ON POLITICAL ISLAM [1]  

1. Political Islamists maintain that, as far as Islam is concerned, religion and state are inseparable. In other words, Islam is both a religion and a state, din wa dawla. A sizeable group of Islamic scholars believes in the complete and holistic nature of revealed Islam so that, according to them, it encompasses’ religion, life and state. A well-known representative of this trend, Yusuf al-Qardwai, argues that “Islam is an integrated totality that offers a solution to all problems of life. It has to be accepted in its entirety, and to be applied to the family, to the economy and to politics. To him, furthermore, the realisation of an Islamic society is predicated on the establishment of an Islamic State, that is, an ‘ideological State’ based on the comprehensive precepts of Islam” (N. Ayubi, Political Islam, Religion and Politics in the Arab World, 1991, pp. 63-64).

There are others “who believe that modern politics and economics are more a civil domain for the ordinary citizen to ponder and improvise.” They have argued for the separation of church and state. They include Shaikh ‘A. ‘Abd al-Raziq (the 1920s) and Shaikh K. M. Khalid (the 1950s and the 1960s). Shaikh al-Raziq maintained that Islam was a religion (din) and not a State (dawla). Shaikh Khalid had arrived at a similar conclusion in the late forties (in the 1970s, he changed his position in favour of the Salafi argument for the totality of Islam). They both had maintained that “there is very little of a purely political nature stipulated in the Quran, that the political formulas adopted by the Muslims later on, such as the khilafa[2], were human improvisations, and that the insistence on merging religion with politics would threaten to harm both.” Writing in the seventies, Muhammad Imara (1991) pointed out that “Islam as a religion has not specified a particular system of government” (p. 64). Imara “argues that Islam is against imparting a religious character to politics and the State, or uniting the two authorities in one” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 203).

As Ayubi (1991) puts it, there was “a certain fusion between religion and politics throughout the history of the Islamic State”. According to some Western and Muslim circles, Ayubi points out, there was a certain fusion between religion and politics throughout the history of the Islamic State because “Islam is by its very nature a ‘political’ religion” (p. 3). Ayubi does not agree with this view. He maintains that not even the term umma “neither in the Quran itself nor in subsequent writings by Muslim authors” was given “an unequivocally religious connotation.” “There is very little in the original Islamic sources on how to form states, run governments and manage organisations” (1991, p. 4). Although the Quran and the Hadith say very little about government and the State, according to Ayubi (1991), there was a close link between religion and politics throughout the history of the Islamic State. In the past, religion was used to give religious legitimacy to political power. “Religion and politics were thus brought together in the historical Islamic State by way of the State appropriating religion” (p. 5).

Ayubi (1991) argues that the opinion that is widely held among Muslims that “Islam is both ‘a religion and a State’ (din wa dawla) is a measure of the extraordinary intellectual influence of the modern fundamentalist thesis on mainstream Muslim opinion” (p. 4). Domestically, the presupposition of the union of religion and politics or the concept of an Islamic state is “fairly recent, dating broadly to the end of the Ottoman Empire and more specifically to the teachings of Mawdudi and some Muslim Brothers. Internationally, its deliberately and specifically religious rendering of the term umma is also fairly recent (although it does, of course, have historical precedents)” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 123).

According to Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd[3], the emergence of the concept din wa dawla was related to the abolition of the caliphate in Turkey in 1924. He also pointed out in his lecture that the idea of Islam being a religion and state was spread after the defeat of the Arab armies in the war with Israel in 1967, which had a tremendous effect in the Arab world. The defeat of 1967 was widely seen as a punishment of God, for the Egyptians followed nationalism and socialism (read state capitalism).

Ruud Peters is of the opinion that Islam arose as a state, i.e. the organisation of Islam is the state. In other words, although Islam is not a political organisation by nature, according to Peters, as soon as Islam began to organise itself, it happened within the state structure. It could, thus, be said that Islam, at least in the period of Madina, was both religion and state.

Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) point out that in Islamic thought, with regard to the religious and political realms, “the frame of reference has been the indivisibility of the whole: din wa-dawla.” They are of the opinion that “this view of indivisibility finds support in more than forty references in the Qur’an to the need to obey ‘God, his Prophet, and those of authority among you’. It also builds on the example of the Prophet, at once a spiritual leader and the head of a political community. The defense of the institution of the caliphate was also predicated on the belief that religious and political power needed to be combined in one office, thereby allowing the shari’a to be implemented and the community of Muslims protected.” They add that “a careful reading of the historical record indicates that politics and religion became separable not long after the death of the Prophet and the establishment of dynastic rule” (Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics, 1996, p. 46).

Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) write that “Muslims hold a variety of opinions on the relationship between religion and politics”, yet the indivisibility of the two realms persists in the study of Islam. “The view that Islam is indistinguishably religious and political is found in the writings”, among others, of Abu-l A’la al-Mawdudi and Hasan al-Turabi. Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) argue that “the presupposition of the union of religion and politics is unhelpful for three reasons”:

First, it exaggerates the uniqueness of Muslim politics.

Second, the emphasis on din wa-dawla inadvertently perpetuates “Orientalist” assumptions that Muslim politics, unlike other politics, are not guided by rational, interest-based calculations.

Third, the din wa-dawla assumption contributes to the view that Muslim politics is a seamless web, indistinguishable in its part because of the natural and mutual interpenetration of religion and politics. Because Islam is thought to incorporate all aspects of life and because everything is thus assumed to be political, political structures are underestimated (pp. 55-56).

The criticism of the din wa dawla argument of Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) “is built on a view of politics as the contest over the interpretation of symbols and as the setting of and negotiation over boundaries between spheres of social activity and institutions.” They maintain that “standard assumptions that religion and politics are inseparable or that religion and politics must be separated tell us little about how religious politics function. The key to understanding the intricate and intersecting relationships between religion and politics lies, rather, in the nature of authority” (p. 57).

2 a. The striking similarities between the three forms of Islam (’official’, ‘moderate’, and ‘extremist’ or ‘militant’), according to Nasr Abu Zayd, are:

- On the deep level of discourse, there is no difference between official, moderate and militant Islam. There is only a political difference.

- All three forms of Islam claim to represent the holy writ. They all deny others a similar right to interpret the sacred texts. By doing so, they polarise and subvert society's political life (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 54).

