Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror by Mahmood Mamdani Page B
Authors: Mahmood Mamdani
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more the work of non-clerical political intellectuals such as Muhammad Iqbal and Mohammed Ali Jinnah in colonial India, and Abul A’la Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb, and Ali Shariati in postcolonial Pakistan, Egypt, and Iran respectively. The glaring exception was Ayatollah Khomeini. The secular discourse in Iran has tended to resemble that in western Christianity precisely because only in revolutionary Iran has clerical power received constitutional sanction. Whereas fundamentalist clergy were the pioneers of political Christianity, the pioneers of political Islam were not the religious ulama (scholars) but political intellectuals with an exclusively worldly concern. This is another reason why it makes more sense to speak of political Islam—the preferred designation in the Arab world for this movement—than of Islamic fundamentalism, the term most often used in post-9/11 America.
The split between religious ulama and political intellectuals was evident as early as the anticolonial movement in India in the first half of the twentieth century. There, religious and political conservatism did not necessarily go hand in hand: the intellectuals, not the ulama, pioneered the development of Islamist political movements, ultimately championing a call for a separate homeland for Indian Muslims, Pakistan. Contrary to what we might expect, the conservative ulama remained inside the secular IndianNational Congress, whereas modernist secular intellectuals called for an Islamic polity, at first autonomous, then independent. Whereas the ulama made clear distinctions between Islam as a cultural and religious identity and various political identities that Muslims may espouse, secular intellectuals came to insist that Islam was not just a religious or cultural identity; it had become a political identity.
The Indian experience reveals that those who called for nationalist politics were not always progressive, and those who championed religious political nationalism were not all reactionary. The two camps were not divided by the line between democracy and authoritarianism. The poet Muhammad Iqbal and the politician Mohammed Ali Jinnah, both spokespersons for the political rights of Muslims, were determinedly secular in orientation. Iqbal, considered the spiritual founder of Pakistan, was among the few Muslim intellectuals who rejoiced in 1922 when Turkey abolished the Ottoman Khilafat, in effect severing any relationship between the state and religion. He called for the institution of ijtihad (legal interpretation) to be modernized and democratized: he argued that the law should be interpreted by a body elected by the community of Muslims, the umma , and not the ulama. Jinnah, considered the political founder of Pakistan, was similarly determined that independent Pakistan must have a secular constitution, guaranteeing separation between the state and religion and due protection for the rights of minorities.
The shift from a reformist to a radical agenda in political Islam is best understood in the context of the transition from colonialism to postcolonialism, and can be highlighted by the history of a single mass organization, the Society of Muslim Brothers, in Egypt. The society was founded in March 1928 when Hassan al-Banna, a young teacher inspired by the ideas of al-Afghani,among others, heard a plea for action from workers in the town of Ismailiyyah. Echoing al-Afghani, he argued that Muslims must draw on their own historical and cultural resources instead of imitating other peoples, as if they were “cultural mongrels.” The six-point program of action that al-Banna devised focused on creating an extensive welfare organization and disavowed violence.
It was the defeat of Arab armies in 1948 and the subsequent creation of the state of Israel that convinced the society to expend its energies beyond welfare to armed politics: Hassan al-Banna called for the formation of a battalion to fight in Palestine. Said to be a state within a state,
The split between religious ulama and political intellectuals was evident as early as the anticolonial movement in India in the first half of the twentieth century. There, religious and political conservatism did not necessarily go hand in hand: the intellectuals, not the ulama, pioneered the development of Islamist political movements, ultimately championing a call for a separate homeland for Indian Muslims, Pakistan. Contrary to what we might expect, the conservative ulama remained inside the secular IndianNational Congress, whereas modernist secular intellectuals called for an Islamic polity, at first autonomous, then independent. Whereas the ulama made clear distinctions between Islam as a cultural and religious identity and various political identities that Muslims may espouse, secular intellectuals came to insist that Islam was not just a religious or cultural identity; it had become a political identity.
The Indian experience reveals that those who called for nationalist politics were not always progressive, and those who championed religious political nationalism were not all reactionary. The two camps were not divided by the line between democracy and authoritarianism. The poet Muhammad Iqbal and the politician Mohammed Ali Jinnah, both spokespersons for the political rights of Muslims, were determinedly secular in orientation. Iqbal, considered the spiritual founder of Pakistan, was among the few Muslim intellectuals who rejoiced in 1922 when Turkey abolished the Ottoman Khilafat, in effect severing any relationship between the state and religion. He called for the institution of ijtihad (legal interpretation) to be modernized and democratized: he argued that the law should be interpreted by a body elected by the community of Muslims, the umma , and not the ulama. Jinnah, considered the political founder of Pakistan, was similarly determined that independent Pakistan must have a secular constitution, guaranteeing separation between the state and religion and due protection for the rights of minorities.
The shift from a reformist to a radical agenda in political Islam is best understood in the context of the transition from colonialism to postcolonialism, and can be highlighted by the history of a single mass organization, the Society of Muslim Brothers, in Egypt. The society was founded in March 1928 when Hassan al-Banna, a young teacher inspired by the ideas of al-Afghani,among others, heard a plea for action from workers in the town of Ismailiyyah. Echoing al-Afghani, he argued that Muslims must draw on their own historical and cultural resources instead of imitating other peoples, as if they were “cultural mongrels.” The six-point program of action that al-Banna devised focused on creating an extensive welfare organization and disavowed violence.
It was the defeat of Arab armies in 1948 and the subsequent creation of the state of Israel that convinced the society to expend its energies beyond welfare to armed politics: Hassan al-Banna called for the formation of a battalion to fight in Palestine. Said to be a state within a state,
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