The “transnational” Islamist project existed for some 1300 of Islam’s 1400 years. It existed quite successfully – certainly more successfully than most transnational projects e.g. the Soviet Union. The idea that it woudl be impossible to resurrect this transnational project is ridiculous. There is nothing inherently implausible in there being a collection of Islamic republics or emirates that then elect, perhaps through some sort of electoral college, a transnational Caliph. The Caliph would produce the overarching Shariah law – a bit like EU law – that would have to be followed by the emirate republics.

The idea that the Muslim Brotherhood have given up on the idea of restoring the Caliphate which is essential to delivering Islam on a global scaleis to my mind fanciful.

Unless you can point to some MB ideologues admitting clearly that they have given up on the Caliphate, I don’t see why I should believe you.

When you say that Islamists have to “[reconcile] utopian ideals with hard realities” you are saying very, very little. All utopians have to do that or their movement dies with them. Communists were completely utopian in their ideology but have barely been surpassed in their cynical bargain with “hard realities”.

The picture Lybarger builds is one of heterogeneity, contestation and compromise, of reconciling utopian ideals, with hard realities. This is the story of modern Islamist movements. And it is an important one because whilst Islamism projects a reified picture of Islam, they are in fact subject to the same changes as any ideology.

Albert: “The term ‘fundamentalism’ has been in use since the 1920s, originating as a description of Protestant sects opposed to ‘modernism’ within Christianity, and in particular to Darwinian theories of evolution.” The Politics of ‘Islam’ – A Second Look Fred Halliday, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 25, No. 3. (Jul., 1995), p.339

A delicious irony in view of your point.

I don’t doubt that there are some pressures on Islamists to descale their ambitions and operate more like Christian Democrats. If that happens I will be the first to applaud it. We might be seeing something like that in Turkey but the jury is still out I would say – very much so.

As for “Indeed, they very famously denounced al-Jama’a (the group that committed the Luxor attacks) and have consistently re-asserted their commitment to democratic reform.”

We’ve heard many denunciations over the years. But I am always struck how often your hear from the spokespeople for Islam that they condemn “the killing of innocents” not “I condemn this particular attack here”. So I woudl like to see the wording before I accept what you say. Also, it is easy for a group like MB to condemn a rival group without specifically condemning the terrorism i.e they can condemn the group from the point of view of tactics.

Looking at the way HuT operate in the UK, it is clear that while they don’t use violence, they don’t condemn Jihadist violence. I think they are simply operating on a broad front, just as Communists used to operate on a broad front taking in peacable trade union activity and social work through to full scale guerilla warfare and – where they had control – outright murder and gulags for millions.

Albert – I don’t accept your premise that there are many “religions”
under Islam. They show greater doctrinal unity than do Christians and I wouldn’t personally say that mainstream Protestants and Catholics beleived in different “religions” (although they might think they do!).

Can you please point to some fundamental doctrinal differences between these “religions”? I mean – what are the real doctrinal differences between Shiah, Sunni and Sufis say? I myself see nothing very fundamental beyond how you select the leader and what that leader is capable of.

I know you’re reading this.

Islam is made up of many religions, most of which have no central authority. There is no single credal statement as Catholics have. The so-called Hadith or sunna of the Prophet, on which 95% of Islamic law is based, are a huge collection of anecdotes written centuries after Muhammad’s purported existence and while ascribed to him there is absolutely no way to prove they derive from him (and many are also clearly anachronistic). There are no historical documents or relics for the first century of Islam to prove any of the famous historical figures existed, not even the child bride Aisha (out of “respect” for whom the Prophet waited until she was 8 years old before consumating his marriage with her – according to the Islamic traditions, that is). Many scholars have indeed challenged the view that Muhammad existed, such as Warnsborough in his extremely influential work, Quranic Studies. Similar ideas have been discussed in lots of more recent works – read Slaves on Horses by P. Crone. All we have are stories set down on paper centuries after the supposed events. It’s faith that makes people believe these stories, the same faith that makes people believe Jesus and Moses performed miracles. The Hadith forms the bulk of the many traditions followed by the various religions called Islam. Orthodoxy doesn’t mean anything in the Islamic world because there is no one single Islamic group that can be said to represent true Islam. All we can talk about is so-called “normal practice” within the major Islamic groups, but even then there has rarely been that. Since the 11th century AD, normal religious practice in the Islamic world has been Sufi orientated, which in itself is extremely fragmented and diverse. Most Muslims didn’t know the ins and outs of their faith, and religious practice was heavily influenced by various competing forms of local Sufism. Among the very few who could read and write and had formally studied Islamic theology, jurisprudence, Koranic interpretation etc., most were devout Sufis too, whether they called themselves Sunnis or Shiites.