- The distinction between the subject and object in their religious discourse does not exist. Islamic scholars never say, “I think so”, etc., but “this is what Islam says”, etc.

- They convert the secondary texts into the primary ones, i.e. sacral texts.

- According to them, what has been said cannot be changed. Knowledge goes down (from God to human beings), not up (from human beings to God). In other words, history is conceived as sacred history.

2 b. Abu Zayd is of the opinion that the relationship between religion (i.e. Islam) and violence has its own evolutionary process. He distinguishes three periods with regard to the period after the so-called revolution in 1952: the First Republic under Nasser (1954-1970); the Second Republic under Sadat (1970-1981), and the Third Republic under Mubarak (1981-     ).  How has the relationship between religion and violence developed in each of these periods?

Abu Zayd also mentioned the secret militant organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood under the leadership of Hasan al-Banna in the forties. Let us first consider this period before the “revolution”. The 1940s could be taken as the starting point regarding the relationship between Islam and violence in Egypt. Before the revolution of 1952, the Egyptian government had at its disposal a secret political police to persecute the political opponents, which the Muslim Brotherhood justified the use of violence. There took place a transformation of the Muslim Brotherhood from a peaceful organisation to an organisation that justified the violence.

At the beginning of the First Republic, or rather the revolution, there was cooperation between the Free Officers and the Muslim Brotherhood under the leadership of Sayyid Qutb. The Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to deliver five ministers, but after the attempted assassination of Nasser, the organisation was regarded as an enemy by the state. Many members of the Muslim Brotherhood were jailed, including Sayyid Qutb. The prison became a breeding ground for the justification of violence against political power. In 1966, Sayyid Qutb was executed. According to Abu Zayd, the 1967 defeat had a tremendous impact on the Arab world. The idea of Islam being both religion and state was spread. For example, Mustafa Shkrui, as Sayyid Qutb had done before him, called for jihad against the regime. Not only was religion politicised, but also violence was seen as a duty for every Muslim.

After Nasser, the state's policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood changed. Under Sadat, the organisation's leaders were released from prison. There was an implicit cooperation between Sadat and the Muslim Brotherhood. Sadat wanted to use the organisation to fight against left-wing opponents. But after 1977, especially following the Camp David Accords between the Egyptian state and the State of Israel, the situation changed. The idea of jihad against the closer enemy, i.e. the political system, was regarded as the neglected duty. The idea of using violence in order to establish an Islamic state became widespread. To achieve a Muslim state by whatever means available was regarded as a religious duty. Here it must be emphasised that not only the mainstream Islamic fundamentalism, but also the neo-fundamentalism advocated the use of violence to achieve a religious society. The assassination of Sadat was the height of fundamentalist violence.

In the 1980s and 1990s, advocating violence with the same arguments, especially by militant political Islamists, continued unabated. But curious enough, Abu Zayd made no specific mention of the relationship between religion and violence in the 1980s and 1990s. But he emphasised that political Islamists want and advocate for fighting against what they regard as the enemy number one, the political regime in Egypt. They are of the opinion that the domestic political system must be Islamised in order to fight Israel. Fighting against Israel is seen as a second duty.

3. Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) speak of the objectification of muslim consciousness or the objectification of the Islamic tradition. They point out that “tradition is a subtle and elastic concept.” There exist different senses of tradition, and “all these senses of tradition are subject to considerable flexibility as they are sustained and recreated in various social and historical contexts”. In other words, the view of tradition that they have presented “suggests that the substance and form of tradition are flexible and subject to reinvention” (p. 37) Objectification is a process wherein the practice of faith is questioned:

Objectification is the process by which basic questions come to the fore in the consciousness of large numbers of believers: “What is my religion?” “Why is it important to my life?” and “How do my beliefs guide my conduct?” These explicit, widely shared, and “objective” questions are modern queries that increasingly shape the discourse and practice of Muslims in all social classes. Objectification is thus transclass, and religion has become a self-contained system that its believers can describe, characterize, and distinguish from other belief systems (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 38).

As far as Islam is concerned, it is a “tendency to present Islam as an abstract system of ideas that can be distinguished from other such systems” (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 38). It is a process of  “the systematization and explicitness of religious tradition” (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 39), whereby “the sense of thinking religious beliefs as an objective system becomes explicit”. “The objectification of Islam means that religious beliefs and practices are increasingly seen as systems (minhaj) to be distinguished from nonreligious ones (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 42).  In the process of objectification, possession of “an intensified awareness of Islamic ideas and practices” occurs (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 71). “Standardization of language and approach” is a component of this process. And, it is not only a national and/or local phenomenon, but also a transnational one (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 144).

The authors consider the following three facets of objectification important:

a. The mass character of involvement in the religious discourse and debate about Muslim tradition. Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) emphasise that mass education and mass communication  play a very important role in all contemporary world religions. Mass involvement and mass education without printing would be impossible. “Like modern mass communications, mass higher education and publishing contribute to objectification by inculcating pervasive ‘habits of thought’ (Bourdieu, 1988, 1989). They do so by transforming religious beliefs into a conscious system, broadening the scope of religious authority, and redrawing the boundaries of political community.” Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) consider “the growing popularity of catechisms among Muslims” as another indication of what they call, “the systematization of Islam” (pp. 41-42).

b. The monopoly of religious scholars to interpret sacred texts is broken. Direct and mass access to the printed word replaced authoritative religious discourse. Here too, mass education plays a very important role. As Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) point out, “Mass education opens the way to ‘democratized’ access to sacred texts and overcomes restrictions as to who is ‘authorized’ to interpret them. As a consequence, the monopolistic control by elites is countered by the greater number of would-be interpreters from diverse backgrounds yet commonly possessing modern-style education” (p. 111).

c. The question of competition regarding the representation of an objectified Islam. “Objectification reconfigures the symbolic production of Muslim politics.” An objectified Islam is seen as a phenomenon and natural. Adding to this, the significant  impact of Islam on mass politics, the following question becomes central to Muslim politics: Who speaks for an objectified Islam?  (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 43). The religious scholars, the state and the “new” religious intellectuals “all compete to gain ascendancy as the arbiters of Islamic practice” (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 44).

