Islamism today has many faces: militant groups in Iraq and Lebanon, political parties in Tunisia and Egypt, and regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia. But this umbrella term conceals the fact that these groups use different tactics, tap into different grievances and have different political goals. Lumping them together is a gross oversimplification – it is time for an overview.
Although often associated with terrorist groups, the term Islamism simply denotes a political project inspired by Islam. Current streams of political Islam all belong to a wave of Islamist revivalism, the likes of which was last seen on several occasions between the 11th and 14th centuries. Their goal is the re-Islamisation of their respective societies, and ultimately a state based on the principles of Islam. The three major currents belonging to this wave, however, differ starkly on religious doctrine, on what kind of state to establish, and how to fulfil their objectives. In contrast to adherents of authoritarian Islamism, who believe they have already accomplished the goal of creating an Islamic state, advocates of both revolutionary and electoral Islamism are ‘changists’, seeking to replace incumbent regimes. The latter two disagree, however, on the means to bring about the desired change, as well as on the form of the Islamic state to be achieved.
Islamism and Islamists:
A very short introductionby Florence Gaub
European Union Institute for Security Studies October 2014 2
Although several attempts have been made to restore
the title since the abolishment, the Muslim
consensus necessary to pick the next caliph has
never materialised. Self-proclamations, such as
that recently of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, have no validity in accordance with
Sunni tradition. This absence of a unifying figure
offers some explanation as to why Sunni Islamic
authority is particularly fragmented today.
Around the same time as the fall of the Ottoman
empire, school teacher Hassan al-
Banna founded
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The society
had three objectives, which have since remained
largely the same: social renewal based on Islamic
values, the long-term implementation of traditional
Islamic law, and ending foreign occupation
of Muslim lands (at that time by the United
Kingdom). Al-Banna’s vision was a progressive
and gradual one: he advocated re-Islamisation
through means of charity and information, and
can be seen as the founding father of what is now
the Sunni branch of electoral Islamism.
The foundations of Sunni revolutionary Islamism
were laid down twenty years later by Sayyid
Qutb, also an Egyptian civil servant. Qutb rejected
al-Banna’s incremental approach and believed
that only the violent overthrow of existing
regimes (all of which he considered ‘un-Islamic’)
would lead to the establishment of a fully Islamic
state – a position which led to his execution in
1966. Al-Banna and Qutb, albeit both Muslim
Brothers, symbolise the two factions which have
dominated the re-Islamisation movement since
the 1950s: the progressive/electoral versus the
revolutionary/terrorist approach.
Created shortly after the birth of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia was the first Arab
state to base its existence on Islam. A safe haven
for Islamists persecuted elsewhere in the Arab
world, the country only gained traction as the
region’s ideological powerhouse after the sudden
and exponential production of oil allowed it to
spread its own ‘brand’ of Sunni Islam – Salafism
or Wahabism – from the late 1960s onwards.
Ideological nuances
What is potentially confusing is that every form
of current political Islam claims to be somewhat
influenced by Salafism – but there is disagreement
over what this means in practice amongst
the various contenders. In the decades following
independence, institutional Islamic clergy were
repressed in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia
and Morocco. Salafism therefore began to spread
in the Arab world not only because Saudi Arabia
actively engaged in proselytism, but also because
the theological field had been left vacant.
Salafism as a movement is not necessarily a militant
one. It is a school of thought advocating the
return to the purest form of Islam as practiced by
Muhammad’s ‘companions’ – Salaf meaning ancestors
or predecessors. Today, Salafism is practiced
mainly in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab
Emirates and Qatar – and is strongly influenced
by the conviction that obedience to authority is
key. Proponents of revolutionary Islamism (who
see themselves as the real Salafis) disagree with
this notion, and see all current Muslim governments
as un-Islamic and therefore legitimate targets.
While electoral Islamists such as the Muslim
Brothers sympathise with Salafism’s rhetoric of
Islamic renewal, their progressive approach has,
in practice, meant making concessions on issues
such as gender equality and political pluralism.
Such compromises are, however, rejected by
most Salafi thinkers on the grounds that they
contradict Islamic principles. This explains why
al-Qaeda’s leader al-Zawahiri once wrote an entire
book condemning the Muslim Brotherhood
for acquiescing with Egypt’s leadership ever
since its inception. His recent (contradictory)
vocal support for the organisation following the
ouster of President Muhammad Morsi is a mere
tactical move.