Fundamentalism, which is a very fast growing phenomenon in the Islamic world and its diaspora, is a reaction to and dead against Sufism. Fundamentalism has always been there in Islam, but until recent times it had relatively few followers. It is also against Sunnism and Shiism because of many of their followed traditions, including those derived from Sufi beliefs and practices. Wahhabism, a form of fundamentalism, is not Sunnism, even if it originally derives from one of its schools (Hanbalism). The fact is, no serious scholar really knows what Islam was for the first century of its existence. All we have are later traditions alleging what it was, and these traditions contradict each other depending on the form of Islam practiced by their authors.

The payoff from this: that MB is exemplar of an Islamist party that increasingly shares propinquity with Western-style, Christian. Democrats. In terms of evidence of change in ‘message’, well if you read the article (if you don’t have an Athens account, my apologies) you see that the MB increasingly has to look to non-Islamic sources for answers in how to run a modern state; the Qu’ran not saying very much about modern sewage treatment. And again, if you read the article you’ll see plenty of evidence of the MB forming broad political fronts with trade union movements/secular movements to lobby for political reform. Taken together: if you’ve read ‘Milestones’ you’ll realise quite how different the present MB is from Qutb’s vision.

And in terms of Shariah: this is a straw man. Yes, to many extents they still have an, ostensibly, Islamist agenda. But they are not terrorists, which was the original point. Indeed, they very famously denounced al-Jama’a (the group that committed the Luxor attacks) and have consistently re-asserted their commitment to democratic reform.

Of course, an irony of your unconscious (or ignorant) conflation of the MB/Hamas/al-Qaeda is that this is the very conflation the Egyptian government have used for decades to slow down political liberalisation at home…

As a journalist will you condemn their (and their allies) attack on and destruction of Future TV’s studios?

Surely you cannot support or justify that action.

Still waiting for a reply.

Also as a journalist are you not ashamed to work for a company Press TV who’s backers – the Iranian govt. – fund and support the groups who attacked Future TV with AK47’s and RPG’s?

It’s not a difficult question.

As a true Muslim, this theoretical conundrum has caused me sleepless nights.

I am so prowd to see a sister in hejab, and a 2nd class citizen like you, so valiantly fighting the great unholy colonial west, as Allah has so undoubtedly instructed us. BTW, did hubby give you permission to post here?

va Allaho va’l azam

Have I denied that the Muslim Brotherhood has developed and changed since its origins in the 1920s, after the collapse of the Caliphate? No.
It would be very strange if any human organisation, however formal or informal, did not change over time. But one of the defining features of religions is their ability to maintain their internal cultures over centuries and even millennia – far more than other human institutions. This is a tribute to the seriousness with which they are treated by their adherents and the effectiveness of their indoctrination (cf meme theory – only those that are effective with their indoctrination survive).

I’m not inclined to take lectures on Islam from Albert who denies that Mohammed was a historical figure who started the religion – in contradiction of all reputable scholars of Islam that I have ever read of. There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence for Mohammed’s existence: the attested Hadith, the surnames of people, the historical accuracy of the traditions, the internal coherence of the Koran etc. It would be tedious to try and prove what all scholars of significance accept on this occasion. I have a feeling Aisha, his child bride, lived to a ripe old age, by which time Islamic society was much advanced with a full complement of scribes etc, so her evidence for the existence of Mohammed would to my mind be very persuasive.

I particularly reject Albert’s assertion that “orthodoxy is based on traditions”. Orthodoxy is based on an understanding of the genuine original belief system of the religion. This is why the Catholic Church for example accepts various rites that are not in accord with their own tradition, but are considered acceptable because they are assessed to be sufficiently close in their dogmatic beliefs to those of the Papacy. The problem for Islam that is always very easy for people to identify what the original belief system was because it is stated quite clearly in the Koran and in the Hadith and because it is known there was no break in the development of interpretation and law. If someone were to say: “Mohammed preached peace between all religions, respect for polytheism, and equality for women and abjured violence against those of other beliefs.” it would very easy to prove them false.

Back to the gnat straining –

No one seems able to deny the Wikipedia statement that the EIJ grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood. In other words – they are no different from Hamas in that respect.

I am not pretending Islam is a monolith. There never has been a monolith in religion, in politics or in any field of human activity. But there is a strong pattern of ideology that runs through nearly all expressions of Islam and especially among the clerics who are the guardian of the religion.

Svejk says:

“Indeed, in a lot of ways, the MB is very like western political parties, i.e. subject to the same institutional constraints (like how Egypt’s high-threshold PR system predisposes coalition building) and the same political entrepreneurship (i.e. compromise/acceptance of political pluralism).”

Er…what are you saying? – that the MB don’t believe in Shariah, in the global domination of the planet by Islam, in treating non-Muslims and women as second class citizens? Whatever they do for temporary advantage is irrelevant and only another blast of Taqiyya. Where is the evidence that MB have significantly modified their message from the days of Qutb? Wherever they or their successors – like Hamas – get power, we see them implementing the MB vision: women are forced to don Islamic dress and Christians are persecuted unless they show due deference; gays are murdered or driven out; and Shariah is implemented progressively.