4. I think that two of the most interesting themes that came up for discussion during the lectures are the relationships between ethnicity and Islam and between nationalism and Islam. Not only are these relationships interesting, but they are also relatively complex ones.

To understand these relationships properly, let us first provide brief definitions of concepts such as religion, ethnic group, ethnicity, nation, and nationalism. I define religion as a specific form of social consciousness. It is perhaps the most fantastic reflection upon the human mind of the worldly powers that dominate human beings in their daily life. It is a way of assimilation of this world. An ethnic group is a group of people who share a common name, language, territory, and culture. Thijl Sunier defines ethnicity as a specific form of group consciousness and group identity. Nation, as I would define it, is a historically evolved community of people with a common language, territory, economic life, and culture. It is a product of the epoch of rising capitalism. As to nationalism, Sunier defines it as a particular form of ethnicity. He argues that both ethnicity and nationalism are ideologies that refer to certain boundaries of perception. According to Sunier, the distinction between the two concepts is slight, and they overlap; nationalism always goes hand in hand with a claim to territory. To my mind, nationalism is in fact a form of bourgeois ideology that advocates the primacy of the interests of one’s own nation (read the interests of the capitalist bourgeoisie in a bourgeois society).

According to Sunier, ethnicity, nationalism and religion (Islam), etc., were all created and were not the products of the daily life of ordinary people. They are not directly attached to common perceptible cultural characteristics. Rather, they are the products of a very specific selection from a large repertoire of characteristics. How to create certain ethnic, religious and national identities- that has been the question. Sunier argues that nationalisation or giving ethnic character to religion (here, Islam) is a part of nationalism. Sunier is of the opinion that where religion is strongly tied to an ethnic group, it could be spoken of as religious nationalism, wherein religion and ethnicity overlap with each other. He gives the examples of the claim of the Jews to the so-called Promised Land and the conflict in Northern Ireland. Sunier points out that in cases such as these, it concerns political religiosity, not individual religiosity. Ayubi (1991) regards the state of Israel as “a polity based entirely on a religiously-defined concept of national identity” (p. 227).

I agree with Sunier that all these concepts share a common aspect: they concern identity. I also agree with him that Islam was and is still used, for example, in Central Asia, to create a national ideology. There, an attempt has been made to combine ethnic identity and religious identity. Ethnicity and nationalism have played an important role in the reconstitution of Muslim identity in the region. In the words of Sunier, in the Central Asian republics, Islam is nationalised. Nevertheless, I find the concept of “religious nationalism” problematic. It is true that religion plays an important role in justifying a claim to territory and in the search for national identity. It has often been used as an instrument to give a nationalist movement a religious colour or to provide a religious costume to justify it, and to mobilise the masses. However, religious ideology, as a form of social consciousness, cannot be the dominant component; rather, it is a subordinate component of a nationalist ideology or nationalism. Nationalism as an ideology plays and, from the bourgeois point of view, must play the role of cement in a bourgeois society that often consists of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

It should be emphasised that nationalism, like other forms of social consciousness, does not evolve spontaneously in people's daily lives. But, this is not to say that nationalism, and nation for that matter, is not a historical product. What I want to make clear is that nationalism does not proceed outside and above perception and imagination, but is the result of the assimilation and transformation of perceptions and images into concepts.

There are also cases where religious identity assumes an ethnic identity. Pakistan and Bosnia are two examples of such cases. With the rising nationalism in India before the partition, the question arose of which identity and history to found. Then, according to Peter van der Veer, there came the division between Hinduism and Islam in India. Religious identity was transformed into a “national” identity or, in other words, religion was nationalised. From thenceforth, there was talk of “Hindu nationalism” and “Muslim nationalism” as if religious identity (and language) could determine “national” identity. There arose the idea of the establishment of a separate territorial or nation-state (Pakistan) for the Muslims in India, irrespective of geographical and other factors, such as ethnic differences. In other words, in Pakistan, ethnic identity and religious identity do not overlap with each other. We witnessed the same transformation of religious identity into an ethnic identity in Bosnia.  Although Muslim Bosnians are ethnic Slavs, because of their religious identity, they are considered a different ethnic group. “The transformation of a Muslim identity in Bosnia into a Bosnian Muslim ethnicity was thus in large measure due to an ‘architecture’ of external groups and pressures”  (Berman and Lonsdale cited in Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 103).

Let us now consider the position of political Islamists with regard to the relationship between religion, ethnicity and nationalism. Fundamentalist ideologues such as Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb forcefully maintain that patriotism, nationalism and suchlike are non-Islamic influences. According to their concept of the total sovereignty and rulership of God (al-hakimiyya), the jama’ should be purged of these influences (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 140). Mawdudi wanted “not a Muslim state but an Islamic state,” an “ideological state,” and was “against nationalism and democracy”. “Mawdudi further elaborated his ideas within a Pakistan in which the concept of ‘Muslim nationalism’ was obviously not working” (Ayubi, 1991, pp. 128-129). According to the Mawdudi-Qutb thesis, “the Muslim’s belonging and allegiance should be to his religion alone. Any patriotic or nationalist loyalty is therefore regarded as pagan” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 145). “The idea that Islam and ethnicity are antithetical and antagonistic also appears in the thinking of Islamists such as Egypt’s Sayyid Qutb, who consigns ethnicity, tribalism, and nationalism to the category of the jahiliyya” (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 100). Tablighi jama’at too emphasizes that it has nothing to do with states, but with the Muslim identity (P. Van der Veer). “Overpoliticization of the Islamic utopia- a yearning for the holistic implementation of the three pillars of Islam (faith-religion, life-world, and state) - leads to totalizing conceptions of identity, religion, and state” (N. Göle, 1996, p. 21).

But, there are also those Islamists who may be called, according to, among others, Ayubi (1991), “the Islamic liberals” who put a relative emphasis on “national independence” (p. 212). Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) argue that “Islam is neither especially religio-political, nor particularly hostile to ethnic and cultural variations. It is neither unprecedentedly revolutionary, nor abnormally resistant to nationalism” (p. x).

As can be observed from differing views, the relationships between ethnicity and Islam and between nationalism and Islam are complex ones, and they deserve to be treated as such.