Shiite Islamism lacks these ideological debates,
and does not challenge the revolutionary-turnedauthoritarian
Islamism of Iran. It does, however,
have representatives in both revolutionary and
electoral branches.
The three main streams
▪▪ The children of the revolution
The notion that an Islamic renewal will be triggered
by a revolution began to take root in the
1970s: the defeat against Israel in 1967 exposed
the shortcomings of Islamism’s main political
contender, pan-Arabism, and in 1979, Shia
revolutionary Islamism toppled Iran’s regime.
Ayatollah Khomeini claimed Iranian supremacy
over all Muslims (in spite of the fact that Iran
is a Shia state and around 90% of Muslims are
Sunni) and openly called for an overthrow of the
Gulf monarchies. Sunni revolutionary Islamism,
albeit different in many ways, drew inspiration
European Union Institute for Security Studies October 2014 3
from Iran’s successful example, and has, on occasion,
been funded by Tehran, too.
While the rhetoric emanating from Iran was
frightening enough to its neighbours, actual attempts
to topple first the Saudi regime in 1979
and then the Bahraini one in 1981 confirmed
revolutionary Islamism (whether Sunni or Shia)
as a genuine threat to Arab regimes. Egypt’s
President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981
by Islamic Jihad during a military parade, and
similar groups began to form in Algeria, the
Palestinian territories and Lebanon. Arab governments
chose three broad tactics to counter
revolutionary Islamism: repress their populations,
engage in a sectarian war of words against
Iran, and co-opt certain Islamist groups considered
to be moderate. A fourth tactic emerged
following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979: it provided a welcome opportunity to
actively encourage young men who adhered to
revolutionary Islamism to take up arms against
the communist occupation of Muslim lands.
But the hope that the concept and these men, like
Osama Bin Laden, would fade away in the mountains
of Afghanistan proved false. Revolutionary
Islamism was galvanised
by the Soviet
withdrawal in 1988,
the arrival of American
forces in the Arabian
Peninsula following
the invasion
of Kuwait, and the
Palestine Liberation
Organisation’s renunciation
of violence,
which led to the creation
of Hamas in
1987. Returnees from
Afghanistan began to train in camps in states
such as Sudan, Yemen and Somalia, and established
a database of those volunteers who had
attended – hence the name al-Qaeda (Arabic for
‘the base’) attributed to the organisation by US
secret services.
Revolutionary Islamist terrorist attacks, involving
suicide bombings, became a global phenomenon
from 1998 onwards. Groups such as al-
Qaeda, IS, Beit al-Maqdis, Ansar al-Sharia and
others routinely employ terrorism in an attempt
to weaken governments and trigger a uprising
of the Muslim population against their rulers.
They differ in tactics, however; whereas al-Qaeda
seeks to hit the ‘far enemy’ (i.e. the US and
its allies), IS, for instance, takes the fight to the
‘near enemy’ – ranging from secular Arab governments
to adherents of different faiths. This
tactical choice is, however, determined by feasibility
rather than ideology.
But in spite of the recent hysteria over Sunni
revolutionary Islamism, it is clear that all groups
have failed to inspire the uprising they desire.
Whether in Algeria, Iraq, Bosnia or Saudi Arabia,
Sunni revolutionary Islamism has never managed
to garner large-scale and lasting support.
In this regard, it stands in stark contrast to the
Iranian revolution, a mass event which enjoyed
popular backing.
▪▪ The descendants of the founder
Less prominent than revolutionary Islamists,
electoral Islamists – groups which chose to follow
Hassan al-Banna’s tactic of a progressive and
gradual Islamisation of society – also emerged on
the political scene from the late 1970s onwards.
This happened first in Sudan with the admission
of the National Islamic Front to parliament in
1979, and later with the creation of the Islamic
Salvation Front in Algeria in 1988. Hizbullah,
a Shiite militia created in 1984 with Iran’s support,
has participated
in Lebanon’s elections
since 1992. The
Muslim Brotherhood,
albeit formally banned,
fielded individual
candidates for political
office in Egypt
from 1984 onwards.
Its Palestinian counterpart,
Hamas, won
the elections in 2006,
while the Turkish AKP,
founded in 2001, secured
a majority in 2002 and has been in power
ever since. In Iraq, dozens of Islamist parties
– both Shia and Sunni – have dominated
the political landscape following the removal of
Saddam Hussein in 2003.
