no organizational connection.

Two events were particularly important to the current rebirth:

Shiites

Re-Islamization began later among the Shiites . In Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini led a revolution based on his personal interpretation of the Velayat-e Faqih , which calls for rule by Islamic scholars. In a more spiritual realm, Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei revived Kalam , Islamic philosophy and Tafsir as a theologian . Khomeini and Tabatabaei taught among many students that have high positions in the Hawza of Qom reached. Some of her students like Morteza Motahhari and Mohammed Beheschti also became ideologues of the Islamic revolution. Furthermore, some activists, especially Ali Shariati , politicized religion and used ideology to revolt.

In Iraq criticized Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr to Marxism and presented early ideas of an Islamic alternative to socialism and capitalism . His most important work was Iqtisaduna ( Our Economy ), which is regarded as an important script of Islamic economics . This work was a criticism of both socialism and capitalism. He also worked with Seyyed Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in forming an Islamist movement in Iraq, which resulted in the establishment of the Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq . As one of the founders of modern Islamist thought, he received recognition first for the development of the idea, later for the implementation of the operation in Iran, as well as for holding western democratic elections, albeit with a body of Muslim scholars , to ensure that all laws were in accordance with the to ensure Islamic teaching. He was a close ally of Ayatollah Khomeni, but maintained a more moderate view than that and did not unconditionally support the concept of Velayat-e faqih.

In Lebanon , Musa as-Sadr established the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council and the Amal movement . Later, former members of the Amal militia and other parties each joined and established the Islamic militia, party and welfare agency Hezbollah , which is the largest and most influential party among the Shiites in Lebanon.

Political Aspects

Politically, the Islamic resurgence is running through the entire spectrum of Islamist governments in Iran, in Sudan under Umar al-Bashir and in Afghanistan by the Taliban before the invasion . Other regimes, such as the conservative and economically liberal monarchies in the Gulf region and the more secular, militaristic and authoritarian regimes of Iraq, Egypt , Libya and Pakistan , made concessions to the growing popularity of Islam, even though they are not themselves a product of "resurgence".

The development since the democratic revolutions of 2011 shows that in free elections - also as a result of the long-term Islamization of the broader population, tolerated and promoted by the ruling class - (moderate) Islamist movements can unite most supporters behind them, for example in Tunisia , Egypt and Libya. In secular Turkey, too, the political and social influence of Islam has grown significantly, with the Islamic-conservative Justice and Development Party under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan having governed with a large majority since 2002.

target group

The Islamic resurgence has a large target audience of the middle class / intelligentsia, university students, professionals, officials, traders and bankers. So, Ayman al-Zawahiri , the main figure within al-Qaeda , an Egyptian doctor who the Egyptian Islamic Jihad founded. This group was involved in the murder of the Egyptian President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Anwar as-Sadat in 1981 .

Rural and traditional people who moved to the cities are also drawn to the Islamic resurgence; significant networks have been established that address the religious, medical and educational needs of the urban poor.

Worldwide examples

Syria

In Syria , where the Arab nationalist but originally secular Ba'ath Party has ruled since 1963 , a change has also taken place. In the pan-Arab and pansyrische ideology of the state have been since the Six Day War and pan-Islamic elements included.

“For the first time, the regime celebrated the Prophet's birthday with greater fanfare than the founding day of the ruling party. Billboards that once proclaimed 'progressiveness and socialism' have been replaced by new exhortations: 'Pray for the Prophet and don't forget to mention God.' President Bashar Assad recently approved Syria's first Islamic University as well as three Islamic banks. And Mohammed Habasch, the leader of the Center for Islamic Studies, was invited to speak about Islam at the Syrian Military Academy - where prayer was forbidden 25 years earlier. ... In the 1980s only a clear minority of women in Damascus wore the Hejab or modest Islamic clothing. In 2006 it was set up by a clear majority in Syria's most modern city. "

- Robin Wright : Dreams and Shadows: the Future of the Middle East

See also

Portal: Islam  - Overview of Wikipedia content on Islam

literature

  • Ira Marvin Lapidus: A History of Islamic Societies , Cambridge University Press; Cambridge 1st edition 1988, 2nd edition 2002.
  • Ali Rahnema: Pioneers of Islamic Revival (Studies in Islamic Society); London: Zed Books, 1994
  • Olivier Roy : Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (CERI Series in Comparative Politics and International Studies), New York 1994. ISBN 0231134991 .
  • Armando Salvatore: Islam and the political discourse of modernity . Ithaca Press, Reading 1997, ISBN 978-0-86372-196-0 , pp. 189-197.
  • Nasr Vali: The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam will Shape the Future , WW Norton & Company, 2006. ( Review by CMES, Review by Hamad R. Hamad)

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Lapidus, p. 823.
  2. ↑ Cf. Aḥmad an-Naǧǧār: Manhaǧ aṣ-ṣahwa al-Islāmīya. Bunūk bilā fawāʾid. Al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, Cairo, 1977. p. 88.
  3. ^ Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: on the Trail of Political Islam , Harvard University Press, 2002, p. 75.
  4. ↑ Haddad / Esposito p. Xvi.
  5. ↑ a b Lapidus, p. 829.
  6. ^ Lapidus, p. 828.
  7. ↑ Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, translated by Carol Volk, Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 4.
  8. ↑ ... why is the Muslim world in such a bad state?
  9. ↑ Michael Cook, The Koran, a very short introduction , Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 43.
  10. ^ Charles Kurzman : Liberal Islam: A Source Book Oxford University Press. 1998. pp. 5-13.
  11. ^ Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World , Thomson Gale, 2004
  12. ^ The New Encyclopedia of Islam by Cyril Glasse, Altamira, 2001
  13. ↑ Jamaat-e-Islami
  14. ^ Wright, Sacred Rage , p. 66 from Daniel Pipes, In the Path of God , Basic Books, (1983), (p. 285).
  15. ↑ interview by Robin Wright of UK Foreign Secretary (at the time) Lord Carrington in November 1981, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam by Robin Wright, Simon and Schuster, (1985), p. 67.
  16. ↑ Fundamentalist Islam: The Drive for Power
  17. ^ The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr, Najaf, and the Shi'i International
  18. ↑ Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr , International Journal of Middle East Studies , Vol. 25, No. 4 (Nov 1993), pp. 718-719.
  19. ↑ Michael Thumann: Der Islam-Errtum. Europe's fear of the Muslim world. Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 92–94.
  20. ^ Wright, Robin, Dreams and Shadows: the Future of the Middle East , Penguin Press, 2008, p. 245.