5. In order to compare the role played by the religious establishment in the rise of political Islam in Turkey and Iran, let us first briefly consider the historical position of the religious establishment in both countries. In the Ottoman Empire, the religious establishment was highly bureaucratised and incorporated into the state's administrative structure. The religious scholars (ulama) did not enjoy any autonomy. In the Republic of Turkey, the institutionalised Sunni Islam has been controlled by the state. The religious establishment in Iran preserved a strong independent position. The ulama in Iran were autonomous. Another important difference between the two religious establishments was that, although the ulama in the Ottoman Empire also had enormous real estate, in Iran, the ulema were and still are, at the same time, big landlords.

In Turkey, political Islam arose in opposition to the official religious establishment that is controlled by the state. I write “the official religious establishment”, for there exists an “underground” Sunni religious establishment as well, in the form of the Sufi movement that formed the basis of political Islam. (A significant percentage of the population in Turkey belongs to the branch of Islam called Alawi. But, political Islam in Turkey is a Sunni movement). As Erik Jan Zürcher pointed out, tarikats were not allied with the state, and they, especially the Naksibendi, organised opposition to the political system. A branch of this order emerged openly as political Islam at the end of the 1960s in the form of a political party. Iran's political Islam stemmed from the religious establishment itself, which was in opposition to the political regime of the late Shah. Political Islam did not take the form of a political party. Through the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, the religious establishment in Iran took over the state power. In other words, political Islam organised itself as state power.

The visions of ‘Ali Shari’ati and Khomeini cannot be conceived as traditional Shi’i visions. According to Eickelman and Piscatori (1996), ‘Ali Shari’ati was an innovator, not a traditional thinker. He was against the idea of an official clergy. To his mind, too, priestly intermediaries between God and the believers are not required (p. 156). In discussing the attempt by a few thinkers to create “a new radical Islamic theology” since the seventies and the eighties, Ayubi (1991) notes in passing, although indirectly, that ‘Ali Shari’ati also attempted to create “a new radical Islamic theology” (p. 60).

Khomeini’s thinking made an extraordinary trip from the view that government should not necessarily be in the hands of the Islamic scholars to the view that Islam cannot be separated from government and politics. In his 1941 book, Kashf al-asrar, he pronounced, among other things, that “the institution of kingship is permissible” and that government should not necessarily be in the hands of the faqih. He argued, however, that “ ‘government must be run in accordance with God’s law ...and it is not feasible except with the supervision of the religious leaders’ (cited in Fischer, 1980, p. 152) (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 49). But, in the 1960s he began to formulate a theory of Islamic government that put the jurists at the centre of power. In his theory, the “guardianship of the jurist” (vilayat-i faqih) “becomes the imperative of Islamic government, and the obligation to obey it is essential” (1996, p. 49). Ayubi (1991) paraphrases Fischer: “By 1960, Khomeini was claiming the legacy of the Iranian Constitution (of 1906) for the ulama, and by the seventies he was arguing that monarchy was altogether incompatible with Islam” (p. 147). Towards the end of his life, Khomeini even “declared that the [Islamic] regime is empowered to curtail provisions of the shari’a in order to protect the regime” (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 50). The “primacy of the ‘political’ in Khomeini’s concept of Islamic government” became “crystal clear, with his issuing of the controversial proclamations of December 1987-January 1988 concerning the powers of the Islamic State” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 151). There took place “the transformation of Khomeini’s political theory from a conventional ‘advisory’ one to an innovative action-oriented one” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 147).

What is unconventional or unorthodox in the theories of ‘Ali Shari’ati and of Khomeini? Before answering this question, let us consider a historically very important fact in the Shi’i tradition. It must be emphasised that in the Shi’i tradition the Imamate occupies a central position. In the dominant Shi’i tradition (”Twelver”), “hopes of Shi’i rule were decisively abandoned by the death of the eleventh Imam, al-Hasan al-’Askari (845-73), and his position accordingly acquired superhuman, divinely appointed qualities in the late ninth and tenth centuries” (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, p. 48). Matthijs van den Bos pointed out that following the death of the eleventh Imam, there occurred confusion among the Shi’is. In 874, the twelfth Imam (Muhammad al-Mahdi) went into hiding. After the death of the fourth messenger, every contact was broken between the twelfth Imam and the community. Thus, a clergy arose in Iran. Eickelman and Piscatori (1996) write:

Following the occultation (ghayba) of the last Imam in 941, the question of who represents him intensely complicated the Shi’i theory of religio-political rule. The ‘ulama positioned themselves as the heirs and defenders of the Imamate, but political rule largely came to be viewed as illegitimate in the absence of the Imam. The state was thus essentially an invalid institution as long as the Imam was not himself present to rule. Not until the advent of the Islamic revolution, which redefined the nature of the Islamic state, were the ‘ulama anything more than the guardians of the religious traditions, the moral critics of the regime, or, perhaps more often, the legitimizers of secular rule (p. 48).

Nevertheless, the Shi’i ulama, as Ayubi (1991) points out, “often collaborated with those in political power, especially after Shi’ism had become the state religion of Persia in the sixteenth century” (p. 62).

‘Ali Shari’ati was one of the Muslim intellectuals who criticised the role of the ulama in their societies. He considered them as allies of the existing authorities and questioned the role of the ulama. Shari’ati argued that there was no need for priestly intermediaries between God and man, and he called the official clergy “long-bearded demagogues”. He was of the opinion that “a clergy should not exist in Islam”. ‘In his view, Iran’s ‘ulama “were second-class scholars” who have erroneously claimed hereditary and “monopolistic” powers (1996, p. 70). He also attempted to create “a new radical Islamic theology” that departed from the Shi’i tradition.

“While the idea that the faqih (jurisconsult) has a right to act as a political ruler is not entirely new to Shi’i political theory, Khomeini’s theory of the ‘guardianship of the jurisconsult’ (wilayat-i faqih) does, at the very least, ‘represent an unexpected revival of an old, dormant theme’” (Enayat paraphrased in Ayubi 1991, p. 146). What Khomeini did was to bring the concept of the “guardianship of the jurisconsult” “to the fore as the form of Islamic government that should be applied without delay. What is particularly important is Khomeini’s call to the Shi’is to end their traditional wait for the hidden imam to appear and to involve themselves directly and immediately in an Islamic government” (Huwaidi paraphrased in Ayubi, 1991, p. 154). Thus, the concept of the “guardianship of the jurisconsult” “‘legitimised for the Shi’is the act of bringing to an end their doctrinal boycott of government’ ”(Ayubi, 1991, p. 155).