But it was the overthrow of governments in
Tunisia and Egypt which provided Sunni Islamist
political parties with the necessary launch pad to
come to power. In Tunisia, Ennahda (the Tunisian
outlet of the Muslim Brotherhood), won 37%
of votes cast in the country’s first free elections;
in Egypt, six Islamist parties participated in the
2011 elections, with the Muslim Brotherhood’s
Freedom and Justice Party winning 34.9% and
its Salafi competitor, Nour, 25%. The Muslim
Brotherhood’s candidate, Muhammad Morsi,
‘Revolutionary Islamism was
galvanised by the Soviet withdrawal in
1988, the arrival of American forces
in the Arabian Peninsula following the
invasion of Kuwait, and the Palestine
Liberation Organisation’s renunciation
of violence...’
European Union Institute for Security Studies October 2014 4
then went on to become president in 2012 with
51.73% of the vote.
Although these parties share a broad political
goal, they nevertheless disagree over content
and strategy. In Egypt, Nour joined the anti-
Muslim Brotherhood alliance in spite of their
shared Islamist background, arguing that the
Brotherhood is too flexible on issues such as allowing
women and Christians to serve in office,
and too tolerant towards Iran. In the tradition of
Hassan al-Banna (and in stark contrast to IS), the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood did not seek the
establishment of a state encompassing all of the
Muslim community. Although al-Banna favoured
the pursuit an all-Islamic state, he nevertheless
accepted the existence of Egypt as a country.
Electoral Islamism is often viewed with suspicion;
this is in part because some of its representatives
started out as revolutionary movements (such
as Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Dawa in
Iraq and Hizbullah in Lebanon) or eventually resorted
to violence (such as the Algerian Islamic
Salvation Front). When parties favouring electoral
Islamism have reached power, their track record
is mixed: the Sudanese National Islamic Front
supported not only an authoritarian government
but also the strict implementation
of Islamic law,
Dawa proved to be a divisive sectarian actor in
Iraq, whereas the Tunisian Ennahda successfully
embraced political pluralism. President Morsi’s
constitutional decree of 2012, which granted
him near absolute powers, fuelled fears of an
undemocratic Islamist regime in Egypt and undermined
the Brotherhood’s earlier declarations
advocating a pluralistic and democratic society.
▪▪ The established regimes
There are currently only a few states which actually
come close to embodying the ideal of
an Islamic state. Aside from Saudi Arabia and
Iran, Islamist governments have also existed in
Afghanistan (1996 – 2001) and, to some extent,
Sudan (since 1989). Both Saudi Arabia and
Iran rest their legitimacy on a certain form of
Islamism, although they are, in essence, authoritarian
regimes. Saudi Arabia has declared jihad
illegal on its soil and argues that as its political
system is perfectly in line with Islamic doctrine,
there is no need for elections or political pluralism.
Across the Persian Gulf, Iran’s political
system is based on the supremacy of the Shiite
clergy.
The difference between the two states is that while
Iran’s revolutionary-turned-electoral outlets,
such as Hizbullah, accept its authoritarianism,
Sunni revolutionary and electoral Islamism challenge
Saudi Arabia either by violent means or
by offering a political alternative. Although ideologically
distinct from Iran, the two wings nevertheless
echo Teheran’s rhetoric of change – fostering
Saudi fears of an alliance between Sunni
‘changists’ and its geopolitical rival. These fears
seem somewhat unfounded, given the different
political goals of Sunni and Shia revolutionary
Islamism in Syria, Iraq, the Palestinian territories,
and Lebanon.
In an attempt to roll back both revolutionary and
electoral Islamism, Saudi Arabia has reversed
some of its previous positions and adopted a
hard line. It lately declared both Hizbullah and
the Muslim Brotherhood to be terrorist organisations,
although the latter’s leadership was granted
exile in Saudi Arabia for decades. And though
the Saudis once supported Islamist groups in
Syria fighting the Assad regime, it has joined the
international coalition in its bombing campaign
against IS. Riyadh also sent troops to Bahrain in
2011 to quell a Shia uprising it claimed was instigated
by Iran. Most importantly, Saudi Arabia
is financially supporting Egypt’s new government
in order to ensure stability in a country which
was traditionally a hub of political Islam.
Although clothed in doctrinal and sectarian
rhetoric, the current struggle among the three
Islamist wings is ultimately one concerning
political
power.
Florence Gaub is a Senior Analyst at the
EUISS.
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