Historical Background of Political Islam - Essay Sample

Introduction

Political Islam means interpretation of Islam as the political identity source and action. Many scholars have adopted it for them to be able to identify the unprecedented irruption of the Islamic religion politics’ secular domain. Therefore, they can differentiate the practices from the personal piety forms, believes, and rituals. This essay will discuss the historical background of political Islam, its concepts, frameworks, the radical interpretation of some Quranic verses the Islamist militants’ political gain, and Maududi, Qutb, and Khomeini's influence in modern political Islam. Additionally, the essay also talks about the aspirations and the Islamist militant activities, the connection between political Islam and Muslim militancy, and the lessons learned from political Islam. There is also discussion on the path forward to counter the political Islam.

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In the last decades, Islam became the standard and crucial point of reference to a broad fluctuation of political scenes, opposition movement, and arguments. Political Islam uses religion to offer a moral critique of society and politics, modernize its goals, and focus on massive mobilization. Political Islam began during the colonial eras of the 19th and the 20th centuries, where the Islamic term began to be positively spread. The Islamic religion and politics started to evolve as it approached the 20th century to modernize and feature great thinkers like Abduh and Sayyid Ahmen Khan.

Twentieth Century

In the twentieth century, there were three primary antecedent movements, which were identified by Rashid Khalidi. The organizations are Wahhabis, who had unity with the Saud family in the early 1700s. The other is Ikhwan, which is a society of Muslim Brotherhood or Brothers that was established in the year 1928 in Egypt. The final one is Shiite political activism, which was started in Iran in the 19th century and later spread to Lebanon, then Iraq. These three movements developed separately. For Wahhabi’s case, it took a negative position on the Shiim like the Muslim Brotherhood, which grew from a historical context that is separate together with its founders and secular intellectuals. The Muslim Brotherhood only impacted Egypt until the 1960s, after 30 years of its finding.

The Muslim Brotherhood has followed a different trajectory from the Wahhabis and Shiite activism in 1979, where it was. Up to date, it remained an opposition movement. It emerged again in the 1920s Egypt concept that the officials are independent but still under British colonialism. It started small but eventually grew steadily in the 20th century. It offered a different position than more secular organizations.

Muslim Activities

Muslim activities' new claim is always to put Islam for politics for one instance and be authorized. Some parties like Hizb al-‘Amal and Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) refer their appeal to the Islamic qualifications, which epitomize the religion's relation. Many scholars base their argument that political Islam has an unauthorized Islamic tradition extension outside the domain of the religion occupied.

Furthermore, the central ongoing process of the modern building nationwide, including social welfare, school (education), worship, and family, has been in the corporation to various degrees between the regulatory apparatus of modernizing the state. The state is always present to act as a guarantor or overseer when any activity is carried out. Some activities are either in case you want to add a house, punish your children, selling any item like wears on the streets or in any of the birth, marriages, and death ceremonies.

Modern politics and power forms implement specified conditions for numerous activities in an emotional state. In the religion sector, the extent enables institutions to cultivate religious values within the legal structures linked to the country. For both public and private schools in Egypt, circumcision is always mandated and sponsored by the government. Those will to practice and maintain the Islamic culture's pedagogical practices should ensure that they engage in power.

Case Movements

The case movements do contemporary Islamic activism forms that can capture their state. Most of them involve preaching together with missionary activities referred to as da‘wa. The above activities aim to give, support the mosques' build, provide medical care, and promote what is considered public in society via community action. In addition, the activities engage a political domain that is subjected to restrictions imposed by the state. They compete with the state impounded institutions, which lead to the promotion of the family, social responsibility, and worship in the western model style.

The above argument diverges from a common one where Islam merges politics and religion, also referred to as din dawla, in a way that is not compatible with the Western's analytical categories. The voices that are heard frequently deny that the Muslims can draw the difference between din and dawla. Domains designed by specified particulars and interrelation structures do not replicate Europe's situation. It leaves aside that the division between religion and politics has always been far and absorbent than the antecedent made assumption. Tocqueville's observation was done a long time ago, the protestant Christianity played a vital role in the United States politics to settle the moral boundaries, and moral concern within the discussion of political unfolds can be considered a political institution of the premiere. Higher recognition will always be given concepts of the West, sharing a specific reflection on historical developments.

The political motivation and class of interest discussions will always continue to be essential parts of contemporary Islam accounts. Some statements have been too long in de rigueur in Islamic accounts’ sahwa (awakening). The statements include elites of marginalized males' experience of the socioeconomic disparities as the loss of culture. They participate in the fundamentalist cadres to militarize against the national structures that execute as an Islamic as they are ineffective. Like those above, some of the analyses reduce the movement of expressing socioeconomic conditions that may raise them.

Better Understanding

Additionally, to get better understanding of political Islam, we will view and analyze some of the political scenarios under religion's influence. Some of the tragic events in Iraq where ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) are currently mounting an offensive force against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appear to be consistent with Blair’s concern. The political Islam rise poses very vital questions for people living in the Middle East and western policymakers. The thrust of the western nations and security towards the MENA countries aimed at the containment of radical Islam forms. It meant copying up with the authoritarian regimes since they were seen as superior to theocratic alternatives.

In 2013 when the Egyptian military brought down President Mohamed Morsi, there was a tremendous and significant relief among many in America, Washington. One of the MENA countries' narratives is that they see religion in politics as a sign of backwardness and as something that can make nations wither away from development, advancement, and democracy. Additionally, it associates and views religiosity. Some theocrats believe in how society can be ruled or governed.

In most Islamic countries, individual religiosity, a poor predictor for voting policy preferences and voting behavior, does not predict them reliably. Whatever is righteous or not says little about whom one will vote during the election period or when one thinks of specific policy issues. It ought to be shed on some benefits of doubt on the Islamic role as a particular source of agenda for ideology.

Individual-level study of the data from Egypt, Palestinian territories, and Algeria indicates that Islam has a less impact on the political attitude, especially towards democracy, and little power for explaining themselves, especially in the Arabic countries. In addition, in Lebanon, religiosity is not a significant factor in political activism. In the case of the world's most populated Muslim nations like Indonesia, religiosity is also not the determinant in explaining the voting behavior in that country in 1999 and 2004. The Islamic ideology in that country does not explain support for religious-based parties. In central Asia, religion does not influence the preferences of democracy and the politics of Islam.

Some of the frameworks include the religious scripts that help incubate the political aims, especially when we know the interpretations for the specified hands that are liable for changes as requested by political interests and maneuvers. In this concept, Abu Baker Al Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham, did a restoration of slavery. The female slaves were sold in the streets to satisfy the militants and attract the new ones. Instead, to maintain the Christians' presence within the ISIS territories as it happened to the early stages of Islam and got rights, he only looked for the wealth they possessed and looted it under the pretext of fabrication with external powers. The Al Qaeda and ISIS always did approval for the killing of all non-Muslim civilians.

Conclusion

The other framework is the establishment of movements. The Islamist movements are increased in the Arab world, where most nations are Islamic state became disillusioned by the failure of Pan-Arabism to affect the prosperity and seeking of an alternative ideology. The movements had an establishment throughout the Middle East countries like Jordan, Syria, and most Palestinian territories. Additionally, a similar movement known as Ennahda was also formed in Tunisia by Rachid al-Ghannouchi and Abdelfattah Mourou. The activities had a common acceptance for the nation state's existence, where there was a great willingness to participate in the framework legally.