In Khomeini’s theory, all responsibilities and powers of the Prophet, “with the obvious exception of the privilege of receiving the divine revelation” “have been devolved on the ulama after the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam”. His theory represents “a radical departure from the classical Shi’i view of government” (1991, p. 147). Taking over power by the religious scholars is unconventional in the history of Shi’ism. In Khomeini’s theory, the emphasis shifts from the shari’a to the jurisconsult. As Ayubi (1991) points out, Khomeini has carried his theory to its logical conclusion, “emphasising that his guardianship (now analogous to that of the Prophet) is absolute, even if it contradicts the stipulations of the shari’a. It is now the government that is supreme, not the shari’a, the State, not the ideology” (p. 151).

6. The book of N. Göle (1996), “The Forbidden Modern, Civilization and Veiling”, explores the significance of the veiling movement in Turkey through a multilayered analysis of power relations (p. 1).

Göle argues that veiling refers to the political reappropriation of Islamic religiosity and way of life. It reveals the centrality of the gender question and sexuality. Islamic veiling is a discursive symbol that conveys political meanings. It is the outcome of a new interpretation of Islam by recently urbanised and educated social groups.

In Turkey, modernisation was defined by the emancipation of women. The women’s situation is not exclusively women’s; it is a political issue. In Turkish modernisation, women are the agents of modernity. The fundamental issue was the sexual identity and social position of women. With the onset of the republican era, women became leading actors in the civilisational change. The cost of women’s liberation may be witnessed in the repression of her femininity and individuality.

In the post-1980s period, veiling has become the symbol of Islamization, and it is women who serve as the emblem of politicised Islam. Once again, the female body has become a site for displaying societal preferences. Veiling as a political statement is most often seen among female university students. They cover themselves by their own will and seek opportunities in modernism. Behind the political Islamic movement, women have opted to develop life strategies to claim their individuality. Militant in society and traditional in the private sphere is the idealised image of women as held by political Islamism. Nevertheless, women question this ideal image. The will of women to participate in social life, along with fulfilling their motherhood tasks, provides a ground for dispute between Muslim men and women.

Islamic women have begun to redefine the Muslim female identity through their entrance into the social sphere. Their definitive transition from the position of ‘objects’ to that of ‘subjects’ is underway. The radical Islamist movement has enabled women to emerge as collective social actors.

Göle's book has both strengths and weaknesses. One of the strongest sides of her book is her “method of sociological intervention”, which, in her own words, “gives priority to the agency and relationality of social actors”. This method “seeks to produce knowledge from in-depth and continuous interactions between social actors and the sociologist” (1996, pp. 87-88). She incorporates “the interpretation of the religion and of the movement itself from the eyes of the Islamist actors” in her analysis. She avoids taking a black-and-white political stance on the question under discussion. Without taking an open political position, she employs a sociological approach. She tries to be as objective as possible.

One of the merits of her book is the historical approach to the question. On the basis of historical and contemporary facts regarding the struggles between traditionalism, Islamism, reformism, and Westernism, she makes it very clear that the women's question is mainly a political one.

She also thoroughly investigates the position of women, especially the segregation of the sexes in Islam. She makes it very clear that veiling women maintains the boundaries between the sexes and preserves order in the community. It could easily be observed from the book that the isolation and veiling of women is a tool that strengthens the division of labour on the basis of sex.

It becomes crystal clear from her book that the so-called Islamic veiling is more than a traditional covering of the woman's body, but a far-reaching political symbol. Political Islam has made women the bearers of Islamic ideology. Islamic veiling is not only a symbol against Westernism, modernism, etc. and a way of crossing the boundaries of traditional Islam for the newly urbanised and educated Islamic women, but also a weapon against male-dominated relations among the political Islamists themselves.

There are also some problems with Göle's book. I have to say that the book contains some “unhealthy” generalisations and one-sided or exaggerated points. Annelies Moors was right when she criticised Göle, as she stressed, in a one-sided manner, the free choice of Islamic women to cover themselves. Göle sketches too big a contrast between coercive and free choice. She neglects the religious and social factors that force women to cover themselves.

Without making any distinction between Islamic and leftist revolutionaries in general and between different leftist ideological and political currents in particular, Göle (1996) argues that, according to “the shared belief of all revolutionaries, whether Islamic or leftist”, “all problems will be solved after the revolution” (p. 120). This kind of approach in social or political life, I consider a “wholesale approach” that should be avoided. Besides, Göle contradicts herself when she maintains that Islamic “revolutionaries” are of the opinion that “all problems will be solved after the revolution.” She contradicts herself because throughout her book, it becomes clear that political Islamists, who represent certain social forces, intervene in the social and political life of Turkey in order to change the relationships that exist in the society. Göle (1996) writes that:

The contemporary Islamist movement recreates the Muslim identity, erased in the collective memory by modernism, in a collective vein and turns it into a social actor. This process, which has accelerated since the 1980s, in fact began, along with the formation of civil society, in the 1950s. Behind the political rise of the Islamist movements lies the upward mobility of new social groups and their increasing social participation (p. 132).

As can be seen, political Islamists have no intention to postpone their effort with regard to the solution of what they perceive as the problems of society. They have been and are active in every aspect of society: economic, social, ideological, political, and educational. They have been one of the most active social and political forces in Turkey.

Another ill-founded assertion of Göle (1996) is that “the Muslim identity” was “erased in the collective memory by modernism” (p. 132). One could speak of the Muslim identity being pushed to the background by bourgeois economic, social, ideological and political development, but it cannot seriously be maintained that the Muslim identity was erased in the collective memory of Turkey. It seems that, among other things, Göle forgets the powerful underground organisations' connections and influence within the Sufi movement. You can speak of the revival of Muslim identity, but not of its recreation.

I also find the assertion of Göle (1996) problematic that Islamic women identify Muslim men “as the main source of oppression and domination of women” (p. 129). I think that she tends to generalise too easily and too much.

To my mind, exaggeration and one-sidedness undermine Göle's thinking.

                                                  II

1 a. According to Ayyubi, “a certain element of equilibrium and balance is presumed among three powers” (the caliph, the ulama and the judges) in the legal process in the Islamic State (Nazih N. Ayubi, Political Islam, Religion and Politics in the Arab World, 1991, pp. 22-23). The caliph acts “as guardian of the community and the faith” while “the ulama or religious scholars are involved in the function of rendering religio-legal advice”. Ayubi (1991) maintains that at various times the ulama had enjoyed “a certain degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the ruler” (p. 33). He adds that the ulama's autonomy was limited. Ayubi (1991) further argues that, in comparison with the political elites, the ulama enjoyed “a relatively high degree of symbolic autonomy, but only minimal organisational autonomy” (p. 34).

Ruud Peters argues that Ayubi suggests a too simplistic relationship between the state (the ruler) and the producers of ideas (the ulama), and generalises too much. According to Peters, Ayubi maintains that the ulama were subordinate to the Sultan, were paid by the state, and were consequently dependent on Islamic principles and on what they wrote about them. Peters is of the opinion that although the ulama were dependent on the state, because they mostly had two jobs, their dependence was not direct. The ulama were not mere mouthpieces for the state, but often had to legitimise the political system. Having this kind of authority means they enjoyed some independence from the state.

1 b. Ayubi (1991) is of the opinion that Islam does not possess “a theory of politics and the State”. He points out that “political Islam” is a new invention, a modern phenomenon that “does not represent a ‘going back’ to any situation that existed in the past or to any theory that was formulated in the past” (p. 3). It is “the doctrine and/or movement which contends that Islam possesses a theory of politics and the State” (Ayubi, 1991, p. ix). But “the original Islamic sources (the Quran and the Hadith) have very little to say on matters of government and the State” (Ayubi, 1991, pp. 1-2). There was, however, a close link between religion and politics. In other words, there was “a certain fusion between religion and politics throughout the history of the Islamic State” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 3). In the past, religion was used to give “a religious legitimacy to political power”. In other words, the politics was Islamised- ‘Islamised politics’. According to political Islam, religion and politics cannot be separated, but it wants to reverse the order within the link between religion and politics. In place of using religion to legitimise the activities of the state, the political Islamists want to use Islam to resist the political power. In other words, “they are seeking the politicisation of a particular vision of religion that they have in mind” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 3) - “politicised Islam”. Historically, this is new regarding the relations between religion and politics: not legitimising, but challenging the state. Writing about “the historical origin of the convergence between religion and politics” that was “the increasing necessity for imposing various types of tax on the Muslims themselves”. Ayubi (1991) points out that

Religion and politics were thus brought together in the historical Islamic State by way of the State appropriating religion. Political Islam now reverses the historical process - it claims “generic” Islam for the protest movements, leaving to the state the more difficult task of qualifying and justifying its own “version” of Islam (p. 5).

2. The Muslim Brotherhood was the first fundamentalist organisation in Egypt, which was established in 1928. Its leader was Hasan al-Banna. The development of political Islam, in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, passed through several stages characterised by the tactics or methods used. In the 1930s, political Islam was not yet politically crystallised. In its early phase, the Muslim Brotherhood was primarily a missionary (al-da’wa) organisation. It was mainly engaged in spreading the Islamic call. Over time, it became more politicised. In the 1940s, it became a mass organisation and a political force to be reckoned with. After the Second World War, the Muslim Brotherhood was engaged in jihad (”exertion, striving or struggling by all means, including military ones” [Ayubi, 1991, p. 254]).

In the 1950s, the Muslim Brotherhood became more aggressive, and physical exercises were introduced. At the beginning of the “revolution” in Egypt, there was cooperation between “the Free Officers” and the Muslim Brothers under the leadership of Sayyid Qutb. The Muslim Brotherhood was close to participation in government and to infiltrating the state, but it did not realise it (Ayubi, 1991, p. 138). After the attempted assassination of Nasser, there began the second phase in which the followers of al-da’wa split with the advocates of jihad, who were influenced by the ideas of Sayyid Qutb. In the 1960s, Sayyid Qutb called for jihad against political leaders who were unwilling to introduce an Islamic system in Egypt (Roel Meijer, Tussen jihad, missie en partijpolitiek, Soera, December 1997).

Under Sadat, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were released from prison at the beginning of the 1970s. Then, under the leadership of Umar Tilmissani, there began the third phase in the development of political Islam in Egypt, namely al-hizbiyya or party politics - participation in the parliamentary system. But there were differences between the mainstream Islamic fundamentalism and the neo-fundamentalists or “neo-Ikhwanist” groups who oppose al-hizbiyya. After the assassination of Sadat in September 1981, the whole leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood was arrested, and the relations between the state and political Islamists deteriorated. Over the years, under Mubarak, relations between the state and the Muslim Brotherhood were again normalised. Although the Muslim Brotherhood was not officially legalised, it took part in various elections through coalitions with recognised political parties.

But in the 1990s, according to Roel Meijer, this trend was, however, reversed: The Muslim Brotherhood found the leaders of its third generation in jail, its political alliance threatened, and its party headquarters closed down. According to Meijer, the 1987 elections marked a turning point in the relationship with the state. The Muslim Brotherhood won a substantial number of seats in parliament and made inroads in the professional organisations. It turned the Labour Party into an Islamic party. By all these, the Muslim Brotherhood antagonised the state.

Only the Muslim Brotherhood does not represent political Islam. There are other groups that could be called the “neo-fundamentalists”. “They have a more militant ideological outlook, and believe in the necessity of challenging the whole existing order” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 73). Al- Takfir w’al-Hijra (”excommunication and emigration”) is one of the most widely publicised of these groups. Al-Jihad (struggle or crusade) is another neo-fundamentalist group that, according to Ayubi, is currently of greater importance. Al-Jihad is “more oriented towards organised action, and rather than withdrawing from contemporary society”. Ideologically, all the neo-fundamentalist groups believe that religion cannot be separated from politics, and the shari’a must be applied immediately and by force if appropriate (Ayubi, 1991, pp. 79-80).

There is also a generation gap in the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The first generation (the old guard) still holds leadership of the movement. In January 1996, the younger generation of the Brotherhood founded a new party, called Hizb al-Wasat and applied for recognition, but in vain.

The development of political Islam in Jordan followed a different path than in Egypt. The Hashemite rulers of Jordan “have increasingly followed a policy of cooperation with, and cooptation of, the ulama, and have striven to appear as the sponsors of an intellectual and cultural Islamic tradition” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 94). According to Ayubi, the Muslim Brothers from Egypt and Palestine were active in Jordan in the second half of the thirties. In 1953, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood was publicly declared. Between 1954 and 1967, the Muslim Brothers in Jordan, unlike in Egypt, enjoyed a degree of relative freedom. In contrast with the Egyptian case, the Muslim Brotherhood was a legal movement in Jordan. It became “in effect an essential component of the Hashemite regime”, while the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was in bitter conflict with the Egyptian state. The Muslim Brotherhood managed to penetrate the Jordanian state by the middle of a tacit coalition with the Jordanian monarchy (Meijer). On the other hand, it meant the state could control the movement. The monarchy and the Muslim Brotherhood used each other against their internal and external adversaries. Until 1956, the Muslim Brotherhood operated as a charitable society. In the October 1956 elections, it was allowed to participate as a political party. In 1957, martial law was established, and political parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, were banned.  The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan once more became a social organisation. This period lasted till the late 1970s.

The 1970s witnessed the Islamic revival, and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood returned to open activity. In the November 1989 elections, the Muslim Brotherhood was very successful (Meijer). The Muslim Brotherhood was even represented in a new cabinet that was announced on 1 January 1991. Before the elections of 1993, the Muslim Brotherhood “embraced the principle of hizbiyya openly by establishing the Islamic Action Front” (Meijer, December 1997, p. 18). In Egypt, there was never a legal, political mass party. The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan participated directly as a political party in various parliamentary elections, whereas the Egyptian Muslim Brothers were denied the right to participate directly in elections.

Both in Egypt and Jordan, “the tacit agreement” between the state and the Muslim Brotherhood was “also directed against the radical Islamic movement”. The most important militant movement challenging the monarchy and the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is the Islamic Liberation Party, established in Jerusalem in 1953. “It is unique among Islamic movements in declaring itself openly as a political party whose principle is Islam and whose activity is politics”. It aims to re-establish the Islamic caliphate as a unitary, not a federated, State for all Muslims worldwide (Ayubi, 1991, p. 97).

As in Egypt, the Islamic movement in Jordan has infiltrated civil society. Younger generation members established strong positions in professional organisations (Meijer, December 1997, p. 16).

While the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is led by a new generation of leaders who have little to do with the radical past, which was, as a whole, scanty, in Egypt, the first generation of leaders is still in power (Meijer December, 1997, p. 35). There was close cooperation between the Muslim Brotherhood and the monarchy in Jordan, and in response to this, “legal oppositional Islamic currents” emerged “since the 1980s outside the Brotherhood as independents”. There exist similarities between them and the members of Hizb al-Wasat and the third-generation members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They both belong to the younger generation of Islamists and are both clearly visible for their presence in the elite professional organisations, and are both subjected to harsh state repression in the 1990s (Meijer). (In answering this question, I also made use of Meijer’s paper “From al-da’wa to al-hizbiyya: Mainstream Islamic movements in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine in the 1990s”).

3.There exist different views with regard to the relationship between Islam, nationalism (the nation-state) and internationalism/ transnationalism among political Islamists. One of the matters in dispute is whether nationalism is compatible with Islam. Those who argue that there can be no compatibility of Islam with nationalism or the nation-state advocate for a unitary state for all Muslims - a pan-Islamic state. They could be called “internationalist/transnationalist political Islamists”.  The ones who see no incompatibility of Islam with the nation-state strive to establish an Islamic state within the national boundaries. The relationship between Islam, the nation-state and internationalism is, among other things, the question of human rulership or absolute rulership of God. Who has the sovereignty: God or the human being?

According to those who advocate that Muslims must be loyal to the umma and not to the state, they argue that most Muslims refuse the idea of the nation-state. As far as they are concerned, the interests of the umma take precedence over everything else. The counter-argument is that the idea of territorial pluralism (the nation-state) is accepted by Muslims. In the modern period, people everywhere in the “Islamic world” will establish nation-states. A system of nation-states emerged that no one can escape, and this system runs counter to the umma ideology (Peter van der Veen). Da’wa, yes, but the interests of the state, especially the economic interests, come first. The pure Islamic foreign policy is not possible, since the foreign policy is conducted by means of a secular state system. There is nationalisation or privatisation of Islam as a religion. Da’wa forms a part of the foreign policy, but not to propagate umma, but for the benefit of the so-called national interests and the religious solidarity is subordinated to those interests. International organisations of the “Islamic countries” pretend that the umma is the aim, yet the interest of the state is the most important thing (Paul Aarts). As far as the state-to-state relations are concerned, the “Islamic internationalism” or “Islamic supranationalism” is still weak.

Eickelman and Piscatori maintain (1996) that “the compatibility of Islam and nationalism is beyond doubt”. There exists “de facto pluralism”, which “explains why pan-Islamic political integration has been minimal”. There were several factors which limited “the prospects for pan-Islamic integration”. There were already “forceful divisions among Muslim political entities” by the time of the abolishment of the caliphate by the Turkish state in March 1924. Most of the Islamist groups have not called for the restoration of the caliphate; rather, they “seek to establish an Islamic state or Islamic order within their own national societies”. The Islamic Liberation Party, established in Jerusalem in 1952 (according to Ayubi, in 1953), has been a major exception to this pattern. The leader of this party, Taqi al-Din al-Nabahani, called for “the creation of one Islamic state” and “the restitution of the caliphate” (1996, p. 138). “It aims at re-establishing the Islamic caliphate as a unitary, not a federated, State for all Muslims in the world” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 97).

The question of sovereignty is a major, or perhaps the major, matter in dispute in political Islam. In the context of sovereignty, the ideological role of the Pakistani Abu al-A’la al-Mawdudi forcefully enters the discussion. Mawdudi was one of the most important ideologues of Islamic transnationalism. He advocated for establishing a pan-Islamic state. What Mawdudi wanted was “not a Muslim State but an Islamic State”. He argues that an Islamic State (”i.e. that Islam is both religion and politics”) is “an ‘ideological State’, that should be run only by those who believe in the ideology on which it is based [the Quran and the Sunna] and in the Divine Law which it is assigned to administer” (Mawdudi in Ayubi, 1991, p. 128). That is why he propagated strongly “against nationalism and democracy”. In his view, nationalism was a non-Islamic influence. Mawdudi’s key concept was the total sovereignty and rulership of God- the concept of God’s hakimiyya. In order to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, the kingdom of man must be destroyed. In the past, religion was used to legitimise the regime, but now, religion is used to challenge the state. It is a revolt against human rulership to establish the total and absolute sovereignty of God. The main thrust of the ideas of Mawdudi (and of Sayyid Qutb’s)  “revolves around adherence to the principle of ‘God’s absolute rulership” (al-hakimiyya l’illah) and a belief in the total pagan ignorance (jahiliyya) of all contemporary governments caused by their failure to apply this principle and to enforce the application of religious law (shari’a)” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 66). In Mawdudi’s view “the Muslim’s belonging and allegiance should be to his religion alone. Any patriotic or nationalist loyalty is therefore regarded as pagan” (‘Abd al-Jawwad Yasin paraphrased in Ayubi, 1991, p. 145). The ideas of Mawdudi, especially the one concerning modern jahiliyya, had influenced several fundamentalist groups all over the “Muslim world” and became “a major source of the doctrine of political Islam” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 129). Qutb was one of the most influential fundamentalist thinkers influenced by the ideas of Mawdudi. It must be concluded that Mawdudi’s ideological contribution to the emergence of the “Muslim transnationalism” has been enormous.

4. Ayubi (1991) points out that there is an emerging “alternative ‘Islamic’ network of banks, companies and social services” in the Arab world, but “this network can be described as ‘Islamic’ only in a very tenuous sense”. That is why he writes affirmatively about Samir Amir’s view with regard to an “Islamic political economy” that “there is no essentialist ‘Islamic political economy’ that one can speak of regardless of historical contingencies or social forces” (p. 199). Writing about traditional Islamic politics, Ayubi (1991) argues that, since the original Islamic sources (the Quran and the Hadith) contain very little on politics, it was “shaped less by Islam as a belief system and more by the nature of the modes of production and the economic requirements and cultural traditions of the territories that eventually formed the Islamic dominion” (p. 30). The character of the dominant mode of production, beginning with ‘Umar, in Ayubi’s view, was “tributary” and lasted for many centuries. Ayubi (1991) points out that “ ‘Umar made a strategic decision in ordering that the [conquered] land would become public property, ‘leased’ to those who cultivated it in return for tribute (kharaj)” (p. 31). Ayubi (1991) writes

The resulting constellation of modes of production (articulated with each other in different ways at different places) was largely control-based: the State had a fairly direct control over the producers (initially farmers but increasingly merchants and artisans and a few miners as well). The relations of production - but specifically the relations of distribution - were decided politically (and militarily) rather than ‘technically’ and economically (p. 31).

It should be concluded that there existed no Islamic political economy that was supposedly contained in the original Islamic sources. Ayubi (1991), however, speaks of a “parallel economy”. The so-called Islamic banks, companies and social services, according to Ayubi, should be regarded more as part of a powerful parallel economy than as part of the “Islamic revival” (p. 195)

Ayubi (1991) is not of the opinion that the radical Islamic organisations have been engaged in establishing economic enterprises in any big and organised way: “Rather, it is the rising native mercantile bourgeoisie that has stretched its hand to the Islamic movement in order to impart to itself a certain element of religious legitimacy” (p. 193). Regarding the practices of the so-called Islamic banks, Ayubi (1991) argues that “these banks can be described as ‘Islamic’ only in a very broad and generalised sense” (p. 183).  He emphasises that there was nothing “Islamic” about “the origins of the Islamic banking formula”. The idea originated from “the local development of cooperative/savings banks that were established in the Egyptian countryside in the sixties”. Some “Islamic” banks get around “the perceived Islamic prohibition of riba (usury)” and “other prohibited dealings” by delegating “the job of investing in international markets to conventional banks that act on their behalf” (Ayubi, 1991, pp. 178-183). In discussing the question of interest which is “prohibited because it is a positive, predetermined return on capital”, Ayubi (1991) draws the attention to the fact that “the main bulk of Arab surplus funds” is “ ‘placed’ at Western interest-paying financial institutions, which in turn extended interest-taking credits to Third World countries - with Arab countries alone suffering an external indebtedness of $136 billion in 1984” (p. 179). Ayubi (1991) maintains that “the Islamic banks which are part of the mainstream phenomenon of ‘petro-Islam’ and, as such, are closely linked to the world capitalist order” (p. 195). “The larger Islamic banks belong more closely to the ‘corporate international bourgeoisie’ ”  (Ayubi, 1991, p. 199).

The so-called Islamic “money utilisation companies” represent “an ascending local capitalism with an Islamic face, rather than the economic wing of a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement”. It does not, however, mean that members of the Islamic movement have not played a role in these companies. For example, members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are also active within the “parallel economy” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 73). The Islamic revival in the 1970s and 1980s influenced the rise of so-called Islamic companies. In spite of the religious rhetoric “these companies are more a part of the parallel economy than they are a part of the Islamic revival: they are part of a native mercantile capitalism which, because of its origins and experience, is likely to be culturally conservative and therefore, incidentally, inclined to be sympathetic to the Islamic tradition” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 191).  The money utilisation companies “are mainly an outcome of the spillovers (outside the Gulf) of the petroleum phenomenon” (Ayubi, 1991, p. 195). (The owners of these companies worked or lived abroad, usually in the Gulf countries.

Ayubi (1991) maintains that the “Islamic” social services, too, are a part of a parallel capitalist economy or “capitalism with an Islamic face”. In his view, together with the larger money utilisation companies, “some of the large commercially-run hospitals and schools represent the movement of a rising native commercial bourgeoisie” (pp. 198-199).

In Ayubi’s conception of an “Islamic political economy”, it is obvious that Islam provides the ideological costume for a rising capitalist private sector with an “Islamic face”. It could be said that, just as Calvinism provided the ideological costume for the rising bourgeoisie in Western Europe in the past, now, Sunnism provides the ideological costume for the rising “Islamic bourgeoisie” in the “Islamic world”.

A. H Yalaz
1998